Clone Yourself to Get More Done with Amber McCue

Well, greetings everybody. Welcome to the Wednesday, March 30th, 2016 episode of Free Webinar Wednesdays. This is Eric Cook, and I'm with WSI Digital Marketing, where we work with businesses and organizations on helping them better understand and leverage the power of the internet as a strategic business tool. You can learn more about me and WSI online at www.powerdigitalmarketing.com. By WSI.com. Although I don't think he regrets it because he's in sunny Florida right now. Our good friend and Free Webinar Wednesday partner, Mr. Jeff Simpkins from Community Bank Consulting, is, is available to attend today's webinar. So I will encourage those of you that may be coming from the banking world and joining us, if you've attended a Free Webinar Wednesdays in the past, you know Jeff and I have We have a little bit of banking lineage in our blood, and if you're interested in learning more about Jeff, I would strongly encourage you to hop over to communitybankconsulting.com and see what he is up to. So before we officially get started and I introduce our special guest, which I'm very excited about because as I look around, I see to-do lists and checklists and stacks of things that I wish I had 6 or 7 clones of myself to get stuff done so I could at least get a good night's sleep and not feel like I'm missing something. I want to cover just a couple of housekeeping items. Free Webinar Wednesdays, all of our shows are recorded and made available at freewebinarwednesdays.com. So we encourage you to revisit our site, check out some past shows, and after today's show is completed, we'll go ahead and get that recording up and you can take a look at it again, share it with a friend or a colleague, and certainly help spread the word. And we also very much appreciate and enjoy interaction from our live audience. Of course, if you're listening to this as a recording, you really can't chat with us. But if you are live, you can use the chat function in your control panel and go ahead. And I know there will be a couple of times, if not more, where Amber will actually be asking for engagement and interaction. We're going to do a little contest, and she's going to give away a cool little prize at the end. So we're hoping we get some interactivity from you folks that are listening live, and I'll be monitoring the chat. window and we'll ask those for you when there's an opportunity. So with that, I'm going to go ahead and kind of work my magic of GoToWebinar and hopefully it works just the way that it's supposed to. But it's my pleasure to welcome Amber McHugh to Free Webinar Wednesdays and chatting with us about how to clone yourself and get more done. Amber, welcome to Free Webinar Wednesdays. Thanks for joining us.

Thank you so much. Happy to be here with everyone. I'm just gonna make sure everyone can see my screen. Can you see that over there?

Yes, I can. And we'll just double check and make sure the audience, but looks like we're in good shape.

Okay, great. I'm going to close down that chat then. And we're going to jump right in with the slides. So yes, we are talking about how to clone yourself to get more done in less time. So I'm glad this resonates. I am so I'm so sorry that you have too much on your plate right now with all those to-do lists, but you might be happy.

It's a good problem to have. You know, I think that's the, the, the business owner's conundrum is you want to be busy and have too much because the, the inverse of that is never a good thing and it's kind of hard to pay the bills. So, but there needs to be a happy medium and I'm hoping that's what you're going to be able to share with us today.

Yes, you've got it. And there's actually new research out. There's a new article in the Financial Times just this week that shows busy people People actually are the ones you want to give your work to. They get more done, they prioritize better. But the important thing, and what we'll also dig into a little bit today, is that you focus on the right things and you don't just work to take on more work, but you make sure you break up your tasks properly and you focus on getting the right things done. So we'll talk a little bit about that. Um, but we're going to go through today. I thought I'd introduce myself just a little bit, tell you a little bit about what this cloning process is. Unfortunately, we don't actually have a machine that we're gonna tell you about that will crank out more of you, but that's okay, 'cause we don't actually want more of you. We want people who can get the things that you don't like to do or that you're bad at, that can get them done better than you can. We're gonna talk about how it can impact your business and then how you get started, and we'll take you through some of those first initial steps. So if questions come up, I'm totally happy to answer those if people have any, so feel free to send them over and I can definitely speak to them. So a little bit of background here. I grew up in a very small town of 500 people. My grandparents are actually from a town of population 3. They were 2 of the people and then their neighbor was 1. And when the kids lived there, they had population 9. But after they moved up, so very small town. But I went on to work for some of the, you know, the biggest companies. There are the Fortune 100, Fortune 500, consulting with them on how to run their businesses better. But I realized I really like working with small companies. And part of my exploration on that journey was like, you know, I wanted a creative outlet. I don't even know if I want to work in business anymore. What do I want to do? So I picked up a camera again and I started taking pictures and I founded a company called 3 Boudoir, a photography business. I'm like, you know, this is really fun and I love working with women and I love taking pictures. but I really loved running the business. So it was in my blood, working on and working and partnering with business owners to run businesses was really what lit me up. And a friend of mine said to me, don't you ever wish you had a clone? I'm like, oh my gosh, I can help you figure out how to clone yourself. I did this all the time in corporate. And there was a method to the madness on how you would get more done, how you would delegate, how you build teams and create systems. Synergy and hand things off and really get more done. So I went on to create a program called How to Clone Yourself, which Eric alluded to. We will be inviting one of you to participate in on us. And then through my program called Freshly Implemented, I sort of act as an outsourced COO to entrepreneurs and small business owners. I went to— the MBA program at the Johns Hopkins Carey School of Business, studied organization development, and have some articles and some quotes. Social Media Examiner— I was really excited about the Cosmo quote related to business, but I read Cosmo growing up, so I was excited about that. And my home in the online consulting world is at niceops.com. So just, just some background and some fun stories around that. But the how to clone yourself process It's, it's really just a fun and quirky way to talk about how we lead our businesses, how we create systems in our businesses, how we build our teams, how we train and develop our people, and then how we create a little bit of freedom in our day and in our schedules. So we are not always so far in the weeds so we can't create more business, so we can't run better businesses, so we can't really step back and think about the vision that we have for where we want our businesses to grow. So it's about creating that freedom, that space, that time so we can step back and really build the lives and the businesses that we envision for ourselves. So I'm going to pause there. Eric, what do you think? Do you have any reactions to that? Are there any questions coming in even as we jump in here?

Doesn't look like it.

Any questions?

I think the flow makes a tremendous amount of sense. I think one of the things that I've always struggled with, even though I'm part of a large franchise organization that has access to support, I've not really built much of an internal team until recently. We've got some folks now that are working with us full-time, and so these are all things that are on my to-do list. I need to clone myself so I can get to the ability where I can build this process. So it's almost like I feel like I'm chasing my tail, but it's reinforcing just what I think I need to do. And hopefully there's similar feelings from the audience members that are seeing that, because I think it makes a whole lot of sense.

Yeah, definitely. And hopefully what we'll do is I'm going to hopefully in this presentation just dial it up and give you the first steps that you can take on each of these things as you start. Like, where do I even start? Like, we'll give you those starting points as we move through this, and even just a framework to start to think about it, because there is so much. And— oh, oh, sorry guys. Oh my goodness gracious. Apple has it all.

Busted! Busted!

Busted! Apple has it all.

Don't you love— oh my God, don't you just love live webinars? Oh, they're such a treat. If this were a podcast, we'd just edit that out, but instead I'm just gonna talk about it and make it even more of an uncomfortable situation. Exactly.

Thanks, thanks.

Make fun of it. It's all you can do.

If anybody wasn't paying attention, that might have got them.

There you go.

Oh, love it. Okay, so there is some fun research. If you are not already thinking about how can I get some more help and you're still doing it all, there is a great book out there called Business Brilliant. The author of the book's name is Lewis Schiff, if you want to look this up. But in this book, he compared and did research on the difference between those people who are in the middle class and those who have achieved self-made millionaire or billionaire status. And in that research, they cover a lot of different territory. You know, how do they look at failure? How do they look at following their passions? You know, all these different things. But what I want to call out here for the purposes of how we think about cloning ourselves is that people who stay in the middle class have a tendency to keep DIYing it all. I'll do it myself. I can handle this. I got it. I'm going to keep DIYing it or stay, you know, a solopreneur in some instances. But those who move into the self-made millionaire and billionaire status find someone to outsource things to or find someone to do the work if they believe that there's someone out there that can do it better than they can. So again, we don't want clones. We want to find people, our partners in crime, that can do those things that you maybe don't like to do, that take you a lot of time, or that, you know, you're not very good at, frankly, that can do it better than you can do it. And even if you're not going for the billions, even if you're working on, you know, building to your millions, needle and shifting that mindset is going to help us as we're growing our businesses. So it just shifted the mindset for me, like, oh, DIY. Yep, yep, I can. Do it all. But, you know, do I really want to? Should I? And is there some sense to getting some help with some of these things? Because then we can start to shift to working on revenue-generating activities, right? So one of the first questions I have for everyone out there is, where do you fall on that spectrum? And Eric, I'm going to turn it over to you. Where do you fall? Do you find yourself like, okay, trying, you know, handling it all? Like, I've got this, I've got this. Or do you look for people who can, you know, There's someone out there that could do this better than I can.

I am, and the gentleman that's sitting next to me right now is chuckling actually because he heard you asking me the question, very much a doing it all myself. Although, like I said earlier, that's one of the things that's starting to shift. You know, departing banking in 2007 and starting a consulting practice, a lot of what I could do early on was done by myself, and then All of a sudden, between then and now, somehow we got successful and busy. And so, there's a lot of things that have cropped up and forcing myself to rely more on my external team members within the network, as well as bringing some assistants on. But I would say very much the let's do it all myself, and my sleep and sanity sometimes suffers from it. Right.

And then, that's the paradox. I think anytime you hit a new level in growth, Growing in the business, and I've seen this at all levels of organizations. When you hit a new level, you're like, "Oh, okay. Now there are new things that I have to outsource, or there are new things I have to share with the team members." So I think whether you're growing a business or you're growing as a leader in the organization that you've you know it's already an established and a mature business. These are things you have to think about. So it sounds like you guys are at that point. Share that work. So for anyone who's thinking like, man. should we start? Is it time for us? If you are feeling stretched, you can even start with outsourcing the smallest of things. The first thing I outsourced and started getting help with was I outsourced for, you know, $7 an hour my blog posting process to someone in the Philippines. And that was in the spring of 2011. And that person is still on our team, still working with us today. And we bonused her at the end of the year because by you know, giving that work to her, just a small piece of work, which we systematized first, and we'll tell you guys a little bit about that process, but we systematized it. She said, oh my gosh, this is so well systematized. There's no way I'm gonna mess it up. And she didn't mess it up unless I messed it up when I was handing it off to her. And she rocked it out. And I could then shift and focus on revenue-generating activities, right? And then it creates a new level of growth. And then there are new things to be outsourced, but you start even just starting with the smallest of things. You will be able to stop pulling your hair out, and again, you'll be able to get back to some of that freedom and that space so you can focus on the next level of growth in your business and might even be able to get some of your life back, right, and get some of the sleep back. So today we've got 3 core things that we're going to go through. The first is the CEO Mindset Quiz, which is a 14-point quiz and checklist to really assess the leadership level and the things that you might want to start thinking about differently as you're growing your business. The second is a Get Efficient Prioritization Matrix. What do I leave alone? What should I outsource? What do I want to start to streamline and systematize? And then how do I start that process? And then the third thing is the secret to getting it all done. And then how do we start to use time to our advantage? So this first quiz, it'll take us about 5 minutes. There are 14 questions. So I'm just going to encourage everyone to grab a pen and a piece of paper so you can track your answers. And basically, you are going to capture your A's and your B's. And really, you want to count how many A's you mark and how many B's you mark. And so oftentimes when we're growing businesses, it is the way that it is, and it is smart. When you are in startup mode, you're in ramp-up mode, you're in growth mode. we are oftentimes very much focused on sales and marketing, sales and marketing, sales and marketing. We are bringing in the business. However, if we are only focused on sales and marketing, sales and marketing, and we don't focus on some of the foundational elements that really will support our business in long-lasting, making sure we will, we will be there for the long run, we will not be there. We won't be able to sustain We won't be able to be there for the long run for our clients or for ourselves, you know, for that matter. Because there's actually an interesting— there's a new leader that actually my husband's working with, and he had a team that he was working with, a high-performing team in the government, and they were recognized again and again for the work that they were doing. But they came to a screeching halt in the work that they were doing because they were getting totally burnt out. It was not sustainable. They were totally fried. And a new leader came in like, guys, you did great work, but you're done. Like, totally fried, done. Like, they burnt out and it was showing. And they recognized they needed a shift in values. And one of the new values that they started to embrace was sustainability. And so we started to look at Who doesn't take their vacation days? Who— and they were competing— who works the latest? They got excited like, oh, I was here so late, I was so busy. No. And they started to embrace a new value of, is this sustainable? And they shift from this like-a-boss mindset to this leadership and this CEO mindset. And that's what we're going to do is we're going to go through the CEO mindset quiz. You are going to start to see as you go through and you tally your A's and your B's, like, ooh, which side am I on and where might I have opportunities to start to shift? Will you ever be, you know, 100% on one side or the other? Maybe, maybe not, because new level, new devil. But every time I personally take this quiz, I identify like, oh, this is why I feel off right now. Like, oh, I haven't taken breaks. In a while. I need to reset some things and you will see as we go through. But have your pen and paper, capture and count your A's and your B's and we will get the score at the end. So, 1A, I am going to read each question once and you can read them on the screen as well. 1A, I take time away from my business to rest and recharge, or 1B, who has time for breaks? Are you crazy? 2A, I make decisions quickly, or 2B, I am slow to decide. 3A, I see and drive to the big picture, or 3B, I stay focused on what I need to do to get it done and Day to day, minute by minute. A, I see and drive to the big picture, or B, I stay focused on what I need to do to get it done day to day, minute by minute. For A, when things go wrong, I figure out what I need, what needs to be done differently in the future, or what systems can be modified. Or 4B, when things go wrong, I figure out who messed up so I can make sure they don't do it again. 5A, I often think, how can I get my team to do this for me? Or 5B, I often think, what do I need to do next? 6A, I have clearly defined mission, vision, and values. Or 6B, I'll define my mission, vision, and values someday soon. 7A, I want progress. Or 7B, I want perfection. 8A, time to outsource. 8B, I'm gonna get it all done on my own. I have clearly defined written goals. I have goals in my head. They change so much, I haven't written them down yet. I am comfortable taking a bit of risk. Risk? No way.

Not me.

I am focused on planning my next revenue-generating activity. I am spending a lot of time in the weeds and firefighting. I have a definition of what success looks like to me. I know what success looks like based on what I see other people doing. I begin with the end in mind, or I jump right in and do what needs to be done. I delegate ownership, or I delegate tasks. Ownership or tasks. All right, so now in the chat, let us know how many A's you have. And Eric, if as you see those, if you see any answers coming in, what are those numbers looking like?

All right, we will keep an eye.

Okay, and as they're coming in, I can, I can look at the results here and read those out to everyone. So 12 and above, anyone who scores in that 12 and above range operating in that core CEO area, right on track. Keep it up. And it is hard to operate at this level or even get a 14 all of the time because like we said, new level, new devil. You know, when you're working on a big project or you're hitting a new stage in your business or a point of transition, you know, things are gonna, things are gonna need adjustment and transition requires— transition and change cause for these things to be jostled around a little bit. 9 through 11, your CEO mindset is strong. Take time to reflect on what you can do to further step into that role and shift really from manager to leader. And then 5 to 8, definitely opportunity to expand this mindset and how you do business. And you'll see a change in the business operations as you make this shift. And reflecting on the changes and focusing on implementing changes that are going to have the most impact in the business, right? And sort of leaving the rest. And we'll talk some more about that too. And then 0 to 4, you may still be operating in a strong subject matter expertise role. As you're growing your business, consider how you can start to shift into a leadership role. And this really starts to get to, right, you may have started a business because you were a technical expertise expert, right? So I come from a consulting background, or when I started my photography business, I was a technical expert in that space of photography in the business, but I quickly went back into my, my comfort zone and my love of running the business, right? So I was a technical expert, and that's really where I stayed in that space of subject matter expert, and then I moved back into business. But that would be an example of In the photography instance where I was in that subject matter expert role. E-Myth, if anyone has read the book E-Myth, they walk through a great example and I highly recommend that book for anyone who is wondering like, how do I move out of my area of expertise and really step into and think about my systems and my business structure? Great book to read on this topic. Did we see any scores come in, Eric?

We did. We have— it looks like 6 seems to be the most popular number. We have somebody knocking at the 10 door with the number 9, and we do have— I believe you referred to them as a subject matter expert in the, in the 3 range.

Okay.

So yeah, so a good cross-section. I ended up with 10. So, um, you know, it, it, it's good that, uh, at least I've got the mindset. But, uh, you know, the goal— need to take a look at the slides after I'm done and figure out which ones of the questions I answered B to. And obviously those are going to be some areas where some attention and some work.

Exactly. Yeah. And you can assess and really look at and prioritize Is this one I need to focus on right now? Will this have the biggest impact? Because we want to focus, and we will talk about this when we get into the time budget section as well, but we, there are so many things in our day that we can focus on at any given time. Oh my goodness, and there come the text messages. Close that. That didn't work.

You are so popular. It is just amazing.

My niece is going on a hike, everybody. So when you focus on the 20%, the 20% of the things that can have the biggest impact, let the rest go, right? Because the Pareto principle, if anyone's familiar with that, it's a nice little thing to think about. Like, is this a $100 bill or is this a $5 bill? So we'll give you some, some things to consider as you think about like, okay, where am I going to devote my time because I've got some other responsibilities. So, you will grow faster as we talk about and think through these principles and have more freedom. And that being the key thing, more freedom than someone who hustles 24/7 because we can be spinning our wheels and spinning our wheels. But if we don't come up for air every now and then, and if we don't give ourselves a little bit of space to think about these things and get the bird's eye view, we are going to miss things. Things will fall through the cracks. And I am going to be honest with you. I am in a space of trying to transition in my life and in my business right now. So while I'd like to think that I'm a 10, I'm going to pop back up to that score. I should retake the quiz. I'm probably at an 8 right now. Oh, and it hurts so bad. And I feel it. Like, I sat down today, I'm like, oh my gosh, you have work to do. But you really need to step back and reflect. So tomorrow I'm going to have a day of that bird's eye view on my business, and I'm going to be whiteboarding it because I have to step back. Otherwise, it's going to kind of keep spinning and I have to get off that hamster wheel for the sake of my Clients and my sanity. OK, so we're going to step into Activity 2, the Get Efficient Workshop. And Eric, again, if anybody comes in with questions, bring it on, bring it on, because we're going to get a little bit tactical here. Or if anybody thinks of specific questions about, all right, what should I be focusing on as they went through the mindset quiz? Happy to answer those too.

So I just, I just put my cell phone number in your iChat ID so people will just call you, iChat you, since that seems to be working.

Okay, great.

I'm teasing. It's nice when somebody else that's doing a live webinar gets interrupted by things, so it's just reassuring that People that do this a lot still get bit. So that's all.

It is real human. Good thing. Yeah, it is totally real life. And, you know, we're not— I'm not sitting in a corner office on Wall Street or in a concrete building. Like, I'm literally in the corner office of my house. And yeah, and my sister-in-law texted me like, this is real life happening. We are very human.

Good, good.

It is. It is. It is a good way to live. It is a good way to live. All right, cool. So, the first thing I am going to encourage you to do, and I was looking for a notebook, so I figured I would grab a cute Kate Spade notebook. But the first thing I am going to encourage you to do, if you are wondering, like, what am I going to focus on? Where am I going to prioritize? I don't even know where the time goes, Amber? Like, I don't have a clue. Now, if we were in corporate and if you have a bigger team, you might actually do an analysis across multiple roles and multiple teams, you know, depending on what the focus was. Where is everyone's time going? But we're talking about you right now. We're going to talk about a small team of people right now as small business owners. So I want you to think about and create a time log of where is your time going. Where does your time go day to day, maybe even minute to minute? You know, if you're focused on an activity like today, I'm going to write down, you know, webinar 1 to 2. And just before this, I had a 10-minute Skype session with a friend who pinged me real quick and wanted to quickly chat about something. So where does the time go? Sort of capture And then categorize where the time is going. And for bonus points, make a note also on how your energy levels feel and what you think about and how you're feeling when you're doing that work. For example, did I enjoy that webinar? Do I want to do that again? Did I do— did that That Skype call with my friend, you know, throw me off my game. Was that a good time to have that? Was that— you might even make notes if that friend, you know, sucked your energy. You might even notice trends on people who suck your energy when you have meetings with certain clients, right? So you'll get a lot of data and information out of doing this little time log, and then we'll go back and we'll analyze it. So I recommend capturing your time For at least 2 weeks. 2 weeks is a solid amount of time. 1 week will give you enough information. 3 weeks is really great, but you want to have enough variety. So it's not just a couple of days because you might, you know, one day might be focused on clients, one day you might have webinars, but you want to, you want to have enough variety. And then you're going to look at how much time did it take? Did you love it? Did you hate it? And also make a note, like, are you even any good at it? Like, are you really— is there someone out there, you know, as we discussed, that could do this better than you can do it? And then you're going to take a look and analyze it based on this Get Efficient Prioritization Matrix, which will help you start to identify, you know, if I really hate it, it sucks my energy, it doesn't feel good, and I pretty much suck at it. And it takes a ton of time, I'm gonna think about outsourcing that. Because if it takes your energy and it takes your time, like, let's shift that energy so you can get more momentum and put that into things that are gonna pay back and fuel you versus deplete and pull from your energy bank, right? So you wanna think about outsourcing those things. And for me, I mentioned the blog posting process. That was one of those things for me. I really enjoyed writing my content. I really enjoyed thinking about what I was going to communicate with my audience, how I was going to engage with them, and what messages they maybe needed based on what I was hearing from them. But man, when I got into WordPress and we were posting those, I was tinkering away. Oh, the formatting is not quite right. What image should it be? Save, resave. Oh, it was a mess. It was a nightmare for me. So that really saved me a ton. It was very affordable. And again, I could shift my energy to revenue-based activities and it paid off. Then if you hate it and it doesn't take you a lot of time, you might think about outsourcing or systematizing it and then based on priority. So if it is something that you really hate, right, again, we don't want to deplete your energy bank. Even if it doesn't take you a lot of time, you know, you might systematize it so it gets done a little bit quicker, or you're not really thinking about it so you can go through it a little bit more seamlessly. Or, you know, I vote just get rid of it. If you hate it, get rid of it. Now let's say you love it, but it takes you a ton of time. Definitely systematize it so we can get you some time. Back, but you still might want to think about outsourcing it even if you love it. Now, of course, there are some exceptions to this. If you're delivering client work, you might need to keep it. You, even if it takes a ton of time, you might need to be the person in front of the client because that's the way that the business model is currently designed, or you're the person with that particular subject matter expertise. But maybe there's some people that can support you you know, behind the scenes on the non-client-facing activities. And those are things when you design the system or the methodology or the process around it, you know, you could create a better leverage model around that. So, you know, these 2 on the, on the top left-hand corner and the bottom right are a little bit— you've got to think and prioritize and tinker with a little bit. So that's why you're going to make a list of all those activities and we'll put them into these boxes and we'll assign and decide what we're going to do with these based on priority. But this is a, this is a get efficient prioritization matrix to help you think about, all right, how am I going to start sorting through these things? But this number 1 bucket, this is first and foremost, like that's the easy. All right, these are the things I'm going to outsource, no-brainers. Then we'll think about these things. And if you love it and it doesn't take a lot of time, you can keep on keeping on for a little while. There are gonna be some things that don't take a lot of time that at some point they're gonna become nits and you're gonna have to get rid of them. But keep on keeping on for a shorter period of time, especially as you're getting started with this. Then after you've completed this Get Efficient Prioritization Matrix, you're gonna complete your Get Efficient Game Plan. And you're gonna go through and map out, all right, we're gonna keep on keeping on on some things, and those things will stay the same. We also identified our what gets outsourced list. So create your what gets outsourced list, and from there we're gonna start developing— you can develop a role description, you can start identifying if there are other people on your existing team that could start to pick those things up. And you might need to develop some systems, you know, before you outsource or while you're outsourcing, or you might bring someone on the team that can help you design those systems when they get on board. But then you're also gonna identify, all right, what do we need to systematize? And some of those things you need to systematize whether or not you're going to outsource. Outsource them. So you're going to identify those things that you're going to systematize as well. So this is the starting point. You're going to do your time log. You're going to categorize what are you going to keep the same, what will you outsource, and what will you systematize. And the time log really takes the biggest amount of time there just because it's spread over a duration. The going through and breaking those things into lists will take maybe half an hour to 45 minutes. So not a huge chunk of time. And now as we think about what are systems. Alright, so we talked about systems. What are, what are we really talking about here? And basically systems are the what, where, when, why of what you do. And they are everywhere. Systems are, you know, naturally happening. And then if you go through Systems are also manufactured and designed to happen in a certain way to get us from point A to point B. So you will see them just happening if you walk out in nature, and you will see them when you go through the Starbucks line. And actually, I was in Starbucks the other day and I saw— I was at the end of the line and I was picking up my drink at And I saw at the drive-through, above the drive-through station in Starbucks where they were handing out orders. So I was on the back end inside of Starbucks. And I saw their little app. I'm like, oh my gosh, you got— they watched their metrics at how quickly orders were coming through lines, how many out, how, how many they were taking care of within a certain amount of time. So I wrote down all the metrics. I think it was how many per 10 minutes they were doing. How long it took people to get from their point of order to the drive-through lane where they were picking up their order. So capturing all of those things, but they had systems around all of it and they had metrics tied to all of it because everything had to keep moving in a certain way. Otherwise, they would have some very unhappy customers when we were in there. It all is designed to have happy client experiences, to keep margins up so things can flow. So they are happening everywhere. So if you haven't been attuned to what systems were before, just start to keep your eyes open and you might notice like, oh, that is a good system. And that's when we went through the CEO Mindset Quiz. Are we blaming the person or are we looking at the system? And there's actually a really cool story about the Starbucks CEO, Howard Schultz. He was driving to work one day and he noticed that a B on one of the Starbucks signs on his way to work was out. And he went in and he asked his— I think it was his VP of branding— he's like, why the heck is that B on that sign out? We need to get that back on. And the vice president said, you are asking the wrong question as CEO. He's like, we will get that B fixed, but the question you need to be asking is, What is our system for keeping the lights on, on our signs at our Starbucks stores? So think more globally about what is our system for making sure that B, our B's on all of our signs stays on. That is the bigger picture there. So think a little bit more globally. So as you go in to create your systemization game plan, prioritize what comes first. Then I don't recommend that you necessarily go in and start documenting step-by-step process checklist. Here's what needs to be done. Because basically your collection of systems will ultimately be, you know, a series of checklists. Here's what we do. Here's how the flow goes. Here's what needs to be done when, by who. But if you are already doing those things, you can create a simple video. Although it may not need to be you that does it. You can have someone else create a simple video. But I do not recommend that the videos are the primary way that processes are saved and documented. I definitely think that processes should be documented through on paper or in an electronic paper version. So written out in text, not in a video that someone has to play and watch. Because when you're going through and watching a process, it's much harder to click through and find at what point in the video? I just have this one question, or where am I in the video? It's much harder to go back and look at that. So text-based, whether it's electronic or on paper, is definitely recommended. So then have someone document the process based on the video recording. And again, identify who is going to do that. And then look at when will it be done by, and then how often Will these processes be re-reviewed? So you the process is done. Yep, check done. And especially in certain industries, you may have a schedule if things are reset. Like Facebook ads, you know, are updated on a regular basis. So if it's a process for how Facebook ads are created, yep, we need to look at this monthly because Facebook ads change their process so often. So these processes need to be reviewed monthly. Who is going to review them on a monthly basis? And then where will those processes be saved so everybody knows where to find them? And then that might look a little bit like this. You might have your list of, all right, we have our bookkeeping process, we have our Facebook ads process, we have our, you know, customer service inbox process. Who is going to create the video? Who will turn it into a written process? And how often will it be reviewed? And you might add a couple of other columns. such as, is this done or not, what's the target completion date, etc. Now, actually, Eric, before we move into some tips on the hiring and outsourcing process, I'll pause to see if you have any reflections or if there are any questions coming up.

Looks like the question queue is clear for right now, and I have some more thoughts, but I'm gonna hold mine until the end. Because once I get talking, I'm afraid we're gonna run out of time. So I'll let you continue.

Okay, sounds good. Sounds good. Um, I have got— as we think about moving into the outsourcing process and the hiring process, there is so much we can go into on this, which is why we are going to share with someone the How to Clone Yourself program so you can go deep into this. But we did want to give you a a very specific hiring strategy because when you think about hiring, you do not want to hire the wrong person. These 2 people on the screen may look the same, but one is an evil twin. And oftentimes you— most people just have a 50% chance of getting the right candidate. And most hiring strategies, it's a 50/50 chance of if you are going to get the right person on your team or not. So we have strategies that will help you increase your chances of getting the right candidate to 80%, and I'm going to give you one big tip to help you with that. And here is a question I have for you to get this tip started. I'm going to ask you, what is the right interview question to ask when you're moving someone through the interview process? This is a customer service position that this person's being interviewed for, and there are 3 potential interview questions on the screen that we can ask this person. A, are you good at customer service? B, how do you think you'll do in a situation when you have to use your customer service skills? Or C, tell me about a time when you had to respond to a customer who was angry about requesting a refund for the services they received from you. So my question to everyone on the line is, which is the right, or which is the better interview question? A, B, or C? Eric, what are people saying? And if nobody says anything, we're gonna have to go with your answer.

We're going to cue the Jeopardy music. And everybody must be a really big fan of my last name because everybody is answering with the big letter C.

All right. We have a smart crowd. Very well done, guys. I am pleased with that because you have a better chance than most people of hiring the right person. That is the correct question. And this is technically speaking, a behavioral-based interview question because we are not asking the person to hypothesize or to give us their opinion about whether they are good at customer service or not, or to tell us how they think they might do. But we're asking that person to take us to a place in time where they had this experience before, and they're going to They're in their mind going to that place in time, or chances are they're going to that place in time, and they have to tell us that story. So it's a little bit harder to fabricate. It's possible, but it's a little bit harder, and it increases the chances that we'll get something that's more realistic. And then from there, we can probe and go deeper, and we can figure out and start to ask some of those questions. Okay, well, how did that situation go? What would you have done differently? We can ask them yes/no questions, and we can take that a few different ways. In a 1-hour interview, I would probably— I'd say 1 hour is kind of long sometimes. I'd probably even plan for just a 40 to 45-minute interview and ask 5 behavioral-based questions because there'll be some warm-up stuff on either side, and then I'd have some probing questions within that. Of course, the behavioral-based questions will be tied to the role and tied to the areas of performance that that person will be performing in that role and the duties that they'll have, but you want to focus on asking behavioral-based interview questions. And these behavioral-based interview questions will increase the chances that you will find the right candidate. Traditional interviews are a 10% predictor of job performance, and behavioral-based interview questions are a 55% on the low end predictor of job performance. And some research says that they're 60%, 70%, and even 80% predictors. So you all, I'm so happy to hear those Cs are totally on the right track. Um, okay, so we're going to move into activity 3, and this one moves a little bit faster. And these are really personal tips for you. So we talked about, you know, the org structure and things to think about. These are really going to be things to bring it back to how we manage our days, our schedules, our time. And I don't— I'm sure there are some people out there who have heard of the 4-Hour Workweek. I personally have not gotten my schedule down to 4 hours. I do run a couple of businesses, so I do have part-time schedules in those businesses. Not quite 4 hours, though. But there is this great quote by the author of The 4-Hour Workweek, Tim Ferriss. Doing less meaningless work so you can focus on things of greater personal importance is not laziness. This is hard for most people to accept because our culture tends to reward Personal sacrifice instead of personal productivity. So, all of this is really about becoming more productive and sacrificing less. So, my challenge for you personally, and your, your time log is really a starting piece of this, is to create a time budget. So when you are creating a time budget, and one of the reasons we want to do this is to really get a handle on, you know, where is our time going, is a historic look, and then where do we want to intentionally spend our time going forward? Because it is our most valuable resource. It is the one thing we cannot get back. And it shows how we value and what we value and what matters to us. So as you move through and create this time budget, consider how much time you actually have available to spend on your business. You know, some people have part-time schedules, as I mentioned, for, you know, different businesses. You might be running your business part-time because you have kids at home or you're homeschooling or, you know, they get home from school at a certain time. Or any number of variables, right? But let's say that you have 40 hours in a week, you have 40 full hours, right? And we'll use that as a baseline. I am going to recommend that you cut that back, just cut it in half, because Parkinson's Law, the amount of time you give yourself to get something done is the amount of time that it will take. So I'm gonna say just take the amount of time that you have and trim it back a little bit. Because in addition to Parkinson's Law, the amount of time we give ourselves to get something done is the amount of time that it will take. Things are going to come up that we don't expect. People will need us. You're going to have client projects and you might fully budget out your time, right? And do blocks for client But I am going to say, when you are thinking about fully hardcore, you know, all the productive time, cut it back a little bit and then consider where will you spend that time to get the most bang for your buck. So, I mentioned earlier in the call Pareto's Principle, the 20% of your time, 20% of what you do gets you 80% of your results. So what of what you're doing in your time log gets you 80% of your results? And another way to think about this is what are the $100 bills? Like, what are you doing? And some people now have turned it around and say $1,000 bills or $10,000 bills. I like to keep it simple. Just where are the $100 bills? I need to focus on the $100 bills. And if something pops up in your day that's a $10 bill, Or a $20 bill, consider sharing that work with someone else. Put that on your things to outsource list, even if you have to do it today because you don't have someone else to share it with. Or there might be $5 bills and $10 bills that really don't need to get done, and you can just delete them for now. You can— nope, I really don't need to do that thing, and the world will keep spinning. My business will keep spinning if I don't do those things. So those are just some things to mentally think through. Is this something that is going to get me 80% of my results? Or another way to think about it is, is this a $100 bill? Is this a $100 bill? And then another I really like, you know, as I think about, okay, where should I spend my time? It's really nice for me to have some context and some way to think about it. There's some great research out there from the State of the Small Business Owner. They researched small businesses and found that business owners who spend 2 days a week specifically on sales and marketing grow 60% faster than those that don't. So if you're in ramp-up or growth mode and you're wondering as you go through your time budget, how much time should I spend on sales and marketing? Like, what's a good amount of time to spend on that activity? You might want to take You know, about 2 days a week. So, you know, of course dial that up, dial that down depending on what your areas of focus are right now. Um, but that— those are some things to consider as you create your time budget, because then you'll see, all right, this is how— and am I over-budgeting? Am I under-budgeting? And that'll also factor in, you know, how much time, how many more clients can I take on? And as your business grows, creating a time budget or a resource plan, especially if you're in a service industry where you have teams of people, clients as well. You'll of course want to create that for them so you know how much time you have to bill out to clients. So this can be used in multiple ways as the team grows as well, but definitely creating this for yourself. And I do this for myself as well as an individual, so I know, okay, how much more can I take on. Am I at max? Am I spending my time on the right things? Might shed some light on, you know, what we need to outsource as well. So all in that package and a part of the How to Clone Yourself process. And Eric, I am going to pause there and we'll bring it back around to our giveaway.

Cool. So there are a couple of questions, but I want to make sure we allow time for the giveaway and I don't know if we formally did how we're going to do this or if we would select a random winner. One of the great parts about the online registration process and the attendance list is we have a list of everybody that's joined us live. So we, we might very well go ahead and pull that list after the fact and notify the winner via email if, if that's okay. Or did you have another idea? suggestion for picking a winner?

That works for me, yeah.

Okay, the only, the only other option would be if you were to pick a number between 1 and 100, we could allow folks that are attending live to type their number into the chat window, and we can give it a couple of minutes, collect the numbers, and then whoever's closest, we can go ahead and award that individual if we wanted to do it live and make the announcement. So it's up to you.

Oh, that's kind of fun. I can do that too. What do you think?

Let's do that. Okay, well, I'll let you pick a number. So those of you that are listening live, this is the time you're gonna want to pay attention. Amber is going to provide a complimentary registration to her Clone Yourself seminar, which I believe you said is $149 value, if I'm not mistaken.

Yep, you got it.

And maybe talk a little bit about what the program offers. And then those of you that are listening live, if you want to put your number into the chat area and give us your guess between 1 and 100, and Amber will tell you what you're entering to win.

Yeah, so the How to Clone Yourself program is 4 modules where it takes you through those components of, you know, thinking about, all right, what do I need to do as I'm stepping into a leadership role? And thinking about cloning myself? What do I need to do as I'm thinking about building my systems? What— and then the hiring, training, recruiting, team building process, handing off that work as well so you can train everyone up and distribute that work better. So basically we go through in detail, much more detail than what we went through today, the how to clone yourself process so that you can get the right people on your team. Start to share this work and get you focused again on the activities that will focus and get you back in the revenue-generating activities and get you in that bird's-eye view so you can get back into the visionary role that we need you to be in to grow your business as well. It's a lot of fun. It's a lot of fun to go through. I so enjoy this because, yes, I love business very much, but I also don't want us to all get burnt out. So when we can share—

Right.

a little bit and support other people in growing and building their skills. I think we all benefit from that.

Very cool. Good. Well, we're still waiting for some of you to post your, your answer. Remember, a number between 1 and 100. Go ahead and toss it into the chat window. While we're waiting for the rest of the entries to be submitted, I do want to ask you a couple questions. You mentioned creating a video that documents the training process or the, the steps that you're taking. Do you have a video service that you prefer? Is it just capturing that on your iPhone or using a screen-sharing capturing service? And if so, what tools do you use for that?

Great question. Yes, I actually just use what came with my MacBook. I use QuickTime Player for screen recording, creating a new screen recording. And I don't use a lot of background noise, or, you know, I make sure there's not a lot of background noise, and I don't talk through the entire video, but I call out when there's something I would want to be typed into the process documentation, when someone actually transcribes it and does screen capture. Because when you take that video and then turn it into documentation, You want your voice to be the places where actual words and text are transcribed with the image. Does that make sense?

Well, yep, it does. One of the tools that I use on a regular basis is a tool called Jing. You can find it at Jing Project, J-I-N-G, and that does— it's a free little tool. You can get a complimentary limited hosting platform to do— to share your videos up to 5 minutes for free. It's a great little tool, and that's another one that we use quite often here in the office, which has been a real help. When you talked about behavioral interviews, we had a question. Have you ever relied on personality or assessments like a Myers-Briggs or a DiSC analysis to be able to ask some questions and ascertain maybe some things that are difficult to pull out in an interview?

I love Myers-Briggs, and I love personality assessments. DiSC is another great one. And yes, I do think they are a great tool to look at, to get a sense, and to facilitate conversation around. So I don't use them wholesale as sort of the word when it comes to hiring, but I use them as one data point in the hiring process. Another great one, you know, Fascinate can be another good one by Sally Hogshead. There are so many, so many good tools out there. I know some people that use the 5 Love Languages as one to get a sense of, all right, when you come and work on our team, how are we going to nurture and take care of each other? But yes, I highly recommend leveraging personality assessments and tools. And then you'll get a sense of even after you've hired these people and they're on your team, How do we work together? How do we communicate together better? 100%.

Good, good, good. Well, let's, let's roll the drum roll. We look like we've got almost everybody's participated with their numbers. So those of you that didn't, shame on you. Those of you that did, good luck. So the magic number is 92. 92. Let me take a look here and It looks like we have— and this isn't like The Price is Right, whoever's closest without going over, you just need to be close as far as I'm concerned. So it looks like Diane, and I won't say the last name for privacy reasons, but Diane, you voted 99, which is the closest number. Diane, if you would like to send me an email, I will go ahead and make sure that we get you connected. I also have your email address as well. But we'll go ahead and I will put the two of you together and we will make sure that you get what you need to claim your prize. So congratulations.

All right, looking forward to it, Ian.

Yeah, good deal. Well, that brings us to the end. We're slightly over, but this is such good stuff. I just kind of made an executive decision and said screw it, we're just going to go ahead and let you go over a little bit. So is there anything else in closing that you'd like to share with folks before we go ahead and wrap up? and push this out to video?

No, I'm so grateful to everyone for joining us and for your participation in the quizzes there. Awesome. I was so pleased with the results of the behavioral interview quiz. And just to let everyone know where to find me, I'm over at niceops.com. So if you ever have any questions or concerns or want to pop me an email or a note, I am around and would be happy to help you.

Very cool. Good. Well, thank you so much for joining us today on the show. Great to have you here, and I'm glad that our paths crossed. And I know I'm coming away with lots of really good ideas and some rejuvenated excitement and energy to put some of these things to work. And my colleague sitting next to me said more than once, are you listening? Are you paying attention to this? So I think you've got a couple of us motivated here in the office. So thank you very much for Glad to hear it.

You're so welcome. Good luck, everyone.

Yeah, good deal. So that concludes this week's episode of Free Webinar Wednesdays. We'll look forward to seeing you next Wednesday and every Wednesday here at freewebinarwednesdays.com. Until then, have a great week and we'll, we'll see you on the web. Take care, everybody. Bye-bye.