#52 - 6 Figure team vs 7-figure team

I can either pay someone to hang out with my son or I can pay someone probably more, but to do some stuff in my business.

This is the Doing It Online podcast with your host, serial entrepreneur, 6 and 7 figure funnel strategist and super nerd Kate McKibben. Where every week we're here talking nerdy and sharing the things that actually work to help you do what you do online. But better, easier and with a ton more profit too. Are you ready? Let's do it.

Hey. Hey guys. And welcome to episode number 52 of the Doing It Online podcast. I'm your host Kate from hellofunnels Co and today we're gonna talk about something a little bit different. I'm not even gonna mention the word funnels once. Well, I have now, but not twice, I promise. Today I want to talk about again. It's a question we get asked a lot as a question that we discuss a lot with our clients inside Ecourse Empire and that is around how one of the most important things when it comes to growing and scaling your business and that is your team and what does that team look like and how, you know, who should you be hiring first and what is the, you know, the team that you're going to get started with and what's the, the kind of the team that you're going to end up with down the road. And this is one thing that I think again, it can be hard to imagine and hard to picture it until you're there. So I wanted to just kind of pull back the curtain a little bit for you guys and give you our example and what's really worked for us and hopefully, you know, you'll be able to sort of see a little, you know, how something like that might work for your own business or what things will and won't because obviously everyone's business is different. Before I dive in, I wanted to just share a story. So one of my good friends she has, she's like super successful, she's got multi seven figure business in the online space and we were away at a like a mastermind retreat a few years ago in Bali back in the good old days when we could actually leave the country. And her background is actually in hr. Like that's what she did before she started her business, which has absolutely nothing to do with HR but sitting down. And I was, I was talking about that I needed to hire someone and I wasn't quite sure who that next person needs to be because there's all these different little gaps and things and she's like, oh well, have you done an org chart? And I'm like, my GOG chart, like that's for organizations, you know, that's for big companies. It's not, that's not for me. Like I've got me. And then couple people work for me and they report to me. Like, what's the point of putting it on paper? I just couldn't see the purpose of it. And she got super frustrated trying to explain it to me. And I think I may have broken her by the end of the day. I had to buy her a few wines because it just, it just didn't make sense to me at that point at where I was in business, I was like, but I don't want to be complicated. Like that just sounds. I don't want the bureaucracy and the red tape and the constant endless meetings of a big company. I'm like, I came from that. I hated that. This is why I have a small business. I don't want it. I was like just absolutely rejecting it on principle and not listening to the wise advice that she was giving me. So anyway, several years later, it's probably like or over four years ago now actually that that happened. I do have a much bigger team than I sort of probably envisioned at the time. And it's particularly in this last, well since having a baby. So last almost two years I've had to really, really focus on team and getting the right team and being able to find that, that balance of, you know, bringing people on at the right time, which is normally when you're already kind of quite flat out and then you have to obviously onboard them and, and get them all up and running. And that usually takes minimum of three months I'd say, to get somebody sort of up and running in your team effectively. But you know that I sort of had this added pressure now of the fact that I do only work two days a week and I spend the other three days, well, the five days with my son, you know, as his naps were getting less and less and I was realizing I was having less, you know, had less and less time that I could actually get stuff done during the week. I sort of came to this point. This was the thing which really did push me to up level my team properly. I was like, okay, well I can either put, get more childcare and for some people that is the right decision. For me that wasn't because I was like, I can either pay someone to hang out with my son or I can pay someone probably more, but to do some stuff in my Business and actually childcare in Australia ain't cheap. So it's probably not that huge a difference, to be honest, in, you know, in what we're paying. And for me I was like, okay, well we've got to find that balance. What's going to work for me and for my family and, and this is where it's. We've kind of landed. Anyway, enough of my waffling. That's the background. This is why I wanted to share it with you. So now I'm going to break down for you where I started, like where my team was two years ago and where it is now and sort of what those key hires were and how the things changed and what the positions are and kind of roughly what they do. And hopefully again that just helps you to get a little bit behind the scenes so that you can see, oh maybe that is, you know, how you could put it together for you because I don't want you to be that stubborn version of me sitting next to the pool in Bali four years ago making a friend have a mental breakdown because I just point blank refuse to see the purpose of having an org chart. So, all right, so six figure team versus seven figure team. That is what we're talking about. So let's start with obviously the six figure team. This and I'll go in order as I of how I hired them as you know, as we grew because as again as a lot of you guys would know, this is for me is business number three. I burnt down business number two. Like I built up a bit of a team, things changed a lot, burnt it to the ground and was back to pretty much just myself and one team member right before I sort of got pregnant. So then we sort of built it up from there. So myself and that one team member, this one team member I've had has, she's worked with me now. We figured out the other day, I think it's 10 years. She's been with me for a long time and so that is my va. So my she does customer service and our administration. I said she's been with me forever and when we originally hired her with my first business. So she's been now on 3 ish iterations of businesses with me originally just as an admin assistant to help out with some real data entry kind of stuff. But as you know, she's grown and we've grown over time. She's also taken on our customer service and I think that is a really good starting place for a lot of particularly for online businesses because I Think what's something like whenever you think about like, what can I take off my plate? It's about like, what is that thing that's going to be like, that's going to be doable thing for you to outsource, to start off with, but also something that needs to be done day by day, that needs to like something that you can't let fall through the cracks. And I think customer service, like responding to both your, you know, pre sale and post sale questions from people, helping people if they're getting stuck, if they've got login issues, if they've got a question before they purchase, like that kind of stuff, you can't let that ball drop. And if you're busy, that's not a thing that you're going to obviously be prioritizing necessarily because there's so many other things going on. And it's also something that you can quite easily train people on. That was for me that was higher. Number one, customer service and like our general admin. So admin includes like helping to clean out inboxes. She was helping with some scheduling stuff onto social media, a few other bits and pieces, our monthly reporting and some other bits and pieces. So that was yeah, number one. And I think currently she does between 10 to 15 hours a week for us. So and started at about five hours a week. So that's, you know, that's really doable and quite impactful for someone to come in and take that time, like to take that five hours initially a week off your plate. Like imagine what you could do with that five hours. So our second hire and again this was what was right for me because it's not something that I just naturally enjoy doing. And again, if I don't love it, it will, when things get busy, it will fall through the cracks. But it is something that can't fall through the cracks. It has to be done consistently for your business to grow. And that for me was our social media. So that second hire was finding that person who could come in, who could, you know, allow me to. When we first did it, I was just doing a weekly video, now we do a weekly podcast. But basically that was sort of my contribution to the content was like I would show up once a month, batch up to me with some videos or some podcasts and then they would take that content and they would then all our other content and they would turn that into our social media content for the month and just make sure that our social media schedule was followed. Stuff was getting posted that our emails were getting Sent out all that like, like that kind of stuff. Like it has to happen and it's, and it doesn't have to be you doing it as long if you can figure out a way to again systemize it. Like what In a way that's going to work for you. Someone should be able to listen to your video or read like maybe you just write the blog post or whatever it is that's gonna work. Or maybe if like my caveat here would be if you love, you know, if you are a personal brand and you love doing a social media content, then maybe it's just help having someone to come in and not write it, but to have them actually come in and just schedule it and do some other bits. Like again just taking those little bits off your plate. So the third hire was an obm. So an online business manager. And I remember when I hired our first obm I was like, I just want another grownup. Not saying that my other, my team so far weren't grown ups. They're all amazing grown up women. But I was like, I just want someone who can also be in charge of things. Like that was like, I want someone to take, I don't want to be the one making all the decisions. I want someone who can, you know, follow up with people and it's not up to me to always do the following up. Who can make sure things are happening on time, who can, you know, put project plans together and tell me when I need to be doing stuff, not me running around telling everybody else. So that grown up person for me was an obm. And you know, the bonus of that is that we found an OBM who also could do tech setup. So they were able to come in and so the like OBM stands for online business Manager. It's a bit of a online, you know, like coaches and course creators kind of specific job title. But you know, you could also say project manager or launch manager slash technical VA even that could be split over two. But for us we found someone who could do both, which was great. And then that was kind of the team. And then we also had contractors. So we obviously had a bookkeeper, we had a designer who ad hoc could do some stuff for us. So usually around launches we had a Facebook ads person again just for launches and podcast editor of Fiverr who's been editing our podcast for us. So hi to them as well. Thank you. We really, really love you and appreciate everything you do. So that was the team, so three sort of regular, what I call like core team. And then A handful of our contractors who are brought in like in an as needed basis. So then fast forward about two years and that team has doubled. So we still have our customer service and admin Va who she's going to be with me till I die. She doesn't know that, but she is number two. We have the set. Another new hire was to bring in what I've called a community coordinator. They have. Part of their role is like our backup customer service. So I was really. I didn't love the fact that we only had one person doing customer service because then if that person got sick and takes holidays, you know, as they should be doing, then you then have this, this gap and I was the one who jump in and fill in the gap and that's, that's not ideal. So I brought someone in who could be our second in command basically for our customer service and also could just sort of job share there with because they're in different time zones as well. So it just meant that also helped to reduce the response time which was great. And then their secondary role is just coordinating everything with our students and clients. So coordinating our calls. Because we now like in Ecoles empire, we have two to three calls a week with myself and with guest experts. So they need to be all organized and put into calendars and reminders need to be sent and all that stuff. So just making sure the delivery of our program ran really smoothly. Making sure there was someone who was, you know, checking in with students and clients and tracking how they're progressing and reaching out to them and celebrating them when they had wins and all of that kind of stuff has been an amazing ad for our team. We've also upgraded our. What was our, you know, social media content person to a. I don't mean upgraded the human. Like both. This is a new person in this role. But both of the people who've done this sort of role have both been amazing. I love them both. But it was more the stepping up the responsibilities and the scope of the role. So it's gone from being sort of social media and content creation to being actually our digital content producer. And you know, that again has been a game changer. They it's not just now about the regular sort of newsletters and social media, but they actually are able to create every piece of content that comes out of our company and there's a lot. So that's launches, that's internal communications with our students, that's we're planning our retreats coming up free course empire and all the stuff leading up to that. Like I kind of don't need to write things anymore. Which is amazing because after 13 years I've kind of feel like I'm out of words written words. I can talk till I'm full in the face as you all know, but I just don't seem to be able to write anything anymore. So again, that was just an amazing game changing. I don't even know what the word is. When, when they joined, when Keely joined our team, it was a huge, huge game changer for me particularly as that was a lot of the stuff that I was doing myself. So another thing that we think, another group of people that we've actually added is our expert coaches to our program. So when we first started ecoursempire we had one call a week and they were mostly with me. And over time as we've got more and more people in, we've seen sort of the needs, more specific questions, different time zone zones as well. We've been able to really upscale that program and support we can offer. So we now have two to three most weeks. It's three guest expert calls a week now and they range in everything from mindset, launch strategy, copywriting, design tech, you name it. We've got an amazing, amazing human there. Just like hot seat with people on. And that I think, I think the people in Equals Empire would definitely say has been a huge difference for them. And I've just, it's made the program a very different thing to be able to deliver as well knowing that not all of the questions and all of the support kind of lands on my shoulders. So as someone running a program like obviously you want to give the best possible experience always. And this is, you know, it's a year round program that it runs. But you know, I just got married and I had a very short honeymoon because of COVID But you know, you want to be able to take that time off without your clients being sort of left in the lurch and you know, not having that support that they need because things come up, you can't, you can't, can't say to them, whoa, whoa. Your whole life on hold because I'm going to go on a holiday. You guys all know that it's a big part of my sort of ethos and motto is always like you got to create a business that supports you and your life, not the other way around. And I need to be able to take time off in my business. I need to be able to. If I've got a kid who's sick, I need to be able to take time off to do that. So having that extra support, particularly in the delivery side of things, has been really, really amazing. And again, that's something we scaled up piece by piece. We start up with 1, 2, 3, and. And now we've got a great whole panel. We still have an amazing obm and she's stepping up in her role as well. And she pretty much is our launch manager now, so I don't have to. We sort of, we plan it out together and then she just makes it all happen. And she's that grown up that I, that I was dreaming of who goes, hey, Kate, you know, you've got to do that this week. And I'm like, oh, yeah, great, thank you. And you know, my team go to her when they have questions about what's coming up next. And start of each week, she's like letting us all know this is what's happening this week and this is what's getting done. It's again so epic to have that role in our business. Of course, we have paid ads and a traffic team now, so Facebook ads, and we're bringing in YouTube and Pinterest as well. And the final sort of member of our team is we've actually just started working with the cfo, which stands for Chief Financial Officer. So this is a person who, working really as more of a consultant with me because, you know, like, I was a nerd. I've always been a nerd and I always did pretty well at school, but accounting and things like that and I don't know why. My brain, I love a spreadsheet, but a balance sheet, my brain can't understand it. And it frustrates me because I know I'm smart, but for some reason that kind of stuff just does. It just melts my brain. And you know, I know as we are scaling that it's so important for us to be really on top of these things. So for us to be able to do it in a really sustainable way, got big give back goals that I want to be able to do. So we need to be making sure that, you know, we're hitting certain profit percentages for us to be able to then, you know, increase our give back and all of that kind of stuff. And we, we just had a thousand spreadsheets tracking so many different things and it was, it was too much data. So. And none of it was necessarily meaningful because it was just too much of it. So working with an amazing lady, Jen, who's coming in to help go through a process with me to really get a handle on all of those key numbers, create some really good dashboards and just sort of consult with me to sort of allow me to step up into that more of a CEO role and increase my own learnings in this kind of like financial space as well. So this is new, totally new hire and I'm really, really excited slash terrified.

And then lastly, like contractors again. So obviously bookkeeper, still designer, still podcast Edge is still. Hey, and one extra sort of, I would say contract that we've added in is the agency called Gravy. Some of you guys probably use them and they are actually a debt recovery agency. And again, that was something that I felt was really important as we, you know, to try and make sure that our, our brand and company is really sort of everything we do is aligned with our values. Before that, just because of time constraints, it was all a very automated kind of system that we had. Like, we don't have a lot of debt recovery required. But I did just want to make sure that when people, you know, because when someone's having failing payments, it's not a good experience for them. No one, no one likes for that to happen. And I wanted to try and make that as human and as good an experience as possible. So, you know, that's why we've sort of invested in bringing that on as well. And yeah, that, that's our, that's our seven figure team so far.

As we sort of, you know, are planning over the next few years to scale up to multiple seven figures. There's still a few more seats that definitely I'm going to be looking to, to fill, which is really exciting as well. But yeah, guys, I hope, like I said, I hope this like little peek behind the curtain of what we've been doing, of what our, you know, our team looks like has sort of inspired and helped you see sort of what was a bit, what was possible. Maybe it's flagged a little like, oh, that person could be really beneficial to me. I can see how that would fit in with my business. And if it has, make sure you let us know, like, you know, tag us over on Instagram at hello Funnels. I always love to see what people's moments are. And yeah, so that's it. This for this week, guys. I hope you found it super useful. If you have leave us a review, share it with friends, you know, help us to get the word out, help us to help as many people create their own epic online businesses. And until next week, guys, keep doing what you do. And I'LL see you online. Bye.

Thanks so much for listening to the Doing It Online podcast. If you love this episode, don't forget to subscribe and leave us a review. And if you're ready to take your online course sales to the next level with your own six or seven figures, your funnel. Let Kate show you exactly how today at stealmyfunnel.

Com.