Being a superhero with your ADHD-entrepreneur-friendly systems (for a successful business)

Hey new listener, thanks so much for checking us out and there's a good chance you have adhd, so I quickly wanted to ask you to please follow this podcast in Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or whichever app you're listening to this on, don't leave it until later because you will forget. Thank you. Hey new listener, thanks so much for checking us out and there's a good chance you have adhd, so I quickly wanted to ask you to please, please follow this podcast in Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or whichever app you're listening to this on, don't leave it until later because you will forget. Thank you. Squirrel Squirrel in this episode we're going to talk about setting up ADHD friendly systems so you don't burn down your business. Or at least don't make it harder for your clients to work with you. Squirrel Hi, I'm Katie McManus, business strategist and money mindset coach, and welcome to the Weeniecast. Squirrel Most people, when they start a business, they do so because they want to break free of that 40 hour work week. They want to get away from the corporate overlords that own your life and your time that demand you be someone that you're not to get a paycheck at the end of the week. Most ADHD entrepreneurs start their business because they're tired of that. They want to be able to run their business unmasked. They want to be able to run their business and have time flexibility so that they can work when they have all the dopamine levels in line and so that they can rest when the dopamine levels are low. They're tired of having people shame them for not being the quote, unquote, perfect neurotypical for not doing work exactly like their manager wants them to do. And they want to be able to change and flex and grow as they build this business. And also you probably want to make more money in less time with fewer distractions. Now, what I'm about to describe these systems are going to be really difficult for you to see for yourself and your business. You're I'm going to make it sound super simple, like here's what you do and here's how you do it. And also you're going to look at your business and be like, okay, it's great that she's describing that, but how the fuck do I do that? I don't see how that can be set up in my business. I don't see how my offer or how I work with clients or what I sell can be plugged into a system like that. And I want you to know that that's totally normal. You are way too close to your business to be able to see this simply. This is one of the things that my clients really struggle with before they start working with me, that saying, you can't see the forest for the trees because it is so true, because you're in the forest, it's really hard to see the high level of how big this is and how it works. And from that thousand foot perspective, because you're in it. When you choose to work with a business strategist or a coach, that's what we do. We hover above your forest and we kind of see what needs to be done, what needs to be taken care of. And we start showing you different ways that you can start looking at your business from that perspective without getting mired in the weeds. So I want you to take a deep breath. We're going to be talking through some really simple systems that you can be using in your business. And I don't want you to shame yourself or feel overwhelmed when you don't see how it can be simply put into place for you. Okay? So deep breath. And if while I'm talking about this, you start getting overwhelmed, you start feeling stressed out, you start feeling like, oh my God, I don't know how to do this. At the end of this episode, I'm going to invite you to book a call with me. Because if you do not set up your business to have standard operating procedures that are designed to make your ADHD life easier as well as your ADHD clients lives easier, this business is not going to be your key to freedom. It is going to be the key to yourself. And you're going to want to escape from it sooner rather than later. And I don't want that for you. I want this business to be the key to freedom and the exact life that you want to live with. All the money that you possibly want to make, but you're not going to be able to get there if you do not have these kinds of systems in place. If you're an ADHD business owner and you accept clients and you accept money, you're going to have to set up your business to be ADHD friendly for your clients. The reason being is that because you have adhd, I guarantee you, you naturally attract clients who also have adhd. The reason for this is that we naturally are drawn to each other. We have the same funny jokes, we speak the same language, we understand that sensation of kind of drifting off and bouncing from topic to topic. If you've ever been in a circle of people at a party who are chatting and there are three or more ADHD people in that circle who are jumping from topic to topic to topic to topic that don't seem connected, pay attention to who is following along with the conversation. It's not the neurotypicals. They have no idea where this conversation has gone. It has gone off the rails and they start drifting away. They start going to the bathroom or grabbing a new drink. It's the ADHD people who lean in closer, who hang out for the rest of the party because they have found their tribe. Now this happens socially and this happens in our businesses. I bet if you go through your client list you're going to notice, oh yeah, that person definitely has adhd and that person probably has ADHD and that person's told me that they have adhd. This is what I went through in my business. I didn't used to focus only on ADHD clients, but there came a point when I realized that all of my clients had ADHD whether they were diagnosed or not. And it got to the point where the clients who didn't have ADHD started, started noticing my content about ADHD and started questioning, hey, I think I have ADHD too. And they started going to their doctors and surprise, surprise, they got a diagnosis. We naturally attract each other. So what I'm about to tell you is going to make your life so much better and your clients experience of your business that much better. You have to design all the systems in your business to be optimized for adhd. You have to make sure that your payment systems are ADHD friendly. Now this will help you because you won't have to chase people down. And this will help your clients because they won't feel like an because they forgot to pay an invoice that you sent over. This is going to make sure that people actually show up to your events, your pop up trainings, your webinars because you're doing all of the reminder work for them. You're not putting any extra intellectual work or emotional work on their plate. You're just allowing for them to show up. And this will make sure that clients who sign up with you actually schedule with you and don't go drifting off into the ocean of their own lives. And then remember at some point like oh, wasn't there something I was supposed to do because we've all been there, my favorite chiropractor in the world that I have been meaning to schedule A follow up appointment with since January of 2021. As I'm recording this, this is July of 2023. Two and a half years later, right before Christmas in 2020, he told me, just reach out to me in the new year and we'll schedule your next appointment. I'm so sorry, Dr. Mike. I completely forgot and it's been haunting me ever since. And now I'm at the point where I'm kind of embarrassed that it's taken me so long to schedule this next appointment, even though I'm sure he does not remember. Now, before we get into this, I want to talk about the dangers of not doing this. And I have a very recent experience of being a client of a business that was not set up for ADHD people and I feel like a massive about it. I recently did this experiment in my business. I had it in the back of my mind this idea that I might be able, in addition to doing business strategy and coaching for my clients, to make their lives a little easier by also taking on the responsibility of doing some social media content creation. Now in my mind I knew that I would not be the person to do this. So I decided that I was gonna trial a couple different ways to outsource social media content creation to other people. And I decided before I sold this to any clients that I would trial it in my own business. And so I reached out to a virtual assistant company and hired a couple virtual assistants to try this idea out. Now, long story short, bad idea, worst idea. You know how I always talk about can do itis and how it is the death toll of your business. This was me falling prey to some canduitis myself and I own that because I want you to know that it is so normal to like see different opportunities for what you can do in your business and be like, yeah, I do that and yeah, I can do that and yeah I can do that and no do not do that. The kiss mentality, keep it stupid simple is always going to be your best friend when it comes to running and growing your business. So don't do what I did. Do as I say, not as I do. But anyway, this experiment of me trying to create a little social media agency within my own business went terribly wrong. The vas that I hired to trial this idea we completed about a month and a half in when I emailed the owner of the company to cancel, I got a confirmation email back with a bunch of different attachments on it. And being me, I looked at the first attachment that I saw and it was A receipt for my previous payment of invoice. And I was like, oh, cool, these are just receipts from my records. And I moved on. A couple weeks later, as I was driving from Cape Cod to New York City and stopping for gas, I opened up my email and I saw a reminder saying that there had been an invoice attached to that first email that I had not paid. And of course, my thing is that you attract the types of clients that you are. So when I get an invoice, I am always so conscientious about paying it as soon as possible because I want to attract clients who pay their invoices as soon as possible. Now, of course, I'm on the side of the highway, I'm filling up gas. I think I also had to pee in that moment. So it's like really like, okay, cool, I'll finish filling gas. I'm going to go park somewhere and do this thing. And then at some point I'm going to come back to this email, I'm going to pay it. And we all know what happened. You know, I went into the rest station, I went to the bathroom, I came out through the convenience store. I was like, oh, I want a water. Oh, and I think I want some pumpkin seeds too. Awesome. Oh, they have chocolate. Awesome. What kind of chocolate? Get back in the car. Completely have forgotten about that email even exists. Got to New York and then had like a whole week of adventures and was very neglectful of going back to my email that week. Totally on me, totally 100% on me. Now I got another email yesterday reminding me again that there was an invoice that I hadn't paid because this service provider was outside of the US and for some reason my bank is. It's pretty much impossible for me to do bank transfers the way that they had requested that I pay them, which is mistake number one. As a business owner, if you are hiring people, you need to make sure that the way they bill you is going to be ADHD friendly. If they do not have an ADHD friendly way for you to pay your bills, do not hire that contractor. It is never going to work out well for you. It is going to be stress inducing. It is going to cause more problems for you. It is not going to be great for the relationship. Make sure that the way they take payment from you is friendly to how your ADHD manifests. For me, this is auto payment. The only way I can be in business with people is if things are set up to auto payment because then I don't have the Opportunity to forget. So my number one mistake here was I let go of that rule. And this contractor had said, okay, cool, if there's no bank transfer, then you're just gonna PayPal me the payments when I invoice you. I don't know about you guys, but I can never remember my password. I can never remember my PayPal password. And I don't know if that makes it super, super secure because even I can't get into it. But what this does is it creates a whole barrier of activities before I can even get to the point of paying someone. So after seeing this email, freaked out, realized, oh, my God, I'm becoming that worst person that I hate attracting in my own business because they don't Pay. Went to PayPal, realized I was locked out after trying too many passwords in a row that were wrong. Walked away, got myself a cup of coffee, came back, and the power went out in my house. And a whole other sequence of events happened that just made life kind of miserable in the moment starred the email on my phone said, I'm gonna come back to this. And of course we know what happened. The rest, the power came back on, had to take care of a whole bunch of stuff and then went to sleep. And as I was falling asleep last night, had this moment of like, oh, you forgot something. What was it? And sure enough, this morning, woke up to a righteously angry email from the service provider saying, hey, this is not cool. I'm having to chase you down this. The fourth email, which I totally own, that was completely on me. There are no excuses for paying someone late. Sent an apology, fixed the password issue with my PayPal, did not let myself get distracted before I dove in, took care of this. And all of this is my fault. I should not have gone with a service provider that manages payments like this. I know how this is going to go. Now, you, as an ADHD business owner, you have two responsibilities here. Oh, what am I going to say next? Well, you'll have to keep listening to find out. But first, Squirrel, Squirrel, Squirrel, Squirrel. Join the weeniecast Hyper Focus community and unlock a whole world of support. Get direct access to me in exclusive calls. Turbocharge your network with unlimited referrals, and boost your productivity with sports calls and accountability sessions. But that's not all. We're talking expert talks, masterclasses, and more. Register now to get in front of the line for this at the introductory price of just $77 per month. It's time to elevate your entrepreneurial game. Let's do this together, go to weeniecast.com hyperfocus all one word. That's weeniecast.com hyperFocus. Now you as an ADHD business own, you have two responsibilities here like I do. One is when you're hiring freelancers, contractors and different businesses to service your business. Your responsibility is to only pick those companies that have payments set up in a way that works for your adhd. Because what we don't want to happen is you get sent into the I'm an asshole spiral. Because for humans with empathy and it doesn't feel good when you've been the bad person in a situation. And actually it can completely sideswipe you for a whole day, if not longer, depending on how big the thing was. Thankfully, this is just a couple hundred dollars. And of course, like, I don't know if that couple hundred dollars was a big deal to this person or not. That's not for me to decide. But imagine if you needed to pay a bill that was for $4,000. You can make up a whole story that that was going to make it or break it for their business. And it could absolutely. So we don't want to put ourselves in the position of ever being the bad guy, which is easy to do when you forget stuff like this. We also have the responsibility of making sure that we don't give our clients the opportunity to be the bad guy. We want to set up things like auto bill in our own businesses. We want to make it so easy for our clients to give us their money for our services. We want to make it memory proof or forgetting proof or distraction. Oh my God, a squirrel. Shiny object. That. Is that a tree? I love cake proof. Because we know what happens. We also don't want to put ourselves in the position where we haven't been paid in a while. So in your business you need to set up auto pay. A couple different ways you can do this are Dubsado. It's a program where you can also send all of your contracts. I've just recently switched my business to Dubsado from acuity. This is great if you are growing your business from that like $100,000 a year to $500,000 a year mark. Like in that realm, you want to consolidate those two actions and make it really seamless. I would not recommend Dubsado to absolute beginners. I personally don't even know how to use Dubsado. I'm at the point in my business where I don't have to. I've hired other people to know how to use it for me and to fix it when I need it to do something different than what it's set up for. If you're an absolute beginner, I want you to look at solutions like Acuity Scheduling. It syncs up with Square and PayPal and Stripe and is really, really stupid. Simple to use. And if you want to hear more about this, go Check out episode 29 how to stop being a Weenie in your Business systems. The next area that you want to make sure is ADHD friendly in your business and in businesses that you are working with is how you handle events. Now events could be like a group training class that you do once a month. It could also be webinars. It could also be in person retreats. It sounds crazy and super annoying, but when I have an event in, all my events are virtual. Up until now in my business, you know I will be letting you know when we have in person stuff coming. But whenever I have a webinar or a pop up training or even an extra bonus call for my group clients, they get three to four different emails just for reminding them in the 24 hours leading up to that event. This sounds insane. It sounds super obnoxious to be sending this many reminders. But let me tell you, I can't tell you how many times I've signed up for a webinar or pop up training or there's been a call with one of the service providers that I work with that I knew would be super valuable to me. And I miss it because there was one email reminding me an hour before it started and by the time it had started an hour later, guess where I was? I don't know, probably cooking something. Maybe started a new hobby. Maybe I picked up the phone and called a friend and was having a nice little catch up because I couldn't remember what it was that I was kind of keeping my time open for now. In my business, if you sign up for an event, you're going to get four different emails from me. Typically you're going to get one that's 24 hours ahead of time. You're going to get one that's 12 hours ahead of time. You're going to get one that's an hour ahead of before the call. And you're also going to get the remember to go pee and get a glass of water email that I always send out about 10 minutes before the time we start. I do this for my clients because I need this personally if I'm going to show up to stuff and I can't tell you how effective it is. I I will regularly have people in pop up trainings and webinars that I host who will say their first words when they show up are oh my God, I forgot that I signed up for this. I'm so happy that I got that email 10 minutes ago that reminded me that I signed up for this because I really need to learn this right now. Whatever the topic is now, this is especially important if you are charging for events because nothing feels worse than when you pay your money to go to an event and then you get distracted by whatever happens in your life and you forget to attend. It feels like wasted money. And the last thing you want your service or your business associated with is this feeling of oh my God, I wasted money there. It doesn't matter if it was their own poor time management or shitty service on your end, that vibe that that flavor will stick with their association of your business. So remember to remind your clients and your people to show up to your events. They will thank you for it. And anyone who gets annoyed at a bunch of different reminders that they signed up for something that they wanted to go to, they were never going to be your clients anyway. They do not belong with you. You can say goodbye and when they unsubscribe from your list, you're going to say sayonara. Lastly, another area of your business that you want to make sure is ADHD proof is scheduling. Now, when someone signs up for one of my group programs, what they get is an add event calendar, a link that basically they can click on and automatically add every single event that we're going to have for the program that they signed up for added to their calendar. It is already there. I will also send out reminder emails, not as many as when I do like a webinar because these people know that they signed up for the thing, they're paying for the thing, and it's a regular call that they have on their calendar already. They should already be tuned into when it's happening. But I will send some reminder emails an hour or 10 minutes before we hop on the call just to grab their attention. And when a client signs on with me to work one on one, they get a link to book on my calendar because as one on one sessions are at a time that they get to choose and I tell them, hey listen, we're going to be working together for a year. Go ahead and schedule a year out. Schedule as many appointments as you want, as far into the future as you need. If you need to move them as we get closer to that date. You're welcome to do so. When we don't get proactive about people scheduling with us, what happens is out of sight, out of mind. Because we are not actively taking up space on their calendar. They don't see us. They don't feel the impact of our work together. And after a while, they're gonna think, oh, yeah, that's right. I signed up for that thing. I haven't talked to them in a while. I haven't gone to the thing in a while. Oh, nuts. And the next step could be they feel bad that they're wasting the money because they're not attending or they're not using the service. And you don't want this because you don't want someone feeling like associating bad feelings or wasting money again with your service or your business. What's worse is if you're not taking up time and space on their calendar and they get a few months in, they realize they haven't been doing the thing that they're like, oh, well, I obviously don't need this because I haven't been using it. You know the impact you can have on your clients when they are tuned into the work, when they meet with you regularly, when they learn the things that they need to learn from you. It is your job to make sure that them getting what they want from you is easy for them. Likewise, when you sign up to work with someone or you hire a freelancer, you want to make sure that the process to schedule is ADHD friendly for you, because the last thing you want is to waste your money on something that you're not going to use or to become that client who hasn't gotten what you need out of the. Out of their service provider. And above all, I want you to know that mistakes happen. You're human. There's no perfect way of being 100% of the time like me. You're gonna screw up and you're gonna hire the wrong people who have the wrong systems for how your brain works. You can feel like an idiot about it if you want, or you can take those instances as a reminder of, oh, yeah, that's why this is so important for me to do in the future. It's your choice. I personally vote that you take it as a lesson and not as evidence that you're a moron, because I don't think you're a moron. I think you're great. And it is also your job to make sure that your systems in your business are friendly to people whose brains Work just like yours because you know you're attracting them. You know that they're already walking through your door and they're already wanting to be in business with you. It is your job to make it as easy as possible for them to get the full value of working with you. And if you don't set up these systems to be ADHD friendly and things go wrong, like people don't pay their invoices or don't schedule their appointments and then get grumpy about it, know that that's your responsibility. But the beautiful thing about things being your fault is that you can also be the person to fix it. That said, there are going to be moments in your business where you're going to have to come up with a workaround because maybe the system isn't set up yet and you have a client who's willing to buy the thing that the system would be supporting or because something broke in your normal system. And that happens. But what we don't want to have happen is that those workarounds become standard operating procedure. Because the goal of your business is to grow and serve more people and make more money and make your life easier, not harder. And when you grow a business and take on more clients and make more money with systems that are all designed around workarounds, guess what happens to your life? It doesn't get easier, it gets far harder. And that's when we burn out and that's when we decide, this is too much, I quit. I'm going to go back to corporate. And we all know how well people with ADHD do in corporate environments. Now, hopefully some of you have been listening to this and think, oh, awesome, that makes my business so much more clear. I know exactly, exactly how I'm going to do this. Thank you, Katie. This has been life changing. And to you, I hope you have an amazing day and the rest of your lives and I hope your businesses are massively successful. And please email me because I want to be able to celebrate with you. For those of you, however, who've been listening to this episode and been thinking, oh, I don't know how to do this, and are realizing that your business is designed around some workarounds that do not help you and do not help your clients and you have no idea where to even start to fix it, here's what I want you to do. I want you to go into the show notes and I want you to click on that link that says weeniecast.com strategy call and I want you to book a generate income Strategy call with me on this call. We are going to get real about what your goals are. What's the dream of this business? Where do you want to take it? We're going to look at every little obstacle that is getting in the way of you getting there. If it's a fit for both of us, then we can talk about different options to work together. And if it's not a fit for us to work together, then I'll point you in the direction of some resources that are going to be massively helpful to you in your business. I want to also acknowledge that taking this step to talk to a business strategist and money mindset coach can be really scary. You probably have this thought of, oh, my God, well, I should be able to figure this out on my own. I'm smart and I'm capable, and I know you are. You've made it this far in starting a business. You're a badass. And also, if you wanted to learn a foreign language, could you do that on your own? Probably. It would take a really long time, and you're probably going to get it wrong. Along the way, though, if you wanted to learn advanced chemistry again, you could probably learn on your own with books and through YouTube University. But you're probably going to be better served by going and talking to some experts who can show you what you don't know that you don't know. Also, especially with, like, advanced chemistry, it's probably safer, right, because you're dealing with chemicals and sometimes chemicals react badly to each other, and we don't want that because you probably have a nice face and we want your face to stay unharmed. Point being, you can figure this out yourself, but I think you're going to be better served in the long run by getting some expert guidance who will help you get to that point of success faster with fewer white hairs. And we'll see what we can do about making it easier for you to run and help you make some more money doing this. I don't know if you have an issue with wearing white. Okay. I'm wearing white jeans right now for, like, the first time in my life. And there's a cup of coffee on the desk. And I can't tell you how much brain energy I'm, like, subconsciously devoting to. Do not talk with your hands. Do not knock over that cup of coffee. If you knock it over, it goes that way. It doesn't go this way. Like, squirrel, squirrel, squirrel, squirrel. Are you an entrepreneur? Are you struggling to stay focused and organized while Juggling a million tasks. Are you looking for ways to improve your productivity but finding it hard to stay motivated? Then you need to get access to my weeniecast for Winners show that's exclusively on Apple Podcasts. I know you might be thinking I've tried everything to stay on task and nothing works. But I'm enjoying the advice I'm getting here on the weeniecast and let me tell you, I'm delighted to be able to help you and thousands of listeners just like you, my friend. But the weeniecast for Winners podcast is next level and I'd hate for you to miss out on it. For just1.99amonth, Weeniecast for winners delivers in depth and actionable advice that's specifically designed for entrepreneurs, including those with adhd, whether diagnosed or suspected. I'll talk you through how to increase your sales conversions, keep your mindfulness on point, and even offer practical tips that can help you be more productive and successful in your business, all while catering to your unique needs of being an entrepreneur who might be struggling with adhd. With weeniecast for Winners, you'll get practical tips and strategies that you can use to drive your business forward without the frustrations and setbacks that often come with adhd. So if you're ready to start seeing real Results, subscribe to Winniecast for winners today@winniecast.com winners for just 199amonth, you'll gain access to the valuable insights and strategies that can take your business to the next level. Winnie Cast for Winners is a show that's worth every penny for entrepreneurs who want to succeed. Subscribe now and start enjoying the benefits for yourself. Join the weeniecast hyper focused community and unlock a whole world of support. Get direct access to me in exclusive calls, turbocharge your network with unlimited referrals, and boost your productivity with Sprint calls and accountability sessions. But that's not all. We're talking expert talks, masterclasses, and more. Register now to get in front of the line for this at the introductory price of just $77 per month, it's time to elevate your entrepreneurial game. Let's do this together. Go to weeniecast. Com Hyperfocus all one word. That's weeniecast. Com Hyperfocus.