Process-Driven Productivity: Grow Your Creator Business Sustainably

When we start writing down what we do, we cannot help as human beings but to reflect. And you will find that when you start doing this, all of a sudden, you're less busy because you are finally challenging and questioning the things that you've been wasting your time on without realizing it.

Layla is the founder of ProcessDriven and also a creator herself. So we're going to talk a little bit about how to build systems and stop being the bottleneck inside of your business. And we're also going to get a sneak peek into her business as a creator as well. So welcome Layla to the stage today.

Thanks for having me, Darrell. It's good to catch up.

How are you?

Good. A little bit less tired than you must be after these few days. Man, this is quite the production.

Yeah. Well, I'm so excited to talk to you. We've had so many amazing conversations. If I know anything to be true, some of the themes that have conned this entire event are going to come up here today too. So can't wait to dive in. But for people who don't know you the way that I know you, what do we need to know about Laila?

Well, I think if I were to just summarize it all in, it's that I, seven years ago, swore that I would never become a business owner because I grew up around small business, grew up around the kind of crazy stuff that we're all doing now on the Internet. And I told myself I would never do it because I thought small business ownership was the trap to burnout, to never getting paid enough, to never getting enough time off. And somehow the universe just, you know, when you make plans, the universe laughs at you. And seven years later, now here I am. I started off as a virtual assistant. And now what ProcessDriven does is essentially crack the code as to how you can run a small business or a small team or a small creator led business without burning out and actually, you know, enjoying your life.

Okay, that feels like the jumping off point for what we talk about, because burnout is rampant in the creator world, burnout is rampant in the small business world. And what are some of the biggest blockages that you see in your work of people who are like, what. What are kind of like the. The. The business owner suicide things, the business owner like. Like potholes that people are driving into on a consistent basis that are causing overwhelm and burnout and. And people like not having the longevity inside of their business. What are some of the common things that you're seeing?

Yeah, and at first I just. If anyone here is feeling brave, if you could write in the chat, if you've ever experienced burnout, please do. Because I think one of the biggest obstacles I see is, is that we don't talk about it. It's like this outcome that we all talk about, oh, well, a few years ago when I was burnt out and then I crawled my way out of it. We always talk about burnout as something in the distant past, whereas for many of us it's in the not so distant future. And I think the first pothole that I wish we could fill is. Thank you, Anna. You know, Krista, all the folks in the chat. The first thing I just want to acknowledge is that all of us are running up against it on the monthly. Like, this is something that is very easy to fall into. And then the second thing is realizing that it is something that can be prevented because we focus so much on, you know, the rising phoenix stories of we burnt out and then I built something great. I almost think that in small business ownership, but even more so in the creator landscape, it's kind of viewed as a mark of pride. Like, I can't have my epic rise until I have the tragedy of burning out. But what I wish we would view it as is almost like a pro athlete. If you have a severe knee injury that could end your career, it's not a mark of pride to have a severe injury. I think for knowledge workers and creators, our creativity is our greatest asset. Why would we want to fully burn that out in order to become great? We don't need to do that.

Yeah. Nikki said something earlier today that is going to stick with me for a long time. It's like we often think, we often forget that the recovery from a burnout is much harder and longer than the prevention of it. And what I love about your work is you talk about process and systems in a way that creates scalable, sustainable systems for us to exist as entrepreneurs. So kind of give me the baseline. Like if you had to explain process driven and the work that you do and through three to five minutes, give me the baseline of like, where, where we're beginning to focus or how we can build some of the systems. I think we're all bought into not rubbing up against it. We're all bought in wanting a different result. We've had lots of like, mindset talks here, but I want to get super practical, like, yeah, that process driven, like, how are you thinking about this? What are the systems that you're building here?

Yeah, our, our main goal is to Build something that can exist outside ourselves. Because one of the contributing factors of burnout is the fact that you're keeping so much in your head. And so when we are trying to systemize or build processes for a business, what we're trying to do is get the stuff that are keeping you up at night and put it somewhere else. Practically speaking, I kind of summarize this as what do you need to do? Who needs to do it, and when does it happen? And when you get those down, you could put that in something like a task management system. Yeah.

Say that again for those in the back. This three things again.

What do you need to do? When do you need to do it, and who is responsible? That is the starting point and nicknames you can find there on the interwebs for the young kids is to search task management. I mean, that is the first piece. And I'm not talking about fancy systems or AI integrations. Literally just a task list can make a remarkable difference for creators out there of just having a notebook where you're using it effectively for these three pieces.

So good. Like my. My notebook that now just has these three things written in it. So as this is going to be a little bit of a Darrell therapy session or a Darrell coaching session, because I think this is. It's helpful when we get really practical here. So, yeah, three. The three principles. Let's dive into each one of these really quickly. So, like, define to me, like, what needs to be done, how is that done correctly versus incorrectly, and what's. What's the best way of thinking about defining what needs to be done?

Oh, my gosh. I. I have and could go into hours of each of these. So, like, let's jam on the what side of things. It's really figuring out the areas of responsibility. I think a lot of people overthink this. And if we were in a big corporation, what do we need to do would be shown on some kind of organizational chart. We'd have like, level one support rep and assistant. As small teams, there might be just one of us, and we wear all of the hats. So. So figuring out what you need to do for me comes down to defining the areas of responsibility. So, for example, in your house, who is in charge of the trash? Right. Everyone knows the answer to that. Writing that kind of stuff down is where we start with our businesses. Who's in charge of the trash? Who's in charge of the dishes? Who's in charge of the laundry? You have those things in your business as well. But for most of us, we never write them down. And I'm not just talking solopreneurs or creators. No, no, no. I'm talking, you know, eight figure, large enterprises who have never recorded this information.

That's good. And do I do this for, like, literally everything that needs to get done? So it's like, like you're using the home metaphor. I think it's a good one. It's like trash and cooking dinner and doing laundry and sweeping the floor. And like, that feels like it could be an infinite number of things that I could be writing out. And as a solopreneur, it's like, all right, well, since I'm doing all of it anyways, do I really need to define this? Layla? Uh, so why would I need to do this if, like, I'm the only one doing it anyways?

So the argument I always make is that you can't systemize when you don't know what you're systemizing. It's like, I can't have a clean house if I don't know how many rooms I have in the house. What we have found, though, after working with over 5000 small teams and solopreneurs through this, is that there are really just seven rooms in the house. And within those, there's about 21 categories of proceeds. If we want to get super nerdy and technical, you, you might think it's an endless list of things you do, but what we have found is that the average is closer to 100. 100 categories of things that any person's doing. Whether you're a team of 30 or a team of three, there's about a hundred categories. And I think a lot of solopreneurs are like, ah, you know, I just create. Not true. You are doing hundreds of things, so no wonder you were overwhelmed.

That's good. What are the seven categories? I'm putting you on the spot a little bit here, but I know people are going to ask me, can you remember them? What are the seven. The seven categories?

If I was more prepared, I would have them. Okay, I can give you some examples of them. Because now I'm like, am I going to forget each of them? But they kind of follow what would be a traditional organizational chart. So things like product, things like customer support, financial. These are the broad categories of your business functions that we can then treat as a fill in the blank. When we have clients go through this, we literally just give them the prompt and it's like, fill in the blank. Here are the buckets. And it's so much easier than staring at a blank page and trying to just think of, wait, what all do I do?

That's so good? Okay. And I'm sure that we can find a YouTube video or something of you talking about seven areas. Okay, so then that's the what, what needs to be done and then the when is next. So talk to me about the when.

When, when and who kind of go together. So I'm going to do a two parter and then there's some extra we can dig into. But when and who is when we start getting into the actual actions. So it's one thing to say, all right, my spouse is in charge of taking out the trash, but I don't know if anyone here has kids. I don't, but I have nieces and nephews. And when you make the nieces and nephews in charge of, say, doing the dishes or taking out the trash, you say, little Susie's in charge. And then Susie needs a little bit of reminding. Just, just saying she's in charge is not enough for the action to get done. Business is the same way we can say Susie is in charge of all of our testimonial collection. But unless we have actions to remind Susie to do, this just becomes one more thing, you know, floating around our heads. So who and when are when we create tasks. And my obsession for small businesses particularly is the power of routine and repeating tasks. So as creators, it's pretty easy that we sit down and we say, all right, I'm going to create all of my community posts for the month. That is a task that is a lot different than just saying, all right, you're in charge of posting in the community. It's very vague. And so who and when is defining the activities that you need to do to actually get your business to do what it needs to. And this has huge unlocks for automation, for delegation. As we grow, for just streamlining, we can go on and on into that.

That's good. What, when, who? And that can be done on piece of paper. It doesn't have to be done in a fancy system. I've also seen a trap that people fall into all the time. It's like, oh, I'm gonna, I'm gonna like sign up for this tool or this software or this thing. And that's going to like magically all of a sudden help me become more organized or create a system here. But what we're really thinking about here is like the core concept of what a system really is. It's the what, the when and the who.

And many people you already do it for your household. Whether you realize it or not, if you've ever created a chore chart or divided up who's doing the dishes, you've already been building systems. And yet when it comes to especially creative businesses, we don't take that same level of care. Which is silly because as creators, again, our creativity, our energy, our willpower is our main value. Add, like the ability to show up for YouTube. You need a lot of free time for that. And if we're wasting all of our energy on trying to remember, wait, did I take the trash out? Did I send that invoice? Did I read that book that was recommended in the Mighty Summit? Like, when we start wasting our energy in all these unintentional ways, we lose the fundamental business.

Okay, so I can hear a couple of things coming up here. One of the things is, but, Layla, I'm a visionary and I just need somebody else to build a system for me. I'm the idea person, I'm the visionary somebody. I need somebody else. If I could just have an integrator to come in and help me build my systems for me. I'm just waiting around for that magical. I'm like 20 years into my career and I'm still waiting around for that magical integrator to come save me. Uh, talk to me about that where it's like, but come out like, this is not my personal. It's really great for those of you who have that personality type, but what about for the rest of us who have a different personality type? What is your thoughts about that?

I just yesterday, I'm kid you not, I recorded a 10 minute rant about this that I'm pretty sure I'm going to get a cease and desist over. So check YouTube for that video before it goes away, before it disappears. But to, to get right to it, I think where we need to shift is our understanding of what this process stuff is. I think a lot of people treat it almost like, like an event coordinator. Right?

Okay.

The event coordinator is going to get all the ducks in a row and basically be the cleanup crew for our grand vision of, say, a wedding we're planning. That's really not what process is at this level. That's like the little nitty gritty stuff. What we're talking about here of what you do, who does it and when do you do it. That is better viewed as internal branding. It's the vision for how things happen inside and what I love about creatives and I kind of view myself in that category as well, is we love branding. Right. We want to make sure we're putting the right vibe out to the world, that we're phrasing things the right way, that we look the right way and have the right fonts and colors. That is all just the facade. And I feel like it's an old western town where you've got that beautiful facade and then you walk in the doors of the business. What's inside? If we were in a physical storefront, visionaries would be obsessed with what happens inside the hotel lobby as well. Yet because this is knowledge work and it's invisible, we think, oh, no, no, that's details. I'm not talking about dusting here. I'm talking about what is the furniture inside your business? How do you make things happen? This internal branding is honestly more impactful to your day to day and your customers day to day than anything that you have on the outside of the business.

Yeah, that's. I'm going to take that one away. It's like, for the vision of how things happen. And the metaphor of, like, the inside and the outside of the hotel is also really good here. It's like we're just kind of breaking down some of these mental barriers here.

Right.

Okay. The next thing is, where do I get started? So it's like, the what here?