The Efficiency Blueprint: Your Guide to Making Your Business Better

In the ever-evolving world of business, where every decision can be turned towards success or a step into uncertainty, small businesses and startup startups often find themselves at a crossroads. The challenge? How to streamline operations, cut costs, and still maintain the quality and efficiency that customers demand? And that's what we're talking about today on Marc Haine Live. Welcome to this episode. This is where small business owners and entrepreneurs develop new skills to help them create the jaw-dropping, show-stopping experience that their customers and their employees deserve. I am your host, Customer and Employee Experience Strategist Marc Haine. I am so glad that you are here for this very special episode. We're going to be talking about operational excellence. And my guest today is business operations expert John Basford. Today, we will uncover the truth behind operational excellence and reveal what it really takes to streamline your business operations without cutting corners. Together, we will explore the unseen dangers lurking in your operational strategies and the silent killers of efficiency and growth. Don't you think we need like the Twilight Zone music behind me right now? My one ask is that if you know somebody who could use this information, please go ahead and share a link to this episode. You know, it is really easy to get caught up in the day-to-day operations, tirelessly pushing for growth and efficiency. But in this relentless pursuit, many business owners, especially those at the helm of startups and small businesses, face a hidden adversary— rented lips. But it's not just the competition. It's the struggle to balance cost cutting with the operational effectiveness of their business. The reality is you might be inadvertently steering your business away from its potential, bogged down by the inefficiencies you cannot quite pinpoint. We know it's not working as great as it should be. And we keep asking ourselves, what can we do better? So that brings us to our Question of the Day. So, when was the last time you took a step back to critically assess your operational strategies? Are you confident that your current approach is not only maintaining but enhancing the overall efficiency and quality of your services even if you have limited resources. I'd love for you to be part of this conversation. Why don't you go ahead and share this episode on your favorite social media platform, hashtag it #ExperienceLeadership, and put down your comments, even your questions. I'd love for you to be part of this conversation. My guest today is John Bassford, the Maestro of Operational Transformation. The CEO and founder of Lateral Solutions and the man who turns the cogs of startups and small businesses into well-oiled machines of efficiency. John isn't just an operational specialist or professional. He's an operational visionary. He's kind of like a chess grandmaster but for business strategy. Always 3 steps ahead, turning challenges into checkmates. With a storied career spanning director, VP roles, John brings a blend of emotional intelligence, lateral thinking, and a passion for cultivating work cultures that aren't just productive. They are revolutionary. John, welcome to the show. It's so great to have you.

Thank you for having me.

Hey, before we get into today's topic, could you just maybe tell us a little bit about how you serve your clients?

Sure. So, we're pretty much operations all day, every day. That's the core focus of what we do. But we do focus on a number of different solutions, one of them being recruitment. You talked earlier about CEOs and founders getting bogged down into the day-to-day minutiae. So, one of the key roles that we play is helping CEOs, founders, owners step out of that, stop working in their business, start working on their business. And one of the best ways that we can do that is by helping them find an operational person who can truly take over those administrative and operational duties and roles, so they can, you know, rest assured that things are being taken care of without having to worry about that every single day. We also provide some advising and coaching services. And then a key piece of what we do is also assessments. You know, it's important to always be assessing your business, your organization on what it's doing and why it's doing that.

Right.

And we provide a number of different solutions and offerings that really help organizations do that.

I love that. You've hit so many nails on the head just in that little description of what you do and how you serve and how you take care of. At the end, the one thing that we've talked a lot about on the show is this whole idea that people are so busy working in the business, they're not working on the business. And this is hopefully the people tuning in today are those people who can learn some lessons today. I'd like to discuss some of the issues that you're seeing with your clients. 50,000-foot level, what is the big problem small businesses and startups are experiencing when it comes down to operational excellence?

Yeah, I think the biggest problem and where majority of my conversations start with a prospective client is they just don't know what they don't know. Right? Like, their business is in an industry, an expertise that they have usually. But it's usually not in the operations piece. It's not the HR; it's not the accounting; it's not the technology. And so majority of them come to me and say, John, I know things aren't working right. I just don't know what it is and how to get there. And so a key part of is really diving in and doing that assessment of where things are and, and figuring out where the organization is trying to go. And so—

Right.

What can we build operationally to really help them get there?

Yes, yes. And this again, to your point, I think it was Michael Gerber in E-Myth talked about how people, especially a lot of entrepreneurs start businesses up. They're a technician in their business. But they've never been trained on leadership, human resources, marketing, the whole whack of kind of capacities that we need in order to keep our businesses afloat. So, in your mind, how does a lack of resources impact operational efficiency in small business? Because how does somebody know that they need an HR manager?

Yeah, yeah. You know, the tricky thing for small business startups is the resource management, right? So, what is the cost? What's the time to make sure we do this right? And I think a lot of startups and small businesses tend to do one of 3 things. Either the CEO convinces themselves that they understand enough and are committed enough to operations that they will handle it. But they get sidetracked, right? It becomes the last thing they think about. And so, things aren't done, aren't done well. Or they'll outsource it to someone in a very overqualified way. I've worked with a client where they had their $600-an-hour attorney handling their business insurance, which is really just a mediation between the business and the insurance broker. You don't really need a lot of expertise there. You got to rely on the right partner, right? Or they hand it off to someone who is very junior. They have the time to do the work, but they don't understand all the nuances. And a lot of, you know, internal operations isn't rocket science, but there's a lot of nuance behind it. And so, the key is showing them the best path forward to get the expertise they need without breaking the bank.

Yeah, yeah. I've seen that time and again though, where the president or the head of the company is because the company is small enough, it's like, oh no, no, I'll take care of it. I'll just do it. I'll just— and to your point, nothing gets done well and everything becomes so backlogged. And then, I've also seen where somebody will hire somebody to do it. And the next step that they do is like, great! So, you can take care of that. Why don't you take care— here, do this as well. And then, do this as well. And so, this person who is maybe the bookkeeper all of a sudden now is posting things on social media. And updating the website. And all of a sudden, that capacity goes to hell in a handbasket because these aren't specialists.

Yeah, 100%. And that's one reason why I've launched Biz Ops Masters, which is my coaching and mastermind program because there are so many different areas. Like to your point, a lot of times, an executive assistant gets just— everything gets dumped on them, right? If there's something that isn't hired to do that task, That's where it falls. And again, they have the time and energy to be able to do this stuff, but they don't have the internal, you know, knowledge and nuance of everything. So my mastermind I'm creating and launching in January is really designed to provide that education and training, but also office hours. So when they get handed something that they don't even know where to begin, instead of spending hours and weeks trying to trial and error and trying to figure out where to go, they They can tap into a network of operations directors who have been there and done that and really cut down that learning curve.

I love that. And we'll get into a lot more later on about the value of mentorship and coaches and that sort of thing. I do know that a lot of people, to your point, you mentioned that some people know that things are wrong but they don't know what it is. Are there any telltale signs of operational inefficiencies that are negatively affecting Yeah.

So, that's a tricky one. You know, I would say for the most part, a lot of the CEOs and founders that I work with, kind of trust your gut. You know, if you're having someone handle tasks and duties that you, you know, in your head should be this amount of time and it's taking 3, 4, or 5 times the amount of time to get that handled, you know, trust your gut on that. So that, that's the first piece of it. And the other one is, is taking a really solid look at the manual processes in place, right? If things are being entered in a very manual way, you know, whether you're talking about accounting, HR, you know, onboarding, payroll, all of these things, there's so many systems now that are all cloud-based, all digital, to where you really should be reducing the amount of manual time you put into this. So really taking that assessment of how many hours and minutes people are putting into tasks that really should be happening a lot quicker.

Yeah, yeah. I mean, as a telltale, somebody who knows what it's supposed to take. But would it be fair to say that there's a lot of people who don't know how long these things take and they're driving these agendas, not realizing that there are more efficient ways to be able to do the work?

Yeah, and that's a tough thing, right? It's because every organization is a little different. They all use different tools and resources and, and processes of how they're doing things. So, I mean, that's really why it is important that you work with someone who, you know, even from an initial consulting basis, that can really kind of steer you the right direction and just, just quarterback it, right? Again, if you don't have the budget for, for, you know, full-time outsourced support or hiring that person internally, but at least working with someone initially who can point you in the right directions and say, look, you're doing everything from a 1990s, 2000s way of doing it. There are a lot better ways. Look at these platforms, these tools, these resources that really can help streamline the process without breaking the bank.

Yes, yes, yeah. I love that. I think that's a really good suggestion. But at the same token, there are no shortages of people who are willing to take our money. And so, when we go out and we see something on the internet about an HR system or something, and then you call them up, you go, yeah, I'd like to demo what you— how do I do this? And then, you yourself take this on not realizing that that might not be the most effective thing for your business. The people you're sitting down with and talking to are actually salespeople, not consultants. And so, we can actually get blindsided and throw a ton of money into what we're thinking Yeah, yeah, absolutely.

You know, for a starter, you know, I would say anytime that you're vetting some kind of solution or platform, at a minimum, you want to be vetting at least 3, right? You want to be taking a look at different aspects. And here's a resource that I think a lot of people underutilize, which is use the vendors against each other.

Yeah.

If you have Vendor A saying, this is why we're the best solution for you, and Vendor B is saying this, tell, tell the, tell each one of them what the other one's saying. Let them do the vetting for you. Let them kick the tires. Let them, let them really kind of poke the holes in the sales pitch, as you're talking about, and really get down to the nitty-gritty of what it is that's being offered. Is this a viable solution? Is it, is it answering the problem that we have?

Yes, yes, yeah. You know, it's interesting because we're going down— it's so easy to go down rabbit holes with this stuff as well. Somebody who is suffering through ineffective efficiencies, ineffective processes and operational things affecting their long-term efficiencies. What kind of impact do you think it's happening to businesses that you come across when they come to you? They go, I don't know what the problem is. I know there's a problem. You know, their costs are going up. Their sales are going down. Whatever. What are ultimately the long-term impacts that you're seeing if it's not being addressed properly?

Yeah, so I think there are 2 things. One is the amount of time wasted in trial and error in research. And we all know time is money. So, when you don't know the subject matter that you're working on, you eat up a lot of time and costs and just trying to figure out the right, the right answer. And time and time again, going back to your question of, you know, what are, what are some of the problems that, that I see CEOs and founders facing? It's, it's paralysis by indecision. And when they, when people aren't comfortable with the subject matter, let's, again, take payroll companies, right? They, everyone always wants to choose the right payroll company. Well, here's, here's an answer: there isn't one. There are pros and cons to every single one of them. But they get so bogged down in trying to determine the right right one and are not confident in their ability to do that. So what they end up doing is doing nothing. And when you're— when you have an inability to make a decision, what you're really doing is choosing to stay exactly where you are. And if you're not making changes, then you're not growing.

Yeah, it's sometimes easier to deal with the devil you know than the one you don't. But at the same token, what's your philosophy about this idea of Failing forward?

Sure. You know, I think that's something that I even do in my own company, right? We play around with different tools and strategies that, that trying to find the best way to help our clients. So, you know, the best thing to do is, is, you know, obviously, you want to, you know, do your due diligence, making sure that you are making as right a decision as possible. But the best thing to do is just execute it. Make sure that you know the outs. You know, something's not working. Make sure you understand the costs, both time and money, to make a change. But the best thing to do is do as much due diligence as you can, as efficiently as you can. Make a decision and move forward.

Yeah, yeah. I was telling a colleague the other day, she was in a pivotal moment. And I said, you know, take a step. You can always pivot. But keep moving yourself because the minute you stop moving yourself, You're just gonna look back 6 months from now and going, I haven't moved an inch. At least you can move and then pivot, move, pivot, move, pivot. I'm always challenged I think in especially in the realm of small businesses where you have these owner operators, these business people who are again to our earlier point, heads down. They're working so hard in the business. They're not working on the business. This idea of redefining the leadership role to play a primary role in fostering the efficient work environment. What needs to happen do you think to a lot of these different organizations?

Yeah, so I talk about culture a lot. And today, culture has become a little bit of a buzzword. And a lot of times, it's around whether there's a fruit cart and how many you know, holidays you get and how much PTO time you get. But for me, for organizations that are looking to grow, culture has to do a lot more with, you know, how you manage your people. And some of the key features of that is really creating a culture in which ideas and input can come from anywhere at any time. You know, the days of telling, you know, staff that it's, that it's above your pay grade or it's not your department, In small organizations, every department is intertwined in some way, shape, or form. And so there's, you know, whether you're on the operations side, marketing side, sales side, whatever it may be, you all have an insight into what each department's doing and how it affects you and the effectiveness and results of the organization. So sometimes, you know, listening to your accountant or the person doing the bookkeeping, you know, give suggestions on how to improve sales can be very, very valuable. So I really say create that culture where people are allowed to express ideas and make sure that each and every employee is allowed to contribute and really provide insight into what is working and what is not working in your organization.

I just want to high-five you and hug you so much right now, John. Honestly, I've been preaching this. I've been preaching this for ages. And in fact, I was just I was at a meeting with a rather large museum operation and we were talking about that exact thing. I was talking with the leadership and they have a problem. And I said, have you talked to your staff about it? And they go, no, why? Well, why wouldn't you talk to them? They're the ones doing the work. Talk to them, right? Find out what ideas. I truly believe that everybody, that every person within our organization has passion points and they have superpowers. And we won't know what those are unless we're talking to them.

Yep, 100%.

Any other comments about that?

Yeah. So, I think on that same token is really, as you said, talking to your employees, right? Is really understanding from a culture standpoint of what makes them tick, right? What makes them excited about coming to work? And what will make them excited about continuing to come to work. And I know sometimes in today's culture, in looking at the next generation, that it's also, you know, seen as a generation that, that just only wants to do what it wants to do and complains and this and that. But truly, if you look at the next generation, I think they always become more and more passionate, right? Not, not, not needy, but passionate. They all want to contribute. And so I'm not suggesting that you Never have staff do anything that they don't want to do. But really take the, take the time to get to know them and what is, what makes them passionate about the work they're doing, the organization they're working for. And really, instead of trying to backfill the areas that they don't like doing, really encourage that, that growth in the areas that they're passionate about, because they will put more time, more effort into areas they're passionate about than ones they're not.

Yeah, and it's so interesting that when I talk to leaders and they talk to me about the younger generation, oh, they're so lazy. Nobody wants to work. And it was interesting because when I went through the organization, I actually started interviewing people. I'd find out things like, so what do you do when you're not at work? And there's this one gent and he plays guitar. And it's like, that's really interesting. How many hours a day do you play guitar? He goes, oh, between 3 and 4 hours.

Wow!

But wait a second. Go back to the boss and I said, you said he was lazy and he didn't want to work.

Right.

It's like, how does he spend 3 or 4 hours practicing something? Right? And so, could it be that we're not tapped into what drives people and what gives them purpose? Right?

Yeah, and my career actually began in the nonprofit association space. So, I actually do a lot of speaking still in the association space. And something I'm asked to speak about a lot and it comes up a lot is the next generation. And something I always encourage Go back and Google, you know, Plato's view of the, of the next generation. You know, someone from hundreds of years ago, thousands of years ago, if you read their descriptions of the next generation of their era, it is the exact same thing that we say about ours. So it's not so much that the next generation is any different. The problem is we're getting old, right? We're getting grumpy; we're getting old. We want to keep things the way that we want to keep them. And the next generation is always going to move things in the next step forward. And so, it really— you really got to learn to embrace that and utilize that to improve your company, improve your organization, really help it grow and move forward and not stay where it is.

Yeah, absolutely. I'd like to get into some tips about what business owners can do to maximize efficiency When the spotlight shines on your business, are customers applauding or yawning?

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Welcome back! I am speaking with Business Operations Expert John Bassford. John, you were talking about a program that's coming out in January. Could you tell us a little bit about the scope of what that is, who the target customers are, and how you serve?

Sure, absolutely. So, I'm launching a coaching/mastermind program called Biz Ops Masters. And it's really geared towards anyone who is overseeing internal operations in their business, whether that is, you know, the owner-operator who hasn't stepped out of that yet, or the executive assistant who, you know, all of these tasks just get dumped on him or her, or, you know, everyone, everyone in between. And so we're going to follow a traditional kind of, you know, mastermind program of weekly Zoom calls that are our top goal. you know, talk about things like supply chain, HR, accounting, business insurance, all those internal operational functions. We'll bring in subject matter experts, accountants, lawyers, etc. But also, one of the key differences for this, and I think is really gonna be a game changer, is we're gonna have office hours. So, you know, we talked before about the amount of time that's wasted on trial and error and research, you know, to have, for people who are junior or, again, don't really understand and have the nuance of internal operations, be able to tap into an experienced operations director and say, hey, you know, my boss says that, you know, we should be looking at a new payroll company. Where do I begin? You can talk to someone who's, who's been there and done that and can throw out, you know, 3 to 5, you know, solid places to start your search and vetting, instead of just starting the Google pages. So it's really going to be a game changer in really helping to elevate people in their career, reduce that learning curve, reduce the trial and error so that organizations can truly be more efficient and effective with their operations while also advancing each of those individuals' career knowledge.

Love that. Can you please make sure I get the link for it? I'll make sure it's in the show notes so that people can sign up for it when the registration links are live. I think that would be super valuable. And it seems to me a little bit more cost-effective than just going to one particular coach for one particular idea or one particular problem. Startups. How can a startup founder instill— we were talking about before about this idea of the culture itself. How do they instill a culture of efficiency from the ground up when they themselves might not have a great definition for it?

Sure. The thing about culture is one will be formed regardless. And so it is very important that the culture is very intentional from the top and communicated to staff. So first of all, you know, they need to come to the decision of, OK, I want to create a culture of efficiency and results. That's step No. 1 is making that determination and communicating that with their staff. From there, I think that is probably the biggest step that most people miss is they don't define it and they don't communicate it. If you So, if you start there and you start with just verbalizing that to your staff and you allow, as we talked earlier, allow for that culture of input and insights from every different direction, that's really the place to start.

Yeah, it really is this idea, the power behind creating a declaration and then releasing it to everybody in your organization sounds like a really great idea. It's definitely a great idea in creating your own leadership accountability because people will call you out if you're not living it. Absolutely. Yeah. Go on.

I was going to say again, and, you know, again, part of the culture is being able to create that culture that allows that. You know, I have worked in organizations where, you know, you never bring an idea to the CEO. I have worked in other organizations where, I mean, you can be as blunt as possible with the CEO and he's like, All right, I gotcha. And takes it, runs with it, spreads it around to the team, takes the insight. So again, really just kind of create that culture of openness that really allows for that dialogue to happen.

Yes. And so, it means building an environment of trust, trustworthiness. In previous episodes, we've talked about using the techniques of improv, the yes, and philosophy of when somebody comes to you instead of shutting them down going, no, we can't do that. Which will just kind of mute any further suggestions. We use the yes, and models and saying, that's very interesting. Can we explore that a little bit and see what that looks like? And see, have them do the work. You could still send them back and do the work by pointing them to what are the overall objectives. And so, that suggestion, do you think that meets the objective? And have really good conversations. But it takes A little bit of intentionality, a little bit of time, doesn't it?

Yeah, absolutely. And I may be giving too much information here, but I once worked for an organization that started the same year as Amazon. And the CEO and founder was constantly asking the staff, we started the same year as Amazon. Why are we not Amazon? And then you fast forward a few days, hours, weeks, whatever it may be, and you pitch an idea. And you get, well, that's not what I had envisioned when I started this company. I don't think Jeff Bezos had any idea that the biggest earner for his company was gonna be cloud storage. But that's what it is, right? So you can't say, why aren't we Amazon? And then say, you know, what I had envisioned for this organization 21 years ago, before social media, before other things, that's not what I had intended. He, you got to learn, you got to adapt, you got to realize that, that sometimes you're initial intentions and ideas from 20 years ago are not going to be as relevant today as you think they are.

Yes.

I mean, and a case in point is how many people are in the job that they went to post-secondary for? Or living up there, living the job that they had the idea of their passion point when they were 17, right? Chances are we went all over the place. And so, to your point, business Businesses need to do that as well, I guess.

Yeah, 100%. You know, again, I went to law school and came out of law school not knowing really what I wanted to do. I always had the vision of going to law school. I was that, you know, smart, argumentative, you know, kid and was always told I was going to be a great lawyer one day. And that was my plan. When I got to law school, I really wasn't quite sure that's what I wanted to do. When I, you know, I kind of fell into working for an organization I was a member in law school. You know, that kind of, you know, spurred my career and helped me end up where I am today. But yeah, like, I am not the same person I was when I was 20, 25, 30. Don't have the same ambitions. Don't have the— I've learned a lot more about myself, about my strengths and my skill sets and how I can utilize those to give back to others and to organizations.

Yeah, yeah. And so why would business be any different? We know that a lot of small businesses and startups especially have one thing I think that is just paramount in every business. And that is limited capital. They have— there are 2 things actually. They have limited capital and not enough storage.

Right, right.

So, in the limited capital side, how does a scarcity mindset impact leaders' willingness to adopt innovation models, new ways of thinking about operational efficiency, and so on?

Yeah, I think that is a problem I see quite often, right? And even in some groups I'm a part of on social media, people posting this and that about adopting different strategies. And I see a lot of people posting, what free app can I use to do this? I'm like, well, Why do you only want to look at free? For one, outside of enterprise systems, which no small business should be using enterprise systems, most software solutions are fairly inexpensive. And the way to look at this is, if I could free up 10 hours of every single one of my people on my staff, how much more could we get out of that? If I'm paying them, you know, $30 an hour. Yeah, yeah, yeah. $20, $30 an hour. And I am freeing up 10 hours of their time a week to do other things and to grow. And a software solution that costs me $300 a month? It's a no-brainer, right? You just, you just got to get out of this, this mindset that technology and tools are expensive and out of the reach for a small business or startup. That's probably the biggest misinformation is that we can't afford it. Majority of the time, you can. And the amount of time you're going to save completely washes out any additional cost that you're going to have.

Yeah, absolutely. It's so funny the way that you put it because one of the things that we teach leaders is we're constantly saying to them, take a look at your job tasks. Are you doing the $30 an hour jobs or are you doing the $300 $300 an hour jobs. And if you're sitting down doing these $30 an hour jobs, then you have a problem.

Yeah. Something I often say to CEOs and people I'm talking to is, you know, you may be the CEO, but if you are doing the books, you're also a bookkeeper. Right? Right. What amount of money? What is your time worth as a professional? And your time in the company. And are you, like you said, are you doing the tasks that solidify that value or are you reducing it?

You know, we've talked so much so far. There's been lots of tips that you've brought forward just through this conversation thus far. Do you have any other tips on what business operators can do to maximize efficiencies while having limited resources? How do they overcome that? You mentioned the software part, which I think is brilliant. Anything else?

Yeah.

So, this is always tough to convince people of this. And it's difficult because a lot of times to create the most efficiency and be the most resourceful with your money is to bite the bullet and spend a little bit of money upfront to make sure it's done right. I mean, the amount of time and expenses I see in people who just piecemeal their operations together without a strategy, without clear connectivity, and what always ends up happening is they're relaunching all of it again in 4 months, 6 months, a year. And you tend to, you know, spend twice as much money in that transition, um, that if you just would have, you know, you know, bite the bullet, do it right, spend the money. Again, I don't think we're ever talking about extraordinary amounts of money, but just that little bit of money to make sure that you do it right the first time. That's the biggest way to start and make sure that you're being the most productive with your time and money.

Love that. Love that. Anything else as far as maximizing Efficiencies as far as tips for these limited resource businesses.

Yeah, so you know when the spotlight shines on your business.

Sorry about that.

That's all right. When I'm working with an organization, you know one of the one of the first things that I'm always you know tapping into and looking at and having them look at is is you know how how different pieces that you're utilizing because everyone's got accounting. Right? Everyone, everyone has HR. Everyone has these pieces. But you take a look at how do they work together? They, you know, APIs are all over the place, right? All these software systems work with one another. But take a real good look at what are we doing manually? And what can software do to reduce that? Because, you know, obviously, the manual Going from manual to automatic is reducing time. But the other thing you're also doing is reducing human error. And can machines break and have errors? Of course they can. But if you're, if you're taking data, and you're entering it in one system, and then you're entering it in another system, and then entering it in another system, then now you have 3 possible chances of error in just typing. You know, having a letter wrong, having a number wrong. And so looking at, you know, what systems are we utilizing? And can they talk to one another more efficiently and more effectively? Zapier is a great example of that. That is, again, a very low-cost tool that really can, you know, take a form that's come in from Jotform and put it into an Excel sheet and vice versa and take a lead that's come in through your CRM and email and automatically route that to a sequence in your text system. You know, just again, taking a look at what can we utilize from a software and tool standpoint to really reduce the amount of manual entry and human aspect to this. Now, you still have to have the human know the system, check the system, do those little spot checks to make sure everything is working correctly. But really take a look at what are we doing manually and what tools and resources can we tap into to take that away and make it a more automated system.

Yeah. And it's not a question of, oh, you know, at my age, I don't know technology. So, I don't want—

right?

There are people out there to help as well. And John's a perfect example of that. John, this is fascinating. Can you just let everybody know if this is resonating with them how they can get in touch with you?

Sure. The best thing to do is go to our website, www.think You can— our email's on there as well as a, you know, contact form. And, you know, take a look at our services. And, you know, our conversations always start as that, as a conversation, you know, free of charge and figuring out, you know, where your pain points are and what services we offer and if we can help those pain points. So, you know, reach out to us and, you know, we'll work together to see if we can find some solutions.

Lovely. You know, I can really see that sometimes Sometimes, the pressure to do more with less can really burden teams and their overall effectiveness. How can startups and small businesses do more with less without overburdening their teams? You mentioned software, which I think is a good start. Is there anything else?

Yeah, I'm a little biased on this because of my background and what I've done and the roles I play and the people that I work with through the mastermind, etc. But, you know, really having that jack-of-all-trades person that can really dive in and solve, you know, majority of problems that you have. They, they, they, you really need that person who has the problem-solving skills, the resource management, that whether you are throwing, you know, your business insurance at them, a banking problem, needing credit cards, needing a new payroll system, you know, having that person who just has that, that, that general logic ability and then problem-solving skills, that research skills that can tackle anything. That is probably, in small organizations, probably the last role that a lot of companies hire. But it actually should be your first one because they, if you hire the right person with the right soft skills, there's so many different problems that they can solve and solutions they can bring to your company. So that's my first thing is really look at that jack-of-all-trades person And again, I'm a little biased because that's how I see myself and, and has been a hallmark of my career. But really making sure you have that person that can really look at the results, the efficiency of how your organization is running. And the other thing too is, is, you know, we keep talking about culture, but, you know, just really building that culture of, of results and results, results-oriented. And I, and I don't mean that to say, make it all about the dollar and the bottom-line revenue.

Right.

But really taking a look at, you know, what it is that each person's supposed to be achieving, and setting those KPIs, those key performance indicators, making sure that those are being set. You know, speak to the vision of the organization so they know not just the day-to-day tasks, but where you're looking to take that organization. So while they're doing those tasks, they can be looking for those efficiencies, you know, getting better results. And of course, you know, oftentimes, a piece that's missed, missed in this process is you got to have the oversight, right? You don't want to micromanage and be over their shoulder. But you gotta, you gotta set those key performance indicators, know what that metrics is for everybody on your team, and then do that follow-up and making sure that everyone's hitting their goal and really making, you know, data-driven, sound, logical decisions to get those results.

And it really does feed into what I want to talk to next. And that is the role of mentorship and coaching and how that should play not only in our efficiency equation but how it plays with us being able to lead our teams. And we'll get to that right after this.

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As you can tell, we are having a fantastic conversation, my brother from another mother, John, and I. Are just thrilled to be able to serve you today. Both of us are committed to serving businesses just like yours. So, if you would like to explore how we could possibly benefit your company, or if you're planning a leadership retreat or a conference and you need keynote speakers or breakout session speakers, please drop us a line. Our contact information is in the show notes down below. John, we've been talking a lot about operational efficiencies and of course. But a lot of it starts internally with our processes. Do you have any additional tips about driving internal processes or even a way for us to be able to pinpoint those internal processes that are really holding us back?

Yeah, I think for a lot of younger organizations, one of the mistakes they make is not documenting it. The first thing in solving your process problem is is to have a defined process. You know, if it's, if it's willy-nilly, and people are, you know, one day it's, it's a 5-step process, one day it's a 10-step process, depending on who's doing it, you know, that's part of the problem. So, so really, you got to define that process. And, and, you know, again, work with it from a both strategic and a tactical level. You bring in the people who are actually doing the work. Have that discussion, have that dialogue of, OK, what are we doing? How are we doing it? And why are we doing it that way? And then the next step, as we keep, keep talking about, is creating that culture. Creating that culture to say, hey, look, I know we've been doing it this way. But I just had an idea. I think if we do this and this, we're going to cut out 3 steps of this process. And we're going to save a lot of time, a lot of money. So, you want to define the process. with everyone's intake and perspective on that. And then create that culture to say, okay, we got the process. We get— we're getting the results that we wanted to. But constantly be looking at how can we improve the results and how can we improve the process to create more efficiency around it. That's the key to really driving an efficient process throughout your organization.

Yeah, you know, the easiest thing I've told people to do is There's so many different screen recording software things on there that you could record and just have your people talk through what they're doing as they're doing it. Record the screenshot. And then, you just have to take that and get it transcribed through a really inexpensive service. At the very least, if nothing else, you're going to end up with notes that you can sit down with your team and say, how can we streamline this process?

Absolutely. Yeah, standard operating procedures. Again, it's something that's You know, that terminology has been around forever. But I think a lot of, you know, more junior organizations that are just starting out and starting it going, that tends to be something that falls by the wayside. And really, like you said, there's so many tools that are out there that you don't even have to spend the time typing this out and rethinking it. Just like you said, record it through your Loom or whatever, whatever software you have, and just, and have that even as, as a training piece, right? Because at some point, your organization is going to grow. Hopefully, that person who's been doing this task for the last, you know, 6 to 12 months, they're going to be moving on to higher tasks, and someone's going to come underneath them. And you got that recording right in there. Here, watch this. Anytime you have a problem, watch this. It reduces that, the amount of micromanagement and handholding you have to do. You're creating a standard operating procedure by recording this and then having that also as an educational resource tool when someone needs to learn the process.

Yeah, or a great debug. It's so interesting because I know with startups, one of the biggest handicaps is that John started off by doing it and developing a process and problem solving it and whittling at the problem until he got something that worked for him. But that's— and he might be doing it for years after that. But at some point, he's going to want— you're going to want to pass that on. And that's where That's where the headaches really start to happen, especially in the succession planning space.

Yeah, absolutely. I mean, even in my business, I mentioned that when I started as a consultant, I got into consulting launching operations for startups and some transitioning organizations, all the internal operations pieces. And I'd done that a dozen times now to where, again, I documented it. I could hand this document over to anybody and say, Just follow these steps, and it will, you know, use my playbook of exactly how I've done this for a dozen organizations to really launch effective and efficient operations that they literally can just, just walk through step by step and really, you know, cut down the learning curve, cut down the time it takes to do all this stuff. And really just having those resources is absolutely valuable to any organization.

Thank you for not reinventing the wheel. Yep, that's it. Hey, how important— so we talked about at the very beginning, we hinted at this idea of mentorship and coaching. I personally believe that we're in an era now where we're giving our leaders way too much work to do because the work that they're doing is doing everything except working with their employees, working with the staff, having those conversations with the employees. How important is mentorship navigating this, these complexities that we're talking about today?

Yeah, are you talking about the mentorship for the executive himself or the executive being a mentor for the staff?

Both.

Both, OK. Yeah, you know, I'm a, I'm a big believer in coaching and mentorship. I'm a part of some masterminds. I have a variety of different coaches that I work with over the time. Again, you know, on this, on this podcast, we're talking about my operational experience in in helping bring that to clients and organizations. You know, my, my weak spot is the execution of marketing for my own company. And so I rely a lot on coaches and mentors and outsourced service providers that really handle that for me. But, you know, you gotta, you gotta be humble. As a leader, you've got to know where your strengths and weaknesses are. And As a leader, you know, unfortunately, you can't just ignore your weaknesses. You gotta make sure that you have that, that coaching, that mentorship to help you improve those or create that backfill, where someone else is stepping in for your weakness. So for, as a leader, you should always be constantly learning and growing. And then again, you know, for your staff, it really comes back to that, that conversation on culture again. You know, creating that culture where you care about your staff, making sure that you are there for them to help them with their, with their, the problems that they're facing in their work and helping them lead them. You know, give them the tools they need. Again, I'm a, I'm a, I'm really opposed to micromanagement style of leadership. But, but you've got to be able to give them the tools and resources they need to be autonomous in their role.

Right.

And also, again, you're not going to know everything about everything. Have that culture where professional and personal development is a part of your budget, where your staff can tap into a budget to go get certified in social media or do this additional training. Maybe they need some mindset coaching, right, to help improve their, their, their mental health and their, their confidence in themselves, so they can be more productive throughout the day. So Again, there's all kinds of different mentorship and coaching opportunities out there. And it really needs to be a part of every organization that wants to grow and succeed.

Yes, yes. And again, the culture, the trustworthiness behind it, the investment in our team to help them thrive as well is so important. This has been such a great discussion, John. Do you have any cautionaries for those people who might be tuning into this saying, yeah, I need to do this. And they can have a habit of band-aiding stuff and it becomes the procedure or policy of the month. Any cautionaries?

Yeah.

So again, the organization I worked for when I stepped into this role, my predecessor had literally mapped out like I think there were over 45 different software pieces that this organization was using. And it literally, on the diagram, was a spider web of what was connecting to here to there. It really was, just became a web. And the problem that, that this organization ran into is they were chasing, you know, flashy, shiny things. And someone said, hey, we could utilize this; this would help us. So again, you know, the, the, the— so 2 things here.

Yeah.

One is have strategy with what you're trying to do, right? Like, know where you're trying to go. Have that vision of where you're going, first of all. And then, you know, create, you know, the tools and platforms that you need to help you get there. And, you know, this is, you know, maybe not nice to say here, but, you know, going back to the old political phrase of keep it simple, stupid. You know, keep it simple. Don't try to do everything all at once. Again, you got to do things a little bit piece by piece.

Yeah.

I'm not saying piecemeal it. But you don't just, just, just throw everything at the dartboard and see what sticks when it comes to your tools and platforms and processes. You got to do things a little incremental. But the key is, is have that strategy in place to know what you're trying to accomplish. And then make sure that the tools and platforms you're going to be working with can get you there. And then also make sure that they work together.

Brilliant!

Brilliant!

As we wrap up, any last thoughts about what we've been talking about today? Did we miss anything?

No, this has been a great conversation. Again, when you're talking about things like operations and culture, we could spend all day talking about each one of these. But the real key here is for entrepreneurs, founders, CEOs, owners, You know, the big thing is, is a couple. One is, you know, make sure that you have that person operationally. And again, I realize I'm a little biased by saying this, but make sure you have that person who can really be that jack of all trades and make sure that things are being done effectively, efficiently. Don't be afraid to get things wrong. Don't let, don't let the fear of making a wrong decision keep your organization, hold it back by not making decisions moving forward. I think those are the key things. Utilize the resources, consultants, coaches, etc., that are out there that can really help give you that confidence in the decision you're making when it's an area that, that is just not your expertise. And I think if you can really do that and build the type of cultures that we're talking about with your staff, you'll, you'll, you'll have the right footing to really go a long way.

Love it. Can you remind everybody one more time how they can get ahold of you?

Yep. Best way is to go to our website, www. Our general email is on there as well as a contact form. And just let us know what your pain points are. And we're here to have a conversation free of charge and figure out the best way to solve those solutions for you.

Great! John, thank you so much for this conversation today. I thoroughly enjoyed our conversation. I enjoyed you sharing your passion and your expertise, which is extremely, extremely transparent. All through this broadcast today. It's been really brilliant. Thank you.

Thanks for having me.

Why don't you let me know if this was of value to you? As always, my offer stands. If you would like 30 minutes of my time to brainstorm your business with you and your team, feel free to book a time that works for you on my online calendar. It's in the show notes. It's the one that's marked meetwith.marchaine.com. It would It would be my absolute honor to be of service to you. And while you're at it, why don't you leave a comment or a review about this episode? I'd love to get your feedback. Was this of value to you? Is there stuff that you would like to know that you would like me to include in future episodes? Thank you so much for joining me today. My name is Marc Haine. I hope you stay safe, stay healthy, and I hope you dare to be the exception. Thank you, Marc.