I would say there's another bottleneck where if you have a bigger team and then the founder's like pulling resources for special projects because they're like, oh, I have this great idea. And then it's like, I need you and you and you. And it's like, ah. And so if you're not measuring capacity and you're not sort of wrangling in those ideas, that can really start to eat up production.

Welcome to the agency hour, our podcast where we help web design and digital agency owners create abundance for themselves, their teams, and their communities. This week we're joined by Juliana Meralanda. Juliana is the founder of Scaletime.co, who helped marketing agencies with consulting and training so that they can reduce the growing pains as their teams can grow. In this episode, we'll discuss reducing the growing pains for marketing agencies, the pillars of process, diagnosing founder itis, how the marketing changes for agencies as they grow, and what Juliana calls the four pillars of process. I'm Johnny Flash. Stay with us. How are you doing?

I am doing great. Thank you so much for having me. I really appreciate it.

Oh, yeah, I'm so excited. Our audience is gonna love you. So tell everyone a little bit about yourself and and everything.

Yeah, absolutely. So I am the founder of Scale Time. I've been working now with, you know, over 500, close to 600 agencies, and we're really helping them to scale and grow and really reduce the growing pains, um, no matter what the circumstances are. And and really it's that whole like let's get them into being really great lean, mean, profitable machines.

Awesome. Love it. Um, well, our I've got lots of questions because I'm obviously running my own agency. So um what what are some of the plateaus that you see, you know, as a business is trying to go to let's say half million to a million to several million, like what are what are some of the bottlenecks that you see? And maybe we could start kind of at the the low end and then work our way up. Um I'd love to know kind of what what you're seeing with the agencies that you're coaching.

Yeah, absolutely. And I think there's this, you know, as individuals start off in their agency journey, you go from like a solo to usually like a solo with like freelancers or contractors, to then it's like, uh oh, like I need people to work more consistently, you know, so so you're going from a smaller team and then you're growing in team, right? And so you're really going from like this doer operator until you get, you know, it's it's like a huge dash to the 1 million. Um, everyone's like, you gotta get past the million, but then there's a plateau at like 1.3, and I see it like all the time. It's like 1.2, 1.3, ah, and then it's another dash to kind of get to like the three million, and then you're like seven, you know, plus and until you're like then you're like about 50 million, right? So there's these these different plateaus and from going, you know, between like operator slash like owner investor, and they they often have to do with so much of the resources that you have, right? Because the resources that are available to you when you're an individual are really different when you have a team of like 70, right? And so I would say at the beginning, when you're going into this almost like, you know, trying to get to the million, it's all about your, you know, getting that initial team members, delegating those initial things and getting some processes like off your plate, going from wearing like 50 hats, I would say, to wearing about seven. So, you know, it's you're taking off hats as you're doing this and and you're giving them to other people. And and I think at the beginning, you're trying you're really starting to try to get your technology in place, you know, kind of like you're going off of the spreadsheets, hopefully, cross our fingers, right? You're not running on spreadsheets anymore, and then you're like, oh, I need some kind of project management tool, or you know, I need some sort of task thing to help me delegate. Maybe I need to like start doing videos. I don't think the concepts of SOPs are really in place yet, but it's just like I need to be able to give how-tos and instructions so that I can delegate certain things. So, really, it's it's about starting to put these offloading deliverables, I would say, right? So, so you're offloading projects and then deliverables. And then when you're trying to break that 1.3 because the same things that got you past a million aren't gonna get you to that next step, it's around communication and quality, right? Like, how how does my team communicate? How do we have agendas for our account executives or anyone who's doing client management? Are there FAQs? Are people still slack attacking? Or are we in a project management tool, right? So, how how are we building that and making sure that as you are growing, the quality doesn't decrease? Because oftentimes here we're stuck because it's still like a seesaw between sales and delivery, the owner, and or you know, maybe there's like a really great number two or small leadership team, and they still have like their hands on all the cookie jars, right? And so it's it's hard to keep quality and maintain growth.

And then do you mind if I interject real quick with Christmas? Go for it. Went through it. Okay, cool.

Go for it, yeah.

Yeah, so well, I would also curious, because I think you're spot on with all that. I'm curious how you see the marketing change, you know, in terms of like getting for agencies under that 1.3 or trying to get to the 1 million, like how you see agencies changing like their acquiring of clients versus maybe like as they get larger. I'm just uh if we could just talk to that a little bit, because I feel like at least one of the things that agency owners are always asking me is like, how do I get more clients, right? How do I get more revenue? How do I, you know, do that? And obviously, all these things help them because it frees up their time and it makes it more efficient and consistent and all that things, but sometimes they're just like, I need the phone to ring more, the email to to go off more. Like, what are you seeing for some of those agencies?

I have seen agencies grow to like two, three million dollars without having an acquisition strategy, which is phenomenal, right? Like, I think if you're the type of owner who's sort of like a visionary and you're a great salesperson and you can like sell milk to a cow, right? Then you can get really far with networking and making sure that you've got really great retention and your clients are referring you, right? And so we've seen this organic growth. However, if and then there's a type of agency owner who starts off and they're a really great craftsman, right? Like they're really good at, you know, learning the algorithms, knowing the trends, and knowing what's changing, and and they're like super passionate about either the creative or the deliverable, and they may not have the sales skills. And so this is where any agency owner, any business owner out there, like what they don't tell you is that you have to become a salesperson and that you have to have some level of marketing, right? And there's so much of the what is it, like the the cobbler's kids house no shoes, right? You know, so many of our owners come to me, they're like, Don't look at my website. Like we haven't done it, you know, or like there's there's that bit. And I think part of it is not like not knowing what to do, because as marketers, like, you know how to market. Now you might be too close to it to do it yourself, but what I often find to be the biggest missing link is not creating enough capacity and treating themselves like a client, right? And it's usually like you're you're past this point, it's like, okay, well, we need to do acquisition. It's like, okay, well, there's two parts of acquisition, right? You have marketing, which you know how to do, and you know, that's treat yourself like a client, and then there's sales, which if you're not a great salesperson, then either there's there's two ways around this. You hire somebody so that we can get more in the door. If not, um, you know, cash to a business is like oxygen to a human. I think Warren Buffett said that. And and so we really have to make sure that the business is still breathing.

That's good. That's good. And I think you're right, figuring out whether it's more on the marketing or the sales side where they're having the trouble, right? If the if the phone's ringing and they're getting stuff and they're not closing the deal, then obviously that's gonna be a problem. If the phone's not ringing, then doesn't really matter how good their sales are, if they don't have enough people to talk to, you know, it's gonna be it's gonna be a struggle. So I think that's a good differentiator that you brought up there for that. And then it so what are you seeing in some of the larger agencies in terms of uh once they kind of get up to that, you know, uh larger scale?

Yeah, and once you're trying to kind of hit that three million dollar mark, it's usually management and technology. It's like, okay, now you need a management team, right? Because as the owner or co-founder, um, maybe you have a number two, but you need the teams to be managed like individually, and putting in that layer is often a huge deal, right? Because you don't want to hire someone and now you're like, oh, now I'm paying all this overhead and I'm still doing the same thing because I don't have processes and systems for management, there's no performance management being done, right? Like, so so really starting to think of like how are we offloading management and performance, and and often there's like a revisit of like your technology, right? There's there's like a version two of whatever you got going on in tech to make things more integrated, more streamlined, making sure that different divisions or teams aren't using different project management tools or different things. I once once talked to a communications agency and they had four different project managements going like tools going on. Like somebody was using Trello, and then one was using ClickUp, and then another team was using Asana, and then it was, you know, we we start to see this. So so there's sort of like this version too. And then once you start, you know, going beyond the $10 million mark, the places where we see a lot of bottleneck then becomes a leadership and culture, really trying to make sure that the culture is there, that retention is there, your talent acquisition is there, and that leadership is doing a great job. So we're going really from thinking about you know offloading management and those types of decisions to really um offloading oversight. Right. Because if you could do that, then if your if your end game is like, okay, I want to sell the business, then you can without you as the owner having to stay there for, you know, strapped to the business and and the acquisition for a year plus, or you can get a higher multiple. If you want to really leave it as a cash asset, you know that it could do that because you've offloaded the oversight. And I think that's so huge.

That's good. That's good. Yeah, I think that I think you're right on. Uh let's talk about can we talk about processes for a moment? Like, what are you seeing in terms of um you know, processes that are creating a better client experience and kind of like what does that look like and how do how do the processes play into it? Because I think I know even in my own journey, you know, trying to like grow an agency of like being the person who was the doer that did everything and now having a team and serving a lot of clients, like I do a lot less of the stuff than I used to, right? Um, and and when you have we have multiple account managers running different projects, that we want all the projects to kind of end up the same, but it's a different project manager, it's a different designer, it's a different developer. And so making sure that there's like consistency there with like our deliverables is very important. So uh I'm curious like how how how you'd speak into that.

Yeah, absolutely. So I would say in order to really have consistency across all of your processes, right? So whether we're talking about like your client onboarding process or your client management or your AE, or if it's reporting, because that's a whole funky process in itself, right? Or your recruiting. So I always think each of these teams, right? Like like they're if you break it down to business functions, because that's kind of like how I first think about it, right? Like what's the big business function? Who's dealing with it? Who's on deck for it? And then each process, right, or each system has different elements. And the pillars that I like to think about that really create that consistency is first having a workflow, right, for each process. Because sometimes people like have a lot of documents or they'll have trainings and this, but you can't track a document, right? If you're out on a like if you are on site, if you're on vacation, if you are, you know, just somewhere that isn't directly in front of your team, you need to be able to track what's happening, right? And and in the creation or standardization of that workflow, you will create something that is repeatable. So I think that's super important. Technology, like using technology, and I'm not even talking about AI. I know like everyone's super excited about like all like the advancements of AI. I'm like, okay, like let's just get your Slack to work, let's get your project management to work. Um, you know, like let's get some consistency because the technology will help you become more efficient. It'll create transparency, you know, from whatever you're using. We can now create dashboards so your managers can manage. So, so I think the the use of technology is super important. And then we're gonna go to sort of these repeatable documents, like your sales decks, your editorial calendars, like anything where your team members or a group don't have to reinvent the wheel. I think that's super important to have those repeatable assets and then training material. So the fourth pillar is training because even if you're hiring someone who's like excellent, they're amazing, maybe you poach them from a competitor, who knows, right? Like you have this, but now they're coming into your world and you still need them to do things how you want them done, right? Or how the team drives results. And that training material is constantly being updated because an algorithm changes. Now we've got to like re-educate the team. You know, someone might be out and then for a while on leave and they come back, they have to like remember how to do things and do it quickly. Someone again might be on vacation, you have somebody filling in. We need reference material. And then the last pillar is metrics. We need to be able to measure the process so that we can keep its consistency and so that we can make it better.

Yeah, that's you know, you're so right because if you don't do that kind of stuff, then you kind of get stuck like the hamster in the wheel, right? Just like doing all the things because you don't have the workflow, you don't have something that's repeatable, you don't have the assets. And the more that I've handed stuff off, I've realized there's really like, even though I'm good at a lot of things and I think I'm like, you know, the unicorn that can do all the things or whatever, right? And most agency owners do. They think that like no one can do all the things as well as them, right? The more that I hand off, the more I realize like I'm really not needed for much in the business. Like I like I the designers design it better than I used to design it, and the developers do a quicker job of building it out than I used to, and like all those things, right? Because they're just focused, specialized in that one thing, versus I was kind of like the generalist, right? That could do a little bit of all the things that I thought was pretty good, but then then realized when I start forcing myself to like document this is how we do a site map, this is how we put a design brief together, this is how we do this call or whatever the thing is. Like everybody on my team can do those things now too, probably better than I do them because they're spending more time like focused on it, right?

And that's the dream, right? Like, so like that is absolutely the dream to have other people be better than you. Because that's how we know that the business is gonna outlive you, right? Like, like it's not dependent on you to grow. And I think sometimes that's that's like a hard truth, but it's so, but it's a beautiful one, like if you're willing to actually delegate uh thoroughly and and have the business grow without you.

Yeah, yeah. Well, and I and I think it definitely is required to grow without you for sure. Now, what do you see in terms of bottlenecks as it relates to all this? Because we're talking about like, hey, you've got to have these processes, this workflow, you've got to, you know, I think agency owners are usually the one in their own way, in the sense that there's usually not like someone holding them back. It's usually they're holding themselves back because they won't get out of the way or let go of the thing or whatever, right? And they're like, no, I have to do the the branding because it won't be as good for the clients if somebody else does it or whatever the thing is. So, what are some of the bottlenecks that you see that like kill your agency growth and how do you diagnose them?

Absolutely. So uh, so I think the first one you alluded to is one that I I coin as founderitis when the founder just goes about doing things that is like starting to mess with the business. So um, so I think the the first symptom of founderitis when you know is not letting go. And then I think once you get to a certain place where like the founder's like, all right, they they've let loose, you know, sometimes they overcorrect and now it's too loose. And I would say there's another bottleneck where if you have a bigger team and then the founder's like pulling resources for special projects because they're like, Oh, I have this great idea, and then it's like, I need you and you and you, and it's like ah, and so if you're not measuring capacity and you're not sort of wrangling in those ideas that can really start to eat up production that the team is.

I've probably been guilty of that a few times.

Like, okay, right? And so there's definitely like rules uh for for levels of foundritis, I would say, that you can have. And I would I would say one of the biggest bottlenecks as well in the business is uh project management. Just I I would say not having a a really smooth project management system that is consistent throughout your teams, like whether you have one sort of traffic controller or whether you have, you know, AM slash PMs doing the role. Like if it's not consistent, you know, that eats up profits, that you know, pushes deliverables, that that's a huge one. So I would say that's a big one to tackle. Another one is not having a great intake process during your client onboarding because that will bottleneck projects, uh, especially like creatives, right? Like if you have all these assets that need to be done, and then all of a sudden you're going back for more information and going back for more information. So that's a big bottleneck. And and it can, you know, I I always talk about like onboarding is somewhat of like the stepchild of processes because you just want to like you're like, you sold, you want to go, and you want to, you know, you want to go and deliver, but without taking the time, you know, you you have such a great point in the customer journey to really remind the clients that they've made a great choice and and really showcase like what an awesome team you are and perceived value, and and there's that one place that can really affect retention as well. So I think those are some big ones.

Yeah, no, I think I think that I think you're right. I was just talking to one of our mavericks, and he was showing some of his onboarding more in like the wow factor, where it's just like, oh, that was really cool. But Darren, one of our mavericks, he was basically has this like welcome kit that he mails them in the mail, and it's all branded, it has like a nice Yeti mug in there, and like some other stuff that's all like branded to his colors and theme and stuff. And he's working with a lot of like personal brands, so him demonstrating like his own brand to these personal brand coaches and life coaches and different things where they're like having to put themselves out there. Like, I feel like it's just a great and he has this nice handwritten note that he like writes and sends them and stuff, and it's just like that reassurance that like we they've made a good choice and that like they're gonna be well cared for, like, goes a long way, right?

Absolutely.

Yeah. Talk about a little bit, and we've talked about a little bit with the processes, but you know, with downloading your brain as a agency owner, right? You've got to you've got to kind of offload some of the things that you're doing to to grow. And and we talked a little bit about it with some of the like creating a better client experience and stuff, but um, talk a little bit about that in terms of like how you see agency owners doing that. Are they are they hiring the expert and then you know saying, write the SO SEO process or write this process, or are they like trying to transcribe like the way they've been doing it and then like kind of giving that as a starting point, or you just talk a little bit about kind of downloading some of that stuff that you do so that you can obviously scale and grow?

Yeah. So I would say it depends on who your subject matter expert is, right? So I always say when it comes to downloading your brain, it's a team sport, right? So no one's gonna sit down. Well, some people will, but it's really hard to like sit down and say, okay, I'm gonna take a week or two off from work to download my brain, and all I'm gonna do is training videos and SOPs. We often don't have the luxury to even get like half an SOP done. So, so how do we do this, right? So, one, I would say don't do it by yourself if you don't have to, unless you're really starting off and you are it, right? Then then it's just you. But think about it as a team sport and always start with some kind of video recording. And the reason why you would start with a video recording is because, again, with the use of technology, we can now get automated transcripts, and then we can have something that is both audiovisual and take that transcript, you can stick it in something like Chat GPT or your preferred AI, ask it to like create an SOP from that or a decision tree if you're doing something that's very analytical, like reporting, and it can actually write it for you. Now it's a piece of the workflow. It's I'm not an advocate for you know, uh giving Chat GPT the keys to your brain um completely and saying, like, all right, you're done, but you always want to like check it and make sure that it's good, right? So, so that's why I think that if you start with a video, you can 5x how quickly your You're doing your your trainings and your documentation, and it'll save you tons of time. Now, in terms of getting to that video, who's going to do it right? And I think if you have all the information, you're training someone new and someone who's junior, have a have a call with them, and then you can train them on the call if you don't have a lot of time. Now, if maybe you don't have time to meet with them and you can actually, you know, sh do a screencast on let's say it's your computer, and if you're going through something, just kind of talk through it so that you get that video, and then you can start to get like version one of an SOP. And whenever it comes to downloading your brain, I often want to think about it in versions. You're never gonna get it right the first time, right? Like people are gonna ask you questions like, well, why did you do it like that? Or what was this, or why did you click this button instead of that button? And then that feedback loop is what's gonna create a better training or a better SOP. So just be prepared for the feedback loop. So that's one way to do it. If you have someone junior, if there's someone on your team that is a subject matter expert, have them do it. If you don't have time to train at all, and it's something that's very tactical, you can always buy a training and then see how it works into your workflows and then create your own that is more customized to your business, right? So, and if you're trying to train someone on something absolutely new, and this is a this is a funny one that happens all the time. Like you have this idea, you're like, Oh, I'm gonna do this campaign, or I'm gonna do this new thing, or this is how I want to do it, but you have no idea of what you want it to actually end up looking like, right? So it's and in that place, like you might know what you think you want as an outcome, but you may not be exactly certain of it. So something can be like, oh, there's like we're gonna do a new social media campaign, and I think I want it to look like this. So start with like the first milestone. What is the first milestone that you want them to do? And and if it's something new, have someone on your team do it, and then you could start creating the SOP as you're doing it, and then once it's ready to be repeatable, you have something that you can like reformat and and create. So you have all these different ways. I think the the easiest thing to think is start with a video and figure out who the subject matter expert is.

That's good. And I like how you said like start small too, because I think you know, sometimes I think they have to have it all, you know, it's a work in progress, like they don't have to have it all figured out, like just record something, or next time you have to do the thing, you know, push record on the video and just start talking while you're working, and then that can be like the beginning of the SOP or the training or whatever it is, right? I think that's huge.

Yeah, I like dirty drafts. Start with a dirty draft is kind of how that and that way you can just let it go and and come back to it later.

Yeah, and it makes good even onboarding and training stuff, right? Because a lot of times someone, you know, you bring a new team member on, like they're they're here and you're like, oh shoot, now I've got to figure out like what they're gonna do for the next 20, you know, 20 hours this week or 40 hours or however much they're working. And then like, if you're like, oh, I've recorded these videos over the last few months on how to do X, Y, and Z, and like I want you to watch those so that you can get a handle on like how we do things and stuff like that, suddenly it like takes the pressure off a little bit and also gets them more acclimated to like how you're doing things, or or or maybe they're reading through the process or whatever's been developed from the video, but just it gives you like a good kind of onboarding material that you can even use to help them learn your way, right?

Absolutely. And if you're stuck in a situation where you don't have any of that onboarding material and they're shadowing you, that's a great time to get a new hire to actually do all of the documentation that you don't have for the next person.

Yeah, yeah. Well, because there's always this panic, right? Coaching like agency owners, and there's this panic because it's like, oh, the new person. I'm like first there's the excitement. I'm I'm advertising for this position, right? Then there's like the panic of like, oh, the person's starting next Tuesday or whatever, and they're like, I don't have any, you know, documentation or onboarding, or what, you know, how am I gonna suddenly like so then they go into like this frenzy mode of trying to, they don't have the time, but they're trying to like then record and put all this stuff together at the last moment. Whereas if they had just been kind of documenting, recording it as they go and stuff, they would have like already probably had most of that stuff just from doing it the last few months without the person, right?

Exactly. And if you're if you're recording as you're doing, you're like double dipping on work that you're already doing. So it's not as if you have to take time away. Like I talked about, like like no one has two weeks to just kind of sit there and record everything that they're doing in the business. But if you're recording as you're doing it, you've just saved yourself so much time.

Yeah, double dip for sure. So as we've been talking, you know, we were kind of making, we've been making the assumption, like, oh, you're gonna hire someone to do the process the way that you do it. I know sometimes agency owners they don't want to have to figure out how to do SEO, they just want to be able to offer the SEO service or the whatever the fill-in-the-blank, right? Whatever the service is. So, how are you seeing like different teams use either hiring or white label services or other things to kind of grow their team, maybe in areas that they don't really have the expertise even?

Yeah, absolutely. And I think there's a couple of places where where we definitely see owners use white label services, right? So one is sometimes the owner like knows the agency really, really, really well, but maybe isn't that person that is the craftsman. They're just a really good salesperson, like, all right, I just I want to for whatever reason. And we see them, you know, start to have white label services and then they can sell everything. Maybe they're account managing and they're making sure that everything is getting done really well. So we've seen that done tons of times. Other times we we see it's like, okay, there could be a communications agency or a creative agency or production agency that does like kind of like these top of the funnel things really, really, really, really well. But now the clients are starting to ask them for more because they have great relationships and and the clients want to grow, and they're like, okay, well, if I can grow my lifetime value or the retention, right, of this client, let me add some services that isn't in our capabilities. And that's a it's a really quick way to plug in other services is to find a white label partner. The the other place is uh you're churning and burning a certain position, whether that's a contractor or a um, you know, full-time employee, and it's just for whatever reason, it's not functioning. Um, you know, and it could be a macro reason, it could be something cultural inside of your business, it could be like maybe local talent is just being really hard to find if you're somewhere that, you know, isn't surrounded by other agency talent. And we often see that's a really good time where someone's like, okay, you know what, instead of of a person, we are just going to get a team that we can white label that just really knows how to do this one thing and we know that they can deliver on time every time.

Yeah. No, I think and and there's so many ways that a white label partner can help you kind of overcome a scaling issue or a team issue or a delivery issue that I think it's a great option. Actually, the sponsor of our podcast, E2M, that's exactly what they do. They kind of become an extension of your team. They can provide whether you need like the development or the design or the copywriting, which you know, so many agencies struggle with some of those components or multiple of those things. And to be able to just say, hey, I'm gonna just pass this on to them. Their experts are gonna deal it, I'm gonna get it back and like be able to kind of free up even like a backlog of work, right? Like you get overwhelmed, you're like, my team can only handle this much and we need help or whatever. E2M is a great option for that. And Manish, who I've talked to personally, the owner of the company, he is an amazing person. I just love the way the culture that he's built in his team. So definitely worth checking out E2M for that.

Oh, yeah, I know Manish. Manish is like fantastic.

Oh, yeah, he's he's awesome.

Great dude.

Cool, cool. As we're wrapping up here, um, I would love to know just any quick tips that you have for freeing up owners' time. Because I think, you know, one of the things that I come up against constantly as I'm coaching, is I'm like, okay, we lay out a plan, like this is you're here, you want to get to here, these are the obstacles in the way. This is what I think as a coach and someone who's probably been through that journey, what you need to do to get there, and from my vantage point, right? Uh, and then they show up a week later on a call or two weeks later on a call, and they haven't made any progress because they've been so busy putting out the fires and doing the projects and doing all the things, right? That they just don't have the time to work on their own business. They're spinning so many plates that they don't even have time to like improve their business and they find themselves a few weeks or a month later at the same point because they just didn't do any of the things. And so, any tips that you have that are just some like I'm thinking like hacks kind of things, right? That someone could use to maybe potentially free up some of their time so that they can actually work on their business, anything that you have to share would be would be awesome.

Yeah, absolutely. So I'm gonna give a short hack and then I'm gonna give a a long-term not so hack hack.

Okay, okay, cool.

Okay, so I think the first thing that you could do is, you know, if you have a chance, like just take a screenshot or print or whatever your calendar for the week. Just take a look at your calendar. And that is just such a great place to look at anything that's just totally sucking your life, your dreams, and your energy. So I is it so one of the first things it's like, does every single meeting that you have on there have to be that length? Like, do your one-hour meetings need to be an hour, or could they be half an hour? Now, some of them may need to be an hour, right? Because you either like you need the time and space to brainstorm, you need strategic planning, or you know, there's just a relationship you really want to like create, you know, profound time with. But if not, you know, can we slash and dash some of this time on your calendar? And I think usually there's so much reclaim time where you're like, oh wow. Also just moving things around on your calendar. If you are a person that is really social in the afternoon, but all of your sales meetings are in the morning, I would probably switch that. You know, if you're doing deep work at a time where you're you're not at your best, I would switch that because then what what you're doing is not only are you kind of time blocking your calendar, but you're also making it more productive. So you can get two, three X the output of you know, the same amount of stuff that you're doing, but you're just doing it with better energy and more productivity.

So Yeah, and I yeah, and I think grouping it, like you just said too, because you know, you can't get much done between like if you have 30 minutes or an hour between a bunch of calls, like you're not gonna get that much done in that time because you're thinking about the next meetings to come and the one you just had, and you you need a little space and whatever. And so I think even just saying, Hey, I'm only gonna have the meetings on these days or at these parts of these days so that they're kind of grouped together, I think can be kind of just adding on to what what you were saying.

Yeah, absolutely. And and if people are on your team that are either sales or accounting executives, right? Like it's called somewhat like monetizing your calendar. You want to monetize it as much as you can for revenue generating activity, and then I would say then take a look at it and ask yourself is there anything that I can either delegate or remove? Are you in in meetings that should be emails, right? Like, are you having really long meetings because no one's using the project management system and therefore you're actually making up for it in meeting time, right? So so I would think through okay, what can we cut? So that's step one, and usually just by doing almost like a calendar audit, I've seen people be able to reclaim like five hours a week. Because you're finding pockets of time and you're being more productive with it. So that's a huge one.

And that's huge, right? Five hours on your own business, that alone could change like the whole trajectory, just being able to spend some of that time working on your business, right?

Absolutely. Then another quick hack is go on vacation, see what breaks.

Love it. That's my favorite hack.

Go on vacation, see what breaks. Um, you know, and depending on, you know, if you're someone who's like, oh, I've been on vacation, I'm like, okay, but be completely off. Like, no notifications, none of that. Like, you know, if if you need to take a cruise so that you literally can't have Wi-Fi because the Wi-Fi's kind of like crummy anyway, yeah, then then do that. And so that's another quick hack, depending on where you are and your risk tolerance. Like, like you'll see very quickly where you are needed and what needs to go and what actually survives without you. And you're like, oh wow, they did such a great job.

So yeah, they launched this website, they did this campaign, whatever, and like you weren't there, and like it all happened, which is awesome, right?

Yes, so that's a really great hack. And the other thing that I would say that's more of a long term is find someone on your team or hire someone like a virtual assistant to just help you if you're in the process of creating processes and systems or optimizing them or standardizing them. Don't try to do it yourself. Get someone to help you on your team that can actually implement. Like we, you know, for our programs, we call them gladiators. We're like, all right, we we need you to have a gladiator, we need you to have, you know, kind of boots on the ground, if it were, on the operational floor to really help to do the implementation of these things and keep them on track and make sure that they don't just get put back into the back burner because nobody wants to do it and then you're putting out fires all the time.

Love it, love it. They're gonna need a gladiator. That's really good stuff. Awesome. Well, Juliana, thank you so much. This has been so great having you on. And just I was if you heard my keyboard clicking away, it was because I was I was taking notes and and jotting things down. And so thank you so much. Pleasure getting to chat with you, and I know we'll be talking again soon. So thanks so much.

Oh, absolutely. Thank you for having me.

Thanks for listening to the Agency Hour podcast and a massive thanks to Juliana. Be sure to check out her 50 operations gaps in five minutes. There'll be a link in the show notes. Juliana, thank you so much for sharing your insights with our audience and we really speak our language. It was just great talking with you. I was I was taking notes as you were talking, it was great. Special thanks to E2M Solutions for becoming the exclusive sponsor of the agency hour podcast. If you need to boost your bandwidth and capacity so you can serve more clients and increase your recurring revenue, be sure to visit E2M. It's just e2msolutions.com/slash agency dash mavericks. We'll drop a link under this podcast for you. So if you'd like to work with us to grow your agency so you can free up your time, increase your profit margins, and spend more time with the people you care about. Click the link beneath this podcast and have a quick chat with our team and we'll get you moving in the right direction. I guarantee you are sitting on your agency's most valuable asset and you're just not getting paid for it. Okay, folks, don't forget to subscribe and please share this with anyone who you think may need to hear it. I'm Johnny Flash. Let's get it done.