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The Agency Hour
How To Kill It in Operations
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So I like to kind of take a step back and start like super high level in terms of I like to call it the system skeleton. And so the sales and the marketing of the business is the blood of the business. You have to have it in order for it to exist. But the operations, which most people don't really understand what operations actually is. And the best way to explain it is it's like the skeleton where it allows the business, allows the blood to flow, it allows it to grow and eventually go from a crawling toddler to a running person. So it allows it to grow.
SPEAKER_00Welcome to the Agency Hour Podcast. This week we're joined by Alexis Bartok, CEO and founder of Processed Profit, all the way from Atlanta, Georgia. Alexis is an operations consultant obsessed with breaking down and rebuilding companies. She's fantastic at what she does, and her mission is to take you from stressed out to shareholder. In this episode, we discuss being addicted to chaos, being open to changing your processes, and learning to let your team take the wheel as well as the anatomy of a process and how to codify your IP and whether or not you should. If you're struggling with overcomplicating things in your business, you won't want to miss this one. I'm Troy Dean. Stay with us. Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome to the agency hour, the one and only Alexis Bartok, all the way from Atlanta, Georgia. Hello, Alexis. Thank you for joining us.
SPEAKER_02Hi, Troy. Thanks so much for having me. I'm so thankful for being here.
SPEAKER_00Well, we're very thankful for you being here. For those that don't know, uh, Alexis has been working with us inside our company here to help us sort out our processes. We thought we were doing a pretty good job, but my word, when you have someone like Alexis come in and actually start sorting out your processes, you realize how many gaps there were and how many things need improving. Before we dive into this uh whole, you know, scale without sacrifice and process for profit conversation that we're going to have, just give people a little bit of background. Who are you? What are you doing here? How did you get into this?
SPEAKER_02What a journey, what a journey it could go down. Professionally, I like to say I'm an operations developer, so kind of a consultant, kind of an agency owner, coming in to take this craziness that you created, which is your business, make it no longer be your baby, make it a machine with systems, processes, and team that if you wanted, you could sell. So I take you from stressed out to shareholder is how I like to put it.
SPEAKER_00Yes. That makes perfect sense. And I think that's why we hired you.
SPEAKER_02Yes.
SPEAKER_00And and why? Like what why this? What what why how why is this your calling?
SPEAKER_02Yeah. You know, it's interesting. I think I for a while I said this was my mission, but I didn't fully understand it until only about six months ago. And I've said that my mission is to help people enjoy the moments that will never come again. So I want you to buy back your time and have time and money freedom. Enjoy your children, enjoy your loved ones. And actually, in October of this past year, my father passed away. And that made this switch in me where I was like, I have to take this up a notch. I have to help more people. Because when I was thinking back on times with him, I was so thankful for all of the happy memories that came. And so, really, that's my why is to make sure that every father like you, Troy, gets to spend as much time with your children as possible, or as much as you want to spend time with your children.
SPEAKER_00I'm so sorry to hear that. And and thank you for sharing. I, you know, I I have this, I have conversations with agency owners every day, and they forget why they started their own business and they get trapped in their own business and they end up resenting their own business. I'm having these many conversations in Slack channels at the moment, this very conversation about agency owners who feel stuck and they feel trapped and they can't back out. It's so I call it a zombie company where you've built something that's too big to shut down, but it's not big enough for you to get out or to really, it's not, you know, scaling yet, but it's too big to shut it down because you've got staff, you've got clients you need to look after, and you're stuck in it and you're walking around like a zombie, and it's a horrible place to be. And it it I've been there before. Um you know, I've went through that journey. I got through what Seth Godd calls the dip, and we've come out the other side, and now we're doing it again. Um, but it eats into your headspace. You go home from work and you're grumpy, you're not present with your family and your kids, your your mind is elsewhere and you're distracted. It's a horrible place to be. Uh so it sounds like you've got a very big personal reason for sharing your expertise with clients. How did you what what what was your journey to actually learn what you've learned so far and then be able to apply it to other business models?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, I actually started as a virtual assistant at a digital marketing agency. And I started when I think that was in 2018, and just kind of hopped in and very quickly scaled up from being a VA to an executive assistant to an account manager to a project manager to operations manager. And then eventually I was offered a COO position. And so that was an incredible experience because that all happened within about a two-year span. Um, and really that opened my eyes to the possibilities of online. I didn't even know about the openness of just the digital world. So that kind of unlocked it for me. And then I did it again. And so I actually ended up leaving that position and was freelancing for project management and some operations. And then quickly during 2020, when the whole world was a crazy place to be, I decided I wanted to be a part of a team and really make a bigger difference. And so I joined in as an executive assistant at another online company. And within four months, that time I was offered a COO position. And so at that point, I was like, okay, there's something about operations that I'm good at. And I just started diving in, learning, reading, um, applying, and went out on my own. And then I just have kind of grown from there.
SPEAKER_00Fantastic. Um who are your typical clients that you serve?
SPEAKER_02I typically work with coaches, consultants, and agency owners, um, a wide variety. So like the smallest would be someone that is still already hitting that multi-six figure a year mark, but they're really a solopreneur. Um, so kind of what you were talking about, where it's just like a real stressful, there's no way out. And the most often is people that are already hitting that like million dollar years, but they just really need the systems, processes, and team in order to scale and make it sellable.
SPEAKER_00Uh we have clients who are over seven figures a year. I we have some clients who have been doing this for 20 years and are doing really well financially, but they just can't step away from the business because the business owner is the linchpin, right? They have all the knowledge is in their head. All of the every time a client calls, they ask for the business owner. Every email that comes in is addressed to the business owner because the business owner knows everything and isn't either isn't prepared to let go or hasn't been able to let go, or doesn't think they have the time to let go, or doesn't believe that anyone else can do it as good as them. And I think I was in that position for a long time until I realized the only way forward is to make a decision. You you I don't think you can wait for your business to be in a certain position and then go, oh, well now I can take Fridays off. I think you have to make the decision to take Fridays off and then build whatever structure you need to make sure the shit doesn't hit the fan too bad when you're not there on a Friday, right? Because if you don't, if you don't just put in your calendar Fridays off, you'll never take Fridays off because you'll always find a reason to go to work on Friday. Because I think that's how most small business owners feel useful is by being in their business and working and being productive and contributing, right? I'm curious about how you navigate that psychological aspect to a business owner who's just not, for whatever reason, not really prepared to let go. How do you how do you help them navigate that?
SPEAKER_02To be really honest, someone has to be in enough pain to work with me. And because I've tried and I've like made this realization that you have to be dealing with what you're talking about of like wanting something else, but actually you're sitting on your laptop on the couch while watching a movie with your family and you're missing the kids' soccer games. And so there has to be a level of you get to choose. Do you want to forever trade your time for money? Do you want to stay in this phenomenon? Or can we can we move on? Can we move forward? And so a lot of it is psychological. Part of it is just having a consultant or strategist that makes them feel safe in order to make these decisions in terms of hiring or system changes where, like, sometimes just my presence is enough. Other times it is being comfortable being called out and be like, okay, well, is that really true? Are you really the only person that can do that? Which is not true. Or is it something where you feel worthy of the success you've created and you feel important because you have put yourself in that position?
SPEAKER_00I've observed this a lot, particularly with men, and I don't mean to be, you know, too gender-biased here, but I have observed this a lot with men where they are really they don't know what else to do with themselves. So therefore, they're not prepared to let go of the the wheel of the bus. Because if they're not driving the bus, it's like, well, fuck, who am I? Like, what what what do I do? Like, what value do I add? Am I no longer relevant? Am I no longer important? And that's really confronting for, you know, traditionally, someone who is proud to be a provider, they've built this business, they're really proud of the success that they've achieved and what they've grown and the team that they've assembled and the clients that they serve. And if they're like, well, if I'm not driving the bus and I'm not providing for my family, you know, what am I supposed to do with myself? And I I I think this is a comment more than a question, but um, and again, I don't mean to be too gender-biased, but it's just my observation that men get a lot of their self-worth out of that status and that pride, myself included. And it's taken a long time for me, anyway, to realize that and you mentioned it before, and this is a phrase that I've picked up from you, is that your business is not your baby, it's an asset that is that can continue to generate good profit for you and your family if you just stop treating it like your baby. Because if you treat it like your baby, you're making emotional decisions, you're making decisions about the business based on your pride and your ego, and that's not they're not usually the best ways to make those decisions, right?
SPEAKER_02Right. And I think it's also changing the association of what providing means, because it doesn't have to be so direct of you are only providing for your family. And it actually changes to you are now providing for your team's families, and you are now creating and providing time, freedom, and time with your family. So it's a different level of providing, and I do agree, I see it all the time, um, especially in men, it is true, of this uneasiness because who am I without my business? Who am I if I don't have the control? And we do have as entrepreneurs, is there's been a there was a study, I think, at the University of Queensland in Australia that brought out the addiction to chaos that 90, like a lot of the times, I can't remember the exact data, but entrepreneurs more often than not grew up with a difficult upbringing because they're so good at problem solving, but they are addicted to chaos. And so they will create chaos rather than allowing it to be good. Because if it's good, then it was too easy and you're not worthy or deserving of reaping the benefits.
SPEAKER_00That is so true. Uh, I how identified a while ago after we had some, you know, I'm talking three, four years ago, we had some team members leave and on the way out, their exit interview, they were basically like, Well, you're not letting me do my job because you you you come in at the last minute and play Superman and try and save the day. And that was a real eye-opener for me. Um, in fact, I told Max yesterday, and I'm gonna tell him again, tell me to just shut the fuck up, dude. Say no, get out of the way. We've made the decision, shut up, leave us alone, right? Because I'm constantly like cre I I love problem solving. I think we all love problem solving because it makes us feel good. But if there's not an obvious problem to solve, we'll go we'll go create one just so we can then solve it and go, yeah, look me, I solve the problem. Part of part of um delegating is I have a very particular approach to processes, and part of delegating uh I think where people get stuck is that they and and I'm curious because I know you have a very particular take on this as well, and I'm sure I can learn from your experience here. I don't have the patience to document a process to the point where I can then go, right, well, that's ready for someone to come in and and run it. What I like to do is hire someone who's already done it before and then get them to teach me their process, right? That's for me, that's a faster way to move. I also know that it's not for the faint-hearted because it's quite scary. Yeah, there's a lot of trust in someone else coming in, especially if it's anything client-facing, right? If you're hiring for a role that's client-facing, like project management, account management, biz dev? If you're hiring an an accountant or a bookkeeper, I don't understand their process, I trust their process. They're not really client-facing most of the time, so it's okay. How do you how do you prevent business owners getting stuck trying to optimize their processes before they grow the team? Or is it a is it a bit of balance about, well, the process is good enough that we can bring someone in and our expectations are that they will follow this process, but also continue to improve it? What what's your your take on this?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, I think there's two parts to that. Of one, there's so much work that has to be done before you hire. And it's not even necessarily in the documentation of the processes, it's more in the expectations and intention of the hire. So if the intention is this person's gonna come in, set this up, we're gonna see how it goes, they're gonna grow into the company, cool. Now we know that the processes that need to be put in place maybe only need to be at about 40% completion because we're actually expecting this person to step in. If we're hiring someone a little bit more entry-level and the intention is to buy back time immediately, get things off the plates, then really we want to be at least an 80 per 90% completion in terms of documentation. Um, I think a lot of times documentation we overcomplicate. And so, like, yeah, my team will come in and create the documented SOPs and put it out in a beautiful way, but all you have to do is record a Loom video. Like keep it as simple as possible because a new hire, we're really hiring for their traits, their their culture fit, their are they really excited and gung-ho and driven and excited to grow with the company, they'll figure it out off of a loom video.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, and and also um that indicates that they're resourceful. One of the things I one of the things I used to do was give people most of the process, but deliberately leave some information out just to see if they would come back and if they'd solve the problem themselves or if they'd come back and say, you know, I was looking for communication, I was looking for resourcefulness, I was looking for resilience. I was looking for those character traits because I think the the stuff that we do can be taught if the right if the right character traits have been hired in that role. Um now, I also think that there's a balance because you don't, I quite often tell our clients we're not a community college, so we're not here to hire people and then teach them how to be a project manager. We're here to hire project managers and then teach them how we do things in this business, but let them come in and if they come in and go, well, that's not how we project manage, we project manage this way because it's way more efficient, totally fine. But the mistake I think I've seen a lot is agency owners, particularly who are not very strong at project management, hire a project manager and then teach that project manager their process, which isn't very good. Right? And and the and the I've saw one agency owner go through about five or six project managers in a year because the project managers kept leaving, going, Well, I'm not doing it that way because that way's not efficient, and you won't let me bring my expertise to the role. I think a lot of-comment more than a question, but I'm curious about your thoughts on that.
SPEAKER_02No, I mean, I'd I'd agree. I think, like I said, it's more about the intention. Like, are you open to changing? It's one of my clients right now is an agency owner, and this is what we're talking about because I've actually been working with her project manager. And it's been a conversation of are you open to changing how your current processes are for the ideas that the project manager is bringing? And sometimes it's yes and sometimes it's no. And it's communicating that in a way where the parts that she's not 100% comfortable letting go of yet, it's like, okay, that's totally fine, but let's communicate that with the project manager and say, hey, I'm just a little bit nervous about some of this just because I am working on letting go. So I want to give you this part of the business, I want to keep doing it how we're doing it, and then give the rest over to you to kind of test the new hire, if you will. Um, because I think there does have to be a level of if you aren't as trusting as Troy, like Troy, you're incredible in letting the team hop in, take over. You've also had experience doing it. So sometimes new agency owners still have that belief of it's my baby. So there is finding that that fine line.
SPEAKER_00I think I've I've heard I've heard this before. I've heard people that we've worked with before say that, you know, I'm really, you know, kind of hands off and letting the team do their thing for the most part. Um I think the w how I've got there is one, I've realized that there's no alternative. Well, there is. It's called burnout. The alternative is just burnout, right? And I've been there and it's horrible. Like literally wake up like at night, chest pains, can't think, wake up the next day, go, I fuck, I just can't do anything, lay on the couch all day and watch Law and Order reruns and cancel my point cancel my calendar, right? I've done that more than a handful of times, and it's a horrible place to be. Um I've also realized that the way to let your team go is to be prepared for them to make mistakes that are going to cost money. And that's okay. That's an investment in the team, it's an investment in the processes, it's an investment in the business. Most not most, a lot of business owners aren't prepared to do that because it potentially could cost money. When I say it's cost us money, it's cost us revenue. It hasn't, you know, I'm ensure and it has actually cost us some money in the past where clients we've underdelivered, but it's most of the time it's cost us revenue because I look at what's happening from a marketing and a sales point of view and go, there are just so many holes there, you know, that could be fixed, but I can't fix them. And I used to try and dive in and fix them, and then that would just cause more gaps down the road. So you have to be prepared to step back and treat yourself as a board member or a shareholder and go, all right, well, this thing is not performing at its best, but that's okay. We can improve. We know what we need to fix, we know it's going to take some time, but as a board member and a shareholder, I am not allowed to fix things. I have to let the team do it, even if that means I can see that we're leaving money on the table or we're losing, you know, we've had to refund that customer or whatever it was. That's just part of the process of learning and letting the business grow and evolve and stand on its own two feet.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. And I think that's also why when we're talking about deciding who to hire and being intentional about it, part of it is like, okay, what's the margin? What is the margin for error, both in revenue and in time? And if it makes sense, like, does it make sense that the first hire is a project manager? Is that going to be the quickest thing? Is it someone that can VA or an EA that can come in and it's pretty low-level tasks that we can get off your plate right away? Is it actually like a copywriter or someone in fulfillment? So there's like a strategy to it of, you know, sometimes it does make sense to hire someone like a marketing agency or a fulfillment, someone that's going to be a little bit more of an investment because they're going to buy back your time and do it way better than you ever could. Other times it actually we need to put you into the reinvestment phase where you're actually reinvesting your time into the business, which means the number one thing we're looking for is buying back your time. And so that's usually more of like a mid, like someone that doesn't have a whole bunch of team but has enough. And maybe that's actually cutting team because sometimes there's an excess as well.
SPEAKER_00I want to come back and talk about that in a second. How do we know what to process and what to document and what not to? I got like because humans are pretty good at solving problems and thinking creatively if they're given the right playground in order to do that. So at what point do you go, well, we don't need to process that because we actually need a human being to think here and make some recommendations and make some decisions. We don't want to document that because we're not sure. You know. So one example is when we're having regular strategy meetings with clients, we can have a framework for running those strategy meetings, but the prescription and And what we're going to recommend to the client can't always be documented because things change and it's a d it's a dynamic space in which we operate the digital marketing space, right? So how do you know when, okay, let's not pro let's not document that, let's let the human being do their thing and think.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. Um, so I like to kind of take a step back and start like super high level in terms of, I like to call it the system skeleton. And so the sales and the marketing of the business is the blood of the business. You have to have it in order for it to exist. But the operations, which most people don't really understand what operations actually is, and the best way to explain it is it's like the skeleton where it allows the business, allows the blood to flow, it allows it to grow and eventually go from a crawling toddler to a running person. So it allows it to grow. So I like to call it a system skeleton because from like a very high level, we want to see what systems run this business in under 10 systems or less. Like it should not be more than 10 steps. And then from there, you can find the subprocesses of, you know, especially in fulfillment if it's like an agency, what are the phases, the assembly line that we need to build out to really make it scalable? And so through that work, you'll be able to see a little bit more in terms of does this need to be a process or just a framework? Um, the easiest way, like without going into how to create a system skeleton, the easiest way is one, is this a repeatable task? If I were to pay someone to do this task or pay myself, how much would it be? Like how much is that actually worth? And then, like I said, it could just be a Loom video or it could just be like diagrammed out of what the process is. So it doesn't necessarily have to be like a 150-page manual of how the business works.
SPEAKER_00And I think that's where a lot of people get stuck because they want this impressive. I've seen agencies show off about their operations manual, and it's 150 pages long, and 143 of them are relevant now because things have changed and they haven't updated it, but they've got this great thing on the shelf, right? I have to ask this question because the lizard brain of all the people listening uh are dying to know what is the go-to software platform for operations and documentation and processes? What should we be using?
SPEAKER_02I think it's different for every person, and I know that is not like for every company, and I know that's not what you want to hear. Um, it's different, like for instance, I do it for clients, and so I don't use things like Tango or Scribe, which both are great. Is it Scribe?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, Scribe How am I saying that right? Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Okay. Um, those are both great, but what we do is we actually leverage Chat GPT. Um, so we have, and this is what I would suggest in terms of if you have like multiple team members and you have one person on your team in charge of creating the SOPs, which would be the goal. Uh eventually, if you're not going to outsource to an agency like ours, then that's what I would definitely suggest is having someone on the team that's like your systems person and send them the Loom video, take the transcription, throw it into Chat GPT, get the summary, put it into a document, and then pull out the information from the Loom video into the doc. And then you can place it wherever makes the most sense. Like you can either put it into a Notion, you can put it into ClickUp. I like to do it in multiple places. So there's like a a company wiki in Notion, if that's what the company prefers, but also having the SOPs linked to the appropriate scorecard for each role.
SPEAKER_00That's great. I love it. So I I wasn't aware that Chat GPT could write a summary of a transcription of a video.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. I know. I just gave away my secret sauce.
SPEAKER_00That's very cool. That's great.
SPEAKER_02But it's really cool.
SPEAKER_00How do you know which uh people are listening to this going, great, I'm really excited about this. Which processes should I work on first?
SPEAKER_02I think the question to ask is like, why are you working on processes in the first place? And typically for agency owners, it's that they are maxed out for time and they are don't know how to scale this thing. Like one new client actually feels like more work instead of more freedom or excitement. And so typically for agencies, I suggest starting with the fulfillment. Yeah, because once you have fulfillment down, both in terms of process and system, but also in team, then it's like smooth sailing and you won't sabotage growth.
SPEAKER_00I love it. I love it. I'm the complete opposite. I'm like, let's just sell the shit out of everything and then figure out what breaks on the back end. Uh, but I love it. And it's good. I I love this kind of I love learning from people who come at it from a different approach because I have a very particular lens through which I see everything, which isn't always the best, uh, the best lens.
SPEAKER_02Um well, let me say before you move on though, like to preface that, that's only if you have sales and marketing. Like, I'm not saying start to start from scratch, build out your fulfillment process. Like, definitely not. When you're starting to hit overwhelm, or when you're starting to be like, oh, I should probably work on my processes, that's when to work on the sale, the fulfillment side of things.
SPEAKER_00Um what what what's the what's the I mean, I know every process is different, every business is different, but if if you had to like, you know, in in in 30 seconds describe the anatomy of a process. If someone's like, all right, I've got my Google Doc open, like what are the four or five headlines that I need in a process that I need to fill in? What's your go-to anatomy of a of a standard operating procedure?
SPEAKER_02That's a very good question. I do it.
SPEAKER_00This is not scripted, ladies and gentlemen.
SPEAKER_02I do it a little bit different than most. I know a lot of people have like the purpose and all of that, purpose procedure. Um, in the top, I will have like the key team member when this is happening and the department it's responsible for. Then I like to have an overview. I like to call it like a table of contents, which bookmarks to the rest of the process. So, like one through five, these are the five steps you have to do. And then the number one most important part of it that gets shoved a lot of the time is the expected result and the intended outcome. And those are actually two separate things. The expected result is from this, what is the result? So, like from recording a podcast, we get to talk about fun, exciting things and grow our network. The intended outcome is how does it affect the company as a whole, which would be like as a whole, we are growing our audience, increasing booked calls, and you know, adding to our no-like and trust, so our lifetime values increasing. So there's two very different things, which is really important to include, um, specifically in the training part, because you want your team to latch on to that intended outcome to see how they impact the business as a whole.
SPEAKER_00This is where I think uh it's really difficult to do this work on your own business, right? And we I full transparency, we thought we'd done a pretty good job of doing this work in our own business until we met you. And then Emily's like, okay, I think we should hire this person. I'm like, all right, well, you're the boss, uh, you know. And uh we did, and then I kind of wasn't really across it. Emily was working with you in the background, and then she started presenting some things to me, and I'm like, holy shit, where did this come from? She's like, Yes, that Alexis girl that we hired. I'm like, all right, cool. Uh and I think it's really difficult to do this in your own business, right? We we're a business coaching company. We coach marketing agencies, web design agencies, digital marketing agencies. I I go into an agency and I can see within within two minutes, I can see low-hanging fruit that we can fix just by looking at their website, right? And I'm like, oh yeah, there's definitely things we can fix here. They can't see it because they're too busy looking at other people's businesses. I think it's really difficult to do this work in your own business, which is why we have consultants like yourself and coaches and other agencies come in and help us, and we, you know, pay that forward and help other agencies. Um more a comment than anything, but um, how do you keep your sore sharp? How do you keep learning and and how do you keep evolving and making sure that you're staying ahead of the curve?
SPEAKER_02One, I love it. Like I, for fun am reading a book every day, at least a chapter of someone that's killing it in operations, or um, I typically have two books at a time, one that's like for more mindset and psychology, and the other one that's more for like specific for my learning. Um and honestly, it is a lot of people like you guys that are open to trying new things. My team is open to trying new things. Like we just tried Chat GPT three weeks ago, and I was like, let's just try it, let's see how it goes. And it cut our time in half. So really exciting for us internally. But yeah, I think it's reading and finding so much joy in it. Like it does not feel like a chore and don't burn out on this stuff. Hearing your client wins make me want to do it like 10 times more.
SPEAKER_00Um, so here's something that's interesting for the listeners. I'm doing an onboarding call this afternoon for a new sales accelerator client. I have not done one of these in a long time. Uh our calendars are full for our onboarding coaches. Uh, this person is in Australia. So Anna pinged me yesterday and said, Hey, are you up for doing an onboarding call tomorrow for a new sales accelerator client? And I said, Ordinarily, I'm like, I don't want to do onboarding calls, but I'm like, Yes, I want to do this. One, because I like to meet our customers. Two, I want to see the process. I want to see how it works. Uh so Anna flicked me a link to a slide deck that we have to run the onboarding call. I'm like, what? We have a slide deck? That's amazing. I would never have gotten around to doing that. That's awesome. And Anna's gonna join me and we're gonna do the onboarding call together and follow the process. And I'm super excited about it, not only because I get to uh do something that I haven't done for a long time, but also because this proves the fact that when the rest of our onboarding coaches are at capacity and don't have time, someone else, and we've kind of decided here that everyone in the company needs to do at least one onboarding call with a new client. So they get to meet the clients, they get to meet our customers and know that what we're talking about on our dashboards are not just numbers and statistics, they're real people that we're impacting. And also to follow the process and go, hey, that works, or let's improve this, or this is missing, or I didn't have access to that just to see what gaps there are. So I'm really excited about that. Um, and I don't, I haven't had to think about it. Someone's just given me the process, I'm follow it and do my thing, and it's super exciting.
SPEAKER_02I had no idea that's happening. I am so excited to hear how it goes and definitely poke holes. That's part of it too. Like you were saying, like, how do you keep the sword sharp? Is is having amazing people like you that are like, yes, this is a process, let's test it out. Let's see how we can make it even better. And that's part of it. Like you said, being comfortable with some margin of not necessarily air, but growth.
SPEAKER_00One thing I do want to touch on, and this is selfishly, I want a bit of a bit of free consulting here on the podcast. How do you one of the things that we're working on here, and and as you know, and I'll share this publicly, is that we're trying to we're trying to really document how there's a certain uh there are certain conversations between us and clients that fall on my desk, right? That come to me because I seem to be the only one with the uh I I don't know what it is, whether it's the experience or because I created the frameworks that we teach and I created the curriculum that we teach or what it is, but there seem to be certain conversations where our clients get stuck in a certain way where I end up getting on a call with them and I get them unstuck. And we're really trying to process that. So I'm calling it we're trying to document how I think and how I solve problems, right? I don't know how we do this, but I imagine that a lot of coaches, consultants, and agency owners who are your target audience and your client base, I imagine a lot of those businesses end up with one person in the business, usually the business owner, who has the intellectual property and the experience in their brain that allows them to have these conversations with clients and get clients moving again. How do you take that and turn that into something that other people in the business can follow and execute on?
SPEAKER_02Do you want the answer you're looking for, or do you want the coaching answer?
SPEAKER_00That's a very good question. Uh let me talk about the desired outcome and the expected result. So, so again, full transparency. I believe the most valuable thing that we can do for our clients is to remove me from as much of this business as possible. I'll explain why. Not because I'm an idiot or I'm useless, I mean, partially there's that, but it's because I don't want to be the bottleneck to our clients' growth. I don't want a client to be frustrated that they can't move fast enough because they physically cannot get on my calendar. Right? That's why I don't want to be the only person that can have certain conversations with clients in this business because other people don't know how to have the conversation. So, what I really want to do is I really want to host the podcast. I love hosting the podcast. I'm I'm happy to do a live stream in the group a couple of times a month, right? And then I want to mentor the team, shoot YouTube videos, come up with curriculum, uh, keep producing content. But I really, apart from a handful of clients that I just uh my buddies that I really enjoy jamming with, I really don't want to do a lot of coaching because I become the bottleneck. People can't get on my calendar, they wait 10 days for a call, they get stuck, they're frustrated, I feel bad that I'm letting them down. How do we how do we get me out of that?
SPEAKER_02Yeah. So the systems answer, I'll give you first. And because I know that's the one you're actually asking for, but then I'm gonna, if you're open to it, coach you for a second. 100%.
SPEAKER_00I'm up for it.
SPEAKER_02So the systems answer is one, start auditing what these questions are. That another one's coming up to your desk. Is it you know, where in the business? What are the consistent struggles? Is it, you know, specific around a certain part of the offer? Is it more mind-related and they need to get out of their own way? Which I know Emily and I chatted that through. And so it's kind of finding the actual root issue, which not it's not always your IP and how to codify your brain. It's actually figuring out what is missing that the clients need that the team and you currently believe only your IP can solve. In terms of how to actually codify IP, one, it's just sitting down and just Loom video or Zoom recordings of you actually talking to the clients, creating these frameworks, but also going back to the team and asking how you would handle this? What would you say? Like putting it back on the team so that way they start thinking, because it does become more of a mentorship between you and the team in order to empower the team to step up and use the IP that they know it's yours, but they're taking it on, they are absorbing it so often that it doesn't even actually have to be codified. It really has been in the company culture and the trainings. Does that make sense?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, it does. There's a certain I know I'm not the only person that can do this, but there is something I know that I do really well, which is I can listen to people, make them feel heard. I have a certain emotional intelligence, I think, that I know other people have, but I'm very good at accessing that. My wife's a psychologist too, so I'm very self-aware. I know when other people are struggling with, you know, something that's not technically business related, that they might just be struggling with their own belief or their own confidence. And I'm really good at leaning into people and listening to them and making them feel heard and encouraging them and kind of supporting them to get through that, which is not my favorite thing to do because I'm not a therapist. I'm a I'm a business coach, I'm a marketing guy, right? Um so so I'm yeah, I'm curious to see how that r plays out and how we can systemize our marketing and our fulfillment to make it that that's not really a conversation that we have. That's like we we're not your therapist. We're here to solve these problems, and and that's what we solve. So I'm curious to see how that unfolds over the next few months as we continue to work with you.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. It'll be interesting. I don't know how much I should say from internal conversations, um, but that's definitely something we've discussed of actually that may potentially being a part that might be missing. That if we were to solve that in terms of a team or a component of having because yes, and then maybe this is like beliefs, our beliefs different, differentiating in terms of when you going back to what we talked about earlier of like that addiction to chaos. Sometimes for clients, when you have been so used to struggle, you're so subscribed to the struggle, um, there is a level of self-sabotage. And it's not necessarily any systems, but it is work that has to be done in the mind. So for like specifically agency Mavericks, it I think it'll be, I think you'll be excited by the things Emily and I have been chatting about to to solve that issue. But in terms of codifying, um, stay tuned because we'll keep working on that.
SPEAKER_00Awesome. I love it. And I have been saying for a long time that I would love one of my uh goals is to have um, and I whether this happens or not, I I you know, is is yet to be seen, but I would love to have some um someone on the coaching team who can lean into the psychology of a business owner or the mindset and can do that coaching because I have done a lot of that over the years just through osmosis and through the the having the con. I mean, you wouldn't believe some of the things that our clients have told me over the years, and I've just kind of leaned into that and been a support for them, but I don't really want to do that anymore because one, it's it's not what I'm qualified to do, uh, it's exhausting, it's emotionally quite taxing, and also I then do become the bottleneck for their growth because I'm the only one really, I think, in the in the company that kind of has that conversation. That's not entirely true. I know Pete also does lean into clients and talk to them a lot about mindset and and what's going on between the ears, which really is like 90% of what's going on in your business, if there's a problem, is because of there's something going on between your ears. So if we can fill that gap, I think that's a big step in the right direction. Um, was that was that the coaching answer that you were gonna give me?
SPEAKER_02I think you ended up answering your own question. Like I didn't end up having to do it because I was seeing some places where you were saying that you really were the only one able to, there is no one on the team. Um, and sometimes, like I said, we like to overcomplicate. And so it was kind of the overcomplication of this need to codify a system that there isn't have to be a system, it might just be a hire.
SPEAKER_00Love it. Um, I want to come back and talk about um uh revenue or profit per head in a minute. Um, but before we get there, I will let you know that I, yes, for a long time have been kind of addicted to the chaos, and I've definitely have that entrepreneurial um you know mindset of of wanting to solve problems and therefore creating problems just so I can solve them. I tell you what, I'm becoming very fast addicted to now, and this is because you've got me time tracking, right? Uh that's right.
SPEAKER_02Uh you you I'm proud of you.
SPEAKER_00You you've got me using toggle to to time track. What I'm really addicted to now is uh without sharing uh too many numbers, I can tell you that last months we generated more net profit in this business than I used to earn in a year, right? Which is kind of mind-blowing. Yes. And I don't know how many hours I worked, but it wasn't many. I'm on a I'm on a mission now. I was on a mission to get down to uh about eight hours a week, right? Um I'm on a mission now to get to the kind of profit that we were generating last month. I'm on a mission to do that consistently and literally work four hours a week in the business, just so I can tweet Tim Ferris and go, hey, I did it. So it took me 10 years after reading your book, but I did it. It's the four-hour work week, and profit is more than what I a month is more than what I used to earn a year. So I'm really addicted to that idea now. And more and more I find myself saying to Emily, like just listening to Emily and helping her talk things through, but just letting her make the decisions.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. And it's huge. I mean, that was a huge celebration for Emily and I to talk through of like, because when I came on, that was a big thing, was like, we want to get that net profit up. And we did, which is amazing, but I want to get it up at least 10% more. So, like, that's definitely the goal is to continue increasing the profit while decreasing your time, which I'm glad you're seeing. There actually is a correlation between the two.
SPEAKER_00There is, and that's a story I'm really looking forward to to telling is that like now my hours are down to four hours a week. Look at our revenue, look at our price. Offer, like I I want to, I want the data to prove that I am useless in this business and that I don't need to be here, right? Apart from kind of helping Emily talk things through and work things out. Um, reality check for agency owners, what kind of revenue or what kind of numbers should we be looking at per employee or per head of team member?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, this is huge. This is really big. So depending on what you're optimizing for. So if you're optimizing for scale, like you're wanting to scale your big your business as much as possible, then you want each full-time employee to equal about 400K in annual revenue. If you're wanting to optimize for like quality of life, you're looking for more of a little bit of like a laid-back lifestyle business. You're wanting the bare minimum to be 250K. So sweet spot would be like 325, 350. I like to keep it around 350.
SPEAKER_00And does that change if uh obviously you're pro rata that if a if an employee is only part-time or a or a or a contractor or another freelancer?
SPEAKER_02If they're part-time, it's half. Yeah. So if someone's not, if they're part-time, um, contractors get a it depends on the level of contractor, like if they're really a contractor, but yeah, that gets a little more convoluted in terms of are they actually part-time, but you're calling them a contractor type of thing. Um, but this is specifically for team uh that if it's full-time, that's total. If it's part-time, you add up part-time people. So like two part-time would equal one.
SPEAKER_00We had Mike Mark on the on the uh show recently who's uh coaching sales.com. He also came to our mastermind and spoke as you did, and he's gone from a team of 52 down to a team of six. Uh and you know, it and and it's and it's this is this is I I we need to be conscious of the fact here that we're not saying you should get rid of people for the sake of get getting rid of people, but I believe there are in a lot of small businesses, not just in agencies, but in a lot of small businesses, there are team members who are there because they've been there for a while. There's loyalty, we don't want to feel bad, but ultimately they don't need to be here, and them being here is kind of holding the business back because there are resources that we're putting into that person that we could be using for other things. Um, we've had big changes here to our team over the last few months, and you know, part of it is sad because we're parting ways with people who have been around for a long time, but we know that the best thing for the company moving forward is to run a leaner operation and to have different people occupy different seats and have new roles, and we will grow the team again and we'll hire new people into new roles. Um, but we had to have that conversation um because we had essentially we had an org chart that just wasn't reflective of the kind of business that we were trying to grow. And that and I think that's really common. And people don't want to let people go because it feels shitty, right?
SPEAKER_02It does. And there that also has to be a reframe of like I wouldn't have my business if I wasn't let go from from companies that I loved, you know, and if that didn't set that business owner free, that wouldn't have set me free. So there's so much to look at it, but all of it comes down to seeing your business as an asset. And that's why, like up until now, I haven't really met the agency maps team. Like I just talked to Emily saying, like, it might be time, like we're at a place where it's I can hop in with them. But I kept myself very like, I don't know the people, so that way I can look at them as scorecards and KPIs, and what is the business need? So that way the emotions can't get in the way of it. Like you were saying earlier, like sometimes it does take someone that's not in the day-to-day of the business to say right away this is your low-hanging fruit.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. And that's yeah, that's exactly the experience that we had. Um, and and we knew, like, you know, we knew that things had to change. We were just dragging our feet on it because, you know, we don't want to be the bad guy, right? Um so hey, this has been super helpful. Where can people reach out, learn more about what you're doing? And is there something that they can access? Is there something they can download to kind of get them started on this journey?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, of course. If you wanted to get like a free playbook, I've got a scale without sacrifice playbook. I think we'll put the link in somewhere for you guys. Um, but the fastest way to get to know me is to just look me up on Facebook, join the Facebook group, and get free support there.
SPEAKER_00Awesome. And it's the Facebook group is called what exactly?
SPEAKER_02Process to Profit.
SPEAKER_00Process to Profit. Alexis Bartok, thank you very much for hanging out with us on the Agency Hour and looking forward to keeping working with you in the coming months.
SPEAKER_02Amazing. Thanks so much.
SPEAKER_00Thanks for listening to the Agency Hour podcast, and a massive thanks to Alexis for joining us. And thank you for all your hard work and insights. We love what you're doing for us here at Agency Mavericks. There you have it, ladies and gentlemen. Don't forget to subscribe and please share this with anyone who you think may need to hear it. Now, are you getting paid to close clients? I know that sounds like a radical idea, but right now we are guaranteeing you can get paid to close eight new clients in the next 30 days. If you'd like to chat with our team about how you can get paid to close, click the link near this episode. Let's get to work.