The Agency Hour
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The Agency Hour
A Maverick Story
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What made the biggest difference for me from the beginning is being very, very, very disciplined with how I spend my time.
SPEAKER_00If you have a vision for the agency you want to build, then we want to help you build it. Welcome to the agency hour podcast for TPAC Members.
SPEAKER_03Hey everybody, welcome to the agency hour. Hope you guys are doing well playing my Johnny Tunes. I guess I should fade that out before we get tagged for uh for um audio coming in from uh license audio, whatever. Hey, good to hear, good to see all of you guys and those of you joining on the podcast. So glad that you guys are here. Uh this is the agency hour. I am uh hosting Johnny Flash. Uh I'm your host, uh coach at Agency Mavericks, and uh just excited to uh be here with you guys. So uh today we have a very special guest, um, which I am super excited about. Um and she is recently joined Agency Mavericks as a coach, but before that, she was in Agency Mavericks as one of our students, I guess, or uh cadets, as you could, I guess we would call them. So um she has come on as a coach and she is crushing it both in her agency, her personal life, and as a coach. And so uh we wanted to bring her on today to talk about um how she runs her business and kind of um how she is able to juggle being a mom and doing all the other things that she has responsibilities for in her life uh while still running an agency. So uh please welcome our special guest, uh Jenny Lakin. Hey, like a I need like a button. Awesome. How are you doing?
SPEAKER_01Good, good. I'm excited. I'm excited to talk to you today and and share some value, hopefully, and not just blabber and talk about myself.
SPEAKER_03If you see me typing at any point during this, it's gonna be just because I'm taking notes. I felt so bad. I had someone on the agency hour a week or two ago, and uh I was just taking notes. So my Max is muting my keyboard because it's clanking away because I'm typing notes as he was talking. And uh, anyways, it was really good. So I know that you're gonna give us some good uh gold nuggets here. So uh for those of you that don't, for those that are listening that don't know you, give us just a quick kind of uh intro of yourself.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, so my name's Jenny Lakenan. Like like Johnny said, I am I I dub myself website consultant for life coaches. Um, most of my clients are certified coaches who are just really anxious to grow their online businesses and you know be an example of what is possible and help their clients to live better lives. And I just, you know, when I first started my business, I thought I would be a certified coach myself. Like that was kind of what I was trying to start a business for. And then I realized like, wow, so many of these coaches that are in my network, they either don't have a website or their website is just really a lousy representation of the quality of coach that they are. And I just thought, you know, this is a problem and I want to fix it.
SPEAKER_03Love it. So how did you pivot from how did you pivot from being a life coach to designing websites for life coaches?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, well, so I I found coaching first and I loved coaching and I was excited about it. And I was, you know, consuming all of the coaching podcasts and talking to as many, getting as much kind of free coaching from coaches who were like in certification and giving away um coaching as I could. And then as I was, you know, I after the like coaching call, I would be like, Hey, can I just ask you like a quick question about being a coach, real quick? Because I really want to get certified. And do you have any advice for me? And and you know, they would give me their experience. And it was really, really generous of them to do that. And then as I did that more and more and was kind of checking out their online presence, that was when I realized, like, okay, I want to pivot to I'm not gonna pursue coaching actually right now. I'm gonna start a business building websites for coaches. And so I I did my first website in the um fall of 2018, and it was a service trade. So a coach was like, Oh, I'll give you coaching and you build my website. And it was a great, great experience. She actually still uses that website, which I love.
SPEAKER_03Oh, wow. Cool. So you already knew how to build websites, or were you trying to figure out how to do that through all this?
SPEAKER_01I I didn't. I I really just taught myself. I okay YouTube's a lot, and then I I think I bought a Udemy course. And then, of course, since then, like I've consumed lots of different courses and and and implemented a lot of better systems than I had then. But yeah, I was just scrappy.
SPEAKER_03Like so you've just started your agency in the last four years, is what you're telling me. I would have never known. I mean, I kind of knew that, I guess, because when you went into the program, I knew you had only been doing it for a few years, but hearing it again, I just that's I'm blown, I'm surprised and blown away because you've had so much success and have grown so well that um I wouldn't I would have guessed that it had been longer. So that's awesome. So um now you also have another role uh besides agency owner, and that's uh mom, and I'm sure that involves a whole bunch of other things. So tell us a little bit about like when you're not working, what what consumes your time?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, so I have three kids, eight and under. Um, they're all girls. There's an eight-year-old, a four-year-old, and a one-year-old. So when I started my agency, I had two kids under five. Wow. Um, and my husband was working full-time, and he worked for a company that would get really, really busy during prom season. And so sometimes he was gone like 60, 70 hour weeks.
SPEAKER_02Wow.
SPEAKER_01And, you know, he was he he it was not like he hated his job, but it was just like consumed so much of his time and so much of his energy. And our real goal was we want to be a work from home family. Like we want one, we thought it would be him doing it, you know. We we want him to come home and be working from home and we can set our own schedule. And like that was really our dream. Um, but he was just so busy at work that he had no time or energy to like grow a side hustle into a bigger business that then he could um quit his full-time job to grow. And so, you know, I sat in resentment for a little while, and then I just realized, like, you know, who better than me? That was like my thought. Like, who better than me to like make this happen for us and and take that burden from him kind of of needing to like build a business and work full-time and stuff. And so um I was already looking for that, and then I found coaching, and then I found the need for coaches to have websites, and then it was just like this perfect, like perfect, beautiful thing of hey, it answers our need of and and desire of wanting to work from home full-time, and it's like this beautiful um you know, industry that I'm so passionate about already, like coaching, because it improved my life so much implementing the things that I learned from from coaching. And it was just like just this beautiful kind of package of here you go, grow this.
SPEAKER_03So it's you know, is he still running the is he still doing the 60s, 70 hour uh job during prom season or what's going on?
SPEAKER_01No, not at all. No, he quit his job about three or four months after I got my first paying client. We I think we'd had our first month where we were making this was spring of 2019, by the way. So I built my first website fall of 2018, spring of 2019 is when he quit his job, excuse me. Okay. So um, I think we'd had our first month where I made as much in the agency as he made full time at his day job. And we were our plan was to go like a full year of that, have a full year of us making more or at least the same amount in the agency as his job before he quits. But we had that first month of like the same amount as his day job, and it was just like we just got this like nudge. You know, you just get that inner nudge sometimes, like call it divine or whatever you want to call it, the universe. Um, and we we just knew that we needed to quit his day job because the it was me trying to be full-time mom and take care of the kids during the day and build the agency was going to be it was gonna hold back the growth that was possible.
SPEAKER_03So is he like the VP now or what? What what's the uh what what's is he like Mr. Mom? Like what's his what's he doing these days?
SPEAKER_01I mean, I guess you could call it Mr. Mom. I don't I don't ever think that word, but he's full-time dad. Yeah, he takes care of our three kids during the day. He he runs the house, he does home school. That's awesome.
SPEAKER_03No, no, that's so first let me just say that it's amazing. Um I I I wanna hats off to you just in that taking the courage to like one, you didn't make any excuses for your situation, right? Because your husband was working a gazillion hours, you had two kids under five at home, and you said, I'm gonna take this by the horns and I'm gonna just start this business and run with it. And so that's amazing. Like, just that courage that you had to kind of like just chart your path, I think is awesome. And then I think it's um also impressive that your husband recognized like your success and your ability and believed in that, and then like said, Hey, I'm gonna take a uh a step aside here, I'm gonna help out more with the kids and the house and everything so that you can go full into this. Like, I think that that's just an amazing story.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, he is such a rock star, like, and he's just believed in me from the beginning, and I'm really, really grateful for that. And the fact that he doesn't have like insecurities around like being the at-home parent and having a wife that is the breadwinner.
SPEAKER_03Like, I know that that's huge, it's huge, it's awesome. So, hats off to both of you. What a great story! So, so that was all in 2019. You get your first paying web client, and then you know, now I know you have lots of clients and a team and all that. So um tell us, tell us just kind of the I guess give us a kind of tell us that uh story, if you could.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, so I think what really helped me to grow my business as quickly as I have over the last four years is because I have a very like tight niche. Um, so you might look at me, you might look at my website and you say, Oh, Jenny works with coaches. Like, well, that's true, but it's also not true in the sense that like coaches is still a very broad niche. There are a lot of different coaching certifications, there are lots of different places that coaches hang out in the world and online. Sure. Um, but I like my niche that I originally niche down to and that is still primarily where I market myself is coaches that are certified through the life coach school.
SPEAKER_02Okay.
SPEAKER_01And the life coach school is like a particular certification program and it's a very tight network, and there is, you know, there's like a one or two Facebook groups where they hang out, and I am also certified through the life coach school. And so the fact that I'm in that network and that they know me, and that has allowed me to really grow my business because I'm I'm really like the bigger kind of player in that network. And that doesn't sound very humble of me to say, but like it's true. And so that I think has been the biggest thing that has helped me to grow my business so quickly. And I I just I love getting in that community and being really helpful. And just anytime anyone asks like a tech-related question or a website related question, I just get in there. Primarily, Facebook group is where I like hang out and I just answer questions and I don't even market myself really, like because you're not. Yeah, I just try to be helpful, and it's so fun. Like, I love being helpful, and so they just get to know me as that person, and then they check out my website. And my clients now like tag me sometimes in there when people uh need help. So um, I think that is the biggest thing that has helped me to grow. And now um, you know, we've we've got about I don't know, what do you want to know, Johnny?
SPEAKER_03Uh tell it tell us about your team size, tell us just kind of give us some numbers that kind of uh help people understand like where you've gone in just three or four years.
SPEAKER_01Okay, gotcha. So um started out just me in 2019 in August. I hired my first virtual assistant. Um, she's still with me. She's now our front-end developer. So there are sort of, and then we have a care plan manager as well. So me, the front-end developer, and the care plan manager are the kind of like the core team, the three of us. They're both based in the Philippines. Um, and then we have some additional like key contractors that are more adjacent. Like we have a brand designer who is also a certified coach that works with us on most of our clients, and then a couple of like a couple of designers um and a developer as well.
SPEAKER_03That's so your overhead's very low in terms of your costs, right?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, it is. It really is.
SPEAKER_03So you can have high profits pretty easily. And then you have how many clients would you say just approximation, would you say you're serving on a regular basis?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, that's a good question. We've got like five to seven concurrent projects going on at any time, like web new website builds going on at any time, five to seven of those. And then we've got about 60, 65 care plan clients that we maintain their site every month and you know, do the updates and everything. So awesome.
SPEAKER_03Awesome. So so just in three years, you went from zero monthly clients to 60 to 65 monthly clients, right? Is what you're saying?
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_03And you went from doing everything yourself to now kind of a core team of three plus a number of freelancers and and contractors that you kind of use, right? That is awesome. So so that's just incredible. I mean, I think if if most agency owners could go from doing it all themselves to having a small team and having 60 monthly clients to rely on, because that I know from my own experience, that that smooths out a lot of the the kind of up and down roller coaster you can have running an agency where it's like feast or famine. You've either got it so many projects, you have no time to do anything, um, or you know, you you've you've got no projects and you're trying to figure out like how you're gonna pay the bills, you know, this month because everything's slow. So I think that's amazing. Now, and the other thing that's I think particularly unique about your story, lots of things actually, but one thing that I want to point out is that, you know, um, I think some people would say, oh, that's amazing. Jenny must be working, you know, her husband used to work 60 to 70 hours a week. Now he's at home with the kids, she's working 60 to 70 hours per week, you know, to to to do all this. Like, give us some idea of like what's your typical work week look like? How much time are you spending like in the agency? Kind of give us a little bit of insight there.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, that's a good question. So I'd say the first year, because I I want to be real like transparent about that. I'm right now I work about 20 hours a week in my agency. And then I spend, you know, I spend some time in Mavericks as well working with you all, but um in the agency, it's about 20 hours. Now I didn't work 20 hours in the beginning. I worked about 40 hours in the beginning for the first year, year and a half, um, as I was really growing the team, you know, uh training my team and growing our systems and building client relationships, it was a full workload. But I wasn't working, you know, 60 or 70 hour weeks. It was it was just kind of a normal full-time schedule. Um, and then after about a year and a half, my husband and I decided that we wanted to have another baby. And so I very deliberately started paring down my schedule in preparation for knowing that like when I'm pregnant, I feel really awful. I'm healthy, but I feel awful. Yeah, and I wasn't gonna want to work 40 hours when I was pregnant. So um I I kind of whittled my schedule down so where I was working about 25 hours a week, and then we got pregnant, and I probably worked like five to eight hours a week for the entire pregnancy. Um, and then now I work about 20.
SPEAKER_03So But but but who paid your maternity leave, Jenny? I mean, how did you survive? Like uh, you know, your husband's your husband's at home with the kids, you're recovering from just having a baby and all that that entails, which I've seen my wife do it four times. I know that you're like a hero when you do all that. Um so I mean, how could you even survive with your husband at home and with only working five hours a a week in the agency?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I mean, we had some savings, some padding, not from anything, any windfall, but just as we were preparing to get pregnant again. We, you know, we kind of like at tax time, we're like, all right, we're gonna anything that we didn't have to pay to the government, we're gonna kind of like set aside and make sure we're budgeted ahead at least like two months in the agency. So like we planned ahead a little bit with the with the cash flow, but then also um my team just was able to keep our projects going through the pregnancy, even though I was only working like five to eight hours a week because of the systems that we had built, and because our projects are all fairly um standardized in the kind of like the structure of the sites that we build and just the systems of how we deliver it. Like, I actually didn't talk to my developer for a like a year on Zoom. Like, we literally were just talking on Slack for a year, which is insane. That's how dialed in our processes were and and are. So um, I think relying heavily, heavily on those systems was really key. Um and then just believing that we were gonna be able to do it, that it was gonna be fine. And and um the recurring revenue, of course, those care plans, those monthly plans helped helped a lot because you know it just was some security there underneath. If we had a month where we didn't have any projects that started or finished, which that happened when I was on maternity leave. So yeah, anything that I missed.
SPEAKER_03I'm sure you'll experience this as you're coaching more and more, especially in the in agency mavericks. I know you already are a coach and have way more qualifications than I do in terms of the coaching, but I think um one thing that I've observed with a lot of the Mavericks and other agency owners and stuff that were coaching is that um, you know, I think a lot of times they come into the program and they're working 50, 60 hours a week. They're not a stay-at-home mom with three kids under the age of eight, you know, um, and they're trying to do it all themselves and they're kind of they can feel like this rat in a wheel, right? That's just kind of can't get out to even like take a breath or to like work on their business because they're so just in it, you know, going constantly. And I think um, you know, it takes it takes some foresight to say, hey, I don't want it to be like this three months from now, six months from now, whatever that is. So what do I need, you know? And I think it's a good example too. Like when you had the baby, you were forced to, I mean, you could have tried to do more, but like you were forced to take a rest and work less hours or work not work at all, or whatever it was. And you know, I I often try to tell agency owners, hey, if you got hit by a bus and you were laid up in the hospital and you couldn't even like use your fingers to do, you know, the keyboard on a laptop in your in your hospital bed, and you're you just had to take a break, or you could only work. The doctor said, Hey, you're only gonna be able to work, you know, an hour a day or whatever it is, right? An hour or two a day, and that's all your body can handle, or you're gonna die. Then you would figure out some way to like do what you had to do. You would cut out almost everything from your schedule. You wouldn't be the developer, you wouldn't be the designer, you would do whatever minimal strategy or other planning calls you had to do. If you had to do sales or whatever, the couple little strategy things that you had to do, that's all that you would do. And you would be forced to like let go of the stuff that you've been so used to doing for many agency owners. And I think that can be really uncomfortable and it can be really a stretch for people to like just say, I'm not gonna be the chief designer, I'm not gonna be the chief developer, I'm gonna just, you know, trust. And I think that's a testament to you. It's a testament to your team, it's a testament to you of saying, Hey, I can, I'm, I'm gonna be secure and in my I'm gonna be secure enough, just like your husband was secure enough to stay at home. You're gonna be secure enough not to be the chief designer, developer, all the things. And then also for your team to step up and really own it and take the lead with a lot of that stuff, I think is huge.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, totally. That's exactly how I how it was when I was pregnant. It was like, I cannot like I when I'm pregnant, I kind of become like this introvert that like is easily overstimulated. So, like anything Zoom, anything like just even being in front of my computer for more than like an hour or two really just completely drained me. And I have to go get in bed for the rest of the day. And so I was just so careful about anything that I chose to do. Like, and I did the sales calls and I did kind of the project management, that there wasn't a lot of that that needed to be done. And really everything else, I just handed off as much as I could.
SPEAKER_03And then that forces you to build your systems, right? Get to have those in place and to build those and improve those. That's why I love taking a vacation without my computer, because it's not that I couldn't take my computer and do a little bit of this or that or whatever. But one, it says to my team, Hey, I trust you and you've got this, which is awesome. And two, when there is some little hiccup in the process or something that needs tweaking, it becomes more evident and then we can fix it, right? So that then the next time you're without your computer or doing work, it goes that much smoother, right? Um And so I think it's just uh, you know, when you can force yourself to unplug or to let go or to, you know, to trust the team, then I think it just it has so many good side effects um with that.
SPEAKER_01Yep, absolutely. Absolutely.
SPEAKER_03So what would you say to agency owners that are out there? You know, they may or may not be the a mom with three kids or whatever, but you know, they're they're either they are either in that same situation where they're like, you know, trying to juggle their other role, whether it be a day job or being at home with the kids or whatever, raising kids, uh being a spouse, all of that. Um, or you know, um they're they're just they're either there trying to get this thing going or they're that kind of rat in the wheel, just like spending 50, 60 hours a week, like missing that family time, missing all those things because they feel like if they don't, the business is gonna fall apart. Like, what would you say to those people listening in in one of those um groups?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I think what made the biggest difference for me from the beginning is being very, very, very disciplined with how I spend my time. And from the beginning, I remember in my journal, I've got written when my husband was still working full time and I was still full-time mom and growing the agency. I had time journals the night before I would sit down and I would document to like the 15-minute level how I was gonna spend my time the next day. And it's literally in my journal, it's like 10 a.m. to 10:30, fold laundry, 10:30 to 11, build the homepage for Laura, you know, the client, and 11 to 11:30, feed the kids lunch. Like it was just so detailed. And of course, like there has to be some fluidity when you have kids because sometimes they get sick and just things happen. But that I was like, did my best to like stick to that really tight schedule. It it gave me a sense of security because it was like, okay, I can trust myself that if I say I'm gonna deliver a website in two weeks or five weeks or whatever, like I know I'm gonna get it done because it's already broken down and it's already on my schedule and there's already a plan. And so I didn't have to like have any drama about I'm gonna be overworking to deliver this, or I don't know if I'm gonna have time because the kids are gonna need XYZ or whatever. Like that was really empowering in the beginning. So, and I and I still do that. Now I don't do it every day. Like, I don't sit down at the end of the day and plan. I plan my week at like a week at a time. So every Sunday evening I sit down and I'm like, I I have everything on my calendar of what I'm gonna do that week, broken down by day. And so that is what has helped me to not overwork because I can plan that I'm not gonna overwork. Does that make sense?
SPEAKER_03But someone when someone's listening right now and they're saying, but what about what about that unexpected, you know, problem that the client has, or these other things, like you know, how do you handle the interruptions?
SPEAKER_01You just build it in. You you build it in. So I actually have a 30-minute block every day called Daily Fire. And it's just on my calendar every day. And so I don't schedule anything in that ever.
SPEAKER_02Okay.
SPEAKER_01I have a plan ahead of time for if that doesn't get used, like if nothing comes up, no fire needs to be put out that I'm gonna, you know, I know what I'm gonna work on during that time. It's usually some business on the business project. Um, but yeah, you just build it in. And maybe you need more than 30 minutes, maybe you need an hour, or maybe you need two hours before you have, you know, a team to help you and answer support tickets and stuff. Maybe you need to build in more.
SPEAKER_03So, what expectations do you set for your clients then on when you're available? Like, are you saying, like, hey, if you contact us between these hours, someone will get back with you within a certain amount of time? Like, it seems like you've got the expectation management pretty good for your clients. So, talk a little bit about that.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, we um have a 48-hour support window, is what we say. So typically it's a lot faster than that, but I really like to um like underpromise overdeliver. Yeah, yeah. So we have a 48-hour support window. Usually it gansers answered faster. Um, but that is that is what we do. Yeah. Okay.
SPEAKER_03And I'm not one expecting to call you up on the phone, they're not texting you their problems, they're not saying like, hey, can you get this done this afternoon? Like you've you've set that very clearly. So you have those boundaries, you're disciplined enough to plan your schedule and then stick to it, right? So if if your schedule ends today at three o'clock or four o'clock or whatever, right, then you're just you're done. And you whether if you didn't get everything done, you're just kind of you're you're kind of gonna sign off.
SPEAKER_01Well, if I don't get everything done, then I have to do it in my free time when I want to be with my family, and that is very motivating to me. So I do my best. Like, I'm not perfect at time management, I don't think anyone is, even if they claim to be. So like, you know, within a 15-minute give or take window, I know when I'm gonna be done for the day, and I think that is really empowering.
SPEAKER_03So yeah, I think that's huge. And I think, you know, if we're all honest with ourselves, I think working at home, like whether you have kids or not, there's enough distraction and there's enough um lack of accountability, I guess you could say, for a better way to put it, that like you could just like, oh, I'm gonna go do a load of laundry, or I'm gonna go like run this errand, or I'm gonna, you know, open up my phone and and whatever, check Facebook or play a mobile game or whatever distracts you, right? Read the news. It could be anything, right? That's like nothing wrong with that in and of itself, but we mistake, like, hey, I worked 12 hours today, and it's like, well, if someone was really watching over your shoulder, like, did you get distracted with like email that you didn't need to? Did you, you know, check the news or do this or that or go on social media? Like, we it's it's easy to get distracted, right? And so I think yeah, I think part of what I'm hearing you say is that like you have to like tune out the distractions, you have to kind of say, hey, my family matters enough that I'm going to what and whatever it is, work six hours today, work eight hours today, sign off by 5 p.m., whatever that is for you, and it's different for everyone. Um, but it matters enough that I'm going to, you know, prioritize it, which means if I waste time during the day, then really it's hurting my family in the evening, right? Because I didn't use my time as wisely as I could, or I got distracted, or I let fires interrupt me. Um, and and so I think that's just I think that's huge, you know, in terms of that.
SPEAKER_01Totally. Well, but and there's something though that you want to be careful of, Johnny, because I'm gonna go put my little coach hat on here for a minute. Like it's so easy for us to, you know, you get into the like time management wheel, and you're like, okay, I'm gonna, you know, try to sit down and plan out my schedule more carefully. And then inevitably, you're gonna not follow your schedule in some area. You're gonna work longer than you planned or spend more time on a thing than you planned. And then the temptation is to just like get in that wheel of like beating yourself up and being like, see, I'm terrible at time management, I'm never gonna grow my agency, I'm not gonna, you know, and or like we just we kind of beat ourselves up and we're layering that's we're layering the negative emotion of like shame and beating ourselves up on top of the already negative emotion of like the end result we're creating for ourselves when we don't manage our time, like the frustration that's already there. And and I've just found that that's really not useful. Like, and I still do it sometimes too, but I try to catch myself when I'm getting into like self-judgment about how I spend my time. It's like, well, no, hold on. Remember, Jenny, that isn't that judgment is not useful. Like, that isn't serving you or helping you be more efficient. Let's just get really like curious. Let's just be kind of fascinated, like, oh, interesting. It's so interesting that you worked more than you planned. Like, I wonder what happened there. Like, we would talk to one of our kids or like one of our friends or something. You know, we wouldn't be like, Oh, shame on you for spending more on that than you planned. Like it would like just get curious because usually we have a really good reason for overspending our time on things. And it's just use it as a learning opportunity. Be like, okay, how can I what can I do differently next time so that when the temptation comes to work longer on something, I can not do it. Or how you know, sometimes it's like maybe I shouldn't actually even be have been doing that thing in the first place, or I don't want to be doing it, and I want to hire a designer now, or I want to, you know, start that's when you can kind of start seeing the usefulness of delegating too.
SPEAKER_02So yeah.
SPEAKER_01Resist the temptation to like judge yourself and just come from more of a place of curiosity and like fascination. And usually that's gonna get you move the needle for you, help you use your time more efficiently.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, yeah. And I and it can be uncomfortable, right? I mean, I remember, I remember like I was even after I had developers on the team, I was still doing some of the design, and I was like, I was like feeling like I needed to hold on to that. And when I finally decided, like, okay, I uh you know, I'm a bottleneck here with the design because you know, I can I need to spend more time selling and and less time designing. And so we hired a designer, and it was it was pretty quickly into that that I realized, wow, like the websites looked good when I did them, but they look much better now that someone who's just focused on the design and really passionate about the design, even though I thought that I was, um like can just really knock it out of the park better. So now it's that and that was like a number of years ago. So now it's to the point where I'm like, oh man, like that's a website from like four or five years ago that I designed, like, let's get that out of the portfolio and stuff, you know? Because uh I you know, I just think when you get the right people in the right seat and you empower them and you believe in them and stuff, like it's just magical. Um, we are running out of time here. I did we did have a question here that I want to ask. How did you uh go about creating your processes and any advice for how to start? Uh that's from James. So I'll I'll serve that up to you.
SPEAKER_01I just used the good old Pete Perry method. I literally wrote, I opened a spreadsheet and on one column I wrote everything that I do in the business, like a little every task, basically. Setting up Google Analytics, designing a page, like just everything that I could think of. And then each line item, each thing got I think Pete has like three columns. It's like, am I good at this? Is it profitable when I do it? And oh, there was one other one. Can you remember what it is, Johnny? I'm good at it. Profitable. And I think it was just like, do I like doing it or something?
SPEAKER_03Fashion or something.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. And then I just gave each one like it's a checkbox if that thing applied to the task. And the ones that had the fewest checks are what I created processes around first. And ease funny enough, the ones that had fewer checks were also probably the ones that are easiest to create a process around, like how to update a website in managed WP.
SPEAKER_02Right, right.
SPEAKER_01So tedious, but pretty easy to create a process around, especially because you do it so many times. You can just record a loom of you doing it, takes five to seven minutes, and then um you can assign, you know, I'd I just assigned it to my VA to like make a little checklist from the video, and that was all I did. So yeah, that's my suggestion. And my poor VA, the first month and a half she was working for me, she documented probably like 70 SOPs. That was like all she did.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_01But it was great because then she knew our processes actually super, super well and could then transition into her role.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, and I and I find too that, and I think you're alluding to this, like when you're doing stuff and you're like, I'm gonna have to do this again next week, next month, you know, later this year, next year, whatever, like just push the record button and just talk to yourself while you do it. And it's kind of awkward at first, but you just push recording, you just say, hey, I'm going into this thing. The client needed whatever Google Analytics added, or I do this, I have to update this thing. And it might take you an extra minute or two just talking it out, but just doing that, and it won't be like perfect. It's not gonna be like something you're gonna upload to YouTube and like get a gazillion hits on or anything. It's just gonna be you being raw. Maybe you mess up something or whatever, and then you just label that, right? And then whether you have the team member right now, or whether you're gonna have the team member soon or next month or next year, whatever, like you're gonna have that to then say, Hey, oh, we've had this happen before, or I've already documented how to do this. Sorry, this is an 18-minute video, like it's probably a six-minute job, but just watch this video and then you'll kind of understand it and you can document it better and shorter or whatever, right? And it's just it saves so much time.
SPEAKER_01Even if it's just you, see systems and processes are so important because it's what allows you to deliver a consistently quality service to your clients every time because you never miss things when you have a process, or it's a lot harder to miss things when you have a process. Whereas when it's all in your head, you know, yeah, our brains aren't meant to be storage containers, they're meant to be processors.
SPEAKER_03Love it, Jenny. Wow. Um, I'm I'm inspired to like uh, you know, end the podcast early here, uh, sign off early and um you know, cut my hours for next tomorrow and next week, and just uh see how much I can get done in as little bit of time as I I can. Um, thank you so much, Jenny, for coming on. You are an inspiration to me and to so many others. I'm so thankful that you're on uh as a coach. Um, so thank you so much. We're just uh delighted to have you on. So all right. Well, uh good to good to chat with all of you uh here. Hope that you've enjoyed this uh agency hour. Um, we have got some incredible guests lined up, so you're not gonna want to miss it. We've got we're rolling out kind of a an uh an updated podcast platform and everything that more details will be coming out. It'll be better quality audio, all the good things. Um, shout out to uh Max, who's running all the controls behind the scenes here, and Emily and Anna and everybody else who kind of makes this show possible. Uh, so thanks to them. Uh, we've hope you enjoyed this hour, and we will see you on the next episode of the agency hour.
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