Andrea Liebross: Welcome to the Time to Level Up Podcast. I'm your host, Andrea Liebross. Each week, I focus on the systems, strategy, and big thinking you need to CEO your business and life to the next level. Are you ready? Let's go.
Hello, my friends, and welcome back to the Time to Level Up Podcast. I hope you are well. I hope it's sunshiny at your house. I hope you are spending some time outdoors enjoying that or doing whatever you love to do on a sunshiny day. And I hope that you are still plugging away at your business.
Spring is a time of growth so that can mean business growth as well. If you've listened to the last few episodes here on the Time to Level Up Podcast, we are focusing on how to audit your business to create an awesome business. As part of this series, I am spending some time talking about systems and processes.
Today, I have an expert with me on that topic and she is going to share her wisdom with you. But before we get into that, I just want to remind you that the second half of the year is almost here. Are you at a place where you could say, “Huh, the first half of the year went really well and I want that second half to go even better,” or are you saying to yourself, “Hmm, the first half of the year didn't go so well and I want to make sure the second half is great because I want to reach those goals”?
Either way, I invite you to join us in one of our coaching groups because in July, in both of those groups, we are going to do a special bonus session where we plan Q3 and Q4 and you will want to be there for those bonus sessions. They're almost like mini VIP days in a way and I'm going to walk you through my process for helping you create a business plan that's ideal for your business whatever stage your business is at.
Let's get you going in there. You can head over to andreaslinks.com and you can find the link to schedule a call, you can find the link to my website too where you can find out more about all the coaching programs, but let's chat. I would love to offer you a free strategy and planning call and we can figure out what your strategy and plan is and how you can find the support you need.
Perfect time to start in with coaching so that you ensure that the second half of the year is as amazing as you would like it to be. Alright, back to today. Today I have Yvonne Heimann with me for conversation on systems and processes. She is the founder and CEO of Ask Yvi and, I'm going to call it a ClickUp Evangelist. She's actually writing a book even about ClickUp, which is a software that helps with systems but she's super passionate about business efficiency and scalability.
She is just a wealth of knowledge and she's really, really fun. She's had multiple businesses over the last 15 years and she really has helped her clients organize, strengthen, and streamline their business. I first became familiar with her actually on LinkedIn. For all you people that say I should use LinkedIn more, I found her there and we have become friends. I really value her insight and all the things that she is passionate about because she is passionate. Sit back, buckle up, and listen in to my conversation with Yvi.
Hey, Time to Level Up listeners. Welcome back to the podcast. Today, we are going to continue our journey through auditing your business so that you can create an awesome business and we are up to the point now where we need to really look deep into our systems and processes.
I think it's a general rule that you could say people know that having systems and processes helps make you more efficient and productive, but people don't always know how to put them in place or what systems and processes they need. It seems scary, overwhelming, and a big time commitment. Shouldn't they just do it always from scratch all the time? I have a guest expert here to chat all about it and I'm going to let her introduce herself. Here we go. Go for it.
Yvonne Heimann: That's the one that doesn't have a speaker page open so we are completely winging the intro. Hi, everybody. I'm Yvonne Heimann with askyvi.com, and the short version is I see systems where other people see chaos. I'm a business efficiency consultant helping coaches, consultants, content creators, and entrepreneurs in general start seeing the world a little bit like I do where systems are literally everywhere.
If you are struggling with this idea of “But I have custom offers to my clients,” “But it's just me, I don't need a system,” “I don't have a system, it's not there,” I'm telling you, yes, you do and yes, you need it. We'll dive into all of that today.
Andrea Liebross: We will. I love it, especially when someone says to me, “Well, every client is unique and that's part of what they love about me.”
Yvonne Heimann: No, they’re not. I promise you, they're not. The approach to them potentially, how you communicate with them. One of the potential downfalls of systems, processes, and automation is you forget the human in this whole thing. It does not matter what project management tool you use.
You know, Andrea, I love me some ClickUp because I can do a whole bunch of stuff with this project management tool. However, even if I work with clients that are all gung-ho and “Let's systemize this, let's make this a repeatable processes,” and I do not have to open their eyes to the advantages, even them, I need to pay attention that we don't lose the human in it.
First of all, we as the human are the weakest link in all of this, no matter if we're the CEO, if we are the manager, if we're the implementer, it does not matter. Technology is just as good as we are and people think different people communicate different. A CEO is going to focus on something else than an implementer does. They're going to use different language.
Not even just that, we as human ourselves hear about different things. Some of us are kinesthetic, some of us are visual, some of us are auditory. Not only do I help people with those systems and processes but also with the translation to actually get the human to develop the habits of running those systems and processes. We dove totally deep into this right at the beginning.
Andrea Liebross: Ooh, we did. Question, Emily, if you are listening, you just keep listening because I was talking to my client Emily today. We were talking about her current system, she does wedding film, it's a wedding video. She does have a process when someone inquires what she does. Well, right now, she manually responds to them. After they inquire, she manually responds and she tells them if the date they're looking for is available and she says, “Here's a button to set up a call.”
I said to her, “Why isn't this more automated? Why once they inquire, if they fit your criteria, which you could have questions on, there could be an automated response with a button for them to schedule a call versus you either getting back to them 10 minutes later, an hour later, three days later, you're holding up the process,” and her response was, “But I want to have a human element to my follow-up.” Okay, well, I know what I told her.
Yvonne Heimann: Make it fun. Interestingly enough, and I agree, again, we want to have a human element to it, especially with wedding photography, there is nothing that will replace your discovery call. You're talking to them but you to be the person sitting there typing this d*mn email and sending it out, it's the same thing over and over and over and over again.
You know how my lead capture happens? People sent me already their information up front. I know exactly who I want to work with, what kind of data points have to be hit for them to be an ideal client? Meaning, how long are they in business? We don't automate, we don't systemize things within the first six months of a business because that person hasn't been on their face yet, they haven't broken things yet, they haven't figured out yet exactly what they want to do and how they want to do.
I don't need to come in at that point, they are still learning what they want to be when they grow up, not that we ever stop learning that. So I have specific data points and literally, I have a questionnaire. I have two funnels where people come in. They can come into my website where they're getting asked these questions first or sometimes I get leads from ClickUp where they literally schedule the discovery call but they get asked the same question.
They're ending up in the exact same funnel. What happens is I have, I need to say a lie, five or six question, what's your budget? Who is the money-making decision-maker? What are your issues? If I could waive my magic wand, how does that look like? When do you want to start? Translating this to Emily's wedding business, girl, you should not be sitting there sending this d*mn email. There is not even why even. Have them schedule a call.
At this point, have they actually scheduled a venue yet? Can we change the date? You want them on the call as fast as possible. I wouldn't even put an inquiry form on the website. Use a scheduler, Acuity. I'm not a fan of Calendly, there's too much we need to manually put behind the scenes but that's my personal preference. I know a lot of people love Calendly. Acuity Scheduling.
Book Like A Boss is what I use. Let them jump on a d*mn discovery call and the moment they schedule, ask them those questions. Is your wedding date set yet? Yes. Which date is it? What's your phone number? What's your email? What are you envisioning? Do you already have a Pinterest board to see what kind of style of imagery you want? And get them on your d*mn calendar now.
Andrea Liebross: That was my whole point. I was like, “Get them on the calendar and then ask them some questions. If they don't fit the criteria, then you can respectfully decline the call if it's like you already know they're not a good fit but you don't want to delay getting them on that call.” That's my point to her.
Yvonne Heimann: Not even. You have the data points, if that specific client potentially does not fit your criteria, I'm sure you have how many wedding photographer friends that would pay you a finder’s fee because it fits their target market. No human would know if there is human interaction or not to schedule this discovery call. It's a waste of time.
Andrea Liebross: I'm so glad we talked today.
Yvonne Heimann: And I'm not passionate about this topic at all.
Andrea Liebross: No, no, no. How do you know what systems you need?
Yvonne Heimann: Hmm, there is one system that I have all of my clients start with and we actually got a freebie. Andrea, I'm going to send you the link on this. I literally have a workbook, I completely forgot about this. I got a workbook and the whole nine yards for you to actually map this specific process workflow out and that's your money maker.
We don't start with operations, we don't start with team management or anything, we start with your money maker. What's your money maker? Your client journey. It's the “Hey, I'm your client now. What am I getting from you? When am I getting it? How am I getting it?” That is the process you have to start with. That's your money maker. That's what I start every single client with.
What that means is we are looking at the client delivery process, meaning we can't start with the onboarding, sometimes we do, sometimes we don't. Definitely, the delivery of “your product,” “your service,” what is happening? How are we delivering? What do I need from the client to be at my best? What are all of those tasks? Who are the team members that are involved?
What's our standard deadline, timeline, and all the things that are happening? Not only turning a lead into a client, making them happy, over-delivering on our promise, because everybody is happy when we over-deliver so don't overpromise and under-deliver, but under-promise and over-deliver. But that's where most of us stop.
Who of us actually has a system and process in place to turn these clients once they are done and we delivered into a referral client, into a potential affiliate, into a recurring client? Getting testimonials, who of us listeners actually have something in place for us to get testimonials from our clients? You do. I hadn't until last year. I'm like, “I've been so in delivering on what I promised my clients I completely forgot about a d*mn testimonial. Who does that? I'm a content creator.”
Andrea Liebross: These are all the pieces of the puzzle that really help you level up your business. We can all just exist, but if we're going to get it to that next level, which most of my listeners are wanting to do, then we've got to change up the game in a sense and you've got to have these pieces in place.
Yvonne Heimann: What happens in this process is we are changing from reactive to proactive. When we start our business, we are out there, we are passionate, we found a need, we found a problem that we solve. We are reacting to our clients coming in and saying, “Hey, I want this,” which means most of us have started out with custom solutions, figuring out what is this thing that we do, starting to build slowly that framework, getting that data, getting that information of what works, what doesn't work, how, what, where, all of those things and then we hit a ceiling.
We hit a ceiling of either way too many clients and we can't deliver, you just get into burnout of, “Oh, my God, how? What? I can't do all of this.” It's only in your head but the thing already starts before that. Unfortunately, most of my clients come to me with, “Oh, my God, Yvi, I can't do all of this anymore. I don't know how. Can you help me?” I'm like, “Yeah, I wish you would have called me six months ago. Now we have to fly by the seat of our pants and make this happen as fast as possible, which means it's going to be more in your budget.”
Because people get into this thinking of, “Yeah, but I'm just doing it. Why do I need assistance? Do I need a checklist? Why do I need a project management tool?” Let me tell you. Yvi over here used to be a web designer. I have built, I don't even know how many, hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of websites.
I'm the tech nerd. I know exactly where to do the whole SEO, the metadata, the images, and all the things, hundreds of websites and even to the last website when I finally said I'm done, I had moments where I'm like, “Did I do this? How did I do this? Do we have the graphic? Is this optimized? Do we have the SEO made our title in there?” Do you know how much brain power you waste not having your systems down and it's as easy as starting with pen and paper, literally.
Andrea, you already heard my SOAR Framework where we start systemizing things. That's what S stands for. That's where you start with all of this and it can be as simple as take a pen and paper and start writing down the steps of the things you need to do. It's as simple as this. Literally just next to you, start writing things down.
We then want to turn that into a digital system. Yes, meaning, you can outsource things and you can just assign things so you do want to bring in a project management tool like ClickUp. That already will start opening up your brain power. Meaning, you literally can just look, “Oh, yeah, done, checked off. Cool, don't need to worry about it. How fast did this go?” Rather than going into the website or into the client, “Which day did they go? When do they want to get their wedding done? What kind of pictures? Which package? What? How?” It's right there.
Then from starting to systemize this, now that it's written out and now that it's digital, you can start optimizing this thing. I promise you, even just writing this down with hand, you will be like, “Why the heck am I doing that?” At that point, it makes way more sense doing that up here and you start optimizing that process. It's a continuous process of optimizing it.
We actually, for the SOAR Framework, based on the workflow we are looking at and running this whole framework for, we run this potentially in the beginning every month, if it's a big sales funnel that we need to clean up so we potentially run it every month. If it's a plate in process, we wanted quarterly or every six months. If it's just a hey, little tiny, we might even just check it once a year.
Now that we have systemized this, we started optimizing it, you run it, you do this manually and go through, “Yes, this actually makes sense. Yes, we were done with now, when we got on our project management tool, it’s all cool. We are now automating it.” Meaning, for example, content creation is a huge time sucker, especially digital asset management.
You want to check out my YouTube channel, I have an automation for that. Literally when I create the video, the process behind it is video creation, blog creation, then social media post creation, and short form content. There's a lot of content going on. My blog needs to be SEO optimized based on the keyword we chose for that episode.
You know how many images and videos need to be renamed to hit that keyword? None because we have an automation behind the scenes that automatically generate the folders in Google Drive, that automatically rename those images, and everything is SEO optimized. I don't even have to check on my team.
We then go into the review process so we systemized it, we optimized it, we automated it, now we review. We look at the data. Where are things working? Where are things not working? This is where you go into your sales funnel and check if things are working or if things are broken. Getting the data points, what of your social posts are working? Where is this getting stuck? And then we rinse and repeat. There you have that SOAR Framework that you run through every single time over and over to make sure things are running smooth.
Now, here's a little pro tip just because you are listening to Andrea's podcast, you want to future-proof this thing. Yes, we now move from being reactive to being proactive. We're actually implementing our systems. We want to scale. What happens if you now suddenly have doubled the clients? We just went through how many years of COVID?
What if your team suddenly is half the size? Every 3 months, every 6 months, every 12 months, matters how big your business is, run through this thought experience of what happens if we suddenly double clients, if we double sales, if we have the team member? What would break in this whole thing? That's the next system you focus on going through the SOAR Framework again.
Andrea Liebross: Okay. Love it. When people do this, what happens? The results that they get, what's different for them?
Yvonne Heimann: On the personal level, it's a “Ahh.”
Andrea Liebross: Yeah, relief.
Yvonne Heimann: It's the “I know I can go on a d*mn vacation without squeaking myself out. I know I can step away from my business.” Everything's going to get done, no problem.
Andrea Liebross: This is the freedom of time, money, and brain power that I talk about.
Yvonne Heimann: Freedom and flexibility. It's so easy to just be like, “Hey, I can't take care of that, can you take care of me?” Go do that. Taking this one step further, it also then needs standard operating procedures and wikis, which, again, there are some videos on my YouTube channel on how we format them so humans actually use them because who reads the employee handbook?
Having the resources for your team to really be able to do this, but to have a tangible thing that happens, this is one of my favorite clients, they are a food vlogger, recipe vlogger, they are one of the OGs, so you can imagine how many posts they have on their blogs with recipes.
But also you imagine all the things that go into every single one of these blog posts, the images, the video creation, the recipe testing, going back to the post and SEO optimizing them because now we have data from Google Analytics.
There is so much going on in something like this and they came to me and they were like, “Yvi, we can't. Our team is burned out. There ready to shoot us,” they wouldn't use that language, that's my language, they’re just burned out. We are ready to literally double the team just to be able to take care of our team because they are just overwhelmed with everything. They are literally at the brink of burnout. The whole team, not just even the CEO level, not just even the couple that's running it.
I was like, “Let's see,” and we dove into this and we took this whole thing. We were lucky enough, they already had their processes down. They've been doing this for years. They know what was going on behind the scenes so we were able to implement this really, really quick.
Not only did they not need to add anybody else to the team to be able to take care of the workload, their team now is happy to come back in the morning, start working, they are happy go lucky and they get things done so much faster.
He told me just cleaning up these processes, running it, and going through my SOAR Framework saved them 40% of their work time. This whole admin stuff, the thinking we were talking about, “Did I do that? Didn't I do that? Where do I find this? Where is this happening? What's happening next?” 40%, can you imagine that? 40%, that's insane.
Andrea Liebross: Huge. Love it. Yeah, there's a personal win to it and there's a business win to it and then there's also this, it's tied to your business, but all the other people in your business, clients and team members, there's a win for them too.
Yvonne Heimann: You do want to have the conversation with them. When we often roll things out like that, there can be an aspect of fear with your team members, “You just want to automate away my job.” No, make sure you have this communication with your team, “We want to make your life easier. You are my content writer, I don't want you to have to spend half of your day with admin BS. I want you to be able to be in your genius, be the best, and have fun doing it.” Make sure you have that communication with your team so that fear doesn't come up.
Andrea Liebross: I always say, “What are the things in your business that you and only you can do?” For example, with Emily today, she is the one that is doing the video. She has associate, people helping her but that's her expertise but she's not the only one that can write an email.
She was like, “Oh, I see where you're going with this.” Let's save your energy and time to do all the things that only you can do and let's either have some system to help do the things that you are not the only one that could do. There's still a human element to it, like you said, the thinking, is this optimized? Is it still working? Is this going to grow with us? There's a human element to all of this.
Yvonne Heimann: I often make fun, it's like I literally have Eva in my business. If somebody submits the questionnaire to become a client of mine, they literally get in the bottom and I was like, “Hi, by the way, I'm Yvi's ClickUp bot, Eva,” with a little emoji next to it and I'm making it into a story. I'm having fun with it.
Even those automations, even those email templates, make fun with it. Or in this case of Emily, it's like do you want to have more of “human interaction” for your clients in the beginning? Fine, get yourself a, we would call it client success manager, client experience, whatever the title you want to be, that takes care of it.
You don't have to be that but that person is also going to need your system of how you make your clients feel special in that onboarding process that brings us back to you need your systems and processes and then let somebody else schmooze your clients around the genius and other stuff you are taking care of.
Andrea Liebross: So true. What's your best piece of advice, your human piece of advice?
Yvonne Heimann: Totally out of systems and processes, life is too short to do the things you want to do tomorrow. I learned that the hard way. Don't wait till tomorrow. Don't.
Andrea Liebross: Don't wait.
Yvonne Heimann: You want to do the thing, you want to write the book, don't wait for tomorrow. You never know if it's going to come.
Andrea Liebross: Tell us about the book, talk about the book.
Yvonne Heimann: I snuck that in perfectly.
Andrea Liebross: We're both in the process of writing books so we have commiserated over this.
Yvonne Heimann: Anybody that is ready to really face this, head on and do the thing. There is a book out there, at the point of publishing this podcast, called Mastering the Basics of ClickUp where I literally go into the nitty-gritty of ClickUp as a project management tool with use-case scenarios, with all the basic things you need to know on the technical side to make all of this happen in your project management system, to really get those systems in there and get them started to automate.
The goal of the book really is to give you and your team a resource for all this nitty-gritty stuff. Hey, boss, how do I add a task to ClickUp? How do I see this? How do I make this a recurring task? How do I set this up? We spend so much time educating teams based on really just the basics of a project management tool. Again, ClickUp, my choice, that's why I wrote the book on it, that I was like, “You know what, let's put this in a book.”
It's version 3.0 updated, everything perfect for ClickUp where it becomes a resource for you and your team so you don't have to repeat yourself over and over again when training them.
Andrea Liebross: There's a system right in the book, look it up.
Yvonne Heimann: I use ClickUp and my system to write the book and manage all of this.
Andrea Liebross: Oh, look at that. I love that.
Yvonne Heimann: Using ClickUp to write the book about ClickUp.
Andrea Liebross: I love that. Writing a book is quite a system. There needs to be a system.
Yvonne Heimann: oh, my gosh, yes, it is. Hey, at least, we can write digitally now and we don't have to do it all on hard copies.
Andrea Liebross: Alright, that's one way to look at it. I haven't really thought about that but I'll take it. Well, this has been a great conversation and we've packed in so much information. There is zero reason, my friends, why not to explore creating better systems and processes in your business that don't eliminate the humanness of it but, in fact, I would say enhance the humanness of it in a sense because you have left with more time to be human.
Yvonne Heimann: Exactly. It gives you the freedom and flexibility to be in your genius and just take care of your clients.
Andrea Liebross: Absolutely. Tell us what are the best ways for people to follow you and get all your information. You mentioned YouTube, you've got your book.
Yvonne Heimann: Oh, there are so many things. I am literally everywhere as Ask Yvi. The easiest thing is start at the website. Everything is linked there. Everything is findable there. YouTube is linked there, behind the scenes is happening on Instagram so the easiest spot to start is really the website and then just message me there. You can literally message me everywhere. I'm attached to my phone so I'll see it. I'm one of those people.
Andrea Liebross: That's okay. You can be one of those people. I, of course, will have all of these links in the show notes. Go right now, go check out her YouTube channel, there's so much information there. It's so good. And get yourself a copy of that Mastering the Basics of ClickUp or we could call it the ClickUp Bible, another way to think about it.
Yvonne Heimann: I like that.
Andrea Liebross: You like that?
Yvonne Heimann: I should see if that URL is available, clickupbible.com.
Andrea Liebross: Huh. Alright, my friends. Until next time, Time to Level Up, listeners. Go get yourself some systems. It's the way to level up. See you next week.
Yvonne Heimann: Bye everybody.
Andrea Liebross: Bye.
Okay, so what did you take away from that? Do you have systems and processes in place that are serving you, making things easier for you, and allowing you to feel the energy that comes and is available when you have a system in process? What systems and processes do you not have in place that would make your life a lot easier and would allow your business to flow?
If you're not feeling flow in your business, you really do want to consider these systems and processes. Go check out all that Yvi has to offer, her links are in the show notes. You can also find the link there to me and I would be happy to chat about this with you too because I think systems and processes is definitely an element that we need to audit in order to create an awesome business.
What are you waiting for? No more passive podcast listening. Let's turn the passive podcast listening into massive action. The way to do that is oftentimes to have someone there holding your hand and holding you accountable and I'm happy to do that so let's do it together.
Okay, my friends, let me know you're listening. DM me, take a screenshot of this episode, let me know what you thought, and share it with a friend while you're at it. That is the best way to be a good friend, actually, to share something valuable with someone else. Alright, I will see you next time. Remember, now is the time to level up, never a better time than now.
Hey, listening to podcasts is great. But you also have to do something to kick your business up a notch. You need to take some action, right? So go to andreaslinks.com and take the quiz. I guarantee you'll walk away knowing exactly what your next best step is to level up.