The SOPs of Brand Experience

Zahra  

So today we're going to talk about how SOPs affects brand experience. And so the reason I brought Alicia Lozano in to talk to me about this is because she is the go to person in this area. If you want to get your business together, you need to talk to Alicia, I have had so many conversations with you, I've seen you in action and seen your work. And I think that what people don't realize it like we all realize, and we all know how much better we'll feel when we're not feeling like something's missing or behind, or we miss something, or there's something slipping through the cracks. And there is an emotional benefit to it. But there is also a financial benefit to it. And so that's what I love about you. So basically, Alicia Lozano is business, the motivated company. In her work, she supports emerging agencies elevate their business process to match their agency's value. She's a creator of the business flow framework, a business design framework she uses to transform the operations of your business. So tell me a little bit about the motivated company. And what you guys do there and how you help take entrepreneurs into that space?

Alicia  

Yeah, for sure. So I'm motivated company, we are operations and implementation as well. And so yeah, currently, I have one offer, be so proud, I narrowed it down like we did really well. And it's the business operations audit. And basically, what the business operations audit is, is, it's an entire look at your business, and every single one of your business functions from an operational lens. What I am super jazzed about though, is that I take a heavy focus on your client experience. And I look at the customer journey, every single bucket of the customer journey, because when I have a conversation with the CEO on what they want, you know, from the awareness phase, all the way down to how you're turning people into raving fans. See, you'll start getting ideas about, oh, I can I want my customer to feel this way they're currently feeling this way. I want my customer to feel this way. And then I look at and say, Okay, what needs to happen in order for that to happen, right? And so like, for example, if somebody wants to put a video in and they say, You know what, I want to start putting personalized welcome videos. Okay, well, what tech? Are you going to use? Is it going to be in the email? Or is it going to be in the separate email, so we'll get super granular in there. And then I pull out those action items, and put in the tools that you said you want to use. And then we put that into the audit as well in in the correct buckets, if it's a client experience bucket, or if it falls in the operations bucket or whatever. So yeah, so that's the business operations audit. And after that, you know, people can, we can do implementation. So CEOs are busy. Yeah. Okay. Sometimes you're like, Okay, this looks good. Just gave me 50 things, and we're not gonna do this. Yeah. So yeah, that's what we do. And, and, yeah, that's who we are.

Zahra  

I love that. So I have to tell you. We preach this all the time. So you know, we do, Randy, and one of the things that we always talk about is that your brand is more than just your logo and your positioning and your messaging, and your marketing. It is your reputation. And just like humans, that reputation is affected by their experiences with you. And so if you cannot create consistent, remarkable experiences, you lose your ability to turn raving fans into or customers into raving fans or leads into, you know, excited customers that are repeat customers. And so I love that you guys take that approach to like, we go through the mapping of it, but we don't handle it, like nobody wants me touching their tech and nobody. But I love that you see it from that point of view, and you reverse engineer it. Because that's always the gap. You know, and we always say this in advertising. One of the things that we disliked about our industry, which is why we exist is that you know, a lot of creative agencies, well, here's your identity guideline, here's all your pretty colors, and your typography, and your messaging and some cool slogans Now, go make a brand. And so learning how to take this look and feeling this character and actually find ways from an experiential standpoint, to create, you know, the feelings and to show up as the core missions and the persona that you say you are. That's that's the tough part for a lot of CEOs and any, you know, leadership, you know, and that's just a human thing. And so I love that, that you exist in this world because you help bridge that gap and really turn the brand from theory and idea and this like, best version of myself one day someday into a reality and so I think that

Alicia  

it is and you know, it's it was surprising as to me too, because I didn't I didn't even approach that when we first started like from that lens of like really getting granular on what that experience wasn't asking those questions about, hey, ECU, how is your customer currently feeling and how you want them to feel? And I had a client actually asked me, Can you do a customer journey? And I was like, I think so. It started from there. And yeah, I mean, you're right, it what comes out of that? And to say, okay, what are the actions that you need to take in order to make this happen? And then those actions come with like, Oh, we don't have the right tools in place, or, you know, Oh, you want your invoice and proposal to come together? We don't have something that currently does that or whatnot. And then those types of things come out of it. So yeah, it's it is magic. But I surprised you like I've done magic that whole, like the process is magic is awesome. Yeah.

Zahra  

Oh, my goodness. Yeah. I love that. So tell me, why do you think so many entrepreneurs struggle with SOP like it's a four letter word? Entrepreneurs? Why is that?

Alicia  

It's boring as hell. Yeah. Okay. I mean, nobody was like writing an essay for school, right? Like, nobody wants to write an SOP, you know, I mean, it's meticulous, you have to be very detailed. And I truly believe that a lot of entrepreneurs are visionaries. So they're the best, their best selves when they're generating ideas when they're creating when they're making something. And when you tell them to then sit down and write down the steps that are inside their brain on paper, they're like, whoa, whoa, like, that's what you know, of course, they know it needs to be done. And I think every CEO knows the importance of drafting up an SOP, but it's not fun. Yeah, I think that's, I think that's the whole dip is it's not fun, it's boring. It's one of those tasks that like, and also, I think, people say, Do I really need it? Right? Can I just create a video and somebody's gonna follow a video? Right? And could that work for you? At a certain level? Possibly? Yeah. You know, if you say, create a video on how to schedule something for social media, like, could that get you by Yes. But as you grow, right, and it especially to, you know, when you're looking at selling your business down the road, or something like that, like having those SOPs in place, having those steps in place for somebody to follow is so important. Yeah.

Zahra  

So talk to me about this, I've heard you say that scaling starts with the customer journey. And I think, you know, we're kind of veering into that. That's kind of what you're talking about here is that as a CEO, and it's in your head, and you're the Secretary, you're the reception is, you're the janitor, you're the invoice, you know, you'll you'll, you can have it in your head, it's not ideal. But once you start to scale that challenge, so tell me, why do you think that that customer journey is so crucial to the scaling?

Alicia  

Yeah, because if you're the only person doing that fulfillment piece, for your customers, you hit capacity, you know, you either hit capacity with time, or mental energy, depending on what you do. So in order to scale or or double your customers coming in, or something, it has to be written down. It has to be a repeatable process, away from the CEO. So yeah, and then with that, though, you know, if you're looking at your customer journey, you might as well look at it from end to end, right? Then say, okay, like, let's see what we're doing over here in the marketing and in the fulfillment, and you know, what we're going to do to nurture them and grow them as well. 

Zahra  

I'll say this, just my personal experience, as a CEO, one of the things so, I mean, if you don't know by now, you know it now. I love myself. 

Alicia  

So I love it. Yeah, I love it. 

Zahra  

But I'll tell you that for me. It's one of the things that I don't know if I knew going into it, but I certainly felt it once I started implementing it is I thought that I was a creature of habit, I thought that I was pretty much delivering consistently, even back when I was a freelancer and it was just me. But even then, putting it like taking it out of my head, putting it into Asana, having onboarding mapped out into my 13 steps, having you know, all those things. What it did for me was one, I found out it wasn't nearly as consistent as I thought I was. But also, it gave me the confidence to do more of those things. So I don't even like I felt that because I didn't have my stuff together. Everything felt like such a pain in the butt. Because I had to do it all. And I had to think it through because when you don't have an SOP every single time you have to think it through and it took a lot of my mental energy. And so now something as simple as like, I want to make that sale. But oh my god that I bet. You know what I mean? Oh, I want to do that podcast, oh my God, I've got to do the show notes and the questionnaire and get the BIOS shot. Yeah. And so like, instantly everything is met with partial excitement, and then partial resistance. And I didn't even realize that that was there until I put it all into an SOP. And then what's great about that is that one, just energy freedom. I already it's like walking into your day and having a to do list already made for you. And you just go in and you just execute that bad boy. And like, you don't have to worry about it. You don't have to stress about everything, everything you need all the tools, all the links, everything's there for you. Like you just come in and do what you do. You take a lot like I look. So what we do is every quarter, we pick projects, we map them out, we refine SOPs, we do the hard work to set it up. I love it. So there was the right. You talking to dial it really. And then it also gives me the confidence to be able to be creative, like the mental space to be creative. Because I'm not worried about all of these, I have to remember all the things that I have going on. And suddenly my business feels less overwhelming. Like I've got it. And then when we have those like I can think of two distinct points in my business where we unexpectedly scaled quickly. And because I had the SOPs, it was fantastic. We had a couple of virtual assistants. And because everything was already in Asana with the SOPs exactly splayed out, we knew exactly what we were just passing off so that I could absorb the new workload. But we would have been completely, you know, was like, totally screwed. If we didn't have any of that put together, we would have either had to turn away the business, or we would have made a lot of people super angry. But so for me, I think that when you think about it in terms of scaling, it is being able to absorb capacity. 100%, because we've seen that two times, specifically that I remember that was that was a difference maker, but also just personally, as an entrepreneur having that mental like, I can have space that I'm not worried about. Did I send out that email? Did I confirm the appointment? Did you know? Did they sign the you know, do they sign off on the logo? Like, yeah, all those little things that kind of, you know, and our mom brains are just wired to have stuff going and repeat, I think.

Alicia  

Yeah. And I love that you touched on that because I think that's not a tangible, right? Yeah, ROI. But it's so huge, to have the mental clarity and the mental space in order to move on to other things, or even just be energetically open to opportunities. So when somebody says, Hey, can you come to this conference for a week? Like, I think this would be a great networking event, they invite you. You're not like, it's not met with the excitement and resistance. I think that's such a perfect way of explaining it. Because you're like, hell yeah, I want to go but you're like, is the company? So I have a client where, like, who's doing what, like, who's gonna hold the fort down? Who's gonna answer the phone? Like, what is it about? And so I love that, that a lot of people don't talk about that transformation. Enough, I think, you know, themselves, you know, maybe, you know, it's not a way to articulate it, but or they can't articulate it or something. But I love that you brought that up.

Zahra  

You were you were speaking about it, triggered something. And so I just wanted to touch on it. So let me ask you a question. Once somebody's made a strategy or an SOP, or they put together like, this is how we're going to do it. What's the best way to hold yourself accountable to following through or like creating the habit of actually going in there and using the SOP you just bought or made or whatever? 

Alicia  

Yeah, so two things. One is introduce it to your team, and introduce like, Hey, this is our hub of like, where we're going to find things like how you're going to follow things and always be talking about like the SOPs and the resources that are available and drive people back to questions. So that I think helps with the integration piece and kind of holding that accountability of using the SOPs that you create. And then yeah, I think that introduction and then you've you testing it and getting excited about it, I think helps like, you know, if you write down your onboarding SOP and you're like, Okay, this is how we're going to do it. Run through it a couple of times. And I think when you see the results, and you see how easy it is, and how like it makes your life per se Do you know the time? I feel like that's when the buy in also happens. So like no gap like immediately start soon as you have it, like get to work on it. Yes, absolutely, I think testing it too. And also understanding that, as you test it, there's going to be tweaks and things like that too, that you want to be making to it. SOPs aren't just meant to like write one time and then like you put these big SOPs in a book, and then yeah, in a binder and put it away and you're like, I already know how to do that process. I'm never going to look at it again. No, you should always refer back to it and refine it and make sure that you're going to do it. That's why when you said that quarterly, you take on a project that you map it out, and you go back to your SOPs like that is the integration and managing how things are implemented for your company. Because people know, oh, it's quarter one, we got to do an operations project. We got to map this out which one is going to be team you know, and so I think that helps with the people, people going back in the CEO also being that leader change and that leader of following the SOP. 

Zahra  

Yeah, I do agree with that we got into an Asana mess. And so we had to go so we go back to recording, that was one of the things that was coming up. So we had everything in Asana. And by everything, I mean, like, check the voicemail, check your inbox, like everything and what that was, and we thought that that would be like, beautiful, yeah, but what we found is that it was cumbersome, because people weren't going in and checking it every day. So then they had like, 60, you know, within, you know, a couple of months, they were behind on something, and that was clutter. And so for them, those are just your activities of daily, you know, things that you should do maintenance. So we printed out a version of the SOP and laminated it as a tool for when people start onboarding so that they know what they have to do love it. And then we can save the sauna for things that were project based or customer requests and like marketing projects. But obviously, that was stuff that you do on the daily anyway, like a habit. So to see what habit we left off of asana and we found that by taking it off, it was a lot more user friendly, and not too overwhelming. That's so we never would have known that if we hadn't sat back down in three months. And I had like a bunch of sets of eyeballs glaring at me hated every day, they had to like, pull the voicemail and check it off their Asana, you know, we know how to do that, like it's ingrained in us, we have an SOP. So I think that's really, that's really cool. So how do you get a team on board? So you know, the CEOs down, they get it, they're tired, they're frustrated, they need to change. They're tired of double checking and micromanaging everybody. So they're kind of maybe the easier sell, but how do you sell it to the team?

Alicia  

Yeah, I think it, it can happen in two different ways, depending on where you're at. But if you're, if it's a new change, like something that the team has never done before, involve them, ask them say, hey, that like marketing person, right, this I, we need to make an SOP for this. I want your help. I need your help. I need to know what one how it's done. Right? And why are you doing it so awesome. Because they're the expert in that department? And tell me how if you were a new person? How could how does this work? How would you articulate this? And what in how many steps and have them, involve them and ask them about is this in Asana? Or would you prefer that this is written down? Or you know, get into their brain and ask those questions? So involve the team with something new? If it's a something that you're trends, a change from? So let's say that you're going from one project system, to if you're going from Asana to a clicker, am I saying that right?

Zahra  

Like, is it clickup is like...

Alicia  

I'm like, I get picked up by my project management system. But if you're going from like, one project management system to another, and you're gonna have people that love this project manager system on your team, and they're gonna be like, Why are we changing to this? Right? Like, I that doesn't make sense, blah, blah, of course, involve them. But I also would find, like a change champion on your team, and say, Hey, guys, here's our why statement. This is how it's going to impact you. And start involving having that change champion, talk about that amongst the team, and say, Hey, guys, like this is going to be awesome because, oh my gosh, we're going to double our revenue, because we're gonna save, you know, 10 hours by doing this, you know, that tasks that you are doing over and over and over, you're not gonna have to do that because we're going to automate that. Like, you're gonna have those types of conversations. So I think I think the overall answer is always involving the team but I think it two different approaches there.

Zahra  

I love that you can see your HR now to make it work, and I think that's the hardest thing, you know, it's great if you have this beautiful SOPs, but then how do you get people? Yeah, for sure is a is a difficult one. Okay, so another question, do you recommend using an all in one software that does a bunch of different things? And some of them kind of, you know, or do you recommend using a bunch of different software's that do everything exactly how you want it? But it's a lot of softwares. 

Alicia  

Yeah. Option C. I do not recommend all in one software, software if anyone out there wants to challenge that. We will have her at the end of the call me. Okay, let's talk about it. Yeah, I'm not a big fan. And all in one software's, because I do feel like they're subpar. Either they're janky? Or maybe they haven't been in the market long enough, or things like that. And, and so not option A, option B, I don't believe that you need a ton of tools. Like, uh, like, you know, 20 different tools to do what you need to do. I do think that there are tools out there enough that combine certain things. Like, you know, we'll talk about Dubsado, right? Dubsado, you can send an invoice. You could do accounting, out of there, if you wanted to write I don't. It's not  like, awesome, but I mean, if you're small and small, right, you could hold your expenses, and your, but you know, just things like that. I think that there's so option C is I don't think it needs to be a lot of different tools. Like you know, tons of I think you can find the right tools. I think what's more important is mapping out the customer journey, because I think when you're searching for tools first everyone thinks that that's the first step, go find the tool that can do this thing. But really, you want to see, okay, what do you actually need? Do you need Zoom and zoom? Yeah. Do you need like, you know, just what? And maybe so what are you going to use it for? Right? Yeah. And having a purpose first, before you go in search for the tool is so helpful. And if you do find an all in one, like, again, it's about like, what works for the business owner and what works for that business. But if you do find an all in one, and you're like, Hey, listen, I only got like, you know, I serve maybe two clients, maybe it's like super high ticket and you're only touching two clients and onboarding them. So you don't need an elaborate onboarding system. And you're okay with what this all is all in one does. I think that's okay. You know, I think but it's all about starting with the purpose first, and then going in seeking out. What can these tools do for for me? Can they meet that purpose?

Zahra  

Yeah, I love that. You said that and I know from personal experience, we made a terrible mistake with software. So I'm not techie. I hate software. The only reason I even touch it is if it's pretty got to be. I love Asana because in my little unicorn, every time I do something I don't know what it just like floats across. Just kind of like throws glitter. I don't know. It's great. It's so gratifying. And I love it every time I do something. But when I went we did is I didn't feel like we're we struggled a lot is as we scaled. We never stepped back to go through the we sat back and we went through the journey, the customer journeys. But we never looked at the software in terms of how like, that's something I wish we could be better at like the software and how it now goes to the experience. So when we were when I was freelancers, I use certain software's because I had a small client roster. And I was working in a certain way. And I worked with a bunch of I nine contractors, so they didn't have anybody on my team. So it wasn't that big of a deal. And then we got bigger, and then the agency got bigger. And then we started doing like bigger and more involved projects. And then we started doing an agency record, you know, and so and then so as we started developing our onboarding, offboarding agency of record, you know, retainers retreats, like all these things that we were doing, we were grabbing and snatching software to meet the next need. And we you know what I mean? And so now it's kind of like when you have a filing cabinet. And every time you get a piece of paper, you just like pull out a folder, scribble what it is, like stick in the filing cabinet. Never know where to go back and find it. Yeah. And so we just have way more software, some of what we've outgrown. We don't really use anymore, and so it's really I feel like that's one area that I wish I could be better at. And the best thing that we do is every three months, our CFO will go through it And though, like, highlight all of the tech software that we pay, like, check on it and yeah, like, all that stuff like that we're using all of these till we get rid of more, but that's as far as it goes. We don't actually, you know, so we still hop on, like several different software's. 

Alicia  

One question the CFO can add to the audit is, what SOPs? Or what system? Is this tool tied to? And then that way, you can say if it's not tied to really anything, or maybe not maybe, you know, as he's going through the tech, and he's saying, Okay, this one's tied to Client Onboarding. This one's also tied to Client Onboarding, right, like, Okay, which one? Can we combine? Or like, which one is superior? Like, you know, looking through those questions. So you're on the right track in terms of already, you're already doing that by your CFO looking through that. I would just add, you know, let's take it back to what systems. 

Zahra  

Yeah, that's, that's a really good tip, we, so like, just recently, we moved, we moved. Also, we have Microsoft Office, or Microsoft suite. And we do our webinars and our meetings. We weren't using our teams, we were using zoom, because we also do webinars, and our podcast interviews. And so then we wanted to move over to Zen caster for the podcast interviews. And we thought we had it all figured out, only to find out that the the appointment scheduling software that we use acuity scheduling, doesn't integrate with Zen caster or teams, it only integrates with Zoom. And so it's just one of those things. And so now we end up having like all four forms, yeah. But it's those rush decisions, because you know, you're developing something out and you're trying to get your MVP out. And so you just make all these tech acquisitions to get you there without actually thinking it through. And like, do I really need this because my first thought was, oh, my God, if I had to redo my scheduling software, then I have to talk to, you know, the my website guy who, you know, is busy, and I don't want to bug him to know how to reintegrate this and set up all the intake forms. And yeah, so you know, it just became this kind of tripping. So what advice do you have for somebody who kind of finds themselves in that predicament where it's like this thread, and you don't want to pull it because you're afraid of old raveling? If I change this, then I have to change that, because I only integrates with that, then, you know, it's a big nightmare, to...

Alicia  

Map it out. Gotta map out like, so for podcasting, mapping out, what does that look like? And then looking at the integrations on is, you know, okay, if you're gonna do a podcast, you know that you need to send out the scheduler and the forums and things like that. Okay, you're like, already have that in place. But I want to switch to this podcasting platform, just mapping out the entire journey and tying each tool to it. And I think there's, there's a lot of power in seeing the process, visualized, visualize the visual representation of your process, and then showing, okay, this is going to be this tool, this is going to be this tool. And then just going from there and saying, Okay, do I really, if Oh, now I have zoom, and I have this other platform. Wait a second, this platform said it can do this, the same thing as zoom? So let's get rid of zoom. Okay. And then it would have brought you to Okay, I have this acuity needs to needs to go feed into here, right, you would have to follow that acuity needs to feed into there? Does it does the software feed into there, you can see me going through the map. I'm like Java,

Zahra  

You can see that you're you are definitely, you know, mapping that out. And that's a really good point is that, you know, I think that is and I think I don't know, maybe I'm the only entrepreneur who does this, but I feel like I'm not, and that a lot of us because we're trying to get like get it launched, get it published, get it out there. Yeah, we just start grabbing whatever software, we think we need that Google says best software for this and we grab it. And we don't even know the full capability of the software that we already have. And maybe there's something to be used in our repertoire that we just didn't know, well, if you just buy the upgraded version, like the Business Pro version, you can have all that. 

Alicia  

Yeah, but it's a true challenge because you almost don't want to stifle your creativity and the energy behind you launching something new either. So what I would say to that, too, as you were talking is support in operations. Like it might be time, if you're constantly moving to have an ops manager, or have somebody with an ops focus or even if it's like a, either a monthly or quarterly kind of like maintenance or look at that. So you have somebody to say, hey, here is my vision. I need you to make sure that I'm not going to overspend. I need you to make sure that it all integrates correctly. I need you to make sure so that way you can still move at your speed and have somebody else like dedicate due to just doing those things and putting it together and doing all of that, so I would say like that two came to mind, because I think it's a beautiful thing when, you know, CEOs want to move. And I know, you know, I tend to be a little bit more of a slower start, but I do have tons of friends who move super quickly. And that's exactly what they get into. They're like, oh, and I was on AppSumo, which is the place where you feel like you can get all these old ones. 

Zahra  

Don't go there. I love No, I'm sorry. No.

Alicia  

I love it. And he's just started my entrepreneur, like literally dream. So shout out to Noah Kagan. But, um, but you know, I feel like there is a balance to between like, that's what makes us great like to go go go and make launch launch launch. But there is a for operations or is a balance between, you have to slow down to speed up, and like, and really hit it like a rocket ship. So anyway, if you find yourself in that position, I would also say, help. Ask for help. Yeah,

Zahra  

I love that we always you want to monitors that we have in the office and we're working with clients, is we always say you're the visionary and your job is to decide the what, and then have your management team decide the how they'll figure out the how you figure out the what and so I love that. So when do you think is a good time to add that piece that you know, that integrator or that Director of Operations? 

Alicia  

Yeah think when you as soon as you can afford it. Yeah, it's always when you first start up? No, um, I mean, I think yeah, truly, I think as soon as you can get an integrator on your team, someone to drive the business forward and figure all of the things out while you just dream, and you go and grab opportunities. And you go and do this. As soon as that can happen. I know a lot of the first hires are typically like an assistant or a virtual assistant. And I would say, like, take a step back and say, you know, what do I really need? What are the tasks that need to be done? And if a lot of that is the setup is a lot of that is the maintenance and operations. And I think that that integrator, but it's that book, traction, yeah. Where they say like, is every single visionary needs an integrator, and I stand by that so yeah.

Zahra  

Absolutely. I love that. And I love that you mentioned a real life solution. So some, some businesses are not ready to have a salary, you know, they're not ready to throw $80,000 at someone to like, come in and do myself. Yeah, but I love and what's great about today's, you know, business world, is that there's so many consultants and freelancers that are really good at what they do. And they all come in for once a quarter or come in once a month, or come in for a certain amount of hours a month. They do that, you know, I've seen that for both, you know, Director of Operations and CFO for hires to where they'll come...

Alicia  

In at fractional. 

Zahra  

Yeah, fantastic.

Alicia  

Absolutely. Yeah, online business managers, to a lot of them really take a liking to the systems and the processes. And you know, managing the team as well. But yeah, depending on kind of where you want someone skill set to lay would be where you say, Okay, this is a job for an IBM or this is a job for a system strategist, or this is a job for a consultant to come in once a quarter and yeah.

Zahra  

So I have totally off topic, I have no last person that I want to ask. Yeah. Before that, I have another question. So for me, you know, I always say like, in our industry, one of the big challenges is convincing people when they come in, they always think they have a marketing problem. And I always look at them and say you don't have a marketing problem, you have a brand problem your marketing isn't performing, because you don't have a strong brand to put out there. And so it you know, if you fix the brand, your mark is marketing's numbers, you know, ads or ads, you know, like it's a numbers game. Yeah, if you're playing the numbers game, and it's not working, then we need to look at what you're putting into it. Yeah, like your messaging and that kind of messaging consistency, you know, the way you're doing your advertising, like the way that being pulled together the story that you're telling your partnerships, your alignments, like all that your experience mapping. So if you've got like, you know, we have so many people that they'll spend a fortune on ads, right. And they'll spend all this money on ads to get a one time customer but they have no nurture sequence for after purchase, or, you know what I mean? And so there's so they think they have a marketing problem, but they really have a brand problem because they haven't really gone through who do they want to be? How do they want to show up for their their customers? So I feel like if I could be totally off base, but I feel like you might have a similar challenge when you meet with new clients sometimes where, you know, entrepreneurs, we ditched our nine to five because don't nobody tells us what to do and we don't want to clock in and we don't want to clock out. We don't want to tell people where we're at and You don't want to report to anybody and type in our notes and, you know, follow. So how do you, you know, where people say, you're just like you said, like, we need to speed that we need to speed up, we need to do more, we need more freedom to create, and you come from the from the angle of sometimes you gotta slow down to speed up. Yeah. And, you know, kind of integrating that idea of intentionality. And convincing people that like, SOPs are not the man, it's not the corporate nightmare, because I feel like sometimes entrepreneurs are like, ah, if we put everything on an SOP, and we're super rigid, we're gonna be the worst place, it's gonna be like, my job that I left, and everybody's gonna hate it, and nobody's gonna have fun anymore. And the culture is gonna go down the tubes. So how do you address that when you talk to customers and like, get through that conversation?

Alicia  

I think a lot of that is me championing, championing championing. Like, is, is like, it's not about the SOP, it's not about like, it's about like, the chain, the customer experience. And it's also about like, get this off your plate. And if you do this, like the messaging is, you have other things, you have other brands you want to launch, you have other speaking opportunities you want to do, and you are going to do that with the clarity and more mental like you were talking about, right? And I feel like those types of conversations when I meet resistance for like, I don't want to put this all on paper, or no one's ever said those words. But it is it's almost like unsaid. Yeah, you know, 100%, like graphic marker. Yeah, it's like, it's like, okay. So it's never really. And so I always just come back in our meetings are one to ones with like, hey, like, these are, this is what it's leading to, you know, you're going to save X amount of hours, or, you know, hey, that opportunity, you're going to be able to say yes, without that stress. And I think just managing the CEO in that way, like showing them, like the light at the end of the tunnel. And the reason why it's so important now, I think is helpful, you know, and I think also, when you're, if you're doing this alone, or working with the consultant quick wins. So if I give you like, four hours, immediately, yeah. And I probably can been looking at your, if I'm looking at your tire business, I'm pretty sure I can save you at least that right, immediately. And I just do it. Oh, it's not there, like, what else can you do? You know, and I'm like, Oh, let me tell you. I love that.

Zahra  

Yeah. And you know what I also like, I don't know if you feel the same way. But I feel like one of the things that is unsaid is that employees don't hate rules and structure. They like it because it avoids points of frustration. It provides clarity on expectations. They know how they have to perform to be successful. They don't like stupid rules and procedures. And so I feel like being a CEO, and not having rules, is contributing to a terrible culture or not having SOPs and not having structure, and not providing your employees with the tools that they need to do their job well, is actually causing more frustration than it is excitement for them. Yeah, you know, but I think were was a big thing that they're missing is that when you were working in corporate, and you know, you're working for a fortune 100 company, and it took an act of Congress to change one macros. Yeah, you know, most of the SOPs were asinine, and they were frustrating. And it was filling out a TPS report that costs you more time than it produced value. But one of the luxuries, and one of the great privileges of being a CEO is being able to look at these SOPs and find the ones that will actually get you to where you want to go and get your team to where they want to go and be so that they can work with ease and comfort and have the tools that they need, and know what's expected of them, and know how they can fulfill their purpose because everybody wants to be good at their job. But like, if you don't tell them what good at your job looks like, or what that expectation is, then how can they know that they're being successful? And so I think that like, yeah, having those in there is so crucial.

Alicia  

Yeah. And also, you know, it goes back to engaging and involving them in creating the SOP or creating the process of what this looks like and saying, Hey, marketing person, I want to be you know, on LinkedIn, I want to be on Instagram. I want this podcast to be repurposed giving and then the vision and then empowering them. Because everyone on your team truly should be able to write an SOP. And if anyone here and I think one of the links will be a video and a, an a template on how to create an SOP. So yeah, so if anyone you know, that's out there for anyone, it's meta, right? And that everyone should be trained in that because things are going to change. And for a new person, yes, they're going to come in, and they're going to follow this SOP, but for the people that you have in the seats, like, involve them and talk to them about what this what success looks like, and let them set their own measurement, right. And then it also is important for the CEO to like, you have people on your team, and they're not buying into that systems thinking and that way of doing things right. Sometimes, and I heard Kelly Roach say this, the people who you started with, may not be the people that are going to get you to that next level. Yep. And it's really sad, because I know that like, we build these relationships with small businesses, right? And you don't ever like somebody, and I'll use a perfect example of like, a virtual assistant that started with me, I had to have a conversation and say, hey, when I started, we were a mess. Okay, you like, you are my girl like, This is it. But I'm gonna have to tighten the reins. And I'm gonna have to do that. Because X, Y, and Z. And I went into that explanation she bought in. So she's still with me. She's my girl. All right. But if she didn't, right, then that's also recommend recognizing that as you be as you scale, and as you grow, and as you start implementing systems and that kind of thing. It's okay to set those, those measurements, but also, it's okay to let people go as well. Oh, I know, it's a hard thing to say. 

Zahra  

But it is true. And I love that you involve her in that. Yeah, I think so often we feel or we know, like, man, this relationship got really close. And we let things slide. Yeah, and PTO wasn't a thing. And you know, like, if you don't need to be here, then don't be here. And then once the business starts demanding of you, and things need to tighten up, and now you can see profit margins and things. Yeah, gotta start taking the reins, then it becomes an awkward, like, how do I change like, it feels like I'm pulling the rug under them. But I love it, you just addressed it head on. And you just said, Hey, look, I know and you know, things have been real loose up to now. But from this point forward for this business to make money and for us to be able to continue to provide you with a job and a great job, then it's going to have to go down like this 100%. And that I think was great that you included, and you didn't just start doing the things. And then they're like, well, what's the matter? Does she not like me anymore? Are we that friends? You know, and like just kind of messaging getting lost? Because there was no conversation?

Alicia  

Yes. And I and I have to agree. And I was not surprised. I really didn't know how the conversation was gonna go. But I do know that I push vulnerability in my business a lot. And like just saying, I screwed up, or I did this like, because it's the truth, like, Hey, I didn't, and she knows, like, it's not like, you know, I'm trying to hide, you know, it's like, she knows I was a mess in the beginning. And I had no idea you know, and so, you know, I told her like, you know, I was a mess. And now I learned this. And I literally said the words which you may not want to say this, but I said I have to make sure that your position is is a creating a return on my investment. And the only way that I can do that is if I set these measurements in place, so I can see it. But it's not a reflection on you. It's only because I have to start thinking that way. Because I'm growing and I'm moving too fast. And I'm all of this is vulnerability, like and I was just like hard on the table like this. And she could have said no and I probably would have cried about it for like a week. And then I would have put my SEO pants back on and found somebody to help me scale.

Zahra  

Yeah, yeah. I love that. So, um, one last question, and then we're gonna go into rapid fire, which I love. I told her it's gonna run long. I told him to tell me about the six core processes every business needs.

Alicia  

Oh my gosh, can I can I remember that? So I will ultimately I think it's within your business function. So you need your marketing processes, right? You need your sales processes, you need your financial processes, you need your HR and team processes. You need your client experience processes and you need your Oh my guys. I was actually going to look at something before before this What am I missing? What am I missing? Um, finance We'll come back to that.

Zahra  

That's optional.

Alicia  

Oh my gosh. But yeah, I think when you look at your processes look from end to end like how are you marketing how are you attracting your customers all the way down to what are they how are you nurturing them that kind of stuff and filling in the gaps of what your processes are and your your systems are within those buckets of the marketing bucket your finance bucket that's like your overall system.

Zahra  

Then you and then your deliveries like how do we run? 

Alicia  

Yeah, that's that's six and so I'll just kind of explain a little bit the system is the what I just said like your marketing, your finance, your you know, those types of things. And then you can have multiple processes underneath your marketing system, you know, you can say, How do I your processes? How do I post on Instagram? How do I do this right? Anyway, so that's the different stuff but I just wanted to point that out. 

Zahra  

I love that and I love that you haven't broken down to the six categories. All right. Ready for rapid fire. Oh my gosh, are you ready? Okay, I don't know we're gonna go super quick. As quick as other girls I'm a slow start.

Alicia  

I don't know how rapid I can be but okay.

Zahra  

Don't worry we've done everything good. Okay, whatever comes to mind the book you're reading right now. 

Alicia  

Artists Way 

Zahra  

Your favorite tool for staying organized.

Alicia  

Clickup

Zahra  

Hobby or habit you adopted during COVID

Alicia  

Hermit

Zahra  

Okay your latest Netflix binge.

Alicia  

Ohhh what they Bay it's about influencers they area something or be something they base something Bay's the they live in this little town that is apparently like this in Oh in Australia. And they you know I'm talking about.

Zahra  

I saw the preview on it. Okay. I haven't seen it but I saw yeah, yeah, yeah.

Alicia  

And apparently like this town is like hot shit for like influencers or like creatives and stuff like this. And it made me think of Austin, but it's like a hub. And anyway, it's just a lot of drama. And it also made me like, like, think like, oh my gosh, like they're so classy. Like, what are the girls anyway? Okay. This is rapid fire. Let's go.

Zahra  

Alright, well, we'll talk about that though. remote work versus work at the office. I think I know now. 

Alicia  

Move on. Oh, yeah. 

Zahra  

Um, let's see. Okay. Your favorite place in SA right now to go to spot.

Alicia  

Tito's? Yes, yeah, yeah. Oh, actually, I'm lying. Well, because I drink margaritas. Like, well, yeah, I fancy like Lydia more than Tito's but...

Zahra  

Okay, so best piece of advice to give to a CEO or owner just starting out. Oh, my gosh.

Alicia  

Trust yourself first, before anyone else, any coach, any other entrepreneur. Trust yourself.

Zahra  

That beautiful words. All right, obviously. Thank you so much for joining me today. As you guys know, I'm a huge Asana junkie. I love SOPs, I love organizing all day long. But I'm not always great at implementing them and making them fun for everybody else. And so I love your energy. I love all the insights that you brought on how to do that, because I feel like there's a lot of entrepreneurs out there, that even if they do love being organized, they don't necessarily know how to get everybody on board. And I love how you humanize the experience. I think that's kind of like your secret sauce. You're the organizer but you've got that HR background and we are at the core at your core people person and so you know how to make the systems work for people and so I just love it. I love that I love that you exist in the world. So how can we get in touch with you?

Alicia  

Yeah, um, I am primarily on Instagram. So if you just want to give me a follow there or if you want to reach me directly, my email is info@themotivated.co and my website is today at the time of recording is under construction, but in a few weeks So by the time maybe this goes live, it'll be www.themotivatedco.com. And yeah, I'm across all platforms as I am Alicia Lozano. 

Zahra  

So I love that. And for those of you guys who are driving, don't sweat it. Yeah, show notes page, we're gonna have all the links there to connect with her reach out to her. And so what have you got going on right now? So earlier in the episode, you mentioned that you're, like, go to offer the things that you do best. And you could do all day everyday is the business audit? Yeah. So talk to us a little bit about what that is. So if you guys want to get in touch with her, and get an audit for your business, I highly recommend it. Even if you think that you've got a lot of your SOPs down, I guarantee you there's room for improvement, there's room for streamlining, there's room for creating redundancies that maybe you haven't put in that you need, just to make sure that you're being efficient with what you're doing. And and it really is a well functioning system. Yeah, so they'll tell us a little bit about that. 

Alicia  

Yeah, the business operations audit is like I'm a mechanic for your business. So I'm gonna go in, and I'm gonna look at, I'm gonna open the hood. And I'm gonna say, Okay, and let's see how your business is operating in these buckets that we talked about in your marketing bucket in your client experience bucket, part of the audit of what you're going to get is the journey mapping the customer journey mapping. But what's cool is, I will give you recommendation. So the audit looks like, you know, we talk, I look at your back in, I give you recommendations, then I help prioritize those recommendations. Because you may get like 50 recommendations, and then you're gonna turn around, and you're gonna say, I know what I am doing, I ain't doing this right. And so I'm gonna say, okay, based on our conversation on my intake form, and what I'm seeing on the back end, from my expertise, I'm going to help you prioritize, then we're going to jump back on the phone, and we're going to talk through, okay, is this is this truly your priority? Because, you know, you said your goal was this, here are the systems I believe that are going to get you there. And you're going to say yes or no, we're going to, we're going to map up the priority, then I'm going to take your priority, your top three to five systems or processes that are actions that you need to take. And I'm going to put that into your project management action system. So you use Asana, so I would literally take all of those actions. And then I would put them into Asana in an operations action plan, have exactly what you need to do. Because when you leave or when we part, from the audit, I want you to be able to have something that you can hand over a to your team, department head or a virtual assistant in order to implement. If you don't have that current support, or maybe your team is already maxed out, I provide service to to implement the action plan for you. Of course, I want to work faster, right? I know what I'm doing. So you know, a lot of CEOs opt to go that route, but you don't have to, you have it there ready for you to do I provide resources for you on how to like, anything that I have in my, in my library, you get everything, all the resources, how to do how to actually do it and make it happen in your business. So that is.

Zahra  

So cool. I love that. Well, thank you so much for joining me today. For everybody else. We will see you next week. All right, bye guys.