240: Where to Start With Creating Processes

Michele 00:00

Hello, my name is Michele, and you're listening to Profit is a Choice. Joining me on the podcast today is Kelcee Sparks with Elite Ops. She has been with us on previous podcasts where we are answering the questions that you all have sent in and today, we're focusing on processes. We are going to answer questions on how to get started, how to organize and structure your process, where to put your processes, who will help write the processes, and even discuss the importance and the mindset behind a process. Today's podcast has lots of good information and we thank you for joining.

Every day, empowered entrepreneurs are taking ownership of their company financial health and enjoying the rewards of reduced stress and more creativity. With my background as a financial software developer, owner of multiple businesses in the interior design, industry, educator, and speaker, I coach women in the interior design industry, to increase their profits, regain ownership of their bottom line, and to have fun again in their business. Welcome to Profit is a Choice. Hey, Kelcee, welcome back to the podcast.

Kelcee 01:18

Hi, Michele. Thanks for having me again.

Michele 01:19

You're welcome. We are going to continue our series of Q&A questions that people have asked when they're coming into the program or working with a program or even people outside of the program that are sending us questions and going, hey, what's going on? And today, I think we're focusing on processes.

Kelcee 01:43

This is one of my favorites.

Michele 01:46

Yes, tell us why it's one of your favorites.

Kelcee 01:48

Processes are my favorite parts of a business. I feel like there's so much opportunity with your processes and process improvement to make a big impact on your business with small changes. And I just love seeing that for business owners, so, I love talking about this.

Michele 02:07

I'm going to give you a big shout-out and a plug for what you do, too. You own a company called Elite Ops, and you do operations and administrative management and really processes all day long for designers, and those in the design industry, maybe you've some work with industry, and then also industries outside of ours. When we're talking about a lot of these things, it really is near and dear to your heart. You also have an engineering degree and a master's degree doing a whole lot of process development. I am so thankful to be able to have you and that amount of education supporting you and backing what I'm doing as well and supporting my clients, our clients, right, because we're working with them together and I love that. All right, are you ready?

Kelcee 03:02

The most common question that everyone asks, I can confidently say everyone, is where do I start? I think that people get really overwhelmed when they're thinking about their processes and they want to know, where do they start attacking the idea of processes in their business, it feels overwhelming, and they're not sure where to go first. They're not sure if their processes should be business-focused, client-focused, or if they should have a combination of the two, just what is that starting point? What do you recommend?

Michele 03:32

You know what, if I could just say, here's the perfect pathway, I would do that. But I am going to say that I think that it can be different for each business owner. I want to invite a more strategic look at processes instead of moving to the tactical "what do I just sit and write" I'd like to suggest that we stop and think strategically. Let me back up before I tell you how to do it. It is extremely overwhelming and can be because what happens is when we think processes, almost every single person I've ever met with that had not been through and even those that had been through an educational background surrounding processes, it is easy to find yourself in the minutiae within a second, it's like a hot minute and you are in it, right? And then it feels like oh my gosh, I'm so in the weeds, I'll never get out of this. It becomes so granular that we cannot even see our way out.

The first thing that I'm going to invite our listeners to do is to start very strategically. Start at the high level. Start identifying the areas of your company where you would like to document what is happening. Start at the Tip Tip Top, to me, that's the strategy. When I was doing it for myself, it was always what I was doing next, and could I jot down bullet points for what I'm doing next. So, if I was a solopreneur trying to get ready for that first hire, I'm going to have to be the one to create these. What I might do in a solo environment is go, what is one of the first things I'd like to hand off to somebody, let me document that. Where is something that I need to hand off? How do I get it out of my brain and onto paper? I was speaking to a designer today, and one of the things she said was I need to hire, but everything is in my head. And I said, well unless you're going to sit beside somebody and drip information to them all day long, they can't get it through osmosis, which means we have to write it down. And so that's, that's the first place I would start.

High, high, high level, and then under the high-level bullet point, I would also sit down and when they say, should I have processes for all those, my answer is the short answer, yes, yes, you should. Now we might not have them all and can create them all at one time in one day so, I want to also offer that this is a process and I know you would agree with that. This is a process and I'm still tweaking, you're still tweaking, we're still updating processes today, but we have a framework. The framework starts with the highest-level bullet points, and then details under the bullet points. Honestly, the more that we think strategically, where's the big hole, where's the big problem, where's the difficulty, what do I need the handoff, let that guide you into what you do next instead of thinking that you want to define something just because it's easy, and nobody needs it and it happens once a year and you've already done it. I wouldn't start there. It does seem easy and if you're going to do that, versus riding a bike or playing then sure, do it, but it's not really going to affect your day-to-day. What do you think, do you tell people the same kind of thing?

Kelcee 06:48

Absolutely, the first thing we always do is ask what are your big three to five buckets, every business has three to five that they can come up with, and that's where we start. The other thing to add to what you were saying is I think that it is so easy to get into the minutiae. One of the things we always recommend is to take a Loom video, or a screen recording of the process as you're doing it, and let someone else document it. Because it's much easier for someone to watch a video and document for you than it is for you to document. It's easy to skip steps that you don't realize you're doing. It's easy to do some of those little things in the minutiae that other people are going to catch because they don't do it every day.

Michele 07:34

Yes, let's take that and I'd like to move that a step further because the question that I get is, who should be the one documenting it? When you are a solopreneur, and you don't have any help, it is all on you. Then if we're looking to stay as a solopreneur, we may be just documenting so that we can remember, that's a different level of documentation than documenting something for somebody who has never done it or somebody who's coming into the business in a different way. There are levels of documentation that we can talk about how deep do I go, but then there's also who's going to do it. One of the things that I love is to have whoever is already in a job, let them document what they do, or their part of the process and then somebody else read it and see if they can do it. Which is very similar to the Loom or Zoom or some type of recording. It could be an audio recording, if it's something that you do that is verbal based, or it could be some type of screen capture or screen recording for something that you're doing online. So much easier to do it that way and then have somebody who knows how to write processes and procedures to do so.

On your team, you all can take those screen captures and write and know exactly what they are doing. Your background is engineering, my background is computer science and software development, and workflow management, and I can remember one time we were tasked with writing out the directions, which most people are, to build a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. Well, it is so funny. What do we normally think about? We hit all the highlights. How detailed do you go? Where are we standing in relation to the kitchen? Where is the peanut butter? Where is the jelly? How do I get into the cabinet? How many steps to the cabinet, do I open the cabinet? Do I shut the cabinet? Where do I put the peanut butter, I take the lid off, walk back over to the drawer and get a knife or a spoon or whatever it is I'm doing. It can be so detailed that if you even sit and think about how to create or make a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, it could be three to four pages long. Or I can take a video, I walk up to the cabinet get peanut butter, get the jelly, put one on each side of the bread however you do it, mix them up in a bowl, whatever your method is to make this PBJ and I can get it done fast. I don't think we think about all the steps and what is really involved. We have processes. Here's the other place I want to kind of take this for a minute, Kels, I know I'm probably trashing your questions, we'll come back to them.

 Here is what's also interesting. I hear people say I don't really do the process. And I'm like, yep, but you do. You just might not recognize it. We sometimes do things that are patterns, that are really our processes. Think about the pattern or the process of waking up in the morning. What is the first thing that most of us do in the morning? We normally wake up, we get out of bed, we might turn off an alarm clock, we might take a medicine or something that is sitting on the dresser, and if you're me, you're taking out your earplugs and your eye patches, so that you have complete silence and dark to sleep, whatever you're doing, and then most of us walk to the bathroom. And we go to the bathroom, we might brush our teeth, might put on a robe or slippers, whatever it is we do, paddled down the hall or downstairs and grab a coffee, whatever that morning routine looks like hop in the shower. But we all have some process that is kind of our rhythm, our pattern, or our process, whether it is documented or not. I know as well as anybody that if I step outside of that process, I can easily forget to take my medications, and I can forget to brush my teeth, which sounds so weird because I moved into something different. There are some things that just get out of order because we didn't follow our process. I know some people that their Saturdays and Sundays may look very different than their Mondays through Fridays. Even though we might not see that as a process, it is the process of waking up and getting our day started. That's why they have the book The Miracle Morning and it talks about redoing those patterns and reclaiming that process.

So just starting to think about how processes impact our entire lives, we have a process of how we go to the grocery store. Do you start in the middle? Do you start on the side? Do you start to the left? Do you start to the right? Do you follow your list? Do you write your list in the order of the way the grocery store is laid out? Or do you write it and you know how to read around it? I'm just throwing this out there, but we all have a way that we use and absorb and maintain information. If we are running a company, do we need processes? Absolutely. Why do we need them? Because they make our work repeatable, and the more repeatable the work is, the more that we can have an expectation of the outcome and control or management of that outcome, which allows us to give the client the product and the service that we sold them because we're managing the process for that outcome. And then where do we start? Somewhere. Usually, one of the big buckets and big pain points, or something that's going awry. If everything's great and perfect, then I think you and I both a lot of times, start on client experience. Let's make sure that that client is taken care of, even if we're a little whacked out inside the company, let's make sure that the client never sees it. If we can take care of all of the touch points with the client, then we can kind of clean up inside so that they don't know anything. Is that fair?

Kelcee 13:18

Absolutely and I think it's important to say there are often many ways to get the same result. But if everybody's not going in the same direction, and there's a problem, it's really hard to identify that problem. That was the first thing we learned in engineering school. We each wrote our peanut butter and jelly process down and none of the 25 of us made it the exact same way. It was crazy. If it had not looked the same, in the end, we wouldn't have been able to know why because we all did it a little differently. That's why creating those standard processes is so important because when there is an error, you can go back through your process and understand it and fix it for next time. When everybody's doing it differently, it's much harder to do those types of things.

Michele 14:07

So, you know, even in my company, we just missed something for an Instagram story that we were putting out and I had to track back. The person that was supposed to be putting it up didn't put it up. Well, I went and looked in the folder that she should have been looking in and it wasn't there, she can't put up what's not there. Can't make it up. So why did it not get there? I tracked back to the person that was supposed to put it there and I had told that person something about a different part of the company using some of the Instagram pieces and I said we don't need those anymore. Well, because I didn't look at the SOP at the same time she did, she thought that's what I meant so she quit providing it. And I had to go no, no, I meant we don't need this piece, we still need this piece and she's like, oh no problem, I'll go build them. Built them all, put them right back out there and there we go again. But what it did was it allowed us to track back to find out where it used to work, so where did it get broken? And I think that's the beautiful part of it. It wasn't like it wasn't punitive, oh, why didn't you have that Instagram story? It was like, ah, there was a breakdown in the communication around that particular step in the process. I thought we still needed it, you thought I said, delete it and that's why it didn't get done. Let's put it back in, keep moving.

I was having another conversation this week with one of my clients who was struggling with a team member, and we hear that a lot. Not because everybody's struggling, but because when we're running these larger companies, these firms with five, seven, or ten employees, that's a lot of moving pieces and parts and personalities. What we have come up with and seen play out, I don't even remember where the statistic came from, I should look it up, but it was under the idea that 85% of our problems are processed based and only 15% are people based. But we tend to look at it differently, we tend to say we have 85% of our problems with people, and 15% of our problems are about process. And it's the opposite. One of the things that we found out in hers when she had a team member who maybe wasn't working at the standard that she needed to work, was instead of going off on the team member, we went back to the process. I let her back to say, is the process written? Is the process legible and understandable? Is it comprehensible? Does she understand it? Does she have the skill set to do what you've asked her to do? Has she been empowered to do it? Does she have everything that she needs, and she knows what to do and how to do it? Then we can measure the person based on how they are doing the process. But if that underlying process isn't strong enough, or solid enough to support the work of that person, how in the world do they know what to do, when to do it, or how to do it with clear expectations? That's what the SOPs or processes are doing. They are giving us a very clear expectation of what to do, when to do it, how to do it, and who is doing it. And I think once you've got that so clear, it's almost hard to mess it up with a small blip here and there.

Kelcee 17:30

Absolutely. I think they're, I think it's easy to blame people because it's easier to talk to them, it's easier to see them, especially if you don't have your processes documented. That's why I'm so passionate about creating them, measuring them, writing them down, and sharing them, because like you said, that's a similar statistic to what I've always heard about 80-85% of those problems do come from processes that we don't sometimes even know we have.

Michele 18:01

Sometimes we have an unspoken process. Well, this is just what we do. Right? Yes. All right, what next question Do you have?

Kelcee 18:11

Another thing that clients often ask is I understand what my client-focused processes are, how do I document them? How do I organize them in a way that my team members can use them effectively?

Michele 18:26

Hmm, that's a good one. You and I both agree, there's more than one way to organize them. I would say first and foremost, again, with the strategy, what are the tools, what is the tech stack that we already have in place in the organization? I am not a big fan of creating more and more and more and more tech, unless, of course, it's Metrique, and then we always have to add Metrique in but I'm just not a big fan of just tech for tech purposes. I will tell you that a lot of people are looking at how they are already keeping up with information. I would say we see a lot of keeping that information in Google, in some type of spreadsheet, or a folder system, worksheets, documents, and we see them keeping it in project management systems like Asana or Clickup or Basecamp, or something like that. I keep mine in Dropbox because that was what we had before all of the Google things 10 years ago, we had a lot of stuff written out in Dropbox. So, anything like that will work. I'll give you a prime example. We have in our home, my husband and I, standard operating procedures for what happens if one of us passes away. And it sounds really morbid, but hear me out, or if both of us pass away, we have directions written down if we get sick, or if something happens, what to do and how to do it. We have it in a notebook. We also have it in digital form, and it's tabbed. Okay, what to do here, what are our medical requirements, what do we want here, this is our last will and testament, all those things. Well, as you know and I know, I'm getting ready to go on an Alaskan cruise, I'm going to be gone for two weeks, but I took a picture of where we have that notebook located in our home on a bookshelf, I opened it and took a picture to show everything. And then I sent that picture to my kids. I said to them, here are the operating procedures if something happens to us, while we're gone for two weeks. In other words, I documented it, it is organized, and it is labeled, and it is put into place where they know to look on a bookshelf. Now imagine that digitally, in our tech, where is your bookcase that you keep everything for your company? Do you keep everything in an Asana bookcase, a Clickup bookcase, Google, or Dropbox, whatever it is, you can always start there. I've interviewed a couple of different people for the podcast that have technology that can keep up with operating procedures, You can certainly go to the next level but that is not a requirement to get started. To get started you could have Word, you could have Google; you can have anything, you just need to start somewhere and write it down.

Kelcee 21:20

Absolutely. To add to that, one of the things that we did with your clients a lot that sometimes overwhelmed them when we started but they have ultimately loved once we've gotten through the process is work breakdown structure type processes for organizing. It doesn't have to be complicated. Could be 1, 1.1, and 1.2 for all of those things that roll up to bucket number 1. Could be to 2, 2.1, or 2.2 for all those things that roll up. As you create them, having them in a structure that is already organized in a way that you can easily search them and find them is going to serve you so well in the end instead of getting 100 processes written down and then going back and trying to organize them. So, setting up even the simplest of structures prior to writing them will help a ton in the end.

Michele 22:19

Absolutely. So not only creating that strategy and that structure but then working within it. And as we said, even at the beginning, starting with the big milestones, 1-2-3-4-5, then you can break those down. I promise you, you can break down anything again and again and again to get more and more. Think about back to the peanut butter and jelly sandwich. I mean, if we've got to get down to how many steps you're going to take to move yourself because we had code like that right, engineering type things, you have to do how many steps it takes, well, then that changes based on the size of your foot. We can get so crazy granular, but we don't have to start there. So, it's a structure that allows you to build granularity into it and then to search it and find it that is really going to make you most successful. This is so fun to geek out on.

Kelcee 23:15

The next step. So, a lot of people are worried because they already don't have time that they're going to spend time doing this and then not use them effectively in their company. They often come and say, okay, Kelcee, okay, Michele, I'm going to do this, I'm going to create these but then what? How do I implement them? How do I use them effectively? How do I measure people towards the processes? How do I do all of that, after I have gotten them documented?

Michele 23:44

Yes, and you know, it kind of goes back to what we were talking about a minute ago, when I said, here's one thing that you do once a year. Now if you need to document it, just so you can remember it, that's one thing. But if you're documenting it just to document it, this can feel useless, it can feel like we're doing something we don't need to do. This is why I would also be careful about going too granular. The more granular you go, the minute something changes, then that SOP is outdated. And so, you want to capture the information at a level that is usable, and understandable without being so tightly restrictive, that if anything is changed, you've got to redo at least some portion or part. The other thing that I would say is to find the processes that matter the most to the success of your company because those are the ones that we really want to try to document as quickly as possible. What also happens is they shouldn't be tied to job descriptions. Like we need to know who's doing that particular task. We're not just writing down a task because it needs to be done, we're writing it down because we should be able to see a dot dot dot assignment to some role or job description within the company. We don't have to assign it to a person's name, because the person could change, but we can certainly tie it into a job description to know what that particular responsibility is for that role in your particular firm. That starts with the who's going to do it, and how are we going to manage it, we know who's doing it to know how to manage it.

Remember, in my description, when I said, we were missing an Instagram post, the first thing I'm going to look at is, who was the person that was supposed to post it, and I noticed it was missing. Well, now I got to make sure that they were given what they needed to have to be able to post it, and it wasn't there. So, then it's not that person's challenge, it's the next person that is responsible for getting it there. And then it tracked back, but part of it was a miscommunication by me, and their understanding so, me communicating and understanding, that was where the breakdown was, that didn't get the work created. But there was a person and a role of responsibility assigned to the different tasks, so we knew where to go. Then that moves into how you manage and how you monitor that. A couple of things, we set KPIs, key performance indicators. If this is a process that matters, and the junior designer is responsible for getting these selections pulled together, then the only other thing we have to do is put a date to that. Now we know, the junior designer needs selections by September 15. There we go, we've got something to measure to, because it's time-bound, it's realistic, and it's all the things that we look at in a SMART goal. When processes are done really well, they tell us what to do, when to do them, how to do them, and who is going to do them. We really have a 360-view of the importance of that particular task and company.

Kelcee 26:56

The next thing that always comes up right after that is how, and when do I review them. I've documented them and I've used them. I think everybody kind of feels like they need to review them when something goes wrong, but I think you and I agree that we don't want to leave them sitting in a binder for four years without ever touching them again. How often do we look at them again, after we've documented them to see if there's an opportunity for improvement?

Michele 27:25

Yes. I think we can look at them in two different ways. One is how do we recognize when something's broken, and review the process? Let's talk about when it's when it breaks, and we have to review. That's the one time that you kind of described right there, or like back to mine, you know, oh, we've got posts that are missing that I know we're supposed to be there. I knew that was a broken point, let's find out, let's trace back and find out what happened. The first thing that happened was, oh, fine, let's update the SOP and the SOP is now updated. Next, we're not going to have that problem again, we might have a different problem, but we're not going to have that one. I think it's always good that when something happens that does not go as expected, to ask the question is this a glitch that happened outside of our firm, our company, or our resources, or is there something that we can trace back and see in our operating procedures if we could have alleviated that pain or disaster or misstep or whatever it is? Where did we miss a checkpoint? Was it a one-off? Or is it happening more than once? And so now we need to take a step back and ask ourselves, alright, if this is happening more than once, that's usually when I find things, right, you do too. We found it before where my welcome packets weren't being sent out and we found a broken link. But it was only because I on-boarded three people within the same month so we could see it and it wasn't a one-time glitch. So sometimes seeing things bubble up two or three things at a time, gives us a warning that we need to start walking backward to see where something is broken, or to see where we can improve a process. So that's one time.

The other time is things are going along just wonderfully, right or we're not really having a problem in that area, but then we get to a point where let's just say there are no major fires burning. I think it's great every six months or so, or at a minimum every year, to step back and say where could we offer process improvement. We've been doing the same thing for the same time, is there a way we can provide more value, more quality, increased profitability, reduced time, and we're starting to think very strategically? That's when we're going to go back and look at our processes, perhaps the largest processes, client engagement processes, and the process to actually get the work done, some type of a workflow or vendor relationship. But we're looking at it not from a how do I fix what's broken, but how do I improve a process, maybe through new technology or a new hire or redistributing the work. How can I change things up because we want to improve satisfaction or quality or some other area? But I like every six months to every year. I think, at least once a year, every process should be at least thought about and reviewed, is it okay for one more year or for six more months or whatever. I mean, I don't really look at once a year let's sit down and comb through that book of every process in the company. A lot of them are going to be touched on the day-to-day. I think sometimes it's in the moment of taking that hot minute to say, something's not going as planned. Yep, let's put the fire out right, now let's solve the problem, but let's go ahead and take a moment to think about what we could have done. And when would we have known? What question could we have asked? Is there something that could have been done prior to where we are putting out the fire? That would have stopped the fire before it caught. That's the question. What do you think?

Kelcee 31:14

I'm very much on the same page. One of the things that I brought into my business from my industrial engineering background was a continuous process improvement mentality. And one of the things that I do to try to not overwhelm myself or my team is I have literally scheduled out our processes over the course of the year. Every two weeks, we have two processes and it's a schedule. You could see it for the next five years on our calendars. These are the processes for these two weeks, when we have the time to sit down and review those processes, we do. They show up once a year unless there's a problem. And we've broken them down that way over the course of the year so that we're always looking at something. Sometimes we have two-week increments where we change nothing because we're happy with the process, it's not broken and we can't identify any way to do it better, easier, faster, quicker. But there are times in those two weeks that we come across a process where we have other ideas, and we completely change it, because the way we did it last year is not the way we want to do it anymore. It hasn't been a problem, but we have new technology, or we have new people who can step in and do things differently. So that's been something that's worked really well for us to not overwhelm us by feeling like we need to sit down and comb through them all at the same time.

Michele 32:35

You know, we're getting ready to have a big strategic workshop here at Scarlet Thread Consulting, that we do every year. W we bring in our clients and past clients and we do a two-day in-depth workshop for everybody to build out that next 1-3-5 year strategic plan, update those financial budgets and numbers and all the things so that they're walking fresh and clean into the last quarter of the year, and then also ready to go in January. And one of the things that I know we both do as well as every two weeks based on the process can be overwhelming for some and so we also help them look at each quarter. What are the areas like let's say that, for example, one way to think about it is, you know which quarter is going to be looking at client-facing processes, one could be looking at order processes, one could be internal communication processes. You can break it up by quarter as well to say we're going to look for any type of process improvement. For some of my clients or individual persons, we set some OKRs for them, which are objectives and key results and we do that as part of the individual goal setting so that each quarter, every person on the team is responsible for reviewing some process that is integral to them getting their job done. Maybe suggesting an improvement or filling in a hole or approving it as is but by walking through it and updating it. If you had five people on the team and everybody did per quarter for processes that they're engaged in, that's 20 looks at processes. And that's a huge bit of it because you're looking at it and catching it before it happens. I'll say it this way, how many times, I bet you it's almost every time, do we hear this when they call us: I am looking to be more proactive instead of reactive. The way that we become proactive is we create processes that we look at in advance. Reactive is when we are having to deal with the fires or deal with the problems of not having a clean process. Building that cadence of review into your year, your month, or your day is what allows you to move from reactive to proactive. Processes are where everything starts and ends, to be honest.

Kelcee 35:00

I think there's so much mindset involved in that. The last thing I want you to touch on, it's hard for people sometimes to slow down and document these processes, because they're so busy running their business, bringing in new clients, working with the clients that they have, or doing all the different things that design designers and workrooms that they need to do, as well. Let's talk a little bit about the mindset around taking the time, taking the time to sit down and work on processes and where does your head need to be, what do you need to be thinking about, and why is it ultimately high level? Why is it so important for this to happen in people's businesses?

Michele 35:44

I'm going to start by asking you a question what name one or two things that are really important in your life?

Kelcee 35:50

My family. My faith.

Michele 35:54

Now, let me ask you, this, your family, and your faith, that's awesome, those are my two as well. If they're important, and you understand the value of those two things, what do you give them to build a relationship or build depth in that time? Until we realize that processes are important to the success of our business, we will not give them time. We will throw a little bit at it, we'll do a little bit to get by. It's an irritant, it's a bother, it's a to-do, it's a task for us. I'm not saying that sometimes even our family and our faith and all those things that we care about, can sometimes show up on a task list or to do versus get to do and enjoyment. But when we understand that processes literally are the foundation of running a successful company to allow us that we've sold it and now let's make a profit, the difference in profitability is processed. We get from profitability to order, order to impact, to be able to impact the world, impact our communities, impact our clients, impact the people that work for us, and then move to legacy, where we have that management turn where we can take a step out of the business and somebody else can step in. We can move more to that CEO or COO level that everybody wants to move to at some point as the principal of the firm, the only way to do those things is if we started off being the one baking the pies back to E Myth revisited. If we started off being the one that bake the pies, we cannot move to the bakery owner until we teach somebody to bake the pie. And the only way to do that and to have that pie taste the same every day that that customer comes in is to have a process. X amount of sugar, X amount of flour, whatever it is, we've got to have the process, the recipe. So, the mindset starts by understanding the value, and what is important.

When we really understand the importance of proactivity, of getting in front of and not being caught on the backside of managing and maintaining profitability, which gives us sustainability, once we really get that, then creating and working through our process is a tool that we're using for all the things that we want. So now we're not looking at it as I got to do this, or I have to do this, they say I have to do, it now becomes this glorious tool that is giving us back our time, it is allowing us to meet the needs of the client and in a predictable way. It's giving us sustainability and profitability. Well, my gosh, if you gave me a tool that allowed me to do those things so that I could spend more time with my faith and my family, I'd be there in a hot minute. But until I understand the key of how important that is, there is nothing I can tell you, other than to force yourself to do it. And honestly, that sounds miserable to me. Do you see what I mean by that, though? The mindset is trying to understand why documenting what I do, what I know, who I serve, and how I serve them, why documenting that so that I can have somebody else help me, or help the company help the firm, somebody else who can come along and understand what I'm trying to accomplish and do. And then help me impact the world. Or impact my small corner of the world with the brilliance of what our firm brings whatever it is that you do. The minute that I understand that the only way to bring somebody in to help me is to show them what I do and how I do it. So that we can be consistent in doing it, then it becomes I can't imagine not sharing that with somebody or not having somebody document it.

But again, let me say this if you are not in business by yourself, it is easy to let the other people that work with you help document the parts they know, it doesn't have to be a one-person job. If you are in business for yourself and you want to do that first hire and you don't know how to document, you can reach out to a firm like Kelcee's to say, hey, can you can I hire somebody to help me document these things helped me get ready, so that I can go work with Michele and blow this thing up. Here's a video of what I do, and I don't know how to pull it together, there are opportunities to help you pull it together that way. I think the biggest thing here is to recognize that processes create the backbone for the company. It's like our spinal column, it's the processes that tell the arms and the legs and the brain, it's telling all of it what to do and how to do it. And if we don't have that foundation, we call it a solid foundation and creating processes and order, and if we just don't have that, then coming in every day is chaotic. When a client calls and says, "Where are we on this" and you don't even know your own process, and every client is in a different place in position, and you don't even know how to get them through to the next step because you don't know what the next step is you're just refiguring it out on the fly. I can't even tell you the amount of chaos that that would cause in your heart and in your mind, then the sleepless nights and the additional stress and we keep talking about building businesses with ease instead of with disease. That's a diseased business in that particular example. Processes create ease.

Kelcee 41:30

I love that. That was it. Those are all my questions.

Michele 41:34

All your burning questions. Awesome. Well, Kelcee, tell everybody where they can find you with the Elite Ops if they want to reach out.

Kelcee 41:41

You can find us on Instagram, at Elite OPS support, or you can email us, our information will be in the show notes, and you can obviously find us through Scarlet Thread as well, when you work with Michele, you get to work with us, which I love. We're always here to help.

Michele 41:59

Awesome. Well, thank you so much. What are we going to be talking about next time?

Kelcee 42:03

I think it's another financial one.

Michele 42:06

I think it is back to money. Awesome. Thank you so much for pulling together the questions. A reminder to everybody listening, if you have questions that you'd like for us to answer send them in, send them to team@ScarletThreadConsulting.com and Kelcee will compile them and hand them over to me and we can answer those on the podcast for you. As we always say and as we end every podcast choose to be profitable because profit doesn't happen by accident. Profit is a Choice is proud to be part of the designnetwork.org where you can discover more design media reaching creative listeners. Thanks for listening and stay creative and business minded.