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58 The Secret to Scaling Without Burning Out with Fran Rescigno · The Rave Social Podcast

• 0:12
  SPEAKER_00: Hello everyone and welcome back to the Rave Social Podcast.
• 0:17
  SPEAKER_00: I'm your host, Jaden.
• 0:19
  SPEAKER_00: If you didn't know, you probably know that by now, unless it's like your first time listening to this.
• 0:24
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and today we have a special guest, Fran.
• 0:28
  SPEAKER_00: Fran is a VA, but you also like you're so much more than that, I would say, right?
• 0:34
  SPEAKER_00: Like, she you do operations, you do like notion, dub total, like everything you do.
• 0:40
  SPEAKER_00: You're incredible.
• 0:41
  SPEAKER_00: So why don't you tell us a little bit about yourself, maybe how you got started, and yeah, who you like to serve.
• 0:48
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 0:49
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I actually did like start my business working as a VA.
• 0:54
  SPEAKER_01: So I started my business in the fall of 2020, and I was like, I don't know, I saw a random video about becoming a virtual assistant, and I was like, cool, I'm about to graduate in the middle of the pandemic.
• 1:08
  SPEAKER_01: That sounds like a great idea.
• 1:10
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so I did that, and um like obviously it's been a while since then, and it's kind of just like led me on this path to where I am today.
• 1:21
  SPEAKER_01: So my like the title that I have given myself essentially is Client Experience Architect.
• 1:28
  SPEAKER_01: And um what I do is pretty much like build client experiences.
• 1:34
  SPEAKER_01: So like I I strategize from you know start to finish what an ideal client journey would look like and then build them.
• 1:44
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, no, like you're a magician.
• 1:46
  SPEAKER_00: I I'm in some programs that Fran has designed like client experiences for, and she's insane.
• 1:54
  SPEAKER_00: Like it's so good, it's so easy to understand.
• 1:56
  SPEAKER_00: Like, literally, I love Notion personally, but trying to like develop Notion, my worst nightmare.
• 2:05
  SPEAKER_00: Like, I tried to use a cube and I'm like, why is this not working?
• 2:07
  SPEAKER_00: Like, I don't understand.
• 2:08
  SPEAKER_00: So, to me, you are a magician.
• 2:12
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you.
• 2:12
  SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna actually change my title.
• 2:14
  SPEAKER_00: Now I'm just a magician.
• 2:17
  SPEAKER_00: She is.
• 2:18
  SPEAKER_00: No, seriously, so good.
• 2:20
  SPEAKER_00: And I I actually really want to talk to you about this because I feel like the client experience is something that is so overlooked.
• 2:29
  SPEAKER_00: Like, people really get into the nitty-gritty of like their offers and how they're delivering their offers, and like photographers are worried about refining like their editing style, like all these different things we're worried about in our business, but the client experience actually has such a huge impact on the speed at which your business can grow, referrals, all these different things.
• 2:51
  SPEAKER_00: Um I'm so excited to talk about this.
• 2:54
  SPEAKER_00: And my first question for you is like, what do you think, what are people doing wrong in their client experience that's impacting their businesses negatively?
• 3:02
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I actually live like that.
• 3:06
  SPEAKER_01: You mentioned that it's something that's really commonly overlooked.
• 3:09
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I'm gonna answer your question in a roundabout way and I'll make my way back there eventually.
• 3:14
  SPEAKER_01: But what you were saying reminded me of a conversation that I was having really recently with one of my past clients who's like, you know, a friend of mine now.
• 3:23
  SPEAKER_01: We worked together at the beginning of last year.
• 3:27
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I think.
• 3:29
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know.
• 3:30
  SPEAKER_01: Anyway, she was telling me how like it's so common in the online business space to have like a bad investment experience or even like multiple ones where what you signed up for is just not what you get.
• 3:47
  SPEAKER_01: Whether it's like, I mean, I have heard horror stories of people that have like paid thousands of dollars for something and then literally gotten nothing out of it.
• 3:56
  SPEAKER_01: Um but then there's obviously the side where it's like maybe you get something really good from it, but the experience of receiving that is just like not organized and like you don't really know what's going on, and you just feel like, you know, this isn't what I thought I was paying for.
• 4:13
  SPEAKER_01: And I feel like it's getting to the point where so many people have had those types of experiences that if you are not prioritizing your client experience as a business owner, you're like essentially, I don't even know how to describe it.
• 4:32
  SPEAKER_01: Like you're basically communicating to your clients that like you're not really prioritizing them because you're like I'm really good at what I do, and like you're gonna get this really cool thing, but like I don't really care about the way that you experience that.
• 4:51
  SPEAKER_01: And that has like a really, really big impact on your business.
• 4:55
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so one of the things that I have started doing in the past couple of years is actually like a client experience research survey, which has been really interesting.
• 5:04
  SPEAKER_01: And one of the questions that I ask on it is like, um, if you work with a service provider and like the deliverables are really good and like high quality, but the experience is not optimized, um, how does that impact like whether you would refer that person to somebody else or um you know work with them again?
• 5:27
  SPEAKER_01: And I think it was like over 80% of people said that they would not work with that person again, and you know, like half of that said they wouldn't refer them to people.
• 5:37
  SPEAKER_01: So it's something that really impacts, like you were saying, just the ability to grow your business in a sustainable way, especially when it comes to referrals and repeat clients.
• 5:49
  SPEAKER_01: So circling back to your original question of like, you know, what kind of mistakes are people making?
• 5:56
  SPEAKER_01: I think the number one mistake is really like not prioritizing it and like not understanding how big of an impact it has on your business and your clients, but also on you as the business owner.
• 6:09
  SPEAKER_01: So, like one of the things that I talk about a lot when it comes to client experience is that it's something that should be beneficial to you as the business owner, in addition to being beneficial to your clients, because when you think about it, like if you're setting up the back end of your business and you're setting up like automations and templates and stuff and like everything to just make the process smoother and more streamlined, those are all things that should benefit you as well.
• 6:39
  SPEAKER_01: And they should be designed in a way that like supports you and works with your brain and like you're not using platforms that you hate.
• 6:49
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, no, I was just thinking that as you were talking about making the client experience good for obviously the client, and I just thought like how important it is also for you as the business owner or like your employees or contractors, because it simplifies everything and then it makes your business easier to scale.
• 7:09
  SPEAKER_00: Like, this is totally something that I've seen come up in my businesses.
• 7:12
  SPEAKER_00: I've tried to scale over the years, is like the biggest roadblock for me usually isn't like getting enough clients, it's usually managing them.
• 7:22
  SPEAKER_00: How yeah, like I can get them, but how do I manage all of them?
• 7:26
  SPEAKER_00: Like, that's really complicated, and that is where the client experience I feel like comes in.
• 7:32
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, a hundred percent.
• 7:33
  SPEAKER_01: And the client experience is like it's something that's so just interconnected with other parts of your business, and like having a team is one of those pieces that it's like interconnected to because when it comes to like client experience and back end systems, one of the things that obviously we're doing is like creating templates and streamlining the process and like setting it up in a way that there's structure, and having that structure is like it makes it so much easier for you to bring people into your business because then there's a there's something for them to follow, like they know what's supposed to be going on, and it's not just kind of like you know, chaos, everything going on um all over the place, and somebody's coming in and being like, what the hell is going on here?
• 8:22
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and that's something that I like I see people make the mistake of a lot is like when they get to a point where they're feeling overwhelmed in their business and like they can't keep up on everything, a lot of times the um like instinct is to hire a VA, and that's not necessarily a bad thing, but most of the time it's not gonna be the like the investment that actually like fixes what's going on in your business because it's more of a reactive approach instead of a proactive approach.
• 8:58
  SPEAKER_01: So like hiring a VA when you don't have like systems and like templates in place already is really just like throwing somebody into a fire and being like, here you go, figure out how to get out of this.
• 9:13
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and it what that also often leads to is like if you're somebody who's hiring a VA and that's the situation that you're throwing them into, you're probably gonna feel like they don't know what they're doing and they're not getting anything done.
• 9:28
  SPEAKER_01: And it's not because like they're bad at what they're doing, it's because they don't have any like structure or anything to follow, or like maybe they don't have SOPs, or like they, you know, there's not anything that's been documented for them to know what they're supposed to be doing, because VAs like their role is to just like go in and like do something.
• 9:49
  SPEAKER_01: Like they are definitely doers.
• 9:52
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and if they don't have instructions and like templates and structures to work from, then they're not gonna be able to succeed at their role.
• 10:03
  SPEAKER_01: So it's really, really important to have like your back-end systems and your client experience optimized before you're bringing those type of people into your business because it's gonna make the process way easier for everybody that's involved.
• 10:16
  SPEAKER_00: Wow, Fran, you just like are blowing my mind.
• 10:19
  SPEAKER_00: And also, I'm like, we need you to create more content for yourself about your like history of being like coming from a VA background into what you're doing because like you fully, because of that experience, like you fully understand the entire process, which I don't think I don't think a lot of people can see that full picture, like you know, so I'm really like I because I didn't know any of this, like really about you, and I'm like, wow, okay, this is crazy and so real.
• 10:54
  SPEAKER_00: Like I like you just totally like perspective shifted me because even in my own business, I've been like, okay, like I need like an operations manager or something, but it's like I don't know how they're supposed to like manage the operations if like there's no processes and there's no like like you're saying, like no documented way to do it.
• 11:12
  SPEAKER_00: Like, how are they?
• 11:14
  SPEAKER_00: They're just gonna feel confused and like like you said, like be bad at their job, and it's like not their fault.
• 11:20
  SPEAKER_00: They're not good.
• 11:21
  SPEAKER_00: It's like my fault, they're not good.
• 11:23
  SPEAKER_00: So that's just that's so interesting.
• 11:26
  SPEAKER_00: And it leads me to a question that I have for you about automations and templates, because I do feel like people sometimes feel like, oh, does it give AI?
• 11:37
  SPEAKER_00: Or like, is does it feel impersonal?
• 11:39
  SPEAKER_00: How do you balance that so that it doesn't feel that way?
• 11:43
  SPEAKER_01: That is a great question, and um, I love that you asked that because I feel like automations do sometimes get a really bad rap, and people are like, no, no, like I don't want things just like sending out when I don't have control over it and things like potentially getting messed up.
• 12:01
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I would say that the most important aspect when it comes to having automations that feel personal is number one, you don't have to automate every single part of your process.
• 12:13
  SPEAKER_01: And truthfully, like that's never the goal, at least in the way that I work with clients.
• 12:19
  SPEAKER_01: Um the goal in like the goal with automation is really to have like a repeatable process where the places are already kind of like lined up for you.
• 12:31
  SPEAKER_01: And I don't know if I said places or pieces, but I meant pieces.
• 12:39
  SPEAKER_01: Anyway, got it, pieces are already lined up for you, so then you're kind of just like going through and like essentially like checking off the boxes as you go.
• 12:49
  SPEAKER_01: Like maybe some things are going out automatically, and then some things like require your approval so that you can just like edit a couple of words in the email before it gets sent out.
• 12:58
  SPEAKER_01: But one of the really like impactful parts of having personalized automations is actually like the canned email templates that you're using for them.
• 13:08
  SPEAKER_01: So that's actually one of the reasons why I like partner with a copywriter for all of my projects because that is like a really important aspect of how the automations feel, because like that impacts whether they feel robotic or whether they feel like they're coming from an actual person.
• 13:28
  SPEAKER_01: And um I think that a lot of the times when people are thinking about automations and it's kind of giving them the ick, it's probably because they've received like a canned email template that was like so obviously just like the most default thing.
• 13:45
  SPEAKER_01: Like somebody just wrote, you know, in five minutes and didn't put any thought into it, or it's like, you know, the the default one from whatever platform they're using.
• 13:55
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so that's definitely not what we're going for when it comes to automations.
• 13:59
  SPEAKER_01: It should really just be like it should feel like you wrote an email to send to like an actual person, and it's just it just happens to be going out without you having to do anything.
• 14:13
  SPEAKER_01: Like that's the vibe um that I want to bring when I'm like building out automations for clients.
• 14:19
  SPEAKER_01: And I think that one of the things that's really important about like implementing a more personalized aspect of automations is like being really clear on your brand voice.
• 14:33
  SPEAKER_01: Um, because if you don't know what your brand voice is, it's really hard to like write templates that sound like you.
• 14:42
  SPEAKER_01: Um so one of the things that I am like pretty frequently recommending to my clients when I do so, like my my like main service, the client experience revamp, we start with the client experience audit and that looks at like everything, like including like your brand presentation.
• 15:00
  SPEAKER_01: And one of the things that I'm recommending, like probably 50% of the time, is like you need to do brand voice work and like work with a copywriter and figure out what your brand voice is.
• 15:13
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, because we want it to be consistent, like not even just in terms of your emails feeling personal, but like your brand voice should be consistent across like your socials and those canned emails and like your website so that everything feels cohesive and it doesn't feel like somebody's jumping from like one brand to the other when they're going through different parts of that experience of working with you, because ultimately, like, and I'm sure you can speak to this, but like it kind of starts with your socials because that's where a lot of people are finding you.
• 15:47
  SPEAKER_01: And so if you're going from that and there's a certain like vibe on your socials, and then you go to like your website and they're like, Okay, this is like matching the vibe, and then they get into your client experience, and it's like all these emails that sound like they were written by somebody working a corporate nine to five, they're gonna be like, What is going on here?
• 16:06
  SPEAKER_00: No, seriously, and one question I have for you, okay, okay.
• 16:13
  SPEAKER_00: My brain just like literally like a squirrel happened.
• 16:16
  SPEAKER_00: It was like, oh this, and then also that.
• 16:19
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but my oh, oh yes, okay.
• 16:24
  SPEAKER_00: So I was gonna ask something about the client experience.
• 16:27
  SPEAKER_00: So yeah, within like the client experiences that you build, there's like one side of it, right, that's like client facing, but then there's another side of it that is internal facing, and that's kind of what we're talking about with automations where it's like you may need to like approve this email before it's sent, or you need to change something in it before it's sent.
• 16:45
  SPEAKER_00: Does your client experience take into consideration like the moving parts within the business?
• 16:51
  SPEAKER_00: Like, okay, at this point we need graphics created.
• 16:54
  SPEAKER_00: At this point, we need this questionnaire sent out.
• 16:59
  SPEAKER_00: Like, how are you connecting the external experience with the internal experience for brands?
• 17:05
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah, that's a great question.
• 17:07
  SPEAKER_01: So I would say when I am mapping out a client experience, it would include like all of those things because ultimately, like, if a questionnaire needs to be filled out, for example, like that needs to be sent to the client at some point, and there needs to be an email to send that questionnaire.
• 17:25
  SPEAKER_01: So it's all kind of like connected in that way.
• 17:28
  SPEAKER_01: So one of the like basically when it comes to client experience, one of the almost like pre steps to being able to determine what that is is actually understanding like what steps exist in the process for each of your services.
• 17:46
  SPEAKER_01: And yeah, when I talk about like processes, a lot of people feel like that is like some big scary term.
• 17:54
  SPEAKER_01: But in my mind, it's literally just like, okay, have you written out like the steps in order of like what you're doing and what the client needs to do for a service?
• 18:04
  SPEAKER_01: Like that's that's all you really need to know.
• 18:06
  SPEAKER_01: But if you don't know that, then it's really, really difficult to like actually put together a client experience because then we don't know what needs to be happening in it.
• 18:19
  SPEAKER_00: That makes so much sense.
• 18:22
  SPEAKER_00: Um, that brings me to another question that is what are your favorite tools then for setting up things like this?
• 18:28
  SPEAKER_00: Because like I use Honeybook, which I know is like tragic, but I can't, I just can't switch.
• 18:34
  SPEAKER_00: Like that just sounds like a nightmare.
• 18:37
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but I know you're like big on Dub Soto, but like how what are your favorite platforms and how do you like them to all work together?
• 18:45
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah, that's a good question.
• 18:47
  SPEAKER_01: I actually I okay, I will confess, I used to be a Honey Book hater, like Capital H hater.
• 18:55
  SPEAKER_01: However, I have I have come to have a better relationship with Honey Book.
• 19:00
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I actually I work in Honey Book still, so like I do projects in both Dobs Auto and Honey Book.
• 19:06
  SPEAKER_01: I think they've come a long way.
• 19:07
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm actually a really big fan of Automations 2.0.
• 19:11
  SPEAKER_01: So collapse Honey Book will.
• 19:16
  SPEAKER_01: But in terms of the platforms that I like to use, definitely a CRM.
• 19:21
  SPEAKER_01: So like I said, Dubsado and Honey Book are the ones that I'm working in most frequently.
• 19:26
  SPEAKER_01: And um, like they they both at this point have pretty much the same capabilities.
• 19:34
  SPEAKER_01: Like there are a couple of things that are different in terms of like what one can do and what one can't do.
• 19:40
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but in terms of like figuring out which platform is best for you, this is definitely where your preference, like as the business owner, I feel like comes into play.
• 19:53
  SPEAKER_01: Because I'm never gonna be like, you should use Dubsado because you know, I like it better.
• 20:02
  SPEAKER_01: Because if you log into Dubsado and you're like, I hate the way that this looks and I never want to do anything in here, then that's not gonna be like helpful for your business because you're not gonna wanna like, you know, go in and send a proposal or approve a workflow action or like whatever it might be.
• 20:20
  SPEAKER_01: So I feel like that's one of the situations where I'm like, just choose the one that feels better to you, especially in the situation where like they are pretty much equal in terms of what they can accomplish.
• 20:31
  SPEAKER_01: Like the exception to that would be if you have like a very specific feature need that like you know you need for your business, and like maybe one has and one doesn't, then obviously, like that might be a case for just kind of like dealing with one that maybe you don't like as much.
• 20:48
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so the definitely the CRM.
• 20:52
  SPEAKER_01: And then the other platform that like I really like to work with for client experiences is a project management platform.
• 20:59
  SPEAKER_01: Um, Notion is my favorite.
• 21:03
  SPEAKER_01: And the reason why I feel like project management and client experience are so connected is because like, sorry, that's my alarm reminding me to drink water.
• 21:18
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, everyone, make sure you go drink your water.
• 21:21
  SPEAKER_01: You can take a little bit.
• 21:22
  SPEAKER_01: I love that so much.
• 21:25
  SPEAKER_01: Um anyway, the reason why I feel like project management and like client experience are so connected is because the way that you have things organized on the back end of your business is going to directly impact your client experience, not just from like the CRM standpoint, I feel like is more obvious because that's like something that directly it like interacts with the client.
• 21:51
  SPEAKER_01: Like they're filling out forms, they're paying their invoice, like whatever.
• 21:55
  SPEAKER_01: Um, they're getting emails, whereas like the project management is more of like a back.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_01: Type situation.
• 22:02
  SPEAKER_01: But if you don't have like a clear way to keep track of the projects that you have going on and like the tasks that you need to be completing for them, or like you if you have a team or you work with like contractors, the tasks that like those people need to be completing, that's gonna impact your client experience because you're probably not gonna always know what needs to be happening.
• 22:26
  SPEAKER_01: And that's gonna lead to like you know, the client not feeling like they know what's going on if you don't know what's going on, and also more than likely delays in the timeline if you don't have a clear picture of like what you need to be doing at any certain like point in time.
• 22:44
  SPEAKER_01: So I can speak from my own experience with this.
• 22:48
  SPEAKER_01: I didn't have a project management tool until 2022, so like two years into my business.
• 23:00
  SPEAKER_01: And I this is the way that I was operating.
• 23:04
  SPEAKER_01: I was like just booking projects and I was just like starting them whenever.
• 23:11
  SPEAKER_01: And I would just like kind of I don't know, work on what I thought I needed to work on and like maybe write down a to-do list of like things to do that day.
• 23:23
  SPEAKER_01: But then what would happen is like I would literally forget about projects for like multiple weeks because they were just like out of sight, out of mind.
• 23:33
  SPEAKER_01: And then I would be like, oh shit, like I haven't done anything for this project for two weeks.
• 23:37
  SPEAKER_01: I really need to get on that.
• 23:40
  SPEAKER_01: And um, it was just it was just chaos because I never knew like what I needed to be doing.
• 23:45
  SPEAKER_01: And obviously the client, like, you know, didn't have an optimal experience because I was all over the place.
• 23:52
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and also it was like really anxiety-inducing to just wake up every day and be like, I have no idea what I'm supposed to be doing for all of these projects that I have booked.
• 24:03
  SPEAKER_01: Um so yeah.
• 24:06
  SPEAKER_01: That's so funny.
• 24:07
  SPEAKER_01: You're just like, and I guess I'll do whatever I I don't know.
• 24:12
  SPEAKER_01: I was like, why do I always feel like I have a million things to do and I'm never getting anything done?
• 24:18
  SPEAKER_01: And it's like, oh well, duh.
• 24:20
  SPEAKER_01: Um duh.
• 24:22
  SPEAKER_00: So yeah, duh.
• 24:23
  SPEAKER_00: Because that happens to everyone, like at some point in their business.
• 24:27
  SPEAKER_00: And if it's not if it's not like that specific thing, like there's something in your business that you were like flying by the seat of your pants, just like hoping that it would like get done correctly or on time.
• 24:38
  SPEAKER_00: Like everyone's had that.
• 24:40
  SPEAKER_00: So very relatable experience.
• 24:44
  SPEAKER_01: Um, yeah, so that's why I love also working in project management platforms, especially for my clients that are like service providers.
• 24:53
  SPEAKER_01: So I work with a lot of like creative service providers, so that could be like designers or copywriters or um like marketing professional, like kind of broad, broad category.
• 25:07
  SPEAKER_01: And like those people are often either working on like a project, like they have services that have like a start and an end date, or they have retainers or like a combination of both.
• 25:20
  SPEAKER_01: And especially if you're somebody who works on like a project basis, like having a project management tool is so important for like so many reasons because again, like you can actually keep track of what you need to be doing, and then you're not just like waking up in the morning and being like, hmm, what do I need to work on today?
• 25:38
  SPEAKER_01: Um but it's also really, really helpful for understanding like your capacity and when you can book projects without like overbooking yourself because you can have a way to visualize like what you have on the calendar and you know what what tasks are gonna be added to your to-do list if you book a project on like whatever day.
• 26:02
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so yeah, we love a project.
• 26:05
  SPEAKER_00: I love that.
• 26:05
  SPEAKER_00: I was gonna I was that was literally my next question is I was gonna say, like, how like how do you support people?
• 26:11
  SPEAKER_00: Because that's one thing you said that you do is like help support business owners with how much capacity they actually have, because I do think like it can get so chaotic, like you think you have more time than you do, or it could be the opposite way too, like you think you're more booked than you are, and like managing that is so hard.
• 26:31
  SPEAKER_00: It's a really big challenge with business ownership, is like balancing that, and especially as you start to scale, balancing like okay, so how many clients can I realistically on board, even if I'm not doing all like the day-to-day work on the program because I have support?
• 26:48
  SPEAKER_00: It's just it can be really tricky to figure out how to make that work, and I don't think we talk about it enough.
• 26:55
  SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna say it because I agree, like on yeah, like on the internet, people are just like, yeah, scale.
• 27:00
  SPEAKER_00: And it's like, okay, but like if I just double my income and double my client load, what where are the hours in the big income from to like do that?
• 27:11
  SPEAKER_00: You know, it's just it's so much more complicated than people make it seem on the internet.
• 27:17
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, I agree, and I'm really happy that we're talking about this because I have a lot of thoughts.
• 27:25
  SPEAKER_01: So okay, I would say when it comes to like capacity and figuring out how much you realistically have time for, um, the first place that I would start is tracking your time.
• 27:38
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and I know that like that's not something that a lot of us think to do if we're not billing on like an hourly rate and you like you don't need to track your time.
• 27:47
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but it's something that I started doing a couple of years ago and has been really, really, really impactful because then it gives me a clear picture of number one, like how long things are taking me, and number two, what I'm spending the most of my time on.
• 28:05
  SPEAKER_01: So I can either figure out like if it's something I'm spending a lot of time on, is there a way that I can make it more efficient, or is it something that I want to outsource, or is it something that like I just need to get rid of?
• 28:17
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but once you understand how long like the tasks that you have to do for clients are taking you, then you can kind of like get a better picture of okay, if this is taking me this amount of time and I'm working with this many clients, like these are all of the hours that I, you know, essentially need to be working during any given week.
• 28:42
  SPEAKER_01: And then that's when you can start to see, like, okay, I want to be working 20 hours a week, but with the current client, like current client load that I'm at right now, I actually am putting like 30 hours a week on my schedule or 40 hours a week on my schedule.
• 28:59
  SPEAKER_01: And so that's where you can start to really like make shifts and just like have a better understanding of like what is too much.
• 29:09
  SPEAKER_01: Um and I would say another part of being able to scale is like your pricing.
• 29:19
  SPEAKER_01: So, like this is something that I feel like I've had to adjust a lot in the past year.
• 29:26
  SPEAKER_01: And it started with me having a conversation with my bookkeeper where we talked about like the pricing for my services and whether or not I could actually hit my income goals with them being that way.
• 29:38
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and then I was like, okay, so I need to raise my prices a little bit.
• 29:43
  SPEAKER_01: Um so that was a really helpful place to start and has been like one of the things that has enabled me to understand a lot better like how I can essentially like match my capacity in terms of like how much I actually want to be working with like the amount of income that I need to be making and like make those two things work together because if you don't have like the data to go off of to make those decisions, then you're like you're pretty much just guessing at what's gonna happen, and like that's you're guessing, yeah.
• 30:23
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm like guilty, so I'm so guilty of that because like it's been one of my goals to scale to like consistent 40k months, and it seems like every time I try, I don't do it, but then it's so funny because I've been going through a big like restructuring of how my business is gonna operate over the next year, and I've done so much looking at the data, and it's like it's as simple as okay, you want to have 40k months, okay.
• 30:52
  SPEAKER_00: How many clients is that per month at your current rate, you know?
• 30:57
  SPEAKER_00: And then I'm looking at that like, well, that's a clearly unmanageable amount of clients, like that's not possible.
• 31:03
  SPEAKER_00: So then you look at okay, well, then maybe I need to raise my rates, and obviously there's other things that go into raising your rates, like demand and things like that, but it's funny how we overcomplicate things based on like our emotions.
• 31:21
  SPEAKER_00: Like instead of looking at the numbers or looking at the spreadsheet or looking at your calendar and like realistically looking at how much time you have, we just like make it crazier and harder than it is in our minds.
• 31:35
  SPEAKER_00: Um and something else you said about how many hours you want to work per day made me think because at there was a point in time which you've been in the online space long enough that you you totally experience this, but coaches were like, you can't work for hours, like you can't work hourly, right?
• 31:54
  SPEAKER_00: They were saying that, and it's like that's always going to be a foundation of business is knowing how much you're worth per hour.
• 32:02
  SPEAKER_00: Because exactly what you're saying, I want to work 20 hours a week and I want my income to be this much.
• 32:07
  SPEAKER_00: That directly translates to like dollars per hour that you are going to charge.
• 32:13
  SPEAKER_00: And I think like, I don't know, it's it I might just be me and I'm like projecting this onto the whole world, but like that got in my mind where I was like, well, your value is more than like hours per, like, are you really gonna be selling yourself for$200 an hour or whatever?
• 32:27
  SPEAKER_00: But like in reality, that's what it comes down to, and I think we're afraid of that.
• 32:31
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I'm afraid of that.
• 32:34
  SPEAKER_01: It's also like really important, especially if you are somebody who does like custom pricing for any of your services.
• 32:43
  SPEAKER_01: So, like for me, my main service is custom quote for every single person.
• 32:48
  SPEAKER_01: So, like, if I genuinely don't know like what I need to be charging per like one hour of my own time, I'm just gonna be like willy-nilly picking a number to charge people and then being like, oh, I hope I meet my income goals this month, which is literally what I was doing for like the past two years.
• 33:10
  SPEAKER_00: No, it is so challenging.
• 33:12
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, but I also feel like when it comes to all of this around like capacity planning and like looking at data and stuff like that, I think a lot of people shy away from it because it feels like a lot of structure, and we I think naturally associate structure with like there being no flexibility and like very like rigid and like this is the way you have to do it.
• 33:39
  SPEAKER_01: And it's like actually you need to have a structure in place in order to have flexibility in your business, and like that's something that I talk about a lot because it's like if you are just like, for example, you're somebody who wants to have like a really intuitive-led schedule, but if you don't have like a project management tool and you don't know like what tasks you need to be doing during a certain time, like during a the certain week or like you know, month or whatever, you're just gonna be waking up every morning and instead of like feeling like you can intuitively go out through your day, you're just gonna feel anxious because you don't know what needs to be done.
• 34:20
  SPEAKER_01: So like you will have a better success like going through your day following your intuition if you know, like, okay, there are three things that I need to get done today.
• 34:30
  SPEAKER_01: It doesn't matter what time of day they get done, and the rest of my day can look however I want it to look.
• 34:36
  SPEAKER_01: But like these are the three things that I need to get done today.
• 34:39
  SPEAKER_01: You know what I mean?
• 34:41
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, I love that you said that so much because it is like it's all of this, like at and I don't want to like I don't want to just be like, oh, it's the freaking like online business industry, but a lot of it is because like most of us are women who came from corporate jobs where we felt like we were in prison and like had no control over our lives or our days or whatever, and so like it's that pendulum, right?
• 35:06
  SPEAKER_00: Like you go from that to being like, I don't want any structure, like I just want to like get paid to like sit on my couch and like do chew or whatever.
• 35:15
  SPEAKER_00: And it's like, but there's actually a really healthy balance of the structure and the flow.
• 35:22
  SPEAKER_00: And we've talked about this on the podcast before, it's a little bit woo-y, but it's like the balancing the feminine and the masculine of like, well, the feminine like doesn't flow without like the masculine container in any sense of the way, and I like to think of it like a river where like you have the riverbed, that's the masculine, containing the river that gets to flow through it, and it's the same thing in our businesses, like yeah, you have to have a container to hold it, and then it can flow, yes, and it's not like it's not like you're trying to force energy to go in a specific way, it's literally just like directing it, and there's that's not like yeah, yeah, it doesn't have to be like controlling, like the corporate controlling energy, instead it can just be like the shape, the form, whatever, like and then within that anything can happen.
• 36:17
  SPEAKER_00: No, I I love that, and honestly, that's definitely not something I struggle with that much because I am a Capricorn in so many ways.
• 36:27
  SPEAKER_00: So the structure is not something I struggle with, but I have seen how not having the right systems, automations, things like that supporting my business instead like trying to do it all, like make sure I'm the one that's controlling and doing it all, has negatively impacted my business growth or even just my health, like trying to do it all, you know.
• 36:49
  SPEAKER_01: No, I'm actually that's like a really big, I feel like, talking point because one of the things that I notice so frequently is that a lot of my clients are people who are like actually very organized and on top of things and like are managing a lot of things at one time successfully, but it's like the cost of you being the sole person that's responsible for like running a business or providing a great client experience or like whatever it is gets to be like so taxing after a while because you feel like you can never step away from anything without wondering if something is gonna be like you know, an email reminder needs to get sent or an invoice needs to get sent or whatever it might be.
• 37:39
  SPEAKER_01: And a lot of the people that I work with are actually like already providing a really good client experience, but the issue is that it's reliant a hundred percent on them doing everything manually or like most things manually, and that is just not sustainable, not even from the standpoint of like if you're somebody who wants to scale, but just as a human being who has like energy limitations, um, especially if you're somebody who like has energy limitations, like if you're neurodivergent, or if you have a chronic illness, or if you're like a parent or a caregiver, or like you know, there are a lot of other things that fall into that category, but like you can't depend on the fact that you will have like a hundred percent of your energy every single day.
• 38:27
  SPEAKER_01: And when you're the person that's doing everything, like that's essentially what you're demanding of yourself.
• 38:33
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, that is such a good point.
• 38:37
  SPEAKER_00: I feel like mic drop, I don't even know, like you convince me.
• 38:43
  SPEAKER_00: Um, wow, so good, Fran.
• 38:46
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you so much for sharing your expertise with us.
• 38:49
  SPEAKER_00: And you've like totally changed my mind.
• 38:51
  SPEAKER_00: It's incredible.
• 38:52
  SPEAKER_00: I love this conversation.
• 38:54
  SPEAKER_00: Um, before we go, I do have two questions for you.
• 38:58
  SPEAKER_00: The first one is if listeners could implement just like one system this week, what would it be?
• 39:04
  SPEAKER_00: Or even maybe it's not a system that they need to implement, but like what should they do this week to get started on a path that's more supportive?
• 39:12
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, I would say if you're not somebody that is already tracking your time, start doing that this week.
• 39:19
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I personally use toggle and I feel like it's a pretty easy app to use.
• 39:24
  SPEAKER_01: Like you just start it and stop it when you change tasks.
• 39:27
  SPEAKER_01: And it, if like for me, it took a little bit to get in the habit of like doing that, but once you do it for a while, it kind of just like becomes second nature.
• 39:35
  SPEAKER_01: So if you're not already tracking your time, that would be like the homework assignment that I would give you.
• 39:41
  SPEAKER_01: And if you are already tracking your time, what I would say is do a little time audit where you're looking at like the data for the past three months and seeing how long things are taking you and like what's eating up the most amount of your time, and also how many hours you're working per week versus how many hours you want to be working per week, because all of those are gonna be really important things to inform like the shifts that you might want to make in the future based off of like everything that we talked about today.
• 40:15
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I love that so much.
• 40:18
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and my final question for you is what is one piece of advice you wish you could give your younger self?
• 40:24
  SPEAKER_00: This could be in business or in your personal life, whatever you want.
• 40:29
  SPEAKER_00: That's a good question.
• 40:31
  SPEAKER_01: Um I would say if I could give a piece of advice to my younger self, like personal advice, it would be to not put all of my value and worth in what other people think of me.
• 40:58
  SPEAKER_00: I love that so much, and it's so like it's so easy to say it, but it's something I feel like we all deal with.
• 41:05
  SPEAKER_00: Like just basically giving other people power with their thoughts or even like just like our perception of their thoughts.
• 41:14
  SPEAKER_00: Like they may not even think that, but yeah, like I don't know, it's just it can totally just hold you back from being fully expressed in the world 100%.
• 41:27
  SPEAKER_00: I love that so much.
• 41:28
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you so much for being on today.
• 41:30
  SPEAKER_00: Um, we're gonna link Fran's Instagram and your website and everything.
• 41:35
  SPEAKER_00: But if you guys are interested in working with Fran, I can say I've been the recipient of Fran's work and it's amazing.
• 41:42
  SPEAKER_00: Her client experience is great.
• 41:44
  SPEAKER_00: Fran's awesome to work with, and you should definitely hire her.
• 41:49
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you.
• 41:51
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, we'll talk to you later.
• 41:54
  SPEAKER_00: Bye.
• 41:55
  unknown: Bye.