Latest / The 3Bz Podcast - Building Better Business / EP161 - You’re Not Bad at Business. You’re Missing Structure

Transcript

EP161 - You’re Not Bad at Business. You’re Missing Structure · The 3Bz Podcast - Building Better Business

• 0:01
  Hello and welcome to the Three BS Podcast where we go beyond
• 0:05
  the numbers and get into what actually makes a business work.
• 0:08
  I'm your host Stephanie Marshall, founder of ABCSUKA,
• 0:11
  Multi award-winning boutique finance and systems partner.
• 0:15
  I help business owners who've outgrown the basics bring
• 0:18
  clarity, structure and proper systems into their business so
• 0:21
  things finally feel in control. If you want more clarity, more
• 0:25
  confidence, and a business that doesn't feel like constant
• 0:28
  chaos, you're in the right place.
• 0:31
  Each week we tackle real problems, answer the questions
• 0:33
  you're probably already thinking, and give you practical
• 0:36
  steps you can actually use in around 15 minutes.
• 0:40
  So if you're ready to build a Better Business with confidence
• 0:42
  and clarity, then let's go. Hello and welcome back to
• 0:46
  another episode of The Three BS Podcast, your go to place for
• 0:50
  around 15 minutes of motivation, education and inspiration to
• 0:54
  help you build a Better Business each week.
• 0:58
  If we haven't met before, hi, my name is Stephanie Marshall.
• 1:01
  I am the founder of ABCSUKA multi award-winning boutique
• 1:05
  finance and systems partner and I help growing businesses who
• 1:08
  have outgrown their bookkeeper move from messy reactive
• 1:11
  finances to clear structured numbers and systems they can
• 1:15
  actually use to run their businesses properly.
• 1:18
  Because I truly care about the people behind the businesses,
• 1:21
  not just the numbers. Today's episode is what I think
• 1:25
  will land for a lot of people because I hear things like this
• 1:28
  all the time. Like I feel like I'm all over
• 1:31
  the place. I don't know why this still
• 1:33
  feels so hard. And I'm trying everything, but
• 1:36
  it's just not working. And what that quietly turns into
• 1:39
  is, well, maybe I'm just not very good at this business thing
• 1:43
  and I want you to stop right there.
• 1:46
  You're not bad at business, you're just missing structure
• 1:50
  because this matters. If you believe you're bad at
• 1:52
  business, you start doubting your decisions, overthinking
• 1:56
  everything, hesitating and looking outside for answers
• 2:00
  constantly. But if the real issue here is
• 2:04
  structure, then that's fixable, that's practical, and that's
• 2:08
  something you can change. Now, when I say missing
• 2:11
  structure, I don't mean rigid, corporate, complicated and
• 2:15
  complex. Most of the time, missing
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  structure looks like doing things slightly differently
• 2:20
  every single time. Relying on your memory instead
• 2:23
  of implementing systems, reacting to what's in front of
• 2:27
  you, making decisions in the moment off the cuff, and having
• 2:32
  no real rhythm to your weak. It's not chaos, it's
• 2:37
  inconsistency. And inconsistency can feel
• 2:40
  exhausting because every time you do something, you're
• 2:43
  starting from scratch. You're thinking, how do I do
• 2:46
  this again? What did I do last time?
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  What am I missing? What's that specific nuance that
• 2:52
  the client wanted and that constant thinking?
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  That mental load will drain your energy.
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  So let's take something simple as an example.
• 3:00
  Client onboarding without structure.
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  You send different emails each time, you forget steps in the
• 3:08
  process, you chase things manually, and you repeat
• 3:12
  yourself constantly. But having a structure in place
• 3:16
  means you've got the same process, the same steps, and the
• 3:19
  same outcome. It's the same task, but
• 3:23
  completely different experiences for you as a business owner.
• 3:25
  Now imagine that smoothness and that efficiency across client
• 3:29
  work, admin, finances, communications, Everything takes
• 3:34
  more effort than it should right now.
• 3:37
  And that's not because it's hard, but because it's
• 3:39
  inconsistent. Now there's a hidden cost to
• 3:41
  know structure that people don't often talk about.
• 3:44
  And I think this is where it gets interesting because the
• 3:47
  cost isn't always obvious. It shows up as time being
• 3:51
  wasted, decisions taking longer to finalise, things slipping
• 3:56
  through the cracks and the Nets and stress all the time.
• 4:01
  And that stress builds and compounds like a snowball
• 4:04
  quietly. I've spoken to so many business
• 4:06
  owners lately and I think I've even said myself recently, I
• 4:09
  feel like I'm always behind. I feel like I'm constantly
• 4:12
  playing catch up now that I'm always behind.
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  Feeling is one of the biggest indicators that a structure is
• 4:18
  missing because when structure is missing, you do feel like
• 4:21
  you're always catching up. Even if the work is getting
• 4:24
  done, deadlines are being met, clients are being served, and
• 4:29
  money is still coming in, you still feel behind.
• 4:32
  This is really common in the stage of business I like to call
• 4:35
  the messy middle. If you haven't seen that episode
• 4:37
  yet or heard the episode yet, go back to a couple episodes ago
• 4:41
  where I talk about the messy middle.
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  Because at the beginning you have fewer clients, fewer moving
• 4:47
  parts. It's much easier to manage in
• 4:49
  simple spreadsheets or Word documents or remembering things
• 4:52
  in your head. You can get away with reacting
• 4:55
  quickly and having to remember those things.
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  But then when you get more clients, you have more work and
• 5:02
  have more decisions to make. The business starts growing and
• 5:06
  suddenly that approach that's always worked no longer works.
• 5:10
  And I see so many people make the mistake of responding to
• 5:14
  that by doing more, putting in more hours, giving more effort
• 5:18
  to the business and a lot more trying to make things work.
• 5:23
  But that just adds pressure because the problem isn't and
• 5:26
  wasn't ever not enough effort. It's how the business is being
• 5:30
  run. Think about your week.
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  Does it feel chaotic? If your week's already feeling
• 5:36
  chaotic, adding more to it is not going to fix it.
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  Structuring it differently just might be what you need.
• 5:42
  A lot of people think structure means rigidity.
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  People think that it should be a set like a nine to five, you
• 5:48
  must do this at this time, and that that's not what I'm talking
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  about when I say structure. Structure is consistency.
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  The same thing happening every time.
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  Having a process written down, doing it consistently means that
• 6:03
  nothing gets missed, means that everything is easier.
• 6:07
  Structure can also give you clarity so that you understand
• 6:11
  what you're doing, you understand why you're doing it,
• 6:13
  and you understand how it needs to be done.
• 6:16
  Predictability. Knowing that that job is all
• 6:20
  written down, those nuances for those clients are all written
• 6:23
  down if that client wants their report delivering to them in a
• 6:26
  specific format if there's a certain line item that is being
• 6:29
  tracked on that particular client.
• 6:31
  So I have a couple of music artists as clients and I often
• 6:35
  say to them, would you like me to break down your income?
• 6:37
  And they're like, Oh no, I don't need to.
• 6:39
  I was like, well, do you not want to know how much of that's
• 6:40
  like royalty income? That's residual income.
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  You aren't doing anything for that anymore.
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  That's like your residuals and they're like, I never thought of
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  it like that. And it's like, well, if we do it
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  this way, then when we do our reports and we get together and
• 6:54
  we look at how things are moving and changing in your business,
• 6:57
  we can almost discount that royalty income when we're
• 7:00
  looking at what you are making. Because that income you can't
• 7:04
  guarantee. You don't know when it's coming
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  in. You don't know how much you're
• 7:07
  going to get because that no matter how much work you do,
• 7:10
  that royalty income from residuals isn't going to change.
• 7:14
  And also having this structure just gives ease.
• 7:17
  It makes things simple, smoother, less stressful,
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  because then most importantly, it's going to reduce decision
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  fatigue. I made the decision a while ago
• 7:29
  at home to create a four week rotating dinner list, like a
• 7:35
  menu in the school canteen. We have week one, that's our
• 7:39
  five dinners, week 2-3 and four. And we change it and we follow
• 7:43
  it through every week, 123 and four.
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  And then we go back to one again.
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  And, and we do that three times over and that gives us a quarter
• 7:50
  give or take. And then we change the menu
• 7:52
  again. I never have to sit there now on
• 7:55
  the weekly shop or in an evening and go, what am I going to cook
• 7:58
  for dinner tonight? I'm just removing that.
• 8:01
  Decision fatigue. Matt Priestley once said that to
• 8:05
  reduce decision fatigue, he would put his gym kit next to
• 8:09
  the bed. So it became the easiest option,
• 8:11
  the first thing he reached for then he's already ready for the
• 8:15
  gym and it just made going to the gym easier every time you
• 8:18
  have to think, how do I do this? What did I do last time?
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  That's a decision and those decisions add up and really do
• 8:26
  increase that mental load and stress.
• 8:29
  Structure removes those decisions and makes things
• 8:31
  easier and more streamlined. The thing with structure, as
• 8:34
  well as if you're looking to grow and scale a business, which
• 8:36
  I presume you are by watching or listening to this podcast, at
• 8:40
  some point you are going to look to take on more staff, whether
• 8:43
  that's freelance employees, outsourcing, those structures
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  that are written down, those procedures that are written
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  down, that's the first chunk of their training done.
• 8:54
  You're not going to spend time doing that and losing time on
• 8:58
  the business because those processes and procedures are
• 9:02
  already there. I like to think of it as if I
• 9:05
  was hit by a bus tomorrow, somebody could walk in right now
• 9:08
  and take over. They could do it the way I want
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  it done. They could do it the way the
• 9:11
  client has always expected it to be done.
• 9:13
  The level of service wouldn't decrease and I wouldn't need to
• 9:16
  be here to make sure that it's implemented in the way that you
• 9:21
  keep it in your head. You know how you want it to be
• 9:24
  done, but nobody else knows what's going on inside your
• 9:26
  head. Now let's bring this back to
• 9:28
  your numbers briefly because surprise, surprise, I'm a
• 9:30
  bookkeeper and accountant. When structure is missing
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  financially, your bookkeeping is inconsistent at best, your
• 9:37
  numbers aren't reviewed regularly, and your decisions
• 9:39
  are reactive rather than planned for.
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  That creates uncertainty, stress and confusion.
• 9:46
  And none of this is because the business is failing.
• 9:48
  It's because the visibility isn't consistent.
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  So what I need you to do is shift from, I'll deal with this
• 9:54
  as it comes to this is how it's done now and going forward.
• 9:59
  And this will sometimes change and tweak, but if you've got
• 10:01
  that process and structure down, it's much easier to tweak that
• 10:05
  structure for next time rather than, oh, how did I do it last
• 10:09
  time? Oh, didn't we change it to that?
• 10:11
  Didn't we do that? This is how it's done from now
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  on. The shift from reactive and
• 10:17
  firefighting to something repeatable without increasing
• 10:20
  the decision fatigue and from thinking every single time to
• 10:24
  simply following a process. This podcast is done in the same
• 10:28
  way. Every single week.
• 10:30
  I come up with the topic, I come up with what I want to talk
• 10:32
  about. I know it's 15 minutes because
• 10:35
  that's the structure of it. I know I can get two or three
• 10:39
  main points, a take away and the lesson, I want you to go away
• 10:41
  and influence your business. I get my main bullet points down
• 10:45
  on how I want it to flow. I record the episode the same
• 10:49
  way. I edit the episode the same way.
• 10:51
  The captions are preset for me in my brand colours, in my
• 10:56
  fonts, so that I don't have to think about it every time.
• 10:59
  My intro and outros are added automatically now because I've
• 11:02
  set the system to do that for me to reduce that decision fatigue.
• 11:06
  And the way that I write the posts for social media, the way
• 11:09
  that we export it, the way that the podcast comes out at 6:00 AM
• 11:13
  on a Thursday, on YouTube at 8:00 AM on Thursday, that is the
• 11:16
  process we follow every single time.
• 11:19
  Now. Should Riverside, which is a
• 11:21
  software we used to record with, release a new feature?
• 11:24
  They did it a while ago with the hooks feature.
• 11:26
  The process tweaks slightly, but it's still there.
• 11:28
  It's still written down. It's not sitting on my brain.
• 11:31
  I want to be really clear here because structure does not mean
• 11:33
  losing that flexibility. If I have an event networking
• 11:36
  event to go to, if I'm off because the kids are sick, the
• 11:39
  flexibility is still there. I'm not saying the structure has
• 11:43
  to be rigid or overcomplicated. It can be as simple as on
• 11:48
  Thursdays. I do this when I do my social
• 11:51
  media, I do 3 posts a week on this social media platform.
• 11:54
  It can be that simple. Good structure makes your
• 11:58
  business feel lighter, easier, and actually more manageable.
• 12:01
  I want you to pause for a second.
• 12:04
  Where in your business are you currently repeating yourself
• 12:07
  time and time again? Where are you rethinking things
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  and where are you starting from scratch every single time?
• 12:14
  Because that's where structure is missing.
• 12:16
  And before you go ahead and completely take out the whole
• 12:19
  week so that you can write down every single procedure and
• 12:21
  structure in your entire business, we don't need to fix
• 12:24
  everything at once. We need to start with one area.
• 12:28
  Where people go wrong is that they try to overhaul everything
• 12:30
  and actually they end up overhauling nothing and losing
• 12:33
  time in the process. Pick one area and start there.
• 12:38
  If you're not sure where to start, here's 3 How you manage
• 12:42
  your time, how you deliver your work to clients, and how you
• 12:47
  review your numbers. Of course, I'm going to put that
• 12:50
  one in there, pick one of those, fix one of those and everything
• 12:54
  starts to feel easier. This is also about identity
• 12:57
  shifting too. A lot of it is how we see things
• 13:00
  and how we tell ourselves these things in the business we need
• 13:04
  to move from. I'm figuring it out to I run
• 13:06
  this properly, I am ACEO, I am running a business.
• 13:10
  That is a big shift. The way you hold yourself will
• 13:13
  change when you start thinking of it that way.
• 13:16
  And the truth is, you're not struggling because you're not
• 13:18
  capable. You're struggling because your
• 13:21
  business has outgrown how it's currently being run.
• 13:24
  And isn't that amazing? Before we finish, as I always
• 13:27
  do, I'd like to give you one thing to do this week.
• 13:30
  This week I want you to pick one task you repeat regularly, just
• 13:34
  one, and write down the steps and turn it into a simple
• 13:38
  process. Even if it's basic.
• 13:41
  If you are doing an online thing on a computer, you can use a
• 13:44
  tool called Scribe to click the button.
• 13:47
  It go through the process. It will record your screen, it
• 13:50
  will record where you click. It will create you APDF.
• 13:52
  It will give you screenshots all the way through.
• 13:55
  Great starting point. Because once that's written
• 13:58
  down, you don't have to rethink it every time.
• 14:01
  And by this time next week, that one thing will already feel
• 14:04
  easier. So if your business feels harder
• 14:06
  than it should right now, it's probably not because you're
• 14:10
  doing it wrong, it's because you're doing it without enough
• 14:13
  structure. And that's completely fixable.
• 14:17
  If you found this episode useful, please do like rate and
• 14:20
  review. Subscribe wherever you're
• 14:21
  watching or listening to it. It really does help more
• 14:24
  business owners find this podcast so that we can all build
• 14:27
  better businesses. If you know a business owner
• 14:30
  that you think needs more structure in their business, you
• 14:32
  can see them starting to wobble. Send them this episode so they
• 14:35
  know it's not their fault and if you want support bringing
• 14:39
  clarity, structure and proper systems into your business so it
• 14:41
  actually feels easier to run, that's exactly what we help with
• 14:45
  the ABCSUK. The link is in the show notes so
• 14:48
  you can book 15 minutes in the diary to see how we can help you
• 14:51
  because your business deserves better.
• 14:54
  Thank you so much for listening and I will see you next week for
• 14:56
  the next episode. Bye and that brings us to the
• 15:00
  end of another episode of a three BS podcast.
• 15:03
  If this has helped you think differently about your business,
• 15:05
  then it's done its job. Make sure you're following or
• 15:08
  subscribe so you don't miss the next episode.
• 15:11
  And if you found it useful, please do leave a review.
• 15:13
  It helps more business owners find this and start running
• 15:16
  their businesses properly. If you want more insights behind
• 15:19
  the scenes and the reality of what it actually takes to build
• 15:22
  a bit of business, come and connect with me on social media.
• 15:25
  And if you're ready to stop guessing and start running your
• 15:27
  business with clarity, structure and conference, your next step
• 15:31
  is just to click away because your business deserves better.
• 15:35
  I'll see you in the next episode.