Latest / The SmallBizChat with Melinda Emerson / Grow Your Business with the S.O.A.P. Method with Dr. Stephanie West

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Grow Your Business with the S.O.A.P. Method with Dr. Stephanie West · The SmallBizChat with Melinda Emerson

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  Three, two, one, zero.
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  Ignition.
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  Lift off.
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  Ending small business failure.
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  Welcome to the Small Biz Chat podcast with the number one small business expert, Melinda
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  Emerson.
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  Melinda's goal is to end small business failure, and she'll give you the information
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  you need to succeed and live the life you dream of.
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  Now here's your host, the small biz chat lady herself, Melinda Emerson.
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  Have you subscribed to the small biz chat podcast?
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  Well, it's time.
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  Every Wednesday, we offer listeners bite sized actionable tips to start and grow a successful
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  small business.
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  In just twenty minutes or so a week, you can get a ton of insight and resources to propel
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  your business forward.
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  Be sure to subscribe to the Small Bitch Chat podcast today.
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  Hi, everybody.
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  Welcome back to the Small Bitch podcast.
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  I'm Melinda Emerson, your host, America's number one small business expert, and our
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  mission here at the Small Bitch Chat podcast is to end small business failure.
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  Now, of my favorite things to do on the Small Bitch Hat Podcast is to interview new authors,
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  and I'm so excited to welcome to the show today Doctor.
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  Stephanie West.
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  She is an author of SOAP for Success, a simple method to manage your business and Revitalize
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  Your Mission.
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  She's a Cornell trained veterinarian turned executive leader and coach, and Doctor.
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  West brings a powerful practical framework to help business owners cut through the chaos,
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  diagnose what's really wrong, and build clear action plans using her SOAP method.
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  For more information, you can go to drstephaniewest.com for more information.
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  Doctor.
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  Stephanie, welcome.
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  Hello there, glad to be with you.
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  All right, so tell us about you.
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  So how did you go from being, you know, helping all these pet babies out here that people have
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  to advising people on how to run stronger businesses?
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  It was pretty easy.
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  I was working as a veterinarian for someone who had two clinics and her second clinic was not
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  doing well.
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  So she asked if I would be willing to take on managing it while working there as a
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  veterinarian.
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  So was sort of like a part time management.
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  And in the process of figuring that out, I managed to get this failing clinic to be so
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  successful it actually helped carry the other clinic through the 2008 downturn.
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  And I found that fun, exciting, and I got totally hooked.
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  Wow, okay.
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  So a lot of people start out with passion in a business, but they end up buried in operations.
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  Why do you feel like this is such a common trap?
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  Business owners, especially your solopreneurs and your small business owners, they start
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  their business with a passion, with a mission.
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  There's something they want to do in the world.
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  They want to make a difference.
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  They don't necessarily know how to run a business, but having a business is the way to
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  get their mission out in the world.
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  So they start.
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  And then they come up against the day to day needs of keeping that business going.
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  And, unfortunately, this tanks a lot of dreams.
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  I know I love that your podcast is here to help support the small business owners because the
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  sad statistics are, as of I think it was twenty twenty four, 20% of business ventures, new
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  business ventures fail each year.
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  Oh, yeah.
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  And and so that's partly why I wrote the book actually is to give small business people that
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  have something important to do in the world a means to get it get it done.
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  Well, not only do twenty percent die every year, ninety percent don't live past five
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  years.
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  Yeah.
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  Right?
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  So it's it's it's much I mean, poor business operations are out here like the cold and flu.
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  Right?
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  It's everywhere.
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  So you you I mean, that's part of the reason why I became the small business lady and
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  started writing, you know, with my book, Become Your Own Boss in twelve Months, because I
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  wanted to shorten people's learning curves to even start a business.
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  Cause I've always believed that entrepreneurship was the way to develop true
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  wealth in America but I also knew just because you got an idea doesn't mean you know how to
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  run a business.
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  And so that's why I have a business as a small business lady because I've always helped people
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  start grow and scale.
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  Now talk to us about this SOAP framework and your new book.
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  Tell us about that.
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  It's actually really easy.
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  So SOAP stands for subjective, Objective, Assessment and Plan.
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  And it's actually a framework used in the medical profession and a couple of the little
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  human professions to manage a case, a patient.
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  So if you ever pin your animal into a veterinarian and they kind of quickly do, they
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  can do an assessment and figure out what the next step for diagnosis is and what the next
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  step for treatment is, it's a thought process.
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  It's a skill, this SOAP method.
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  So when I was first managing this practice, I knew how to manage a patient.
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  So I just kind of started managing the business like it was a patient and found it worked.
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  Using the SOAP framework, I could analyze, diagnose, and treat the business problems.
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  I love that.
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  I love that.
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  So let's break it down though.
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  So start with the S.
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  Like what does the S really get into related to the business?
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  Sure.
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  Subjective is the people element, the human element.
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  And I don't care if you're a solo business, there's still you involved.
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  There's probably customers or clients as well.
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  There are people and people have feelings and emotions.
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  And those feelings and emotions can affect your job.
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  You may have a partner and the partner in you might have some difficulties, that matters.
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  Or you yourself might be a little bit burnt out, That matters.
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  Your employee may be having a hard time at home and it brings that into work and that matters.
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  So subjective includes things like your customer satisfaction.
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  Do your clients like it?
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  What about your social media presence?
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  Do people have a good feeling about your business?
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  All that is subjective.
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  So when you're analyzing, you pull subjective factors, anything that might be an issue, a
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  potential problem, an actual problem, and then write that down on your list, on your problem
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  list, because you want to capture everything that is or could be a problem.
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  That's your first step with the S of subjective.
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  All right, so let's get into the O, right?
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  You've got subjective and then you've got objective.
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  So a lot of time business owners over rely on their instinct.
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  How can objective help them using objective?
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  Well, some of your, listeners and watchers may have heard the phrase that something like what
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  can be measured can be managed.
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  So you really need to be able to measure things, see things, identify things.
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  So objective data will measure your business aspects that are measurable, like, let's say,
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  sales.
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  Maybe it's your number of sales.
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  It could be your financial data, like your revenue and expenses.
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  If your business sells a product, the objective might be tracking the actual production numbers
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  or your inventory.
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  Even on the employee side, there's objective data.
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  So if you have employees, what's your retention rate or your turnover rate on those employees?
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  And there's various other human resources data as well.
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  Actually, it's sometimes easier to get the objective data than the subjective data, but
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  some people ignore that.
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  And I have to say that when you talk about instinct with your business owners, that is a
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  real skill.
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  It's a very important skill for entrepreneurs and and leaders to have that instinct, but
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  instinct informed by data is so much stronger and more powerful.
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  All right, so let's keep spelling it, right?
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  S O A, all right, what does the A stand for?
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  Sure the a is assessment so you've analyzed your business with subjective issues you've
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  written down any objective things that you might want to deal with so now you put it all
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  together and you assess it and by assessing it you're looking for patterns, similarities.
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  You might find a whole bunch of things are related to one employee.
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  Oh, maybe the employee is actually the underlying issue, and rather than dealing with
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  all the individual little issues, there's something we can do by the employee.
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  I've actually had myself be the problem.
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  When I looked at various things I know that when I went from running a small business to
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  running an academic program, a college program, And I suddenly had a lot more people to oversee
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  and I realized one of my one of the issues on my problem list was that I had to learn how to
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  run a team.
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  I had to learn how to delegate differently than I had in a very small business with just a few
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  employees.
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  So I was actually part of my assessment to realize, oh, I think I need to up my delegation
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  game here.
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  So assessment is pattern identification, looking for similarities because if you have
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  all the problems written down, can begin to see what those patterns are and make the bigger
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  difference by by looking at the underlying root cause and fixing that.
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  Now, would you leverage AI to do some of this assessment stuff?
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  I mean, because isn't that what AI is really good at is pattern identification?
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  Well, that's really interesting because when I was running things, didn't have AI, so I did
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  all myself.
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  I have used AI more for not in that particular, like, analysis.
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  Mhmm.
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  To be honest with you, for right now, if I were to try and use it, I might do so to give me
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  hints, but I would wanna go back myself because I'm not sure I trust some of those AI
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  hallucinations to come up with something that might not be accurate.
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  Yeah, if it looks like you could at least get started on some of this analysis, that's a
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  great idea.
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  I haven't actually done it.
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  Okay.
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  All right, but let me ask you a question.
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  So let's say you do this assessment, you identify some stuff going on.
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  Oftentimes I see leaders struggle with prioritization of problems because everything
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  can feel urgent.
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  And do you have a solution for how to think about that?
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  If you're up to here and you feel like you're breathing oxygen through a straw, how do you
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  prioritize what to focus on?
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  You've actually hit a brilliant question.
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  In a sense, that is actually why I wrote this book, because I saw so many people drowning in
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  to do lists that were just overwhelming.
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  It didn't matter how many times you cross something off, there were 10 more things to
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  replace it.
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  So as a leader, every problem is urgent to someone.
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  Now all those problems end up going to the leader or the owner or manager and there's a
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  lot of squeaking and screaming and upset.
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  The leader has to step back and kind of organize and prioritize.
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  And here's where medicine really helped me.
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  In medicine, we have something called triage.
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  And triage is when you have a patient that arrives, so let's say with multiple issues.
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  Use it in my book, I use an example of a dog that was hit by a car and is bleeding or not
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  breathing or something really serious, maybe has a broken leg and also has some fleas.
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  All three of those are problems, but my mission is to make sure that animal lives and then give
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  it the best life possible.
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  So the first thing I do is I treat the thing that may kill that dog.
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  So I'm gonna handle the bleeding or the breathing issue.
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  Once I have that managed, then I will deal with the broken leg.
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  Once I have that managed, then I will deal with the fleas.
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  They were all important problems.
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  But if I dealt with the fleas first, the dog might have died before I got to the next
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  problem.
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  Your business is the same way.
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  So except instead of being alive, like I mentioned with the dog, for your business, it's
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  the mission as well as the the financial health of your business but your business has a
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  mission and not every problem is related to that mission so if you are selling swimsuits,
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  and there's a problem with winter clothing being on short supply or back order, that
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  doesn't matter to you, because your mission isn't about winter clothing, your mission is
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  about bathing suits.
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  So every problem you want to analyze two ways.
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  One is the urgency.
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  Everybody's going say it's urgent, but some things really can wait if it's not going to
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  fail right now.
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  Maybe you wait till this afternoon or next week or next month or next quarter.
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  Mhmm.
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  And then the other part is your mission.
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  So if you had let's say oh, I know.
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  You had a supply order problem with you that you cannot fulfill orders because you're not
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  getting your supplier.
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  You also have a problem listed that the office chairs are very uncomfortable and the staff
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  isn't happy.
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  Both of those problems should be dealt with
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  Right.
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  But you can probably guess that one of them is more likely to have your business fail right
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  away.
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  While the other one, yes, it's important.
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  Yes.
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  There are people screaming and unhappy, but that one can actually wait.
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  So there's a system that I analyze not just urgency, but importance to your business
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  mission.
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  I love it.
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  Alright.
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  And then explain the p.
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  P is plan.
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  Right?
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  I'm I'm gonna give it away.
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  P is plan.
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  Okay.
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  And and it's actually if you've done the work to do the subjective, objective, and then
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  assessed, like we said, your plan almost writes itself.
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  Once you've prioritized your assessment the plan comes naturally from the highest priority
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  there's a really obvious action and by creating that prioritization and doing the one on the
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  top first, it's stunning how fast other little problems sometimes go away because you fixed
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  the bigger problem and you didn't realize that was so important.
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  And you are now much less stressed, much more effective, and you have more time.
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  Well, know, I always believe that revenue can solve a whole bunch of problems.
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  Like if you focus on cash first, cash first every day, you can solve a bunch of other
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  problems in the business.
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  All right, well, we've got to wrap this up, but tell me what is the best business advice that
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  you have ever been given?
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  Sure.
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  Actually, was a veterinary student and one of my professors said to me, You know, if you work
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  twenty four hours a day, you could not help all the animals you wanna help.
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  So your job is to do as much as you can within the time frame that keeps you balanced,
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  healthy, and sane.
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  And I just apply that to business as well.
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  Absolutely do what you can, but you don't have to do every twenty four hours and you can take
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  the time off and rest.
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  I love that.
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  I love that.
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  Well, thank you so much.
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  Doctor.
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  Stephanie West, she is the brand new author of the book, Soap for Success.
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  I want you guys to head over to Amazon and get her book today.
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  Thank you, Doctor.
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  West, and we will talk back to you really soon.
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  I am so excited to invite all of you to the NEXT ACCE CEO Summit, which is taking place
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  January.
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  If you are a woman who is 45 plus, who has been out of work, looking for work, Girls, stop
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  looking for a boss.
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  It's time for you to become the CEO, and I can't wait to show you how.
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  So if you want information, you wanna grab your tickets, head over to
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  smallbizladyuniversity.com forward slash next act CEO summit because I wanna help you become
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  the CEO and build wealth that will change your life in ways unimaginable.
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  So with that, I leave you all, and this is always true.
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  You never lose in business.
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  Either you win or you learn.
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  I'm Melinda Emerson, your host.
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  God bless everybody.
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  Thanks for listening to the Small Biz Chat podcast with Melinda Emerson.
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  Subscribe to this podcast wherever you listen to podcasts, and join us next Wednesday for
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  more fantastic information and interviews.
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  You can find more sources and small business success strategies by visiting Melinda's
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  website, succeedasyourownboss.com.
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  Thanks again for listening, and we'll see you next week.