What's stopping your business from running without you?

Ever feel like your business would fall apart if you stepped away for even a second? You're not alone. 

Every founder and leader has felt the exact same way at one point or another. 

But, what if your desire to hang on to the day-to-day operations is actually hindering growth? 

We're here to tell you that stepping back is often the best thing you can do, not just for yourself, but for your business too.

In this week’s episode of Automate Your Agency, Alane Boyd and Micah Johnson dive into the challenges of stepping away from the day-to-day grind and embracing the "out of office" mindset. They talk about the power of delegation, empowering your team, and creating systems that work for you even when you're not there.

Tune in as they unpack:

• How to overcome the fear of delegating and releasing control
• Building a team culture that thrives without you
• The tools and processes that make stepping away easier
• And so much more!

If you’ve ever struggled with stepping away from your business, this episode will give you the encouragement and practical advice you need to let your team take charge so you can focus on the bigger picture.

If you're stumped on how to get your processes out of your head so you can delegate it, check out this video where Micah explains a quick and easy way to create an SOP of your process.

If you want to take it a step further and build a process map, feel free to complete our self-paced Process Mapping course that can help you get started.

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For more information, visit our website at biggestgoal.ai.

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Transcript

0:00:00 - (Alane): Welcome to Automate your Agency. Every week, we bring you expert insights, practical tips, and success stories that will help you streamline your business operations and boost your growth. Let's get started on your journey to more efficient and scalable operations.

0:00:17 - (Micah): All right, Alane. So I'm going to call myself out on this one and say, this is something that I'm terrible at, and it's getting myself out of the solution. So I'm very good at seeing the problem, but I'm also very good in some ways trying to solve that problem. But that only works for so long. Right. As we grow, as our team grows, as a company grows, I can't be the one doing that. And this kind of opens up this whole topic for me, which is what we have called many times, the get to out of office mindset.

0:00:53 - (Alane): Yeah. Do you need a couch? Because I feel like this one's going to be therapy.

0:00:57 - (Micah): It might let me sit back and you grab your notes.

0:01:02 - (Alane): I know you do have a tendency to just continue being the solutioner. You needing to be the one to figure it out. And, I mean, it's the hardest thing when you own a business. Right. Like, you have so many things stirring in your head. One, you want to continue at least making the income that you're making in the business so that you're not letting go of employees, having to not pay yourself whatever.

0:01:27 - (Alane): You want clients to be happy. You don't want them to be upset, and you don't want your team to be stressed and, you know, stirring around, trying to, like, you don't want them wasting a bunch of time. So a lot of times where you fall in is, I'll figure it out. Everything's going to be great, guys. And, you know, it's hard to let go. And I've been there so many times, too. I think in this business, I do have.

0:01:51 - (Alane): I was so burnt out. I was so stressed from. From everything that we were doing that I started having an autoimmune disease, angio angioedema. And that forced me. Once I figured out that it was from chronic stress, and I was having this horrible reaction to it. I really was like, I have to change my mindset. And so that's been. My therapy, is just not letting myself get there. But it's hard as a business owner not to be the person that feels like needs to do everything.

0:02:21 - (Micah): Yeah. And. And so I think, you know, I want to circle back to this. But one of the things that I talk about in the CEO group that I'm in, and I think you talk about that in your forum as well, Alane, is if you're, if you're at some point going to not run the business, whether you're passing it down to your kids or you're selling it, or you're looking to get acquired, whatever it might be, if you're the one that has to be the go to person for everything, your value of the business is going to be greatly diminished because there's a whole lot of extra work that that buyer has to put into it if they're interested at all.

0:03:00 - (Micah): And the sooner you can get yourself in that out of office mindset where the idea being you can leave and everything is still fine, is the better place to be. One of the things that I see you do a lot, Alane, and this is going to be a compliment, so don't get nervous, is you figure it out quick. Like you figure out the basics, you identify the problem, you figure out the basics, the strategy more than anything, and then you document that strategy.

0:03:31 - (Micah): Then you hire somebody to look at that strategy and basically execute on it, and then you help them continue to execute on it. So you're, you're building this engine that is running with minimal effort on your part versus you sitting down and doing that work every single day.

0:03:50 - (Alane): Yeah, and that was really something. You know, when we did culture index, the personality profiles, my, you know, the first part is like your personality and you know, where you thrive and everything. And then there's a second part to it at the bottom that evaluates you as your personality and how you're doing in your daily functions at work. And mine was extremely low for my energy units. And it was because I was doing a bunch of things I don't like doing when I'm in the day to day part. It is so taxing on me and it just burns me out.

0:04:25 - (Alane): And I just was like, you know what? This was a really big eye opener. Like, I'm miserable. Who could I hire to do the pieces of the ideas that I have and be able to execute on it and they're better at executing. I really just need to communicate. You know, I do, I do like an mvp. Like quickly, like, this is my goal, this is what I'm trying to do. I validate that it can be done and then I do the handoff and you know, hiring can look like maybe we do need a new person on our team or somebody that we already have on our team and I'm able to, you know, I already have that person.

0:04:58 - (Alane): They just need to see what my vision is and it's been a great habit for me because I'm not in that burnt out stage that I get really excited on Mondays to show up and do what I've got to do. Because I've got the right team members and I've got this great flow of proving what I want to do works great. I've got the right team members. I just need a structure in place for them to execute. And the hiring process that we, that we've put in and having them in the hiring process record a loom of their thought process for their skills assessment.

0:05:28 - (Micah): Totally.

0:05:29 - (Alane): Holy cow. That has been. And I think that was your idea, Micah. That has been the game changer in getting a team member on. Because when I can see their thought process, it's very similar to how they will work with me because I give them, hey, this is the vision I have. This is the goal that we're trying to achieve. Show me how you'd execute on this. And when I see what they put together, the ones that we hire are amazing.

0:05:55 - (Micah): Yeah. And there's two more things that I see that you do. And unfortunately, AA is already a well known acronym. It's automation and autonomy is what I'm thinking. So when you are training people and you're delegating this, you are giving them autonomy, you're giving them the guidelines. Right. This is what I want to do. But you're also asking them to say, you can probably do this better than I can.

0:06:21 - (Micah): How should we be doing this? What ideas do you have? You're not the arbiter of every single idea. And it's my way or the highway. You're saying, guys, this is the goal that I'm trying to achieve. How do I get there? And then, where possible, you also try to automate the pieces together to make everything easier so it's all assembled into a workflow. And that way you have your team doing just these very specific things with all the busy work filled in with automation. So the autonomy and the automation together, just from an outside perspective of how I see you operate is brilliant.

0:06:54 - (Alane): Oh, thanks, Micah. This one's been a fun way for me to kind of drink our own Kool Aid. Like just like we tell our clients, prove the process first before you go to automate it. And that's. And when we started communicating that out loud, I started implementing that with my team. And that's been a huge difference because then I don't feel like I need to figure everything out before I give it to my team.

0:07:20 - (Alane): Then I can just say this is, you know, just like we've been saying, this is my basic goal. Let's just get out there and start doing it. And then once we've done it a couple of times, I'm like, okay, now how can we build a process out of this that goes into either a template or an automated workflow in ClickUp for us so that we've, we've got the process identified and they can move it along and then they just pull me in when they need to.

0:07:44 - (Micah): So, again, this is just from an outside perspective, but I see how you're operating in this business versus how you're operating in the previous business. And I remember you and I getting into it a number of times in our last business because I'm like, Alane, you have to get out of the day to day rut. You're so burnt out. You're so stuck in reactive mode that we can't leverage any of your strategic thinking.

0:08:08 - (Micah): Right. You're just sucked into this rut.

0:08:12 - (Alane): Yeah.

0:08:12 - (Micah): And now it's like you're, you're on the opposite end where, you know, like.

0:08:17 - (Alane): Hey, can you do some work over here?

0:08:19 - (Micah): Can you do some day to day, please? But for this topic, what. How you're operating is how business owners should operate. Right. Because you can step out and you can go do your speaking engagements. I mean, you fly to Portugal, you're flying to New York city, you're in D.C. you're all over the place and your team is not going. I don't know what to do next. Like, they're, they're crushing stuff out. Yeah, crushing it. Like you're booking more speaking engagements while you're speaking because your team is autonomous and running without you being there.

0:08:57 - (Alane): Yeah. I mean, that the time that you're referencing in our previous business and you were so frustrated with me because I wouldn't, I couldn't see it. I couldn't see how to get out of the day to day. Like, how is that possible? And it was so foreign. And I think we maybe have talked about this on a previous episode, but it was such a pivotal moment for me because I never want you frustrated and angry with me especially that was at that time, probably the most angry you were with me. And just like, elaine, I need you over here and you will not leave day to day. And you're just like, you are not the only person in this entire world that can do what you can do.

0:09:39 - (Alane): You've got to find somebody. And it was hard. And so I think, you know, for, you know, to get out of Office. And when we say get out of office, that can mean going to your kids softball game on time. That can mean leaving for two hours and going to their holiday party. Like, getting out of office doesn't have to mean going on a vacation. It can just mean leaving the office and not just checking your phone constantly and being scared of what's going to happen and how much work you have when you come back from what you were doing. So it can be these, like little simple things that are meaningful in your day. You know, back then I was so entwined into everything that we did. Every client what I was there, I was every client's hero and every team member's hero, and I could not figure out how to do it.

0:10:28 - (Alane): And you know, you were like, aline, we have the financial capacity in this business to hire whoever and get whatever you need to start putting these pieces together. And I'm like, okay. And that day I was like, how do I do this? And I put together some ideas of where we could start with somebody. I needed to hire somebody. Nobody on the team could really just take on what I was doing. And I'm like, I think I could hire an executive assistant that can help me start getting. I had so much institutional knowledge and for years and everything was filed in my head for client relationships and things. That's where I really, really was.

0:11:08 - (Micah): So I want to pause right here real quick, Alane, because you're touching on a subject that is so important that I see mistakes made a lot. And that is I already have a team. Why would I hire more people? I'm going to just assign more responsibility to my team and make people wear more hats. And I'm exaggerating a bit because when I say it like that, most people listening should probably go, oh, crap, that's. Yeah, that doesn't make any sense. Like, I hired somebody to do X, now I want them to do Y and Z. No, that it's just not going to work. But people do it all the time.

0:11:43 - (Alane): And the other thing, and I'm glad you made me pause because I hired an executive assistant. But this was a very skilled person, not a low level ea. Like, I needed somebody that could take over specific relationships that I had that were huge contracts for us that could start to manage a team or be an ad hoc piece of that team. So this wasn't just like somebody that was entry level that, that I could have take tasks off my plate. Like this was somebody I was going to groom. And so. And I recorded videos of things that were in my Head. I had them join calls with me.

0:12:21 - (Alane): I, when I was going through my work day, I would just jump on a zoom and share my screen and talk out loud what I was doing. Like, it was this like really just grassroots way of figuring out how to get things out of my head because I didn't, I didn't know what I knew. You know, when you've been doing it for I don't know how long I'd been doing maybe five years, six years every day building our company. You know, I couldn't just make a knowledge base doc on everything I had in my head that would have taken another five years. So we had to make it bite sizable, if that's a word, to, you know, start to integrate somebody else into the team.

0:13:02 - (Alane): Anyway, that was a long winded answer to what I learned from doing everything wrong to where I'm at now, where I'm like, who can do the work? Not me. I've got the ideas. I'm the visionary. Let's get somebody else to execute it. It was a long road, but I promise you it's doable.

0:13:17 - (Micah): And I will say there is a balance, right? Like if you. We talk about a lot in this podcast when to do things. In the beginning, you're going from idea to execution. If it's just you and a va. If it's just you and a partner, like, hell yeah, you're going to be doing stuff on your own and that can create that habit. But when your team gets to 10 people or 15 people maybe need to break that habit, right? And so I know we got to about 35 people and that habit wasn't broken and it became detrimental. And so like, that's. That was that trigger. Like, holy crap, we have to stop doing this.

0:13:56 - (Alane): Yeah.

0:13:57 - (Micah): But I just want to point out that there is, you know, there is a scale here. In the beginning, you definitely need to do stuff. Even if you are a visionary, suck it up, because you're going to be doing the work. It sucks, but that's just the reality, right. You probably don't have enough revenue to pay the team to just go out and hire everybody to do everything. So I definitely don't want to convey that as the solution until the time is right and you'll feel it right, because you'll be able to look around or your partner will go, what the hell are you doing?

0:14:28 - (Alane): And if you don't have a partner, have a coach or something to help give you these wake up calls because it's really important. So, Maika, we started this off with, you know, get this idea of getting out of office. We've talked about some things that I've done really well. What are some ways that you've noticed that you've started to change at least even from like maybe some ways that I've, you've seen me start to delegate to my team or, you know, how have you started to change your mindset from being like, I've got to work all the time, I've got to be the one building to this idea of getting out of office more?

0:14:59 - (Micah): Yeah, I think it's similar. Right. It's, it's all the same basic solution. So where I catch myself is how much am I going to figure out and then hand off and convey? And many of the things that I'm doing become a lot more technical. And that's also another sometimes more difficult scenario because if it's technical, then, well, how far do you figure it out before you start training a team member or hire somebody to start doing it?

0:15:31 - (Micah): It's a technical hire. Then you have to get the right technical acumen. Or do you figure it out yourself, get it to a certain point and then hire a lower skilled person who's green that you can train? So that's where it can, that's where the whole water can get really muddy and be very difficult to make that decision. But I will say I think about things in default. My default is I don't want to keep doing this.

0:15:56 - (Micah): I want to go get out of office at some point. So I might spend time figuring it out. But then I'm going to transition that very quickly into now how do we train somebody else to do this? And I would say autonomy and automation is really big for the things that I'm doing as well inside the business. So how do we build a system around it? How do people run the system and how do I hire people that can easily be trained to run the system that I solutioned rather than me doing the repetitive tasks over and over again. Like, I'll give you a very big example and a very big difference from how I operate now to how I used to operate in our last, at the beginning of our last business, Alane, I had an idea for software and then I wrote all the software and I wrote all the code and I figured out the, like, I did everything. I'd spent days and days and days and days and weeks and months building this by myself.

0:16:49 - (Micah): Yeah, not anymore. Now I don't have to, like, I get it to a point and then I try to back off and Say, okay, how can this run without me?

0:16:58 - (Alane): Yeah. I think we're all happier now that you don't develop.

0:17:01 - (Micah): Yeah, I think so. I think so. I think so.

0:17:04 - (Alane): No, you're an amazing developer. You just get so focused in it and then you get it. So frustrated when there's challenges in building the software.

0:17:15 - (Micah): I want things to be smooth.

0:17:17 - (Alane): Yeah, yeah.

0:17:19 - (Micah): So. All right, Alane, I mean, I think to kind of wrap up this episode, if we could just summarize. The whole point of this topic was start thinking about how you can run your business without you being there. And even if you don't have an office. Right. Still thinking that get to out of office mindset. Even if everybody's remote, the more you're on slack, the more you're on teams, the more you're on Zoom, the more you're checking your phone, the more this whole thing just infiltrates your life. Like, you need that balance.

0:17:49 - (Micah): So how do you make things run with systems? How do you leverage automation? How do you delegate? How do you hire? How do you not keep tacking on to either your workload or the people that are working very closely with you that you trust so that you overwhelm them and then they get stuck in the day to day rut, which you hired them for Strategy. So stick with that. But that's only going to help you with your mind state currently.

0:18:14 - (Micah): It's only going to help when you're done exhausted running the business or if you have an opportunity to exit. All of these things are going to be where it needs to be if you start operating with that as your default mindset.

0:18:28 - (Alane): Yeah. And we have some YouTube videos that we've recorded even on just how to get the ideas and processes out of your head and into your team's hands. So we'll link to those in the show notes for you. And if you've been wanting to get out of office but you're not sure how, please reach out to us. And we'd love to talk about how to get you more free time so that you can do the things that you love doing.

0:18:51 - (Alane): Thanks for listening to this episode of Automate your Agency. We hope you're inspired to take your business to the next level. We have free content and tools for automating your business at our website, workdayninja.com.

0:19:03 - (Micah): And join us next week as we dive into more ways to automate and scale your business.

0:19:08 - (Alane): Bye for now.