Welcome to the Get Your Act Together podcast. I'm your host, Kelly Reynolds, ops strategist and agency coach at the Reynolds OBM agency. This podcast is all about building well-run and profitable businesses so that we can create lives and dreams. 

Hello, everyone, and welcome to episode 65. So last week, we were talking about the rebrand on the podcast, and kind of how I got there and why I've rebranded going from the sink handle podcast to the Get your act together podcast, and then kind of why. Right? Like, why am I bothering because it's, it's a lot of graphics and names to change and links to change and things like that. So like, why am I going through that it really is kind of boiling back down what I want to do, focusing on the things I love, things that really work well in my business, and then doubling down on those things. So instead of doing all the things and having more clients who everything's always on fire, and you're always running around, I got a place where I was exhausted by all that, and I have my clients that I take care of, and I love but I don't want a ton more. There was a time when I did, I did have a ton of operations management kind of clients. And it was exhausting. Because if everybody had a problem the same day, I had to figure out how to deploy resources and get people to take care of things and everything was on fire. And God forbid, I wanted to like take an afternoon off, right? And, yes, my agency was a huge help in that. That they were there to help. They knew what was going on. They were client-facing, they could fix things, they could take care of things. But still, there is that element that I was in it. And probably because I am in it too much, right? Like I don't let go of everything. I don't walk away from everything. I'm still involved in things. I'm still on client calls and all I don't have that kind of agency where I've just turned everything over to the team, mostly because I like the work. But there were a lot of elements to it that were starting to burn me out. And I wanted to refocus. So refocusing on one, the agency work with systems and makes those VIP days and longer systems packages where we're documenting things, we're building out processes and putting all those things together. I love doing that. I love making tracking sheets and dashboards and SOPs like when I get stressed out, I find myself going and making random SOPs it's calming. I know that's so insanely nerdy, but I'm sure one of you somewhere out there, somebody out there understands. I love doing that stuff. And it's also something that I can hand over to my team in pieces. I can take that offer and say, here are the 10 things we do. And then give it out to the team and they know what they're doing. And I don't have to figure that out. On a daily basis, right? Like I don't have to sit here and give everybody work every day, they can own that section of that process. Just really handy because I don't like to micromanage. I hate having daily meetings and things. That's not how we're built, especially since I've hired contractors. So they do their part. And they work on their own hours. So they're not going to show up for an 8 am meeting. I'm like a show-up for an 8 am the day of the meeting. So that's that one thing, right? We have the agency side of it. And then the coaching side, coaching one on one Voxer, helping other people create agencies, that part of it, it's a different section of this business at this point, right? Like it's kind of two halves of the same business. There's the actual agency work. And then there's this agency coaching section. And that is work I really love. I love helping someone like work through their business and figure out their offers of how they want to build their own business, right. And now I've added in this free Facebook group, as a place to bring all the people that want to talk about agency stuff or learn about it in one place so that we can discuss things right, be nerdy together. And that group is the Get Your Agency Together Facebook group. So go and join us if you are interested in this at all. There's a ton of people in there who already have agencies, and there's a bunch of people who are wanting to start but don't know where to start. So it's a great mix. Come join us. So I have these kind of like this is the world I boiled this down. And I told you last time that I kind of sat over the summer at the pool and worked out how I wanted to do things. And earlier podcasts over the summer. I mentioned trying to figure out my org chart and where I wanted to be on that work chart and I wrote like four different versions, I think. Where do I want to be? What if I didn't like this? How do I do that? And all of that was an exercise and figuring out what I wanted. That is what I want to talk about today. That was a very long lead in.

So every business has to evolve, to keep going or to grow or to make money or whatever change with the times whatever it is it's got to evolve. And a lot of people, I think, evolve in a way that's not intentional. It's kind of whatever happens to us, whatever life throws at us, we're just going to have to deal with.  If the market changes, or there's like right now supply chain issues, like that's when people really work on evolving their business. But I would love to offer to you that there is another way to do it to intentionally evolve. And that was what I really kind of spent my summer doing. I wanted to grow this business, I have goals in mind, I have revenue goals, but I also have life goals. I wanted to take summer Fridays off, that kind of blew up out of my own accord, because I messed it up. But I want to have this life. I have a picture in my head of what I want my life to be. And then I want to have revenue goals that go with that. I don't want them to be competing. So today, I really want to talk about the competing choices that you can make. Do you want this or this? Working through that in your head will help you figure out what kind of business you want. Because when you don't know what kind of business you want, when you don't answer the questions intentionally, all of a sudden, the world makes decisions for you. If you say, oh, I can work anytime, oh, I can do anything you want. I get that in the beginning, you have to because you got to pay bills, right, you'll take whatever work you can. But what I'm saying here is as we evolve, and we start to be able to make choices. Let's make them intentionally. Because when we don't, and we say Oh, whatever you want, they'll do whatever they want. And then it's not your business and you're not happy. That is when scope creep happens like crazy. All the sudden, you have no boundaries, and you don't know what you do. Then they tell you what to do. If you don't say this is what I do, someone else will tell you what you do. And you'll be miserable. I'm not saying that you should pick a plan and never deviate. And I'm not saying you shouldn't be open to new things coming to you like this great opportunity to come to you. Great. Take it.  Seriously, as I may have mentioned to you before, I am in the midst of four months of completely being uncomfortable. I'm saying yes to things. I am trying not to lose my minds when people say you really should do this. And I know I should do this. So that's not what I'm saying. I'm saying a lot of us in our business, just let everyone else tell us what this business is. The clients, the peers, oh, you should do this in your business. And they you know what, this is another thing. So many people sell courses out there. And they have a process. And they tell you that that's the only way you can do it. I hate that. Because so many great businesses are built on figuring out what you want. And then how to get that done. So what did I want? What did I want to create? That was my biggest thing. What is the next iteration of Reynolds OBM? What work do I want to do? What do I want this to be? Because business is hard. And I wanted to make all of that worth it. I wanted to not micromanage. I have a team of five plus me and Brian. And that could be a massive, massive micro like massive management time suck, frankly. But I intentionally made systems so that they can do their work. Because they are contractors, they go out they do their thing, I hire them for a thing, they do their thing. That's it. I do not have lots of team meetings, I do not constantly check in with them and all that stuff. They're not my employees. So micromanaging to me is the worst. And I wanted to build a business where I wasn't doing that. And you will hear a lot from people who sell courses and different places in the world that if you have an agency, you have to work 10 hour days. And I can tell you that that's not true. But I intentionally built my agency so that that was not true. I also hear a lot from people like that, that you have to be once you're the CEO of a company. You are just a salesman and you're always marketing. And that sounded awful to me. I don't love marketing. I do love talking to people about things and all that stuff. But I didn't want that to be my whole life. So I have other things in this business that I do that are not marketing. Another thing I wanted was a company culture that felt good to me.

That was not just how much money can I make off of you? I wanted my my team to feel that they loved being here that they were highly thought of and that they had a place here. And then I also wanted them to grow their businesses. And I wanted to be very supportive of that. That, to me is a big thing. And that goes back to a value of supporting women in business. So those are the kind of things that I started to drill into.  What do I want this to look like? And then you can figure out how to get it done. So let's go through a couple of different questions and scenarios that I've been going through my head to kind of figure out where you are going to land on this first thing, when you're figuring out what your business is going to look like. Do you want to sell lots of small things, or do you want to sell a few big things? I will tell you, it's easier to sell a few big things. And that sounds counterintuitive, I understand. But if you have, let's say two retainer clients, or two big coaching clients, one on one coaching, or some other high ticket, you can sell that and pay your bills. There's a lot less marketing, there's a lot less engine. You don't need ads, all that kind of stuff to sell something that's more high ticket, versus something that's $27. That's a lot of marketing, that's ads, that's a lot more machinery. And that's a decision you need to make in your business. Do you want a big machine that has to run all these things? And it's so hard sometimes to think about that, because there are people out there making millions of dollars on, you know, these small offers is what it looks like. But that small offer is leading to a bigger offer or all these other things. But it's a big machine. Do you want that big machine? Or do you want something that's smaller, a small team that can manage and adapt quicker? With a higher ticket item? Next, what work do you want to do? Do you want to be doing the work? Do you want to be doing most of the work? None of the work? Or do you want to be handing that off to someone else? Are you delegating this out, or is this a business you basically it's just you, and you want to be running and doing all the things. And those two things are going to matter here. Because a lot of people come to me and they say I want to create an agency. I've been booked out. People tell me I should create an agency next. That's how I'm gonna grow. And my first question is, Do you want an agency? Because a lot of people don't they try to make more money, but they don't want to manage people. They don't want to do the thing. So my first question is, do you really want an agency? Or do you want to have different high ticket offers? What if you did VIP days, and that's all you did, and you didn't have to have a team. You could do that. That's more money. Or high end something else. Another thing like that VIP day is coaching, things like that, that don't require an agency. Now, I love agencies, but I want people to create them because they want that business, not because they want more money, and people told them that that's what they should do. The next thing is and this, and these are all kind of, you'll see they all kind of work together. If you do like the idea of managing people and running a team, do you want to hire that team for yourself? Do you really want that agency? Or do you want to hire that for someone else, and then manage them? So all of the people that are being hired work for your clients, let's say. Then you can be a director of operations, running that team, figuring all the projects out, whatever the strategy over there, but it's not on your business, just you managing a team somewhere else. And then you can leave that team. So that's another thing because some people don't want to have their own team, but they like managing and working with teams. What kind of work do you like to do? What is the work you yourself like to do? Is it strategy, making the strategy and handing it off or delegating to someone else? Is it implementation so that you're still an expert in your field? I could build SOPs all day. So I throw a couple in just for myself. And then I do this other work that I love to do. There is now work as I've evolved that I don't like to do anymore. And now either I don't offer that service anymore, or the team can handle it. And then finally, this is a big one for me. Why are you doing this? Why are you creating this business? Are you creating a big legacy business that you want to sell one day? Do you have aspirations to go save some part of the world? Do you want to save pandas? rainforests, whatever. Do you want to make enough money that you can go help fix a problem in the world? Or is it less lofty? Is it just I just want to bring in more cash into this house. I want to be able to make money and stay home with my kids. Right? Like so many of us. We commuted and we had this corporate life. We may never have been home. And having this business, that's what it is. It's just I want an income, and I want to be able to feed these kids because they eat every single day where maybe you just want to pay for preschool. You want to be able to pay for things for your family, or your life. And that's it. You have no intentions of saving pandas, you just want to pay for preschool. All these questions deep down are just about why are you here? What do you want to do? How do you want your life to look? And when you put those parameters in place, I only want to work during the day when my kids at school, whatever the thing is, figuring that out. first, is the way you get to be happy. That is how you build the business you dream of. That's it. I love having my agency. And if you are interested in that kind of thing. If you are curious about an agency, come join the Facebook group. Come talk to me about agency book a discovery call on the website. See if it's for you. And if it's not go build something else. Build the thing you want. Businesses take too much of our energy and our time to build something that we don't like. And I see so many people, they get to a place and they're like, I am overwhelmed, and I don't like this anymore. And that sucks. It just sucks. Go through these questions. Start thinking about what you want to do, why you want to do this. And it, it might take a while it took me all summer to figure out some things. And then I thought I had it all planned out. And then I started adding more things more opportunities came my way. And I was like, Oh, that would be great. Because I got clear on what I wanted, I knew what opportunities I was going to say yes to. And, come join us in the Facebook group because I'd love to hear what your why is, what your parameters are, what you're building. And I will see you next week.

Thank you so much for joining me this week. If you have an agency or want to create one come join my Facebook community. Get your agency together, where we talk all the things growing and scaling your agency. For show notes more info and all the things head over to Reynolds obm.com Follow me on Instagram and Facebook at Reynolds OBM. And finally, if you enjoy this podcast, I would love for you to give us a review on iTunes.