How to get your business systems and processes in place with Sonaya Williams

Your Dream Business

English - December 20, 2021 00:00 - 37 minutes - 34.1 MB - ★★★★★ - 34 ratings
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Previous Episode: How to drive conversations and get more sales via your website with Ross Davies

Next Episode: Turning your passion into profit with Miriam Schulman

Today’s episode of the podcast is an interview with Sonaya Williams who is the founder of The CEO Partner®, a systems-driven, profits-obsessed, Digital Implementation agency that helps smart CEOs grow their business and meet their goals. Sonaya lives to help CEOs create an operational master plan for themselves and their teams, teaching efficient and effective systems and tools during the process. We talk all about how you can get your own business processes and systems organised to set yourself up for growth and success.

KEY TAKEAWAYS COVERED IN THE PODCAST

If something doesn’t excite you and give you joy – it is not sustainable and you just won’t do it!When something is your zone of genius, you are really good at doing it. When something isn’t your zone of genius, there will be someone else who can do it!There is always someone who will want to do the bits that you don’t want to do.It is never too early to start documenting your systems – even if it is just you.By documenting systems, you can free up your brain so you can think about growing your business!To start documenting your processes - Write out everything you do every day/week/month.Record yourself on Loom doing tasks you do again and again.Every process should be documented in a separate document to make it easy to search.Keep your processes updated and review them regularly.Team members have to take ownership of processes so they are not reliant on you and you are able to step out of the business.Think about the triggers for each process – are there any you can pass on to your team so you can step away?You have to have processes when you have a team, otherwise everything will still be reliant on you.When you are looking at hiring your first team member – think of it as an investment as you are gaining that time back.EVERYTHING in your business is a system.When something is a process, it becomes so much easier. It also means you can keep making it better and review.It will take time to get all your systems and processes in place but it will be SO worth it!

THE ONE THING YOU NEED TO REMEMBER ABOVE ALL ELSE…

Start creating a list of things you do every day, then record yourself doing them!

HIGHLIGHTS YOU SIMPLY CAN’T MISS

An introduction to Sonaya 05:16Zone of genius 10:55Why do I need to think about my systems if it’s just me? 12:32How to start your processes 16:12Being able to step away from your business processes 24:40Bringing on a team and what to give them 28:08

CHECK SONAYA OUT:

RESOURCES MENTIONED

Transcript

Teresa: Welcome to this week's episode of the podcast. How are you doing? So I have had a very, very busy few weeks. And as you can probably hear from my voice, I am worn out and I'm really glad that I'm recording this episode now almost as if to say to remind you that we're human and there's only so much we can do with our time.

KEY TAKEAWAYS COVERED IN THE PODCAST

THE ONE THING YOU NEED TO REMEMBER ABOVE ALL ELSE…

Start creating a list of things you do every day, then record yourself doing them!

HIGHLIGHTS YOU SIMPLY CAN’T MISS

CHECK SONAYA OUT:

RESOURCES MENTIONED

Transcript

Teresa: So the week, last week as I'm recording this, we did two online events and one in-person VIP retreat over the weekend, which was three days in total for me, because obviously I got there the day before. We had a lovely drinks, reception, we had dinner, um, there was about 20 over, it was so good. Then we had a whole day of goal setting, planning, masterminding.

Teresa: It was brilliant. And then I spent the night again and, uh, obviously chilled out a bit, but then obviously then packed up the next day. And it was just absolutely awesome. I had the most amazing time, but I'm worn out, completely, utterly worn out. So this week I've been hibernating. That's my go-to thing. It can be really hard because sometimes when you want to hibernate, you think to yourself, I can't, I've got to be able to show I can't not do, you know, turn up and do the thing, but I think I want to remind you that you can, you can hibernate if you need to.

Teresa: And if I didn't hibernate, if I didn't just pull back a little bit and cancel some things that you know I could cancel and spend a bit longer in bed or go for more naps or whatever it is then, I would be an absolute state. So if you are feeling worn out, this is, I'm giving you permission to stop, to, to sit down, to take five minutes to not run around and do these things, because it's a time of year where we are running around.

Teresa: My daughter's about to break up at the end of this week. Um, my. My husband's away. We go away in a couple of weeks. We've got presents to buy all that stuff. And like I said, it's been a busy, busy time of the year for me. So, like I said, I'd like to give you permission. You have my permission, please take it easy. Because you know, it's really interesting.

Teresa: We do all this stuff like getting ready for the next year, goals set for 2022 as if we're going to have all this energy and where does all this energy come from? Like, we need to make sure we rest in order to build that energy. So that's what I'm doing this week. And because I'm doing that, I decided not to give you a solo episode this week.

Teresa: I have been very busy over the past. God knows how many weeks batch recording interviews and they're wonderful and brilliant. And, I thought, why not take it easy on me? Because obviously when I do an interview, it's already the chunk of it's already done. I just do this intro and outro. Also give you access to some of these interviews a bit sooner.

Teresa: So today we have an interview and it's with the lovely Sonaya Williams. Now Sonaya is a bit of an expert in terms of getting organized. And this actually, I think is perfect timing for this time of year, because as we start to think about starting next year, we might start thinking about how we shift and change.

Teresa: I know lots of my members, lots of my students have talked about. They might want to bring a new member stuff. They might want to look at their team. So this is a really, really good episode to look at because she talks about how you get organized. She talks about how to bring people on. She talks about how to do processes and systems.

Teresa: That in my world was a game changer. The minutes I could bring in a process, even when it was just me, it was a game-changer. So she's just brilliant. I know you're going to love this episode. I know you forgive me for not bringing you a solo episode this week. I promise when I've had a rest over the Christmas break, I will be back to my normal fierce chatty self. But, uh, until then here is the interview I did with the lovely Sonaya.

Teresa: Okay. I am very excited today to welcome to the podcast Sonaya Williams. Sonaya how are you doing?

Sonaya: Thank you for having me.

Teresa: My absolute pleasure? Absolute pleasure. I'm really excited about today's episode. And it's funny because as we were looking at what we're going to talk about, you've actually got in one of your titles, Why This Isn't Sexy.

Teresa: And I think some people might think, well, this doesn't sound like a very like, Ooh podcast episode, but it's very, very useful. Anyway, before we dive into that, I always start the same way by asking you, How you got to do what you do today? So if you can introduce yourself, that would be lovely.

Sonaya: Definitely. So I'm Sonaya Williams, the founder of The CEO Partner® I started it in 2011 and it's kind of something I fell into. My background is in technology and banking. So I used to do business process management, I think, different brokerages in America. So E-Trade TD Ameritrade. And what that looked like was I was helping to develop some systems that will deliver the client experiences.

Sonaya: The one that I like loved that I did was, you know, how you go to an ATM and some, some ATM's might charge you a couple of thousands of dollars. They're taking money out. Well, we had a feature that we did in 18 rebates. So if the 18 charged you $5, you would get it back on the other day. And I built how that system works.

Sonaya: But then in addition to that, it was also how customer service deliver you an experience and all of that. So I think logically, and I think in terms of customer experience and delivering. And that's what I used to do my day job and the whole idea of just, you know, two hour commute to work, two hour commute home.

Sonaya: And, you know, there's no such things as you earned it, I knew that whenever I wanted to have kids that I wanted to be home then. I was raised by a single mom and I watched her work so hard to do, just to provide to me and later life to learn that, you know, she was an accountant. She didn't love to do that. And I realized I wanted to have a job that I enjoyed.

Sonaya: And while I did enjoy my corporate career, I knew that I could have continued doing it with those hours. So I had to go figure out something else I could do as an entrepreneur, create my own business. And the only thing I knew how to do this create systems, help people take things in their head, lay it out, logically, see how it can be repeatable.

Sonaya: And then I fell into the online business space and turn that into creating what I like to call new revenue online and teaching people how to create new revenue online repeatedly.

Teresa: Love it. So it was that ever like, because going from corporate and fairly by the signs of it fairly big corporate to then was it when you were like, actually I don't want to do this.

Teresa: I don't want to work these hours. I don't want to do the commute. With the most natural, did it immediately come into your head? I'm going to have my own business or was it like, could do that? No, could do that. No. Oh, okay. I'm left with this.

Sonaya: Well, I felt like before thing I started to try to them was like wedding thing or event planning. That was like my first. And I went the route of taking a course and do all that, but then I, it wasn't really exciting to me. I don't even think I finished the certification. I, I, my, I went to school for, uh, international business and computer science. So I'm definitely more of a business minded person. So I wasn't creative enough, I think, but event planning fields.

Sonaya: Um, so I knew it was going to be some sort of business. I just didn't know what. And I didn't know how I can help people with what I knew. I ended up falling into and finding a business coach and she told me, 'Oh you can be creating standard operating procedures.' And I'm like, 'Really? That's what we have in corporate. We do that all the time. I love that.' And I found my first client and he wasn't. He had a sales company that sold like copy machines and, you know, big, uh, big products to school districts in New York city. And his biggest, uh, fallback was his sales team would have to make several different trips in order to close one sale.

Sonaya: And I was like, 'Why can't they do it in one? And I'm like, did they have a checklist? It's a simple checklist that maybe they need to know what they need to get. Instead of having to say, I'm done these three steps. What's next?' Right. It's like, you might have a VA and she's like, okay, uh, this payment failed. What do you want me to do?

Sonaya: I've always send the email, what do you want me to do next? Right. So everything written out for them or have a list for them to work off of. And eventually we did that. We created a whole list for his sales people and they went from closing sales in three visits to closing sales in one visit. He started to be able to, his biggest thing was he wanted to go golfing on Fridays.

Sonaya: He wanted to have Fridays off. He couldn't do that because he was always in the office with the sales team and they had their paybooks and their processes in place. They were increased their sales, like 30%.

Teresa: Wow. And I think there's a couple of things you've said that that's like, I've just jotted down.

Teresa: First of, I want to pick up on the fact of. The other, it was funny, the minute you said, I went into wedding planning, I was like, oh, what's that really be your thing? Because you're right. It's you do need to be good at planning, but it's very creative. Isn't it? Like, you need all the ideas and all the stuff.

Teresa: And so that was interesting. Then, then the fact that you said it wasn't exciting. And strangely enough, this morning on the day that we've recorded this, I had a call with my next level academy and one of my members who's been doing something for long while said, 'I don't think I like it.' Like, and I'm like, 'So don't do it.'

Teresa: And then like, 'Well that's what I do.' And I said, 'Well who says, that's what you do? It's your business. You get to choose.' And I think not, I think more people need to remember it's our choice, you know? And if it doesn't excite us and if it doesn't give us joy and passion and we love it, it's just not sustainable. We're just not going to do it already.

Sonaya: Yeah. And I mean, that's what you started the business before you started it out of this excitement for solving a problem or helping people get something done. And when it starts to not become excited and we're really start to feel like a job.

Teresa: Yeah. Yeah. And who wants that? No one. Not me. Exactly. I could go to someone else and they can give me something rubbish to do. That's fine. And then the last thing I noted down, which I think is a super important thing to say, Is I've written down zone of genius to remind me, right, this is your zone of genius. This is the thing you are very good at doing.

Teresa: And I often think when it's not. So when something, isn't your zone of genius. So let's say you are not a process person and you don't like it. You immediately think 'Ah, can't give it to someone else cause it's awful. And I hate it.' Like, and it's like, no, no, no, no, that's not your zone of genius. That's not something you like, but it doesn't mean there's no people out there who flipping love this stuff and excel at this stuff. And vice versa.

Teresa: You know, when there's things that you might have to do, I guess, from a marketing point of view or a creative point of view in your business, that you might not like that you might think I need to give that to someone else. But I think, well, I want to make sure we get across and everything is that there is someone out there who will like this stuff.

Teresa: And even though you might sit there thinking, 'Oh God, this bit's so dull.' Or I don't it's because that's maybe not your thing, but there will be someone who does love it.

Sonaya: Yeah. There's always someone that wants to do the stuff that you don't want to do. And I used to always say, Uh, when I, when people ask, what would I do in my business?

Sonaya: It's like 'All the things that you don't like to do, the systems, the processes, the integrations, all of that stuff. Give it to me. Cause that's what we do.'

Teresa: Yeah. And I love that. So let's say we've got someone listening to this podcast. Who's like, I am working on my own and I don't have any team. I don't think anytime soon I'm going to get team.

Teresa: Why do I need to think about my systems? Because we all know, and I for sure was this when I first started, it was all in my head. Literally I knew the whole thing. So why, even if you're not looking at a team, why should it be looking at those systems?

Sonaya: I think it's never too early for you to be start documenting systems, even if it's just you. Even if it's just you and it's always going to be just, you.

Sonaya: You want to free up your brain so that you can be able to think about how you're going to grow the business, what your plans are down the line. You want to be able to start creating better relationships. And when you have all these things in your head, you can't think about that stuff. I had a call with someone two days ago and.

Sonaya: She, she, this person had the team. She has one, two of the VA's that work with her but she called me because she was just frustrated. Cause she was just so involved in the day-to-day of her business as she couldn't have think it's a plan for next year. She had no space in her brain to plan for next year.

Sonaya: Cause she was just inundated with everything to do in the day-to-day. And what it boiled down to was that the team members on her team, they don't know systems or processes in the day-to-day. So when they step through their process or when they come up on some hurdle or block, they always go to her for answers. And even if like, as a solo preneur, where you start with a checklist, that checklist is what's going to help you for your brain.

Sonaya: So you can went through the list in terms of billing clients or you know, processing onboarding. Right. Because then you're able to give each and every client the same experience.

Teresa: Yeah. And again, you've just hit on something there in the fact of not only is this good, cause it frees up your brain and it means it's not sat in there.

Teresa: And you're having to think every time, because some of these processes we're doing our business, we do once a month and every month like, oh, the worst for me is, you know, like some of the systems I use they'll invoice me and that's great. Cause I just send them straight off to the finance thing. Some of them don't invoice me and I have to manually go in and get them.

Teresa: Every flippin time I have to do it. I think, how do I do this again? Every time, like, and I probably spend 15 minutes looking around the website, trying to find the one button that I need to press. And every time I think 'I really should make a note of this.'

Teresa: That is what I do every flippin month. But so, you know, that's really important, but then the other thing I've really liked you saying. Actually from a customer service point of view, this is gold. Isn't it?

Sonaya: Definitely. It is. I mean, I have just a short story where, when I was living back in America and I went to a here place to get back here, though, um, I got know the best greeting ever.

Sonaya: We should make some coffee. Here's a magazine. Like it was