The ideas are flowing. The americanos are flowing even harder. You have BIG ideas for where you want your business to go and you’re burning the midnight oil to get there.

On your vision board you see it all. 1000s of clients served. Million-dollar years. A feature in Forbes. A team of women who feel closer than college friends.

You’re ready to scale.

But the reality so many entrepreneurs face before they get there?

Mile high to-do lists.
Your VA demanding more of your time than when you were doing #allthethings.
Bogged down by client deadlines.
Ranting on the phone to your mom.
And crossing off goals from a place of ‘not now’ instead of ‘nailed it.’

If this feels a little too real right now, you could be struggling with your operations.

Intentional work on the behind-the-scenes ops of your business is your ticket to scaling sustainably.

Here are 4 key actions you can focus on today to bring that vision board business to life without the side of pulling your hair out.

Button Up Your Product Suite

Your unique collection of offers and their pricing is pivotal when it comes to *actually* hitting the goals in your heart.

Why?

1. If you have a lot of time-intensive offers, you might hit capacity or burn out before you hit your client or income goals.
2. If your prices are too low, it might be impossible to hit your desired revenue numbers, even if you’re crushing it at sales.
3. A product suite that doesn’t make sense to your ideal client (or one that overwhelms them) can hurt sales and keep consistent revenue low.

Here are some questions to ask yourself to see if your product suite is strong:

1. Do I understand exactly who is served by each of my offers?
2. Is my messaging and positioning for each offer clear and compelling?
3. Do I know exactly what percentage of my revenue comes from each offer?
4. Does the amount of time devoted to marketing make sense for the revenue generated?
5. Do I deeply understand my capacity for each offer?
6. Does the price for each offer take into account direct costs of time and money, the value provided, and supply and demand?

When you answer these questions, you can get clear on the ‘why’ behind each offer, adjust the pricing, understand your capacity, and ensure your offers are a direct path to your goals.

Focus on Your Client-Facing Systems

Every time a client comes into your world, they go through your process (whether it’s been intentionally designed or not).

And often we’re working so hard to attract, nurture, and sign new clients that we can forget how important the client experience is for actually KEEPING the clients we find (and for getting referrals).

Not only that, but optimizing your client-facing systems can cut the time you spend on admin (while upleveling their impression of your brand at the same time).

Here’s what you should have down pat when it comes to bringing on new clients:

• An inquiry form
• An application or option to book a call
• A nurture sequence that gets the potential client hyped to work with you
• An invitation email if they’re a good fit
• A streamlined proposal, contract, and invoice
• An onboarding workflow to kick off the project or program

Cool. So what about getting them prepared to get the most from your time together? That’s where a welcome packet or series of welcome emails comes into play.

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Inside, you’ll want to cover:

• A recap of what they bought/what’s included
• An introduction to their point of contact
• A timeline or schedule of meetings
• Your boundaries, values, and expectations
• Next steps, resources, and how to reach out

Other things to consider when you’re building your client-facing systems are:

- Internal systems for your team to manage the process (i.e., ClickUp or Asana)
- Automated reminders to check in and support your client
- Scheduled touchpoint to ask them about continuing and to request a testimonial

So much of this can be automated, but simply having a checklist and templates will save you much more time than if you were to do these things manually, every single time, by yourself.

Build an Autonomous Team to Support You

Having a team sounds lovely. You get to outsource and delegate all of those tasks that are slowing you down. But sometimes, managing a team can give you more work if you’re not intentional about who you’re bringing on and what you’re having them do.

Here are the biggest pitfalls I see business owners making when they’re starting to grow their teams:

1. Outsourcing the wrong things

Instead of outsourcing ‘busy work,’ make sure you’re intentional about outsourcing things that generate revenue OR that free up time for you to directly or indirectly generate revenue.

2. Micro-managing

Your team is not you. And as much as I can empathize with thinking that there’s a right way to do everything (shoutout to all my fellow enneagram ones), effective team management requires relinquishing control. Your job is to set standards and expectations, inspire and lead your team, and then to give them the autonomy they need to confidently own their role.

Now that you know where most people struggle, here’s how you can make sure you don’t fall into these traps:

• Examine your business tasks and responsibilities (i.e., make a list of everything you do or that needs to get done every day, week, and month).
• Analyze all these tasks based on their level of impact to the business and how easy/difficult they are to outsource.
• Start outsourcing the ones that are the easiest to outsource and that will make the biggest impact.
• If you don’t already have them, co-create Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) during the training process with your new team member(s) to ensure consistency, accountability, and autonomy.
• Celebrate!

Set Annual Goals and Create Quarterly Plans

Intentional goal setting and quarterly planning is possibly one of the most overlooked aspects of operational planning.

Here are a few of my favorite questions to ask to facilitate this process:

• What are my 1/3/5 year goals?
• What are my measurable metrics for success (revenue, profit, number of clients, PR features, followers, consults booked, actions taken, etc)?
• What’s currently working in my business and what’s not?
• Which core offers am I focusing on selling this year/quarter?
• What are my key marketing and sales tactics this quarter?
• How do I plan to get visible in front of my own and others’ audiences?
• What aspects of my backend operations need addressing?

This type of planning allows you to gain clarity on your big-picture vision and long-term goals, keep your eye on the data that matters, and stay focused on a list of pre-prioritized projects and tasks.

And that, my friends, is how you scale through an ops lens.

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