Streamline Business Processes & Train VAs: Kris Ward’s Productivity Secrets

#KrisWard
#VirtualAssistantSuccess
#LeadershipDevelopment

Kris Interviewed by Reb

INTRO[00:01:23] Hey, everyone. Welcome to another episode of when the hour, when the day, and I am your host, Chris Ward. And today in the house, well, I don’t even know how to describe this. I’m not,  I’m not entirely sure who we have in the house. So hear me out. We’re doing something very different that I’ve never done before.

So we have technically rebel RISD in the house from revolutionizing your marketing, your business and your life. Podcasts. Now, here’s the thing. I was on her show and I thought it was going to be a bunch of things about, you know, what you, I do what I do. That’s fine. I was going to talk about some of the things that we do that are going to help other businesses to have time for marketing and stuff, right?

But she kind of turned the tables on me and I wasn’t expecting that. She is a client of mine. I didn’t know she was going to talk about that. And she really brought up some thoughtful and insightful things that I’ve never shared about how I work with clients. So I thought there is a lot here that you could learn from.

Get some insight so that you stop thinking like,  You know, I just have to be more organized. I have to do this and stuff. So we really pull back the curtains. So I’m just going to play the show and you tell me, I am really eager to hear if this was helpful, what you got out of it or what. So here we go.

Let’s dive in. 

START OF INTERVIEW[00:00:00] Rebl: And we’ve got Kris Ward on today as our guest and I’m very excited to speak with you. Kris is an amazing coach. She’s been coaching me and my team. Her Win The Hour Win The Day. And I can’t even begin to start to how much you’ve changed.

[00:00:17] My life, my team’s life, everything we’re doing together. But for my audience, I’ll just let you introduce yourself, tell them a little bit about who you are and what you do.

[00:00:26] Kris: Thank you. That is a very warm introduction. I appreciate it. Okay. So what I do is I help entrepreneurs, coaches, consultants, small business owners with their team, their time, and their toolkits.

[00:00:37] And why that’s important is so many are the bottleneck in their business. And so many beat themselves up thinking once I get past this next thing, things will be different or, Oh, if I was only more disciplined, if I was only more organized and really what it is you’re just lacking some very basic infrastructure in your business.

[00:00:56] That’s simply not there for so many of us, for so many of us, you went from one client to three to seven. And then somehow in that juggling, as you grew, you thought this infrastructure would fall into play. And even when I use that word infrastructure, it’s a heavy word. And so it sounds like, ah, I got to make all these SOPs.

[00:01:18] I got to do all this stuff. And that’s not the case, right? That’s not the case. And you know that from our work together, that’s not what it’s about. So it’s really just getting time back so you can get to the real work and do the stuff that is revenue generating and also the stuff that you wanted to do when you started the business before you got trapped in admin.

[00:01:38] Rebl: Yeah. Yeah. I think you said bottleneck. Definitely know that one. Just feeling that chaos. And then, yeah, you’re just having this growth and you just haven’t built out any of this stuff and SOP. It might as well be a four letter word because nobody wants to do those. Nobody wants to make them.

[00:01:55] They’re horrible. And so you’ve taught me and my team a little bit about this concept of making SOPs. Super toolkits and it’s a wholly different approach that when I tell other people about it, it’s hard to explain until you start doing it and, but it’s made such a difference in my life and my team’s life for sure.

[00:02:15] Kris: I try to describe our super toolkits, our signature super toolkits, I try to describe them as SOPs on steroids because the problem with SOPs where we’ve got them standard operating perceived procedures, and we’ve all known as employees in the corporate world, we’ve used them and then I’m like, ah, we don’t do this, we don’t do that.

[00:02:34] They’re not written by the end user, they’re static in nature, they’re clunky, they’re outdated really quickly and they take a lot of time to make. And you who has the time for that? Where I would compare our signature super toolkits, almost like walking into the kitchen as a chef, and you take a few seconds to sharpen your knife and then you proceed.

[00:02:51] And so the really super toolkits are, you can just, you’re, they’re constantly evolving, breathing documents that just improve your efficiency, eliminate error, and you can just save your brain and your bandwidth for the creative work. Give you back time. And that’s such a game changer because you’re right.

[00:03:09] When do you, this coming in on a Sunday and trying to make all these SOPs. Oh, what a waste of your time. And what a headache

[00:03:17] Rebl: it really is. And it’s something I think every business owner knows they need to do or they’ve been told they need to do this, but you avoid it at all costs and you’re right.

[00:03:27] It’s a time suck and then they don’t get used and they get old really fast. Maybe tell us a little bit of how you came up with this concept. Maybe even backing up a little bit. Like, how did you start Win The Hour Win The Day you wrote your book? Like where’s the origins of where you really had to do this and build this business yourself?

[00:03:47] Kris: Yeah, that’s a great question. So when I started my business 14 plus years ago, my focus was market messaging and that’s what we did. And I worked insane hours the first two years I was in business. And my husband said I was always stealing from sleep. He said, that’s your go to you steal from sleep. You get up early and earlier.

[00:04:05] You stay later and later. And we all think that’s a noble and good thing to do when you’re building a business. Look at me. I’m working hard. I’m trying to show him like, yes, we’re doing this. I’m all in. I’m committed. About the two year mark, I was told I was starting to lose some of my charm.

[00:04:19] So I’m like, Oh my gosh, I cannot have this. Here’s my biggest fan. Cheer me on supporting me. And now I’m just exhausted all the time and short tempered and just it takes effort to talk. I’m so tired, right? So I literally went from working 16 hours a day down to six. Now that did not happen overnight.

[00:04:38] That’s a whole story in its own. And super toolkits and all those things evolved from that, as well as my ability to find, hire, and onboard amazing talent, virtual assistants and all that stuff. And then luckily I did that because it was just a couple of years after that, that my husband was diagnosed with colon cancer and I was pulled away from the business.

[00:04:57] For about two years. When I returned after his passing, my existing clients had no idea of my absence. It was just not how we navigated his journey. We were very positive in nature. The local business community was shocked. No one knew it was just not something that I shared. And so then people started coming to me and saying, how could you possibly have been away and we not know?

[00:05:19] Like, how could we have not known? And if you could do that, maybe you could help me, get to my kids soccer games, start visiting and seeing my friends and family again, and do all these things, these ambitions that they dropped, I used to be into this kind of sport or that kind of sport.

[00:05:33] So I started working with them under that capacity and I started to realize really quickly that the people who needed me most. Looked good on paper. They were in business five, 10, 15 years. They may have a book or a podcast, or they’re doing phenomenal things online, but no one person knows how many hours they’re working.

[00:05:53] And that’s when I realized, Oh, how do I get these people? Cause they’re also not owning up. To this problem that they have of all these hours because they keep thinking once I get past this next thing, they think it’s a character flaw on them. I just got to get caught up. I just got to come in on Sundays.

[00:06:09] And so that’s when I wrote my book, Win The Hour Win The Day and then we really start to leaning in to working with entrepreneurs with their team, their time and their toolkits. I think as entrepreneurs or business owners, we’re taught, it’s just part of the game. You have to work these crazy hours.

[00:06:26] Rebl: That’s you do, you have to earn it, whatever we lie, tell ourselves. And so you get caught in this horrible trap of just endless working hours doing what I love about the super tool kits is that we’re really creating those repeatable processes and where I used to have to sit down and train my team over and over the same thing and knowing that I should be recording this or not even knowing that maybe just, but knowing this isn’t the right way to do it.

[00:06:55] And so being able to create the super tool kit is not on the fly, but being more conscious of like, when I am training, to use tools like Loom. We use Asana, we use Basecamp, and just creating these really dynamic tools for lack of a better word, checklist, to help the team. And it’s so nice to now be finally able to go watch that video, go to this, super tool kit.

[00:07:18] And the team’s now jumping on board, they’re creating their own super tool kits. And it’s just, it’s now, it’s starting to bubble and grow organically on its own. And I think one of the things that you’ve also told me too, is they don’t have to be perfect. No. And that’s hard.

[00:07:34] Kris: Yeah, that’s, but they’re never going to be perfect because you’re always going to be improving your game.

[00:07:39] So we call it cueing, C U E, create, use, and edit. Because whatever you’re doing today, you’re going to now come back tomorrow from that same level of efficiency, but then you’re going to go, Hey, you’re going to look at that with different eyes and say, Hey, what if we change these two steps? Or now there’s this new AI thing we can add there and skip these two steps.

[00:07:56] So you’re always evolving because I would also argue too, Rebel, that the people that you were training, dare I say this kindly, you’re probably not doing a good job because you’re doing it in between other tasks. You haven’t trained for that because, oh, that person used to do it six months ago. The job has changed, right?

[00:08:13] And now you’re like, I don’t even do this anymore. And I’m giving them some information that says, It’s frankly, it’s half the info and here’s a quick example. I had somebody on my team, it was a couple of years ago, right when all the lockdowns were ending and she had applied, she was our social media person.

[00:08:31] She had applied to be an international student in Canada. She was from the Philippines. She replied years before that and all of a sudden she was given like a week, like something, week, you got to move your whole life across to Canada, across the world. And she now, again, another thing, when you are dealing with these kinds of teams and signature super tool kits and stuff, she didn’t want to leave the job.

[00:08:52] She was like can I work part time and go to school? And I’m like, you can’t do both. So we put out a job post cause we find hire and on board for ourselves and of course all their clients and we put out, we’ve got an 80 percent retention rate, 12 point hiring process, all this stuff, and actually, sorry, 90 percent retention rate. Anyhow, so what happened was we put out this job post, we found Maura and this was about a week before Christmas and I handed the super toolkits over to Maura and January 4th, me and Maura met and she was up to 80 percent capacity cause she knew it’s like thinking of it like being a carpenter.

[00:09:28] I know how to build a table. How do you want your table built? What are the measurements? What stains do we use? That’s all in the super tool kits. So here you go. And she said, wow, it was so enjoyable for her. It was so easy. She didn’t have the stress of new job. I didn’t have any hits or, we didn’t take it on the chin because we’re now, Oh, and we bringing something new on and these things are happening.

[00:09:51] It’s just, it’s a game changer. For constantly be in flow of your business and getting to the next thing. Yeah. And even for the things that I know and do over, sometimes you just forget. So having the template, yeah. I have to jump in. I’m sorry. You know why you forget? I’m passionate about this.

[00:10:13] Business is not any successful business. Business is not run on memory. Yes, so when you say oh, I forget of course you forget sign shows us if I gave you a list of seven things that you Even knew and did every day You will forget at least two or three of them and the four that you remember will rotate.

[00:10:33] Yeah, right now Add all the stress of your day and the multiple decisions and the fact that we make about 35, 000 decisions in a day, decision fatigue, attention residue, all that stuff, yeah, you’re not supposed to remember it all. And if you did even remember it all, by the time you get to the work that you really want to do, the creative work, the free thinking work, you got nothing left.

[00:10:54] Your battery is burnt down. So say you are the exception to every rule and you did remember it all. When you get to the work that matters to you most, you got nothing left in the tank.

[00:11:05] Rebl: Yeah. No, it’s such a good point. You’re right. And I, my term is reinventing the wheel, like we continuously reinvent the wheel when we don’t have these processes in place.

[00:11:15] We are, yeah, you’re right. It takes so much brainpower to try to remember all the steps and then repeat them to somebody and then they don’t remember. So yeah, it’s a vicious cycle. And the super tool kits had just made a huge difference. And that’s just, one big piece. done for me and my team and helping us change our bad habits.

[00:11:34] I want to talk a little bit too about your leadership program. You’ve got the academy and then what you’re doing for me that I, every time I tell people like you’re not just coaching me We have this constant dialogue every day, it’s like therapy, and you’re using this tool called Voxer, and some people know about it, some people don’t, it’s this walkie talkie app on your phone, and it, to me, this is like the game changer in coaching, and why I think we’ll probably be long life, professional friends and friends because when I’m able to go into Voxer and just know I can spew what I need to throughout the day.

[00:12:15] And then we have that promise of you come in the morning and check my Voxer and then you can. address my issues as they’re piling out throughout the day and it’s been great and then I think the kind of nice thing too is we can hop on a live meeting when we need to but It’s just such a different approach.

[00:12:35] I’d love to Understand like how you came up with that and I am I attest to it and when I tell people about it They’re like wow that is really different.

[00:12:44] Kris: Yeah. You touched on a couple of great points. I’m so thrilled that you appreciate them because I have given them all some great, like a tremendous amount of thought.

[00:12:52] Voxer, it really is like a walkie talkie. And as I’m leaving a message, if you have your Voxer app open on your phone, you can hear me real time, or then you just go in and listen to it after. A couple of things happened there. One, I had a client who was, we’re doing the regular zoom stuff and she had to go.

[00:13:09] She’s in Canada. She had to go to Australia for some family matter and she was working on this really big project. So we got her calls in for the month all done ahead of time so she can go on this trip. I said to her in passing as she was leaving because she’s working on this big project, Hey, if you’re stuck, like the time zones were just too big for us to meet, right?

[00:13:24] If you’re stuck, send me a loom video and I’ll answer questions. God love her. She answered questions. She sent me a video every day. And what I saw was that if you’re worth your salt and you meet with someone, even if I was hands on as a customized as I do my work, when I’m meeting with you for 45 minutes to an hour, then there’s little things get missed when you go off to do that on your own for a week later.

[00:13:46] So I was seeing things that she was missing or misunderstanding or didn’t understand the value of this. Yeah. And so when we’re going back and forth every day, I just saw a lot more acceleration. So I realized, Oh my gosh, you might come in to meet with me in our zoom call on Tuesday and maybe all week you wanted to talk to me about something, but Monday something blew up and then you cut the line and now we’re dealing with that.

[00:14:08] You’re also recapping things and going back over the week. That takes time. It’s not real time. Now you’ve got these problems that you didn’t even know that you forgot or the consequences. Where’s Voxer? You’re going in leaving messages. You could leave me three messages in a day. You could leave me 12. I will be going in and you’ll be like, Oh, sometimes I’ll get, you’re at the gym.

[00:14:31] I’m at the gym. I just have this quick question because I have this meeting at nine, right? And I’ll answer that. And you’re like, Oh, that makes sense. Okay, boom. So then you’re on stock and you move so much faster and you’re not on your own, right? And that’s a big deal. And so to your other thing too, when you talk about the leadership program.

[00:14:48] When we find, hire and onboard a virtual assistant for you, and we do that, we’re not an agency, but we do that because we either do things for you for speed or with you for independence. I don’t want you to have to learn how to hire someone because it’s a whole thing on its own. I’ll teach you that later, but right now we need to get you help.

[00:15:07] So I do that for you, bring them on. And here’s the thing. If I’m training you about super toolkits and let’s say Rebel, you are the smartest person I’ve ever met. I’m teaching you something new. You’re going to get maybe 70 percent of that. Then you’re supposed to teach the virtual assistant that, and then they might get 40%.

[00:15:25] So we have the leadership program where we train them on all these things. We’re training you. We meet with them live monthly. We, they have weekly assignments on everything. Sending us different content, like a video, how to communicate, how to get their thoughts across really quickly and effectively.

[00:15:40] So when they open their mouth in your team meetings, you listen, we do all these things. And how I look at it is any way, 360 degrees way that I can support you. So you got constant access to me. We’re supporting your team. We’re training the team. We’re training you. You’ve got videos in the Academy.

[00:15:58] Hey Rebel, you’re asking me about this. I made a video and I walk you through step by step and I give you the win template. It’s everything that we can do to implement and allow you to have access and digest information quickly so you can move on to the real work. And as a lot of people will say okay, I want to sign up.

[00:16:17] Great. How much more time do I need? Cause I’m strapped for time already. And I’m like, No, you get time back. This isn’t going to cost you time. You’re getting time back.

[00:16:25] Rebl: Yeah. And I, so this, I think also too, is a game changer is you’re not just helping me with my leadership, my process and productivity, but you’re also helping my team.

[00:16:39] And what I love about what you’re doing for the VAs that nobody’s doing, not even the agencies that you’re paying extra money. Yeah. To get the VA through is you are training them. They have access to an Academy where they can learn the same things that I’m learning along with me. And you’ve got monthly masterminds for them, which is brilliant.

[00:17:01] Cause nobody’s doing this. And if the one thing we’ve learned, I’ve learned when you bring someone on new. No matter what their level of skills or training, you’re setting them up for failure when you don’t have systems in place and you don’t have some kind of leadership training. And unfortunately, as the boss, the owner of the business, you’re not the person to be doing that for them.

[00:17:23] They’re too scared. They don’t want to say the wrong thing. As we know, if you’re doing virtual assistance, a lot of them are overseas. And so culturally they are not built to speak up, say anything, they’re scared to do anything wrong. And so you’re training my team along with me whether it’s super tool kits or how to speak better even just how we, angle the camera, come into a meeting, all those things that we need to be taught.

[00:17:50] And as the business owner, you don’t have time to do it. You don’t think about it. And then often you’re running so fast that you get irritated and you’re setting that person up for failure and you don’t even realize it.

[00:18:02] Kris: A hundred percent. And you brought up some really good points. Yes, we’re we’re not an agency and you would pay somebody like, I don’t know, 10, 15 bucks an hour.

[00:18:09] It’s billable hours. And then the virtual assistant who has to sign a non disclosure agreement may only be getting 2 an hour. And that happens a lot. We find them for you. They’re paid five bucks an hour, which is they love because it’s 10 an hour or 10 a day in the Philippines. So that’s, that’s a minimum wage.

[00:18:26] So they get five bucks an hour from you, which is great deal for you. And then you pay them directly. And here’s the thing too. We are there. And the help they need, frankly, I’ve been in jobs where people say, Oh, we’re looking for people who think and have ideas and you have an idea. And if the idea doesn’t work out, you’re judged or your idea is better than the bosses and they don’t like that.

[00:18:47] There’s all these, dynamics. Whereas with the leadership program, we’re there as a support to them to not only teach them what we’re teaching you, but sometimes we’ll be teaching them how to, how to navigate you or how to, so I had, someone coming to me is okay, the, their team leader, which is what we call you guys, but my clients is like, Oh, I had them doing all these different tasks all over the place.

[00:19:12] And I said, okay. Okay. This is what you’re going to present to them. You’re going to go to them and say, look, I want to provide for you the best I can, but you have me running in different directions. There’s a lot of people do, they’ll hire a virtual assistant. They’re really good at something. I had this conversation just with a client this morning, and I found out through the leadership program, through one of the videos that the virtual assistant was doing, what we call the win team members.

[00:19:34] He was talking about his challenge of the week and he was very proud. He accomplished this and he’s a virtual assistant and he was asked to do a landing page and he had to go and watch all these YouTube videos and do all these things and la. And he was really proud that he did it. So I met with, the team leader, my client, which is like you.

[00:19:50] And I said, what you did was sent him off on his own and it was unfair. You hired him for virtual assistant, a tech. Funnel is a whole different thing. And if you weren’t working with me, what would happen is four months down the road, you’d be going, Oh, he started off so strong and now I don’t know how, because you started diluting his skills and had him running here, there, and a muck in different tasks.

[00:20:13] And that’s a mistake. A lot of people make. I’m not a proponent of having a big team. I’m all about a very lean team, but you do have to be purposeful and strategic about what you give them.

[00:20:25] Rebl: Yeah. That’s a good point. And it’s so common because VAs are becoming very popular, but no one’s teaching us how to manage them.

[00:20:33] And they do come in and they say they can do everything. And so you’re just, what do you call it, task rabbit, you’re, you’re, yeah, they’re becoming a task rabbit and it’s not a fruitful relationship. Yeah.

[00:20:43] Kris: And let me just jump in here. It’s not about just being overseas or the culture differences.

[00:20:48] If you had a new job, Rebel, when I had a new job and somebody asked you if you could do it, who said, was the question really, no, I can’t? Oh, nobody would say that. So you’re like, Oh my gosh, I got to figure this out. This isn’t what they hired me for, but I guess I’m going to figure this out. So it’s not even a cultural thing.

[00:21:05] It’s just a bad thing. Leadership, bad management thing. And there’s plenty of that out there. I’ve certainly was experienced as an employee. So it’s me giving you the tools and the parameters to have a healthy team and to take them from great to super great to crazy amazing.

[00:21:22] Rebl: And that’s a really good point. And I, your program is just so integrated and really collaborative. So what I love is I can. If I do feel like I’m struggling or every once in a while you’ll say, Hey, Rob, just send me your latest team meeting and then I can, send that recording and you can give me tips. I’m like, Hey, you should, speak maybe there, this was a teachable moment.

[00:21:43] You should have brought up, this or, Hey it’s time to congratulate them for doing this type of work and then the same for them. What I love about your program is you’re not running the masterminds. Your VAs are running masterminds. So now they’ve got a group of peers that they can actually talk to and they can, learn from.

[00:22:03] Yeah. So I think that’s just such a huge difference. Nobody’s doing it.

[00:22:07] Kris: Yeah. Any training. Yeah, sorry. Any training they have for virtual assistants, it’s usually very tech specific. Go off and learn how to do the back end of YouTube. But it’s not about making them a, not giving them a career. Like most of them will see their jobs as temporary.

[00:22:23] I’m like, no, when you come on here, my clients are going to keep you for years and years. And when you leave me and you say, oh, I think I’ve graduated, do all these things with Kris, then you get to keep your virtual assistant where in an agency you don’t, right? So there’s all that. But my job is to say that this is a career for them and this is a long term relationship for you because the virtual world tends to be very temporary.

[00:22:45] And that’s just because if you are a good virtual assistant, you’re going to see the writing on the wall that this person is running around with their hair on fire and eventually they will turn on you because they asked you for something Monday and then Tuesday asked you for something completely different.

[00:23:00] And you’re like, this is the clock is ticking, right? This is not a safe place for me. So it’s really about. Us investing in them, teaching them how to speak more effectively. And these are business tools, whether you are right, like if born and living in the Canada, US, England, wherever you are, many of us professionals don’t have these leadership or language skills.

[00:23:22] Cause leadership, I feel is constantly shown as if I’m a good leader, I can impose my ideas upon people and have them follow me. And maybe that comes from political leaders, cult leaders, whatever. But to me, leadership is, and the biggest compliment I get is when people show up in our little scrum meetings, our little mini meetings, which are scrums.

[00:23:44] I’ve been told again and again, you can’t tell who’s in charge, who’s the boss, quote, cause I don’t like that word. They can’t tell because I am surrounded by peers and it’s so collaborative and they’re so brilliant. That if anything, I’m the dumbest one in the room, frankly.

[00:24:02] Rebl: Yeah I doubt that, but I appreciate what you’re saying.

[00:24:07] It really does make a difference. And I think in our really evolving small business world, virtual assistants, virtual team members are becoming bigger. Plus, like you said, this is just about leadership. So I would say since I started working with you till today, you see me change the way I speak.

[00:24:28] I try to approach my team and empower them differently and even myself what’s the term you like to use that I’m always running, I forget how you call it run a holic or something like that. Oh, Russia holic. And I really learned to just, I’m just so much calmer. I don’t know.

[00:24:45] I can’t like pinpoint it. It’s several things, but it’s yeah, I’ve totally changed and shifted just even how I get used to get so excited and anxiety and just riled up about little things. And now I’m just like, even big things. I know. I need to work on it and do certain stuff, but it doesn’t bother me as much.

[00:25:05] Kris: The ship is steady and that this storm is not going to dump the boat into the ocean, right? And I, back in what I would call my dark years when I was working those crazy hours is, my gosh, if I went in to a grocery store and I thought I have to grab milk and something else, and it should take 10 minutes.

[00:25:21] God help you if it took 14 because I, now I’m, like now I’m like, now I’m even further behind and I was already an hour behind and it was just this constant race against time. It was my, and it’s hard on the heart, right? Cause you’re just in this constant panic and you’re trying to smile at people and you think when you’re showing up in these meetings and you think when you’re flying by the seat of your pants that you’re fooling people.

[00:25:44] I used to And think, Oh yeah, I can just put on a smile and they won’t know that I’m so stressed. I could just choke them for speaking slowly, but they smell it on you and you show up unprepared and you’re winging it and people can, you look like a rookie.

[00:26:01] Rebl: You’re right. And you think you’re faking it and everyone doesn’t see it, but it’s true.

[00:26:06] Things slip through the cracks and it’s not a good way to live. It’s just anxiety, you’re right, you feel awful, and you’re not performing at your peak.

[00:26:16] Kris: And it’s expensive for your business too. Think of that grocery example, here’s the other thing that people don’t realize when they don’t have super toolkits and flying by the seat of their pants is how much mistakes cost you.

[00:26:26] Yeah. So think of that example. If I go to the grocery store and I have a list, let’s say milk, bread, cookies. And I go to the store, I take the gas to get to the store, I go to the store, I line up, I pay, I get home, and then all of a sudden I don’t even know what’s going on. And it takes me maybe 10 minutes to find out that I don’t know what happened, but I didn’t get the milk.

[00:26:44] I swear I put it in the cart. So you have to have that discovery time. Then you get back in the car, the gas again, go to the store, go to get the milk, line up, pay the cash, drive home. That is double the cost of that little mistake. And you don’t see that in your business, but making mistakes when you’re here, there and yonder running around with your hair on fire is incredibly expensive.

[00:27:09] Rebl: Now that’s a good point and a very valid, example of how we do that constantly. So I’m still working on it, moments. And I think as a lot of small business owners are probably, we’re going to Q four, we’ve got a big election, there’s a lot of stress. I know people are Waiting to see what happens.

[00:27:26] Although as we all know, in the back of our minds, life will go on no matter what happens. Yeah, I, I just look at our time together and I love telling people about your process and what we’re going through and how it’s improved my business and my life, my team’s life. I know they’re much happier.

[00:27:44] Maybe just as we’re wrapping up here, sure. Last thoughts cause you work with a number of different entrepreneurs, owners of all sizes, businesses. What can you, what piece of advice would you say if somebody’s struggling and they are stuck in this. hamster wheel. What’s like a good first step for them to take?

[00:28:03] Kris: Yeah, that’s a really great question because here’s the thing. Your business should support your life, not consume it. And more importantly, business should be fun. Or why did we just not stay at that job? We hated it. It would have been easier, less overhead. We’re done at five, move on. So what I need you to understand more than anything is it’s not about once you get caught up.

[00:28:23] There’s always this thing. Once we get through the summer holidays, once we get through Christmas, once I get the website up, once we fix the website, once we get that new person, there’s always a once, right? And I’m here to tell you when you have things in play, like what we call our win team or what is next team.

[00:28:35] So you can get to what is next. When you have the super toolkits, when you know how to use your calendar, because 90 percent of people don’t know how to use their calendar. It’s a fantastic productivity tool when used correctly. When you add those things in play, your team, your timing toolkits, you know what?

[00:28:50] You can take on new business, things can happen, there will always be something, because otherwise it’s like having a car that can only drive in good weather. If you have a car that only drives in sunshine, how is that working for you? And that’s the thing with the business. You’re going to have storms, you’re going to have things, you’re going to have to get new clients, you’re going to have interruptions.

END OF INTERVIEW[00:29:11] But when it’s set up effectively, It’s just like driving a car on a rainy day. Okay, we turn the wipers on, we keep going, no big deal. It’s a minor adjustment. So think of your business like a car. If you’re waiting for everything to be all smooth sailing and then things will be fine, how long have you been doing that?

OUTRO[00:02:52] All right. So what did you think of that? Please reach out to me, DM me on LinkedIn, send me an email. Chris Ward, K R I S W A R D at winthehourwintheday. com.