The End of SOPs: Smarter VA Systems! with Chris Pagayon

Episode Summary

#KrisWard
#WhySOPsFail
#VirtualAssistantLeadership

Chris Pagayon Podcast Transcription

[00:00:00] Kris Ward: Hey everyone. Welcome to another episode of Win The Hour, Win The Day, and I am your host, Kris Ward, and today we are gonna have a really interesting conversation. I’ve got Chris Pagayon on the show here and she is a virtual assistant that has worked a number of years in corporate and she’s gonna talk to about SOPs and why they don’t work, and I cannot wait to get into this. First of all, welcome to the show, Chris. 

[00:00:24] Chris Pagayon: Thank you so much, Chris. I am excited to be here. 

[00:00:28] Kris Ward: You and I were having a conversation the other day and I was like, oh my gosh.

[00:00:30] Kris Ward: It was so interesting and shocking to me and I thought, we gotta talk about this on the show. So why don’t we just pick up where we left off the other day and you were telling me about that job you had. Start there. 

[00:00:40] Chris Pagayon: Yeah, so on the job, on the previous job that I had, I worked for a large company and I was essentially handling their calls, their customer service calls, and it came to a point where it was super repetitive, and that’s why the SOP is very important on that part.

[00:00:58] Chris Pagayon: However, there is a [00:01:00] system inside that office, which is a hierarchy, and we were on the lower end. And yeah, by the time the SOP comes to us. It’s really just not updated anymore. And what happens is that we even get penalized for it if we don’t. If you just don’t do it right, which is 

[00:01:19] Kris Ward: okay, hold on, let me jump in there for a sec.

[00:01:20] Kris Ward: Okay. ’cause what you said there is really powerful, and I talk about this a lot. So you are working for a large organ organization and there’s a hierarchy. And this is what I say all the time. Standard operating procedures are not usually written by the end user. So first of all, you’re saying there’s all these layers above you.

[00:01:35] Kris Ward: Levels above you. Somebody creates SOP, and by the time it gets down to you, it’s probably already outdated. It’s probably irrelevant because it’s not written by the person who does the job, right? So that’s problem number one. Okay? Problem number two is it takes so long for the higher ups to process this and write more up, that by the time, every time they get something written and then it gets delivered to you, there’s that [00:02:00] delay, that lag.

[00:02:01] Kris Ward: And again, they get outdated. Yeah. Okay. So now you’ve got these outdated SOPs that are frustrating because you’re like this doesn’t work. We can’t do it this way. ’cause they, I always say the person who sweeps the floor should buy the broom. Who am I to tell you what broom you need?

[00:02:16] Kris Ward: Okay. So now they’re outdated. You find that frustrating ’cause you’re saying, look, I’m handling dear heavens, one to 200 calls a day. That sounds like hell to me, but you’re handling that. So you wanna be efficient and effective. You wanna be following the policies, but the policies are always slow coming and outdated.

[00:02:32] Kris Ward: Alright, so then what happens next? 

[00:02:35] Chris Pagayon: Yep. So with that we do have I, I wanna say that we do have a quality assurance manager. Okay. So we call, let’s just call them QA for now. Okay. And what they do is that they audit our calls because of course we are a large company. I do believe quality is important here.

[00:02:52] Chris Pagayon: Okay. And they have their own SOPs that they use to audit our calls. And the problem with [00:03:00] that is we don’t have access to those SOP. So we might get a review that, Hey, you didn’t do this, you didn’t do that. And we, I’m just thinking, how am I supposed to know? First of all, I don’t have access to this.

[00:03:13] Chris Pagayon: Second of all there are quarterly meetings or like weekly meetings that we don’t also have access to. So by this point, it’s just it’s the blind leading the blind. We’re I’m gonna go with my coworkers. Hey, what am I gonna supposed to do with this? And we just…

[00:03:29] Kris Ward: okay, so let me jump in there.

[00:03:30] Kris Ward: And this happens a lot. So you have SOPs. They’re be handed it down from the hierarchy, the hierarchal rankings. Then they have a separate audit process to come in and then to audit you. But they’re not like, this is a separate entity with a separate auditing process. So really you’ve got, you’re being examined by two sides now.

[00:03:49] Kris Ward: In case, as us small business owners and stuff, this may go, oh, that will never happen because I’m not a big corporation. I’m not gonna have an auditor and I’m not gonna have a hierarchy. But you’d be [00:04:00] shocked that this happens all the time. Because what you do, you just do it on the, on a pivot, and on a whim you think, oh my gosh, I just read this really great book last weekend or two weeks ago, I took this really online, great online course.

[00:04:11] Kris Ward: And then you’re saying, this is how we’re gonna do it. And then you throw something at your VA and say no, this is a new way. ’cause I saw this video, I learned this thing, and they’re just trying to keep up with your pivoting. And then two weeks from now when you say why are you doing it that way?

[00:04:23] Kris Ward: Remember you showed me that video on LinkedIn and you’re like, what video? Wait, hold on. So the… the lack of ability to effectively course correct is what makes these SOPs really stale. Because things, especially right now with AI, things are always changing. Okay. So I just wanna make sure everyone understands this is not a problem outside of small business.

[00:04:46] Kris Ward: And also we’ve all been trained, we’ve all at one point had some sort of job, right? That gives us this sort of mindset of this framework that we’re taught from that we think SOPs are the answer to everything. So that’s a big [00:05:00] problem there. Okay. So now you’re getting audited by the auditors and you’re losing points and in this case it’s crazy ’cause they’re pretty punitive there.

[00:05:08] Kris Ward: Like they really, they dock you for stuff. 

[00:05:12] Chris Pagayon: Yep. They take it off our paycheck. 

[00:05:14] Kris Ward: Oh, dear Lord. That’s crazy. And you know what? Then you go back to work tomorrow and you’re supposed to have good morale and care about your work, and you feel like, people are literally punishing you and taking money outta your pocket, right?

[00:05:28] Kris Ward: That’s so interesting to me. When I worked in university, I worked at a steakhouse and they had things that we had to say every night we had to go up and because it was steakout, we had a list of specials and we had to tell them about the prime rib dinner. ’cause we had this prime rib dinner that took whatever, 28 hours to make or something like that now, because it was such a popular item.

[00:05:47] Kris Ward: Sometimes we were outta prime rib eight o’clock ’cause it was fresh. It was like we made, just like making a Turkey for your family where you just ran out in the restaurant. If you didn’t have prime rib, then you’d have to have steak. I got a secret shopper, somebody from head office and their [00:06:00] team came in and I listed specials and I didn’t list the prime rib ’cause we were out of prime rib.

[00:06:06] Kris Ward: We were out of prime. We had no prime rib. We were out and often we would be out because when it’s gone because it takes 28 hours to make. That’s fine. I got a letter from head office. The manager had to punish me and I lost shifts off the floor for three days. Which you were living off tips because I didn’t follow policy and I’m saying, oh my God, but we had no prime rib.

[00:06:27] Kris Ward: What was I supposed to tell them all about the prime rib? And then they said, yes, we’ll have some. And I say, we don’t have any. How stupid would I look like? The point was, common sense had to be in there somewhere. Or I’m sure if I told them, got them all excited about the prime rib and they wanted it, I didn’t have it, they’d be mad about that.

[00:06:42] Kris Ward: So this is where we get into policies that get crazy and not effective, right? So now you’re in a job that you can’t help but start to hate and be frustrated and not trust people. So what kind of great, I know you, and you do a lot of great, like you’re really capable, you’re really [00:07:00] confident, you’re really smart.

[00:07:01] Kris Ward: You’re very good with details, but that’s gotta start to lose its way when you feel like at any moment people could be taking money outta your pocket. 

[00:07:13] Chris Pagayon: Yep. It’s just very confusing and inconsistent for me. And yeah, like what you mentioned it’s it’ll really come to the point where I was starting to hate my job and I didn’t want that.Of course, I want to enjoy my job. I want to be good at it. But with this systems that keeps you running in circles. Yeah. I just can’t, it’s just very heavy for me. 

[00:07:35] Kris Ward: I can imagine. Okay. So let’s bring this to something that’s even more applicable. The SOPs for bigger corporations are more painful and more obvious, and you’ve got more people to be angry at.

[00:07:46] Kris Ward: But at the end of the day. For a lot of small business owners, they either have no SOPs or they have ones that, I was showing an example in a training the other day with a client that came to work with us and she’s no, I got an SOP [00:08:00] for social media. I want you to find me a social media manager.

[00:08:02] Kris Ward: ’cause we find, hire and onboard virtual assistants and put them in our leadership program. And I looked at this document, it was like 40 pages. And so what would happen is then the VA would have to come in here and extrapolate and pull things and go through this ’cause it’s like a textbook and figure it out and make their own systems out of all this content.

[00:08:22] Kris Ward: So a big mistake I’m sure you’ve seen even with small businesses, is either they have nothing or they have too much and they’re not SOPs they’re just manuals of everything they know. But has that been your experience? 

[00:08:35] Chris Pagayon: Yes. It’s exactly as how you shared it. Yeah. It’s like a manual that I had on my end, which to add to that, it’s two, two years outdated. And so when you’re in a call, they have this question, you’re gonna pull up this manual. I have 80 pages here. Where am I supposed to find it? Yeah. And so what would happen is that I would just make it up on the spot or do. [00:09:00] As what I’m trained for.

[00:09:01] Chris Pagayon: And then again, maybe what I was trained for is now incorrect or it’s now. So yeah, that’s just very frustrating for us. 

[00:09:11] Kris Ward: Yeah, and that’s why when you guys come into the leadership program. So many of you, when we talk about that, we’re looking for people that, we want you to speak up and we were, we’re all about team, A team is philosophy not a number?

[00:09:22] Kris Ward: And it takes a while for you to trust us because because we’re saying all these things that make sense, but it’s oh yeah, wait till we get something wrong and then see how things turn. So can you tell me what that was like for you when you first started in our leadership program? 

[00:09:37] Chris Pagayon: Yep. So it was a completely different shift and you are actually spot on. It’s, it took a while for me to trust you guys. I’m sorry to say this. Yeah. But yeah, it’s it’s very different from when I. When it was before, because first here, I’m a able to create my own steps, my own toolkits, and not SOPs.

[00:09:58] Chris Pagayon: And when I first [00:10:00] started creating this, these toolkits, it was the same as I, how I saw it before. Those, yeah, long texts that are very detailed. Everything is 

[00:10:11] Kris Ward: comprehensive, heavy. Yeah. Yeah. 

[00:10:13] Chris Pagayon: Yep. I did it as that. Yeah. And then I got the feedback that, oh, it’s not this. And at first I thought what am I doing wrong?

[00:10:20] Chris Pagayon: And then the more you guys explain it, it’s just just get to the point. I don’t need. I don’t need 10 steps to do one thing, just get to the point. And yeah, that has been very easy for me, especially when my workload gets, gets bigger and then I have these toolkits here. It’s just straight to the point.

[00:10:39] Chris Pagayon: Oh, I, okay. I remember now because before, as I said, I had to remember everything and I had to run everything on memory. Oh. And now I just have to open my toolkit and continue working on it. 

[00:10:53] Kris Ward: Yeah. So I always say business is not run a memory, right? And so what you’re saying now is when you have a task, you could be doing different [00:11:00] things you could be doing.

[00:11:00] Kris Ward: What I really like is, first of all, the super toolkits we use. Language is a big part of that. We’ve got the scale formula, subject, category, assets, language , enlist. And the language is, it has to be clear and directional, not consider review all these vague things in policies, right? And what happens is you can do really effective work.

[00:11:19] Kris Ward: Six hours into your shift that you could at nine o’clock in the morning ’cause you’re not using up all this brain power remembering things and finding things and putting stuff together before you start working on something. And so that allows you the freedom and the bandwidth to be more creative, more focused.

[00:11:35] Kris Ward: And when you see something could be done better, you just make a quick little audit. ’cause we call it CUEing, create, using and editing the soup toolkit. So you’re right, we were teaching you when you first started doing these clunky SOPs like. That’s great. That’s a lot of knowledge. It’s not about getting it wrong, it’s about making it more useful.

[00:11:52] Kris Ward: It’s if I give you directions in a GPS, it’ll say, turn left here, turn right there. Versus telling you everything about the city. That’s the [00:12:00] difference, right? So I think that’s really important. So then you started to relax a little bit, trust us a little bit, see that we mean what we say and we say what we mean, and then you started to lean into the efficiency of the super toolkits and just see how breeding they are.

[00:12:17] Chris Pagayon: Yep. And I also wanna add that it doesn’t, for me, it doesn’t feel shameful to ask. Yeah. Whereas before, if I just ask a team leader or a coworker, it’ll be I’ll just get this luck that, are you stupid? 

[00:12:31] Kris Ward: Oh, okay. 

[00:12:32] Chris Pagayon: I’m not sure what to do. Like I am not sure what to do because there’s so many things here and I just feel so lost.

[00:12:39] Chris Pagayon: Whereas in here, you guys are always like telling us, just ask. Just send us a message. Send us a direct voicemail like, yeah. A crazy shift for me. 

[00:12:53] Kris Ward: Yeah. Because any question you have, I’ve always think are great questions, but then it allows us to add more and [00:13:00] more to the program. I’m like, oh, that’s a good question.

[00:13:02] Kris Ward: We should have covered that. I always look at questions of, oh, then how can I be more clear? Because we’re, you’re smart. And you, and also you’re seeing the, what we’re doing from a different position. You can’t see the prescription when you’re in the bottle. So not only are you not stupid, you know that, but it really empowers us to deliver better and better to, to our virtual assistants and to our clients and to offer more and more to both.

[00:13:29] Kris Ward: It’s freeing. We love questions. It’s everything, right? It’s makes, oh my gosh. Yeah. Okay, so now. Oh, all so again, also, and I’m sure too with all your a lot of people in the virtual assistant community, and they’re still dealing with entrepreneurs, coaches, consultants that are running around, pivoting all the time, throwing things at them.

[00:13:47] Kris Ward: Making them what I call task machines. Whereas you have really, I would say, a career now where you have repetitive work. You’ve got, you’ve got stuff, you have responsibilities every week. You work independently [00:14:00] because you’re able to manage it all. You’re not sitting there with your hands out catching tasks that your team leaders throwing at you.

[00:14:06] Kris Ward: You, you have again, I don’t even like the word job. You have a position and a career that’s constantly growing. Does that resonate with you? Is that how it feels? 

[00:14:15] Chris Pagayon: Yes, completely. Because honor community, which is the virtual assistant community the thing that you’re supposed to say to newbies or like new virtual assistants is that treat this

[00:14:28] Chris Pagayon: as a business and not a job because of how easy it is for like clients to let go of you. Oh. So going into that community, that’s the mindset that I have that okay. I may be able I may get fired in the next 15 days or, and, or like in the next 20 days, and I just have to prepare for it. You just have to always have a backup and not trust your client to work with you long time.

[00:14:54] Chris Pagayon: So that’s really the mindset. 

[00:14:56] Kris Ward: Oh, that is interesting. I never heard that, but it makes sense too. Okay. [00:15:00] All right. And we’re the opposite. We want you here forever. I, Criz on my team said, I hope this job lasts a lifetime. I’m like, of course it will, as long as you’ll have me. Okay. So you’re used to coming in that.

[00:15:10] Kris Ward: We are not here for a long time, and frankly, half the time we’re not here for a good time. This is gonna change, whereas we don’t operate under that. 

[00:15:19] Chris Pagayon: Yes. Yeah it’s just really overwhelming when it first started and just thinking about it, it was so stressful that. Oh, what if this client didn’t like me? What if I did something wrong? And that’s where you know you overthink. 

[00:15:35] Kris Ward: Yeah. And 

[00:15:36] Chris Pagayon: yeah, 

[00:15:37] Kris Ward: Especially too. ’cause when you come in here and things are different, I’ve had this from a number of people. They come in here, they see that we’re supportive, they see that we’re different.

[00:15:45] Kris Ward: We, you know what? Honestly, I don’t think what we do is so great. I think everybody just does stuff so poorly. I don’t think we’re so special. I just think everybody else is so horrible. But what happens is, I’ve heard from a few people that they really love it here, and they and it just, why we invest [00:16:00] in it is ’cause you make your, my client is your team leader.

[00:16:03] Kris Ward: The better you are, the better it looks on me and it makes their life easier and their business more successful and they get time back and they get freedom and they’re not working evenings and weekends and they start making more money ’cause they’re not doing all the admin work and stuff like that. So we’re all invested in you.

[00:16:19] Kris Ward: But I think what happens is when you start to see how we operate different and you really like it, the more I’ve had a number of people like yourself were saying, I like this so much, and I’m even more afraid to lose a job because it’s oh man, now I really like it. They’re really nice here. And they do all these things now. Now it’ll be really sucky to go back to that other way. 

[00:16:37] Chris Pagayon: Yeah. And it’s very scary like that. Having being on that position is just very scary for us because now you are more careful, oh, I don’t wanna lose this job. I don’t wanna make a mistake. And now instead of IM improving what we’re already working on, sometimes we just get back into that [00:17:00] mindset that, oh, I may lose this job.

[00:17:02] Chris Pagayon: Oh, or maybe they don’t like this idea. Maybe I should just keep it to myself and just work just work what I’m currently like, yes, 

[00:17:13] Kris Ward: that’s a big thing because we talk about that, right? In the hiring process. Look, we’re looking for a team, we’re looking to collaborate. And a lot of my clients say, oh my gosh, Kris, I feel like I actually have peers.

[00:17:22] Kris Ward: Like I have like my team, I come in and I have ideas, and they’ll shoot them down or say they do this, that I’m like, oh, I never thought of that. So I feel frankly like I’m the dumbest person in the room and I am okay with that, and that’s what I want for all my clients. And so when we teach you like, Hey, we want you to speak up, we wanna hear your ideas.

[00:17:40] Kris Ward: Now is every idea gonna be perfect? No. But even a, I don’t think there is such a thing as a bad idea, but let’s say even an idea we don’t use often, it’ll make you think of something else or an idea we don’t use. I would then explain to you, oh, Kris, we don’t do it that way because, and then you’ll learn something.

[00:17:55] Kris Ward: So either I learn something or you learn something, but I can see where [00:18:00] it’s I beat into you. You know what, keep your head down. Be invisible and keep this damn job. 

[00:18:05] Chris Pagayon: Yes. 

[00:18:06] Kris Ward: Yeah, 

[00:18:07] Chris Pagayon: because that’s exactly how you say it. ’cause it, it’s very scary, especially when you’ve gotten you’ve gotten used to being silenced and Yeah, just sharing ideas makes you I don’t even know how I can translate it, but there’s this saying.

[00:18:25] Chris Pagayon: In our language where you are doing too much. So on the job, if you’re like oversharing, if you’re sharing your ideas, you’ll you’re doing too much. 

[00:18:36] Kris Ward: You’re getting attention. Maybe what you’re doing is you’re getting noticed and it’s like sticking out like a sore thumb. That’s not a good thing.

[00:18:42] Kris Ward: Get your head down, you, your best version is to be invisible. 

[00:18:46] Chris Pagayon: Yes. Yeah. 

[00:18:48] Kris Ward: Oh my gosh. That’s a horrible way to live. And now it also helps me because. I can see the glimmers in people’s eyes, like our 12 point hiring process is pretty [00:19:00] intensive. And part of that I explain to people like, look, it’s different here.

[00:19:02] Kris Ward: And we give them information. We give you materials to read and videos to watch, and we give you like a couple podcasts like this to listen to and we’ll say, look, it’s a different game here. We need you to understand from that, right from the get go. This is not, put your head down and be a task master.

[00:19:17] Kris Ward: And then you can see them look like, oh, does she really mean that? Like, all right. And then they’re very cautious and then they’ll throw an idea out and then I’m like, oh yeah, okay, let’s do that. And they’re like, oh, okay. And, but you can see they’re treading so carefully and this ex, this makes so much sense to me now is like the whole concept.

[00:19:37] Kris Ward: Which is really interesting. I’m just really talking to myself at this point, but I talk all the time when people will say to me I had a VA and it worked really great for eight months, and then they were just gone. And I’m like, first of all, it wasn’t really great. You were probably burning them out.

[00:19:51] Kris Ward: They’re like, there’s a whole bunch of things behind the scenes that aren’t happening, that they’re not, that they’re not aware of that’s that were happening that they weren’t aware of. And then [00:20:00] secondly, if you’re coming to this game with the idea that you’re disposable. Then eventually you will be right, because everyone’s expecting that.

[00:20:09] Kris Ward: Oh, anyhow, those were not very profound thoughts. I’m just baffled by that concept. Okay. Alright. What are some other things you would want us to know? Because even though I’ve been doing this a long time with the virtual assistants, I treat people the way I treat them, and my objective is to get the best for my clients.

[00:20:26] Kris Ward: So it’s about them getting their time back. It’s about them falling back in love with their work and making more money, not having feast or famine. And the idea to serve them means to have amazing win team, a what is next team so they can get to what is next, right? So whether they have one VA or two or three, it doesn’t matter.

[00:20:44] Kris Ward: Team is a philosophy, not a number. So my whole incentive is to improve their lives. So even though I’ve been doing this a long time, every once in a while you guys tell me something about the other part of the VA world, and I find it freaking shocking that it’s really [00:21:00] so negative and abusive and controlling and you’re so disposable and discarded, that I can’t believe I even still to this day, I’m still shocked by the setup. So I guess, again, tell us some differences of what’s happening now versus how it used to be for you. 

[00:21:16] Chris Pagayon: Yeah. What I can say is that the monthly trainings that we have that really helps 

[00:21:22] Kris Ward: live trainings. Yeah. 

[00:21:23] Chris Pagayon: Because it, it helps us connect with you guys and it helps us feel more like we are, we’re in a team and it’s not. And at first I actually thought, oh, it’s gonna be a monthly meeting. Is this monthly evaluations? Are they gonna tell us monthly what to do or what not to do? But as, as it progresses, ’cause because I think it’s more than a year that we’re doing that, it’s just you always sharing or you always encouraging us to share, which is really great, and you’re always saying that I’m not a teacher.

[00:21:57] Chris Pagayon: Please feel free to speak out because [00:22:00] that’s what we’re used to, honestly, is to just sit back, just stay silent and listen and what you said earlier, it’s. I also see it in the new virtual assistants that are coming in monthly and there’s, they look very cautious.

[00:22:17] Chris Pagayon: They look very nervous. They look like I shouldn’t be speaking here. And when they do speak and you point out how good that idea was. There’s just this glimmer in their eye. And it and it’s really great to see. 

[00:22:32] Kris Ward: I think somebody said to me once, which I never take for, I never understood the depth of this, but they were, I think when I show up.

[00:22:40] Kris Ward: For a while we had Maura who’s on my team only doing the training and sometimes she’s still gonna do the training, but sometimes there’s stuff I need to train or I wanna talk to you guys about something, whatever. And the whole hierarchy, like the moment I show up, you all think you’re in trouble for something.

[00:22:53] Kris Ward: I’m like, what is going on? And even Maura said that we can’t have you in the meetings every time, Kris, because especially the new people, they [00:23:00] think of you show up ’cause they’re so used to that hierarchy. It. I don’t, I never in my life used the word boss, but when they’re new, they think I’m the boss.

[00:23:09] Kris Ward: And when you’ve had bosses in the past, so they assume when that boss role model whatever position shows up, somebody’s getting in trouble, right? And so they’re saying to me like, Kris, you can’t be in every live training ’cause you just, they all shut up and you show up. ’cause they assume, oh, here comes trouble.

[00:23:24] Kris Ward: I’m like, no, I’m just trying to have people talk to me. 

[00:23:28] Chris Pagayon: Yeah. 

[00:23:29] Kris Ward: Oh my gosh. 

[00:23:30] Chris Pagayon: That’s really valuable for us, especially because now we’re heal if that’s even a term, like we’re now healing that Yeah. That mindset that we have and like bosses or It is now it’s team leader. It’s not boss. Yeah, 

[00:23:45] Kris Ward: no

[00:23:46] Chris Pagayon: it’s client. And you may also notice that during team meet, during team meetings, most of the VAs refer to the term as client because again, yeah. 

[00:23:56] Kris Ward: Which I always stop. We are not, they’re not clients here. ’cause I say clients are temporary. [00:24:00] They may be my clients, but they’re your team leaders.

[00:24:02] Kris Ward: Because also when they’re done working with me, that’s another thing. If they’re like, okay, Kris, I’ve learned all I can from you, and they leave with you. There’s no, we’re all about building up independence. But yes, I always correct you guys, these are not clients. This is not temporary. This is your team leader. This is, this is a career. 

[00:24:19] Chris Pagayon: Yes. And yeah, the, it’s just really, it’s just a cycle that’s very hard to break for us. So I do understand why sometimes it still slips up and sometimes we’re still worried. But yeah, being here for a long time I don’t worry about that anymore as I used to before.

[00:24:38] Chris Pagayon: And now I’m just more focused about improving our business, like getting more sales, getting more reach, and losing a job? It’s not really something that’s in my mind these days. 

[00:24:51] Kris Ward: No, it shouldn’t be because like, oh my gosh, you’re a team leader, is so thankful for you. And if she wasn’t, I’d take you. There’s a hundred places I could put you.

[00:24:59] Kris Ward: All right. [00:25:00] I think what you’re saying, and we’re minimizing it, is you’ve been traumatized. Like you got post-traumatic stress disorder and there’s trauma there. And I think because I only, we only treat people the way we treat them. It never occurs to us that we have to undo your traumatic past oh my gosh.

[00:25:15] Kris Ward: Ah, this is so helpful, so much to learn. It just inspires me to do even more. Actually, I have an idea now. As soon as we, ah, we’ll make an announcement. I’m gonna talk to you about it first, Chris, and we’re gonna make an announcement and I’m gonna add it to the program. It’s gonna be pretty cool. Okay, Chris, thank you so much for your honesty.

[00:25:30] Kris Ward: It’s so helpful because again, what I really wanna tie this down to, even though you’re talking about corporations. We do this as small business owners pivoting, running around, dumping things on people, and then you’re coming at this knowing that, hey, okay, i’ve worked for a corporation. I’ve thought maybe there’d be more job security.

[00:25:47] Kris Ward: Then I work for a small business owner and they’re running all over the place, and because they’re following the corporate model. And doing all this stuff their employment or their income is feast and famine and then they lay me off or then they get [00:26:00] frustrated ’cause things aren’t happening as fast as they want.

[00:26:02] Kris Ward: You get churned up in the machine, whether it’s corporate or whether it’s small business owners. And it’s just different versions of the same thing. The small business owner may not be as organized and as punitive as the corporation, but they’re reactive and they’re following the SOP model and things are inconsistent.

[00:26:19] Kris Ward: And you feel stressed ’cause they’re stressed and they’re dumping on you. So you try to be invisible and they’re like, no, I want you to be a team player. And you’re like, yeah, but Monday you were cranky ’cause you were exhausted. You worked all weekend. I didn’t feel you’re going to hear me. And there’s no day-to-day leadership from your team leader, the small business owner.

[00:26:38] Kris Ward: So that’s the thing. This translates in all different sizes of business. This is, this comes down from the corporate model, but it’s rampant in the small business community. Would you agree? 

[00:26:47] Chris Pagayon: Yes I do agree. 

[00:26:49] Kris Ward: Yeah. Okay, everyone please share this show with a business buddy. There’s so much insight here and we just don’t want them learning from the same painful mistakes that we all had to experience. So [00:27:00] thank you again, Chris, so much and everyone else. We’ll see you in the next episode. 

[00:27:06] Chris Pagayon: Thank you.