How Multitasking Scares The Money Away with Connie S. Falls | PoP 714

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A photo of Connie S. Falls is captured. Connie has created hundreds of businesses for clients and consulted over 3,500 clients over the years. Connie S. Falls is featured on Practice of the Practice, a therapist podcast.

Is your business totally dependent on you doing everything? Can you build your business to be sustainable without you? Why is documentation a direct link to scaling success?

In this podcast episode, LaToya Smith speaks with Connie S. Falls about how multitasking scares the money away and how to create sustainable systems.

Podcast Sponsor: BiOptimizers

 

The last two years have been crazy. We’ve never experienced anything like it in our lifetimes. We never experienced such an effect on our mental wellbeing. Unfortunately, a lot of us have been beaten down by anxiety, stress, and poor sleep due to all the uncertainty in the world. And if you’re a working parent, you’ve had the extra difficulty of keeping your kids occupied 24/7 while trying to work from home… not an easy task. So if you feel exhausted and burnt out, you’re not alone. There are tens of thousands of people in a similar place right now. The question is, what can we do to enhance our mental wellness and recapture our zest for life?

One critical thing I’m advising all of my family and friends to do is take Magnesium Breakthrough daily. Here’s why…

Stress and anxiety deplete your magnesium levels. Low magnesium levels then contribute to more anxiety! It’s a vicious cycle. By supplementing with Magnesium Breakthrough, you can break that cycle. Because you’ll be getting 7 unique forms of organic full-spectrum magnesium for stress relief and better sleep, all in one bottle. Taking Magnesium Breakthrough will help you to experience: more energy, stronger bones, healthy blood pressure, less irritability, a calmer mood, reduced muscle cramping, even fewer migraines. And because it supports mental wellness, Magnesium Breakthrough can help you to finally feel yourself again. Simply take two capsules before you go to bed and you’ll be amazed by the improvements in your mood and energy levels. And how much more rested you feel when you wake up!

For an exclusive offer for my listeners go to magbreakthrough.com/practice and use practice during checkout to save 10% and get free shipping.

Meet Connie S. Falls

A photo of Connie S. Falls is captured. She has spent the last 14 years creating the Operational Documentation that allows you to Create Sustainable Generational Wealth. Connie is featured on the Practice of the Practice, a therapist podcast.

Connie S. Falls — the “S” is for SYSTEMS — has spent the last 14 years creating the Operational Documentation that allows you to Create Sustainable Generational Wealth. That includes policies, processes, procedures, onboarding, workflows and all of the foundational documents your business needs.

Connie has created hundreds of businesses for clients and consulted over 3,500 clients over the years. She’s written $100,000,000 programs for Dell, business plans for over 50 different industries and built partnerships with oil & energy companies in Africa, to motivational speakers in Alaska.

With her first book “Scrambled Eggs: The Must Have Playbook for Organizing an Entrepreneurs Brain”, and Systems in a Day Workshop, Connie has been able to help thousands of CEO’s prepare for the journey of having systematized businesses!

Visit Connie S. Falls’ website and connect with her on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Youtube, and LinkedIn.

In This Podcast

  • Write it all down
  • Be honest with yourself
  • How multitasking scares the money away
  • Handling the finances of delegation
  • Connie’s advice to private practitioners

Write it all down

The very first step to reorganizing your business, restructuring your systems, and getting your priorities straight is to write everything down.

Businesses don’t have emotions, they only have tasks. It’s only a list of things that have to be done. So when you [feel] overwhelmed, the business doesn’t feel overwhelmed, the business just needs more processes in place to scale. (Connie S. Falls)

Remove the emotions from business and focus on the tasks that need to be done.

  • Write down everything that needs to happen within the business to make it run smoothly and scale successfully
  • Write out exactly how you want things to be done
  • Label which of these tasks you can delegate out and create systems for
  • Only focus on what you need to focus on as the CEO

Be honest with yourself

You need to be honest with yourself about what you can do, and what you need help doing.

If you think you can do everything well, then you are either not prioritizing your time or you are close to burn-out.

Do not be nervous to delegate, because there are capable people out there who can assist you.

How multitasking scares the money away

Multitasking scares the money away … because guess what, there is no way you can give 100% to four different things, because that’s 400%, and there is only 100%. (Connie S. Falls)

You cannot do everything, and if you try to, then you are costing yourself precious energy and costing your business (and clients) precious money and time.

There is no clear balance in life, only priority, so prioritize what you need to do (and a little bit of what you want to do) and then document the rest to delegate it out.

Once you understand what your role is and you know exactly what’s under your job description, I only do what’s under my job description. And guess what, my team has permission to put me back in my place when I overstep my boundaries into their jobs. (Connie S. Falls)

Handling the finances of delegation

Many people are doubtful to delegate because they think that they do not have the financial capacity to hire and pay for a team.

However, the fact is that it is often a spending problem, not a budgeting problem.

I’m not telling everybody to go out and live in poverty but what I am saying is don’t make excuses. (Connie S. Falls)

Look at your finances – which daily habits and spending activities in your personal life is your business funding? Can you curb some unnecessary expenses for the sake of building your business?

Connie’s advice to private practitioners

Make your business sustainable so that it can continue to grow and exist without you.

Books mentioned in this episode:

Useful Links mentioned in this episode:

Check out these additional resources:

Meet Joe Sanok

A photo of Joe Sanok is displayed. Joe, private practice consultant, offers helpful advice for group practice owners to grow their private practice. His therapist podcast, Practice of the Practice, offers this advice.

Joe Sanok helps counselors to create thriving practices that are the envy of other counselors. He has helped counselors to grow their businesses by 50-500% and is proud of all the private practice owners that are growing their income, influence, and impact on the world. Click here to explore consulting with Joe.

Thanks For Listening!

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Podcast Transcription

[LATOYA SMITH]
Welcome to the Practice of the Practice podcast, episode number 714.

Hey, welcome back to the Practice of the Practice podcast. Again, this is LaToya Smith, a consultant here at Practice of the Practice. I am doing another podcast takeover and today my guest is miss Connie Falls. The S and her name Connie S Falls is for systems. Connie has spent the last 14 years creating the operational documentation that allows you to create sustainable generational wealth. This includes policies, processes, procedures, onboarding workflows, and all the foundational documents you need for your practice. I’m excited to have Connie on. Connie, thank you so much and welcome to the Practice of the Practice podcast.
[CONNIE FALLS]
Thank you so much for having me.
[LATOYA]
Yes, I’m excited. As I was sharing with you before we started recording I often when I do these, when I’m grateful, I have the opportunity to do these podcast takeovers, I’ll often reach out to people I may know, or people I see through social media. I just see you out here doing big things on social media itself, and I want to get to that, what I see, but also, I just want you to talk about you and your business. So tell us a little bit about what it is that you do.
[CONNIE]
I am Connie S Falls in the S is for systems. I actually spent the last 15 years creating operational systems. So operational systems are all of that wonderful, beautiful, boring stuff that actually keeps the business operating: that’s all of the workflows, standard operating procedures, policies, and processes. It’s all the boring documentation that allows you to have a sustainable business. For me, this journey started off with my struggles with ADHD and understanding that in order to make my personal life feel fulfilled, I had to figure out a way to sustain myself first, before my business. That means understanding which tasks needed to be completed first, whether it’s cleaning the house, cleaning my daughter’s room and just making sure that overall mental health was okay because I had the personal struggles, it also played off into my business of understanding what tasks needed to be prioritized. It’s one of the biggest struggles with those with ADHD is understanding which things get done first. So I’ve been able to relate my personal or into my business and made it successful for the last 15 years.
[LATOYA]
Well, that’s really good. Thank you for sharing that too, just that portion. Even before you said, okay, so I guess you’ve dealt with ADHD for a long time and I imagine it was pretty frustrating and getting stuck, just like people would do in business if they don’t have systems in place. What was that like? Just understanding, because, like I shared with you before, admin is not my strength and sometimes I get caught up like what you were saying and just the whole list or things to do. Maybe we could speak to a little bit of that, even the emotion that goes into it for business owners or just for people listening, just what that space feels like. Would you say it was like years before you even created these systems or even when starting business, what was that like for you without the systems?
[CONNIE]
ADHD has been, that’s been my thing since I was young. So I was the kid that had all the Ritalin and where you were overwhelmed, and then it turned you into a zombie and you just can’t get anything done at all. So understanding how that affected my entire life with ADHD it made it hard to prioritize tasks. So by the time I started my business, those same personal issues were falling over into my business. If I had a task to get done, either I would get overwhelmed and I just wouldn’t do it. You’d fall into the analysis paralysis part, or you’d have so many things to do that you just wouldn’t do anything at all. That’s where the overwhelm and the anxiety comes in place.

It wasn’t until I really acknowledged how my personal life was affecting the business side that I said I have to take these same systems that I have personally and put them in place in my business. And it’s a funny struggle because what I literally do for a living is put systems in processes in place for other people but I hadn’t done it for my own business. It’s like the shoemaker that doesn’t have any shoes or you go and see your hair stylists and your hair stylist’s hair looks crazy, but she can make yours look amazing. You’ve seen that before. So, because that’s just the part of human nature is to take care of other people before yourself, just like when you think about on planes, they tell you, hey, hey, hey, before you put on anybody else’s mask, please put on your own. Please don’t die in the middle of trying to help everybody else because you don’t have enough oxygen.

That’s what happens in our businesses. So I was like I’m being real hypocritical right now and not putting systems in place for myself the same way I do for everybody else. I literally stopped my entire business and I started documenting my own processes. I didn’t take on any more clients and I said, there is a way that you do every single thing that you do in your business and just like you tell everybody else, if you don’t document how that happens, you’ll be stuck behind your laptop for the rest of your life. You’ll die behind your laptop, trying to save everybody else from drowning and not saving your own business as well.
[LATOYA]
That’s a great point. I love that. So you said that, okay, I had to pick the pause button of what I was doing and create some systems, but help me understand too, how’d you even decide like, systems is what I want to do, knowing that you were overwhelmed with the systems? Is this something that’s been in your heart or?
[CONNIE]
Yes, no because I love to tell people what to do and I love to tell them in the order that it needs to be done. Because I knew my internal struggles, it made it easier to look at somebody else when they had a problem and say, oh yes, well, if you just did this, this, and this, it will solve everything. And guess what it would. If you just did all these things that I’m not doing for myself, you would be great. I’m over here in my ADHD paralysis so I can’t move, but I could definitely have enough energy to tell you what to do. And if you just did what I told you would be fine. So I had to take the mirror and put it in front of me and say, you have to do these exact same things that you tell everybody else to do for yourself.
[LATOYA]
Yes, that’s real. That’s a real answer. Listen, I like to tell people what to do and I know how to put things in order, but then, after a while you realize, I got to take this medicine for myself.
[CONNIE]
I mean, let me be clear. I do have my background education wise. I have a degree in business develop in business management. I have a master’s degree in organizational management. So education wise, I’m trained to do this. I enjoy it. I love the operational side of business period, so it’s not just like I came out of nowhere and I’m just a bossy chick, I just want to tell folks to do. This is where my education comes from, but how it applies in business and where my own personal struggles came in place is me knowing that it’s hard. I would be paralyzed some days where I couldn’t do anything for my myself, but I can get up out of the bed and I could do it for you. That’s when I started realizing, look, you have to take these same efforts you put in everybody else and put them into yourself as well.
[LATOYA]
Then what was that, how long was that process like for you, when you hit the pause button, stopped taking on new clients and really looked at the systems in your business?
[CONNIE]
It took me six months. It took me six months to stop everything that I was doing and literally just focus on my business. This is something that I suggest everyone does at some point. Now I do it ritually quarterly. I do an entrepreneur think week and I take off and I just focus on me. I just focus on what my team needs, I just focus on updating our own internal systems because we’ll throw ourselves to the wayside trying to help the world. I realized that by doing that, I’m doing myself a disservice. I’m the one that’s carrying my laptop around all the time and nobody else has to because I put systems in place for everybody else, but not for myself. So it took me about six months to stop everything and get it moving. The reason, everybody has their aha moment, was my daughter asking me, did I love my business more than I loved her?
[LATOYA]
Oh, wow.
[CONNIE]
On that day, as I’m sitting with my laptop on my lap and my phone in my hand and her looking and pointing at it, and she’s only four or five years old at the time I realized that I was putting all my focus into the business, in the name of entrepreneurship, hustling grind. I want to make all this money so that way she never has to live the life that I did. She never has to go through poverty. She never has to decide between if you’re going to feed your family or you’re going to put gas in the car to get to work. She’s never going to have these same issues that I did. So I just worked and grinded and hustled myself into not paying the attention that she needed.

Yes, I’m a stay-at-home mom. Yes, I get to go to all the PTA meetings. Yes, I know all the kids in her class, names and I take cupcakes and they love me but I was a financial phenomenon, but I was a family failure. So when she asked me that I literally shut everything down in my business, I let go of some of my, I don’t want to say needier, but clients that required more of my physical time and presence and I shut everything down. I was like, I’m going to focus on putting systems in place like I do for everybody else for my business, because I never want that little girl to feel like that again.

I didn’t create this business to take time away from my family. I created it to create more freedom and time, but because I didn’t have internal systems for myself, I let that time get away from me and it affected my family. So on that day is when I made the decision. My goal is that nobody else has to make that decision in their family because some people are forgetting their family, they’re forgetting their spouse, they’re not spending time with their friends. They’re not giving mental health any time. All of these things are just as important as your business. So my goal is for everybody to have the operational systems in place so that way we have genuine time to enjoy our life the way that we created in the first place.
[LATOYA]
That’s just, you just said a whole lot right there and that just stopped me in my tracks, like even your daughters say that or just understanding you make some great points. Like we pour so much into business that we lose ourselves or we don’t give ourselves out to other areas that really need us. You know what I mean, our family, our mental health, our physical health. A lot of that, like you’re saying is because systems aren’t in place. Or even for my myself, when I get overwhelmed and really, really stressed, something’s not right. Things aren’t lining up. So maybe we can talk about what those first steps look like, because, listen, I’m the person, I can speak for myself. I hopefully our listeners will know too. I like to think more forward and vision and I can think big picture, but I get overwhelmed when it comes to admin and systems. I’ll just be honest. So even when you say the things you went to school for, I’m like, man, I couldn’t imagine I could do something like that. So what are the first steps when it comes to systems? Somebody says, okay, listen, here I go. I need to get my stuff in order. What does that even look like?
[CONNIE]
Writing it down. I know it sounds simple, but that’s the reality. Business doesn’t have emotions. Business only has tasks, so it’s only a list of things that have to be done. When you think of, oh my God, I feel overwhelmed, business doesn’t feel overwhelmed. Business just needs more processes in place to scale. So if we remove all the emotions out of business and we only focus on the tasks that need to be done, then we know what tasks needs to be documented, so it can be delegated, so that way you can focus on what you’re supposed to focus on as a CEO.

Let’s use some real life examples. For me, I know the impact that I have by being able to be on podcasts or go and speak or do one on one. I know the impact that that has on my clients, in the community. If all of my energy and time is spent sending emails, trying to create copy, trying to get on camera and create some little tire graphics because my graphic is not going to be good because I’m not a graphic designer by any means. But if I focus my energy on trying to do these tasks, I’m taking away from the time of what I’m supposed to be doing and what I’m actually called to do. So if I was required, part of my job description, as a CEO said, hey CEO, you’re supposed to be making camera graphics. That means right now, instead of being on this call with you and talking to your community, I would be on my computer making some dusty graphics.

No, there are other people that know how to make graphics way better than me. That’s what they’re called to do. But how do I articulate what I need done if I’ve never documented what I need? So me being able to write down and say, hey, I’m looking for, I need a logo design or I need a copywriter that knows how to take and translate my interviews over into copy, to be able to send out an emails, emails that inform my community of what I have to offer and that creates sales and income from my family. If I’m focused on camera graphics, I can’t talk to you. So my first thing is find something that you’re not good at, but still needs to happen in your business to move it forward.

Then I need you to write down how you want it done and then I need you to delegate it to somebody else, delegate meaning higher, delegate meaning that if you have somebody on your team that that’s their gifting, that that’s something that should be on their job description and you don’t do it. So things that are, so that’s tasks. Now let’s think about the decisions that you make in your business because as a CEO, your mind, all of your time as an owner should be only focused on impacted income. How do I impact my community and how do I generate more income for the business to be able to grow and scale?

If I’m making camera graphics, I ain’t got time to think. If I’m up here writing an email copy, I don’t have time to think about what the next thing is. I don’t have time to create projections on where financially I should be so I can tie the amount of money that I want to tie. So we have to find those tasks that we’re not good at, document them and then delegate them to somebody who does have that time, who is gifted in grace to be able to do whatever that task is.

The easiest way that I found when it comes to our new clients that are coming in is by saying, tell us, we start at the top, what does your business, who does your business need? We figure out what the job descriptions are, what do they need to do? Then we’re able to say, okay, here’s the standard operating procedures that match those job descriptions. How does that affect the other people in the business? Then we create workflows, but it’s one thing at a time. So you start with finding one thing you’re not good at, one thing that still needs to happen and you document and then delegate it.
[LATOYA]
That sounds like a whole honest discussion with self too, because a lot of times we think we really good at something when we are not.
[CONNIE]
Oh, let me tell you, yes, that’s a real conversation you got to have with yourself first, before you get have with anybody else. Because here’s what happens, especially when you’re looking at minority owned companies. You come culturally from a space of saying I can do everything myself. I don’t need anybody to do it. I can multi-task. Multi-tasking scares the money away because guess what, why you’re trying to do, there’s no way you can give 100% to four different things because that’s 400%. There is only 100%. So whether, and because there’s also no balance in business, there’s no balance in life, period. It’s only priority.

So how do you choose what is the priority? You choose it based off of impact and income. So if I know that my daughter requires a hundred percent of my attention and so does my business, there’s no balance in that because that’s 200%. So being able to be realistic and say, okay, I’m her only mother, but there is somebody else that knows how to run Instagram ads. There is somebody else that knows how to create copy that I need to put on this website. There is somebody else that knows how to create email funnels. Let me document how I want this stuff done so I can delegate them so I could be a hundred percent a mom
[BiOptimizers]
The last two years have been crazy. We’ve never experienced anything like it in our lifetimes. We never experienced such an effect on our mental wellbeing. Unfortunately, a lot of us have been beaten down by anxiety, stress, and poor sleep due to all the uncertainty in the world, let alone our clients. If you’re a working parent, you’ve had the extra difficulty of keeping your kids occupied 24/7 while trying to work from home, not an easy task. So if you’re feeling exhausted and burned out, you’re not alone. There are tens of thousands of people in a similar place right now. The question is what can we do to enhance our mental wellness and recapture our zest for life?

One critical thing that I’m advising all my family and friends to do is to take Magnesium Breakthrough daily and here’s why; stress and anxiety deplete your magnesium levels and low magnesium levels contribute to more anxiety. It’s a vicious cycle. By supplementing with Magnesium Breakthrough, you can break that cycle because you’re getting seven unique forms of organic full spectrum, magnesium for stress relief and better sleep all in one bottle. Taking Magnesium Breakthrough will help you experience more energy, stronger bones, healthy blood pressure, less irritability, a calmer mood, reduced muscle cramping, even fewer migraines. Because it supports mental wellness, Magnesium Breakthrough can help you finally feel yourself again. Simply take two capsules before you go to bed and you’ll be amazed by the improvements in your mood and energy levels and how much more rested you feel when you wake up. For an exclusive offer for my listeners, go to magbreakthrough.com/practice and use [PRACTICE] during checkout to save 10% and get free shipping.
[LATOYA SMITH]
That’s a good, like you said, multi-task and scares the money away because you can’t give everything out. I noticed too, as the business grows, the practice grows, ideally, especially the owners should be seeing less people to put towards the systems or scaling, like you just said. But even multitasking, even as after just growing, scaling, whatever, that takes away from even how present we can be with our clients, how present we can be in the moment because our thoughts are always someplace else. So I think even multitasking scares the money away. You can look like multitasking can scare the clients away, which is in turn, obviously we’re putting clients first, but that’s heavy.
[CONNIE]
Yes. Look at the medical field. There’s a reason that there’s nurses. There’s a reason why there’s assistants. There’s a reason why there’s admin that sits behind the desk because a doctor can’t do it all. If you want me to focus a hundred percent, if I’m a neurosurgeon, but you also want me to schedule the calendar, you want me to manage my calendar? You want me to do brain surgery? You want me to do both of them? I can’t.
[LATOYA]
Sometimes you’re going to say, I’m going to need brain surgery.
[CONNIE]
What do you want to give hundred percent to ma’am, brain surgery or make sure that this calendar is organized? I can only do one of those things a hundred percent. So you find other people to fill in the blanks that you can’t do it. All right, neurosurgeon, I only want you to come in this room when we have already prepared every single thing in here so when you come in, all you got to do is pick up your tools and go to work. That’s it. That’s why there’s aides, assistants, all these nurses and everybody that’s around to make sure when you come in, you can only do one thing. My only job in my company, I have two titles, I’m the CEO because I’m the owner.

I’m a lead business development consultant. That means that my only daily job is to make sure we’re bringing in more clients, that we’re vetting them, that we’re taking them through a qualification process. That is my job description in this company. So if I still got to make these little tired camera graphics, it means it’s taking away time. You won’t be mad about camera because everybody thinks that they had a graphic designer, honey, because camera gave you some template. If I’m supposed to be out here talking to new people, building relationships, if I’m supposed to be at these networking events, shaking babies and kissing hands or whatever direction that goes, I cannot do that if I got my laptop in my hand.

Oh, hold on, wait, there’s a new post I need to put up really quick. I’m not a social media manager. Honey, that ain’t what I’m supposed to do. I’m supposed to be building relationships. I am not supposed to be designing graphics. So once you understand what your role is and you know exactly what’s under your job description, I only do what’s under my job description, and guess what? My team has permission to put me back in my place when I overstep my boundaries into their jobs.
[LATOYA]
What about the people who start and like you said, okay, maybe the bud, you just said a minute ago, especially for certain populations, the finances may not be there off the start. Like I know when I started my business, I didn’t have all the finances. What about if somebody who’s on like a lower budget or is bringing in money, but their expenses, they still got to live. They still have a family. What if they don’t have the money to delegate for somebody else? Do we drop that? Do we keep doing it? What would you recommend?
[CONNIE]
One, I want people to be really honest about their budget because here, let me tell you what happened LaToya? Let me tell you what I do. Every time somebody says, I just can’t afford it. I just can’t. How do you want me to hire a team, Connie? I can’t delegate to these people. I don’t have any money. Guess what I do, LaToya, I go to their Instagram page, guess what’s on that Instagram page. They got brand new Lace front wig. They got designs on their nails. They got a Chanel purse. Where do you get a Chanel bag from ma’am? That is $13,000. You can hire 14 people from the Philippines with six months for $13,000.

You telling me that you driving in a brand-new car, but you can’t handle a team. You telling me that I see you in The Bahamas on a yacht, turned up with a Gucci belt on and you telling me you can’t afford to bring somebody onto your team to help create more impact and income and do what God called you to do. Yes, you don’t have a budget problem. You have a spending problem. You have a priority problem because guess who ate subway sandwiches for a long time to make sure that my team was paid out because I knew that they would bring in more income and impact into this company.

I’m not telling everybody to go out and go live in poverty. What I am saying is don’t make excuses. I’ll give you a real-life example when it comes to numbers ready? All right, so I have a virtual assistant that I pay $25 an hour or two. She creates email funnels, email funnels create income for me. It takes her two hours to create everything that goes along with that email funnel. So two hours, times $25 is $50. Let’s say I’m a CEO and I pay myself $150 an hour, but it takes me six hours to do it. It takes me six hours to the same thing at $150 an hour. So that means that’s $600 worth of my time versus me paying $50 to somebody who that’s their skill.

You can’t tell me you don’t have $50 if I see you with a Lace front wig. You can’t tell me you don’t have $50 if I see you out at the club with a hookah. You can’t tell me you don’t have $50 and you got a Gucci purse. We will fight. This is why I say people don’t have a problem with the budget. Don’t tell me you can’t afford it. You could afford something. How you get to The Bahamas? I know you didn’t walk there. You had to get on a plane. You tell them you couldn’t forego that little pleasurable trip until you could afford to bring somebody onto your team to help build your business that you, oh my God. I’m an entrepreneur. Really? Are you though? What have you sacrificed to make sure that you’re able to create generational wealth? Because there’s no generational wealth without generational documentation.
[LATOYA]
That’s good.
[CONNIE]
For those that are just starting out, you better evaluate your income. Go and look at your bank statement, go look and see what that money is spending. I just talked to one of my friends he realized he spent $48,000 last year eating out.
[LATOYA]
48,000?
[CONNIE]
48,000. Now, granted he makes millions of dollars a year. He definitely makes money but I’m saying that to say, when I said, man, you need to take some mental health time and just take a vacation, man, I can’t afford it. You can take a month off of eating out. So these things, and it can be something small. It may not be that you got a Gucci belt. It could be that you like coffee. You want to go to Starbucks every morning.
[LATOYA]
That’s me. I don’t do Starbucks though, but that’s me.
[CONNIE]
So let me get my calculator out. The amount of time and gas and energy that you spend sitting in a drive through to get an $8 coffee plus tax and tip, now you done spent $10 a day. That’s five days a week. You spent $50 a week, times 52 weeks in a year. That’s $2,600 in a year you spent on coffee. I have a virtual assistant who manages all of my calendars that I also pay $5 an hour or two. I pay her $2,600 a year. You tell them you can’t hire somebody and you drink coffee every day?
[LATOYA]
Yes. So it’s another real look within ourselves too, like our budget, what’s really going on. Then also scrub the, either change the budget or scrub the Instagram page before we start working so you won’t see, well, I don’t have a Gucci bag.
[CONNIE]
I’m talking about you. Let us scrub it, get the water there because here’s what happens. We make excuses for ourselves and then that rolls over into our business. Then we get upset when our business doesn’t fail and people aren’t supporting us and oh my family, they don’t support. Your family see your business practices. They see what you’re doing and then you get upset when they don’t support you. No, they see what you’re doing out here in these streets and they don’t support it. You can’t be upset about that. Then even once they do, that’s only a few people, even if you have a hundred people in your family, there’s billions of people in this world. So you have to make sure you have the right processes in place in order to grow and scale the company past just your mama and your uncles and your cousins buying your stuff. Go ahead. I’m sorry.
[LATOYA]
No, no, you’re fine. This is good. This is real good. So tell us who your clients are now, is there way, tell us about the ways that practice owners, whether it be single practice, they have a group practice or trying to grow or scale, get their systems in place, how can people connect with you to do this work, to get the systems right, you and your team?
[CONNIE]
Well, one, I want them to evaluate where you are right now. If you are in the startup space and you’re like, hey, this is really cool, I know I need operational systems in place I just don’t know where to start, I have an eBook for that. That wouldn’t qualify for our one-on-one services. Our one-on-one done-for-you service is for those that are established and have established processes that you know that work. So if you have a practice you’ve been in business for some years, you have a team and you’re looking to make sure that your team has a peaceful professional environment with documented processes and you’re in the space being ready to scale, which means you’re ready to grow and not just grow financially, but also grow team wise, if you’re looking to franchise, which means you’re looking to duplicate your processes, but you can’t duplicate anything that’s not documented.

If you’re looking to have investors come in investors to your business, the first thing they want to see are your financials. The second thing they want to see is your operational playbook. How does this business work? Because the only way that we can scale is through the operational systems that have been documented. So if you’re in any one of those three categories, then you just go to conniefalls.com. There’s a “Contact us” form at the bottom. That gives you a chance to fill out a little bit of information and we can contact you and get on the phone. For our done-for-you, where we work together, we build out your operational systems. It is a qualification process. We only take on 48 clients a year and we do this because we know how much time it takes to create custom standard operating procedures.

Because it doesn’t matter how many practices I have come in. They could all be doing, it could be five physical therapy offices, all five have different processes. There may be similar policies because you have a governing body that you report to. But as far as how you run, how they say as for me in my household, that’s all custom. It takes time. It literally takes us three months to create custom standard operating procedures for all of our clients. We work with those that are in the six figures and up space because you’re starting to move out of the startups space. But we really want folks that are looking to build a team because that team is who’s going to actually execute what we create and we want to make sure that they have a good work environment.

Many of us have worked in corporate and we hated it because we ended up being micromanaged. You ever have a manager that’s just all over your shoulder, all the time asking did you do this? Did you get this done? Chances are it’s because they didn’t have the documented processes and or they didn’t train you properly to prepare you for the job. Many of us create these businesses and we just start and then we go try and explain y’all you got to do is just do this. If you just do this, you’ll be fine. Then whoever you hired just does that and you are like, well, why you didn’t think about the next step? Well, you didn’t tell me the next day. Well, you don’t have common sense. Well, common sense and common documentation is, common sense is an emotion. Common sense is something your grandma told you about.

Business doesn’t have common sense. Business has policies and if it’s not documented, it doesn’t exist. So all of these unemotional parts of business, if you’re looking to grow, you have to have that part of it. Common sense? No, you need policies. Telling people what to do verbally and just pointing around and say, do this, do this, do this, no, you need standard operating procedures. All of this goes into your operational systems. That’s what creates a sustainable business that’s prepared to scale.
[LATOYA]
Woo. This is good. I’m taking notes. That’s one thing I will do. I will pull out a journal and I will write some notes. So I know I’m talking to you, listening to you, but you really dropped some stuff even I know that I need to take back, take away, even when it comes to scaling and having things in place and wanting to go to a different level. Again, like I said, I’m more vision, but I know I need to back up some and I know for fact, I need to back up some and work on more of the systems because like you said, there’s no generational wealth without generational documentation. Even with trying to leave legacy, systems go into that. Then for those who aren’t ready for the done-for-you said, where can they find your eBook? What’s the name of the eBook so everybody knows?
[CONNIE]
The eBook is called Scrambled Eggs: A Must Have Playbook for Organizing an Entrepreneur’s Brain. That’s really what it does. It teaches you how to get your mind organized so that way you’re prepared to start documenting and creating operational systems. You can go to tiredofworkingsohard.com. Yes, because I know y’all tired of working so hard. Aren’t you tired of explaining yourself and working so hard? I already know because I am. So if you’re tired of working so hard, go tiredofworkingsohard.com and you could grab my eBook from there.
[LATOYA]
Okay. Then Connie, thank you so much for this interview. Thank you so much for man, because, like I said, I learned a lot. I’m not just saying that. I really did and I feel like we was in some of my stuff along the way. So I got to go back and fix my systems soon but what’s something you want to leave for the therapists that are listening, mental health therapists that are listening, practice owners either just starting out, maybe they have a big group practice making over six gland or a million dollar practice but just don’t feel like their systems are there? What’s that one key piece you want to leave with everybody to let them know that systems are important and getting them in place is possible?
[CONNIE]
Especially for those that are in mental health and when you’re having practices that are serving the community and especially where we are right now, we’re coming out of a pandemic. Everybody is emotionally off. We’re recognizing how important self-care is. Even understanding the importance of therapy, the amount of effort and time and education you spent to be able to create a practice that serves the community, that serves people where they are please, please don’t let this business fall apart because you haven’t created operational systems for it to sustain after you’re gone. You’ve worked way too hard. I’ve seen people that have gone through years and years and decades of education to create something that falls apart as soon as they get sick, that falls apart as soon as they get a divorce and emotionally, they can’t handle it, that falls apart when they pass away.

The reason why it fails, the reason why it falls apart is because they never documented anything and they kept it all in their head. When you’re talking about mental health, the whole purpose of you being there is to help people get things out of their head. My whole purpose of being here is helping you to get your business tasks out of your head, get it documented, so that way it’s sustainable without you, because for the amount of problems and issues that you hear from everybody else around this world, every single day, you have practices that are built around listening to other people’s problems.

The fact that you aren’t able to take a vacation and focus on your own mental health, because you feel like you’re the only person that can run that office is going to cause you to need your own therapist. So I implore you while you’re out here working so hard to serve and help everybody else that you’re making sure you’re creating a business that’s going to be sustainable to help people for years. When I look at businesses, I don’t look at them for today. Today is great. I need you to be here 20 years from now and the only way you can do that is by creating operational systems.
[LATOYA]
Awesome. Well, thank you so much, Connie for being a guest here on my podcast, takeover series. I do appreciate you giving your time and your tips. Like Connie mentioned, make sure that, if you want that eBook go to tiredofworkingsohard.com and you can download the eBook there. Also, if you are ready for the one-to-one done-for-you services, go to conniefalls.com. And you can check the show notes for both of those links. Everybody, have a blessed day and I’ll chat with you soon.
[JOE]
Thank you so much for listening today. We could not do this show without our sponsors and today’s sponsor is Magnesium Breakthrough. I was skeptical to have a supplement company come on, but I tried the product, we met with them, we talked with them. We talked through how they think through things. What I love about Magnesium Breakthrough is that you get seven unique forms of organic full spectrum magnesium that helps you with stress relief and better sleep. I’m all about the good sleep. Being a single dad got to have good sleep. So for the exclusive offer for my listeners, just go to magbreakthrough.com/practice. You can use [PRACTICE] as your checkout code to get 10% off and get free shipping.

Thanks so much for letting me into your ears and into your brain. Have a great day. I’ll talk to you soon.

Special thanks to the band Silence is Sexy for that music.

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