Starting and growing a business can be incredibly fulfilling but can quickly overwhelm many owners.
Managing the increased complexity across all aspects of your operations becomes crucial as your business expands.
Not only will it help increase revenue, but also help you avoid stress, burnout and even potential resentment towards your customers.
So what can you do or set up, so you are better prepared to deal with these "growing pains" both in your professional and private life?
In today's episode, our guest Jessica Yarbrough and I talk about how to build or create systems that will support your professional and personal lives during times of growth. We explore where to start and what to expect from these support systems.
Jessica Yarbrough is a Business Strategist and Growth Expert. She quickly developed a reputation for being one of the best business strategists for coaches and consultants who want to sell and scale ultra-high-end services. Her background is in international business, and she has built multiple companies.
Jessica is a genius at showing entrepreneurs how to build an expert platform, rapidly raise their value, build credibility and attract high-paying clients. She loves teaching entrepreneurs how to grow their influence and make the income and impact they desire.
We discuss:
02:59 What is the biggest problem faced by clients when their business grows?
04:05 Are there commonalities in the "growing pains" experienced by those who seek help, and how do you prevent them from recurring?
10:02 What specific qualities or attributes do you seek when interviewing potential team members for your own company?
10:57 During interviews, how do you determine if a candidate may have loyalty or value issues that could impact your business?
12:35 Why is it important to have both internal and external systems to support the growth of a small business, and how do they aid owners in their private life?
18:01 How can business owners create systems and processes without sacrificing their personal lives?
20:39 Have you observed "unruly growth" in businesses as they expand, and is this what happened with this particular client?
22:08 What is the next actionable step to take in the next week or two if you want to establish effective internal and external systems in your professional and private life?
23:10 How do you identify high-value activities for your business, especially when it seems like all the tasks on your calendar are equally important?
Resources:
Jessica Yarbrough, Business Growth Strategist, and Growth Expert:
https://jessicayarbrough.com/
LinkedIn:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/jessicayarbrough-bizconsultant/
YouTube:
https://www.youtube.com/@jessicayarbrough
Kathy Svetina, Fractional CFO:
https://www.newcastlefinance.us/
Blog post | Building Professional and Personal Support Systems to Grow Your Business
https://www.newcastlefinance.us/post/building-professional-and-personal-support-systems-to-grow-your-business
Kathy (host):
Well, hello there, and welcome back to another episode of "Help, My Business is Growing Up" podcast. We explore how to grow into a business that is healthy and sustainable. I'm your host, Kathy Serotina.
Kathy (host):
"This used to be fun, but it's just not fun anymore" is a common phrase when people are overwhelmed in their business. Because starting a business can be exhilarating. It can allow you to create something unique and essentially be your own boss. But as your business grows and becomes more successful, it becomes more complex. And you may struggle to keep up with all the demands of clients, employees, investors, and everyone else involved in your business. You might also find yourself drowning in emails, phone calls, and to-do lists, without any clear way to prioritize your time or manage your workload.
Kathy (host):
So, how can you, as a business owner, overcome these challenges? And how do you build the systems needed to support this growth, both in your business and in your personal life? As a quick reminder, all the episodes on this podcast, including this one, come with timestamps for topics we discussed, and each one has its own blog post as well. You can find all the links and detailed topics in this episode's show notes.
Kathy (host):
My guest today is Jessica Yarborough. She is a growth expert who quickly developed a reputation for being one of the best business strategists for coaches and consultants who want to sell and scale ultra-high-end services. Her background is in international business, and she has built multiple companies. Jessica is a genius at showing entrepreneurs how to build an expert platform, rapidly raise their value, build credibility, and attract high-paying clients. She loves teaching entrepreneurs how to grow their influence and make the income and impact they desire. This is going to be a great episode. Join us.
Kathy (host):
Welcome to the show, Jessica.
Jessica (guest):
Thanks for having me.
Kathy (host):
I'm super excited to hear because we're going to be talking about something really interesting, and I think a lot of people are going to get a lot of value out of this. Because when people start their own businesses, usually they want more freedom. But as the business grows, everything gets more complex. That's nothing wrong with that. It's just an evolution of business, a natural thing. But what really matters is how you handle this. If you're building the structure to support this complexity, not just in the business, but also in your personal life as well, right?
Kathy (host):
So what I've heard a lot of my clients say is, "It used to be fun, but it's just not fun anymore." And I see this as an indication that their current systems, whether in the business or in their personal lives, are just not working anymore. I see that when things are not working operationally, it's not going to be long before it starts to be a problem financially, which is where I get worried.
Kathy (host):
So, what do you see with the clients that you work with? What is their biggest problem?
Jessica (guest):
That's a good question. I think the biggest thing, especially when people's growth gets bigger, is to make sure that your business model isn't set up where you're starting to resent it or where it feels like another job. Because I think every entrepreneur starts their business because they want the time freedom. They want to enjoy their life. And we all know that building a business is very hard work. So anybody who tells you it's not, as full of it. Run! You've got to roll up your sleeves and do the work. And those levels of freedom come when the revenue comes, right? Because then you have the ability to hire help and all of that.
Jessica (guest):
What happens, though, is sometimes people get stuck and they never get to that enjoyment place. So if you built a business that you feel exhausted, if you're feeling burnt out, if you're starting to resent it, if you're starting to resent your clients, those are all telltale signs that fundamental things have to happen either within the strategy, the business itself, or with how you are handling that stress in your life, the systems, etc. So you need to figure out where the source of that pain is coming from.
Kathy (host):
And when people come to you for that particular pain, do you see that there's a common thread between where they have gone wrong in the past? And what do you need to adjust to fix this in the future?
Jessica (guest):
Yeah, oftentimes, they're stuck at the center of the business, even if they have a team, they're still doing too many things. Yeah, they're still not delegating to their full potential. Many of them have a team, but it may not be the right people in place, so or it's the right people, and they're not focusing on the right activities. We may need to let someone go and hire another person. So there's usually some team issues, there's oftentimes some sense of control that they need to let go of as well in terms of micromanaging, and that is just going to exhaust you as the business owner. You have to learn to trust your people and build that team.
Jessica (guest):
But also, what happens is if the financial engine is not operating, and I know this is part of your wheelhouse as it should, then that's going to create strains because the cash flow is not flowing, or it's limited, or it's stagnant, or whatever it may be. And so there could be a pricing strategy. And one of the big things I help my clients with is pricing strategy because we need to generate more cash flow. And a lot of them are undercharging, severely undercharging because there's a lack of awareness of what the market is willing to pay, and then also some measure of imposter syndrome.
Jessica (guest):
So if the finance has to be addressed, then their time has to be addressed. Right? I had a client come to me who was making $700,000 a year. And literally, if someone came to them and said, "You're $100,000, I want to buy your top-level program," they could not take them on because they were that busy. So that's a problem as well. So we need to free up your time so that you can take on more clients. We need to make sure you're earning enough. We need to make sure you have the right systems and people in place so that you're not running all facets of the business, even if you are the business owner.
Kathy (host):
Pricing is such a big part of this. Because I don't know if you've noticed this too when you work with businesses, but the businesses that I've worked with, they always have what I would call a poverty mentality, where it's always, "But who would want to pay for this? Am I pricing too much? No one's gonna want to buy this." But the issue with that is that you're putting yourself in a position where you're judging your customers with the mentality of, "Would I want to pay for this?" versus "Would they want to pay for this?" Because what you're struggling with now might not be the same as what they're struggling with. So you don't see the value of your own products or your own service. And a lot of times when I'm having these conversations with my clients, I ask them, "What if we switch this around and say, maybe you're not actually charging enough?" And that's why you don't have as many clients or as many customers. It's because there's also this mentality that people always value stuff more when they see that the price is higher, right?
Jessica (guest):
100%. Well, you don't expect the cheapest to be the best, and you don't expect the best to be the cheapest. So who do you want to go after? I will tell you this, no one is going to volunteer to pay you more money. Even if you've got good clients, they're not going to say, "Oh, can I please pay you an extra $5000 per month or whatever it may be." And every single client that I've ever worked with, we've raised their prices, usually on average two to 4x. Sometimes, in some cases, 10x. And part of what I do is I help them have those difficult conversations. I put "difficult" in quotation marks because it's really not. It's their own inner stuff that we have to work through.
Jessica (guest):
And I will tell you that 90% of the response that they get is, "Yeah, I know, I've been getting a deal. I know you should be charging me way more." They know it, they know it. So if you're undercharging, that's an internal problem that you have to solve within yourself and get the confidence to charge more. You're going to keep attracting the same people, you're going to keep undervaluing yourself, and you're going to resent your clients. If you resent your clients, that's a path to burnout.
Kathy (host):
And the interesting spin on that is: there's one thing if the owner has an issue with that. But I think when it gets more complex is where you have salespeople who have the same issue, where they don't believe that the value that you're providing of the service or the product, whatever you're selling, is justifying the price that you want them to sell that.
Jessica (guest):
Get rid of those people. They do not belong on your team. I will tell you, when I'm looking at team members for my business, it's very important. I'm not looking for someone who's a crazy optimist and visionary. I'm definitely a visionary, but I cannot have pessimism in my business. I cannot have anyone who doubts the value we provide. My clients are in this place of possibility, and I'm in this place of possibility. It's rooted in strategy, not woo. It's very much rooted in strategy. But I cannot have pessimists in the business. So if you have frontline salespeople or anyone on your team who doesn't believe that you're able to raise your price if the value is not there, then you need to get rid of them because they will drag you down.
Kathy (host):
And they drag down not just the business, that particular deal or whatever you have, they will drag down all the team members and the rest of the business. It gets... it can get really, really hairy, really fast.
Jessica (guest):
Absolutely! You've got to have the right people, and I know that the people problem is the biggest issue to solve. And when I say the people problem, I'm talking about client delivery and team members, right? Even I have colleagues who have eight-figure businesses. They will say that's the biggest issue, right? Because we are complex as humans. We are having our own emotional stuff. We have a life outside of work. We have family and life and death and health and all these things happening. And then you have different personalities, values, culture—everything. And this all has to come together, and it can clash. So it does take time to find the right people, and you have to nurture them. You have to love on them, like I was talking about before we hit record, and treat them well. And they'll stay. But you've got to have the right people. It's just like a bad client—they can pull you under the water, that for your team as well?
Kathy (host):
When you are hiring for your own team members, is there any particular thing that you're looking for when you're interviewing people that could be potentially on your team?
Jessica (guest):
Personality, attitude, value system? We can teach skills. Obviously, there are certain applications where we need you to know specific skills. However, there are a few core ones. For example, my business uses a ton of apps. I don't expect candidates to know all of them, but they should have a grasp of the basic ones. Our project management app is essential, for example. But what I'm truly looking for is attitude. I want to see if their personality will mesh well with my other team members, if they'll be collaborative and communicative. I also consider shared values. Loyalty is a big value for me. I want people who are loyal to the business and can maintain confidentiality for our clients. So, I prioritize value systems, attitude, and personality even more than skill set in some cases.
Kathy (host):
Are there any particular things that you ask when you're interviewing them to gauge whether they might have a loyalty issue or a value issue that it's important to your business? How would you know that in an interview setting?
Jessica (guest):
We ask certain questions about how they handle different situations in the past or if certain situations come up. We want to know what they would do in those situations. My operations person handles most of the hiring process as she knows the business well. I conduct the final interview for alignment. We have deep dive interview questions and initial application questions that help us assess candidates. We specifically ask questions to see how they would handle certain situations, and their responses give us insights into their mindset. Sometimes, based on their responses in the application or interviews, we may reject candidates. We also rely on our intuition and whether we personally connect with them during the interview. Trusting our intuition plays a role in my final decision-making for the business.
Kathy (host):
I hate to say this, but a lot of that is also based on gut feeling as well. Yes, I've noticed that every single time because I've hired people in my own business. To have this inkling that something just might not be a good fit.
Jessica (guest):
Yes, you got to trust your gut, especially as women. I feel like we're really powerful, very intuitive. So you have to trust your gut and do that with everything. And then you have a trial. And I feel like, you know, within the first 30 days, if not sooner, if this person is going to work out. Are they getting it? That's important. Do they get it? Are they catching on? So we know pretty quickly whether they're going to be a fit or not.
Kathy (host):
We talked about the systems in the business that really support its growth. But since small businesses are so meshed with the private life of the owner as well, you talked about this before we started recording, and I thought this was interesting because you have said something that you have to have the internal and external systems. And yes, it really dawned on me that it's so, so true, especially when you're growing your business when you're a founder when you have the small business. Not having just support in the business, particularly from your operations person, salesperson, or marketing, whatever you have, but also people that are going to support that in your private life. So can we talk a little bit more about that?
Jessica (guest):
Absolutely. For anyone who is a parent and running a business, where do you feel overwhelmed? For some people, it might be laundry. I remember when laundry was overwhelming for me, so I outsourced it. As I shared before, we had a private chef for several years who would come in and cook meals for us a couple of nights a week. I actually rediscovered a passion for cooking, so I'm really enjoying it right now. But if I ever felt overwhelmed in that area, I would outsource it. Having someone come in and cook for your family or clean your house is a gift. We all know that if you have a home and children, you're constantly tidying and cleaning, but I'm talking about outsourcing deep cleaning. Do you really want to spend four hours of your weekend scrubbing toilets and showers, or is that something you can outsource? If you do a lot of shipping, do you have a personal assistant who can pick up dry cleaning or handle shipping for you? There are so many activities you can outsource if they don't bring you joy or if you find them overwhelming. If your joy is finding relief from stress by cleaning, then keep that. If your joy is cooking, then keep that. But for those things that are just part of life, you can outsource them.
Jessica (guest):
I would say part of that self-care piece is making sure you have either the people or the systems in place to take care of yourself. One of the things I've noticed with entrepreneurs is that one of the first things to go is their health. I know many successful entrepreneurs who grew their business but gained 100 pounds, had a heart attack, or ended up in divorce because they couldn't maintain strong relationships with their spouse. So where are you adding support in your life to ensure that you are staying healthy and that your family is staying intact? COVID brought the emergence of building out a home gym. Do you have a home gym? You can have a Peloton or the little exercise mirror called the Mirror. Are you putting the right food in your body? If you don't have time to grocery shop, use Instacart and have your food delivered. There are so many services available now. Make sure that you're taking care of yourself, putting the right foods in your body, and have systems in place to take care of your health as well.
Kathy (host):
And I still agree with that because I saw it as I was building this business for the first year or two. The focus was completely 100% on the business, and it messed up my sleeping schedule. I gained 40 pounds, and it was awful. But it's not just about the weight gain, it's more about the impact it has on your health. What I've noticed, particularly for myself, is how much I need and crave that boundary between work and home. Realizing this, I made the decision to get an office outside of my house. Even though I have a nice and great office in my house, for me, investing in an outside office has been a tremendous boost to my mental health and the overall success of the business. It provides the structure and support I need to be the best that I can be.
Jessica (guest):
And I've heard that a lot of people do that, and it can get blurred. So you have to be very disciplined. Well, you have to be very disciplined to work from home, even for those folks that are employed, right? Using that discipline and having a clearly defined work time or even a physical work location is key. Having set hours is something else I work with my clients on, helping them take back control of their calendar. I have a strict "I do not work Fridays" rule, even if my team needs something, they know to try not to bug me unless it's urgent. Of course, I'll step in when necessary, but I prioritize having that day off. I mentioned before that having five to six weeks of vacation is really important to me. So taking control, time blocking, and grouping activities together, like having dedicated coaching days, are really important. If you don't control your calendar, it will control you, and then it can start bleeding into your personal life, leading to feelings of resentment. Even if you're making good money, you don't want to be in a place where you're resenting your business.
Kathy (host):
I think a lot of people struggle with this because, and I know I've been on this journey too. When you listen to those podcasts, like the ones we've given with a lot of suggestions, you might say, "Well, this is all fine and dandy. I love this thing, but it just will not work in my brain right now. I'm completely 110% over capacity. My hair's on fire! I don't even have any idea how I can get lunch scheduled in." So, what do you think is the best way to at least get closer to what we're talking about? How can we move from, "Oh my god, my hair's on fire, I don't know what to do?"
Jessica (guest):
Raise your prices, cut your client workload in half. I've done it with so many clients who are completely overwhelmed. It's the only way you can scale, and it's the only way you're gonna— I've helped my clients literally cut their hours in half without even impacting their revenue. So, making the same amount, imagine if you can make the same amount of money and work half as many hours. Now you've got time, you can reclaim your health, and you've got additional time to then be able to actually grow the business and take on more clients.
Jessica (guest):
Pricing strategy is huge. Letting go of clients who aren't going to come along for the ride, making space for ones that are. The good news is, when you raise your prices, you're going to get more referrals from higher-caliber clients who are willing to pay you more. So, you have to make the changes if you're — and I've had a lot of people come to me with this — because in some ways, it's more challenging when you're successful, right? Because you are so busy, and time is where you're limited. But we have to alleviate that pain if you want to have your life back and ultimately grow the business. There is no scenario that we can't fix. I had a guy apply to work with me who was doing $800,000 or something a year, and when we looked at his numbers, his profit— this will kill you— it was like $60,000. And the guy was like, "I haven't had a vacation in years. I work 60-hour weeks." And I was like, "Listen, $100,000 in revenue and $60,000 in profit, you have a real problem here. And you know what? We can fix it."
Kathy (host):
So in that particular situation, was it just raising the prices that saw that or is it something else as well?
Jessica (guest):
Oh no, no. He had way too much overhead, too many employees, too many physical offices, and his expenses were out of control. So he had a real problem because we don't normally see that with my clients ever. Most of the clients who come to me have high revenue and typically high profit because coaching and consulting, in general, is a high-profit business. It's a lean business, which is a beautiful thing.
Kathy (host):
Yeah, and the nice thing about coaching and consulting is the flexibility. A) You do not need a lot of clients, so you do not need a lot of volume, especially if you have the prices set the right way. And really, when it comes to support, you're essentially "software" if you have some people, and you don't even have to have an office if you don't want to.
Jessica (guest):
Right, and you don't need a bunch of full-time staff either, which is what he had.
Kathy (host):
So, and I'm always curious when I'm looking at businesses like this, is this something I have noticed when businesses grow like this? Is there unruly growth? Essentially, I call this the duct tape problem because as the business grows, you have a lot more clients and you just throw in more people, throw in more stuff without really looking at how it's going to impact your profit and increase your costs. Was that the situation with this particular client?
Jessica (guest):
Yes, he absolutely had not looked at any of that, and I think he was just in a really exhausted situation, kind of shooting from the hip. But it definitely was a fundamental overhaul in his model that he needed.
Kathy (host):
Yeah. And I've seen that with the clients that I work as well, they're not in 800,000. But what gets really, really problematic is when your business is a couple of millions, and you are at 3 million, and now you have so much overhead that you don't need, right?
Jessica (guest):
And so, you've got to fix that. And there are areas in any business, whether it's hundreds of thousands or millions, where they are typically bleeding revenue. And we've got to fix that, plug holes.
Kathy (host):
Right, exactly. So Jessica, we talked about the internal and the external systems that you need to have in place. If someone's listening to this episode and there's, well, you gave us a lot of information. There has been a lot of good suggestions here. But where do I really even start? In the next, what can I do right now to get closer to where I need to be? Something actionable in the next week or two that people can do?
Jessica (guest):
Yeah, I'd say look at your calendar because that's the first thing you got to do, right? If you're in a state of overwhelm, you need to look at your calendar and see how you can make adjustments to your schedule. Here's the bottom line: grinding it out, we know doesn't work. They've done studies around this, like there is a certain point where your productivity is going to be cut in half. So you pulling 12-14 hour days is not going to get you closer to your goals. Like, you need to create structure and create a stopping point. And think about how I can be more intentional with my time and what is going to be the greatest return on energy and for the investment of my time. Like, how am I going to get the most output for the limited input that I can give to the business? And so, taking control of your calendar is key, focusing on those high-value activities. If you need to generate revenue, focus on revenue-generating activities to get the cash flow to hire the strategy or the support that you need to make your business more successful.
Kathy (host):
And how do you identify these high-value activities? Because sometimes when you look at your calendar, everything's valuable, and you know when everything's valuable, nothing's valuable.
Jessica (guest):
Well, what's the one that's going to impact your bottom line? That's what I look at. And that's the ones I'm gonna do. And so you can structure what is urgent, what impacts the business in the next 30-60-90 days, and what's something that's like a nice-to-have that I can put off for another year, especially if you already have solid systems in place. And you know, you could tweak them and optimize them all day long, but is that the best use of your time? It really depends on where you're at in your business and what you need right now.
Jessica (guest):
Because if what you need is more clients, then you need to focus on visibility. If you've got great clients, but the delivery is suffering, then that is going to be the greatest return on your energy right now, to fix delivery. If you've got clients who are dropping off and you're struggling with loyalty and retention, that's where you've got to focus. If you've got systems that are causing people to get mad or your leads are dropping off, then that's where you've got to focus your energy. So you need to look at what's going on in the business and what are the different engines of the business? Is it the marketing engine? Is it the sales engine? Is it the operations engine? Is it the client delivery engine? What needs to be fixed? Where does 80% of your time need to go right now? And then the rest, you can split that other 20% around.
Jessica (guest):
So when scaling a business, every level has different points where you're going to experience next-level growth and CEO growing pains. So where are you at right now? What is urgent that needs to be fixed? The big things, and fix it so that you're not constantly spending all your time putting out small fires but never really gaining any traction.
Kathy (host):
I like to think of it as if you're in a boat in a lake and it has a lot of holes. It's the boat. What, a sinking? You have to figure out where's the biggest, the biggest hole so that you can cover and then you can focus on the smaller ones.
Jessica (guest):
Exactly! You can't split your focus and try to do all the little ones at once because you're going to end up sinking. Exactly! Yeah, great analogy.
Kathy (host):
Thank you, Jessica. And thank you for being on the podcast. So please tell us where can people find you?
Jessica (guest):
Definitely, check me out at jessicayarborough.com. There are some great resources you can download. Hit me up on LinkedIn. I put out content every single day. Send me a message and let me know you heard me on the show.
Kathy (host):
Thank you so much, Jessica.
Jessica (guest):
Thanks for having me!
Kathy (host):
Thanks so much for joining us on today's episode, and I hope that you got some practical and actionable tips on how you can successfully build the systems that you need to support the continued growth of your business, not just in the business, but also in your personal life as well because they're very much related.
Kathy (host):
Also, if you love this episode, you can find all the timestamps, show notes, blog posts, and links on the website, newcastlefinance.us/podcast.
Kathy (host):
And before I go, I do have a favor to ask. If you are listening to this on Apple Podcasts, if you could please go to the show and tap the number of stars you think the show deserves because it helps other people find it and it gives us that very important Apple Podcasts algorithm love so you know people can actually find it.
Kathy (host):
Thanks so much. Until next time!
