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In order to scale your studio in profits and time, you need a great team.
To cultivate a great team we need to hire well. But that’s only the beginning. Creating a team requires us to equip, coach, and lead our team members to all they can be for business and for themselves and in order to do that - we need to meet with them. Often and intentionally.
Todays guest has a plethora of knowledge of creating stellar teams and coaching great business owners to lead their teams well.
Here are just a few of the topics we cover:
1. How to hold team meetings
2. How to get buy in from part time employees
3. What traits are in great team members
4. How to coach team members effectively
Hey you! The daring brick and mortar business owner, turning heads and owning the scene in your community. I'm here to salute your blood, sweat, and tears with a sassy nod to being a true Rebel Woman!
Hi, I'm Melissa Rose—mom, business owner, and your no-nonsense visibility coach. I've cracked the code to becoming the 'Only Option in Town,' and now, I'm spilling the beans on this podcast.Get ready for stories that'll light a fire, foolproof strategies that are hotter than your morning coffee, and practical tips to elevate your brick and mortar empire.
This ain't your grandma's podcast. It's a rollercoaster of realness, grit, and glam, custom-made for you, the badass business owner. So, buckle up, Rebel Women, because we're about to turn your business into the talk of the town! Now, let’s get real!
Mellisa: Hey There, studio owner! You've put your blood, sweat and tears into creating a Brick and Mortar business that serves your clients and impacts the community you love. You are my hero! And I'm pretty sure we could sit down and talk like besties do because I get it. I've had my studio business for over twelve years, a handful of kids, and a few passion projects that I love, like this one. Hey there, I'm Melissa Rose, your visibility coach for the studio owner who wants more stellar clients coming through their doors, more bank in their bank account, and more time to hang out and be completely present with those they love most. In this podcast, we're going to share the nitty-gritty of running a successful studio business, sharing stories, talking strategy, and learning practical tips that leave you inspired, empowered, and equipped to create your epic life every single day. So, if you're a dance studio, yoga studio, pilates studio, or a fitness boutique studio, you are in the right place. Add some kiddos into the mix and maybe a life partner and I call you a rebel woman, ready to dive in? Let's get real!
Mellisa: Today's episode is all about team meetings. Do you do them? Do you do them well? Do you do them consistently? Well, We're going to learn how to be effective, and efficient, and empower our team to lead well. I'm so excited for you to hear our guest expert today. Let's Get Real!
Mellisa: Hey there everybody. Welcome back to another episode of Brick and Mortar Visibility for studio owners. I am excited to talk to you guys today, all about teams. Actually, we have a guest expert on, Shelli Warren from Stacking Your Team Podcast. I know Shelli. Actually, I have listened to Shelli for many years. I remember when the Stacking Your Team Podcast started and I was one of the first listeners to dive into all the content that was created and works with Natalie Eckdahl who runs the Biz Chix Podcast. So I know this organization well and I am super excited for you to learn from Shelli. Before we dive in, I just want to say a special welcome to all of you that are new. This is a podcast dedicated to Brick and Mortar Visibility for studio owners who want to grow and scale and be the only option in town for their industry. As a studio owner myself for over twelve years, I want other studio owners to grow and scale so that they can truly feel that time freedom that they so deserve. And I want you to live your epic life every single day. And in order to do that, we need a team. We need a stellar back office team, and we need a stellar front-of-house team. And we talk about that today with Shelli and what is needed for each of those people and how to best communicate to our back office team as well as our front-of-house team and how to make sure that we are being approachable, making the time and making the impact that we want to have with our team. So this podcast is going to be jam-packed. I even get some coaching myself, which I just so appreciate because we can always learn and grow and be better. So, without further ado, I want you to grab a notebook and pencil or maybe save this episode to listen to again, because there are some nuggets in here that I know I will go back to and go, yes, I want to add that now into my drumbeat of meetings for my team. And if you like today's podcast, I invite you to take a screenshot of this and shout it out on your social media tagging Shelli Warren and myself, Brick and Mortar Visibility. That way we can see you and say thank you to you personally. All right, everybody, without further ado, I invite you to sit back and soak in all the knowledge from the beautiful, brilliant and classy Shelli Warren.
Mellisa: Well, Shelli Warren, I am just tickled pink to have you on the podcast because I have listened to you for years. And when I went and coached with Natalie, with Biz Chix, I loved that program. And that was partly because of you because I knew that you were part of that. But when I started listening to you from the very beginning, when you launched your podcast from the very beginning.
Shelli: Oh My Gosh!
Mellisa: And then I started my podcast in 2020, and then there was just this, like, list of people that, wouldn't be cool if Shelli Warren was on the podcast. So thank you. You're coming on the podcast here to the Brick and Mortar Visibility, and I'm super excited to have you. So I want people to hear who you are and what you do and who you serve because you have quite a resume. So give us the cliff notes of who you are.
Shelli: Well, first of all, I'm so happy to be here. I have a big heart for service-based businesses. I live in a small town, smaller town, but we're right in the middle of the Golden Triangle, right between Toronto, Montreal and Ottawa, which is our nation's capital. So we're right there along the river. I can literally see the US from my office. We have two international bridges, and we're known as the City of 1000 Islands. There are actually 1800 islands along our river that leads to the Great Lakes. So we're in an incredible position in terms of the location we are, in Canada. But for me, I spent over 25 years leading technical teams at Proctor&Gamble, which had a large manufacturing site here in my hometown. You can imagine how that impacted commerce in our area and just the livelihood of people that live here. So I had a wonderful career with them. And I like to say that I'm having a second wonderful career with Biz Chix. And so I am a team and leadership coach, and I coach other service-based women-owned business owners who really are those women who have decided that they want to be that entrepreneur that's having an impact in her local community. Now, I also work with women that have remote team members and remote businesses that are expanding their region to other provinces and states. But generally, the women that I work with are incredibly well known in their local community because they have this incredible impact on the lives and the community itself. So it's wonderful to be able to help them grow their businesses and definitely become the leader that their business and their team need them to be.
Mellisa: Yeah. So the reason Shelli is going to be on this podcast is because she has such depth and knowledge in leading teams. As she said, she's a leadership coach. And we wanted to talk about team meetings because personally, this is a struggle for me. I've been the sole person in my business for nine out of twelve years, right? So I've done it myself. And that was super intentional. And then when you have to let go a little bit and realize, okay, we can't really grow unless we have a team. And then when we have to let go and trust, but then also just to not micromanage them, but also be consistent in that team effort and how we do those team meetings, and I would value your expertise on how to do that. We're going to talk a little bit about the different levels with studio owners here. We have a back-office team that doesn't really see or impact the front line, so to speak. And then we have our teachers, our educators, or the facilitators. If you're a physical therapist's office, you have your PTs with people talking to them, the different team level shift or meetings and how those are run and how often do we do them? So I am just going to have you dive in and I will ask questions as you bring something to the table here.
Shelli: Absolutely. I am an open book. You can ask me absolutely anything. So it's wonderful when you have a business owner that has reached a point in your business where she understands that in order to scale and not work as many hours as she has been, she really needs to get some help in the business. And you're exactly right. We have two different kinds of help that comes in to grow any service-based business. You have the back office, the admin team, and all of the wonderful things that they do in order to on board and then take care of all of your clients that are coming, you know pay, billing, all those kinds of things. But then we have what we like to call those front-facing team members, those team members that are right there touching, holding, serving those clients and being those instructors, those facilitators, those incredible teachers that are sharing your philosophies and your standards and being incredibly compliant to what you need to provide in terms of the industry that you're in. But at the same point, those individuals are really bringing a fresh flavour to your business. So, yes, they're following the methodologies and the protocols that you've set out for them, but they're also putting their own little spin on it, which can be very delightful for your clients because what's happening here is the client gets to see two different styles, similar outcomes and absolutely similar gains, but it's the two different styles that can make the experience more wonderful for that client. So those individuals that are playing those roles in your business, we really need to make sure that we have what I like to call 'touch points' set up so that there are conversations that take place on a drumbeat, meaning it's predictable, there's a rhythm to those 'touch points'. And those instructors, those teachers, those facilitators, those therapists, those experts really understand when's the next time I'm going to see Melissa? When's the next time I can bring some ideas to her or I can have her help me solve the problem or I can just share with her what I'm excited about, or a client when that I want to make sure she's aware of. So having those touch points, which don't always have to be meetings, 'touch points' can be incredibly effective as conversations that take place on the way out of your place of work or your Brick and Mortar on the way out to the car. I have had some of the most incredible impactful conversations with my team members back in my corporate days, literally on the way from my desk to our car because geographically it was a huge site. And so they would watch to see me leave and then they would leave with me and kind of like time it so that the two of us could walk out and have a great conversation along the way. And so it's really knowing that these people are incredibly important to your business and we need to provide them those moments of time where we've got that eye contact, our ears are open, our hearts are open, and our egos are aside, to be there to serve those individuals. So having those conversations with people, whether it's a set drumbeat set-up for specific team meetings, or if it's moments that you have as you're going through and doing your normal shutdown procedures in your studio, or you're doing your normal startup procedures in your studio, it's finding those moments of time where those individuals feel that you're 100% connected and there for them.
Mellisa: I love that you say that because that gives me a little bit of grace because I'm like, okay, I'm not necessarily having that 'meeting'. We're having this meeting like, we have a big meeting at the top of the year and then probably mid-year and then end of the year. And when I say a year, that's the season for a studio. So like a nine-month thing. But I do because after listening to you about making that 'touch point' intentional, where they need to see that we are not distracted with our computer or that I'm genuinely standing there, and for me, that's hard. It's hard not to think about other things. Okay, I'm on the computer and okay, you have class. Great job. No, we're shutting it down and we're looking at them, and we're being intentional about okay, I'm thinking about the next ten minutes to just check in with them personally and professionally. Like, if you know they're seeing a boyfriend or how's the boyfriend going, and then that usually leads to something else that then I can bring it back to the studio of what we saw was good and not. So I love that. Thank you. That permission to have that 'touch point' consistently and just marking that in our calendar, when is that for that person? It may not work in our schedule to always meet with them after that class, but maybe I can meet with them, and touch base with them in the middle of the week or something like that.
Shelli: Yeah, it's really about letting them know that this is their time with you. Now, in addition, you want to be able to have those formal conversations. And maybe what I like to see, especially for a business owner like you that have team members that are almost like two ships that pass in the night. So you've got people that are coming in to run programming and classes for you in the evening or in the morning when you may personally, physically may not be there. But there's a way to serve those individuals by pulling out your calendar and saying, okay, I'm going to do lunches with my top-tier instructors or my top-tier facilitators, I'm going to do lunches with them once a quarter. Let's map those out. And that would be a full hour with a time that fits you and them. And you're taking them out for lunch. They're your guest. It's not a potluck situation or a brown bag situation. You're taking them out to lunch to somewhere that has an atmosphere where you can have a great conversation. And so what's happening in those moments, you're really doing two things. One, you're acknowledging their contribution to the business, and you're pulling them out of the atmosphere that they normally work in, which can really spark a lot of creativity. And then also you're reducing those distractions of a student running up to them or a peer running up to them, or a parent, that can get you sucked into a conversation. So you're away at this location where you're serving them. You're literally serving them. You're buying them lunch, you're paying for them. You're bringing them to the dining area where you're sitting down, and then you're opening a conversation all about them. There's not a person on this planet that wouldn't appreciate that type of moment with their leader in a frequency that they can have something to look forward to. So then what happens is they can really collect a couple of ideas, a couple of concerns, a couple of questions where they can come up with some juicy dialogue to have with you because they know that they're going to be meeting with you in two weeks for lunch.
Mellisa: And I've taken your advice with that too, and done that with my leadership team. And not only has it just been lovely for all the reasons you just said, but as a business owner, it just steps up the mindset of 'I am a business owner', and doing that and giving them that opportunity, plus, just to connect as humans, not just as a business, but just a human, like talking about kids and a little bit of the personal stuff, because they genuinely, my leadership team genuinely do not see each other. We all work virtually, which is great, so we don't physically see each other because we each have our roles and it's wonderful and they're efficient and do the job really well. So they love those little lunches that we do quarterly because it's so fun to connect and then get on the team page. Now, I want to ask you, my biggest thing is I want my team to get invested or take ownership. That is my biggest, I think, headache, and I say that very loosely because I have a great team. But what would you recommend or how do you recommend team members, especially those that maybe don't have as many hours in the studio, for example? I would love to have another program started, I would love to have a performance line, or we don't do competitions, but people say, Why don't you? I said, well if somebody wants to head it up, they can have it. I don't want to, and it's not the big things, but they'll come to me with ideas and I'll say, okay! And then I kind of give it back to them, like, do you have the capacity? And it doesn't go anywhere. But even for smaller things, how would you recommend people get or advise people to take ownership of projects so that it doesn't fall back on my plate?
Shelli: Yeah, well, it's a common thing, Melissa, when we create this atmosphere where the leader is open to hearing these ideas, oftentimes what your team members hear is, I can go to her with a half-baked idea, but what we really want is team members to come to us with a full-baked idea where they've sat and thought about the rationale behind why they're suggesting this idea. So what we can do is you can do this through just creating a video for them or a Loom video that's going to get shared across your team, but what you're wanting to do is take a moment to teach people that one, you're very open to hear their ideas and you want to hear their ideas. And having ideas that come into fruition is how they are seen as highly valued people, right? So, yes, they've all come to you with anchor skills. So if you've hired specific instructors because they have expertise within a specific genre of dance or fitness or wellbeing, so you've hired them from that. Those are anchor skills, then you need to move them over into what we call cross-training skills. And I know you've done this where you've got instructors that if this person is sick, this next person can go in and teach that class because they have crossover skills and expertise. But what we want to get them to do next is these value-added skills. So these are the skills where people who have an incredible impact on your business already also have curiosities about growing the business or closing a gap in the marketplace that they witnessed or they may have students or parents even asking them for. So how do we get people to think about those value-added skills? That's when you, as the leader of your business, can educate the team on. I really am interested in hearing what you have for ideas and I'll be even more interested when you come up with the rationale of why you want to present me with this idea. So you can say to them, coming and giving me an idea and then just lobbing it onto my lap is not going to help us execute it thoughtfully. What we need to do is have the idea and then be ready to come to me and tell me why you think this would work. How is this idea going to impact the business or impact the experience that our clients have? And how is this linked to our brand and what we're known for? Because it's one thing for someone to come to you and say, I think we should offer a camp on break dancing because break dancing is going to become an Olympic sport. It's going to be recognized as an Olympic sport, which always impacts parents. Parents want their kids to be able to have these experiences. And then, of course, we have children that suddenly that didn't even know what breakdancing was, but because they thought it on the Olympics, this is their dream now. So the idea might be, hey, we should start offering a camp every quarter to offer breakdancing basic, intermediate, advanced. And that's a wonderful idea, but it's not enough of an idea in order for that business owner to really say, okay, I'm going to set aside resources, meaning time, energy and money to make this happen. We need to map this idea out. So what we want our team members to do is to come up with their version of what that outline would look like. And it doesn't need to be 100% correct, but what we're looking for is evidence that they've thought about it. And even to the point where I would be looking for someone who had even a broader idea of how do we create some awareness for these camps? Do we run just an all-out dance, like an open call for dancers in the area to come? And we're going to offer some sort of almost like you would do at a music venue where you'd have an open mic or an open jam. Let's have an open dance-off and anyone can come and just whatever their love or type of dance that they have. But it's really about how are they thinking about these ideas? Because as a business owner, we can't take every idea and bring it to life. You just can't. What we have to do is look at the ideas that link to our strategic plan, complement our brand, and close the gap in the marketplace. That's really what we want to focus on. It's those three things. So we want our leadership team members or we want even our part-time summer instructors and facilitators, we want them to have a wonderful experience too. And so let's not write them off because one of those part-time instructors could really spearhead a camp if it was their idea or if they even wanted to collaborate with the original person that had the idea. Let's think about who are the best people to really bring this idea to life. But it's not the CEO. This is what I'm getting at. It's not the CEO. We want to create this team environment where team members can have an idea, put a plan in place and then execute it and then have it benefit themselves personally because it feels like such worthwhile work. And then also benefit their own reputation, their own value-added skills. And then, of course, it adds value to the business through additional revenue.
Mellisa: I love that because it is it's usually half-baked ideas coming to you like, you should do this.
Shelli: Yes, and half-baked ideas are better than no idea.
Mellisa: Exactly.
Shelli: But as the owner of the business, you need to practice turning the person around and sending them back into their creative zone and then come back with you. So we can do that through 'touch points', so you can even state to them, "You've got me intrigued, now! This sounds like a compelling idea. Why not go and map out what some of those details would be? Let's look at cost, let's look at where we fit this program into our existing program. Let's look at this seasonally. Like, when would this be? When will the timing be perfect to line up leading up to the Olympics? You go think about all those things and then I see on our calendar we have a one-to-one set for this date. How about when you come back, we'll really dive into this conversation?"
Mellisa: Very good. Love it. Can we just go back to the nuts and bolts of a stellar meeting? Like, what makes a stellar meeting for everybody? Like, do you have an acronym or do you have a time frame? Do you have a map? Like, help me do this. Help me do this really well, Shelli.
Shelli: Well, the best meetings are the ones that actually get something done.
Mellisa: Yes!
Shelli: Like, they're the best. And it doesn't matter how long they are. It can be ten minutes. And you can solve a problem, make a decision, forecast a plan, align with an idea, or give someone the responsibility to move forward. It's not about the time. It's about the intention of the meeting. And the other thing that makes a great meeting is only having people there that really should be there. It's so annoying when you're invited to attend meetings and you get there and you think to yourself, why am I here? Because I really should be doing this instead. Or, They've got this. They don't need me here for this. So one of the things that we do in the leadership lab, one of the very first things we do is reduce our CEO's hours of work incredibly. That's the one thing that we do first. Secondly, we reduce the number of meetings that they attend. And we do that by creating 'touch points' on a drumbeat and then ensuring that there's an owner for those 'touch points'. So what it really means is we look at the meetings that she's going to today and we get incredibly clear on whether or not she really needs to be there. Because oftentimes CEOs don't realize this, but they can actually derail a meeting, just by being there. Literally, just by being there. The meeting is now off the rails, and it's not anything she's purposely doing. Sometimes it's just the vibe. All of a sudden she's there. And if you don't have a lot of trust with your team members or you don't see them very often, all of a sudden they're like, they're almost like military, standing rigid! Their creativity is shut down, and they're more concerned about what you think of them or how they act or what they say. And typically, they just want to get out of that meeting. And that's not the kind of meetings that we want to have. We want to have meetings that get something done and there's an intention for it and the right people are there. And then we try and make them as short as possible. So I like to start at half an hour meetings, and then we get so good at it, they actually come down to 20 minutes and then 15 minutes. And we can do that by having an agenda. And people have to request to be on the agenda because you're going to have standard items on the agenda, and if someone wants to add something, they need to request that. Or you can do what I like to do is, like, a round-robin at the end where it's like a two-minute update. So people have two minutes to ask a question or share an update, and that's it. Two minutes or less.
Mellisa: Love it.
Shelli: So when we're going to have these meetings? We don't need a lot of meetings, but we need the right kind of meetings. So if we look at your business, yourself, Melissa, you have a leadership team, and I think I heard, you said there's a quarterly checkpoint planned for them?
Mellisa: That's the goal. It's at least three times a year. Yeah!
Shelli: And that's more of a bigger gathering?
Mellisa: That is! That's like a 90 minutes meeting. This is where we're going for the year, and this is how we're going to get there. And how do you see?
Shelli: Yeah, it's like a state of the business review?
Mellisa: Exactly. State of the business plan review. Yeah!
Shelli: Yeah, and that is so impactful. Every single person on your team sees the value in hearing that information from you. It's not secondhand information. There's no speculation. People aren't wishing, dreaming, and hoping. It's factual information that you're coming out to tell them, hey, here's the state of the business, here's where we are, here's where we're going, here's how we're going to close the gap. Here are our major projects, here are the major focus areas that we have this quarter. All those things are wonderful. So I'm happy to hear that you're doing that because that is incredibly important in order to set direction and to make sure that people are aligned with you. The other thing you could do is you could set a one-to-one with every one of those leadership team members. So how many leadership team members do you have?
Mellisa: I have three, and I meet with a team quarterly, the leadership team, quarterly. But then I meet with 2 of them individually, and I do like, a six-month review individually, and that's like a 30-minute call.
Shelli: Nice!
Mellisa: And then I talk to them weekly through Voxer, and that's just the to-dos. They have their stuff, but then the questions or whatever. And then at the end of the month, I give that leadership team just a quick snapshot of how the month went financially.
Shelli: Nice. Nice. So what you could do is you could ask those three individuals, do you want to meet more than every six months? They might want to do it more of a quarter. Ask them that. But then here's the doozy, though, Melissa. Here's where we're going to change people's attitudes about these meetings. So oftentimes in a leadership role or any role, really, people come to meetings almost like they're waiting to be served. Like it's like, oh, I'm on vacation. I'm off the clock for the next 30 minutes or the next 90 minutes. I'm here to attend this meeting. But what we want them, the attitude we want them to come with is, hey, can't wait to get to this meeting. Because I want to hear about this. I want to learn about this, and I want to share this. And how we can get people to share more is by giving them a component of the agenda to lead themselves. So when they know, hey, this portion of the agenda you're leading! There's a whole different stance that goes with that. Now they know that they have to come prepared. They have to bring information, they have to bring ideas, and they have to give updates on where we are at with this, what's our plan moving forward, and what looks like help to me. They need to come and truly participate. So when you're having these meetings, oftentimes CEOs get overwhelmed with meetings simply because they're trying to lead every meeting, when in reality, they don't have to be at every meeting. And the meetings that they are at, they should never be leading the whole meeting unless it's one of those annual reviews, like the one-time fully extended team, you're coming to serve that entire team. And even with those types of meetings, I would still have some key people on your team that have key ownership areas for the business, to take over the mic for portions of that as well.
Mellisa: Very cool. Perfect! And what about then with the faculty, the teachers, the educators that are 1 to 5 hours a week, the 'touch point' I'll do? The onboarding is very intense. But then from there on, like a 90-day review with them and just like 30-minute, it's usually less than that. This is awesome. This is what could be a little bit better. And then from there on, it's 'touch points'? Unless it's that like the top of the year big, hey, this is what's going on. But I feel like, I don't want to say it's right or wrong. I just say for me and my team, that seems to be working as long as I have the ability to create the space for the 'touch points' because those are huge. Because those are like you said, it's the walk to the car or it's like talking in the lobby a little bit after class or before class and touching base with them. But any tips there?
Mellisa: Well, if it's a new faculty member so this is someone who's never worked alongside you before, I would be cautioning you on that 30 days because sorry, that 90 days. Because if there's a problem, it could take you 90 days to find out about it. Or is it going to take you 90 days to give that faculty member some quality feedback? We wouldn't want to wait 90 days now.
Mellisa: No, No!
Shelli: We want to make sure that we're having 'touch points' along that way. But having a 90-day review I think is perfect. That's exactly what you want to do. It's a formal conversation with them, letting them know what's working, and what's not working, using my favourite tool, 'The Start, Stop, Continue' feedback framework. Right? You want to tell them I need you to start doing this, and here's why. I need you to stop doing this, and here's why, and I need you to continue to do this, and here's why. You really want to be able to use that framework when you're having these conversations. But those faculty members, because they're having a short amount of time at your studio. But man, when they're there, they have a lot of impact and they have a lot of influence. We really want to make sure that they're feeling like they're part of the team, that they don't feel like an afterthought or they don't feel like one of those casual part-time employees that really don't have a say. And people are only watching them at first to make sure that they're good enough, and then they kind of, like, split from them. We want to make sure that they feel like they are an integral part of the business and that they're having some of your time. I would look for ways for them to even get on your calendar. Like giving them a link or your assistant's email address for them to be able to reach out to and say. Hey. I'm looking for an opportunity in the next couple of weeks to talk to Melissa about this idea that I have. Or I'm struggling with this particular part of the program, with this particular class, I know these are repeat students, just wondering, I wanted to talk to Melissa or maybe even some of the other instructors to see if this class traditionally always had a slow ramp up with the new program. But just being able to ask those questions, I think can really help them feel like they're being seen and heard.
Mellisa: Seen and heard. That is huge. And I'm very intentional with the onboarding with the way I teach is pretty intense. Two weeks of observing, and when I say weeks, it's like two class periods. So if you teach classes, then two weeks co-teaching, and then two weeks I observed. So that's like a six-week training of, like, seeing how this is going. So it's a test for both of us before we really launch into working together and during that, I try to be very, like, this is how we communicate, and I'm available. But I love love, love the link, like, give them that scheduling link to get on your calendar at any time. Please use this if it's more than just a five-minute, like, chat, whatever. I love that!
Mellisa: Because you don't want them feeling like they're sitting on ice with the problem!
Mellisa: No!
Shelli: You want them to know that you're available to them. But I really encourage our clients that I work with to really pull back on this open-door policy, because I know it sounds like a wonderful thing. Oh, no, I have an open-door policy. But what you're really saying is you can come and interrupt me anytime, and that's not helpful for any CEO that's leading an established well-run business. What you want to do is have your team members become self-sufficient using a system or tool to get quality time with you. So what you're saying is, here's my link to book some time, and I'd be happy to meet with you when you have that booked, instead of having this swinging door of 'you got a minute?', 'got a minute?', 'got a minute?' Because you can have a whole day full of 'got a minute?'s, and you go home at the end of your day feeling depleted. Your team feels great because you ended up serving them and putting on all these fires all day long, but you didn't get anything done that you wanted to get focused on. And then you're also teaching them. You don't realize this, but what you're teaching them is, got a problem? Come give it to me, I'll solve it for you. And that's not how we create a self-sufficient team.
Mellisa: Ask three before me! I love that one, though, that somebody told me years ago.
Shelli: Yes! Yes!
Mellisa: I just want to touch on this. Do you use this at all for being seen and heard? Not everybody has, like, I use the five love languages. I have them tell me their five love languages so that I know as a business owner how they receive love. And when I say receive love, I'm motivated by words of affirmation. I'm motivated by my pay. And so many people are not motivated by pay. I can't tell you, like, when they don't even cash their check, I'm like, what? I don't know. However, a $5 gift card to Starbucks, they're like gaga over it. So I pay attention to that when I bring them on board and just go, she's my gift person. Okay? But I am intentional about paying attention to that because not everybody is motivated the same way. And just to love on them and make sure I'm hitting them where they need it.
Shelli: It's so true. You're being very thoughtful, and that's what everyone wants. Everyone really wants to be able to be seen and heard in a way that's meaningful to them. However, I think we also have to dial that back somewhat because this is a professional setting. They're in the professional world, and there's not always going to be a leader that's going to hold your hand through every aspect of growing a career. So, yes, you may have people that would prefer to send their questions to you via email versus speak them out loud in a team meeting. That may be their preference, but we need to stretch our team members as well. I mean, let's face it, every CEO out there has been stretched, especially in the last few years. So part of what our role is to be able to acknowledge that's their preference, but understand that I can't uphold that preference 100% of the time. So there will be times where I will be stretching you, and even though you prefer to 'Slack' me or 'Voxer' me your questions. If we're already having an existing conversation in a team room, I'm going to expect you to raise your hand and share the question or the concern that you have, versus creating rework by going and sharing your question or concern on Slack or Voxer after the team meeting. Because now I thought the conversation was close. I thought we had solved it. I thought we had named who was responsible to go and really close the loop on that, but yet you're coming in later, restarting the conversation, and that is just not helpful. Not helpful to me, not helpful to you, and not helpful to the whole team.
Mellisa: Exactly. So many things and my mind is like 'we could go here', 'we could go there', but here we are, we're already plenty of time in. If you guys want to learn more about leading a team and being an amazing CEO, please go check out Shelli Warren with Stacking Your Team. She's connected with the Biz Chix organization, and she is just lovely. Shelli Warren, thank you so much for your time today. It has been a joy to have you on the Brick and Mortar Visibility podcast. Are there any last words of wisdom that you would like to share with our audience?
Shelli: Well, I would love to have you come and join me every Tuesday, a new episode airs on the Stack Your Team Podcast, and you're already podcast fans because you're tuning into Melissa's podcast every week. But the one thing that I would remind you is that you are all geniuses in what you do, that you have been the beacon of light. You have been the lighthouse that has attracted all of these people to come and want to learn from you and work alongside you. You probably didn't go to school or have work experience that helped you become a leader of people or a leader of a profit centre, so stop beating yourself up about that. We can't be wonderful in every single thing that we do. What we need to do is find others who can help us grow those skills. And that's why you're following Melissa for sure. And I invite you to follow the Stack Your Team Podcast if you want help in learning how to lead people.
Mellisa: Thank you so much, Shelli. It was good to have you.
Shelli: Thank you, Melissa.
Mellisa: Awesome. All right, everybody, go check out Stack Your Team with Shelli Warren, and we will see you here same time same place next week. Peace. Bye-bye.
Mellisa: Oh, my gosh, you're still here. You are such a rebel woman. I have to meet you. Come on over to the Rebel Women Tribe on Facebook created for Brick and Mortar Business owners just like you. In this group, we empower, encourage, and support each other. And every week I come in and share with you a tip, tool or strategy that I'm learning in my Brick and Mortar Business to help you and yours. And you guys, this is the real stuff, the nitty-gritty in real-time of what's going on. So come on over to the Rebel Women Tribe on Facebook. I can't wait to meet you.