In this episode, Tiffany-Ann Bottcher, seasoned entrepreneur and host of the Service Based Business Society podcast, takes the mic to share her expertise in managing service-based businesses. With a focus on balance, trust, and strategic decision-making, Tiffany-Ann offers invaluable insights into the challenges and opportunities of entrepreneurship.
This episode explores the delicate balance required in managing a service-based business, delving into key decisions around hiring, delegation, and filtering external advice. Tiffany-Ann emphasizes the importance of trusting your processes while maintaining measurable outcomes and aligning external guidance with personal business goals.
Key Discussion Points
Hire Trustworthy Individuals Without Naivety. Business owners must strike a balance between trusting their team and staying vigilant about potential risks. Tiffany-Ann shares strategies for thoroughly vetting potential hires and providing them with the tools they need to succeed.
Master the Art of Delegation. Effective delegation is essential for growth but must be implemented thoughtfully to avoid inefficiencies or delays. Learn how to delegate in a way that supports productivity and streamlines operations.
Critically Filter External Advice. Not all advice is created equal. Tiffany-Ann discusses the importance of critically evaluating external input to ensure it aligns with your business values and goals.
Trust and Measure Your Processes. Successful entrepreneurs trust the processes they implement but also establish clear, measurable outcomes to track effectiveness and make data-driven adjustments.
Set Clear Expectations. Clear expectations are the foundation of effective strategies. Tiffany-Ann offers tips on assessing the success of new initiatives and ensuring they align with long-term business objectives.
Balance Risk and Access for New Hires. When bringing new talent on board, it’s crucial to balance providing necessary access with mitigating potential risks. Tiffany-Ann shares her approach to onboarding and empowering team members effectively.
Continuously Align Strategies with Goals. To maintain focus and direction, regularly assess whether your decisions and strategies align with your overarching business goals.
00:00:00 - Introduction to the Service Based Business Society Podcast 00:00:27 - Discussing the Fine Lines of Business 00:01:23 - Balancing Personal Life and Business 00:02:22 - The Importance of Personal Sacrifices in Business 00:05:23 - Trust vs. Naivety in Hiring 00:08:15 - Access and Control in Business Relationships 00:09:56 - Introduction to 1Password for Password Management 00:10:54 - Business Partnerships: Formal vs. Informal Agreements 00:12:25 - Risks of Partnerships and Personal Relationships 00:14:09 - Delegating Tasks vs. Doing It Yourself 00:15:53 - Avoiding Overcomplication in Task Management 00:18:22 - Balancing External Advice and Personal Business Voice 00:20:04 - Trusting the Process vs. Expecting Immediate Results 00:23:07 - Adapting to New Systems and Processes 00:25:31 - Choosing Between Paid Traffic and SEO 00:27:06 - Balancing Trust and Accountability in Delegation 00:28:03 - Conclusion: Finding Your Balance in Business
Engage with Us: Don't forget to subscribe and leave a review to help more listeners find us! Engage with us on social media to continue the conversation on setting effective business boundaries.
Chapters
In this episode, Tiffany-Ann Bottcher, seasoned entrepreneur and host of the Service Based Business Society podcast, takes the mic to share her expertise in managing service-based businesses. With a focus on balance, trust, and strategic decision-making, Tiffany-Ann offers invaluable insights into the challenges and opportunities of entrepreneurship.
This episode explores the delicate balance required in managing a service-based business, delving into key decisions around hiring, delegation, and filtering external advice. Tiffany-Ann emphasizes the importance of trusting your processes while maintaining measurable outcomes and aligning external guidance with personal business goals.
Key Discussion Points
Hire Trustworthy Individuals Without Naivety. Business owners must strike a balance between trusting their team and staying vigilant about potential risks. Tiffany-Ann shares strategies for thoroughly vetting potential hires and providing them with the tools they need to succeed.
Master the Art of Delegation. Effective delegation is essential for growth but must be implemented thoughtfully to avoid inefficiencies or delays. Learn how to delegate in a way that supports productivity and streamlines operations.
Critically Filter External Advice. Not all advice is created equal. Tiffany-Ann discusses the importance of critically evaluating external input to ensure it aligns with your business values and goals.
Trust and Measure Your Processes. Successful entrepreneurs trust the processes they implement but also establish clear, measurable outcomes to track effectiveness and make data-driven adjustments.
Set Clear Expectations. Clear expectations are the foundation of effective strategies. Tiffany-Ann offers tips on assessing the success of new initiatives and ensuring they align with long-term business objectives.
Balance Risk and Access for New Hires. When bringing new talent on board, it’s crucial to balance providing necessary access with mitigating potential risks. Tiffany-Ann shares her approach to onboarding and empowering team members effectively.
Continuously Align Strategies with Goals. To maintain focus and direction, regularly assess whether your decisions and strategies align with your overarching business goals.
00:00:00 - Introduction to the Service Based Business Society Podcast 00:00:27 - Discussing the Fine Lines of Business 00:01:23 - Balancing Personal Life and Business 00:02:22 - The Importance of Personal Sacrifices in Business 00:05:23 - Trust vs. Naivety in Hiring 00:08:15 - Access and Control in Business Relationships 00:09:56 - Introduction to 1Password for Password Management 00:10:54 - Business Partnerships: Formal vs. Informal Agreements 00:12:25 - Risks of Partnerships and Personal Relationships 00:14:09 - Delegating Tasks vs. Doing It Yourself 00:15:53 - Avoiding Overcomplication in Task Management 00:18:22 - Balancing External Advice and Personal Business Voice 00:20:04 - Trusting the Process vs. Expecting Immediate Results 00:23:07 - Adapting to New Systems and Processes 00:25:31 - Choosing Between Paid Traffic and SEO 00:27:06 - Balancing Trust and Accountability in Delegation 00:28:03 - Conclusion: Finding Your Balance in Business
Engage with Us: Don't forget to subscribe and leave a review to help more listeners find us! Engage with us on social media to continue the conversation on setting effective business boundaries.
Creators & Guests
Host
Tiffany-Ann Bottcher
Entrepreneur | Founder, Bottcher Group | Host, Service Based Business Society Podcast | Author, Data Driven Method | Helping you scale your success!
What is Service Based Business Society Podcast?
Attention entrepreneurs! Are you looking for ways to scale your service-based business without sacrificing your sleep? Look no further than The Service Based Business Society Podcast, hosted by Tiffany-Ann Bottcher.
Each week, Tiffany-Ann shares valuable insights on productivity, business strategies, marketing trends, and tech secrets that you need to know in order to take your business to the next level. She firmly believes that a successful service-based business must prioritize an amazing client experience and sustainable, predictable, repeatable profit, and she'll teach you how to do just that.
But that's not all - Tiffany-Ann also invites expert guests to share their knowledge and experience with you, providing even more valuable insights on service-based business growth and sustainability. You won't want to miss a single episode!
If you're looking to create, grow, and optimize your service-based business, The Service Based Business Society Podcast is the perfect resource for you.
And don't forget to join the community on Instagram by searching for Service Based Business Society Podcast
MINDSET
Focused on helping entrepreneurs cultivate the right mindset for success in their businesses. Hosted by experts in the field, the podcast covers a range of topics related to mindset and business, including self-improvement, goal setting, visualization, and meditation. The podcast provides practical tools and strategies to help listeners develop a growth mindset, overcome limiting beliefs, and build confidence. Through inspiring interviews with successful entrepreneurs and thought leaders, the podcast shows that a positive and resilient mindset is key to achieving business success.
DATA-DRIVEN DECISION MAKING
Dedicated to equipping business leaders with the knowledge and skills they need to lead with confidence, based on data-driven insights. Hosted by experts in business leadership, the podcast covers a range of topics related to data analysis and interpretation, strategic decision-making, and effective communication. It provides practical tools and strategies for interpreting complex data sets and using them to make informed business decisions that drive growth and success. Through engaging interviews with successful business leaders and industry experts, the podcast offers valuable insights and examples of how to use data to build strong teams and drive innovation.
RELATABLE ENTREPRENEURSHIP STORIES
A great resource for aspiring entrepreneurs looking to learn from the experiences of successful business owners. Through relatable and engaging entrepreneurship stories, the podcast provides valuable insights into the challenges and opportunities that come with starting and running a business. Hosted by experienced entrepreneurs, the podcast covers a range of topics related to entrepreneurship, including idea generation, product development, marketing, and fundraising. Each episode features inspiring interviews with successful entrepreneurs, who share their personal stories and provide practical advice and tips for those looking to start and grow their own businesses.
BUSINESS TOPICS
As businesses continue to evolve, it's essential for entrepreneurs and business owners to stay informed about the latest trends and best practices in marketing, bookkeeping, technology, and innovation. The podcast is a valuable resource for anyone looking to keep up with these changes and stay ahead of the competition.
Whether you are just starting out or looking to take your business to the next level, this podcast is a great source of inspiration and guidance from real-world examples of entrepreneurship success.
Brought to you by Bottcher Group of Companies
Tiffany-Ann Bottcher:
Hello, and welcome to the Service Based Business Society podcast. I am your host, Tiffany Ann Botcher. On our weekly episodes, we will dig into everything you need to know about scaling your service based business without losing sleep. With my experience in creating over 7 figures per month and a passion for marketing, finance, and automation, this show will provide tangible tips and techniques for scaling your business. Let's get started.
Tiffany-Ann Bottcher:
Hello, and welcome back to another episode. Today, we're gonna talk about the fine lines of business. No. We're not talking about all of the fine lines and wrinkles that the stress of being a business owner gives you. That's not a topic that I am any kind of expert in.
Tiffany-Ann Bottcher:
Now, today, we're gonna be talking about the the fine lines of it's this, but it's that. The opposites where we have to find the balance. Things where we wanna be trusting, but we don't wanna be naive. Things like that where you're like, hey, but it's this, but it's not that. You know, a a lot of times as we're going through the editing of these podcast episodes, I really realize how much the balancing act of business is, where we have really incredible talented professionals talk about how it we're going left.
Tiffany-Ann Bottcher:
And then someone else will come in with another perspective or different value and talk about going right. And, ultimately, it's for you to decide what is the best place for your business. We've talked about how it comes down to where you are in your journey. We've talked about, you know, what skills and attributes you have, where your team, if you have one, what kind of skills and attributes they have. So today we're going to talk a bit about a few different places where really riding that fine line can really be a difference maker.
Tiffany-Ann Bottcher:
2025 is underway. It's crazy how fast January flies by and how we really have to remember that there's only 12 months in the year. You know, there's this this social post that gets me almost every time. It could move me to, like, that kind of, like, oh, weepy emotional state, which isn't really my my typical. And it talks about, like, how many summers you get with your kids and how many weekends there are in a year and how you don't wanna waste them.
Tiffany-Ann Bottcher:
And it is always this piece both as a mom, and as well as a business owner. And there's another fine line right there where balancing personal life with business. You know? It's it's always interesting when you have people who are giving such, you know, specific advice. It was only if, you know, maybe a month ago that Alex Hermozzi, who is a big name online, you know, shared a post and he talked about and, you know, I'm I'm not gonna paraphrase the post.
Tiffany-Ann Bottcher:
But basically, he talked about the fact that in order to build his successful business, he gave up everything personally. He didn't attend his friend's weddings. He didn't go on vacations. He didn't take weekends. He didn't do all of these things.
Tiffany-Ann Bottcher:
And the clapback on that post, you know, was was strong. It was, don't tell me that I need to miss all of those things. And, you know, don't tell me that that's the only way to be successful. And and Alex did a great job coming back and saying, hey. I'm just sharing what worked for me.
Tiffany-Ann Bottcher:
I'm not saying that's what you have to do. I'm saying that's what I did. And so, you know, it's that balance, and it's the balance of where are you in life and what is important to you and, you know, deciding, hey. This year, I'm gonna focus on these things and that year we're gonna focus over here. So we're gonna talk about those fine lines, you know, and and obviously, the personal life versus business is such a key one.
Tiffany-Ann Bottcher:
You know, I've talked about it before. I have 3 kids. We have, you know, 3 different businesses and we have 2 puppies, which I guess, I don't know when you stop calling them puppies. They still act like puppies, so we're gonna go with calling them puppies, but it's busy. My kids are all involved in rep type sports.
Tiffany-Ann Bottcher:
You know? They have multiple practices a week, multiple games for, you know, kids in in tournaments and this and that. And so I would say my personal life is dominated by their interest in sports. I don't have a lot of time for hobbies. People say, what is your hobby?
Tiffany-Ann Bottcher:
And I say, being a mom. Being a mom is my hobby. Because ultimately, you know, it's like, okay, so I I I'm team mom, or, you know, team manager or whatever. And so those are the things that I enjoy doing, you know, doing matching water bottles for the kids. Well, there's there's something that I I enjoy.
Tiffany-Ann Bottcher:
I love a good matching water bottle if I was being honest. But, you know, it's not very often that I I feel like I should have more. I will tell you over Christmas holidays, there was one day one day where the kids were all doing things. You know, one was at a friend's house. Those kind you know, people, they were doing things.
Tiffany-Ann Bottcher:
And all of Christmas had been cleaned up. The house was spotless. Laundry was caught up. I was adamant I was taking the day off work. And I looked at my husband, and I said, what do we do at this time?
Tiffany-Ann Bottcher:
I think I shared it, you know, previously, and I I didn't know. And and he says you need a hobby. And I I I thought, and I have laughed about it with a couple of colleagues since, I needed a hobby for one day, but there was no hobby that was going to be one day. There was no hobby that I could fill with that time that then I wouldn't wanna you know? And so I actually, in that moment, didn't enjoy that time very much.
Tiffany-Ann Bottcher:
Something to really review and decide why I didn't, but I'm not good with downtime. I like to be busy. So my fine line of what works for my balance, different than a lot of people, and that's okay. And that's kind of the highlight of today's episode is these are some guidelines and things that we need to balance, but how much and where it balances for you might be different than where it balances for someone else. So one of the first ones we're gonna get into is being trusting versus being naive.
Tiffany-Ann Bottcher:
So one of the things that I really feel passionately about in my own business is hiring good people and then giving them the access that they need to do their job. A lot of times I see in the online space, a lot of on I mean, a part of a lot of entrepreneur communities, and you see people say, I wanna hire an assistant, but I don't want them to have access, and they have, like, a laundry list of things that they can't have access to. And they said, how do they do their job? They can't is the very short version. Much like, you know and I I think it's very different when you have someone in your office.
Tiffany-Ann Bottcher:
If you're hiring, you know, for a not a remote position, there's a piece of you you see that person every day. There's, like, a certain level of trust because they come to the office. I just wanna let you know that there is no real additional, you know, trust. There's there's nothing really valid about trusting someone more because you see them in person. Now I don't have any kind of stat to back that up, but I do have, you know, many years of business where I can say that people who we saw in person every day did just as many not great things as people who work in the online space.
Tiffany-Ann Bottcher:
You're never going to be able to completely keep everything away from that person if you'd like them to do any work, whether that is a client list. And I'll be honest. At one point, we had someone leave our team. They took the client list, and they emailed them all and said, hey. I used to be with this company, and now I'm not.
Tiffany-Ann Bottcher:
And we can totally provide you the same service for half the price. Are you interested? And it was like that. Is it in our contract vendor agreement that that is not allowed? Yes.
Tiffany-Ann Bottcher:
Is there anything that really in that moment? I mean, sure. I could cause a bit when I look at the cost of actually following through with doing something like that, I we didn't. Did we lose one client over it? We did.
Tiffany-Ann Bottcher:
Were they an ideal client? No. So, you know, there is the chance of things going wrong, but, ultimately, you have to be able to provide access. You have to bring people in, do your very best job to vet them, and then you have to allow them to be part of your business. And whether they are online, whether they are in person, whether they are young, whether they are old, whether they are experienced, whether they're all people have the potential of doing something that you would not be happy with.
Tiffany-Ann Bottcher:
But that must be balanced by not being naive. So one of the things that we see, we we have these Google Workspace, highly recommend Google Workspace over, Microsoft 365, a conversation for another day. But from a business perspective, having Google Workspace and being able to add email addresses as you need, remove email addresses, every single person that we have working for us has an email address. Now some of those people do not communicate externally. They only communicate with people inside the organization.
Tiffany-Ann Bottcher:
And one of the questions is, well, couldn't they just use their personal email for that? Couldn't we save? I think it's $12.12 or around there per month for them to have an email address. Sure. Yep.
Tiffany-Ann Bottcher:
We totally could do that. However, then that person if when that person leaves, we don't have access to all of their emails. We don't have access and can't shut down access to that account. I can't change the password on someone's personal email address if they're on holidays. You know, I can still get into, I can access that data if I need it.
Tiffany-Ann Bottcher:
But it also means that if someone leaves and they have been added as a user to all of these different platforms, that I can remove that very quickly and efficiently. Sometimes I see people adding and making admin someone's personal email. The problem is that it becomes very difficult for you to retract that access, for you to pull it all back. When you own the email account, when you own the user data, it makes it much easier. Things like using a password sharing tool.
Tiffany-Ann Bottcher:
We use 1Password is our encrypted tool for storing passwords. We have all of our passwords saved. So 1 password and they all have, you know, similar features, but slightly different names. They have vaults. And so we have one vault for each client.
Tiffany-Ann Bottcher:
And so all of the passwords, logins, anything we have that is, you know, sensitive, maybe a credit card number, that type of thing, all goes in the vaults. And only the people who need access to that vault have access to that vault. So it is our management team has access and then whoever is the employee that's working on that. There's no need for anyone else to have that information, so we just minimize minimize the access. So that is an area where really deciding, you know, obviously, Google Workspace has a cost, and it might be a different platform for you.
Tiffany-Ann Bottcher:
It might be, you know, whatever different pieces specific to your industry. But you you need to, at time, spend a little money to provide yourself with security. You need to, you know, hope for the best, plan for the worst, and make sure that if things fall apart, that you are protected and can claw back what you need to, especially if you're providing your team members access to someone else's, you know, business accounts and that type of thing. The other piece of that where it really comes in is business partnerships. And so often, you know, and I I actually was talking about this last week with a client, You know, there's really 2 ways that people start business partnerships.
Tiffany-Ann Bottcher:
Either they go in and they do all of the paperwork up front. Maybe they incorporate the business. They get the share certificate. Sometimes they, you know, they they could spend $5,000 getting this all straightened out. And a lot of times, those businesses don't go anywhere.
Tiffany-Ann Bottcher:
The idea kind of fizzles out. Maybe people get different things going on, and so much has been done upfront. There's a huge cost. And, ultimately, there's a cost to actually taking all of that apart. And so that's kind of option number 1.
Tiffany-Ann Bottcher:
Then we see option number 2, where we have kind of what we refer to as the napkin deal. And that is, hey, let's do this. This is kind of the idea. We'll figure it out later. And a lot of times those businesses, you know, they're maybe using resources and other things from, you know, shared business.
Tiffany-Ann Bottcher:
Those ones always require a little bit of cleaning up. But at to the same effect, if those ideas fizzle, there's much less cost to taking it apart. You just decide you're not gonna do it anymore. So that's the being trusted. But the being naive is to continue growing and scaling a business to any real size without some kind of partnership agreement.
Tiffany-Ann Bottcher:
And one of the biggest things that we we really talk about that people don't think about is if you are in a partnership so I'll be Betty and I'm gonna be in partnership with Sue. And so Betty and Sue were doing business together. Well, now what happens if Sue and her partner, we'll call him Bob for the the sample, Sue and Bob, they are gonna get a divorce. And now Bob is saying, hey. I want you know, Bob is saying, hey.
Tiffany-Ann Bottcher:
We gotta split all our assets. Half of that value of that business is actually mine. It would be a quarter, I guess, if if, you know, we've got Betty and Sue who are partners. They're 5050. And really, now Bob is saying, hey, part of that is mine.
Tiffany-Ann Bottcher:
This can get really messy. What happens also if, you know, now instead, we've got Sue and Bob and they're they're happily married? But something happens to Betty and and Betty's no longer with us. What happens to the business? All of these types of things really need to be spelled out.
Tiffany-Ann Bottcher:
So it's not always just for the situation of, hey. What if we don't wanna do this anymore or anything like that? There's there's pieces though where we have to, you know, hope for the best, plan for the worst, and make sure that we are covered. We don't want to be naive to the point where it really costs us. Okay.
Tiffany-Ann Bottcher:
On that same vein, talking about delegating versus doing it yourself. Now you may say, hey. We've had a few episodes on delegation. We've had a few on outsourcing, all of you know, lots of different really talented people have offered their opinions in this area. But I want to say, we must ride the line where we delegate but not so much that it takes additional time where it shouldn't.
Tiffany-Ann Bottcher:
Now here's the the, you know, the yin versus the yang or the back versus the 4th. When you are first delegating, of course, and someone's learning, of course, it's gonna take more time for them to do it than it would take you. There's many tasks in our organizations that I could do significantly faster than the person currently doing it. That does not mean that I am the right person do that job. That just means that I am more efficient than that other person, but they're getting there.
Tiffany-Ann Bottcher:
So in those situations, I'm not saying take those tasks back because you will just overload yourself. So Dan Martell has a book called Buy Back Your Time. I started listening to this book, over the Christmas holidays and have now finished it. And I'm going through some of the the time audits and things that he recommends. Highly recommend this book.
Tiffany-Ann Bottcher:
I keep telling it to everyone, you know, highly recommend. So one of the things that he says is 80% done by someone else is a 100% awesome all of the time. And that means if you don't have to do it and that task just gets done even if it's not exactly how you would do it, that's okay. It is 100% awesome because, ultimately, you're trying to buy back your time. Okay.
Tiffany-Ann Bottcher:
So what is the flip side to that? If you're doing things that start to feel less like efficiency and more about being, you know, the leader and more about I don't do those things anymore, that's where we run into a problem. So things like, you know, hey. You're gonna take something and you're gonna forward it to someone else and say, please print this. Now if you were gonna print it yourself, that would have been 3 clicks.
Tiffany-Ann Bottcher:
To email that over was maybe 8 clicks, and now you've interrupted someone else's day and they're gonna go do that. Things like that are silly. And you might say, who would ever do that? I bring it up because I've seen this. You know, it's the same thing as, you know, just just moving tasks, thinking about tasks as a potato and it having to go all the way around.
Tiffany-Ann Bottcher:
Maybe it's the fact that, you know, you have multiple people that have similar roles. Maybe you've expanded your business and you have a couple of leaders. But instead of saying, I'm gonna give this task to this leader and they can go do it, Instead, we need to get all of the leaders together and we need to, you know, debate and go on. There will always be things where adding everyone's opinions will be helpful, but there are other things where it just needs to get done. And if one person can do it, there's no need to add 3 more.
Tiffany-Ann Bottcher:
It's the same thing as, you know, big cc's in emails. If, you know, oh, we'll just cc everyone. Well, every person has to read that email. Every person has to go through. One of the things in corporate that that we really noticed in my time in corporate, as the business grew, it was emails that went out to the staff all really needed to be vetted.
Tiffany-Ann Bottcher:
Because if every single person in the company was gonna stop what they were doing, open their email, read the email, think, does this pertain to me? How why are they sending me this? Is this important? And then they would get back to their work. That was a significant amount of time.
Tiffany-Ann Bottcher:
And, sure, when it was 3 people, maybe it wasn't. But when it became 50 people, that's a lot of time. You know, if you think about if it takes 1 minute and you have 50 people, well, that's 50 minutes. You have almost an hour of wasted time, and it could be on something silly that that really, you know, it it needed to go to 1 person or 2 people. As the company gets bigger and you have, you know, hundreds of people, every single thing that goes out to a an all email address is a significant amount of time.
Tiffany-Ann Bottcher:
It isn't an investment. You know, you you are investing in paying those people all to read that message. Is it relevant? So when we look at, you know, delegating versus doing it yourself, it really comes back to protecting time. It really comes back to deciding when are we going to invest time into something that gets us further?
Tiffany-Ann Bottcher:
You know, teaching someone something. It might take time, but in the end, that person's gonna take that task off your plate entirely versus just deciding that someone else could do it for you. And it feels good to have someone else do it for you. That's not what we're doing here. So there's that fine line.
Tiffany-Ann Bottcher:
Okay. Taking advice versus losing your own voice. So often, we consume content, and it it's really great content. I just talked about reading slash listening to Dan Martell's book. Fabulous.
Tiffany-Ann Bottcher:
Fabulous content. I would say about 80% of it applies to me and would be something I would consider implementing. 20%, definitely no. And of that 80%, it's it's really not a decision. It's we're going through.
Tiffany-Ann Bottcher:
But there's always this balance of do I not wanna even look at that concept because I'm being closed minded? Because I should be looking at that, but I don't want to. It makes me think a little bit. I don't know if you remember there was, like, this, nanny 911 show, on TV when I was young, and it was, you know, families that were having trouble, with their children would call the nanny, and she would come in and she would observe, and then she would show them the way. None of those people thought those ideas were you know, at times, she really had to say, like, this is the way.
Tiffany-Ann Bottcher:
This is how we do it. And so, you know, sometimes that is what needs to be done. And so deciding when we're not listening to something because we're being closed minded versus when we're not listening to something because it really doesn't apply. You know? And so lots of advice will come your way.
Tiffany-Ann Bottcher:
Tons of content, information, advice, recommendations, deciding who actually can provide content information advice that you find valuable. If you look at someone and what they're doing and you don't want to be doing that or the way that they're doing it, then their advice might not be the most valuable. Does that mean that all of their advice is terrible? No. But it's finding that line and making sure that you're not jumping between different pieces of advice.
Tiffany-Ann Bottcher:
Because if you have 5 different people that you listen to and you take a little bit of one plan and a little bit of the other plan and a little bit of the other plan and then it doesn't work, you can't say, well, all of those people don't know what they're talking about. Because ultimately, you didn't actually implement any one of their plans. You kind of piecemealed it together. And at times, that might be what your business needs. A lot of the other time, you you know, there was a strategy to a whole plan.
Tiffany-Ann Bottcher:
And so, again, it's that yin versus yang riding the fine line of deciding what works for you, throwing out the rest, but not doing so in a way that is just closed minded, being willing to at least hear other ideas and how they might work for you. And and this it's not lost on me that that is conflicting and confusing. But that is part of being a business owner. There's so much information coming in and, ultimately, deciding what information you find valuable is super important because, you know, as we talked about, reading all those emails consuming, like, is time consuming. So if you're taking the time to listen to just crazy amount of advice and you're not listening to what you think, your intuition, that can really, really slow down success.
Tiffany-Ann Bottcher:
Most plans, most strategies, most things require multiple steps. So if you're only doing, like, a little bit of this and a little bit of that and a little bit of this, chances are you're not going to get to where the end destination of any one of those plans. So unless you are gonna take the bits and pieces and create a strategy and plan around them, it's not really gonna work. Okay. Trusting the process versus lack of results.
Tiffany-Ann Bottcher:
On one side, we have, you know, the business owner who turned something on. Maybe it's Google Ads. Maybe it's a new website. Maybe it's something happens. And then 2 days later, they're like, it didn't work.
Tiffany-Ann Bottcher:
Nothing happened. My phone didn't ring. On the way other flip side, we have the business owner that has maybe using those Google Ads as an example. I've been spending $1500 a month on Google Ads for the last 6 months, and I don't think it's done anything. But the person's really nice.
Tiffany-Ann Bottcher:
He's answers all my questions. He's very nice. Neither are good. There's a there's a balance between trusting the process and making sure that you're getting what you're paying for. And so questions up front before you commit are things like, how long between when I sign and when I can expect results?
Tiffany-Ann Bottcher:
How long is that time? In your experience, how long does it take to be implemented and start to see the value? Something like implementing a new system, job management system. So let's use, for example, maybe it's Jobber, something along those lines where, you know, fields or something where your team is all going to be using this system. I can tell you that on day 1, your team is not loving the system, not all of them.
Tiffany-Ann Bottcher:
You might have a couple of people that are like, this is amazing. This is great. I can totally see the benefit. But you might have other people that are like, I just liked doing it the old way. It was faster.
Tiffany-Ann Bottcher:
I didn't really have to think about it. I knew where all the buttons were. And so you can't expect on day 1 for people to feel the benefit, the reprieve of innovation, the reprieve of efficiency. It doesn't happen on day 1. But there is a timeline to when that is expected.
Tiffany-Ann Bottcher:
There is a timeline for when we should be waving the red flag saying, hey. I think this is not quite right. Back to our Google Ads example. So often, people are running ads without a way to understand if they're working. So just asking someone on your lead form, how did you hear about us, is actually not useful.
Tiffany-Ann Bottcher:
A lot of people don't really know where they heard about you or maybe they saw you in multiple places but don't remember which was the first one. Having the information and built in, so UTM parameters is typically how this is done, source tracking, all of these types of things. It allows us to say, hey, this new client, they came in through the Google Ad in campaign a and they saw ad d and it worked. So over time we can say that campaign a, ad d, it delivers great clients all the time. Whatever we're doing there, we need to do more of that.
Tiffany-Ann Bottcher:
K? But if that's not set up and you're just pouring money in, you have no idea if you're getting results. You can discern, hey. We seem busier. We went from, like, you know, partially booked out to fully booked out.
Tiffany-Ann Bottcher:
But most times you're doing more than one thing at the same time. If you've said, hey. We're quiet and we need to ramp up sales. You know, we're gonna we're gonna go. Maybe you're doing more social media.
Tiffany-Ann Bottcher:
Maybe you're doing more networking. Maybe you've turned ads on. Maybe you're doing all you know, maybe your team is bringing in more referrals. You don't know what's actually working. So you wanna make sure that you have a measurable result and you wanna make sure that you can can confirm that result that there are results.
Tiffany-Ann Bottcher:
But to that same effect, if you've hired someone and you haven't asked how long the the expectation is to see a result, it's a good question to ask now, especially if you're, you know, on day 1, day 2, day 7. You're like, hey. It's not working. You know? You need to find out what can be expected.
Tiffany-Ann Bottcher:
Because oftentimes, you know, if someone Google Ads, a much faster result than investing in SEO. So someone says, hey, I want to invest in we're super quiet. We need to fill you know, I have a big project about 6 months down the road, but I really need to fill this current time. We're going to start working on SEO. I will say, no.
Tiffany-Ann Bottcher:
That's not a good use of that investment. If you're trying to fill the immediate, you need paid traffic. If you're trying to fill 6 months from now, let's do SEO. You've reversed the two strategies. You know, you want traffic today, you buy it.
Tiffany-Ann Bottcher:
If you want, you know, Google to help people find you and you're gonna build up this online presence, you have more time. So that balance of trust the process versus lack of results. If you have something that you're paying for that you don't know if it's working, now is a good time to find out how do we measure if it's working and when are we supposed to know if it's working. If that timeline has passed, maybe it's a good time to set a meeting with that that person who's working in your business and say, okay. So here's where we're at.
Tiffany-Ann Bottcher:
You know, we've been investing for x, you know, number of months or whatever, and we're not seeing real tangible results. I'm not saying there aren't results. I'm just saying we're struggling to measure them. Can we sit down and can we talk this through and decide how best we measure these results and how can we decide where this is, you know, best benefiting the business? That's not the same as, hey, I don't think this is working.
Tiffany-Ann Bottcher:
Are you even doing anything? 2 very different discussions and you're gonna get 2 very different responses. So, you know, we've got being trusting versus being naive. It's a fine line. You have to trust but don't be naive.
Tiffany-Ann Bottcher:
Delegating versus just doing it yourself. You know that I talk about delegating, but don't be delegating so much that really couple of clicks would have just done the task for you. Taking advice versus losing your own voice. Decide which information is valuable to you and which information is not. Trusting the process versus lack of results.
Tiffany-Ann Bottcher:
Guys, I can't say enough. You have to trust the process but you also have to make sure you're getting results. All of these real examples of writing the fine line, making sure that you're doing a little bit of this and a little bit of that. There's no right and wrong here in terms of which is best for you. It depends on where you are in your business.
Tiffany-Ann Bottcher:
It depends on how big your team is. It depends on what objective you're looking for. But no matter what you're doing, you will have to balance these somehow. Guys, that's all for today. Until We're all out of time for today, but the fun doesn't stop here.
Tiffany-Ann Bottcher:
Make sure to subscribe to the Service Based Business Society podcast on your preferred podcast app. If you're hanging out over on YouTube search for Tiffany Ann Botcher, your likes, shares, and reviews really do help the show. Until next time. Have a great week.