Episode 32
E32: Staying in Your Zone of Genius with Sarah Greener
Imagine if there was a way to get back a whole day of your busy week. That’s the goal of Sarah Greener, a specialist in helping women business owners find ways to focus on their high-creative tasks instead of getting bogged down with the minutia of running a business. She joined me in a fruitful conversation that covered a range of issues related to time management, including:
- SOPs – standard operating procedures and how they can transform your work and home life
- Starting from your goals and mapping your activities to serve them
- How business systems are like adult lego – and building with them can lead to amazing results
- Answering the question: can you have too many systems; or too much automation?
I think most expertise-based service providers who have or plan to become entrepreneurs need to transition from working entirely in their zone of genius without losing that creative spark. Listen to this podcast for some important insights. If you are ready to make that transition and you need to work out the SOPs for your Intellectual Property, I’m your gal. Contact me to discuss scaling your business with your IP assets.
Connect with Erin and find the resources mentioned in this episode at hourlytoexit.com/podcast.
Erin's LinkedIn Page: https://www.linkedin.com/in/erinaustin/
Think Beyond IP YouTube Page: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCVztXnDYnZ83oIb-EGX9IGA/videos
Music credit: Yes She Can by Tiny Music
A Team Dklutr production
Transcript
Hello ladies.
Erin Austin:Welcome to the Hourly to Exit podcast.
Erin Austin:I am very excited for my guest
Erin Austin:today.
Erin Austin:Welcome, Sarah.
Erin Austin:Hi.
Erin Austin:It's so good to be here, Erin.
Erin Austin:lots to talk about.
Erin Austin:We know we love to talk about SOPs here and processes and making sure we're
Erin Austin:building a business that can scale.
Erin Austin:So this is gonna be a great episode for the audience.
Erin Austin:But before we get started, will you introduce.
Erin Austin:Yeah.
Erin Austin:Kda,
Sarah Greener:I'm Sarah Greener, and, I'm from all the way down here in New Zealand.
Sarah Greener:I feel like I'm a long way from Erin.
Sarah Greener:I, work with, female business owners, all over New Zealand, Australia,
Sarah Greener:and throughout the states who are way too busy and overwhelmed
Sarah Greener:to get them back a day a week.
Sarah Greener:and the way that we do that is through focusing on how they're using their
Sarah Greener:time, which ultimately leads into what we're gonna be chatting about today.
Sarah Greener:And we do something called a success map, which gets the.
Sarah Greener:From what you think your business looks like to what it's actually
Sarah Greener:operating like, we close that gap so that you can run your business.
Sarah Greener:It running you.
Sarah Greener:and you can have other people help you do that as well.
Sarah Greener:Ah, very, very, very important.
Sarah Greener:So I will say, there is a beautiful fixture window behind Sarah, where I
Sarah Greener:can see how green it is where she is.
Sarah Greener:And I have been to New Zealand, years ago, and did a, a walk, what is it called?
Sarah Greener:I think I was over.
Sarah Greener:Is it Milford?
Sarah Greener:Is that New Zealand?
Sarah Greener:Yeah.
Sarah Greener:Did you get Milford?
Sarah Greener:Yes.
Sarah Greener:Yes.
Sarah Greener:It sounds beautiful.
Sarah Greener:Yeah.
Sarah Greener:Yeah.
Sarah Greener:Right down at the bottom of the south island.
Sarah Greener:And it rained the entire time.
Sarah Greener:Yeah.
Sarah Greener:It rain, it's three nights, And camping they told you do not eat
Sarah Greener:in your tent at the campgrounds.
Erin Austin:Well, it was this one night.
Erin Austin:It was pouring rain.
Erin Austin:We're like, we're gotta like eat.
Erin Austin:So we eat the, in the tent.
Erin Austin:And so what happens in comes the mice and they're just hanging out
Erin Austin:like, doesn't matter apparently, how hard it's rain waiting for you to
Erin Austin:even eat a cracker inside of your tent, . And so it's scrambling around.
Erin Austin:And of course, you know, I'm a light sleeper.
Erin Austin:My son's, father's, he's a man.
Erin Austin:He sleeps through anything . So I am like, oh my God.
Erin Austin:And it would run up the side of the tent till it got no gravity,
Erin Austin:right it back down on me, right up the side of the tent, back on me.
Erin Austin:And so we finally woke him up and we got the thing out of the 10.
Erin Austin:but beautiful, like otherworldly beautiful.
Erin Austin:it's just unreal.
Erin Austin:we would get to a place where we were above the clouds . And so we're
Erin Austin:like, oh my God, this is so gorgeous.
Erin Austin:What a beautiful place you live.
Erin Austin:Milford's amazing.
Erin Austin:you can actually do a boat cruise down there in the sounds, and they actually say
Erin Austin:it's actually better when the weather's not good because you get all more.
Sarah Greener:Waterfalls and if the wind's blowing, the waterfalls
Sarah Greener:can actually turn around and go back up and things like that.
Sarah Greener:It's just incredible down there.
Sarah Greener:did you say the waterfalls Go back up.
Sarah Greener:Because the wind gets underneath them and so they'll come if it's really windy.
Sarah Greener:So the waterfalls are coming down on the side of the sound and then
Sarah Greener:it turns them and you'll see them.
Sarah Greener:It's amazing.
Sarah Greener:wow.
Sarah Greener:Okay.
Sarah Greener:I missed that . Yeah.
Sarah Greener:Come back.
Sarah Greener:You'll love it.
Sarah Greener:To the top, the north At the time I lived in la so it wasn't quite as far
Sarah Greener:as a journey to get there so far, but not quite as far as from the east.
Sarah Greener:We'll, we'll definitely do that.
Sarah Greener:So tell me about your typical client and what pains are they feeling when they go?
Sarah Greener:I gotta go talk to Sarah.
Sarah Greener:so my typical client is me a decade ago, they tend to be between 30 and 50 women
Sarah Greener:who have got out into their own business.
Sarah Greener:In my world, generally they have some physical component, so they
Sarah Greener:either have offices or a, shopfront of some description, and they.
Sarah Greener:Busy building their business, and they think that someday things will get better.
Sarah Greener:If they just work a little bit harder and a little bit longer and
Sarah Greener:they get some more customers, things will get better in the future.
Sarah Greener:it's not until we kind of shine a light on the fact that it's just all the hours.
Sarah Greener:They're working so many hours, it's not aligned with the life they really want.
Sarah Greener:So they got.
Sarah Greener:Into business, much like you and I probably for, some freedom, for some
Sarah Greener:flexibility for the ability to do the things that mattered to them.
Sarah Greener:And all of a sudden this business kind of turned into this monster
Sarah Greener:that started eating their whole life, So, they're feeling overwhelmed.
Sarah Greener:They're feeling stressed when they're at work.
Sarah Greener:They're feeling guilty for not being at home with their children.
Sarah Greener:They're feeling guilty for not being at work.
Sarah Greener:maybe they've got some team members, but they feel like they
Sarah Greener:are constantly fighting fire.
Sarah Greener:That somebody else started.
Sarah Greener:they're just exhausted from doing that all the time.
Sarah Greener:And they know there's a better way and their business is
Sarah Greener:working, it's making money.
Sarah Greener:but it feels really hard.
Sarah Greener:so we are looking to make that simpler for them.
Sarah Greener:Yeah.
Sarah Greener:I'm sure that everyone in this audience can relate to that.
Erin Austin:this is an audience of mostly service-based businesses, of experts,
Erin Austin:and so there's a unique challenge to scaling the service-based business.
Erin Austin:I am my avatar of someone who comes outta corporate and basically does
Erin Austin:what they were doing in corporate, but on my own and using my expertise.
Erin Austin:You start out selling your time and just doing things, you know, cuz it's what
Erin Austin:you know, and you're not really thinking about creating systems, how to scale
Erin Austin:this thing until you hit that wall.
Erin Austin:what are the special issues that a service-based business may have
Erin Austin:in trying to look at these issues?
Erin Austin:so I think it's even more significant a service-based business because the thing.
Erin Austin:Start off selling is their time.
Erin Austin:And particularly if you've come out of that kind of corporate world where
Erin Austin:you are paid by the hour and you charge by the hour, and so everything
Erin Austin:in your head is done by the hour, and that's the way you position
Erin Austin:yourself when you first get started.
Sarah Greener:And the challenge with that is generally there's a
Sarah Greener:gap between what you're charging and the value that you're creating.
Sarah Greener:it also means that, previously if you were working for someone
Sarah Greener:else, there was probably a lot.
Sarah Greener:less Not chargeable work that you had to do.
Sarah Greener:small confession.
Sarah Greener:I was an accountant back in my twenties and we used to do the little six minute,
Sarah Greener:time sheets to charge our timeout.
Sarah Greener:Yeah, that's nightmare stuff.
Sarah Greener:Thanks . There's tech for that now.
Sarah Greener:Thank goodness.
Sarah Greener:I used to be in that world and so everything was charged, every six minutes
Sarah Greener:was charged to a client in your own business, there's a whole lot of stuff
Sarah Greener:to do that's not chargeable to a client.
Sarah Greener:And so you have to make sure that First and foremost, that's really slick because.
Sarah Greener:You can't charge that time out to anyone, so you don't wanna
Sarah Greener:spend a lot of time on it.
Sarah Greener:So we talk about it in terms of future creators and future Steelers, and so
Sarah Greener:reconciling your accounts and sending invoices while you have to do them.
Sarah Greener:they're gonna steal your future if you spend too much time doing them because
Sarah Greener:you're not charging for that time.
Sarah Greener:And then there also gets to that point where people start to question
Sarah Greener:the rate at which you're charging, they can't perceive how they could
Sarah Greener:possibly pay you $500 an hour where they're only earning X amount an hour.
Sarah Greener:And so you have to start looking at how do I package this up and
Sarah Greener:look at a way that I can value.
Sarah Greener:The value rather than the time that I'm putting in, I can value the
Sarah Greener:outcome I'm getting rather than how long it takes me to get it.
Sarah Greener:And then you can start thinking about how do I get this outcome
Sarah Greener:smarter so that I can deliver the outcome with less of me in it.
Sarah Greener:And that's gonna grow the business for you.
Sarah Greener:Right.
Sarah Greener:And the cool thing about service is there's lots of
Sarah Greener:ways to do it, which is great.
Sarah Greener:That is so true.
Erin Austin:Yeah.
Erin Austin:that cap on how much.
Erin Austin:Charge your time for, there's self-improvement guy here,
Erin Austin:like a coach to the stars.
Erin Austin:It's called Tony Robbins.
Erin Austin:And I think he charges like a million blocks to be his client.
Erin Austin:You know, like most of us don't get to charge a million bucks for our services.
Erin Austin:there's going to be a cap period and so you're going to hit that wall and
Erin Austin:you're going to have to figure out a way to decouple your income from your time
Erin Austin:if you ever wanna get past that cap.
Sarah Greener:For sure.
Sarah Greener:Yeah, it's gonna tap you out and it's tiring.
Sarah Greener:So I've been there, so I didn't come from that world, or I've come from
Sarah Greener:the world of running a small business, a physical business in tourism.
Sarah Greener:But then I've come into this service world as a coach, and that's where I started.
Sarah Greener:I would give you x number of hours of coaching for X number of dollars.
Sarah Greener:it's a package and, I got to the point where I was coaching 35 hours a week.
Sarah Greener:Mm-hmm.
Sarah Greener:, which is intense.
Sarah Greener:Yeah, and then I still had to do all the business stuff around and I was
Sarah Greener:like, oh, hang on, I'm going back to doing what I was doing before but worse
Sarah Greener:and I'm teaching people not to do this.
Sarah Greener:And so that's when you have to start thinking about, okay,
Sarah Greener:how am I gonna do this smarter?
Sarah Greener:Cuz you actually tap out your ability at some point to do a good
Sarah Greener:job and build the life you want.
Sarah Greener:Yeah,
Erin Austin:I you don't wanna build a job for yourself without Ben.
Erin Austin:Call it a job without benefits.
Erin Austin:if we're here in the us you the employment tax is paid, the social
Erin Austin:security paid insurance here, we got it.
Erin Austin:Have a job to get.
Erin Austin:through the insurance you gotta do all the, sales and the, development and all
Erin Austin:these things and you're still getting, basically, cuz we have in our head, we
Erin Austin:talked, you mentioned this, that replacing that salary that we got from our employer,
Erin Austin:but we're putting in way more than we were to get that salary and we were in.
Sarah Greener:yeah, and I think there's also that gap, I think
Sarah Greener:when you're an employee, you don't recognize that actually the cost of
Sarah Greener:an employee is more so in New Zealand, we add 20 to 25% to every salary to
Sarah Greener:say that's actually the real cost.
Sarah Greener:Mm-hmm.
Sarah Greener:and the real benefit to the employee because we pay all those taxes.
Sarah Greener:For them.
Sarah Greener:Right.
Sarah Greener:Same thing in the states, All those extra bits on top that you don't see
Sarah Greener:in your physical bank account, but someone's paying for you somewhere.
Sarah Greener:Right?
Sarah Greener:Right.
Sarah Greener:so you actually have to go not just your salary, but all those benefits too.
Sarah Greener:And you have to think about what's the market rate for all
Sarah Greener:the jobs I'm doing in my business?
Sarah Greener:Cause in the other business you were working in, someone was
Sarah Greener:getting paid to do the marketing.
Sarah Greener:Mm-hmm.
Sarah Greener:. Mm-hmm.
Sarah Greener:getting paid for the accountant.
Sarah Greener:Someone's getting paid to do that.
Sarah Greener:So to build a business is actually sustainable.
Sarah Greener:You actually need to get paid a market rate for all those roles.
Sarah Greener:Cause otherwise you can't outsource them to someone else.
Sarah Greener:Mm-hmm.
Sarah Greener:. Erin Austin: Well that comes to the
Sarah Greener:So tell us about that and how we use SOPs to help us not be Yeah, absolutely.
Sarah Greener:And so I think that's, it's across both your, life
Sarah Greener:and your business, Al Trades is, I've gotta wear all the hats for.
Sarah Greener:all of the roles.
Sarah Greener:And so what we've just talked about there is for someone else, you were a
Sarah Greener:service provider who was the lawyer or the accountant or the insert line here.
Sarah Greener:Mm-hmm.
Sarah Greener:. What you didn't do was be the marketing and the sales department
Sarah Greener:and the accounting department and the cleaner and the administrator
Sarah Greener:and the insert things here.
Sarah Greener:the fix the printer, person if the printer's not working.
Sarah Greener:So that's that Jill of all trades.
Sarah Greener:When you start out, you get really good at swapping those hat.
Sarah Greener:You get really good at being all things to all people, but you
Sarah Greener:can't do that for a long time.
Sarah Greener:. And so you have to stop being the Jill of all trades and you have to start
Sarah Greener:being the master of all of them, which means I have to know enough about
Sarah Greener:them to ask really good questions.
Sarah Greener:I have to have good processes so I can say, Hey, have you done them the
Sarah Greener:way I want them done in my business.
Sarah Greener:and then you have to outsource them to other people and hold
Sarah Greener:them accountable to that piece.
Sarah Greener:And until you stop being Jill, you are really gonna find yourself
Sarah Greener:stretched very thin, and you're not gonna be able to grow the revenue of
Sarah Greener:your business in the way you could.
Sarah Greener:If you start thinking about where are the low value tasks in my business
Sarah Greener:that I can outsource to someone?
Erin Austin:Yeah, absolutely.
Erin Austin:There is a coach here in the us, Natalie Al, who always says, hire
Erin Austin:as much help as you can afford.
Erin Austin:And that applies both internally in the business and at home.
Erin Austin:Cuz for a lot of women, we are both the c e o of our businesses and the
Erin Austin:c e o of our homes, And we are, gill of all trades of our businesses,
Erin Austin:and Jill of all trades of our homes.
Erin Austin:for me as a solopreneur, if I have a to-do list, which includes, getting
Erin Austin:something for the dog or dealing with something for the house or
Erin Austin:dealing something for a client or getting something to my accountant,
Erin Austin:these are all on my to-do lists.
Erin Austin:the 24 hours in the day they gotta get done.
Erin Austin:And there's as much value from me to outsource, someone to help.
Erin Austin:Around the house.
Erin Austin:Yeah.
Erin Austin:In the yard, as helping in the business.
Erin Austin:So we shouldn't ignore all areas of our lives that we
Erin Austin:can benefit from outsourcing.
Sarah Greener:Oh,
Sarah Greener:absolutely.
Sarah Greener:I think we forget the overwhelm comes from the whole picture of what's
Sarah Greener:going on every day in your life.
Sarah Greener:It doesn't come from, people go, I'm so overwhelmed by my business.
Sarah Greener:I'm like, oh, I'm interested about that and let's have a conversation, but I
Sarah Greener:wanna know what's going on at home.
Sarah Greener:Like, who runs your house?
Sarah Greener:They're like, oh, my husband's really good, or My partner's really good.
Sarah Greener:He vacuums, Okay, cool.
Sarah Greener:But if he's doing the task, who's doing the management?
Sarah Greener:The logistics.
Sarah Greener:They're making sure the vacuum cleaner has been empty.
Sarah Greener:They're making sure the vacuum cleaner's got bags in it.
Sarah Greener:you talked about something for the dog and something for the cat.
Sarah Greener:We talk about it as the second shift.
Sarah Greener:So when we set up a home, sometimes we set it up on our own and
Sarah Greener:then maybe we get a partner and maybe we get some small people.
Sarah Greener:I have a small person And we always say, the small person
Sarah Greener:that lives in my house rent free.
Sarah Greener:So these people, oh yes, come.
Sarah Greener:, they come and they form part of your home and they create workload in your home.
Sarah Greener:. And if they're not sharing in that workload, then that
Sarah Greener:workload all lands on one person.
Sarah Greener:And I think I saw this article once about if you paid someone to do all
Sarah Greener:the jobs that, housewife does, it's like hundreds of thousands of dollars.
Sarah Greener:Yes.
Sarah Greener:Mm-hmm.
Sarah Greener:. And for me it's more about the mental load piece.
Sarah Greener:So when you look at the statistics that say across the world something like 12%
Sarah Greener:of women owned businesses only earn more than a hundred thousand dollars a year,
Sarah Greener:that statistic scares the hell out of me.
Sarah Greener:But it also.
Sarah Greener:Sense because if the women are still, and we are still in general
Sarah Greener:carrying that load of free work that, where does everyone need to be?
Sarah Greener:When are exams, when are birthday parties?
Sarah Greener:When does the dog need to go to the vet?
Sarah Greener:When does, registrations on cars.
Sarah Greener:Insurance needs to be renewed.
Sarah Greener:If you are carrying all that load, it's like managing a whole nother organization.
Sarah Greener:and so it's definitely.
Sarah Greener:Have that conversation with our clients and we are talking about how do we share
Sarah Greener:the second shift, not just the tasks of it, but the mental load as well.
Sarah Greener:Because that's where the overwhelm comes from, is how much am I keeping up here?
Sarah Greener:And so, you talk about outsourcing in your house, we have like
Sarah Greener:standard operating procedures.
Sarah Greener:Around the house for things so that we don't think about them.
Sarah Greener:and we don't call them SOPs, but there's a system, our food
Sarah Greener:order is just on autopilot.
Sarah Greener:It gets ordered every week.
Sarah Greener:There's a system when you use the last thing, you add it to the shopping list
Sarah Greener:so that it can be processed each week to get the online shopping to come through.
Sarah Greener:keys live in the same place.
Sarah Greener:it seems like ridiculous things, ridiculously small things.
Sarah Greener:I wash my hair on the same day every week.
Sarah Greener:But not thinking about that mental load anymore actually helps.
Sarah Greener:Yeah, and that's why SOPs are so important in your business because instead of
Sarah Greener:carrying it around up here with, I don't know, 60 to 80,000 other thoughts.
Sarah Greener:Yes.
Sarah Greener:Now you don't have to concentrate on it, and your brain is free to be more
Sarah Greener:creative with the solutions you're coming out with your clients and bring more
Sarah Greener:humanity to what you're doing because you're not in the detail of what needs to
Sarah Greener:be done every day, both at home and at.
Erin Austin:This might be controversial.
Erin Austin:I'm just thinking as you, mentioned this, Steve Jobs, Barack Obama,
Erin Austin:I think you mean Mark Zuckerberg.
Erin Austin:They're known for like, wearing basically the same thing all the
Erin Austin:time so that they don't have Yeah, the mental load of, chosen what?
Erin Austin:Would women benefit from reducing the variety of the things that we wear?
Erin Austin:And
Sarah Greener:yeah, so this is a really interesting one.
Sarah Greener:So it's something that I used to spend a lot of mental energy on in the morning.
Sarah Greener:and again, it's not something everyone's gonna be able to do, but in the end,
Sarah Greener:I went and paid a stylist and she put together my clothes and I literal.
Sarah Greener:I have the S, so P for what to Wear.
Sarah Greener:I have a laminated book, I love it, of my outfits.
Sarah Greener:And I go, what am I doing today?
Sarah Greener:And I pick it up and I go, I'm gonna wear that.
Sarah Greener:And then I go, those shoes, those pants that top, that jacket, I think there's
Sarah Greener:a freedom of expression in our clothes.
Sarah Greener:She stands here in a bright pink dress, and so I don't wanna take the
Sarah Greener:playfulness, the fun out of, the clothes that I wear, but I do get into a bit
Sarah Greener:of a rhythm, like when I travel away.
Sarah Greener:Like this is my Monday outfit, this is my Tuesday outfit, this is my Wednesday.
Sarah Greener:And.
Sarah Greener:I don't worry too much about the fact that people have seen me in
Sarah Greener:the same thing all the time, because I look at that and go, well, if it
Sarah Greener:works for them, it works for me.
Sarah Greener:I mean, like how many, blue suits that he had, like, it felt like
Sarah Greener:almost the same outfit all the time and nobody went, oh, that's not okay.
Sarah Greener:Like, No one does.
Sarah Greener:Why does it matter?
Sarah Greener:Yeah.
Sarah Greener:And I think, yeah, absolutely.
Sarah Greener:Mm-hmm.
Sarah Greener:. So you work with clients not just on their businesses, but also kind of
Sarah Greener:holistically do you describe yourself as a business coach, a lifestyle coach?
Sarah Greener:how do you mentor, how do you describe yourself?
Sarah Greener:I talk about being a business coach because people come to
Sarah Greener:me because they think all their problems are with their business.
Sarah Greener:and what I've learned about myself and what I know about clients now is that
Sarah Greener:my life and my business are intertwined because I am an owner operator business.
Sarah Greener:even still in our tourism business that I don't do much day to day,
Sarah Greener:I'm still part of that business.
Sarah Greener:And so I know that how I'm showing up and what's going on
Sarah Greener:for me outside of work mm-hmm.
Sarah Greener:is just.
Sarah Greener:important is what's going on in work.
Sarah Greener:And actually the things that I've done on myself and for outside of work have
Sarah Greener:actually been at least as impactful as the changes I've made in my business.
Sarah Greener:Because if I'm not sleeping well, if I'm not drinking well, if I'm not,
Sarah Greener:eating well, I'm not exercising and, looking after myself, then I show up
Sarah Greener:half as well, at least in my business.
Sarah Greener:and that was kind of my journey.
Sarah Greener:I was working all the hours I.
Sarah Greener:Drinking lots of caffeine during the day and then, a few glass of
Sarah Greener:wine to get to sleep at night.
Sarah Greener:I didn't have time to exercise and I'd go to bed at 11, I'd be up at
Sarah Greener:four 30 and did all those things.
Sarah Greener:and it showed up in the business.
Sarah Greener:showed up in the financial results.
Sarah Greener:It showed up in the way my team, engaged with me.
Sarah Greener:It showed up in how suppliers engaged with me.
Sarah Greener:when you start out, you're like, it's all of them.
Sarah Greener:And then when you start really looking, you're like, oh, it's the woman in the
Sarah Greener:mirror and I've gotta do some work on me.
Sarah Greener:And so for me, life first, business second.
Sarah Greener:And so now we look at what do you want outta life for
Sarah Greener:this chapter because mm-hmm.
Sarah Greener:. 20 year old Sarah wanted different things from 30 year
Sarah Greener:old Sarah from 40 year old Sarah.
Sarah Greener:Right.
Sarah Greener:Totally different chapters.
Sarah Greener:and so what do I want for this chapter of life and how is
Sarah Greener:my business gonna serve that?
Sarah Greener:Because I think, we're not all out here hustling and grinding to get to the
Sarah Greener:next level of our career necessarily.
Sarah Greener:We're not all hustling, grinding to have millions of dollars and.
Sarah Greener:Porsche, Ferrari or a fancy house, and if you're into those things, that's awesome.
Sarah Greener:But for me, it's all about having, building a good life for me and my family.
Sarah Greener:It's about making sure I can have choices with my child's education, choices to
Sarah Greener:travel, freedom for me to be at school for assemblies and talent shows, and,
Sarah Greener:that's why I'm building my life and that's what success looks like for me.
Sarah Greener:And so I need.
Sarah Greener:, decide what that looks like there first, and then build the business to serve that.
Sarah Greener:Because otherwise business, will eat as much time as you give it, just like
Sarah Greener:it eats as much money as you give it.
Sarah Greener:Right?
Erin Austin:Yeah.
Erin Austin:I love that.
Erin Austin:You know, one, one of my, missions with this podcast, with my business
Erin Austin:is to help women build more wealth and so that they can, because women
Erin Austin:do those things, that they take care of their families with their money.
Erin Austin:I'm not saying that there aren't women who don't.
Erin Austin:Build rocket shifts with their money , but most of them wanna give it away
Erin Austin:to great causes or to, support the people that they care about, about
Erin Austin:their families, about their communities.
Erin Austin:and that's why it's so important to me to help women.
Erin Austin:but when we talk about, legacy, I'm not talking about like later when
Erin Austin:you're dying, what you leave behind, but it's what you do every day,
Erin Austin:all the good things that you do.
Erin Austin:For your family, for your community every day.
Erin Austin:And so when we think about that as the driver of our businesses, hopefully when
Erin Austin:we think about increasing our income, increasing our wealth, we're thinking
Erin Austin:about it and in light of generosity about all the good I can do with this, instead
Erin Austin:of feeling like, I'm just being greedy.
Erin Austin:Cuz it's just not, it's really about all the good that you can do.
Sarah Greener:Yeah, you can't get broke enough to help broke people.
Sarah Greener:and I can't think who I heard that from, but it's a great saying.
Sarah Greener:Mm-hmm.
Sarah Greener:I can't get broke enough to help broke people, but when I've got
Sarah Greener:financial freedom, generally I'm getting some time freedom if I'm smart
Sarah Greener:about building out those systems.
Sarah Greener:Right.
Sarah Greener:and then I can give.
Sarah Greener:Back.
Sarah Greener:some of the things we've been able to do and give back to our community
Sarah Greener:have been huge because of that.
Sarah Greener:Mm-hmm.
Sarah Greener:my husband's a volunteer firefighter here in New Zealand, without our
Sarah Greener:businesses he wouldn't be able to do that.
Sarah Greener:We've got, some community groups that are bringing back the bird life to where we
Sarah Greener:live, that we can be involved in that.
Sarah Greener:Probably wouldn't have been an option if we'd been working for
Sarah Greener:someone else in the same way.
Sarah Greener:So I totally agree with that.
Sarah Greener:And I don't know a client in my program that isn't really passionate about giving
Sarah Greener:back, in fact, sometimes so much so that they're giving too much of themselves to
Sarah Greener:everyone else, and we just have to bring it back for a little bit and get them
Sarah Greener:really focused on what they're doing.
Sarah Greener:To look after them first and then they can go and give again.
Sarah Greener:Yeah.
Sarah Greener:but that generosity is definitely a theme.
Sarah Greener:I see.
Sarah Greener:Certainly through my clients.
Sarah Greener:I'm not gonna assume that every woman's like that, but certainly
Sarah Greener:through the people that I work with and I connect with, that's
Sarah Greener:definitely where they want to go.
Sarah Greener:and it seems to be in general more about experiences than things as well would be.
Sarah Greener:The other thing I would say is they're looking to build
Sarah Greener:experiences for the people they.
Sarah Greener:and the people they wanna have an impact on, not necessarily
Sarah Greener:the next house or the next car.
Sarah Greener:that's probably another theme that we see.
Erin Austin:Right.
Erin Austin:Excellent.
Erin Austin:So, speaking of which, you know, this podcast is hourly, the exit.
Erin Austin:And so we like to help women build businesses that hopefully
Erin Austin:they can sell someday.
Erin Austin:And part of that is building exclusivity into their business.
Erin Austin:What do they have that exclusive to them and having predictable
Erin Austin:income, like how are they setting up systems so that someone who bought
Erin Austin:their business could run it and be even more profitable with it?
Erin Austin:So where do SOPs fit into that early to exit journey?
Sarah Greener:I would like to say that they are very early on in the journey.
Sarah Greener:I would like to say that if you start thinking about it from day
Sarah Greener:one, it's gonna be much easier.
Sarah Greener:Most of us don't.
Sarah Greener:We certainly just winged it for probably five or six years before
Sarah Greener:we even started thinking about putting processes in, which.
Sarah Greener:brings with it all sorts of challenges.
Sarah Greener:the analogy I always use is that generally what happens is people go,
Sarah Greener:I'm gonna build this really cool s o p, or we talk about it in terms of
Sarah Greener:systems and they see a really cool piece of technology, the software
Sarah Greener:that is really good for their industry or their service that they provide.
Sarah Greener:And they go, I'm so excited, it's gonna fix all my system problems.
Sarah Greener:And they jump into it and they start building out, bits of a system inside
Sarah Greener:this tech and then they go, The text crap doesn't do everything I want
Sarah Greener:it to do , I said this so often.
Sarah Greener:Did it myself.
Sarah Greener:And then I realized that we would never, ever work with a builder
Sarah Greener:who said, oh, you know what?
Sarah Greener:I've built loads of houses.
Sarah Greener:We don't need any plans.
Sarah Greener:We just need like a floor and some walls and a roof.
Sarah Greener:You'd be like, no, no, no, no, no.
Sarah Greener:We're gonna do a design and a plan.
Sarah Greener:I wanna see some paper with a plan on it first.
Sarah Greener:In our businesses we go.
Sarah Greener:We're gonna whack up the foundations of our business without ever thinking
Sarah Greener:about it and getting it down on paper.
Sarah Greener:So true.
Sarah Greener:And so the very first place I wanna know is I wanna know what's in your head
Sarah Greener:about what are all the systems in your business, and I want you to get them
Sarah Greener:out of there and down onto what I call the success map of, here are all the
Sarah Greener:areas of your business and what are all the systems that make up those areas.
Sarah Greener:So what are the systems that make up your sales process?
Sarah Greener:What are the systems that make up the experience people have with you?
Sarah Greener:What are the systems that make up.
Sarah Greener:You getting paid what are the systems that make up you being compliance, doing the
Sarah Greener:tax thing, doing the health and safety, whatever it is that wherever you are
Sarah Greener:in the world you have to comply with.
Sarah Greener:and once you've got that down on paper, then we can start to
Sarah Greener:think about it in step by step and we can build each system out.
Sarah Greener:Again, it's my mom brain and we have a lot of Lego in our house, but if you think
Sarah Greener:about like Lego, when it comes, I think about your business, like the box of Lego
Sarah Greener:that's next door in my daughter's room.
Sarah Greener:She's pulled everything out.
Sarah Greener:She's built the original thing.
Sarah Greener:Mm-hmm.
Sarah Greener:, and now we have this box full of different colored pieces and mm-hmm.
Sarah Greener:. Wheels and stuff and it's all shook together.
Sarah Greener:And every now and then she brings me one of the books and
Sarah Greener:I'm like, inside I die a little.
Sarah Greener:Cuz she's got the most extravagant castle or the most extravagant
Sarah Greener:boat or whatever that she wants.
Sarah Greener:She's like, can we build this mom?
Sarah Greener:And I'm looking at the box of everything going, oh God, how are we ever gonna
Sarah Greener:put it back together like that.
Sarah Greener:And that's kind of where you've got to in your business.
Sarah Greener:And so you need to go back that step and go, Hey, I've got a.
Sarah Greener:Of what I want my business to look like when it's systemized.
Sarah Greener:And then we're gonna put all the pieces for each system into kind of a little bag.
Sarah Greener:You know when you shake out the big box of Lego and it goes step one, here's the
Sarah Greener:bag of Lego, and you open it up and you just put those pieces together, that's
Sarah Greener:what we're doing with your business.
Sarah Greener:And if you start there by doing the,.
Sarah Greener:the.
Sarah Greener:Systems that cost you the most time or the most money or cause you the
Sarah Greener:most frustration in your business.
Sarah Greener:Mm-hmm.
Sarah Greener:. So there's things where things are going wrong most often.
Sarah Greener:Then you can start there and slowly build your whole business out.
Sarah Greener:But you've gotta have the plan first before you start building.
Sarah Greener:Cause otherwise you're just gonna get frustrated with the piece of technology
Sarah Greener:or the human being that's doing it for you cuz they're not doing it right?
Sarah Greener:Mm-hmm.
Sarah Greener:. Erin Austin: So the first step is to know
Sarah Greener:Yeah.
Sarah Greener:What what will this look like if it's completely systemized for me?
Sarah Greener:Mm-hmm.
Sarah Greener:, and then slowly work through systemizing it.
Sarah Greener:You might not ever systemize a hundred percent of your business mm-hmm.
Sarah Greener:I did 20% of my business.
Sarah Greener:Things would be 80% better.
Sarah Greener:right, right.
Sarah Greener:Now here's a question for you.
Sarah Greener:I, I'm not sure what your hint will be actually,
Erin Austin:can you have too much, too many systems?
Erin Austin:Can you overdo it?
Erin Austin:Oh, really good question.
Erin Austin:I think.
Erin Austin:The answer is no.
Erin Austin:With a qualification.
Erin Austin:I don't think you can have too many systems.
Erin Austin:I think you can make them feel too robotic.
Erin Austin:And so I think you have to think about when I'm building these systems, how
Erin Austin:do I build them so they're like me.
Erin Austin:everyone talks about, oh, I don't wanna get a whole lot of
Erin Austin:autoresponders or automated emails.
Erin Austin:Everybody knows what they are now.
Erin Austin:Mm.
Erin Austin:You need to write those or you need to create those so that people think it's
Erin Austin:a real person writing them, Mm-hmm.
Erin Austin:the number of responses we get to automatic emails that we send out.
Erin Austin:People thinking it's a specific email just to them.
Erin Austin:Mm-hmm.
Erin Austin:. And that's what tells me we've got it just right.
Erin Austin:there's things in the background that can happen without you, that your clients
Erin Austin:don't need to know about, which gives you more spaciousness to give them more
Erin Austin:of you to do the things that matter.
Erin Austin:But you have to be careful what doesn't come across.
Erin Austin:Like they're just a number in the system.
Erin Austin:And so we talk about, how are we ticking off?
Erin Austin:And it's a Tony Robbins model, his six human needs model, where he talks about,
Erin Austin:certainty, variety, love and connection, significance, growth and contribution.
Erin Austin:How are we making sure we're Fitting everybody's needs.
Erin Austin:We're filling our clients' needs, and if you've got team members or
Erin Austin:your team members' needs on every step of the process and every little
Erin Austin:box, how are we filling those?
Erin Austin:Because I don't think you have too many systems.
Erin Austin:I think you can spend too long building them, but I also think
Erin Austin:you can make them too robotic.
Erin Austin:And so you have to think about how am I filling those psychological
Erin Austin:needs for each of my clients with the systems that I'm building?
Erin Austin:And
Erin Austin:for people who feel like, well, it's gonna take the creativity and the out of it.
Erin Austin:Yeah.
Erin Austin:what is your advice to them?
Erin Austin:? Sarah Greener: My answer is that at the
Erin Austin:take no creativity and you're using app.
Erin Austin:The part of your brain that is required for your creativity.
Erin Austin:So actually right now, your creativity is lower than it needs to be.
Erin Austin:Mm-hmm.
Erin Austin:that spaciousness to be creative.
Erin Austin:I have a past client now who's a website designer and she's one of those, she
Erin Austin:wants to be creative and spontaneous and so she pushed back a lot against.
Erin Austin:This for a long time.
Erin Austin:and if you talk to her today, she'd go, honestly, I've never been more creative
Erin Austin:and I've never been more spontaneous.
Erin Austin:But she says I have something to be spontaneous away from.
Erin Austin:And I had time to be creative because before I was just so busy doing the do
Erin Austin:and my brain was so full of every task I needed to do that really the standard
Erin Austin:of the creativity that I was doing was actually much lower than it needed to be.
Erin Austin:and she's someone who's planning to take the whole of next year off from
Erin Austin:her work and her business is just growing and growing and going cause
Erin Austin:she's got the right foundations.
Erin Austin:Mm-hmm.
Erin Austin:, that's fantastic.
Erin Austin:Well let's her stay in her zone of genius when she doesn't
Erin Austin:have all that other stuff.
Erin Austin:Totally.
Erin Austin:Because we're not all geniuses at doing accounts and doing admin and stuff.
Erin Austin:and like I said, no one, I always feel a bit rude cause I was an
Erin Austin:accountant not very few people, unless you're an accountant, got.
Erin Austin:of working for someone else.
Erin Austin:So you could be an accountant, you got out to do the thing you love, whatever
Erin Austin:that piece is that you're really great at.
Erin Austin:Mm-hmm.
Erin Austin:to serve people with.
Erin Austin:So that's the piece that's important.
Erin Austin:Agreed.
Erin Austin:Well, as I mentioned, this is a very met up podcast.
Erin Austin:I'm a female founder and I'm hoping to build a business that
Erin Austin:maybe I can sell someday day.
Erin Austin:Tell me, are you hoping to sell your business someday?
Sarah Greener:Yeah, absolutely.
Sarah Greener:So, I've sold a couple of businesses, some, well, some not so well in the past.
Sarah Greener:there are certainly some things that you wanna be careful along the way.
Sarah Greener:I, for a long time, didn't think that this particular business
Sarah Greener:is one that I could sell.
Sarah Greener:and now I can actually see, I can really put my.
Sarah Greener:thoughts, my ip, the way I do things into really good templated, almost products,
Sarah Greener:I guess, systems that I can sell.
Sarah Greener:and that's been a real game changer for me in the last two years.
Sarah Greener:And it's really been about how can I build this so someone else can teach it
Sarah Greener:and it can still have the same impact.
Sarah Greener:Because for me, if I'm not giving women back their time and I'm
Sarah Greener:not increasing their income, that I'm not making the impact.
Sarah Greener:Cause I think.
Sarah Greener:ripple effect is really great with women because of how we are
Sarah Greener:inherently, more generous and we wanna do things for the people that
Sarah Greener:we love, that nurturing side of us.
Sarah Greener:So yeah, absolutely.
Sarah Greener:I'm looking forward to that opportunity.
Sarah Greener:Not yet.
Sarah Greener:I think I'd get bored.
Sarah Greener:reject something else.
Sarah Greener:I a feeling that you would just have another idea that you would chase so and
Sarah Greener:that would definitely upset my husband.
Sarah Greener:Cause he is like in own more businesses.
Sarah Greener:though, yeah, definitely at some point, the goal would be, by the
Sarah Greener:time I'm 50, which is nine years away now, that's what I will have done.
Sarah Greener:I will have exited the.
Erin Austin:Excellent, excellent.
Erin Austin:So this audience loves a resource to help them on their early to exit journey.
Erin Austin:do you have some resources that you'd like to share with the audience?
Sarah Greener:Yeah, absolutely.
Sarah Greener:and so if what we've been talking about.
Sarah Greener:Here today really resonates with you and you would like to get some time back
Sarah Greener:and you would like to start thinking about building out those systems.
Sarah Greener:I've got some free resources for you, so over@sarahgreener.com we'll
Sarah Greener:be in the show notes by the way.
Sarah Greener:Hourly.
Sarah Greener:So it'll be easy to find for you.
Sarah Greener:Yes.
Sarah Greener:there's a copy of my, free book where I talk about my journey
Sarah Greener:from working 80 to a hundred hours a week, down to where I am now.
Sarah Greener:I know I was crazy.
Sarah Greener:60 felt like part-time for a long time.
Sarah Greener:so there's a copy of that book there that you can download for free.
Sarah Greener:you can join the community.
Sarah Greener:There's a whole lot of training in there where I talk about, how we success map,
Sarah Greener:how we help our teams use those systems.
Sarah Greener:And then lastly, if it's a value, we can do a quick 15 minute freedom game
Sarah Greener:plan where we talk about where you are at and where you wanna be, and what
Sarah Greener:are the first three steps you need to take to get from where you're at.
Sarah Greener:to that freedom place that you wanna be.
Erin Austin:Wonderful.
Erin Austin:That is so generous.
Erin Austin:Thank you very much for that.
Erin Austin:You did tell us we're you could sarah greener.com.
Erin Austin:and, but also where else can people find you on the interwebs?
Erin Austin:? Sarah Greener: Yeah.
Erin Austin:I'm on Instagram at Sarah greener count.
Erin Austin:Sarah Greener coach.
Erin Austin:She says slowly Sarah.
Erin Austin:and the same on Facebook.
Erin Austin:Sarah Greener coach.
Erin Austin:and you can also just connect with me by my name Sarah Greener on LinkedIn.
Erin Austin:Awesome.
Erin Austin:Well thank you.
Erin Austin:This has been a delight.
Erin Austin:Thank you so much for sharing your time and your wisdom with us.
Erin Austin:My absolute pleasure.
Erin Austin:I've super enjoyed it and can't wait for you to come visit New
Erin Austin:Zealand, the top of the north island.
Erin Austin:Next time I know
Erin Austin:my, kid wants to come, so I think I'm gonna have
Erin Austin:to make a return, so, absolutely.
Erin Austin:Thank you, Sarah.
