Ep 29. How to Avoid Becoming Your Team's Worst Nightmare
Having a team can be a game changer for business, but if you're not organized it can quickly turn into a horror story. In this episode, host Phylicia shares four things that business owners and entrepreneurs can do to avoid becoming their team's worst nightmare.
About Phylicia
Phylicia Pough, MBA is a wife, mom of 1 daughter and an entrepreneur. For over 10 years, Phylicia has been behind the scenes of businesses and ministries, keeping things organized. Her journey started in Administration and developed into Systems & Automation Consulting/Strategy.
Her latest venture is The Mom CEO Suite which is a community for the modern day mom in business that curates experiences and safe spaces for mompreneurs. The Mom CEO Suite also automates business and podcasting processes for mompreneur service providers.
Connect with Phylicia
Facebook: Phylicia Pough
Instagram: @PhyliciaPough
LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/phyliciapough/
Connect with The Mom CEO Suite
Website: themomceosuite.com
Instagram: @themomceosuite
Join The Mom CEO Suite Facebook Group
Join The Mom CEO Suite Email Community
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Transcript
You are now tuned in to the Mom c e O Suite
Speaker:Podcast. I'm your host, Felicia wife,
Speaker:mom, and entrepreneur. In this podcast, I'll be sharing my
Speaker:mompreneur journey along with strategies that will help you build your
Speaker:online business operations in a sustainable way.
Speaker:The goal is to help you build a business that fits into your lifestyle as
Speaker:a mom who values putting family first. We will also hear the
Speaker:experiences and expertise of other moms with
Speaker:service-based businesses. You'll get a peek into our journeys, so
Speaker:you'll know that you are alone. Motherhood gets hard,
Speaker:entrepreneurship gets hard, but together we can
Speaker:do hard things. Welcome to this.
Speaker:Hey friends. Welcome to another episode today. We're going to be talking
Speaker:about how to avoid becoming your teams.
Speaker:Worst nightmare. Nail at the suite, a part of our
Speaker:framework. For building your online business in a sustainable way
Speaker:is team building. And having a team, it can be
Speaker:such an asset to your business, but on the flip
Speaker:side, a lot of horror stories can come along with having
Speaker:a team. And if you, as the business owner, you don't have your
Speaker:things in order, then it's going to be the team member. That's going to be
Speaker:having these horror stories about you and your business. And we want to
Speaker:avoid that at all costs. So I'm just going to be sharing
Speaker:four things that you can do to kind of
Speaker:avoid that. And this is just based on my experience being
Speaker:behind the scenes in businesses. For years, I did
Speaker:do some VA work, um, earlier on in my
Speaker:entrepreneurial career. And so I've seen a good amount
Speaker:of things behind the scenes of businesses. So again, I'm gonna share these four
Speaker:things. Now, when I say team. I'm not saying
Speaker:necessarily that you need to have full time employees or a
Speaker:full staff like me. For example, I don't have full-time employees
Speaker:or full staff. I outsource things. On a project
Speaker:by project basis or just depending on what's going on in my business.
Speaker:I have certain contractors that I use for certain things like graphics
Speaker:or updates to the website. Well, for now I have
Speaker:lots of things automated in my business, so it's not a need. So
Speaker:again, think about where you are in your business, what your need
Speaker:is and build your team from there. But we'll talk about.
Speaker:specifics about team-building in another episode. Okay.
Speaker:So let's get into these four things. How
Speaker:you can avoid becoming your team's worst nightmare. So number one,
Speaker:you want to establish and maintain
Speaker:clear communication. Now in order to do
Speaker:this, you need to collaborate with your team member to
Speaker:define what this really means. You cannot have an expectation
Speaker:for communication without. Expressing that to the team
Speaker:member. Okay. So you both need to be on the same page. so what is
Speaker:your communication going to look like? Is this
Speaker:going to be a weekly zoom call, or will you be able
Speaker:to communicate throughout the week during your business hours or
Speaker:one? Slack or a boxer. or
Speaker:are you going to communicate via email and then
Speaker:establish what the cadence for your communication
Speaker:is going to be? So are you communicating daily or just weekly?
Speaker:And along with that also are the boundaries that are going to be in
Speaker:place. In terms of your communication. So will you be
Speaker:able to. So all of these are things for you to
Speaker:consider as you are establishing what clear
Speaker:communication looks like. But not only do you need to establish it,
Speaker:but you also need to maintain it. And this
Speaker:is one of the things that I have seen in my experience is
Speaker:that consistent communication. Becomes a
Speaker:problem. And when there is lacking or
Speaker:inconsistent communication, then that leaves a room for
Speaker:problems and challenges to arise in.
Speaker:The relationship, but also in the business as well. So that's
Speaker:the first thing you went to establish and maintain clear communication
Speaker:and make sure you are collaborating with your team member to define what that
Speaker:really means. Okay. Number two is you want to
Speaker:avoid scope creep. You hear this term a lot when it
Speaker:comes to clients. So the client
Speaker:may have hired a business owner to do a particular
Speaker:thing. And as the project. Progress's
Speaker:they want to add little things along the way. That
Speaker:were not a part of the initial proposal
Speaker:or initial agreement of the project. Now from
Speaker:a team perspective, this can happen as
Speaker:well. If you, as the business owner, Bring someone
Speaker:on to your team. And then once you have
Speaker:hired them for a particular role or task,
Speaker:once they're on board, you start asking them to do other
Speaker:things. So let's just say you hire them to do your social
Speaker:media marketing. Then, if you began to
Speaker:ask them to do other things like, oh, can you do
Speaker:email marketing? This typically happens if this is a, uh, virtual
Speaker:assistant. But you start asking other things. Can you do
Speaker:email marketing? Can you, update the
Speaker:website, right? So this is scope creep. And this is very
Speaker:frustrating to the person that you have hired because they
Speaker:have the expectation that they are going to be doing one
Speaker:thing. And now you are asking them to do
Speaker:more and it becomes even more of a challenge when you are not
Speaker:offering as the business owner. To compensate them for this
Speaker:additional. scope of work that you are asking them.
Speaker:To handle. And so to avoid scope creep, you want
Speaker:to have clearly defined roles and responsibilities.
Speaker:You want to start this from the time you put out your job
Speaker:description. So in the job description, You want to be
Speaker:very clear about the role that you are
Speaker:hiring for and the specific tasks that this
Speaker:person is going to be responsible for in order to do
Speaker:that, of course you need to, really.
Speaker:Identifying where the gaps are. And what the
Speaker:role needs to be, but. Clearly define
Speaker:your roles and responsibilities so that you can avoid
Speaker:scope creep. Okay next.
Speaker:Number three, and this will also kind of help you to avoid scope
Speaker:creep, but it's also number three on our list here is that
Speaker:you want to have SLPs available. SLPs are standard
Speaker:operating procedures. And so again, SLPs are the
Speaker:blueprint for how your business operates. They
Speaker:outline how tasks are performed. And when you
Speaker:have SLPs in your business, this can help you
Speaker:have a smoother and more efficient onboarding
Speaker:experience. and this is very important because if you don't
Speaker:have a good onboarding experience, this will kind
Speaker:of diminish. Your reputation This also, again, as I mentioned will
Speaker:help you to eliminate scope creep. And it can help you to
Speaker:improve your retention rate for your team
Speaker:members. Because again, the problems that arise are that,
Speaker:somebody coming on, if you don't have SLPs, or if you haven't clearly defined their
Speaker:role, Then they're coming on. It's disorganized.
Speaker:they are feeling like they don't know what they are supposed to be doing.
Speaker:on a day-to-day basis, they don't have any guidance. And so
Speaker:SLPs really help with guiding them,
Speaker:from day one, from onboarding all the way through
Speaker:until. whenever it's time for them to offboard, it
Speaker:helps them to understand how the tasks are supposed to be
Speaker:performed according to your, your business
Speaker:blueprint. And again, it just makes things go a lot
Speaker:more smoother and efficient. Now, if you are needing
Speaker:support with your SLPs, make sure you click the link and the show
Speaker:description so you can get the details about our upcoming two
Speaker:day SOP sprint. All right now, finally,
Speaker:last in our list. Number four is that you want to find the balance
Speaker:between micromanaging and
Speaker:abdicating. So micromanaging is let's just say you
Speaker:hire somebody. And you are constantly
Speaker:checking in. You're constantly. Just
Speaker:you're overbearing and you are going outside of the
Speaker:boundaries of the established communication that you have
Speaker:set. So you don't want to be a micromanager. It
Speaker:can seem like you don't trust them. But you also
Speaker:don't want to abdicate and abdicating is when you
Speaker:might bring a team member on and you just totally
Speaker:Relinquish your responsibilities or your
Speaker:duties and you give them no guidance. You pretty much just give them.
Speaker:And the whole pie and say, here, this is your thing
Speaker:now without any type of guidance, And so. You want
Speaker:to be able to find the balance between the two to where you
Speaker:are letting this team member know that you have
Speaker:some level of trust in them, right. That they can handle the
Speaker:tasks. But that you are also going to not just
Speaker:leave them out there, that you are going to be available.
Speaker:You or another team member that somebody is going to be available.
Speaker:To guide them throughout the process or to be
Speaker:available. For feedback or questions that they might
Speaker:have. Okay. So again, As a
Speaker:quick recap, how can you avoid becoming your team's
Speaker:worst nightmare? Number one you want to establish and
Speaker:maintain clear communication. You
Speaker:want to avoid scope creep? You want to
Speaker:have SLPs available. And then finally you want to
Speaker:find the balance between micromanaging and
Speaker:abdicating. I hope that this was helpful for you. Send me a message
Speaker:on Instagram and let me know which one of these four things was most
Speaker:impactful for you. And I will see you in the next
Speaker:episode. Thank you for listening to the Mom C e O Suite
Speaker:Podcast. If you enjoyed this episode, can you do us a favor?
Speaker:Leave a review on iTunes and share with other moms in business
Speaker:like you. Help us spread our message and empower others who are
