When it comes to our businesses, processes and systems might not be everybody’s love language. But that’s why we have this amazing community of online service providers to lean on to create the clarity and ease in our business that helps us thrive.
I had the opportunity to chat with fellow OBM Shay Howard in October, and I loved learning about her story, and how it informed her perspectives in her service-based business.
Shay is a mom and wife who lives in Northern Colorado. She left her career as a high school counselor after having her daughter in August of 2021 and is now a Director of Operations, Online Business Manager, and Dubsado specialist. Shay partners with female creatives who are in a stage of growth to help streamline their business with operations, systems, and strategic planning.
When she is not serving her clients, you’ll find Shay spending time with her daughter and husband, playing fetch with the dogs, lifting at her local CrossFit gym, or visiting her family’s ranch in South Dakota. We got to chat a little bit about the similarities between weightlifting and business… you’re going to love that conversation. She also shares insights to help get aligned with your mission, vision, and values while offering an exceptional client experience that infuses energy and ease into your business.
Make sure you scroll down to the bottom to access the links and connect with Shay!
Highlights from this Episode
We talk about:
- Having outside interests and commitments help shape our mindset and perspective with our own business
- Surrounding ourselves with the people in business who help ground us and help us shift and protect our energy and move in the right direction for our business.
- Becoming confident about the client experience you’re offering
- Creating ease for yourself and your clients through specific processes
- The 4 phases of a strong consumer process to create a clear timeline and clarity for your clients and customers
- Streamlining your processes to suit your business and recognize what works for you, your lifestyle, mission, values, and bandwidth
Captivating Quotes from this Episode:
11:30 How her commitment and relationship to weightlifting is comparable to a healthy business mindset
So when you’re growing your business, there are times where things might happen, you might have to step away for a minute for different reasons. Maybe it’s that you have a kid or whatever it might be, but you don’t want all that work that you put into it go to waste. And I think that’s kind of how it was for me with weightlifting, I’d been lifting for a very long time. And I lifted until the day before I had [ my daughter]. And so it wasn’t anything that I ever gave up when I was pregnant with her. And so I think to just all of a sudden drop it and not have any activity like that, that just wouldn’t have been me, you know, I’ve done all this worked. And just not to continue, it would have been very out of character, I think for myself. But going back to like the business side, if you’re building this business, and you have to step away from it for a little bit, are you just gonna leave it just be like, alright, like, I’m done, I’m not going to do it anymore. ? Like, you’re gonna want to continue to grow. And it takes time to get back into it, and you have to kind of find your foundation again, and maybe your mission has changed for your business, or maybe your services have changed. But that doesn’t mean that is something you just give up and walk away from, you just kind of revamp and you pivot and you do what you need to do.
16:18- the benefits of a community of biz besties
I have a group of biz besties that we meet with each week. And so it’s cool, because all the weeks that are really hard in business, I look forward to that day so much, because I’m like, okay, like, we’ll be able to talk about it. And I feel so much better, after airing everything out and just getting their input and knowing that somebody is going through the same thing as I am sometimes or maybe they have experienced it. And they’ve given me their feedback of what worked for them or how they moved through it. And it’s the same thing of like showing up to weightlifting, when the days are like, really early. And I don’t want to get there I have someone who I can relate to and they’re struggling to. And we’re to do it together.
23:33- How Integrating Client Process translates to an ideal Client Experience
With every Dubsado set up I do. We talk about the client process. Okay, what happens when somebody first inquires about your services? How do you send a discovery call what goes out when those sorts of things. And I found that actually, I’ll say this for confidently for probably 90% of the people I worked with, they did not have a client process in place. And it was so interesting for me because that is something I think about naturally, like what is your step? How do you do things. And so I found such a need for helping people with this because it truly creates so much more ease for you as a business owner to know what is happening when you’re working with clients. And that translates to your client having a great experience because it’s consistent. They know when things are happening. It’s not just kind of like fly by the seat of your pants, middle of the night, send a reminder, it’s more of like you’re on a timeline for yourself. And your clients can count on that from your side too
33:41- Gaining perspective to inform how you create your client experience.
Yeah. And another thing that I suggest for people is whether it’s in the online space, or even if it’s like brick and mortar businesses, think about the experience that you had that was top notch like it was excellent. What happened? What made that a great experience for you? And then reverse that to what was the experience that was not so great. It’s easy to remember the ones that were not so great. Why was it not so great? What happened? And then how can you prevent that from happening for you and your clients and your business too. So I think it’s just kind of looking at different perspectives of your experiences, whether they’re good or bad, other people’s experiences, good or bad, just to help create that very, very clear process for you, and a great client experience for your clients.
36:38- Building sustainable processes that make sense for your business
Do what is best for you, and what is sustainable for you, as a business owner, take into account your time, your work boundaries, because that is huge, making sure you have those boundaries for yourself, you do not need to work all the time. And this helps with that. And just making sure that you feel good with it. And it’s okay to tweak. I mean, I tweak mine all the time, like I will make changes here and there. And that’s okay. Because I’m finding what works better for me and for my clients and, and really for the work life balance, I want to continue to maintain as my business continues to grow.
42:02- Taking baby steps toward a stronger client proicess.
It’s more along the lines of creating ease for yourself as a business owner. And it doesn’t have to be a CRM, I mean, I think how to CRM at some point in your business, especially when you’re going to scale, is definitely going to help you with automations, and stuff like that. But if you’re at a place where like, I’m not quite ready for that, or I’m not ready to invest, you could do this still and have it laid out and, let’s say, like a Google sheet or Trello board, it doesn’t have to be built into something yet. I think just having somebody mapped out is going to help you. And then when you get to a place where you have HoneyBook or Dubsado, whatever it is for your business, you have that client process just to throw in there and be ready to go. So it’s going to help you in the long run. And it really will help you sustain your business as a business owner, as you’re continuing to grow and scale.
Connect with Shay:
Website: www.shayhoward.co
Email: shayhowardllc@gmail.com
Instagram/Facebook: @shayhoward.co
Links from this episode:
Work With Shay https://www.shayhoward.co/services
Connect with Julie:
Free: Dream Team Starter Kit (includes free time study template)
My website: www.juliecalcote.com
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