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Jen Liddy

Hey, welcome to this week's episode of Content Creation Made Easy. I'm your host, Jen Liddy. 

Today I have an expert on who I'm excited to bring to you because I've talked about the importance of getting help in your business, but specifically today we're talking about getting help with your content and how that can free you up in a lot of ways, what your responsibilities are to hire the right person, what kind of person you're going to hire. 

And today I have an expert whose expertise is in helping people grow and scale. She's Sandra Booker. 

She's actually the right-hand person to some familiar names you might know in the industry, people like Tarzan Kay, Laura Belgrade, Shanti Zak, if you've followed Shanti for quizzes.

And Sandra's an online business manager and a growth strategist wrapped up into one. I recently met Sandra in person in New York City and we had Just a beautiful conversation. 

She's just such a real person, and I wanted to bring her on to talk about some different ways to think about how you can use help in your business without feeling like you're handing it over, losing your voice, or expecting something of somebody who doesn't have the right skills that you're looking for. 

So Sandra, how do you think I did on that? Does that cover what we're gonna cover?

Sandra Booker

Yeah, I think so, and who knows where the conversation will take us, but that definitely sounds good.

Jen Liddy

Sandra, can you tell us a little bit about who you are, how you got to be where you are, and what your business is up to right now?

Sandra Booker 

Yeah, so obviously Sandra Booker, I started out way back in, I guess it was 2014, where I was just trying to make some extra money because my very introverted, socially anxious child came home from high school and said, “I want to go on a trip to Iceland.” 

And we didn't have any money to send anybody on a trip to Iceland. But because they were, like they didn't know anybody that was going. 

This was very out of character for them to want to go somewhere. So I'm like, “I need to make this happen. This is going to be an amazing experience for them.” 

So I asked around, started brainstorming ideas. And, I had the idea of being a VA, way back in high school before I even had a computer.

So I didn't know, I never made a real goal out of it because I couldn't figure out how to do it, but it was there as an idea. And so that was the first thing that kind of popped into my head.

And a friend of mine told me about Fiverr. So I went on to Fiverr, put up a gig. It took off and I kind of built it out from there. 

But, one of the things that kind of set me apart right at the beginning of my little VA career was I don't just do VAs, like I can't just do the work. 

So I was always there helping people with the strategy and suggesting “Let's do it this way.” But as the VA, nobody really wanted to listen to me. 

So I started to kind of rebranding myself a little bit. I'm in the middle of actually rebranding the actual brand, because it still kind of speaks to the whole - the name Any Old Task speaks to the VA history.

So I'm going to be rebranding as Your Sidekick COO. But yeah, I started doing more business management a few years ago, I guess 2018 is really when I started focusing more on that. 

And it's just been going strong ever since. Like I said, I've had the opportunity to work with some big names in the copywriting industry.

I've also had the opportunity to turn down a few big names who I've had discovery calls with and it just wasn't a fit for what I was trying to do at the time or what they were trying to do at the time. 

So it's been really fun seeing the back ends and getting to know the back ends of even some like really like seven, multi-seven figure businesses and seeing what they were up to. 

And it's been a lot of fun growing that way. But yeah, that’s me.

Jen Liddy

When you meet your potential clients, the right fit ones, what are they struggling with? What is it that they come to these calls complaining about?

Sandra Booker 

So the right fit clients are typically people who they've kind of hit a wall. They feel like they're doing all of the things that people keep telling them they should be doing to reach their goals and they're still not reaching their goals. 

So they're mostly, pretty much they're all multi-seven figures. They've definitely hit seven figures, sorry, not seven figures, six figures, multi-six figure businesses, but they want to grow more and they just can't. 

They're spinning their wheels. A lot of them are stuck in launch mode where it was just like launch after launch after launch in order to increase their revenue. 

And it's really about them. They come and they just don't know. They don't know what they're missing. They feel like there's something in their business that they're missing. 

They feel like they should know more about their numbers and they don't, and they feel like they should have more processes and they don't, and they just aren't really sure what to put in place to make the needle move forward. 

And then that's where I come in and I focus on putting in some of the foundational pieces that they're missing and getting a nice solid foundation set up so that they can then scale from there.

Jen Liddy

Are they in do, do, do, more, more, more mode when you meet them?

Sandra Booker

Typically, yeah. They're just doing more, putting out a new offer, doing another launch. Very few are looking at any numbers at all in their business other than revenue. 

Most of them just worry about their revenue and their conversion rate. Some of them might be looking at some marketing numbers, but really they haven't tied any of those numbers to a goal other than make as much money as possible. 

So it's make as much money as possible in as little time as they can. And without burning out, it's usually everybody's goal. 

And I come in and say, “Okay, so first, what is the mission of the business? What are we even trying to accomplish long-term?” 

And then “Let's start putting those foundations in place to get us more aligned to the mission and having us assess the business on a regular basis”. Having us ask questions about the business and ask questions about the advice that we're getting.

And really evaluate things before we just jump into them and figure out, really figure out what do we want the outcome to be before we agree to this $12,000 subcontractor that we were thinking about hiring. 

What's the outcome gonna be and what's the return on that investment gonna be before we jump in and say yes.

Jen Liddy

I don't know if I mentioned this when we were in the cab going down to Brooklyn to go to the book reading for Laura Belgrade. 

But our conversation just had my brain going on fire and one of the things that my husband says all the time in our life is “What are we optimizing for?” 

I don't know if we talked about this in our conversation, but it got me thinking about “Okay, are you doing launch after launch after launch and are you optimizing just to make money?”

I have figured out this year I'm optimizing for more time and energy, which doesn't always translate to more money right up front. And so it sounds like you help people answer that question for themselves. 

What are you optimizing for? What does your version of success look like? And I think from my end, it's really easy to get caught up in the comparison and what other people are doing, what our mentors are doing, what these subcontractors tell us we should be doing. 

And it sounds like you come in and you just kind of settle everything down and like the gentle voice of what are we optimizing for? Is that kind of your role?

Sandra Booker

Yeah, I love that. What are we optimizing for? I might steal that. Tell your husband, thank you.

Jen Liddy

Go for it, John will be so happy. He'll be so happy somebody else wants to use it.

Sandra Booker

Because that is exactly what it is, right? Because the more you do in your business–for everything that you say yes to in your business, you're saying no to something else. 

So it's about really paying attention to those things you're saying no to, because most of us are just on autopilot trying to reach this one goal that we've set for ourselves and we don't even know.

A lot of us don't even know, is it even possible to get to that goal? The number of conversations I've had that started with, “Hey, what's your goal for the year?” 

“Oh, I want to get to a million dollars.” 

“Great. What are you at right now?” 

“Oh, I made 200,000 last year.” 

“Okay, you're likely not going to hit a million dollars this year, unless we're close to the end of the year and you've already hit it magically.”

I mean, let's figure out okay how, if a million dollars is really where you want to get to:

1. Why do you want to get there this year? 
2. How important is it that we get there this year? 
3. What are you already doing? Are you already on track to meet that and that's why you've said it.

Really asking the questions and figuring it out because most people when we look it's like “Yeah, you're not on track to meet a million dollars and here's what we could do,” but it's still a big jump from 200k to 1 million and not completely impossible, but you're going to be the exception, not the rule. 

So let's set a goal and if we exceed it, fantastic, but let's set the goal that's going to be... I like to set people up to win as often as possible in their businesses. 

So it's about setting goals that are still exciting, but also attainable. I want you to be hitting your goals at least 80% of the time. 

I would rather you hit a goal that's a little less exciting than a million dollars than to constantly miss goals and just be really upset.

Jen Liddy

Yes. How defeating. It's kind of like you're a gentle truth teller.

Sandra Booker

Yeah, I do. It's like a tough love approach, heavy on the love, so.

Jen Liddy

Okay, so I'm just gonna ask you before we get into talking about hiring specifically for content, because my audience is listening and they're usually solopreneurs. 

They can probably relate to a lot of the struggles that you talked about. They have a belief, or not a belief, I think a habit of doing more and more and more and more and believing that more and more is the way to get wherever they wanna go. 

So before we get there, how do you have time and capacity to work with so many big systems that you support?

Sandra Booker

It's about managing your time well, for one. But it's also about finding ways to automate and delegate and streamline in your business as much as possible. 

So, the things that I do don't take as long as other people because I have some automations in place. I only have, technically, two people on my team. 

I have an employee and my husband who helps me out, mostly doing the stuff around the house, but he also helps me out with some video editing and things like that. 

It's like I have a small team, but I rely on them a lot. So it's about figuring out what their roles are, making sure that I don't take on the work that they should be doing.

And I just remind myself, I always go to them first, “Is this something you can do? Great. Take care of it.” 

And then also saying, “This is something I'm doing every day. Can this be automated in any way?” 

All right, yes, it can be, so let's get that automation in place. Or, you know, “I'm touching this four times. Is there a way to streamline that so I'm only touching it once?” 

Yeah, great. Let's streamline that process. So thinking about those things. 

Jen Liddy

I know nobody can probably see me, but I'm nodding my head going, yes, yes. 

Okay, so let's get into talking about how we can use support. I love the question that you said, which was, “This is something I'm doing. Is this something you can help me with?”

This is a question that I've started to learn to ask around my house, but I always forget to ask it in my business, which is so stupid and backwards.

So let's talk about when somebody is kind of bogged down specifically in the content, copywriting, messaging world. 

And that might mean social media, or it might mean you have a podcast, or that you write a blog, it might mean that you have a YouTube channel, like whatever platform. 

Can you just get us started talking about what should we be thinking about in terms of getting some really valuable support?

Sandra Booker 

Yeah, so first of all, it's you have to figure out what the role is that needs to be filled. So a good way of figuring out the role is to do a time study, track everything that you're doing from the moment you get up to the moment you go to bed, write it down every 15 minutes. 

Everybody hates doing these. They're super, super useful. I highly recommend it to everybody. Do it at least twice a year. Because as you do things and change things, what you're doing is going to change as well. 

So do it at least twice a year. And then at the end of the two weeks, you can start grouping things together. You can start categorizing things and then you can decide what it is that you need to, cause it's different for everybody in their business. 

Like some people want to be doing the writing, but not the design. So maybe you're going to off with the design. Some people want to be doing both. Some people want to be doing one or the other.

But you might find that like actually the design and copywriting or whatever you're doing there isn't taking up as much time, but it's all of this stuff–the organizing the files or the coming up with the topics or the editing or the loading or the scheduling–maybe that is where the time sync is. 

So really figuring out where that time sync is for you, what needs to be taken. You'll then identify what is the actual role that needs to be taken off your plate. 

And once you know that, then you can start finding the right person for that role. So I think that's the first step is figuring out the role.

Jen Liddy

I think that everything you just said is, I don't know, it just smacked me on the forehead because what I think people do is they're like, “I need help.” 

So I'll hire a virtual assistant and you have a general VA or an admin VA or a tech VA or like my VA is amazing at tech and design. 

But you just kind of say like you lump it into this one bucket and say, I'll need a VA and all of that stuff you said to do about like marking down what you're doing all day, kind of sorting things into the types of work they are, that is a huge pain in the ass. 

But if you front load by doing that, you're going to get so much like way better informed about what you need. And I literally have had a lot of conversations about hiring somebody and we have never dived into that very first thing that you said.

Sandra Booker

Oh, wow. Yeah, definitely doing that front load work. Again, everybody hates doing it, but it is going to be the one thing that's going to be a game changer for when you're hiring. 

Because honestly, I've had so many conversations with people where they're “You know, Amy Porterfield says I need to have an integrator or, you know, whatever.”

It used to be VA and now it's integrator or VA to OBM to integrate it, whatever. But it's “I need help, I'm gonna hire a VA” and they don't even really know what kind of VA.

It's just lumped into this industry term now. And then when we've dug into their time study after they've done it, it's”Okay, but you specifically don't actually have any admin work to do. You're actually been really good.”

I had one client who was really great with streamlining and automating, so they didn't really have a lot of administrative work to do. So for them, I'm like, “Okay, yeah.” 

For these I think it was like three hours or five hours a month that they had. I'm like, “Sure, get somebody in to take it off just because you really hate doing it.” 

So find somebody to do that. But I would say first, why don't you take this big chunk of tech stuff off of your plate?

So it was all of this setting up automations and run it, checking in on the zaps that were set up and fixing all that. It was taking a lot of time because it was.

It was a long story, but anyways, it was taking a lot of time for her. And so that would be super useful. That's 15 hours of your time a month. 

Get that off your plate, then hire somebody to take the extra five hours of administration and customer service stuff off your plate. 

You just freed up 20 hours of time with two very specific roles with two very specific people who are designed to do that. 

And that's the other thing. A lot of people are always looking for the unicorn. They're always looking for that one person to do it all and all-in-ones don't work. 

They don't work with shampoo, and they don't work with VAs. Just stop looking for the all in ones. And instead of trying to find that unicorn–if you find a unicorn, great, grab them, keep them. 

But really, you're looking for a few horses to do the work. Good, good sturdy horse in your business. And you'll get way further than spinning your wheels trying to find somebody to do it all. 

And that's the thing I see all the time people will be like, I'm going to hire a VA and I want them to do all this general administration stuff. But also be an amazing copywriter and an amazing designer. 

No, that's two different sides of your brain really. You might find that, but you're more likely and better off to find two different people or three different people to fill those roles.

Jen Liddy

What you're speaking to is something I talk about a lot and I think is really important specifically when it comes to content creation, copywriting and general marketing is a level of self-awareness that I don't think a lot of us give the time to. 

And what you're saying is like with this one client who is “Oh, I need an admin,” she or he wasn't even aware of “Oh, admin wasn't really the problem, the tech was the problem.” 

So this, I don't know, it's like a big, yes, it's a big task and you front load it and then it's done. But you have awareness of yourself, which I think is enormous when you're trying to hire a good fit. 

You don't want another you.

Sandra Booker

Yeah, I mean, it's rare that you really want another you in your business. You typically want somebody that can support your weak side. 

You want somebody that can do the things that you're not great at doing. And that's the other thing, when people are hiring, the number of times I've heard people say, “Well, I really want to make sure that whoever I hire, I want to feel like I can go out and get a drink with them or go out and have a good time with them.” 

And I'm like, “You're not hiring a best friend. This is not what we're interviewing for. We need somebody to do this.” 

And I actually had one client who said, “Okay, well, I really want you to do,” I was doing the hiring for them and “I really want you to do group interviews for this position.” 

It was like a general administration position where the person had to be kind of techie and stuff. I want to do group interviews. I'm like, “Why do you want to do a group interview?” 

“Because I want to see who's going to stand out and really speak up and blah blah.”

I'm like, “Okay, but the person that is going to fill this role is likely going to be an introvert and that person's not going to stand out in a group interview.”

Having a group interview in this case, if you are looking for a salesperson, sure do a group interview, but you're looking for somebody to be on the back end of your systems and be in the back end of your business, likely not going to be somebody that's going to grab the spotlight.

But it's all stuff because people just take the information in like, “so-and-so said this and so-and-so said that.” You really need to consider the source and also consider is it right for your business and is it right for the role. 

When you're listening to general advice, remember that it is general advice or you might be listening to what worked for somebody at their business right now, but that's not where your business is. 

So you need to think about your business right now. It’s a pain because it's work, but it'll save you way more work overall to do that initial.

Jen Liddy

Yes, it's funny, I'm dealing with this right now because I'm teaching my 16-year-old son how to drive, which is such a pain in the ass and exhausting and a little bit terrifying also, but on the other side of these 50 hours that I have to do with him, he's gonna be able to drive himself everywhere!

So we've all gotta keep that in mind that this upfront investment pays off. So let's then talk about once you become more self-aware of yourself and your needs, who that person is, what the role they're filling, what type of person they are. 

I love that you talked about how an introvert isn't going to shine in this format and a salesperson would. All of those things, sometimes you can just get so clouded in your own busy brain. 

So I love that we've kind of established that self-awareness-needs piece first. What happens after we get through all of that?

Sandra Booker 

So once you've established the role and do you mean, so the actual hiring process is. So then when you're actually going out to hire, you want to make sure that you have your role well-defined and have it documented. 

Even if you're hiring a subcontractor, there's nothing wrong with having a job description. In fact, every single role you have in your company, whether it's filled by a contractor or not, you should have a job description.

And that job description should include all the responsibilities that this person is gonna have, but here are the results they are also responsible for achieving. 

And you don't have to get super granular. You're not gonna necessarily say to increase profit by X percent year over year, but depending on the role you might, but most of the roles that we're talking about hiring, you're not gonna do that. 

But definitely if you're hiring a general administration VA and they're going to be doing customer service, one of the results you want them to be responsible for is ensuring that your customers are happy and having a great customer service experience and having their issues resolved with first time contact and within 24 hours or whatever it is that you've set your goals for and outlining those as well in there. 

But also making sure that you're understanding that the other thing I see people do is, “I don't have a lot of money to hire, to spend a lot on this person, but I want them to have 10 years of experience and be super professional and be able to do X, Y, and Z and have all of this knowledge.” 

You need to understand that you're paying for somebody's expertise. So if you're hiring somebody who's been in the game for 10 years and they know everything, and they're going to help lead your team or do whatever and do all these amazing things, you're going to have to pay for that. 

If you don't have a lot of money, then it's okay to find somebody and bring somebody that's fairly new and let them grow with you. One of my most successful clients and one of the longest term clients I have is someone who we grew together. 

I didn't really know much when I started and she didn't really know much when she started and we grew those businesses together. Hers hit puberty first, but it's fine to grow with somebody and just know what you're getting into. 

Regardless of who you bring on, whether they're very skilled or need a little bit more knowledge. You still have to onboard them. And that's the mistake I see a lot of people making when they're bringing in help.

They might even pay for somebody who has a lot of skills. And they'll say, “Okay, great, this person, I'm paying them X number of dollars an hour and they know a lot. So I'm just gonna tell them, this is what I want you to do. And then I'm gonna walk away and everything will be fine.” 

And you can't do that. If you're hiring somebody for 20 hours a month as a general admin VA, you're still only gonna save probably 18 hours a month because you still need to be checking in with them regularly, right?

So you still need to manage them. Eventually you can maybe bring somebody else on your team to manage those people, but you'll always have at least one person that you need to manage and check in with. 

And when you first get started with them, you're going to want to check in with them every day and it doesn't have to be really long, just a quick, “Hey, how'd things go? What did you struggle with today? What went well today? Any questions, concerns, critical issues? What was a win? Let's kind of just celebrate together.” Done.

Move on and if you check in with them every single day you'll know within three weeks whether that person is the right fit. And the old adage about “hire slow, fire fast” is a very good thing to follow. 

But when it says hire slow, some people think wait to hire. No, hire slow just means taking your time with the process of hiring.

So developing the role. Don't just hire the first person somebody said was good. You wanna meet with a few people and evaluate them and choose somebody. 

Maybe even do a test project, especially if you're doing a general admin thing. You can say, “Can we just do a test trial for two weeks and see how it goes?” 

Because if you're checking in with them every day for those first few months, for the first, I would say six weeks checking in with them every day. And then by then you'll know you're pretty confident they are going to be good. 

And then you can kind of every week or every few days. But I would say you always want to be checking in with your team, especially if they're in it. 

Like they're a main team member, you're going to want to be checking in with them at least weekly, no matter what.

Jen Liddy

Okay, so it's kind of, first is expectation setting both for yourself and for them, checking your expectations, and then communication, that's the non-negotiable here.

Sandra Booker

Yes.Communication is non-negotiable. And a lot of people want to just be able to say, “Here you go and done.” And you really can't.

You need to build that communication in. And you're missing out on opportunities. I was actually just speaking with somebody the other day and she has in her team, she has a couple of VAs. 

She has some core people that she meets with regularly. But then she has some other people that do just manual tasks and she doesn't feel the need to check in with those people. 

And I'm like, “You are missing out. You're missing out on the opportunity to build a connection with them.” 

And if you're not building a connection with them, then as they learn new things, cause they're going to be learning new things, they're not going to be thinking, “Oh, I need to reach out to this person.” 

They're going to be thinking, I need to reach out to this other person and tell them about this new, fantastic thing I just stumbled upon.

So you want to build the connection. You want to be asking them questions. Learn anything new lately? So how are you feeling in this role? 

If you have someone really good on your team that you love, you need to be building that connection with them so that they stay.

Help them–not everybody's going to want to grow with your business, like move into a different role–but you want to make sure they want to stay in that role. 

And if they feel disconnected, they'll go somewhere else. So you want to connect with them.

Jen Liddy

Yeah, and then all that time, energy, focus, communication that you've put in is gone, right? So it's not on them to seek you out, it's on you to seek them out. 

Okay, so having been on the backend of many businesses, can you give us an insight into how granular or specific can you get or should you get when it's time to hire somebody?

Sandra Booker

You should get pretty specific about what you're looking for. And you should know the process for hiring is slightly different when you're hiring an employee versus a subcontractor or a contractor.

Because you're a contractor, you're not interviewing them necessarily.

You might get on a discovery call and see if you're a fit for one another but you really should know the type of person that you want to work with and the type of skills that you would like them to have before you get on any calls with them so that you know what to look for. 

And with an employee, you can be a little bit more blatant about the interviewing process and you actually can put them through a bit more of a process, but a contractor, not so much.

But regardless, you can still decide the number of hours, you can decide is this somebody who– these are all the responsibilities I need them to be responsible for, these are the results. 

This is the type of experience I need them to have or want them to have. And you can even say, this is the type of personality that I'm looking for in the business as well. 

Depending on the role, that personality aspect is going to be really important or not. But you definitely want somebody that you can get along with. 

You don't want somebody that's combative necessarily unless you want, there's some roles, maybe you want that, who knows? 

But for instance, when I'm hiring, if I'm looking for somebody as a general admin, personally, I'm looking for somebody who is really good at detail, they're really good at attention to detail.

You don't have to be a perfect speller. I've had clients in the past that are really big, huge sticklers for perfect spelling. And the person doesn't have to spell perfectly. 

They just have to have a process for checking their spelling. So I want somebody who has great attention to detail, is good at creating processes so that they can have that great attention to detail.

And also somebody who is willing to say something if they see something. So I want somebody who's, if they see something that makes them question, if I have them reviewing an email, for instance.

“Hey, can you just read this over and make sure it makes sense?” If they're reading that, I want them to say, if it doesn't make sense, I don't want them to go, “Oh, well, Sandra wrote it, so it should be good.” 

You know, “The boss said.” I want them to question me. So I'm looking for somebody who will do that during the discovery phase or the interview process. 

And I'll even go so far as I like having them complete a couple of personality tests. I usually have them do the DISC assessment. 

Just again, because I'm looking for somebody that can shore up my weak side, and I'm looking for somebody who can work well in the role that…in the way I need them to work. 

Jen Liddy

So we're talking both personality, well not both, but personality, strengths, and tasks. 

So if you're looking for somebody to actually just do your social media specifically, or create visuals specifically, those might not be the same person, but you can get really pretty granular in terms of who to hire, you have to get granular.

Sandra Booker 

Yeah. And I would say what you're going to want in the instance of hiring somebody to do your “social media”, putting that in quotes, because doing your social media, I need somebody to strategize and make the plan that's going to help me achieve my goals. 

That's one aspect of social media. Then I need somebody who's going to create the content and make it look amazing and be in my brand and use my brand voice and all of that stuff. 

And that's another skill set and then I need somebody that's going to schedule it and make sure it goes out correctly on time every time and it's all working and who will be kind of like watching current events and going oh maybe I shouldn't put that out right now and things like that so and that is technically a third kind of skill. 

A lot of the time, most often people are looking for this one person to do all three of those things and sometimes you can find that.

But what I would recommend doing is really figuring out of those three things, which part is the part you desperately need off your plate right now that you just can't do. Hire for that. 

If they can do the other two parts, fantastic. If they can't, find somebody else to do those other two parts.

Jen Liddy

Right. This is so helpful. You've really broken it down. 

And you're asking us to really get honest with ourselves, to know ourselves, to do some hard things, like communicating with other people and setting expectations. 

These are hard things. I think these are part of the reason that people don't hire quickly enough. And then they wind up kind of flattened against the wall with how much work they have. 

And then it feels like it's so big and such a heavy lift to hire somebody. So I hope that somebody listening can feel encouraged. 

“OK, I'm just going to do one of the things Sandra said today. I'm just going to take like a baby step forward.” 

Or if you're working with somebody and it's not working to kind of assess the pieces that you've broken down for us today, because it's just so helpful and it doesn't have to be this blanket statement of your VA or you're hiring somebody or your OBM. 

Like, it really is pieces and parts and the only person who can assess what's wrong is you.

Sandra Booker

Yeah, and if there is something wrong, especially like if you've already hired somebody and it's not working the way you want it to work, the number of times I've had a conversation where they're like, “Yeah, my VA is just terrible. They're not great. I, you know, this is happening and this is happening.”

And I'm like, “Okay, so what did they say when you talk to them about it?” And they've never talked to them about it. And I'm like, “You need to be talking to them about it. You need to be bringing it to them.”

Because you can't just assume that they know. They're a whole different entity with a whole different set of synapses and inputs and ways of looking at the world. 

And you just can't assume that they know. And you need to have those conversations. And I know that sometimes they're hard. 

You don't have to be a jerk about it. You don't have to be harsh. Come at the question with curiosity instead of judgment and forget blame, forget judgment.

Say “Okay, hey, this is happening. I would like this to happen instead. How can we get to that? Is that something that you can help me get to? Do you know what's happening here? How can we fix the process?”

Fix the process, not the person. And then as you build, you'll be able to, I think I heard that from, I think it was probably Alex Shufflin, I heard that from originally, fix the process, not the person. 

But doing that will really help ease the conversation and it also helps them take ownership of their role a little bit more. 

And also make sure that you're having those conversations to let them know how much autonomy do they have in their role. And again, that's gonna depend on the role and your comfort zone and things like that.

If you're somebody who is a bit of a micromanager, then you're gonna probably want them to have less autonomy. And I would encourage you, as you see evidence that they are doing well, give them more autonomy.

The more autonomy you can give somebody in the role, the better and more productive they will be in the role. But communication is key. Letting them know what's the problem and ask them to help find the solution.

Jen Liddy

I love that, asking them to help find a solution. Sandra, I know that you work with people in other ways rather than just the one-on-one work that we've talked about today. 

So I don't know when you're opening your program again. I know that everything's kind of becoming more into focusing your business. How can people get into your world? 

And how do you help just regular old entrepreneurs do this stuff so they don't feel like it's such an overwhelming, huge task?

Sandra Booker

So the program that you kind of mentioned is Scale Society. It's a group program. That is actually opening, the doors are opening in August, end of August, so that is coming up. 

There's also a self-study version of it that I typically roll out at the end of August and also usually again in the beginning of the year. 

So that's one way for sure. I'd say just get on my email list or follow me on YouTube. So if you go to anyoldtask.ca, you'll be able to sign up for my email list right on the front page. 

It's right at the top. And you can also go to my YouTube channel, which is at Sidekick COO. And those are probably the best ways.

Jen Liddy

Sidekick, C-O-O, okay. Love it. I'm sorry, the name of the group program again.

Sandra Booker

Is Scale Society.

Jen Liddy

What do people learn in there?

Sandra Booker

So Scale Society is all about setting those foundations. So I've identified basically six areas between, and we cover things like, you know, mission and values, which everybody stop rolling your eyes, it's really important. 

And I will convince you of that. I know most people will do it at the beginning. Like if they ever do it, they do it like when they first they're starting their business and then they never look at it again.

And because, you know, the way most people are taught to do mission and values is useless, but I can help you find a way to do it that is actually very, very useful. 

And it becomes the overarching goal of your business and helps keep you on track. So you're not always off doing things that are not gonna get you where you wanna go.

But we cover systems and processes in your business, how to streamline, automate, delegate, and hire and team building and building a culture and being a leader in your business. 

And we also really talk a lot about about really knowing yourself and being open and honest with yourself about your strengths and weaknesses and or what you perceive to be your strengths and weaknesses.

And just really knowing what you're like so that you can find ways to, and it's not necessarily about changing everything who you are fundamentally, but finding ways to work around or within or in even maybe slightly change some of those things that you struggle with. 

And a lot of people that are like, “I don't want to change who I am.” I'm like, “I'm not asking you to change who you are. But we can find ways to work with that core aspect of yourself.” 

If you're like a high quick start visionary person, yeah, we can find ways of working with that in your business. You just have to be open to trying different things.

Jen Liddy

So I follow Sandra, obviously. I've seen her sales page for Scale Society and I actually have saved your sales page because it was so beautifully written. 

Sandra Booker

I did that myself too! Ah! You just made my whole year!

Jen Liddy

I have it under a file called great sales pages, just so you know. And I just, if you're listening to this episode and you feel like you get everything but you don't know how, Sandra's just such…

She's a person who just lives and works in integrity. And I'm so excited that you came onto Content Creation Made Easy. And I just wanted to say thank you so much. So many gems today.

Sandra Booker

Oh, thank you so much for having me. I loved it and it's always great getting to chat with you.

Jen Liddy

Thank you. Okay everyone, if you are listening, start to think about what you're doing in your day that's driving you bonkers and make a list and be kind to yourself while you're doing it. 

And then just take the first steps that Sandra was outlining today because you deserve some help in your business. 

You can't keep going with everything that's in your backpack weighing you down. So again, Sandra, thanks, and I'll see you listener next week. Bye.