#183 Breaking Down The Steps To A Simple, Profitable, Efficient Business

In this episode we are breaking down the 6 steps to simplify your business so that it runs more efficiently and generates more profit.

You will learn:

• what stage of business you're in
• the six steps to a business that is simple, efficient, and easy to troubleshoot
• the results of getting the right support as you grow and scale your business

Apply to work with me here, and let's start designing a business that works FOR YOU.

Link to Music Credits
Track: Positive Motivation
Author: AShamaluevMusic (ASM)
Publisher: CD Baby (IPI 700570289)

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Transcript

Ilonka Ras (00:01.56)
Welcome to the Effortless CEO podcast, the only show that teaches South African business owners how to improve their operations and design a business that can run without them. If you're interested in leading your team more effectively, creating more operational efficiency, delivering with excellence while getting some of your life back, then you're in the right place. Here's your host, strategic intervention coach and operations specialist, Ilonka Ross.

Welcome back to the Effortless CEO podcast. This is episode 183, and I'm really excited to speak to you today. I'm going to be speaking to those of you who are ready to get off of the work until you drop trade more and finally design a business that not only works for you, but one that is simple, profitable, and not dependent on you showing up a hundred percent of the time.

This is for those of you that know that there is a better, simpler, more organized and streamlined way to run your business. And you want to be in a room that specializes in helping you to do exactly that. I'm going to be walking you through exactly what happens inside of my 12 month private coaching program, the process I guide my clients through, the types of business owners my program is built for, and the results my clients experience when we do this work.

So if you've been on the fence or if you've been thinking about what it would be like to have me as your coach, this episode is going to break it down for you and help you to make that decision with more confidence. I have done this work in both of the businesses I own and I have helped dozens of business owners across different industries to do it for themselves as well. So first, I wanted to share who I typically work with.

Who is the best fit for this program? There are three types or stages rather of business owners that I work with. But over the years, I have started to recognize a few common patterns or themes that show up regardless of what stage of business you're in. These are the things almost every business owner that reaches out for help will say that they are struggling with. And it is a great indication that you could be ready to work with me.

Ilonka Ras (02:26.328)
So the first thing that business owners often say to me is that it feels like the business is taking over my life. They are constantly thinking about work, talking about the business nonstop. And even when they're not working, they're still mentally in it. They also say that they feel resentful towards the business because it feels like it's taking them away from their life, away from their kids. They say that they have a hard time switching off.

being present in their personal life and that being present or not working feels like a luxury. They are always on, always reachable and that they struggle with guilt when they are resting, when they aren't working. They also tell me that they don't have any systems in place. And the way this shows up or presents itself is they would say things like, no, all of the information is inside of my head and I'm constantly reinventing the wheel every week.

So it's very obvious that there is no structure, no documented processes. It's basically just you remembering it all. They also tell me that they don't necessarily have a plan. And some of my clients will even admit that they are not really good at planning effectively. It gives you the sense that you're flying by the seat of your pants, as they would say, just taking it day by day. There is no clear strategy. You don't necessarily have any clear goals. And even if you do,

you might be feeling very disconnected from them. Like, yeah, it's nice to have this goal, but I can't really see it truly happening for me. This makes things feel like you are always reacting to things that you don't have control over your time or the things that happen inside of your business. Now these things show up no matter what stage you're in, how they present and what you need to focus on will look a little bit different depending on where you are in your business.

So there are basically three stages of business owners that come to me for help and that I help through this program. The first stage is the business owners who are ready to grow sustainably. This means that you're not quite at full capacity yet. In other words, you can take on more clients. You have the time and the capacity to take on more clients and you want to take on more clients, but you...

Ilonka Ras (04:43.998)
also want to do it more efficiently than you have been doing it up until now. Right now, your business feels disorganized. There is no real plan and it's been working okay up until now, but deep down, you also know that you could be doing things differently. You could be working smarter, not harder. You in essence want to build a foundation that isn't shaky. You want to set things up now before you get to a place where

It's unmanageable so that the growth that you do experience is calm and intentional. This stage is really all about laying the groundwork, right? So that the growth you create is sustainable. The second stage of owners are those owners who are ready for help. These are the owners that would love to grow more, but you also don't have more time to take on more work. And it's obvious that you need some help.

in the business, but the thought of hiring someone really stresses you out. You may have even already hired someone like dipped your toes into adding a team member or two to your business, but it didn't necessarily pan out or work out the way that you thought it would. And so now you're back to doing it all yourself or worst case scenario, you have an employee on your team that you're like, I don't want this person on my team anymore. It's not working, but you don't know how to, to let them go.

So you want to deliver exceptional work. care deeply about your clients, but things are in essence slipping through the cracks because you just don't have time in your calendar. You are swamped. It feels like you're juggling a thousand open tabs every single day. So you know that something needs to change. You're just not sure exactly what or where to start and how to find the time to actually do those things.

The third stage is the stage where you are in essence, ready to scale. This would look like already having a small team, but knowing that you are the bottleneck. In other words, you make things happen. Your team is waiting for you to tell them what to do next. They're not operating independently and you are finding yourself constantly micromanaging them. Not because you want to, but because you feel like you have to.

Ilonka Ras (07:04.896)
And so in this stage, delegation often feels hard. feels risky to let go. And even though you've technically handed things off to other people, you are still the safety net, right? You're still the one that everyone comes to for the answers. So those are the three types or stages of business owners that most often reach out to me and that are a good fit for the work that I do inside of my business. So I want to walk you through the six steps.

to getting your business to work for you, regardless of what stage you're in, whether you're in stage one, two or three, this is what I will be taking you through step by step if you decide to work with me. So the first step is to align your business to your best clients. So here's what happens. Most business owners take on any client that's willing to pay them. And although this is normal in the beginning of your business, it's not something that you want to do into the future or long-term.

because it actually kills the efficiency inside of your business. It also drains your energy. You can think about those clients that you don't enjoy working with, right? It's a complete energy drain, which is one of the reasons why business owners reach burnout or get to this place where they are resenting, even hating their businesses. Now it's interesting because many of my clients who have been in business 15 plus years,

We always find clients on their books that aren't best fit clients, types of clients that they promised themselves they would never take on again, that somehow make it back into their businesses. And this happens because we aren't focused on the best clients. We aren't focused on pulling in or bringing in more of the best clients. We are simply focused on

getting bills paid, delivering services and getting through the week. And because our attention isn't on the best fit clients, we say yes to clients that we know we shouldn't actually take on. What a best fit client looks like will be different for every business. It's something that's unique to you and the services you provide and the business that you want to build. But often not best fit clients or worst clients, cringe clients as we call them inside of my program.

Ilonka Ras (09:27.616)
look like is often things like clients always paying late or clients that have unrealistic expectations or want a lot of custom work if that's not something that you actually do inside of your business. Clients that maybe are always asking for discounts or clients that are just simply rude. In other words, they aren't a good fit for your business because they don't

fit in with the values that you stand for as a business. So we are going to start by identifying who your best clients are. These are the clients that you love to work with and that get the best results from working with you. So in this first step, we do what I call a crush cringe analysis to determine exactly who your best fit clients are, exactly what makes them a best fit and where you can find more of them.

so that you can fill your business with them. We also look at what your big promise is to those based clients. This is in essence the core transformation or result that your base clients will get when they work with you. And this is important because once we are clear on who your base clients are and what your promise to them is, we can speak to them in a way that magnetizes them to your business. It becomes a filter where your base clients will be compelled to work with you. They will see you as the best solution.

So that's the first step. The second step is to look at how you are spending your time as the owner of the business. Now we start with you because if your day is chaotic and you constantly feel overwhelmed, then that is ripening into all of the other parts of your business too. So in this step, we do a time mapping exercise to determine two things. Firstly, where your time is currently going.

And secondly, where your time should be going. So we're going to look at the activities that have the biggest impact on the growth of your business, but also the things that light you up and give you the most energy. The reality is your time and attention is super valuable. And we want to make sure that the hours that you are spending in and on your business is time well spent. Once we know where your time is going, where it should be going,

Ilonka Ras (11:46.36)
we're going to build your personalized weekly protocol so that your time and energy is protected and spent intentionally. You're also going to learn how to set boundaries in this step of the program with your clients, with your team, and most importantly, with yourself. So that's the second step. Once your time is protected, we're going to go into the third step of this program, which is to look at the back end of your business.

And we're going to simplify and streamline four very specific core areas of your business. The first area is attraction. That is how you make yourself visible to your best clients. We're going to create a simple one page marketing plan so that you are consistently putting yourself in front of your best fit clients without spending hours on social media or at networking events.

The second area we're going to simplify and streamline is how you make sales inside of your business. This system will be a repeatable process for bringing in your best fit, most profitable clients reliably and consistently every month. Thirdly, we're going to simplify and refine how you take clients on and how you deliver to them. With this system, your clients will get the best highest level experience every time they work with you consistently.

Your clients will have the kind of experience that makes them tell all their friends about you and refer business to you. The last system is money. And this is where we simplify and streamline how you collect, spend and manage cash in your business. We all know that cash is a queen in any business. And this system will make sure that you always have cash in your business and that you are stewarding the money you created well.

Once your systems are in place and you've taken back control over your calendar and your time, the next step is to make sure that you're not the only one holding everything up. Now, depending on what stage you're in and whether you are ready to hire or already have a team, we are either going to start building your team or balance the team you have so that we have the right people in the right role. If you are building your team,

Ilonka Ras (14:06.712)
We're going to start by identifying exactly who your first hire needs to be. You won't just hire because you're overwhelmed, you'll hire with intention based on what the business actually needs and what makes financial sense. You'll learn a simple process to check if you can afford a new hire, how to plan for their costs and how to bring them on without creating chaos. If you already have a team, we're going to make sure that everyone is in the right seat.

doing work that matches their strengths and roles. We'll also make sure that each person has the tools, the systems, and the clarity they need to work independently so that you're not constantly micromanaging or redoing their work. This step of the process is focused on helping you build a small but mighty team that you can trust because you've set them up for success and they know how to deliver results the way you want it done.

The fifth step is setting up your own personalized CEO dashboard. Now this is a simple one page dashboard that tracks the most important numbers in your business, making sure you always know what's going on in your business without digging through emails, chasing updates or guessing. Your dashboard is going to help you to spot issues before they become real problems.

It will help you to know exactly where your current bottleneck is and where to focus your time and energy to keep things moving forward in the business. The CEO dashboard helps you to keep your finger on the pulse of your business at all times. You'll also learn how to use the information on this dashboard to make smart, confident, strategic decisions for the future of your business.

The final step is all about building confidence, confidence in your systems, your teams, and ultimately your business, right? We do this through what I call a vacation test. Now this isn't just about taking a break, although that is a bonus. It's really a controlled strategic test to see how your business functions when you or a team member steps away. So we are in essence testing everything that we've built

Ilonka Ras (16:27.04)
up until now. Most business owners take work with them when they are on vacation, or they are constantly checking in to see how things are going and to give direction to their team. I want you to be able to take an unplugged vacation, one where you're not checking emails or answering your phone, one where you aren't worried about what will be left standing when you return.

We use vacations and time away from your business as a tool for growth and independence. The purpose of this step is to help your business to grow stronger every time you or a team member steps away. So we're going to use time away as a tool for awareness, a tool to help us to understand where things are still dependent on you, the business owner, or on any specific team member for that matter.

that you don't want to be dependent on. Secondly, it's going to show you what your team handles really well when you're away or where they need to have additional support. It's also going to show you where the systems hold up and where we need to improve them and what decisions or problems are bouncing back to you unnecessarily because maybe the right information wasn't available at the time.

Now we use these small intentional vacation tests to determine where we need to strengthen the business so that when you do take a real vacation, you don't need to worry about the business, clients being served, bills being paid. Let's quickly recap the six steps inside of the program. The first step is to align your business to your best clients. The second step is to optimize your time as the owner.

The third step is to simplify and streamline your business. The fourth step is to build or balance your team. The fifth step is to create your CEO dashboard. And the sixth step is to take that taste vacation. So let's talk about the results my clients experience when they do this work and what's available to you if you decide to do this for yourself as well. The first thing that is a very obvious shift

Ilonka Ras (18:43.288)
for my clients is having more energy. And this happens because you are positioning yourself to work with more of the clients that you actually love and enjoy working with, the clients that get the best results from your business. And so business feels a lot easier because you actually love the people that you're working with. You can't wait to wake up and help those people. The second thing that happens is that you free up time in your schedule.

Some of my clients freed up as much as 60 % of their schedule. So this means that you have time to think about your clients. You have time to think about the future of your business. You have space for creative ideas to flow. You have space to do other things in your life that matters to you as well. Thirdly, you have clear boundaries around when you work, how you work.

Clients aren't phoning you at 9 p.m. anymore expecting you to be at their beck and call 24-7. You get your evenings and your weekends back. Some of my clients even reduce their work hours to three days a week. You increase your profitability because you're working more efficiently. You are leveraging everything inside of your business so that things happen more productively, more efficiently. Things are getting done with less effort.

You're also able to serve more clients at a higher level of quality without working more hours because you are working more efficiently. You know exactly what you need to focus on when you sit down to work in your business. You don't sit down on a Monday morning, just taking whatever is on your plate, opening your email, and then just being firehose in the face with challenges that you need to focus on. You actually are in control of your time.

Your business is simple to run and easy to troubleshoot. You stop making decisions from a place of urgency and fear in your business, feeling behind and like you missed opportunities because now you have the space in your calendar and your mind to think about the opportunities you want and you are ready when they show up. And then probably one of the best results or best outcomes of doing this program is being able to take unplugged vacations.

Ilonka Ras (21:00.48)
unplugged vacations where you aren't checking the phone, where you aren't stressed about the business, you aren't even thinking about the business and the business is running smoothly without you. So the work that I do with my clients is centered around building a business that works for you. A business that is simple, doable, and that fits into your life. A business that is easy to troubleshoot and doesn't feel like it's taking over your life.

Inside my private coaching program, we work together for 12 months to build a business that works for you. And if you are ready to do this work, you can head over to the link in the show notes to apply to work with me. I can't wait to meet you and to get started. Let's go. Thank you so much for tuning into this week's episode. I will chat to you again next week.