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Building solid and sustainable businesses by organising the overwhelm and reducing your workload so you can claim back your time, and your life

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Rachael Gunn LTD (14028582 England & Wales)

33 Cavendish Square, 14th Floor

London, W1G 0PW

support@rachaelgunn.com

Serving clients in the UK and worldwide

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You don’t HAVE to have hit breaking point before

You don’t HAVE to have hit breaking point before you invest in your operations.

Almost every business owner at some point becomes *too* busy.

While everyone has a different definition of what this is for them, *too* busy is a dangerous place to be.

Burn out and *doing all the things* is mentioned often, and having a lot on your plate can be - to a certain extent - part and parcel of being an entrepreneur, but the danger zone is when you get so far into it, you being that busy starts to damage you and your business, not support it.

There is a fine line between crossing that threshold of being stretched and being catapulted SO far over it, that you can’t get out and you become stuck in an exhausting cycle of just trying to keep your head above water.

And very often that catapult has pulled back and thrown you forwards before you’ve even realised what’s happened.

It’s why you need to build your operations, your systems, your team to be a step ahead of where you are now.

Because it is difficult to pin point that exact moment when you will grow into them and when you do, you’ll be able to adapt to that next level SO much easier because you can actually deliver it and deliver it well without throwing your sanity into question.

If you do not have a solid plan for *how* you are planning to deliver that next step in your plan or if you are starting to feel the creaking of an operation (or you) being at capacity, it’s time to make one.

Our Operations Audit is a 30-day deep dive audit of your business operations and team to give you absolute clarity on how to create an operational structure that can get you from where you are now to where you want to be, without hitting that ceiling.

✯Shoot me a DM if you want to chat about what’s going on in your business and if this can support you ✯

#operationsconsultant #operationsconsulting #automatedincome #processautomation #businesstransformation #businessefficiency #worksmarterlivebetter #operationsstrategy #teamstrategy #smallbusinessstrategy #systemsspecialist #scaleyourbusiness #businessautomation #scalingabusiness #systemstoscale #systemsstrategist #businesssystems #operationsaudit #businessaudit

How long can the wheels keep turning in your busin

How long can the wheels keep turning in your business before your absence starts to threaten its existence?

Some of the key triggers for our clients working with us are ⤵︎

☞ They want to take maternity leave
☞ They were recently ill, or had an unforeseen circumstance that meant they had to take time away from the business, and they didn’t like the impact it had on the business
☞ They are starting to plan retirement/would like to sell the business but realised that it is not worth a lot/anything without them working in it
☞ They want to work less but maintain output

All of these scenarios have a common realisation - their business would operate at a lesser level that they found acceptable or desirable, or in some cases, completely cease functioning while they weren’t there - i.e. the business owner has become a critical point of failure.

This is not a sustainable business model.

Often a completely necessary one when you first start your business, but one that carries risk in the long term. And the ability for a company to exist independantly of it’s owner/managing director is a key feature of a resilient business.

What we do is support in designing and implementing an operational structure that reduces the dependancy a company has on the business owner to exist - if you would like to chat about what that could look like and what’s going on in your business at the minute that has you thinking about this, shoot me a DM ✯

#operationsconsultant#operationsconsulting #smallbusinessconsulting #smallbusinessconsultant #businessconsultancy #consultancyservices #onlinebusinessconsultant #operationsaudit #businessaudit #creativeentrepreneur #clickup #clickupconsultant #clickupvetted #clickupexpert #projectmanagementlife #projectmanagementtips #scalingabusiness #systemstoscale #systemsstrategist #businesssystems #automatedincome #processautomation #businesstransformation #businessefficiency #worksmarterlivebetter #operationsstrategy #teamstrategy #smallbusinessstrategy #scaleyourbusiness #businessautomation

✵ ESTABLISH THE ACTUAL PROPORTION OF "IN" VS "ON

✵ ESTABLISH THE ACTUAL PROPORTION OF "IN" VS "ON" ✵
Make sure all your tasks are in your PM system and tag them "in" vs "on". At the end of the week, work out how many of each you did (if you use ClickUp, dashboards are a great way to show this).

You could also tag it in your time tracking software - this is what I do as I want to know the time spent, rather than at task level.

✵ WORK OUT WHAT NEEDS TO CHANGE ✵
What proportion of "in" vs "on" do you want to be at? Both now and in the next year or so? Establish what you're aiming for, but remember that your business growth will hit a ceiling if the vast majority of tasks you do over the long term are "in" vs "on".

What are the "in" tasks that there is no strategic reason you are doing beyond maybe not having anyone to delegate them to?

What are the tasks that are "in" but you want to retain for now?

✵ TAKE ACTION ✵
Delegate the "in" tasks that there is no strategic reason you are doing.

Look, I know better than anyone that this is not something you can tick off quickly, and I don't mean it to sound blasé. But those tasks do need to go. Leverage the support you already have, or start to make a plan as to what role you need to create and a timeline as to when that will happen.

✵ REPEAT THIS PROCESS QUARTERLY OVER THE COURSE OF A WEEK ✵
A ballpark 10% reduction of "in" in favour of "on" per quarter is excellent progress if your "in" % is currently very high. If you work 40 hours a week, 90% of which were "in" tasks (so 36 hours doing "in" tasks and 4 hours a week doing "on" tasks) and the next quarter you spend 7.6 hours a week doing "on" tasks (10% reduction on "in" tasks) - how much faster are you going to get towards your goals? Appreciate there is not a tangible answer here, but you get the gist!

The exercise will also help you get super intentional about what you are doing in a strategic way - again another phrase that can be thrown around but it is not always clear how to actually integrate it within your ways of working.

How much “in” vs “on” do you do currently?

#scalingabusiness #businesssystems #businessefficiency #worksmarterlivebetter #operationsstrategy #smallbusinessstrategy

Here’s why ⤵︎ 💸SAVES YOU MONEY 💸 You

Here’s why ⤵︎

💸SAVES YOU MONEY 💸

You will be amazed at the amount of time you get back just by putting in place efficient processes and leveraging simple tech and automation. Sweat your current assets and make them work hard for you. You will often find you need less resource to do the same amount of work, delaying the time you *need* that extra person on retainer in your business and freeing up more of your time for revenue-generating activities.

👩🏽‍💻YOUR TEAM WILL PERFORM BETTER, MAXIMISING YOUR ROI 👩🏽‍💻

As a service provider, I can tell you now that when I come into a business where I can’t find the basic tools to do my job and the business owner is so incredibly busy they don’t have time to onboard me, I am not being leveraged effectively.

Streamlined operations are SO much more than process efficiency, it is the ability to easily locate all of the tools each team member need to do their job quickly, independently and confident in knowing they have the right information which means they will be able to perform SO much better.

An OBM/VA can be an incredible resource to propel your business to that next level and free up your time. But if your operations aren’t in a decent position before they start, be prepared to slow down on business activity while that is being done, because you can’t scale on an unstable foundation.

You are setting yourself (and your OBM) up for failure if you hire them on a 20-hour-a-month retainer expecting them to manage the day-to-day operations, deliver that launch you MUST do for a “cash injection to support all your team member expenses” AND sort out the foundational parts of your back end operations, because no matter how great they are, you are going to end up disappointed!

Operations are the baseline of all of our companies, it’s literally everything your business does on a day-to-day basis in order to function, generate revenue and just EXIST.

Don’t neglect it.

Think you may need help with yours?

✯ Shoot me a DM and let’s chat ✯

#operationsconsultant #operationsaudit #creativeentrepreneur #clickupconsultant #projectmanagementtips #businesssystems #operationsstrategy #teamstrategy #processautomation

We vet you as well 👀 It is of no interest to m

We vet you as well 👀

It is of no interest to me to take on a client that isn’t able to commit to the principles outlined above, because I know they won’t get the most out of the investment and if I’m being totally honest, that frustrates me (and my team!).

Look, I know this is par for the course and that there will always be clients that put in different levels of commitment.

But I also know just how impactful what we do can be and if I can identify the potential clients early on that aren’t going to be able to show up the way they need to to achieve this, they aren’t going to get the full ROI, and I would rather they spend their hard earned revenue somewhere else.

Don’t get me wrong, this doesn’t happen often, we do mostly attract great fit clients, but there are times when I decide that it’s not the right fit to work with someone and I have to tell them that.

There’s also a bit of a selfish element that I’d be lying about if I said didn’t come into play - I want all of our clients to LOVE working with us and get to experience the maximum transformation we can offer them, it’s genuinely very fulfilling for us, we get great testimonials, a steady stream of referrals and they generally continue working with us - client retention is a major goal of ours.

How do we do this?

✵ We go over these principles in our initial consultation call and/or the proposal. No one signs up without having discussed/seen/agreed to them.

✵ We also have a set of less direct questions we ask during the consultation call to grasp how they like to work, what their priorities are and assess whether we will work well together.

✵ How they have approached us in the first place says a lot as well, the language they use, the questions they ask, what they say - this comes down more to my lived experience and gut feel!

✵ We create a structure that allows for these things to happen, and then go through them with our clients in the welcome pack and onboarding call

What do you do in your business to “vet” your clients? And what has you saying “this is not the right fit”?! 🍿

#operationsconsultant
#smallbusinessconsultant
#businessconsultancy
#onlinebusinessconsultant
#businesssystems

I know, shocking. If you can’t even imagine thi

I know, shocking.

If you can’t even imagine this to be a reality for you, read on.

For this to happen, you need to have in place:

✵ A clear, measurable strategy in place that your team members know about and have clarity about their contribution too.

✵ A well built project management system. If you are managing projects and assigning tasks our of Voxer or WhatsApp, everything will grind to a halt when you stop (plus, for your team’s sake, please don’t do this to them!).

✵ A team that are measured on results, not tasks. Make them accountable for the result is what *actually* frees up your time - this is the difference between true delegation and micromanagement.

✵ Clear, documented processes and design making guidance for the most critical parts of your business.

✵ A company culture, values and mission, embedded in everything you do you. This allows your team to make decisions and take action in an aligned way, consistently.

✵ An excellent team. Honestly, it is the greatest gift for any company owner.

And that’s it! Off you trot and you can implement it in a couple of hours 🤩

Just kidding (sorry!) - reading those 6 points sounds a bit blasé, but this isn’t quick stuff. It takes dedication, patience and time to build this. And a lot of us go through a period in business where by we are working 8465746824 hours and aren’t sure if we will be able to dig ourselves out of the hole we created for ourselves.

It can last months, it can last years. It can even last until you just can’t keep doing it to yourself and you decide you don’t want to run your business anymore.

Please don’t let it get to the point where what it demands from you outstrips the passion you have for it - it doesn’t have to be like that.

These are all things our services can solve to *literally* give you the gift of time, a resilient business and a team that can actually take work off your plate - because they have the tools and structure to make it possible.

#operationsconsultant#operationsconsulting
#smallbusinessconsulting #businessconsultancy
#consultancyservices #onlinebusinessconsultant
#operationsaudit #businessaudit
#creativeentrepreneur #systemsstrategist
#businesssystems

This is SUCH an important part of our business. A

This is SUCH an important part of our business.

At the time of writing this, our 1:1 client retention rate is at 100% year to date (exceeding my target of 70%). This is the number of clients who have continued working with us beyond the original contract.

This is not by accident.

It was one of our core goals for the year and one of the key ways we have created it is by making our client experience as great as possible and well beyond the surface level advice you generally get on the subject.

A bit of behind the scenes - what we do generally isn’t a quick job. Our biggest project containers can take up to in the hundreds (yes, you read that right) of hours.

Most of the clients we work with aren’t operations experts. And we KNOW they don’t know what they don’t know (say that fast!). We need to know what strategic questions to ask to be able to design solutions for things they had normalised, didn’t even know were a problem (or going to become a problem on the way to their goals) - that is literally what they hire us for.

And we pride ourselves in coming up with solutions they hadn’t ever heard or thought of before.

Extracting the information to do this for them, bearing in mind how busy they inevitably already are, has to be done with thought and and understanding, plus a lot of notice, and our project plans and delivery are intentionally created over a timeline that allows that to be manageable for them.

It’s also one of the reasons we canned our VIP Days (for non-returning clients) last quarter. They were a quick fix and didn’t deliver that kind of long lasting change I actually want us to be known for.

✯ We are now booking for Q3 and into Q4, hit the link in the bio and complete the form so we can arrange a time to chat and check we’re the right fit ✯

#operationsconsultant
#smallbusinessconsulting
#businessconsultancy
#onlinebusinessconsultant
#operationsaudit
#businessaudit
#creativeentrepreneur
#clickup
#clickupconsultant
#clickupexpert
#projectmanagementlife
#scalingabusiness
#systemstoscale
#systemsstrategist
#businesssystems
#automatedincome
#processautomation
#businessefficiency
#worksmarterlivebetter
#operationsstrategy
#teamstrategy

What they have said is ⤵︎ ✵ I am overwhelme

What they have said is ⤵︎

✵ I am overwhelmed and my to-do list never ends

✵ I hired a team member but it seemed to make me even busier

✵ I don’t enjoy my business as much as I used to

✵ I have no idea how to create a business that makes money without me

✵ If I want something done “properly” I have to do it myself

✵ I want to scale but there are no more hours in the day to make that happen

✵ Everything feels harder than I want it to

All of this comes down to an operation that lacks strategic structure and a lack of knowledge and/or confidence as to how to properly leverage a team.

If you do not have…

✵ Streamlined, clear and documented policies and processes

✵ A team that consistently delivers on time, to a high standard and actually takes work off your plate

✵ Defined and LIVED vision, mission and values

✵ Fully leveraged tech tools, software and automation

✵ An operational structure and strategy that can support and facilitate the delivery of your goals, rather than hinder them

How can you...

✵ Have the headspace to work on the strategic actions to propel your business to its goals

✵ Actually have the life flexibility that you originally started your business for

✵ Create a truly sustainable business that actually operates without you

✵ Build your business as an asset that can be sold, not a liability (you want to retire at some point, right?)
_________

As entrepreneurs and small business owners with the luxury of being able to move quickly compared to bigger businesses, we often fail to check that our foundational business structure can ACTUALLY deliver the change, the goal, the strategy. And it is a painful place to be when you already made the move and now you’re dealing with the fallout.

If this is you OR if you know that the operational structure that got you here won’t get you there, our 30-day Operations Audit service is designed to tell you exactly what you need to to do close that gap.

✯ Shoot me a DM to find out more ✯

#businessgrowth #businessgoals #operationsaudit #businessstrategy #goals #entrepreneur #startup #scalingabusiness #businessroadmap #structure #organisationalstructure #businessoperations #businessconsultant

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