Today, we're thrilled to have Megan Cain from ops strategy and management.She is an ops expert who works with visionary CEOs of growing service based businesses, especially those with a social impact and nonprofit focus, who are in the process of building a team because they know there are gaps that keep them stuck in the day to day of their business.

She helps them fill the often missing middle layers of strategy and management so they can get back to doing the visionary work that will propel their business forward.

The Four Essential Layers of Business: Vision, Strategy, Management, and Implementation for the Visionary CEO.

Megan discusses  four essential layers of business - vision, strategy, management, and implementation - work together to help a visionary CEO turn their dreams into reality by envisioning goals, planning how to achieve them, ensuring smooth operations, and putting plans into action effectively.

Entrepreneurship Evolution: Attaining Financial Mastery and Leadership as a Visionary CEO.

Megan talks about the journey of growth and development as a business leader, especially when it comes to mastering financial management and demonstrating effective leadership skills as a visionary CEO. Also, the importance of learning  money matters in the business, like budgeting, investing, and managing cash flow, while also becoming skilled at guiding and inspiring others in the organization.

As a visionary CEO, where she highlights that  one has to go beyond just running a business and learn how to lead it strategically towards success.

Transforming from Business Owner to Visionary CEO: The Ultimate Entrepreneurial Shift

The podcast explores significant transformation from the traditional role of a business owner to embodying the visionary CEO archetype. Megan shares her insight that transition entails transcending the routine tasks of day-to-day business operations and adopting a strategic mindset centered on fostering long-term growth and fostering innovation.

As a visionary CEO, she is tasked with reframing her perspective from merely managing tasks to charting the course for the company's future trajectory, inspiring her teams, and catalyzing innovation.

This paradigm shift necessitates a change in mindset, where she recognizes herself not merely as a manager but as a leader guiding the organization towards its objectives with clarity, foresight, and vision.

Unlocking Success: Strategies for Strategy, Finance, and Team Dynamics for the Visionary CEO.

Megan offers her knowledge targeted strategies for visionary CEOs to excel in three key areas: strategy, finance, and team dynamics. It provides actionable insights for crafting and implementing long-term plans, managing resources efficiently, and fostering a collaborative team culture.

By leveraging these strategies, visionary CEOs can unlock their full potential and drive their organizations toward sustained success.

Join us in the next episode for more tips to equip visionary CEOs and entrepreneurs with success tools.

Helpful Links:

Megan Cain: The Missing Middle Layers

The Marketing VA Advantage 

Six Figure Business Coaching 

Mastering Online Marketing for Entrepreneurs

Double Your Income with a Marketing VA, even on a tight budget

Are you ready to start running your business as the CEO and

stop wearing all the hats?

Then you're in the right place for this episode today.

Welcome to the Six Figure Business Mastery Podcast, where every week, Kirsten

and Jeannie dive into the essential topics to fuel your business growth.

Copywriting to course creation, mindset to video marketing.

They've got you covered tune in for expert guest interviews on all things,

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So get ready to unlock your business potential and take it to the next

level.

Today, we're thrilled to have Megan Kane from ops strategy and management.

She is an ops expert who works with visionary CEOs of growing service based

businesses, especially those with a social impact and nonprofit focus, who are in

the process of building a team because they know there are gaps that keep them

stuck in the day to day of their business.

She helps them fill the often missing middle layers of strategy

and management so they can get back to doing the visionary work.

That will propel their business forward.

So welcome, Megan.

We are thrilled to

have you today.

I'm thrilled to be here.

Thanks for having me.

Absolutely.

But I was looking over the notes for your topic.

I'm so excited.

And my, my first question was when I saw this was, what are

the four layers to a business?

Like, is that where we're going to start today?

Because that seems so interesting to me'

. Yeah, so I think that's a great place to start.

So there's four layers to every business.

There's vision, strategy, management, and implementation.

And so one thing that I talk a lot about with my clients, who are often the CEOs

and the founders, is that they should be sitting solidly in the visionary seat and

then sometimes dipping down into strategy.

But not doing the management and the implementation.

Ideally, there are other people on their team that are doing the

management implementation, not them

kind of thinking in my mind.

I'm kind of in genie.

You might feel the same way.

Kind of laughing in my head a little bit because we're trying to get there.

And I guess it's easier said than done.

We just recently did hire an operations manager to kind of

start helping us out with that.

And it's a powerful statement to make.

So what are some of your.

And I think how do you coach your clients into getting there?

Because I think that's what we all want to know is how do we get to the point where

we can spend more time in the vision, a little bit in the strategy and really

trust that everything else can get done.

How do, how do we do that?

Really the strategy and management is where I come in.

But I think one thing that happens is that people.

Oh, I need to get help.

And I think often what the popular advice is to just hire a VA and a

VA will solve all your problems.

And VAs are wonderful.

And I've worked with some amazing VAs, which who really

helped me do my job better.

And I think it's important to understand that Someone at the administrative level.

So a VA sits at that implementation level is that they're going to need

very clear guidance and directions in order to do their job successfully.

But what I've noticed is that visionaries who are very overwhelmed,

don't really have the time to offer that clear guidance.

And so sometimes that's where there's a relationship mismatch where they're not.

The visionary is not getting what they need because they feel like, okay,

the VA is not delivering or they're not understanding what I'm saying.

Um, and really that's because the visionary is going from that

visionary layer all the way down into the implementation, right?

So they're trying to cover too many layers.

So when

I'm talking to a client and they'll say to me, well, I want to hire a virtual

assistant who can just run my business.

And my thought is.

Well, why wouldn't they just own their own business and you'd work for them?

Right, you know, but you can't you're not hiring a virtual assistant to

step into the role and be able to do everything you want them to do.

And it also over the years.

Let me tell you from hundreds of virtual assistants that we've

worked with to hundreds of clients.

It's so interesting because from the virtual assistance perspective, they're

often people want them to be mind readers.

You know, they want them to be able to just know what they want, know how

to do it, not give them any direction.

And that's so frustrating for them.

And then they're yelling at yelled at because they don't

they're not able to read minds.

Right?

And then on the flip side of that, I feel so bad for business owners

who they hire a virtual assistant.

And then they just throw their hands up and give up because, well,

if I could spend all this time training them, I'll do it myself.

You know, it's not worth it if I have to, you know, tell them everything to do.

And so, like you said, there's this big disconnect between hiring

someone and providing a great onboarding process and providing.

Standard operating procedures and being clear on the expectations and

the goals that you're giving them.

If you bring a virtual assistant in at that level and with that level of

support, you're going to win every single day and they're going to win.

They're going to have a job that they love and they're going

to stay with you for years.

But if you bring them in expecting them to be my readers or expecting

them to basically step in and run your business, you know, I can

promise you an epic fail, right?

And so I can see where that could be a problem even with your

clients.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I totally agree.

And I've worked with, I've come into situations where the VAs are upset and

they're, they feel like they're not doing a good job and, and, and that's

not, that's not fair to them either.

Um, so I think.

Either the, the founder visionary needs to make sure they're, they're

serving that, I mean, they're basically serving in that management layer, right?

Not everybody can afford at different points to be in every layer, but you

have to really be cognizant that you are the manager of the implementer of

the VA, or you have to get somebody else to come in and help manage them.

Or like you all do, you, in a way they're outside.

the implementation because you're setting up the VAs to be successful.

So it really just depends on where I think there's, there's some self awareness

and business awareness at this point of where are you in business and can, can,

or is it time to bring in management and strategy to help fill out those layers?

If not, then you are going to have to fill in some of those layers.

And, and carve out the time to do it, to have a successful implementer.

I

think I can speak for both vision and strategy.

Like if we could just hang out in vision and strategy and not have to

deal with management or implementation, that would be like heaven for us.

So you actually help clients get to that point, don't you?

Yeah, I mean, that's where that is your job.

That's the two, that's the job of the two of you as the founders and the CEOs.

That's where you should be.

That's where most likely you're going to be the happiest.

That also is my, in my experience, it's helps you get back to the

reasons why you started the business, the things that you love to do.

So visionaries really should be spending time coaching, you

know, depending on your business.

the how your business is set up, but visionaries should be coaching, doing

thought leadership, speaking, teaching, writing, networking, raising money,

maybe client creation, unless you have other people on your team doing that.

And most of the visionaries that I know and work with, They're not spending

enough time in that visionary seat doing those really big picture things that

really drive the business forward and help the business grow and also help the

business align with what their vision is.

So that's often why, when I meet them, they're feeling really overwhelmed.

And they're, because they're, they're often stuck in the day to day.

So if you think about those four layers, the day to day really is that

implementation and the management.

Those are the, that's the day to day operations.

And when you're dipping down into those, that's, it almost weighs you down.

I feel like it kind of sucks you down out of the visionary

seat into those other layers.

Which is why you feel like you're drowning and you feel like you're

stuck in the day to day weeds.

Yeah, and that's so true.

And I feel like a lot of people think, well, once I get the day to day

done, then I'll work on the strategy.

And then what happens is the day to day, expands into week to week

and then they're never getting to that high level strategic part

of their business.

Right.

I think that's true.

And, and I think because often it's some visionaries I work with, it's not

even their strength the day to day.

So one of my clients said I was stuck doing things I didn't like

and worse, I wasn't even good at.

So I'm trying to do these things that I'm, I know I'm not good at and I'm making

mistakes and things are going wrong.

And so then you're tired when you're outside of your zone of genius and

you're trying to force yourself to do all these things that you don't like.

I don't think it's realistic to think that you're going to have energy

at the end of the day to then think about the visionary things, right?

I think you're just going to be too exhausted.

Yeah.

I think it's really surprising to me Transcribed Because we do talk a lot

about the fact that you could outsource, you can delegate things to your virtual

assistant that you don't know how to do.

So, realizing that if you have a great structure and a great

process for delegating, you can have people do things for you that

you literally don't know how to do.

And I'll often say to people.

Just because I can't edit a video doesn't mean I can't instruct the

virtual assistant on what I like or dislike, you know, by coaching

my marketing virtual assistant on, I love the smooth transition.

I hate this really jerky transmission check transition, or, you know, that

B roll is fantastic in this area.

But this, this B roll right here has too many men in it.

Most of our clients are women.

I can coach them on what I want the video to look like without

ever needing to learn how to edit.

And I think that's scary for a lot of people.

I think they.

They feel like if they don't know how to do everything in their business,

because there's a lot of people out there giving that advice, that you should be

able to do everything in your business.

Then they feel like they can't trust someone else to do it because

they don't know how to do it.

And I don't, I just, I simply don't

get that.

Yeah.

I, yeah, I, what I like to say is you just have to know the what,

you don't have to know the how and that's, and it is a process.

I will say.

You know, some visionaries I work with, I come in and they're like, yes,

get all of this stuff off my plate.

I don't want any of it.

And it's easy, but I think you're right with other people.

It takes time.

You have to, you have to build up trust and they have to, you know, you have

to have a team in place that you trust is doing the things that you need done

and that they can figure things out.

And you just say, this is my vision.

And then you have people that are like, great.

Got it on my list.

I'll go figure it out.

I'll come back with you.

Come back to you with any questions.

So, when

you, when you find that CEO, who is dipping from visionary to strategy,

what would be, how would you coach them into staying in the visionary role?

How do you kind of.

Because once you've started working with someone, you're, you're probably

very quickly getting them more and more into the visionary role.

So how do you approach them on trying to get them

to stay there?

Well, I think it's, it's just a lot of repetition or just

meeting with a client today.

Most of my clients, we have a weekly meeting, this is a new client.

So we're about a month in and I said, Oh, this is the first time I've come

to a meeting where I have an agenda.

I have things that I want to talk about.

You know, I've, I've been.

listening and taking a lot of things in.

And so then I think there's this, this subtle beginning, beginning of a

transformation where, or shift where I'm starting to take the lead on more things.

And so I think.

A lot of it is having the right people in the right places, right?

If you, if you want people to take things off your plate, like you

said, a VA, you can't hire a VA and expect them to run your business.

If you want a strategic thought partner, you want someone to show up and say, these

are the things that we need to talk about.

These are the questions that I have.

What do you want to do about that?

This it's really a higher level person, right?

If you, I have a client that's on vacation for two weeks.

And another client that just came back from a three month maternity leave.

Like you need higher level people in your business.

If that's how you want to be in relationship to your business,

that you can leave for two weeks and everything is still running.

You're, you're going to need, you know, unless you have an extremely

simple business that you think, okay, I could leave for two weeks and a

VA could probably keep most things.

Um, that's not the case for most of the people I work with that

they're growing and they're scaling and their, their businesses are

becoming slightly more complicated.

So it's time.

It's trust.

Um, and it's really having a strong partner who.

Yeah, who just who knows that the objective is to start getting

things off your plate to help you get back into that visionary seat.

So freeing up your time.

So I think it's somebody that has to be cognizant of this is the goal.

You need to be doing these things.

These are the things that you want to be doing.

And we're going to work towards getting you back into that visionary

seat and out of the day to day.

So making

a little bit off topic here, just out of curiosity.

How did you get into being like an operations manager or a, what actually

do you consider your role to be?

And how did you?

Yeah.

So I call myself different things.

Operations lead, director of operations, COO.

It kind of depends on people's businesses and what their title structure is.

I just, one of my new clients said, well, what do you want me to call you?

And I said, well, you can call me director of operations if

you want COO, whatever you want.

Um, I had a business.

I still have a business.

I have a vegetable gardening education business.

So really my first career was in gardening education.

I worked for a nonprofit.

I started a bunch of programs.

Then I left.

I started my own business in vegetable gardening education.

Which it's about 11 years old, and now it's mostly online.

I have a pretty extensive website.

It's called creativevegetablegardener.

com in case anybody's a gardener who's listening and is curious.

Um, but through running that business, I learned a lot.

I always think if I had known.

All the things that I didn't know when I started a business, I

would have been probably scared.

I was, I, it was ignorance is bliss in that case.

Um, so I learned a lot over those 11 years and I have to say most day I

worked, I was a solopreneur and so I, it was, And so in 2020, I started to think

I'm kind of tired of working by myself and I always thought I could work with

other entrepreneurs in their businesses.

That would be fun.

I'd get back to working with the team on collaborative projects.

Um, and so I actually started my business as a project manager because I've

always done a lot of project management and all of my jobs and I knew, okay,

that's something I'm really strong in.

I'm a great project manager.

Um, but then it just, it just started to, to morph into more operations.

I saw that a lot of people, they didn't just have a project management need,

they had more of an operations need.

need.

So they wanted help with hiring.

They wanted to help with some HR stuff with managing some of

the implementers in the team.

And so, so my role within people's businesses started to grow because

I, I love learning new things.

Um, I wanted to serve my clients.

Everybody has small teams.

One of the things that I've always been good at, because I have worked at

a lot of small nonprofits as well, is that you kind of have to know how to

do a lot of things and you have to be willing to learn how to do new things.

And so that's certainly one of my superpowers.

Um, and so I just got deeper and deeper into people's businesses.

And then really like a lot of us, how we develop our businesses is

seeing people's pain points and their needs and realizing, Oh, I, I can.

I can help solve some of these problems.

Um, and so I just listened to my clients and saw what they needed and

figured out, Oh, I can, ops is a big need for a lot of people, operations.

And it's something that I'm good at.

And so I think we have a match here.

Very good.

Yeah.

And I think it's so valuable.

Oftentimes we're so involved in the business that we can't see, and especially

businesses that are growing and, you know, owners who are feeling overwhelmed.

They can't see where those gaps are or, you know, what's missing in the

structure or what's not working.

So bringing someone in like you is, is fantastic.

Yeah, and a lot of teams, some people I work with already

have the beginnings of a team.

And what I find is their team wants more structure, their

team wants more organization.

With my new client, I am Leading a hiring process because of

bringing on a new team member.

So I stepped in, I'm leading it and I was just talking to the, the CEO yesterday.

And she said, she asked me some questions.

She's like, wow, this is the furthest ahead we've ever

planned in a hiring process.

Like this is so great.

Usually we're reactive, but now we're being proactive.

And so I think that is, it was interesting that she said that.

Cause I thought, oh yeah, I think that is a switch.

Um, I think that, that a lot of CEOs.

Get to a point where they do want to make that switch and stop being so reactive

to everything and really start to have some space, have some time, bring in

somebody that can start to plan ahead.

Okay.

If we want to hire somebody in 3 months, what do we need to have in place?

What kind of, you know, financials need to be in place?

So just, um, Yeah, that is that change from being stuck in the day

to day and feel like you're drowning.

And that is part of getting back into the visionary vision and strategy

so that they can look ahead and then communicate to the team so that

the team can then help plan ahead.

Yeah, the reacting part is it's exhausting.

You know, if you're constantly.

Feel like you're chasing your tail and, you know, that you're never getting ahead.

So yeah, it's phenomenal that you, you help people get to that.

You know, it's such a great feeling and such a relief off your shoulders

when you get to that point where it's like, Oh, we're ahead of the game.

This is fantastic.

Right.

Yes.

Yes.

Well, Megan, thank you so much for joining us today.

You are a wealth of information.

Now I know the four layers of our business, vision, strategy,

management, and implementation.

So many great golden nuggets in there in our talk today.

So thank you for being here.

Um, If you want to reach out to Megan, you can find her at MeganCain.

com.

It's M E G A N C A I N, MeganCain.

com, and you will be able to reach her from there.

She was our Ops Strategy and Management Coach.

professional.

So if you are interested in, uh, we talked a little bit about

a marketing virtual assistant.

If you're interested in that, there is a link below for our double

your income with a marketing VA.

It's a free report.

Um, and you can find it at outsourcingforbosses.

com.

So thank you again, Megan.

And we hope to see you again soon.

Thanks

so much for having me.

Thanks for listening to the six figure business mastery podcast.

If you enjoyed listening to this episode and you are ready to leverage video

marketing on all online platforms, or maybe even start your own video

podcast, then you need to check out the done for you and done with you

program at the marketing VA advantage.

com and take your business to the next level.