Maggie and Steph break down how to prep for your first hire by building systems that run without you. Before you bring on a VA, shore up what’s repeatable: offers you love, content pillars, and checklists that remove decision fatigue. You’ll hear why automation beats delegation early on (it’s cheaper, faster, and quieter), and how to turn life clutter (meals, wardrobe, tiny daily choices) into energy wins that fuel your creativity. They outline the handoff sequence: document the process → test it yourself → define the outcome → then hire. The duo gets real about DMs and sales—don’t outsource the relationship before you’ve proven a script and a sales flow that works. They cover leadership hygiene: set standards, require check-ins, and “hire slow, fire fast.” Finally, they make the case that your team starts with systems + self-trust—people come second, scale comes third.

Key Takeaways

1. Automate first, hire second. Tech is cheaper than people for repeatable tasks.
2. Love your offer or handoff will flop. Clarity sells; confusion multiplies in a team.
3. Decision fatigue kills revenue. Simplify meals, clothes, and content pillars to save cognition.
4. Document > Delegate. SOPs = steps, standard, success criteria, and tools.
5. Prove the process yourself. If it doesn’t work for you, it won’t work for your VA.
6. Outsource operations, not vision. Keep sales convos until your script converts consistently.
7. Define outcomes, not micromanagement. “Done looks like…” beats “do it my exact way.”
8. Right first hire = biggest bottleneck remover. Often content repurposing or ops, not “a closer.”
9. Leadership is logistics. Set check-ins, keep deadlines, and maintain integrity.
10. Hire slow, fire fast. If it’s not working, change it—don’t rescue it.

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Ep #7 Building your dream team

Hello everyone, and welcome back to the Millionaire Mindset and Strategy Secrets Podcast.

My name is Maggie and I am here with my co-host Steph, and today we are talking all about building out your first dream team, even if you're not ready.

Now, I know a lot of you who are listening might be thinking, I can barely handle myself. How am I going to bring on somebody else?

And I will say, I feel like bringing in a VA in the quote-unquote, like, early stages of your business, or, like, in that, like, pre-5k per month thing.

No, not thing. see then. Bye. Pre-5k per month income. You know, when you're there, it's really kind of one of those things of what do you want to trade your time and money for?

But once you start to get past those consistent 5k months, I think bringing in a VA to take some of the tasks that you're really spending a lot of time on can be super, super helpful.

And I actually know quite a few entrepreneurs who are making, you know, 20k, 30, 40, 50k per month that really only do run their team with one or two VAs.

What about you?

Yeah, same. I think that you. We just have so much tech now. just completely like got all stumbling over my words.

You can automate so much, right? And that's the thing is, I think that this conversation is so important for that millionaire mindset because really stepping into that CEO, like embodying that CEO persona is really.

And so really figuring out how to first figure out what you're doing that's working on a repeated basis and putting a system in place for yourself, and following that checklist so that you know the system works, then deciding what are the things I'm manually doing over and over again, that you can't can use tech to automate, right?

So you can be a entrepreneur and still have so much automation happening before you even hire your first VA.

Right. And I mean, honestly, I know we've talked about this probably in just about every episode. If you don't love your offer, it's going to be very hard to sell it.

And that means it's also going to be hard to market it. It's going to be hard to talk about it because you're going to stumble and you're going to fumble and you're not going to know what to say when.

And so if you have a clear offer, then you're marketing. The pillars start to become very clear, and it's much easier to say, oh okay, on Mondays I talk about sales in business.

On Tuesdays I'm going to give some human design for business tips. On Wednesdays I'm going to talk about lead generation and having conversation through the lens of human design.

So then it starts to just become very easy, and then it's a lot less decisions. So your decision fatigue goes down.

I was just having a conversation the other day with my husband about decision fatigue, and I was very upset that he could not choose dinner that night.

And I was like, I need you to just choose dinner at least three nights a week because I can't make the decisions anymore.

And he's like, what do you mean? And I'm like, there's just so many things that I think about during the day that by the time it's like...

Three or four o'clock I am you know like going oh my god I don't know what to make for dinner again you know and I'm getting down on myself I'm self-sabotaging myself over something that like if I can just hand it off to you and you just say this is what I'm hungry for perfect I would love to make that and it no longer becomes this like self-sabotaging activity that I'm really not intentionally doing but like just one of those things where it's like I am just so tired of making this decision every day nobody knows what they want to eat and I don't know how to cook nothing I think you do know how to cook nothing you know I would you know that I get really big on my high horse around this because this is where I believe in like not super strict meal planning but meal planning to take that decision fatigue off free batch cooking something so you

Even if you're only cooking, even if you want to cook on a Monday, you cook enough to where at least you have lunch the next day, possibly also dinner, freeze things that you can freeze.

Same thing with clothes, right? Like how many times are we standing in our closet, we're like, oh, I have nothing to wear, but it's because half the clothes don't fit or we don't like the texture and we don't feel good on camera.

And so really like starting with those things and just removing those really annoying things out of your way, then it frees up because this conversation really is about how do you get your energy back, right?

So it's time, yes, but your time is so that you have energy to be able to be creative, to be able to think, to be able to plan.

And you can't do that when you're constantly thinking about the same things over and over or you're running on empty all the time.

And so figuring out how to remove those tiny, really annoying obstacles and start there and then start thinking about now what are the things that I can in my business also start removing those really annoying obstacles.

Yeah. And. I mean honestly a lot of times I know like in the beginning of this episode we started talking about like building your dream team but you know just taking this like side road a lot of these little things that you're like oh my gosh I'm so annoyed with this thing they're probably in your personal life not necessarily in your business life that like like the clothes or the meal planning or you know like doing some of that stuff will free up so much mental bandwidth so then your business can benefit your family can benefit you can benefit because you're not constantly spiraling about those things so you know like the first step to building the dream team is figuring out the support you need so that you have more energy and then if you're going to bring somebody in to support you like a VA or an executive assistant or you know whoever or whatever that is they like they're not mind readers so you have to have clear systems right so we talked just a little bit about automation

Now, I know a bunch of VAs who are really good at creating the automations. So, you know, if you are like, I don't know how to automate, that's a really good thing to go into a Facebook group to say, I'm looking for someone who has this specific, who can do this specific thing.

The more specific you can be, the better, because then you're going to be able to set up a clearer system.

The expectations will be there. I need X done so that Y will happen. And that is really, if you're looking to bring people on, having those clear systems, having those SOPs.

know we have, like, just in the first six episodes of this podcast, we, I feel like, have just hammered home SOPs and data so much.

But I think it's so important because a lot of people don't want to look at that stuff and they don't want to take the time to write the stuff down.

But if you're ever going to hand it off at . So any point in the future, you probably need to hand it off.

And I would say, again, if you're going to clear up the mental bandwidth, the decision fatigue, writing things down and saying, here's the 10 steps I take to create, schedule, and post something to social media.

And then, you know, if you're starting to spiral, you can go back to that list and say, oh, I'm on step three.

Okay, get back on track.

And it gives you a metric for your VA, right? First of all, your VA knows what to do because they're not inside of your HUD.

Two, you know the system works because you work the system. And three, you set the standard for them of the outcome and you allow them to be able to either use your process or maybe tweak your process to be better and smoother because maybe they see something that can be done much faster and take some steps out.

But you set the standard of what the outcome should look like and that. Thank you. you. you. takes away the micromanaging and it gets you out of your head and it gets you out of your own way.

And so starting with one or two VAs is a really great way after you've automated everything you can automate, having a VA to automate if you're not techie, finding the right platforms that work for you if you're in a platform that you really dislike and you don't have the money to hire it out, maybe looking at a different platform.

But these are decisions that as you grow, you're probably not going to stay with the same platforms or apps that you're using now if you grow really big.

But that doesn't mean... I think sometimes you get so stuck and like, oh, but I don't want to have to change it later.

But sometimes that's okay. It's part of growth. And at that point, the assumption is you have the money to hire the team to hand that off and for it to be a smoother transition.

So in the meantime, getting to that space where you need for it to work for you, you know, we were talking before we started recording.

I just realized that like... Google Docs. Now you can sign and it saves everything into your folder. So you don't need a Dubsado or HubSpot or whatever for that purpose or DocuSign or any of those platforms.

So you don't need a lot of heavy tech when you start. You can add tech as you grow, and then you can add on the team members, but you cannot pass off something just because you don't want to do it.

If it's your responsibility. So this goes back to sales, right? It's really hard to pass off sales to a team if you aren't selling because you either don't like your offer or you're not comfortable with it.

How do you convince them and how do you give them a system that works if you don't have one that works?

So this is like throwing good money at a bad problem, right? And so thinking about the ways that you can free up your time and energy again, where maybe you spend a couple of days a month really hard selling, but you've done something that was.

Again, that reward system, that dopamine hit throughout the day. Maybe you rent yourself in a co-working space and you get out of your house for the day.

But really not passing off responsibilities that are yours to keep too soon.

Mm hmm. Yeah, I would agree. And I think, you know, when you think about, like, do I love my offer?

You know, it doesn't have to be this like... I don't know. It doesn't have to be this crazy, like, oh my God, I'm so in love with it.

I mean, like, that's obviously what you want. But also, like, yeah, I feel passionate about my offer. I feel very convicted about the people that I want to serve.

That's important. And, you know, being able to speak to that will help, especially if you want to hand off sales.

I know a lot of people want to hand off sales. And I'm, I guess for me, that's always very confusing to me because I'm like, why would you want to hand off your sales?

know. Well, me So to someone who is not you, who's gonna be bringing this person that you're probably going to be working very intimately with, right?

If you're bringing someone to your high-ticket offer, and you have, like, a closer, which I guess there's a difference between someone who closes the sale and someone who, like, makes the sale, right?

And I think a lot of people just assume, like, oh, I'm just gonna hire someone to take care of my sales.

But, like, you still want to be the person getting on the call with that other person so that you can talk through what is going to happen to make sure they are a right fit, and then that closer then comes in and they take care of the payment.

That's literally all they do. So, you know, if you're thinking about, and this is just one example, right? Handing off sales.

A lot of people will hand off their social media as well, specifically their DMs. And that is why... Bye!

People hate the DMs because a lot of those VAs, they just don't know any better. They have a script, they follow the script, a lot of them they don't speak, like English is not their first language, so they are literally copy and pasting and then looking for the key words that that person gave to them to continue the conversation.

Well, yeah, it's going to feel off. It's going to feel weird. It's not going to feel genuine. So if you don't have the SOP or the, you know, like the how to for it, it's going, it's going to feel weird and it's not going to, it's going to feel very clunky for everyone involved and you're probably not going to get the outcome that you want if you don't know how to do it yourself.

And I know we've said it before here. I know I've said it on my podcast. If you're not willing to do some of the hard work in business, because if nobody's told you, business is changing.

So if you're not willing to do some of that hard work, business probably isn't for you. And it's not a dig.

It's the truth. Like if you're not willing to get kind of in the trenches for at least a little bit to start making money or generating what you want to generate, it's going to be hard.

And it's going to be challenging. And you're in the middle of it, you're going to want to pull your hair out and be like, ah, screw this.

What was I thinking? But if you just keep showing up and doing it, it does get easier. And I think that's where, you know, as you're building a team or if you're looking forward to building a team, that's where a lot of people fall short is they're in the messy middle and they're like, screw it.

I'm just going to hire a VA and they'll do it. And you have to work through that messy middle before you bring somebody on.

Which is exactly the prepping to delegate, right?

You can't, I mean, think about, think about. Any job you've ever applied for, you do the interview, and they tell you what the job entails, right?

And then you start the job, and you probably do some form of training, and you have a job description, and you understand what your responsibilities are.

We often, I think, in entrepreneurship, we're like, well, they're a VA, they obviously know what to do. Well, that's not true, because they don't know your business.

So you need to prepare to delegate. And that means, one, are you hiring the right person? And I don't mean, like, Susie over Amy.

I mean, like, do you, like, is a VA the best person for you to hire first? Do you need somebody to repurpose your content, because your content's landing, but you just don't really have time?

And hiring somebody for $15 an hour, so you can go write more really great content, is a great trade, right, at the time for the dollars?

So you need to think about, like, where, what's bogging you down and taking you so long to do? That hiring that out for a certain amount of money financially makes more sense because it frees your time and energy up to do that bigger thing that makes more money.

So I think you do have to work through the messy middle and you have to know what's working. Because if you don't, if it's not working already, hiring somebody else to do something when it's not their business is not going to work.

Right. And I think that's a really important, you know, place to understand in your business is, like, what is working?

What is not? What are my expectations? Like, what am I expecting the result to be? And then what are the results that are actually happening?

Because, you know, those sometimes are two very different things.

Yep.

And, like, I know, just personally, I've expected a lot of things to happen and a lot of those things have not happened.

Like, it's been a totally different outcome than what I was expecting. churching. Okay. so lot so I'm You know, for better, for worse, it's all worked out, you know, like, I don't really necessarily believe in failure, but I do believe everything can be a learning experience and, you know, being able to learn from that.

And, you know, and I think when we go back to thinking about automations and tech, I know a lot of people are very quick to hire a VA, but they're often very slow to bring on tech.

And when we're thinking about like systems, you know, and I know you talked about automation, automating things can often be much easier and much less costly than bringing on a VA to do some of this stuff manually, you know, and I'm talking about like scheduling posts or, you know, scheduling the emails to go out or, you know, like some of that stuff, even funnels, right?

If you're, if you're using Google Workspace right now, I don't know that Google Workspace has funnel capability. know to out So So Well, no.

the So, you know, you're going to need something where if you want to off, if you want to have something that's in a funnel, you're going to need some sort of tech, but a lot of people are like, ooh, I'm, I talked to a woman the other day, I'm bad at tech, she told me that about 20 times on this call, and I was like, I don't think you're bad at tech, I think you just are not used to what this is, so it, yeah, is there a learning curve?

Yes, absolutely. But like, when you learn to walk, there was a learning curve. So, you know, like, it, there's, there's going to be those hurdles, and it doesn't have to be as like, I don't know, just dreadful as some people make it seem, and I just, it's so funny to me, and I love tech, so, you know, it's not necessarily a problem for me.

I don't necessarily feel like I'm the best person in, like, there are definitely people that know way more. But I'm absolutely willing to, for lack of better words, around and find out with tech, just so that I know what's happening.

So that when I do hand things off to a VA, I can say, okay, here's what I've built. If you see something better, please fix it, right?

Please update this. And then that really just sets you up for, we talked about delegating things, to be able to hand them off and feel confident that who you're handing it off to, that you've set them up for success, because then ultimately, you're still keeping your business set up for success.

Right. And life happens, right? You need to still know how to do those things, because what happens, I mean, unfortunately, right, it's the online space, people ghost you.

VAs sometimes ghost, tech people, like Canva graphic designers ghost. So you still need to be able to at least know how to do the thing, and also release...

We're going to have the check-in, and holding firm to the check-in, keeping the leadership role, and again, fire fast.

If it's not working, trying to meddle through it and spend more money is not going to solve the problem.

So really vet the people that you're hiring, have the system in place, and if it's not working, be quick to pull the trigger.

Yeah, I would definitely, yeah, I agree with that, because I think, you know, it puts you, especially when you bring anyone on, right, you're then stepping more into a leadership role, and you have to maintain integrity, right?

So, you know, keeping to those deadlines, making sure that, you know, you are handing it off, and kind of being hands-off enough where you're like, okay, you take the reins, but like, I want, I want this kind of check-in.

for opportunity. ... ... ... ... So that's going to just, it's going to enhance your leadership. So it's going to help you.

It's going to help the VA. It's also, in turn, going to help your clients, right, where they're going to see you holding that leadership.

And that's going to be very, like, exciting for them to be like, oh, wow, this person is a couple steps ahead of me.

And look where I can go also, right? Right. So, and I think that is part of, like, bringing on a team that nobody really talks about, right?

Because a lot of times we bring on a team and it's like, oh, yeah, they're in the background. But, like, your clients will still hear you referencing, like, oh, I'm going to have my VA do this for me.

Or, oh, I'll have my team send you an email, right? And your clients are then like, wow, she's got a team.

Yeah. Yeah. You know, and I'm, this is a whole, like, rabbit hole that we don't have to go down.

Today we can have another episode on it, but also you can set yourself up, especially if you're somebody who really is not confrontational, you can set up a team, right?

You can set up an email that is billing at, you can set up a support at, you can set up a, you know, Susie and whatever department at, right?

Customer service. And yeah, you may be all of those things, but it doesn't feel as personal. removes you a little bit.

And so you can also set up your business for that team that you're eventually going to hire. And keep those things in their, like, kind of like their buckets, right?

Keep the emails for customer service and when. And that also helps you navigate, like, what are some common questions that are coming up?

Where are my clients struggling? What are the things that they're constantly trying to find or a link is broken or whatever?

And it helps you just really like dive into that more. But again, that's a conversation for another day.

Yeah, I agree. We're nearing the end of this episode here there's so many good like golden nuggets for you guys who are listening to really take in and just understand the clarity of you know what we're talking about and like I know we've said business is hard I know we've also said business is easy and those two things might be really confusing for you right now like yes it can be a challenge to show up every day when nobody's buying your stuff yeah but the steps that you take to to bring people into your offers are relatively easy right you connect you warm the lead you sell the lead right so it it can be that simple and then you know to add on to that having the support whether that is a VA solely scheduling your social media posts or you know hiring a tech company to automate some of your systems that can take again a lot of the but

Decision fatigue of like, oh my god, I have to get that person that link. Or, my god, this thing isn't working, right?

Those are the things that when you're bringing on a team can really help you. But again, if you don't have those SOPs, I feel like that's going to be it.

We're going to talk about that in almost every episode, I think. For sure, for sure.

Yeah, and I mean, I think that the SOPs seem really daunting, but they're not really in the admin work.

Here's the thing, the admin work is not the glorious glamour side of business, but it's the things that make your business easy.

And so if you really want a business of ease, you have to take the time to front load some of that work and to really get things in place.

And then periodically to just go and check it and tweak it. And if you're not doing that initially, it's just going to feel harder for me.

And so, you know, is it the most fun thing to do? No, but we all have ChatGPT. Go use it.

Have ChatGPT help you write it. Right? And then figure out what works and what doesn't in it. So anyway, let's have a business.

Let's all have businesses that are easy and fun. And we can do that by really having systems and again, dialing back what we're doing and removing a lot of that emotion out of it.

And then we can just show up, have repeatable systems. And hire when appropriate and build that team and decide what kind of team you want.

Do you want a person of one or do you want to manage a team of 20 and want to build an empire?

Decide what that looks like. Hire slow, fire fast.

Yeah. All right. So if you've taken away any nuggets of wisdom from this episode, please make sure you let us know.

Come and find us on Instagram. We are at millionaire underscore mindset underscore podcast. All right. Let us know what your takeaways were from today's episode, and make sure you are opted into the secret and free episodes, the bonus podcasts that we have, because this week we're talking about the Millionaire CEO's daily to-do list, so to just really bank off of what we were talking about today, we're going to go into what are some of those daily hitters, what are some of those daily things that you need to add to your to-do list, and also make sure you go and opt We're going to get a free invitation to our Telegram thread where you can come and ask us questions in real time.

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