In this insightful episode of the E-commerce Evolution Podcast, host Brett Curry sits down with Jhana Li (https://www.linkedin.com/in/jhana-li), founder of Spyglass Ops, to tackle one of the biggest challenges holding back growing businesses: operational constraints. While many entrepreneurs excel at product development and marketing, they often hit a ceiling when it comes to building operational systems and processes. Jhana shares her expertise as a transformational operations consultant who has helped hundreds of seven and eight-figure businesses scale by creating systems that allow founders to work on their business rather than in it.

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Sponsored by OMG Commerce - go to (https://www.omgcommerce.com/contact) and request your FREE strategy session today!

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Chapters: 

(00:00) Introducing Jhana & SpyGlass Ops 

(04:21) Common Operational Problems Founders Face

(07:52) Developing a Strategic Vision to Break Through Bottlenecks

(14:39) Setting Yourself Apart From Competitors

(17:52) Vision Alignment With Your Team

(20:51) Hiring and Onboarding the Right People

(32:31) Structuring An Effective Hiring Process

(40:28) Coaching a High-Performing Team

(46:04) When To Let Underperformers Go

(50:43) Final Thoughts

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Connect With Brett: 

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/thebrettcurry/ 
• YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@omgcommerce 
• Website: https://www.omgcommerce.com/ 

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Past guests on eCommerce Evolution include Ezra Firestone, Steve Chou, Drew Sanocki, Jacques Spitzer, Jeremy Horowitz, Ryan Moran, Sean Frank, Andrew Youderian, Ryan McKenzie, Joseph Wilkins, Cody Wittick, Miki Agrawal, Justin Brooke, Nish Samantray, Kurt Elster, John Parkes, Chris Mercer, Rabah Rahil, Bear Handlon, Trevor Crump, Frederick Vallaeys, Preston Rutherford, Anthony Mink, Bill D’Allessandro, Bryan Porter and more

We got all these all-star athletes

on our team, we're saying,

why the heck are you always

three steps behind me?

Why are you always waiting for me to make

the next decision or hand out the next

task or come up with the next idea?

We get so frustrated and what we realize

is actually we haven't told them where

they're going.

Well, hello and welcome to another edition

of the E-Commerce Evolution podcast.

I'm your host, Brett

Curry, CEO of OMG Commerce.

And today we're talking about operations,

operational constraints,

operational bottlenecks,

issues that you need to

fix if you want to scale.

Because here's what I believe

most agency owners like me,

most brand owners like you,

you're really good at product,

you're really good at

marketing or scale or growth,

but operations, maybe that's

a part of the business.

You don't want to think about a

whole lot, but I guarantee you,

without operational systems,

processes, the right people,

all of that good stuff,

you will hit a ceiling and we're going

to bust through that ceiling on this

episode today. So want to welcome

to the show, Ms. Jonna Lee,

she's the founder of Spy Glass

Ops. More on that in a second.

Jonna, how's it going?

And welcome to the show.

Thanks, Brett. I'm really excited

to be here. It's going fantastic.

It's spring here in Salt

Lake City. No complaints.

Springtime in I love.

I know. I'm ready for it. Love.

Springtime.

And so John and I got to hang out at

an event recently hosted by one of my

business partners, Tom

Shipley, called Deal Con.

Jonna was rocking the stage talking

about how to form good integrations if

you're doing m and a, but it was all

around ops. And so your company, John, us,

by Glass Ops,

you guys help with your transformational

operations company, right?

So you help with consulting,

recruiting, coaching.

You help seven and eight figure

brands and businesses get

unstuck and scale from

an operation standpoint.

Can you talk a little more about that,

a little more about your background there?

Yeah, I think you covered it beautifully.

So my background is as a COO,

I was in that second in command

operator position for multiple different

successful startups, and that's where I

really learned the tools of the trade.

And then I had the opportunity to be

an operations coach in this coaching

program that had hundreds

of startup owners in it.

And that was really the

big unlock for me, Brett,

because I had hundreds of businesses

pulling back the kimono, so to speak,

and just showing me the reel of

what's going on behind the scenes,

what's not working, what's breaking,

where are they struggling as they're

scaling through 7, 8, 9 figures.

And so I got to just compile all this

data around what are the common patterns

and themes that hold startup

founders back from achieving,

not just the revenue and the profit

goals that they have for the business,

but also the lifestyle, the freedom goals,

creating a version of their company that

can actually run without them. And so

that is really what I

became passionate about.

And four years ago I started the company

to help entrepreneurs go through that

critical stage of growth so that the

company can start to become an asset,

a machine that is going to

run with or without them,

and they're able to take that to a

successful multi eight figure nine figure

exit. They're able to take that to a

lifestyle business that produces passive

cashflow,

but ultimately it's around unlocking the

founder so that they're able to achieve

the best version of their business

and the best version of their life.

It's so great. And yeah, allowing

the founder, the visionary,

you've got brilliant ideas. And

again, you're a product person,

a marketing person, salesperson, whatever.

For me, I'm all about setting vision,

forming partnerships. I like sales,

I like solving interesting marketing

problems. I'm not an ops guy.

I can respect a good system.

I can spot a good system.

I'm not going to sit down and design one,

and at least I'm not

going to do it and enjoy.

Myself.

And so I've had the privilege of working

with two amazing COOs throughout the

journey of OMG commerce in our path to

multiple seven figures.

So I see the value there and I'm really

excited to unpack this and give some

insights to our listeners,

but would love to hear from

you what are some of the

mistakes, bottlenecks,

issues that you see founders

running into when it comes to ops?

Oh my gosh, how long we got? Okay,

so I would say that statistically, right?

So we start all of our

client relationships with

a company-wide operational

audit.

So we've actually looked at the data and

we've run these numbers and about 80 to

90% of the time,

the key and critical bottlenecks holding

startup founders back fall into one of

four categories. The first

category is strategic vision,

meaning they don't actually know where

they're trying to take the company or how

exactly they're going

to get to their revenue.

Profit goals. We want to growth is.

Our vision exactly more better.

That's hot strategy.

Strategy doesn't offer your

team a direction to run in,

and it ultimately leaves the founder

pretty directionless in terms of what

decisions to make and

what to drive towards.

So a lack of strategic vision or what's

an interesting one that we see, Brett,

is that they'll have a strategic vision

that is totally out of alignment with

their personal goals.

So my personal goal is that I want a

lifestyle business that's going to run

without me,

but the version of my company that I'm

building is one where the product is

totally reliant on me. Nothing

can move forward without me,

and I want to double revenue

in the next 12 months.

It's like these things are

at odds with each other.

And so we often have to

hold up the mirror and say,

which do you want more? And then let's

build a roadmap to get you to that and

let's adjust your business and your

plan for growing your business.

So it actually gets you to the goals

that you have outside of just work and

revenue. So that's a big one

that we see fairly often.

The second big one is

a lack of an operator,

which should not be a surprise to anyone.

And this is why we layered in operations

recruitment as one of our core offers

because either you've got somebody

who's been in that role and is now no

longer cutting it,

in which case we have to figure out can

they grow and can the business afford

the time that it's going to take for

them to grow into the COO that you need,

or you do not have that person.

Maybe you think you do, right?

Maybe it's your wife, maybe

it's your best friend,

maybe it's a actual COO that

we hired off on LinkedIn,

but are they actually the person

that you need in the role? Yes or no?

And we need to go out and find that

person because like you said Brett,

you can respect operations,

but you respect it enough to not touch

it and to know the value of having

someone who is an expert who

can actually do the work.

And if the goal is getting

that building, that machine,

that machine that consistently

produces results and spits off

cash, you got to think about ops. And I

really liked the way you laid that out.

And I think it's one of those

scenarios where we all do want more.

We all do want to grow,

but what will get you there

is not what got you here.

What got you here won't get you

there. The title of that famous book,

and I think that's true both in terms

of your systems or lack thereof,

your processes, but also

that operator, right? Yes,

the COO or the operator that got

you to 5 million or to 10 million

is probably not the same operator that

will get you to a hundred million. And

maybe because people can grow

and people can change and evolve,

but generally speaking,

you're going to have to either

upgrade that person and upskill them

or find someone who can grow

you to 20 million, 50 million,

a hundred million and that

type of thing. So really great.

So I love the way you identify that.

So as you kind of lay that out,

where do you see people in that,

let's call it 10 to 50 million range?

I know it's going to be different

depending on the business category,

brands that can still be a pretty lean

team agencies, that's a pretty big team.

What are some of the hurdles

that they have to overcome?

What are some of the systems they need

to put in place or people they need to

put into place to really become

that operational machine?

So this really comes down to

a couple of core categories,

and the big one that I see in that 10 to

50 million range is that it comes down

to leadership and not just

can you as a CEO founder

become a bigger,

better version of yourself and the leader

that your company needs next from you?

Can you step fully out of our executive

coach calls the three levels of

entrepreneurship. The first level is

producer where you're just showing up,

you're doing everything. Okay, we

probably got out of that a while ago.

We stepped out of that level.

The next level is leader. Great.

So now can we be a leader that

is able to delegate tasks,

action, align a team, drive them towards

a vision, that's the leadership level.

And then the third level is visionary.

Can we actually hand off day-to-day

leadership of our team to

managers,

to department heads to people who are not

only able to manage tasks but actually

make decisions on our behalf? And

when we're able to create that,

we get to step into the third

level, which is visionary,

where our role,

our highest value work is to

make decisions and set strategy

on behalf of our company and to

have the vision, to hold the vision,

to keep the team aligned

around the vision,

but to then to hand off the actualization

and the execution of that vision to a

team that we've put in

place that we trust.

So hard to do, man, so

hard. As someone who I do,

I am a visionary, I'm not the integrator.

And so I do setting the vision,

casting the vision,

but giving up control

the vision or delegating

decision-making can be quite difficult.

Before we get there though,

I do want to maybe step back for

a second and talk about how do you

clarify,

and I've got some thoughts here on what

we've done as an agency and some work

we've done even recently internally.

But you talk about the strategic

vision and the strategic vision is not

more do it better, do it more. That's

not it. That's not clear at all.

How do you coach people or what

advice do you give them to say, okay,

it may be clear in your head,

but the way you're saying it

is not clear to your team.

How do you coach people in

making that vision clear?

Yeah, a hundred percent. So the first

thing is that we have to clarify. Two,

we have to answer two questions and how,

what does success look like? What is

the finish line for this business?

What are the north star goals and metrics

that we are going to drive towards?

So what looks like

revenue, looks like profit,

looks like a target valuation

that you want to exit at.

It's the finish line of the

race that you are running.

If you don't have a finish line, how

the heck are you going to run the race?

And so what we often see challenges

around the, what is that?

I talked to a dude at a mastermind

who exited for 50 million million.

So now I want to exit for 50 million.

The challenge is that's the vision,

50 million, that's the

vision. I did it right?

But the problem is is that

50 million means nothing.

That is a totally arbitrary number.

It's not attached to any deeper meaning.

It's not attached to any quality

of life you're trying to create.

It is throwing a dart at a dartboard,

picking a number and saying.

That's not good or the value,

value you're going to be generating and

offering to the marketplace to be worth

50 million. It says nothing.

A hundred percent.

So we pick these arbitrary finish

lines and then what happens?

It gets hard to run the race.

And so we end up just switching the

finish line and picking a different race,

and we end up just pivoting and pivoting

and pivoting and creating all these

different sets of goals because we don't

actually have fundamental and intrinsic

conviction or attachment to those goals,

or even we end up hitting those

goals and then we feel nothing

because it didn't mean

anything to begin with.

And so that's the existential crisis

that we have to coach our clients through

where they're like, wow, I really

wanted to get to seven figures.

I really wanted to get to eight figures

and now I'm here and I'm more trapped by

my business than ever. I'm falling

out of love with my business.

I've never felt less free.

I'm not doing any of the things that I

wanted to do or that I thought I could do

by the time I reached this,

why the hell am I doing this and do I

need you to just burn this thing down and

walk away? So strategic

vision again is like,

let's define the what and let's define

the what against what actually matters to

you as a founder, as an

individual, as a human,

and not just as an entrepreneur.

And then let's make sure that the target

you're setting for your business is

actually going to get you what you want.

So that's the first part

of strategic vision.

So good.

I'll share a couple of insights from

some work we've done recently here at OMG

because I really believe that setting

the mission and vision and things like

that, it really shows the team,

this is who we are and how

we're going to show up.

And this is very clearly

where we're going.

And so I'm a big fan of statements and

simple statements that carry meaning

and that can help make

decisions and help guide you.

And so a couple that we've

leaned into as an agency,

and then I want to talk about

the thing called the V two Mom.

I'm curious if you've heard of

that, talk about that in a second.

But the first thing that we've leaned

into here over the last couple of years is

we want to be the most trusted,

most loved digital marketing agency

that feels like an in-house team. Now,

that may seem a little bit like a

strange statement, most trusted,

most love that feels kind of mushy,

but here's what I believe

that is tied to that trust

piece that ties back to

competence in the agency world.

People want agencies they can trust and

that they trust your expertise and they

feel like, Hey, if I'm getting your

feedback on something, I can count on it,

I can believe it, I can take it

to the bank, that type of thing.

The most loved piece is when I figured

I would get a lot of pushback on.

But actually as I've showed this to PE

firms that I know and others are like,

dude, I actually kind of like it

because, and we've heard this,

we've heard this even from clients

that are leaving OMG, they're like,

we love you guys. We love your team,

but we're leaving for this, that,

or the other. Our team

is we sold or whatever,

but then also feels like an in-house team.

And so it feels like an extension of the

team. We've had people say to us, Hey,

your team feels like my team.

And so we crafted that in such

a way that that should guide.

How are we going to respond to emails?

How are we going to show up to meetings?

How are we going to respond in

Slack because of those things?

And so that's one of the statements.

Curious how that strikes you

Or anything that

sparks there.

I love that so much.

It is a reminiscent of an exercise that

we walk our clients through EOS calls it

the three uniques. We

call it the golden triad.

And it is the three core

characteristics that you from

your competitors, why would

somebody choose to work with you?

And the example I always give is think

about McDonald's versus a five star

Michelin restaurant, right? Here's the

vision statement. I so often hear Brett,

and especially in the agency space,

oh my gosh, we want to be the best.

We want to be the best

agency for e-com brands,

but what is the best?

That.

Means nothing to me.

McDonald's is the best,

but STO is a Michelin star restaurant.

McDonald's is the best at

being fast, cheap and easy.

Those are their three uniques.

A Michelin star restaurant is the best

at being a luxury white glove experience,

farm to table, whatever.

So what are the three uniques

that guide your business,

that differentiate you from others?

What I heard you say was loved, trusted,

feels like an extension of

your in-house team. Cool.

What's amazing about that is that now

we get to go through our entire client

happiness journey and anything

that does not directly drive

love, trust, or seamless

integration, we don't do it.

We don't do it.

We don't have to do it because it's

not why clients choose to work with us.

And we get to become the best at those

three things because we're not trying to

be the best at everything

else. Everything.

And that's where most agencies and brands

get stuck is that we're too diluted in

who we serve in how we

serve them uniquely well.

We try and be everything for everyone

and then we end up being nothing for no

one.

Yeah, it's one of those things where

you can do anything. You can be anybody.

Your company can be anything, but it

can't be. Everything can be everything.

You've got to choose. You got

to select. So I'm curious.

We actually went through this process.

Actually our current COO is the one that

turned me onto this called the V two

mom vision, values, methods,

obstacles and measures.

So I think this was actually designed

by Salesforce and marketing off there.

It's really cool though.

So set your vision.

So this is where we're going clearly

what we just talked about, your values,

so this is what we believe about ourselves

and what we will or won't do to get

us there.

Then your methods are these are the

things we're going to do in all these

departments, high level obstacles,

these things are standing in our way and

then measures. These are clear targets

that we're setting for ourselves

in all these key areas.

So it's been really great as we crafted

that, shared that with the team,

I think it's, I've already heard it

sparked some interesting discussions,

especially around the measures.

We've got this 50% profitability

target within each department and it's

triggering everybody to look at like, Hey,

how is that going to impact the

profitability of the department, right?

Because I know we got this 50% target,

so I don't know that the actual

structure of the strategy really matters.

It's way more about do you

have it? Does it make sense?

And is it guiding the team?

Yes, a hundred percent. And that's such

a key. That final piece is the point,

right? Because what you just said, Brett,

you've got this incredible

vivid vision in your mind.

You as the founder know exactly what that

finishing line is exactly how you want

to get there.

But if you haven't shared it with your

team in a way that they not only see it

as clearly as you see it,

but also understand how they can

uniquely contribute towards it.

What.

You end up doing is disempowering your

team to be proactive. Because now again,

no all-star athlete can run a race if

you don't tell them where the finish line

is. And so we got all these all-star

athletes on our team. We're saying,

why the heck are you always

three steps behind me?

Why are you always waiting for me to make

the next decision or hand out the next

task or come up with the next idea?

We get so frustrated and what we realize

is actually we haven't told them where

they're going. So how the heck

could they help us get there?

How could they walk alongside us as

opposed to behind us if they have no idea

what to be proactive and

what to drive towards? So no,

the framework really doesn't matter.

EOS has a great one, V two, mom love it.

We have our own right? We call

it the navigational chart.

It's less about whether it's the right

framework and more around are you being

consistent with it,

and then are you repeating it and

coming back to it constantly with your

team?

It takes the average person seven to

12 times of hearing something before it

actually sinks into their brain. So we

say it once and then we're like, cool,

did that. Everyone's got the vision.

Everyone knows where we're going.

Our job becomes to be the

chief repeating officer.

We.

Say this again and again.

We articulate the vision and the values

and the goals and the metrics and all of

these things again and

again and again. And to us,

we feel like crazy people because we've

repeated ourselves a hundred times and

how can they not get it?

And when you feel that way,

I can promise you your team is

only just starting to get it.

Keep going.

So good, so good. And I've heard

that forever in the marketing world,

just about the time you're sick of

hearing an ad or hearing a message.

Only then is the market even

beginning to pay attention, right?

Totally.

And it's sort of similar with

internal communication as well.

You got to repeat it and repeat it and

repeat it before people even start to get

it. And so

Really great. Well,

let's talk people for a minute

because I'm a firm believer.

This is true in the agency space, also

true in the brand space. Any business,

you're only as good as the

people that you have on board.

And I was listening to a podcast

founders podcast that I love,

and they were talking about Steve Jobs

and maybe Elon Moss, maybe somebody else.

They were talking about how they don't

worry about overpaying for great talent

because what they've found in certain

industries may be a little bit different

depending on your industry. But Steve

Jobs said, Hey, the best talent,

they may be two or more times,

two or three times more expensive,

but their work isn't two or three

times better. It's 10 times better,

a hundred times better, the output.

And so I don't worry about that.

I am getting the absolute best of my team

now. Everybody's on their own journey.

And so finding the right person for you

isn't going to be what Steve Jobs was

necessarily looking for,

but how do you coach

people on finding the right

people when to identify

that they need to hire,

and then also would love to hear

any hiring tips that you have.

I think this is something that scaling

businesses are often pretty bad at.

Yeah, a hundred percent. Oh my gosh.

So this pillar of team is

probably where we do the

most amount of work with

our clients because again,

it actually becomes the deal breaker

systems, not the deal breaker strategy,

not the deal breaker.

Do you have the right people in the right

roles executing the right things and

running in the right

direction? Without that,

your business will never be

able to scale you without that.

You will be that point of escalation.

You'll become the system where

every decision has to be yours,

every idea has to be yours,

every sign off and every right task

needs your eyes on it and every

quality assurance.

If you are feeling stuck running the

day-to-day of your business right now,

I can almost guarantee you a root cause

bottleneck is team. Now to be clear,

that doesn't mean the

solution is we have to go out,

fire everyone and then just double

all of our salaries and that will.

Fix the problem. Exactly.

What we most often see is that clients

will have incredible team members

on the bus,

but what we haven't done is

created a player environment.

We have a players,

But we haven't invited them to bring all

that they are capable of to the table.

We haven't given them a clear strategic

vision that they can be proactive and

innovative and creative and run towards.

We haven't empowered them so that they

feel confident in solving their own

problems. They have the critical

thinking skills to do it,

and they know what they're authorized

to make decisions around versus not.

We haven't given them the right systems

and technology so that they can be

efficient and effective in their role.

We're having them run around chasing down

information, picking up dropped balls,

putting out fires that didn't

need to exist to begin with.

And so we're wasting all of their time

playing defense and doing all this low

value work instead of doing

the really high value,

high leverage things that

you actually paid them for.

So my number one pro tip around team

is that before you go out and just get

better people,

make sure that you have created an

environment where your current people are

able to bring their best to the table.

And what that fundamentally comes down

to is us as leaders, us as the founder,

and then the leaders that we put in place

to again, manage that frontline team.

Do our leaders know how to build and

manage a players and manage a high

performance team environment?

Sometimes you don't have a players on

your team, you're not ready for them.

You've not done the work to make your

company attractive for a players or

where a players can shine.

And I actually was thinking about

football while you were laying that out.

Honestly, I'm a chiefs football fan,

longtime chiefs fan from Kansas City,

and they've had several

situations over recent years where

they'll have a wide receiver that'll

leave and go somewhere else and they don't

do very good and they come back and then

they're on the chiefs. They're amazing.

And it's because you got Patrick Mahomes

as your quarterback and you got Andy

Reed who's helping call plays. You

got a system that's a winning system,

and so maybe a receiver that

really sucks for another team.

You put 'em in the chief's environment

and they're going to shine because of all

the things around them. And so I think

that's one of the things we got to keep

in mind. It's not the key is

not just paying more for talent.

That just means you're guaranteed to

have more money going out the door.

It could work. It's not

just about hiring a talent,

it's about having the system where

they're going to shine and the environment

where they're going to shine.

So what are some of the things,

some of the tips you lay

out there for business

owners, founders to say,

am I ready for A players and if not,

what do I need to do to get ready?

Yeah, great question. So

I would offer a reframe,

which is you probably

already have a players.

The question is what are you lacking

that's inviting them or not to bring it to

the table? The.

Top may be you, not the team in place.

Correct.

Correct.

Yes. So right,

there are four core HR processes that

I think every team needs to have to

be able to consistently attract

and retain a player talent.

You need your hiring process,

your onboarding process,

which is absolutely key.

Do not skip onboarding. You need

your high performance management.

So that's ongoing management and growth

coaching for the people on your team.

And then you need firing.

How do we systematically either manage

people up if there's underperformance

or manage them out where we determine

they're not the right fit and we get them

off the bus? These things

need to happen systematically.

What I often see happen is

they're happening organically.

We're hiring by dropping a job description

on Facebook and then hiring the first

person that comes along because we

needed this person three months ago and I

really just need this person.

And you seem smart and competent,

not a proven system,

not going to get you the A player.

Most of the time onboarding,

we skip entirely.

We just throw 'em in the deep end

and we say they're an A player,

they should learn how to swim.

Truly a strong onboarding process

will three x your average employee

retention and increase your average

employee productivity by 72%.

And that has nothing to do with the

caliber of people that you're hiring and

onboarding.

That just comes down to whether you

are onboarding them effectively or not.

Hiring, onboarding, growth,

coaching, right? Managing.

This is the area where we get to

turn our B players into A players.

This is where we're creating

an environment that invites

them to be their best

or not. Are we tapping into

their intrinsic motivators?

Are we creating an environment of clearly

defined accountability and radical

ownership? Are we paying our people

fairly with scalable compensation plans?

Have we defined clear and exact roles so

people know what is my job and what is

not my job? There's a

whole checklist, Brett,

I could even send it to

your group. I've got.

That'd be amazing.

Eight core pillars of what goes into a

high performance, a playing environment.

And I'm happy to share that with everyone

because just by implementing those

eight things within your existing

business, your existing team,

you don't even have to pay them any

more than you're currently paying them.

They.

Promise you you will get a productivity

increase of a minimum of two x because

that's just how big of a deal it is when

you start turning on a high performance

environment.

Yeah, it's so good. And I want to go

back to something I said a minute ago,

just to clarify.

The reason I shared the Steve Jobs of

I don't care if I pay two or three x

times for an employee, they're going to be

10 or a hundred times more valuable.

That wasn't about salary,

that was more about the right

person can unlock things.

But what I think is also

really interesting about

this environment right now is

that there's a lot of A-players out there.

There's a lot of great talent out there,

and you can get them for a reasonable

rate, like a good competitive salary.

It's not the insanity that

was kind of mid pandemic

when everything was just off the rails.

It's kind of more of a normal

job market to a certain degree.

And so there is good talent

out there that you can find.

So would love to have that checklist.

We'll put in the show notes,

we'll share that with everybody, but

I also like the way you laid that out.

So hiring, onboarding, ongoing

coaching, and then firing.

It's got to be systematic.

That's to follow up process.

But I think what most people will

do are like, Hey, you're good.

So come on board and figure stuff out.

Watch this person. Watch that person.

You'll get it.

Yes.

Imagine if going back again,

going back to a football example,

imagine if that happened there. That

doesn't happen. You bring on a player,

you get 'em indoctrinated and what you do,

they immediately go to their position

coach, they go to all these practices,

they're watching film, they're

constantly being evaluated, everything,

everything is thought of.

And obviously we're not quite

like a professional sports team,

but we need to be more like one, right?

If we want a performance-based culture,

we could probably learn a

lot from that structure. So.

Yeah, I love that. I love that.

I want to talk a little bit about hiring

just because I think that's something

that.

It's a big one.

Is intimidating to people.

We screw it up so often.

I can think about a couple of really bad

mistakes that I've made as a business

owner when it comes to hiring, but

what are some of the, yeah, yeah,

I mean we all do, but what

are some of the hiring tips,

insights, processes you recommend?

Should I go with a

recruiter or no recruiter?

How am I going to find the right talent?

Yeah. Okay. So a couple of best

practices when it comes to hiring,

especially because for some

positions or many positions, Brett,

your clients are hiring remote

team members, which is amazing.

It means we get to tap into international

job markets and all of these things.

And also overwhelming because

when we launch our average ops COO

hiring funnel, we can get from

500 to a thousand applications.

So how do we whittle that down?

I always say that a strong

hiring funnel is like a magnet.

What does a magnet do? A magnet attracts,

it attracts your ideal candidate

avatar, right? You're a marketer.

If we wanted to build a marketing

funnel, what will we start with?

We would start with our ideal

client avatar. Who is this person?

What do they think about at night?

What drives them? What motivates them?

What do they want? Let's build

that for our ideal candidate.

I call the tool that we use

for this, the job scorecard.

We have to define success in the role,

and then we build a hiring funnel that

is messaged towards that person and

is designed to be a magnet

that will attract them

through our process so that by

the time they get to the

end of our hiring process,

we have COOs who have 20

years experience being like,

this was the most incredible

hiring process I've ever gone.

Through. Wow.

I'm so excited to work with your client.

When do I get to have my next interview?

Do you guys have any other

job opportunities available?

You want them to be so excited

because you have built this just

for them? What else does a

magnet do? A magnet repels.

So this funnel should be so

specific and so fine tuned

that someone who is not your ideal

candidate will self-select out.

They literally will just stop. They'll

stop going through the process.

So while we may get 500 COO applications

on our average job description,

by the time our process is done and we're

actually looking like we're looking at

applications, we're looking at resumes,

we're looking at the top 20 to 30 for

that role because we have such a robust

process that it will literally take out

95% of the candidates that apply because

they're not the right fit.

And it would literally be a waste of me

and my team's time to have any sort of

conversation with them or to spend

a minute looking at their resume.

So if you're going for a remote job

market where you're getting overwhelmed by

just sheer volume, rely on the process,

let the process kick out 95% of people

so that you're only focused on the

5%, that could really be that

ideal candidate you're looking for.

That's so good. That's

so good. I love that.

The job scorecard and really thinking

about how am I going to position this

so they get the job done so that it meets

its objectives so that I'm attracting

the right person, repelling the

wrong person, really good. And again,

I think a lot of us that listen to

us are marketers. If you own a brand,

you're probably good at marketing,

but you don't really put your marketing

hat on when you're crafting that job

scorecard or looking at attracting

talent, but you kind of should be, right?

There's quite a few parallels there.

It's the same thing, isn't it? It's the.

Same. Humans be humans, and

it's a marketing funnel.

Your hiring funnel is a marketing

funnel for your ideal candidate.

Yeah, it's so good. So good.

Any other specific tips you

can give on the hiring process?

What should that look like? Should

you outsource it? Should you do it?

How many interviews should you have?

And I know there's all kinds of

conditional statements there,

but any other tips on the hiring

process that you'd recommend?

So we have a eight step hiring process.

I can walk through it very

quickly if you would like,

but not to get too deep

into the weeds. Essentially,

our proven hiring process is we launched

the job description on the front end.

The job description will take them

directly to a written application.

So the application is going to take them

off of whatever job forum they're on,

indeed or LinkedIn. We will

drop JD into these huge, again,

these huge ponds of

candidates, hundreds of people.

Thousands of people will

see that job description,

but only hundreds of them will click

on the link and apply through our link.

So that's a huge filtration system

that kicks a lot of people out.

Then we take 'em to the

written application. The

written application is quick.

It's easy for them to fill out,

but the written application takes

'em directly to a skill assessment.

The skill assessment is where we generally

see 80% of candidates plus stop the

process.

They literally just won't submit it

because the skill assessment is hard.

Back to marketing here, Brett. One

thing we know about marketing funnels,

the greater the friction in the

funnel, the higher the quality of lead,

right? Yep. Same thing with

hiring. So we make it hard.

It shouldn't be.

Hard to, what does that

look like? I know sometimes,

so it was one thing we do as an

agency is we give them a fake project.

Here's an made up client, and

here's a bunch of scenarios.

What are you going to do in

those scenarios, right? Yes.

How are you going to optimize this?

And then we grade those answers.

Is that what you're recommending here?

Pretty much, yep. It's two to three. I

call 'em crunchy questions that again,

your A player ideal candidate will

have no problem answering why?

Because they've done this at

three other companies already.

This is as natural to them as breathing,

and in fact, they fucking love it.

Such a nerd.

They.

Get to the end of the skill assessment

and they're like, oh my God,

that was so fun. I cannot wait

for this job. Most people,

80% of people will say, this is

hard. This is going to take too long.

I don't know how to do this. I don't

want to do this. And they will, again,

self-select apps.

Perfect.

So that's the skill assessment.

See you.

Yep. It's a big one. From

there'll then start interviews.

So we'll do a culture interview, a

skill interview, reference interviews,

and then we'll finally

close them on the job.

That's amazing. That's amazing.

Really, really helpful.

So we've kind of set our

vision, our strategic vision,

and kind of mapped that out. And

we're now talking about hiring.

And let's talk a little bit about what

that environment looks like that allows a

player to shine. I know you've

touched on a handful of things,

but if we want a

performance-based culture,

what are some things we need to

have in place for that to be true?

So I'm assuming you got the job

scorecard for when you hire somebody,

probably a scorecard ongoing where you

can show someone how are you doing and

how can you do better type of thing.

And again, it comes back to onboarding.

So we take that same exact job scorecard,

and then on the very first day of

that new person starting their job,

I still personally do a

culture onboarding call, right?

How important this call is in this

culture onboarding call, we cover vision,

mission, right? Your V two mom,

this is when you would share that

this is your vision, your mission,

your core values. This is the team

they're going to be working with.

This is the lay of the land,

and this is your performance

and cultural expectations.

So I'll say things like show up on

time to meetings and be on camera.

Do I have to say that most of clients

would be like, no, they're a players.

I shouldn't have to say

that. Set expectations.

This is client. Think of your team

onboarding. Again, like client onboarding.

We know how important it is.

For.

Successful client onboarding, to

have an incredible experience,

to set realistic expectations

and to understand,

especially in a service

industry like agencies, Brett,

what do they need to bring to the

table in order to be successful in this

partnership? That is exactly what

you're doing on day one. Here's us,

here's what success looks like

in your role, job scorecard.

And then the third and critical component

to this conversation is a transfer of

ownership.

The single greatest characteristic

of high performance teams is radical

ownership. So here's your job

scorecard. This is yours. Now.

These.

Are not my targets.

These are your targets.

These are not my challenges to

solve my daily tasks to fix for you.

These are your tasks, your

challenges, your growth opportunity,

your level up,

and in fact that the next two weeks of

training that we're about to launch into

for you, that's yours as well.

You are responsible for becoming the

version of you for gaining the knowledge

that you need to hit these targets and

achieve success as measured by this

job scorecard. Welcome to the.

So good, so good. And some people

would hate to hear that message,

but the right people, it will

light them up. They will love that.

So even kind of you hint

about some of those things,

I would assume in the hiring process

as well to kind of weed out the wrong

people.

Yeah. Again, the hiring process

is built for that ideal candidate,

the person who should get lit up.

When we then deliver that

message in onboarding,

if by some reason somebody has snuck

through the hiring process and pulled a

fast one on me,

the onboarding is also

intense from the culture call.

We launch 'em into what we call the

14 day bootcamp, and I tell 'em,

the first 14 days on this rollout

are going to be intense. Why?

Because I want to stress test you

because the person that I met in the

interviews is not the person I'm hiring.

That is a shiny blow up

version of the person that I

just hired.

The person I actually hired is a person

who's six months from now whose kid is

sick and they left the stove

on and the mailman is here,

and there's a client fire exploding.

And how do they show up to the

team meeting? That's the person I.

Hired.

I want to know who that person is,

and I don't want to have to wait

six months to figure it out.

Tell me more about that.

That is great because, well,

we've made the mistake in the

past of making the first two weeks

month just so easy,

and part of it's like we want to be

a great place to work and we want to

challenge people. We want to coach

people. And sometimes we made it just way,

way too easy, almost boring.

That has since changed.

But how do you stress test in those first

two weeks? What does that look like?

So I want to draw a difference between

hard and disorganized. What does an A

player want? An A player doesn't

mind a high pressure environment.

A player doesn't mind drinking out of

a fire hose in terms of learning new

information. An A player doesn't mind

throwing themselves into something,

getting their hands dirty

and figuring it out.

What doesn't set people

up for success though,

is again kicking them into the deep end.

So we're just throwing you into things

with no structure, with no organization,

with no guidance around what

you should be looking at,

what you should be focused on

or what success looks like.

So our responsibility as leadership

is to develop that structure.

So that's what we call

the 14 day bootcamp,

and it's that blow by blow

of for the first 14 days,

you're going to train on these

things with these people.

You're going to watch these

meetings, shadow these client calls,

read these books. We're going to give

you all of the information that you need.

We're going to front load it.

And at the end of two weeks,

the goal is that you are functional,

not that you're exceptional,

that you're functional in the role,

and I'm going to download any and all

information into your brain that you need

in order to become

functional. It will be hard,

but we've got your back.

Also included in that 14 day bootcamp

is daily check-ins with their manager,

end of week check-ins with me, a 14

day check-in around, where are you at?

Where are you struggling, how are you

feeling after your first two weeks?

So there's structure to it, but

that doesn't make it not hard.

It just makes it hard with support.

Yeah. Yeah, man, it's so good.

So we are running out of time a bit,

but I do want to talk

about the final two things.

How are we coaching someone and

helping them really grow and reach peak

performance? And then when

do we fire people as well?

So let's talk about both of those.

What tips or insights can you share on

the coaching and helping someone level

up?

So the first thing is if you want a

high performance team, coach them.

Every high performer has a coach.

Michael Phelps has a coach,

and I hear clients say a lot,

if I'm hiring eight players,

why should I have to

manage them? Management is.

Coaching the best. Want a coach? Yeah.

Correct, correct. Right.

And so I have not just coaching as in

an end of quarter performance review.

We do active growth coaching on a

weekly or biweekly basis with our team

members. So every week for new team

members, every other week for veterans,

they are sitting down with their direct

manager. And what I am working on,

again, included, I'll just send Brett,

I have SOP and tools and templates

for literally all of this.

I'm just going to give it to

your people. Does that work?

Amazing. Amazing.

Thank you so much. Yeah.

So that includes in there a script and a

one-on-one template for how I run these

meetings.

But essentially I am taking the last

one to two weeks of their performance in

the role, and we're using it

as data. Where did you do well?

Where could you have done better?

What are you going to do

differently moving forward?

What are you struggling

with? What's blocking you?

I have a lot of clients who have a

lot of fear around giving constructive

feedback,

But you're a coach.

Constructive feedback

is literally your job.

What you're afraid of

is demotivating someone.

What you're afraid of

is making them feel bad.

But that must to do with the

culture, not the feedback.

If the culture says that

you getting feedback means

you've done something wrong,

then yeah, I'm going to be afraid to

give feedback or receive feedback.

If instead,

feedback is an act of service

and coaching to help every single

person on this team level up all the time.

I have team members coming

into those meetings being like,

what could I do better? This

is what I struggled with.

How would you tackle this? I feel

like I really botched this meeting.

They're looking for it.

They're leaning into.

It.

Because they recognize it for what it is

Better,

which is an active level of service,

and they want to get better. So again,

this is where we get into the less

tangible side of team development,

which is like,

what's the culture that you've built

around growth and feedback and failure?

How does your team respond to failure?

How do you respond to failure?

If we can control the cultural context,

then every single day my team is showing

up, looking for an opportunity to grow.

My job is to just hold up the mirror

and say, Hey, here's your next gap.

Here's your next

opportunity. Grow this way.

Yeah. Yeah. It's so good. Well,

let's talk a little bit

about the F word firing.

So when is it time to fire

and move on from somebody?

What insights can you share with us there?

Yeah, so if we've done all the

rest of this stuff correctly,

then firing becomes actually a pretty

easy process. We've got a job scorecard.

We gave it to them on day one.

We transferred ownership

over those targets to them.

We aligned their goals with company goals.

We've coached them every single week,

and we've established a regular rhythm

where if there's a gap in performance,

we're immediately calling it out, offering

feedback and trying to correct it.

What then happens if that person

is still not able to perform?

We have an immediate conversation,

and it's a very simple conversation that

says, Hey, this is the job scorecard.

We covered this on day one.

This is your job score card.

We covered that on day one, and you're

performing down here. Help me understand,

what do you need for you? Again,

radical ownership stays with

them for you to close this gap,

and what do you need for me

to be successful in that?

So it's a growth coaching

conversation to start where I call that

the pep, the personal elevation plan.

And that is, Hey, as soon as I see

a gap, I'm going to call it out,

and we're going to co-create a game

plan for you to close that gap and take

radical ownership for doing so.

Then if I don't see that they've closed

that gap, then we'll escalate to a pip.

That's the last warning conversation

of like, Hey, to be clear,

you cannot have this job if you're

not meeting the expectations outlined

in the job scorecard. So again,

help me understand why haven't I seen

the change and what needs to change in

order for you to be successful, because

we both want you to be successful here.

So the PIP, that's the personal

improvement plan, right? Correct.

This is where you got to improve

here else. This is going to fit.

And my guess is, John,

if you are a company and you're leading

someone through this process after the

pip, some people are going to make it a

lot. People are going to be like, yeah,

this price isn't right. Correct.

The firing is not going to be a

surprise to anybody at that point.

You go through that process,

it's going to be a pretty natural next

step for you and for the person you're

firing.

It's not a surprise.

And what you'll actually see is

people will just quit that phrase,

manage up or manage out. Credit to

Layla Hermo for teaching me that one.

When you've done a great job

of building a high performance,

high pressure environment, people who

don't like that, who don't want that,

who don't want to be held accountable

to constant growth and constant targets

will leave. They'll literally just leave.

Which is akay even better,

right? Than having to f.

Fire, which is best

case scenario. Exactly.

Exactly. This is so good,

and one thing I'll share too,

and we've had our ups

and downs as an agency

when it comes to ops and hiring

and firing and things like that.

But what I've also found too,

because I think there's this fear that

business owners have too, about firing.

I can't think of a single time

that we fired someone at OMG where

I've had outrage from the team.

Almost always it's like, yeah,

I saw that coming, right?

Or yeah, we got that.

We did have to go through a couple of

rounds of layoffs as an agency about 18

months ago. That sucked,

and that sucked bad.

A lot of agencies and a lot of

e-comm brands had to do that.

So I did get pushback there. People were

like, how could you let this person go?

I'm like, I know. I know. It

sucked. But the firing piece,

I've never had anybody. How could you, I

mean, maybe the person's getting fired,

but everybody else was like, yep, yep.

Saw that Maybe you're a little bit late.

Do you want me to offer you a

reframe so that even that person.

Please, please.

Is on board with it? And

guys, this is, again,

this is coming from me messing this

up so many times because I really

care about my team. I do. And

so I don't want to fire them.

I don't want to hurt them. Oh my God.

Maybe they're going to get better.

I'll give them just another

month. Just another month,

and then we all know

where that ends. Anyway.

Right?

Here's the reframe. I will offer you,

your job as a business owner is to create

a vehicle for growth. Growth for you,

growth for your clients,

growth for your team.

People deserve to be

successful in their roles.

They deserve to be able to

grow with your business.

And if they are in a role

where they cannot be successful

or where their pathway

for growth had diverted from yours,

then it is an absolute act of

love and service to let them go

and find the other opportunity where they

will be successful that does get them

to their goals. They deserve that.

It is in fact selfish to

let your own emotional

discomfort at the conversation,

keep them in a place where

they cannot be successful.

So when I show up to a

firing conversation, that's

the lens that I bring.

And guess what?

I still get coffee every month with half

the people I've fired because they're

so grateful and I'm so grateful,

and we love each other so much,

and they've found another job

opportunity or started a business,

and they've become these incredible

next level versions of themselves.

And all we did when we fired

them was determine that, Hey,

the next version of you can't

be unlocked here. That's okay.

That's so okay. But it's

time for us to part ways.

And understanding that people

desperately want to be successful.

They do.

They know that they're not

being successful with your

company if they're in this

position, especially if you've got.

A job scorecard.

Especially if you've going through

this, measur them against that process,

then they really know and they really

know. Right? And one story that I heard,

this was in the book, radical Candor,

which is one of my favorites because

I'm not naturally a candid person.

So that book really helped me.

But I love the story between

Steve Jobs and Johnny.

Ive and Steve would ask Johnny like, Hey,

did you give this

feedback to your teammate?

Did you tell them this isn't good

enough? And Johnny would be like, well,

I don't want to hurt their feelings

or whatever. And Steve would say, no,

Johnny, you don't want to be nice.

You're just vain and you want

people to like you, right?

It's like you've got to give

people the feedback. And of course,

we don't have to put on our Steve

Jobs and show up just the way he

did, not our personalities. But it's

one of those things that say like, yeah,

the frame you gave, it's actually

not kindness. If you are,

and maybe it's actually selfish if you're

holding onto somebody when you need to

let them go so they can go not be

miserable somewhere and be successful

somewhere.

Or you're holding onto

that piece of feedback that

you're unwilling to tell them

when it's actually just depriving

them of the opportunity.

To.

Know what the gap is so they

can do something about it.

Yeah. Yeah. So good. We could keep going.

You've got me fired up for operations.

I'm not even operations guy. This is

amazing, John, this, I can't believe it.

So good. So definitely share with

us the SOPs. I'll get that out.

We'll put that in the show notes.

Anybody can get that. But also,

I'm confident there are people

listening that are just like,

I don't need the SOPs. I just want

to work with Jonna and her team.

So how can people connect with

spyglass ops? What does that look like?

Who are you right for? Talk

to us about working with you.

Yeah, beautiful. So guys,

the best way to connect with

me is actually on Instagram,

and if you will add it

into the show notes.

But I'm just going to give you

guys my entire resource vault.

So DM me the code word vault, click

on the link in the show notes,

DM me on Instagram. It's the

best way to get in touch.

What Instagram handle.

That is at the Jonna Lee.

So J-H-A-N-A-L-I, Jonna Lee.

Awesome. And so DM you the word vault.

Correct.

You'll get the whole thing there.

The whole all the goods, man. Okay.

That's amazing. Jonna,

this has been fantastic.

I can't wait to review this, share

this with my team. Really, really good.

I know this is going to

create transformational

change for people that listen

and apply and especially those that get

your details and or work with you guys,

but you guys are really, you're geared

to work with brands, work with agencies,

work with just service-based companies.

You can work with just about anybody,

correct?

Yeah. We work with online based

startups, right? So eCom brands,

given that you're running your

business off technical systems,

remote team building, that's the

stuff we really specialize in.

Awesome. Jonna Lee,

ladies and gentlemen at the Jonna Lee

on Instagram, connect with her there,

DM her at the word vault and

you'll get all the goods.

Also put stuff in the show notes

as well. So with that, Jonna,

thank you so much. This was amazing.

Thanks for bringing the energy.

Thanks for bringing the insights.

Thank you, Brett, it.

Was fantastic.

Appreciate it.

Awesome. And thank you for tuning in

as always. We'd love to hear from you.

What would you like to hear more of

on the show? If you've not done so,

please leave us a review on iTunes and

if you know somebody who's struggling

with ops share, share with them

this episode and with that,

until next time, thank you for listening.