Episode Summary

Tune into this week’s episode of the Make Space for More podcast to learn what to do if you’re constantly putting out fires in your business! You’ll discover how Melissa Swink made the transition from being a reactive business owner to a proactive business owner.

Learn the importance of establishing leadership rituals and building simple habits that support your growth, as well as effective communication and systems to prevent chaos in your business operations. By focusing on forecasting and planning, you will enhance productivity and growth while reducing stress and missed opportunities. Melissa provides actionable strategies for creating a more organized and efficient work environment, ultimately leading to greater success and satisfaction in your work. 

Key Highlights:

• Replace firefighting with strategy: Create a clear operating framework that puts you back in control
• Schedule non-negotiable CEO time: Weekly planning sessions to review metrics and forecast priorities
• Reclaim your inbox: Use productivity tools to transform email from a distraction to an asset
• Structure team communication: Set defined check-ins and office hours to eliminate constant interruptions
• Prevent fires, don't fight them: Document and automate key workflows before crisis hits
• Track what matters: Build a focused metrics dashboard using tools you'll actually use
• Plan with purpose: Implement a weekly Priority Planner to keep strategic work front and center
• Guard your boundaries: Set clear parameters around availability and response times
• Systemize the routine: Automate repetitive tasks to free up strategic thinking time
• Lead with clarity: Transform team confusion into confident action through clear processes

About Melissa:

Melissa Swink, Founder & CEO of Melissa Swink & Co., has a team of virtual assistants who provide administrative and marketing support for small businesses and non-profits.

Since 2012, Melissa and her team have helped more than 100 businesses grow through the services they offer, and she is dedicated to helping entrepreneurs create profitable, scalable businesses they love.

Her work is all about doing what works (and eliminating what doesn’t) and driving real, measurable results. Visit www.melissaswink.com to learn more! 

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Hi everyone. Welcome to the Make Space for More podcast where we talk strategies for growing and scaling your business in a way that's authentic and aligned for you. I'm your host, Melissa Swink. And in today's episode, we're going to talk about going from firefighting to forecasting and why this game changing habit will change your business for the better. So before we dive into today's episode, I want to ask you a reflection question for a minute.

Are you constantly putting out fires in your business? And I know I certainly go through stages of this, even now with where I'm at, this is something that happens whether you're a solopreneur or you're leading a large team, there are inevitably times or stages of your business as the course of your growth that you'll fall into these times where you feel like things just aren't clicking or you're constantly being pulled in to solve a problem here or there.

And I'm here to assure you that if you do feel like you are being pulled away from the things that you are meant to be doing, and certainly the things that you want to be doing because there are issues, there are problems, there are things to be worked out, I want to assure you that productivity is not the problem. It's not that you're not working hard enough. It's not that you're using, you're not using your time wisely. We'll talk more about the time factor in a second here, but what's...

happening is is that leadership rituals are the issue. It's not productivity. It's leadership rituals. Now, I'm not saying that in a shaming way like, you're saying that I'm not doing a good job leading my team or serving my customers or, you know, sharing the vision and the direction of the company. That's not what I'm saying. The keyword here, I think, is rituals. So you as the CEO, the founder of your business,

the executive director of your organization, whatever your role is, it's about having the right rituals in place in order to stop this cycle of fire drills and putting out fires and having those things derail your efforts and your team's efforts. So when I think about fighting fires, I'm thinking about a couple of client stories here. And some of these are,

more related to growth and some are more related to customer service. But for instance, we have a client who was scrambling to respond to RFPs for his business. he is in a line of work where he is frequently responding to RFPs put out by government agencies in order to put in bids to get that work. And so what he was finding is that he was so busy running his business and

doing the projects that he was contracted to do that he would scramble, he would happen to find an RFP or hear about one or come across one, and then he would be scrambling the night before it was due in order to get that bid put out there. And that was something that was really, really stressful for him. So firefighting can look like not just interruptions and problems, but it can also look like, here's something, an opportunity, we need to run after it right now because we haven't been

you know, planning in advance, or we've had so many other things on our plates that this kind of stuck up on us. So there's a variety of ways that shows up. I wanted to highlight that example. Now, certainly, of course, because I am in the virtual assistant services business, that is now something that our team proactively helps him look ahead to and plan for. We're even doing some things in terms of graphic design work to make his bids and his proposals more visually appealing and so on. But just wanted to share that example.

Another example that I can think of is one of our clients who serves a variety of customers in the product space. And so he was previously having to field customer questions in terms of when is my order arriving or this came in damaged, what do I do next and all of these things. He was constantly, you know, in that reactive mode. So I just wanted to share those couple of other examples from clients where we're not necessarily talking about constant interruptions or

problems that need to be solved or just the inevitable interruptions that happen on a day-to-day basis. This can look like a lot of different ways. So if you feel like you're in more reactive mode rather than being proactive, I want to assure you again that there are leadership rituals that you can put into practice in order to avoid falling into this trap. Because really our goal ultimately is to replace chaos with clarity by building simple habits that support your growth.

So let's talk a little bit more before we dive into how to do that. What is being proactive versus what is reactive in terms of business owners and the way that you're spending your time, just so that everybody's on the same page. So a proactive business owner is very intentional. They are very focused on what their goals are. They know what they are looking to build and create, and they align their priorities with

those goals and intention. They have a clear operating plan where they know exactly who is on the bus in what seats and what those job functions are. They know the process in terms of serving their customers. They have these plans in place. They have systems that they are implementing in and investing in and approving upon in order for things to work seamlessly.

Now, I feel like I just painted a picture of a utopia or like this tropical paradise in the business world. And that is the goal that we all want to get to. And certainly we're not all there yet. We're not perfect people. I'm not there yet. And I talk about this all day long and certainly share it with you that we are constantly looking at ways that we can do this better. And there are certainly days that I get pulled into firefighting mode. I had one of those yesterday. We had

a client issue that we wanted to work through with one of our team members to make sure everybody was on the same page in terms of the process of how something needed to be done so that it was crystal clear to everyone moving forward and we could actually be productive and get ahead for this client. So this happens to me too. But ideally, this is what a proactive business owner would look like. This is what the ideal example would look like. let's ...

cross-reference that to a reactive business owner. This person finds themselves constantly answering questions. This person may be dropping everything to respond to something. Now, this is something that I was just thinking about as I was prepping for this. Now, dropping everything to respond to a crisis of some kind. There are certainly crises that do need our immediate attention.

but I will also say that that is only a fraction of the time. Oftentimes we drop everything because we wanna jump in and fix it, we wanna jump in and help. And so this is what I was thinking about too. I know people, especially in the past, who have an extreme need to be needed. And you might be thinking of somebody, even in your life right now, maybe in your personal life or business life, where it's just like,

Somebody needs me and I'm going to run and I'm going to save the day. That is certainly an example of dropping everything to respond. Solving problems. Does your team constantly say, hey, this isn't working. Here you go. What do you want me to do? That's certainly something that I've encountered in the past. And I know that I proactively try and encourage my team. Well, if you did know, what would you do? Or, okay, if you were in my position,

what are some of the solutions that you might recommend? You know, trying to get people into saying, here's the issue, I've done some research, here are some of my suggestions, that's something that we're always working on. But are you feeling like right now people are just dumping problems on your lap and walking away like, you're the boss, you get paid the big bucks, you figure this out and tell me what to do. That certainly can be really frustrating and keep us stuck in terms of growing our business.

And then there's just all those miscellaneous last minute tasks that pop up, right? Like just even simple things like, you know what? Today we have that thing and where we decided to go to that thing. Maybe we decided to go to the farmer's market tonight. This is a purely hypothetical example. It's starting to become farmer's market season as I'm recording this here in our area. And so maybe it's like, we got invited to the farmer's market to go with some friends. We're going to go, but now I need to...

stop at the bank and get some cash because not all vendors take cards at this point, which what's that about? I won't go on that rant, but you get the idea. Just like those last minute things that inevitably pop up or your child needs to bring 25 cupcakes to school tomorrow and it's 6.30 in the evening and you don't have supplies for cupcakes at home. So you're running off to the store. I'm using some more personal examples, but you get the idea. There's no shortage of those last minute little tasks that sneak up on us.

But here's the thing, as I'm describing these reactive moments and these show up in a variety of ways, many more than I even just listed here, the issue is that being in reactive mode really limits your growth. It certainly derails your focus, your overall effectiveness, and job satisfaction. So I'm not talking about just you personally, I'm also talking about how this affects your team or even the vendors that you work with if

you know, things are constantly feeling like they're in flux, or it feels like there are constantly things going wrong that really starts to wear you down after a while. And we're gonna talk a little bit more about that as we continue on in this episode of how that really affects us. Certainly there are emotional tolls that come along with this. There are also monetary tolls that come with us with this issue as well with being in reactive mode, because not only

When we feel like we're frustrated, like we're tired, like we're stressed out, like we're overstimulated because it feels like there are 25 tennis balls being thrown at our face at once, that is exhausting. When we're exhausted, we're not making good decisions, we're certainly not innovative or creative the way that we want to be. The other thing is that we have missed opportunities. When we're so busy and distracted,

trying to solve this problem or get back to all of these emails and these questions that have come in from our teams or client inquiries are coming in. When we have all this going on, it makes it easier for opportunities to slip through the cracks. Maybe then we ran out of time to follow up with that prospective client, or maybe we were just so distracted that it didn't even occur to us that there is a collaboration opportunity for an event.

coming up with a potential referral partner.

This also shows up as team confusion where if we are constantly in reactive mode and we're kind of flying by the seat of our pants, our team also doesn't know number one, what to expect from us from a day-to-day basis because it kind of depends on which direction the wind is blowing, but also makes them feel helpless if they don't have a clear set of expectations or guidelines in order to handle these things that are

coming across their desk on a day-to-day basis. And ultimately, this just eats away at our time. Because if we have one thing blow up and it derails the entire day, this is time that is spent that is not on the things that actually grow our businesses, our organizations, better serve our customers. This is cleanup, this is not renovating and expanding. You get the idea. So what do we do about this? If you find yourself in reactive mode,

at least some of the time, which, spoiler alert, we all are in reactive mode at least some of the time, I wanna share three tactics that we can use in order to shift this and build in some habits that are going to change our businesses for the better and get us out of that reactive mode. So the first one is that we wanna build in time for forecasting. If you feel like you are constantly behind and you don't have time to be forward thinking and plan ahead,

That is the first thing that needs to get resolved. I highly recommend setting aside at least one hour per week of CEO time. Take a look at what is coming up on your calendar over the next week, two weeks, three weeks. Let's even build out a little bit from there. Even if you can start looking ahead, if you are just in a spot where you are just buried and you just are trying to dig your way out so you can even see the forest through the trees, maybe it's just looking a few days ahead.

What's coming up? What meetings do we have going on? What are some of the things happening in the business around this time of the month or this season? And taking a look at what are the most important things that I need to be doing this week? What are the most important things that my team needs to be doing this week? And also just reviewing things, like maybe it's reviewing your financials to make sure that your cash flow is where it needs to be, that there aren't...

any issues in terms of receiving client payments, that there aren't any past due items, just reviewing the planning, the prioritizing, just taking a look at a snapshot of here's the state of the state, here's what's coming up, what are we going to be doing about this? Also having regular metrics that you're tracking. We'll talk more about that in a second. Staying focused on your goals, reviewing, ultimately big picture.

What are we looking to try and build in the next six to 12 months? What are we focusing on right now? We want to certainly celebrate the wins. And this is something that actually my business coach reminded me in a call that we had this week is, you know, I was feeling like, gosh, I feel like lately we're taking two steps forward and one step back. You know, we get a new system and there's kinks in it, or we get a new client or a client add services and then things kind of got a little wonky and we needed to work all of that out. It just feels like

Sometimes we fall into those modes. And she reminded me, look at all the things that are working really, really well. Let's stop shining a spotlight on maybe that one thing out of a hundred that happened today that didn't go as well as you would have liked. So focusing on the positives as well. So there are tools that you can use to help you monitor all this as well. Certainly keeping track of your metrics. This can be as simple as a spreadsheet. One example of this,

I actually have a marketing call with my team after I record this podcast and we keep track of our followers and our connections on our social media channels. We take a look at what are our open rates for our email newsletters? What are our stats for our podcast downloads? Where are our leads coming from currently? We keep track of all that information. So of course, depending on you and the type of business that you have, your metrics are going to vary a little bit, but identifying

What are some of the things that we want to be tracking and paying attention to in terms of our numbers? Certainly sales and marketing have one aspect. There are aspects of metrics in a variety of areas of your company. I'm not going to dive into all those specifics today. And even, again, keeping track of this on a simple spreadsheet can be a great place to start. Also using a project management tool like Asana is something that our team uses where I can take a look at

What are some of the tasks that I have coming up? Do I have a presentation coming up and I need to work on these slides? I need to work on the handouts for that. Just taking a look so that it doesn't sneak up on me and all of a sudden, hey, this presentation is on Tuesday and I haven't even gotten started, right? Things sneak up on us. Or even taking a look at overall with your team and capacity, you know, who has a lot on their plate right now according to our project management tool.

How can we flex some of that work so that some of our team members who have a lighter load this week can take some of the burden off to spread things around so we don't have one person who's buried and others who are not getting their hours or however you have things structured. That's one way to look at it as well. Project management tools can help with resource planning as well. Another example or a tool to use for something like this would be a CRM tool.

So maybe we need to keep track of here are all the leads in our pipeline, here are the people that we need to follow up with this week, or these people over here said, you know what, let's connect after tax season. Now tax season is behind us. I'm not recording this around tax season, but for a real life example, I do have a few people, particularly in the accounting space, whether they be potential referral partners or potential clients that said, let's connect after tax season.

those ticklers and those reminders in the CRM tool that you have can be immensely helpful for that forecasting and that CEO time and regularly looking at that. So again, we're not missing opportunities. The next habit that you can build would be to create systems that actually prevent fires in the first place. So I know people start to tune out when I say systems, but I can tell you that there are easier ways of doing this.

More and more, we can use AI tools to help us build out our processes and procedures and streamline operations. There are so many great ones, but really what we wanna do is we want to identify what are the repeatable processes that are happening in our businesses. This can look like things like client onboarding. It can look like content creation, sales follow-ups, invoicing, paying bills, all the different things that have to happen on an ongoing basis. What are those things?

And then from there, we want to take a look at streamlining those things so that the process is much more efficient. I actually just had a session with one of my senior VAs yesterday looking at our team payment process. And so what we did was we just took a simple Google sheet and we did kind of a brain dump of here's the process as it is right now. Here are some of the issues that are coming up in this process. And then we identified ways to change it a bit.

and make it just so much easier for everyone involved. Highly recommend walking through your processes with another person to get an extra set of eyes to help you identify, have you ever thought about doing it like this? Or have you ever thought about starting here first as the first step and then move on over here so we don't run into trouble later on? It's a great thing to do when it comes to streamlining your processes.

And then of course we want to document those and maybe it's not necessarily creating a document per se. Maybe it's recording a screen share video. This is how to do X, Y, and Z and just talking through the task as you're doing it. There's lots of ways that we can quote unquote document our processes. Looking for opportunities to automate whenever possible. I have lots of podcasts, episodes on systems and processes and automations. Please check those out for more detail. I'm not going to go too far.

into that rabbit hole in today's episode. But there are definitely things that we want to do to be proactive, to make sure that everybody's on the same page, that our processes are efficient, so that we have fewer mistakes, we have fewer exceptions, we have fewer interruptions that are ultimately creating these fires that need to be put out in the middle of our days. Okay, and the last habit that we want to work on in order to get ourselves out of reactive mode

is communication habits that keep you in control. Because as much as we want to have control over our time, which ultimately gives us the freedom to create and build our businesses, is we want to maintain that control. So we have control and freedom. think it was Marissa Reether and I were talking about in our episode that control and freedom are kind of opposite sides of the same coin.

So what we wanna do in order to maintain control of your time so that you are free to grow your business is that we wanna have regular team check-ins. So as I mentioned, I have a marketing call with my marketing team. I have a regular call with my executive assistant. I have monthly one-to-ones with my senior VA team. These are all regular team check-ins that help us mitigate, here are some of the things that have been challenging. How can we...

on this and make this better? Or how can we make sure that everyone is on the same page in terms of what types of social media content and email newsletters need to go out in the coming month? We want to have weekly agendas. What are we focusing on this week? I use my own priority planner. If you're curious to learn more about that, just send me an email. Hello at melissaswink.com. I can certainly share a copy of that with you.

But it's basically a simple grid that helps me figure out here's everything on my plate. What are my highest priorities and what are, know, in terms of my priorities based on the effectiveness of growing the business. So there are things that are high priority like getting out proposals or having marketing call or I should say sales calls. And then there's also the pieces that this will grow my business eventually. So recording a podcast or

having a call with my marketing team or drafting up my message for this month's email newsletter that kind of goes in that bucket. And then there's a business management bucket, which involves things like meeting with my bookkeeper or reviewing our cashflow at this point in the month, things like that. And then there's just the miscellaneous things. And it helps me kind of plot out my time. In terms of communication, kind of going back to

those communication and the habits that we're building, having office hours where you have a certain time, maybe every day or throughout the week, where your team can have just ad hoc meetings with you when they want to bounce an idea off or they want to have a conversation with you. That way you don't have the, I've realized that I have a virtual team and many of you probably do as well, but think about in an office or if you used to work in an office,

how many times you would have somebody kind of poke their head in your cubicle or poke their head in your office and kind of knock on the door like, got a second? You know, that sort of thing. So we want to have less of those and we want to have more office hours. Like, you know, from the hours of two to three, you are welcome to bring whatever you need my help on. That's, you know, setting boundaries around your time. It's reducing distractions. So some of the tools that I love to use distractions, I've talked about these on the podcast before.

for my email boomerang. So that prevents, that basically pauses my inbox from receiving new mail. So once I can triage my inbox through in the morning and respond to things that need to be responded to in a time sensitive manner, I pause my inbox and then I don't have the distraction of new emails coming in. I put my phone on do not disturb so I don't have my different pop-ups and things going off as I'm trying to have my focus time.

So building in those habits around communication will go a long way in terms of keeping you out of reactive mode, especially when it comes to interruptions. So all of that being said, I highly encourage you to take one action step this week, which is to block one hour to do a CEO session. Start planning ahead, start looking at your days ahead, your weeks ahead.

or even your months ahead depending on how you're feeling in terms of preparedness and readiness for the upcoming days and weeks. I also have a very special gift for you. Just for those who are listening to today's episode, we have put together, based on this information that I just shared, a firefighting to forecasting checklist. It's a simple one-page checklist, just helps you go through, here are some of the things that I need to be focusing on, here are some of the...

habits that I need to build and so on. So if you're interested in receiving a copy, go to melissaswink.com slash firefighting and you'll be able to grab that download. Thank you so much for listening to today's episode. I'm so appreciative of your support and we will be back next week with another episode of Make Space for More. Have a wonderful day.