I confess that I’m a nerd who loves other nerds, and Staci Hauschild is a self-confessed nerd about strategic plans. In this episode of Hourly to Exit, she and I talked about how essential it is for expertise-based service providers to figure out what to do, when to do it, and who should do it. We covered some important topics like

• The nuts and bolts of a good strategic plan
• Why the key to growth is not a “second you”
• The importance of predictability to create a sustainable business
• How Staci is actively living a scalable plan, including timing and vision

I was so excited to hear about ways to balance vision with a strategic plan in order to run a successful business. If you are looking for a plan for your intellectual property, we should talk. Contact me

Connect with Erin and find the resources mentioned in this episode at hourlytoexit.com/podcast.

Erin's LinkedIn Page: https://www.linkedin.com/in/erinaustin/

Think Beyond IP YouTube Page: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCVztXnDYnZ83oIb-EGX9IGA/videos

Music credit: Yes She Can by Tiny Music

A Team Dklutr production

Welcome to Hourly to Exit Podcast everyone.

I'm very excited for my guest today, Stacy Hash Child.

Stacy, welcome to Hourly to Exit.

Thanks for having me, Erin.

Well, I'd love to start off with you introducing yourself to the audience,

and then we'll get into the meat of.

Absolutely.

So I am joining this call today from Oaxaca, Mexico, where I live

and work as a certified director of operations and vetted click up consultant.

I help feminist entrepreneurs smash the patriarchy.

One deadline at a time through planning and online business

management so that CEOs can take real business free vacations.

I'm a big fan of a work-life balance to increase their profits and make

positive change in their communities using their business skills.

Yeah.

When I found out this about you, of course I had to have you on.

It aligns up so directly with the mission here at Hourly to exit

to get more wealth in the hands of women and personally, the

idea of taking a true unplugged stress-free vacation is, it came.

Recently, and I was trying to think of the last time I did it, I believe it was a

camping trip, which is not generally what I do at this point in my life, with my son

and his father to the Grand Canyon area.

And that was only

because I had no options.

But if I had any , I'm sure I've been checking email.

So super important to be able to do that.

I know that so many women have difficulty unplugging, so this will be fantastic,

to find out how you help us do that.

so when I saw the word feminist on Stacy's, website, which is

a very beautiful website by the way, very, very nice website.

Thank you.

I knew we had to have this conversation.

And then the smashing the patriarchy part, I will say that's the first

time I've seen it used in this context.

So we're gonna talk about that as well.

but first I do wanna talk about your certified director of Ops, cuz you

know, as we mentioned before we started recording, Natalie, the founder.

And mastermind behind the certification has been on the episode.

So tell me about what you're doing before that, how you decided to get that

certification and how that has benefited how you help your clients since then.

Oh, absolutely.

Before I got the certification in 2020, I had had my business for

a while, but I was doing more virtual assistant type of tasks.

Mm-hmm.

. , even though I had that strategic mindset

lack of a better word, and I didn't know how to take my innate skills or the

things that I had done in my previous life and put it into the online space.

And so when I found Natalie, it was like a no-brainer.

Mm-hmm.

and I joined the director of operations certification and fell

in love with strategic planning.

Mm-hmm.

as an operator.

I love a plan.

I value structure and planning and that's what I'm good at.

But I learned how to bring structure and planning to visionary ceo.

Who feel sometimes very restricted by the plan, and so my entire mission

with strategic planning is to help.

CEOs create clarity, direction and a plan so that they can

move their business forward.

And one of the first questions I ask them is, when is the last time you took

a business free vacation ? Because none of us got into business to work 24 7,

but sometimes we get wrapped up in that.

Mm-hmm.

. Erin Austin: Absolutely.

just tell us what is a strategic plan?

Like what are the elements of it?

Just so way you all kind of understand what that.

Yeah, a strategic plan is a really boring, corporate

term, which means creating a roadmap.

Mm-hmm.

that allows you to know who's doing what in your business, when they're

doing it, why it's important, and what the outcome is going to be.

do you need one?

If you are a soloist,

If you have a thousand ideas, 457 sticky

notes, all of those things, then absolutely the size of your team

or your revenue doesn't matter.

We all feel scattered and misdirected sometimes in our business, no

matter what level we're at.

Mm-hmm.

we can come in and assess what's working and what's not, and put a plan

in place allows you to move forward in a way that does not feel overwhelming.

Mm-hmm.

. Erin Austin: Yeah, that is so true.

You know, I am generally a soloist.

Sometimes I have an assistant.

In-house sometimes, outsourced.

And I have gone through the strategic plan process with one of Natalie's,

director of ops and found the process to be tremendously, beneficial.

So I am a solopreneur, although I have had assistants, uh, both in-house

as employees and also using virtual assistance, and have been through the

strategic plan process with a certified.

Director of ops, you certified by Natalie.

And it's tremendously beneficial.

I mean, I honestly didn't think like it's just me.

Like what?

And it really is so beneficial to have, and when someone, and we're gonna talk

about this, honestly, when, whose brain works so differently than mine I,

looking at your coal vision, your Meyers Briggs and your Enneagrams and all the

other things, and to that structure, cause I've been structure free.

I mean, I.

it's easy to kind of hobble along fine without a structure and

it is truly eyeopening when you have that strategic plan in place.

So I did wanna mention, your assessment.

So how does that play into, wanting to be a director of operations and

how you've worked with your clients?

I didn't realize until I took the Colby, which Natalie

recommends in the certification.

Mm-hmm.

and the other assessments that I was born for this, I

mean, I am wired for this.

I work best with.

. I am not a great visionary.

I do not have a thousand ideas, but if you tell me your

idea, I'm gonna make it happen.

Mm-hmm.

and I can help you see that it's not just five steps, it may be 55.

And keep you accountable during that process and keep you excited

about it and help you reach the end of that project Nothing to me

is sadder than an unfinished project.

I would much rather finish a project and it have failed and it didn't

get the results than us to abandon it midway because then we're,

failing and abandoning things.

all the time, and we have no data then to be like, is this working?

Is this not working for me?

This it's who I am.

I am the bossy older sister.

I was the.

sophomore in high school who was the president of all of the clubs when they

were normally held by Spice Seniors.

I was the editor of the yearbook.

I mean, I am like full on nerd, right?

Operations nerd.

And Natalie allowed me, and the certification allowed me to step

into that and own my nerdiness and my love of structure and to see how.

. One of the reasons I put those scores up on my website is because I hear a

lot of CEOs say, oh, I need a second me.

And I'm like, no, no, no, no, no.

We do not want to duplicate ourselves.

We want to bring somebody in who has similar values, understands

the mission of the business, and can bring a complimentary skillset.

Absolutely.

Yeah.

People are surprised that as a lawyer, I am not , you know, all

the things that you are, I am not.

And I guess they think that we are, just cause we're logical thinkers

and very linear thinkers actually.

But still, for some of us, they're the ideas everywhere.

And, the focus comes from necessity.

because it's innate and so mm-hmm.

. So I, I have done the Colby and Myers-Briggs, not the others.

One was called Wealth Something or another that I did.

But, and it's interesting to find out.

I mean, it was things that.

, we kind of knew about ourselves, but, once we, see the

assessments, they're like, yeah.

you totally recognize them.

Mm-hmm.

they're surprisingly useful and accurate I found.

So that is great.

So you have this line on your website called You've gotten sucked into

patriarchal hustle and grind culture.

Tell me what that means to you and how you.

That's an excellent question.

As female entrepreneurs, we are not wearing just many hats in our

business, but many hats in life and many of those roles are unpaid.

We are, mothers, we are wives, we are responsible for the majority

of the household duties, no matter how fantastic our partners are.

And daughters to aging parents.

, what's that?

Daughters to Aging parents.

Yes.

That's a great one.

And.

Some of these jobs we like more than others, but all of them are

a weight what we carry on our shoulders, and I want to help.

Female entrepreneurs make business easier and to support their

lifestyle and to have the freedom to say no if something does not

align to the core values that we find in their strategic plan.

To make space and create boundaries for what they want to be doing and

feel confident saying no to those things they don't want to do.

What was really interesting is yesterday I was doing a strategic planning

session with the husband and wife team, and I normally, my strategic

planning sessions are one-to-one, so it'd be like you and me, right?

But if they have a stakeholder in the business, then I bring both people on.

And this woman is A D E I consultant.

And we got to the professional development aspect.

He said, I'm not worried about the professional development for my wife.

What I would like for her to do is take some time off.

Mm-hmm.

. And he stepped up and said that.

And he said she grinds.

And she grinds and she.

And we're building this business together.

But I want to schedule her a three day retreat.

every weekend where she goes away and just takes care of herself because

she's doing so much building this business, helping the family.

And I was like, he gets it.

Yes.

, you she doesn't see that.

And she said, but it's hard.

And she has an amazing, supportive partner who I would like to duplicate.

Right.

and so for me that's what it's.

. Mm-hmm.

. Erin Austin: That is fantastic.

Yeah.

And so that's interesting that Ivan is wonderful, but interesting that

he recognized so that invisible labor that, so many of us.

Yeah.

I wanted to ask him, do you have a brother?

But I thought I maybe crossing a line of professionalism on this call right now.

, like after you get them set up, then you might wanna circle back on that one.

. Exactly.

One last thing, now that we've finished our time together,

. Erin Austin: Well, you know, I

like, what, people feeling when they go, you I need to talk to Stacy.

And they're looking for someone like you, like what's going on with

them in their businesses, that makes them seek out, someone like you,

they feel stuck in their revenue.

, they feel overwhelmed and they don't have someone to sit with who will ask them

questions, reflect back to, and push back with a little bit of loving candor.

I have had clients who come to the calls and have sat on the couch with a cup

of tea and feel like they can just.

Relax, and I'm gonna ask them questions and give them time to think and push

back when the dots don't connect, because it's the first time that they've sat

down with somebody to go over every part of their business and help them

understand like how to move it forward in a way that feels good to them.

Mm-hmm.

And clients will come out of it saying that I've held space for them.

Hmm.

And they're excited they feel rejuvenated and excited about their business again.

They feel like they have permission to do something that somebody

else told them they couldn't do.

Mm-hmm.

. And so it is someone who like, you know, stuck, overwhelmed, stressed out.

and doesn't really know what the next step is because we're being flooded.

Mm-hmm.

by ideas all the time.

About, what should we do?

And some people will say, well, would, will you take my ideas and

present them to me in a strategic plan and give that to me?

And I said, no, we are going to build your strategic plan together.

Mm-hmm.

. Yeah.

Because I don't know your business well enough to have one call

with you and then put together through her to strategic plan.

Mm.

we're gonna put it together and so that you walk away with something that you

are going to want to implement when our time is over and not just put it in a.

like a file on your computer.

go, onto the next thing.

Like my goal is never to be, yeah.

Or in click up.

My goal is never to eat one of those like professional development things that you

do and and then you forget about, right?

Yeah.

For me it was finding clarity.

I mean, I am very reactive.

It's my major weakness.

I mean, just reactive and to be able to, put the markers in place

and holding space for the work.

That's not the reactive stuff that's coming in from clients,

but, reaching your goals, long-term goals and, That is so, so important.

Until you have it, you don't even realize that you're missing

it until you have it sometime.

So very, very helpful.

So, as you know, this is the Hourly to Exit podcast, and so we talk about

building scalable and saleable businesses.

So some of those things are exclusivity and in terms of the assets that

we have, our market positioning.

what we have in our business that is unique to us and that

gives us competitive advantage.

And also about predictability, like building a business that is independent

from the owner that can run with them, that is decoupled from the

income is decoupled from time.

So how does the work that you do fit into this kind of hourly to exit?

everything that you said, I'm like mm-hmm.

, yes.

Mm-hmm.

, yes.

Mm-hmm.

? Yes.

a hundred percent.

when my clients walk away, I want them to know what is

predictable, what is coming up.

Mm-hmm.

, who's going to do it?

So everything that you just said about the hourly to exit

journey, I'm going mm-hmm.

. Mm-hmm.

. Mm-hmm.

. I want my clients to walk away with a sustainable and predictable plan.

That tells them what they're going to do in what quarter, and

that it's not a random activity.

It's an activity that supports their business goals and

also their lifestyle goals.

Who's going to do it so that they don't feel the pressure to be responsible

for everything and so that the team member knows, okay, this is also

coming up for me in quarter two or whenever we've decided to do this.

, if there's not somebody on the team, do we need to look and think

about hiring a contractor so that that person can do that?

And for me, the plan is exactly, it is the predictability, it is the

stability, and it provides that just rooted feeling in the business so

you have clarity and not chaos.

Love it.

Yeah, absolutely.

So important.

So I like to say this is a very meta podcast, so where we, work

with female founders of expertise based businesses that hopefully

wanna sell their business someday.

So my question for you is, are you working to sell your business someday?

That's an excellent question for me, and as

I mentioned before, a visionary is not my greatest strength.

implementing other people's businesses are, I think at this stage I am

in the scaling stage because I just did a huge pivot two years ago.

Mm-hmm.

, like I am finally doing what I should have been doing five years prior.

Mm-hmm.

, right?

And so, . I'm in that scaling phase and I'm getting ready to bring on some new

hires in 2023, according to my own plan.

Wow.

So I'm not thinking about selling it right now.

I am not great at thinking five years in the future.

Again, not a visionary.

Right.

My safe zone is about 12 to 18.

That's what works for me.

And that's why I tell my clients, like, let's talk about a vision in any time.

That doesn't scare the crap out of you.

I'm flexible, if you're a five year, great.

If you're a one year person, let's work with that.

Right.

So I think I am in a scaling phase of my business, which I have to be honest, seven

years ago, I would've never thought that I could be in the scaling phase of business.

Mm-hmm.

. But I kept going and here I.

. Yeah.

that's so true.

I mean, there are a lot of women in particular who start their businesses.

Especially expertise based businesses.

They come out of corporate or another environment and they start doing what

they were doing for their clients.

And they're not thinking about scale at all.

They're just, I'm the expert.

I use my expertise to help my clients.

They pay me.

It all works.

That's fantastic.

And scaling is nowhere on there.

You're the expert.

How do you scale, you know, being the expert but we get to, and you.

Lawyers are definitely guilty of this, and I'm guilty of that in particular as well.

And, uh, until you get to a point where you start to think about kind

of long-term, greater impact, you've hit that ceiling, what next?

Or you wanna kind of work at a higher level, like not just maybe

at the implementation level, but at the strategic level.

And those are all things that help us kind of get out of that.

Pair of hands mode and into that kind of strategic partner mode that

provides more value to our clients, so well, and I also, go ahead.

Oh, I was gonna just say the things that you're doing to scale are the same things

that will help you get to be saleable.

So there's the same continuum, so keep doing the things to scale, and

you will get to that point where when you're ready, Yeah, well I I

also wanna practice what I preach.

Mm-hmm.

, I have not been working overtime in the last two years.

I know my limits, I know that I need rest, and probably 2020 was a good time

to pivot cuz I couldn't really go anywhere anyway given the pandemic and Oh yeah.

Whatnot, , but I wanna practice what I preach.

Mm-hmm.

and I have, for the first time in the last couple months, I

have a waiting list and mm-hmm.

, it's like, okay.

I'm very much realizing that everything is dependent on me.

Mm-hmm.

. And I mean, aside from wanting to practice what I preach, I just wanna

do what's right for me as well, and not feel like the business is a burden.

Mm-hmm.

. . That is fantastic.

So finally, we talked about the mission that we both share the

mission to help, women and get more wealth in the hands of women.

And so I'd love to find out if there is an organization or a person

who's doing work that supports women in particular, helping them, become

more independent and economic justice that you'd like to share with the.

I have been an advocate for, and a follower of Planned

Parenthood for America for years.

Mm-hmm.

and I'm sure most of us, if not all of us, are familiar with that organization.

But, is an extremely important one to me, and I mean,

especially for my business and.

The values that we lead with.

Yeah.

I mean, who would've thought ? You know, it's always been important, obviously

cause it's not just for, you all sorts of reproductive healthcare is

always been important, but that we'd be where we are today and defending

its very existence is sad to me.

And so I do hope that.

it will make it onto people's, contribution list.

Very important work that they're are doing.

Yeah, I hope so too.

I went to Planned Parenthood in high school and I was from a

small town in western Kansas.

I went to Planned Parenthood in high school.

I did not feel comfortable, going to my mother.

and I moved away from Western Kansas 20 some years ago, and I have watched.

the Kansas map and the locations.

Mm-hmm.

, where Planned Parenthood used to be just diminish.

Mm-hmm.

. Mm-hmm.

over time.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

And Anita is still there.

I, yeah, absolutely.

so to switch gears, , so anything exciting happening in your business

that you'd like to share with the.

Well , now that you mention it, something new that's popped up is

that my team and I are starting to offer podcast pitching services,

ah, to people like me who do not have their own podcast, but who want to.

Beyond podcasts.

Mm-hmm.

that's been an accidental service that has popped up.

. Mm-hmm.

, an accidental need that we've found.

just like there are many steps to producing a podcast.

There are many steps involved in.

Connecting with the podcast host and getting on a podcast, before

and after the actual episode.

Yes.

yeah, we were rolling that out in 2023, which is a surprise to all of us.

. . I think the big surprise is

That's what keeps getting me.

As well.

As well.

yes, Well that's fantastic.

And so where can they go to find out about, your new offering

and find out more about you?

You can find us@stacyhachild.com.

Very nice.

Well, thank you so much for being here and sharing, your wisdom with us.

I do.

think the work that you're doing is fantastic and we didn't even talk

about click up cuz I do use click up in my business too, by the way.

and it is so important and even I do wanna emphasize that even for

those of you out there who are.

Solopreneurs, having a strategic plan is still super important part

of your business and moving forward in building a business that can

scale and hopefully sell someday.

So thank you again, Stacy.