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Ep 89. The Hidden Costs of Solo Entrepreneurship and How to Overcome Them
Episode 8924th September 2024 • The Mom CEO Suite: Life & Business Systems for Mompreneurs Seeking Work Life Balance • Phylicia Pough, Life & Business Systems Strategist for Moms
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In this episode, I discuss something many moms and entrepreneurs struggle with. What happens when you do everything yourself in business? As tempting as it might be, there's a hidden cost to this hustle, and I'm breaking it all down.

Here's what you'll hear during the episode:

  • Three costs that come with operating your business as a solopreneur
  • One powerful solution that can reduce the chances of you paying those costs.

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Connect with Phylicia

FB: Phylicia Pough

IG: @phyliciapough

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Website: themomceosuite.com

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Transcripts

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You are now tuned in to the mom CEO suite podcast.

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I'm your host, Phylicia, wife, mom, and

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entrepreneur. In this podcast, I'll be sharing my mompreneur

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journey along with strategies that will help you build your online

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business operations in a sustainable way. The goal is

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to help you build a business that fits into your lifestyle as a mom who

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values putting family first. We will also hear the

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experiences and expertise of other moms with service

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based businesses. You'll get a peek into our journeys, so you'll

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know that you aren't alone. Motherhood gets hard.

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Entrepreneurship gets hard. But together, we can

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do hard things. Welcome to the suite.

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Hey friends. Welcome to another episode. Thank you so much for being here and

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listening to the podcast. So today I want to talk a little bit

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about the hidden cost of doing everything yourself. I

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know in the online space, there are a lot of solar preneurs

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and myself included. I still consider myself a solopreneur.

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I, um, from time to time, I might hire a

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contractor to. work on a project or to do something

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specific for me, but for the most part, I do the

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majority of the things in my business. And

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so when it comes to being a solo preneur, though, there is a

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hidden cost. To you doing everything

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yourself, but even on the flip side, there's a hidden

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cost. If you have a team. So either route you choose there's

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going to be a hidden cost. So at the end of the day, you choose

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which route works best for you. Um, and you choose what, which

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costs you are more willing to pay, right?

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Nail. There's different reasons for why we

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choose to be solo preneurs. It could be for a financial

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reason. Maybe you don't have the financial capacity to

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hire team members. Maybe you don't have

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the, just the bandwidth to manage a team.

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Maybe you just don't want to have a team. And that is perfectly okay

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as well. But When you start doing everything

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yourself, there's a few things that you could potentially run

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into. And I want to talk about those few things today. And then of

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course, I want to give you a solution to this as well. So number one,

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the main thing that there's the risk of is. Becoming

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emotionally and physically burnt out. We hear about

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burnout so much, not even just in the online

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space, but we just hear about burnout a lot. And

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that typically comes because we are trying to do

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so many things. We are trying to be all

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things to all people at all times. And we

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were not created to operate in that way. We say yes

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to too many things. And so, um, when you are a

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solopreneur, you're doing all the things in your business. You

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are the marketing team. You are the admin team. You

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are. Fulfilling. The delivery. To the

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clients, you are the accountant you're

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doing. Everything in the business, right.

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And this can lead to. Stress,

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this can lead to exhaustion. And this

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can kind of demotivate you because you're so busy

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doing all of the things that you can't even enjoy

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your business anymore. And then when you run into burnout and you're doing all the

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things in your business, This also starts

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to, affect your personal life as well.

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And this is sometimes not all the time, but this is sometimes

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why. we hear a lot of conversations

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about. Not being able to balance work

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and family because. We

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are over committed. In the business or maybe we're over

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committed. In another area. Right. And so

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this can lead to that emotional and physical burnout. And I want

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to be sure to include that emotional piece because you might

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physically feel fine. But you might just emotionally,

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you might be tired. You might feel drained. You might not

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have energy to have conversations, right? It could be more than just

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a physical thing. And so when you are doing all the things

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yourself, you run the risk of, Experiencing emotional

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and physical burnout. So that's the first thing. The next

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thing you could run into. is the loss of

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revenue opportunities. And so when you

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are focused on like administrative tasks,

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We are constantly focused on doing the client work or you

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are doing repetitive tasks.

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Whatever you're doing is taking you away from those

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revenue generating activities. And so it could

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be taking you away from doing the marketing that you need to do.

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People need to hear about your business. So you need to be doing marketing activities.

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It's taking you away from the actual sales activities.

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So you can generate those actual sales. However you

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do that in your business. It's taking you away from being

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able to develop your, your offers and

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your offer. Sweet in all of these things. It's taking you

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away from being able to be strategic. And

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so again, when you're doing all the things yourself, you're pulled in so many

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different directions. That the revenue generating

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piece of the puzzle. Or I guess I'll say a piece

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of the pie just for a better visual that revenue

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generating. Uh, piece of the pie is going to be

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slimmer because your time is being

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spent in other areas as well. I'm going to

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shift before I get into the last cost of doing everything

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yourself, I want to kind of shift into what you can do. To

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kind of mitigate this risk. Right. And so I know a lot of

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times there is, um, a lot of talk about.

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Needing to hire a team you should delegate to a

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team you need to have, people supporting you in your business.

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And while that might work for some, it might not work for you.

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Right. But what you can do is that you can

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delegate to systems. I talked about this in a

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past episode and I will link it in the

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show description. I actually think it was the episode about maternity leave.

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But I'll link it in the show description. But you can delegate to a

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person. Yes. But you can delegate. To a

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system. Always like to say, automation can be your first

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assistant. And many times it's going to be cheaper

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than you bringing on. A contractor or an employee.

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Okay. So you have, you have these challenges in your business

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and you're looking for a solution. You're looking to hand these tasks off

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to someone else, but before you do that, There

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is a another step that you can take. You can look

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to systems to delegate, to.. And when I say

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systems again, if you've listened to the podcast or my teachings,

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when I say systems, I mean your process. Plus your tools.

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Yes, your people as well, but it's also your tools. So don't

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forget to look at the tools that you can

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use, that you can implement automation to

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help you with some of your tasks. Okay.

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When you have automation set up in your business, when you have these

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automated workflows going, it's like the

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workflow is working for you. It's like having a team

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behind you because these tools now this software, they can

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do so many things, especially now. With the

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emergence of AI artificial intelligence. And so you

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want to see, look at your processes, look at how you operate,

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how you do things you want to see. What can I delegate to

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a tool? When you do this, when you delegate to a

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tool. Right. When you implement automation, you are

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going to absolutely free up your time. And this

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is going to allow you to focus on whatever

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you're best at. Whatever your zone of genius is if

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that's serving clients. Or if that's, you know, creating

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your offer suite. maybe you do like to do the back end operational

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stuff. Right. But you can hand off these

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repeatable. Tasks. To a tool and you can be

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freed up to do the things that you need to do.

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Now, when you have the right systems in place.

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You're not doing things manually. You're freeing up your time.

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Yes. But you're also making your business processes.

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More efficient. And so things that might've taken you

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one hour or two hours to do manually, it can now be done

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automatically within maybe 30 minutes or even

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10 minutes. Right. It just depends on what the process, where the

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workflow is. And so you're saving time. You're saving

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your time, but you are also saving time in how

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you deliver your service or just how things are done in your

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business. Also when you implement automation through these

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tools. You are positioning yourself to

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provide a consistent experience for your

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clients. Okay. So all of your clients are going to be going through this

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same experience. It's not like.

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Client a is going to get one experience because you

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had a, you know, you had a great week. You remember to do all of

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the tasks in a timely manner, and then client B,

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you, your calendar was a little bit more booked. And so you forgot to send

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the invoice or there was a delay and you responding to emails. And so

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they didn't have as great of an, of an experience. Okay.

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And so when you implement automation through these tools, you are able

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to provide a consistent. experience for your

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clients. And I talk a lot about how your client

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experience is so important because it affects your

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revenue and it affects, you know, the retention of your clients, but

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also your referrals as well. and then finally, when

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it comes to, delegating to systems,

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There's just a peace of mind that comes when you know

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that nothing is slipping through the cracks. When you know that things are just

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taken care of. Okay. That could just be your

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client communication, like your one boarding. Let's just say somebody wants

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to join your program. You can have peace of

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mind that they are going to get all of the information that they need. They're

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not going to pay you. And then second, guess their

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decision because they did not receive any receipt or they

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didn't receive a welcome email or they didn't receive next steps.

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Okay. Um, so you just have this peace of mind that

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everything is taken care of and nothing is going to slip through the

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cracks. Which just by human nature, we're

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forgetful. We're sometimes going to forget things. Now I am going to say

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like, yes, automation and technology and tools, sometimes

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these things break. And so that is why it's important

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to, you know, on some type of schedule. Be

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testing out, reviewing, evaluating, uh, your,

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your processes, your workflows, all of those things.

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But for the most part, it is more reliable

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than a human completing the task. And

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it provides more consistency. Okay. And so you might be

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thinking, okay. Yes, I know. I need to automate more of

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my business. I know I need to leverage these tools. To

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start handling these tasks for me. And so I want to

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talk to you guys about the harmony system sprint, because this is

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literally what I will do for you through this harmony

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system sprint. It is a very quick, we're gonna work together for

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one week and I'm going to review your business.

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processes and your workflows identify, those

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bottlenecks identify any efficiencies, identify

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areas for growth, and you'll get a guide where you're able to

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implement. some quick changes so you can see some

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wins. Um, and then I'm also going to do a tool audit for you,

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so you don't have to figure out what tools. And you're a tech stack. You

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need to keep what's working. What's not working. What integrates, what does it

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integrate? I will figure that all out for you and we'll help you,

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you know, choose a tech stack. That makes sense for you, your business and your

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business goals. And then I will complete One core

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automation. For one of your business workflows, right? So that can be

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your client onboarding. If you have a podcast that can be your podcast,

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guests management, that can be some type of content management,

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but your workflow will be automated. It will be

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optimized and it will be efficient. And when I say efficient.

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I'm meaning, there's little or, or no waste in your

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process, right. That could be wasting time or wasting resources.

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Okay. And so again, this is

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a one week service, this is not a long six to

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eight week or three month consulting container one

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week, because I know sometimes we just don't have the capacity to

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commit to these long things. And so I want to be able to give

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you some quick wins in your business so you can

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get your time back so things can flow more efficiently

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in your business and you can have streamlined systems. And so if you

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are interested in that, just go ahead and click the link in the show description.

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There is an application, and, I'll get back to you once you

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submit your application within 24 hours. But if you have any questions

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about it, before that you can shoot me a DM over on Instagram.

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So just to recap really quickly, we talked about the hidden costs of doing

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everything yourself and your business. This can lead to

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emotional and physical burnout. And we don't need that.

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Especially as moms, we do not need to be burnt out

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because our children and our family, they rely on us. For so

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much, we don't need to be burnt out because of the business. Right. And so

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we really want to leverage systems. We want to leverage having a

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process or knowing how to do anything in our business.

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We want to have tools. And technology that are

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going to do the heavy lifting for us. Okay.

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Um, the second hidden cost is that there is the, risk

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of losing out on revenue opportunities. and then finally

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your growth. I don't even think I got back to this in the beginning of

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the episode, but your growth. Is stagnant. Because you are

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focused on the day-to-day operations and you're not able to

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really focus on that strategic growth in that

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longterm planning. Okay. So.

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Don't want you to have to deal with these hidden

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costs. And so really consider.

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Delegating to systems. When I say systems. Yes. I

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mean your process, your tools and your people, but before

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you get to that people piece, Don't forget about the tools. The

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tools can do so much for you, especially when you leverage

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automation. Let automation. be your first assistant. Go

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ahead. Click the link in the show description to apply for the harmony system

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sprint. I'm very limited opportunity. I'm only doing one to two of

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these per month. Um, if you have any questions, DM. Instagram,

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and I will see you guys in the next episode. Thank you

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for listening to the MomCEO Suite Podcast. If you

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enjoyed this episode, can you do us a favor? Leave a review on

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iTunes and share with other moms in business like you.

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Help us spread our message and empower others who are at this intersection

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of motherhood and entrepreneurship.

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