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Episode 109: How to Build a Team
184 Plays4 years ago
Megan Kuethen, also known as the Queen of Ops, joins me on the podcast to chat about building a team. Megan and her team work with fast growing businesses to connect them with the right people for their open positions. We discussed the importance of systems and processes, what should be in place before finding the right candidate, and how Megan's team goes about vetting candidates.
For the show notes, visit https://daveyandkrista.com/btb-megan-kuethen-episode-109/
Recommended
Transcript
Recruiting Complexities
00:00:05
Speaker
There's so much involved in the, I guess what we would call the matching process. And from my end, I'm always very quick to tell people, I find people for jobs, not jobs for people.
Podcast Introduction
00:00:23
Speaker
Welcome to the Brands at Book Show, where we help creative service-based businesses build their brands and find more clients. I'm your host, Davy Jones.
Guest Introduction: Megan Keathan
00:00:34
Speaker
Megan Keathan, also known as the Queen of Ops, joins me on the podcast to chat about building a team. Megan and her team work with fast-growing businesses to connect them with the right people for their open positions.
Systems in Hiring
00:00:46
Speaker
We discuss the importance of systems and processes, what should be in place before finding the right candidate, and how Megan's team goes about vetting candidates.
00:00:53
Speaker
Be sure to check out the show notes at davianchrista.com for the resources we mentioned during the episode, and I want to hear from you. Let me know what kind of content you'd like to see on the BransoBook podcast as we move forward. To leave your feedback, just send us a DM on Instagram, at davianchrista. Now, onto the episode.
Team Building Challenges
00:01:14
Speaker
All right, I'm here with Megan Keaton of the Ops Queen and we are chatting all about building a team today. And I'm pretty excited about this topic. Megan and I were just talking about a little bit before the episode started about just the challenges of going about hiring, especially hiring. I think if you're hiring for the first time and finding the right people and you know, working together with people is awesome. It also can be really difficult.
00:01:36
Speaker
So, if you are thinking about building a team, you want to make sure you do it with some intentionality because working with people can be difficult as
Megan's Career Journey
00:01:44
Speaker
well. So, welcome Megan. Thank you so much for taking the time to chat with us today. Thank you so much for having me, Davey. I am thrilled to be here and to share my little bit of expertise with your audience.
00:01:58
Speaker
Yeah, well, I've really enjoyed seeing the content that you've been posting on Facebook, especially around building a team and all of the benefits of building a team. So we'll definitely dive into that. I first want to hear a little bit of what got you to this point because our connection is really through
00:02:16
Speaker
probably like the show it to your community and really just both having backgrounds in photography. And so that's kind of both where we started. We're in very different places now, but grateful for that space because I was able to connect with a lot of people like you. So tell us a little bit about where you came from and how you got to where you are right now.
00:02:36
Speaker
So in 2005 I started my photography business and at the time I had really no great intention with it. I was working corporate jobs and I didn't hate what I was doing by any means. I was working actually for a hospice organization
00:02:57
Speaker
I kind of worked my way up to the point where I was their director of sort of a director of HR, moved to another hospice. And then right around that 2009 mark, as we were going through the last great recession, I got laid off. And my background up to that point, I had been doing a lot of recruiting, a lot of training, and it was really all people, culture, leadership type stuff.
00:03:26
Speaker
it kind of positioned me to step into my family business my dad had taken over my grandfather's recruiting firm and he had always told me that i would be a great recruiter i didn't really believe him but at that point i was jobless i had just
00:03:42
Speaker
bought a new car and i had some crazy high car payment that i should not have been in bed but having this car payment i was like okay well i guess i gotta i gotta pay the bills i still wasn't taking photography very seriously so i jumped full feet into recruiting and the thing that i really loved was initially was that it was incredibly competitive.
00:04:05
Speaker
And at the same time, it was really compassionate work. And so for me, I loved that I could basically be a very well-paid social worker. So I loved the challenges of matching the right people with the right companies. And that was really fun. And I stayed with my family business for a while. I went to work for a Fortune 100 staffing firm.
00:04:28
Speaker
and then eventually ended up striking out on my own in photography in 2012. And that was great, loved that, but I kind of found that my vision was always bigger than what I could accomplish all on my own. Maybe it was
00:04:46
Speaker
having kind of started from a very young age with a team. So I ended up building my photography studio. I built a team out of my photography studio. It was me and seven others and left that to go start my coaching business.
00:05:00
Speaker
From there I started meeting all these entrepreneurs who were having problems with teams who they didn't know how to hire they had never been in a corporate job before they never had a direct report they didn't know how to have tough conversations with an employee they didn't know how to interview somebody they never maybe even been in an interview themselves.
00:05:20
Speaker
And so I just kind of on the side started helping out and doing operation stuff. I was known amongst them as the queen of ops, which is how I got my name. And then when COVID happened, it seemed like, okay, I don't want to put all the pressure on my photography coaching business to be the provider. I have this side income. Let's just.
00:05:43
Speaker
take a step back and from there, this business, Queen of Ops just really took off and I've been able to build out a team. I've got a team of like eight or seven, I don't know, I can't even keep track. We're growing so fast at this point and just getting to, we get to work with just the coolest companies and helping them build and lead their teams. So yeah, it's been quite a journey.
00:06:09
Speaker
Yeah, absolutely. It's so interesting even from going back to the photography world and what you were saying about that and having maybe a bigger vision for it than what you can complete on your own.
Scalability in Business
00:06:19
Speaker
A cycle that I typically see and whether it be photography or another kind of business, which is side hustle, really excited about it, book as much work as possible, realize, okay, for me to either continue to grow, I have to somehow multiply myself
00:06:34
Speaker
So, physically not possible. So, how do I go about doing that? Often in like the service-based world, there's this, you know, I don't know, it seems like almost an existential crisis of do I continue to do what I'm doing now or do I offer a digital product? And there's just so many, there's other ways to scale right by finding the right
00:06:51
Speaker
by finding the right people. You don't have to go into creating a digital product if you want to scale your business. So I think a lot of people are really interested in figuring out how they should build a team. But first, what do you think, just your approach to building a team, why do you feel like building a team is important to the success of a business over the long term?
00:07:14
Speaker
I have worked on and been developing something that I call the scaling formula. And it's something that I've now been able to prove over time working with over 50 clients in this kind of online entrepreneur, internet marketer world. And it's pretty much everybody starts out in freelancer mode. And that's all about the time and labor that they put in as they move into more of a consultant space.
00:07:44
Speaker
that morphs into the emphasis becomes on their method and their process for basically for making clients happy and getting clients to whatever the result is that they want. Whether that's in digital marketing, it's
00:08:04
Speaker
probably more clients, but for photographers, it's just creating happy clients who love their photos and who are able to talk about those photos and that experience with their friends and their families. And so we start to develop our methodology.
Pre-Hiring Processes
00:08:23
Speaker
In order to scale though, in order to leverage our time, we have to move beyond what we are personally capable of doing
00:08:33
Speaker
And so that requires systems and processes, which is very unglamorous. And it's something that we've all seen with, you know, programs like Debzado who, uh, that give us workflows. And so suddenly we have more capacity because there's technology doing some of the work and processes are essentially work that we don't have to think through.
00:08:57
Speaker
because it's already written down, there's a formula format for it. But really, you still hit a certain point where you can only do as much as you can do. There are only so many hours in a day. And even with the best systems and the best processes,
00:09:16
Speaker
you will hit a point where you just, you are personally not capable of doing anymore. And so that's where team comes in. And so I think that's kind of the easy answer is, well, duh, you can double the amount of hours that you can work in a day. But there's also, I think, a greater satisfaction in team. And that's probably something that we'll get into a little bit later. But I think that there's something
00:09:42
Speaker
We all long to belong to something and we long to create belonging for others and team is a great way to do that. Yeah, absolutely. You talk a lot about systems and processes and I'm just curious and I think I know the answer, but how important is it to have things like standard operating procedures and systems in just the success of hiring and onboarding somebody?
00:10:07
Speaker
Oh, it's underestimated, even in businesses like mine. Actually, it's so funny. Just today, I was having a catch-up call with my head of recruitment. And I said, oh, hey, we're onboarding this new client and da da da da da. And here's all the information. And she's like, that is not all the information. I'm like, what do you mean that's not all the information? She's like,
00:10:28
Speaker
I need these specific pieces of information before i can get it on a call with her and i'm like oh yeah that makes sense okay why don't we have a process for that everybody every business will always be optimizing and improving and so please are there the foundation for.
00:10:47
Speaker
a team being able to succeed, whether your team is just one other person or 10 people or 100 people, you must have those SOPs. Otherwise, it's going to be a rocky start. It's really hard to succeed as a new team member if you don't have those things in place.
00:11:05
Speaker
Yeah, absolutely. It's funny for looking at Davey and Krista versus Till Agency, the two businesses. Davey and Krista was sort of, yeah, I mean, it was the first business to a certain extent. I guess the photography business was too, but especially in building a team, Davey and Krista was the first business where we built a team and
00:11:21
Speaker
Realizing, taking, especially as we started to build a team, realizing how much goes into training and how much of that could have been avoided had we documented everything that we were doing. And of course, we have standard operating procedures now for Dave and Krista, but going into Till Agency, having already known all of that kind of stuff, me and my partners were a lot better about creating systems from the get-go. And of course, we all had the advantage of having run a business before, but it really does make such a big difference
00:11:50
Speaker
in bringing new people along because you can say hey there's this folder here and it has all this information and at the same time just as you were saying we just had our team retreat and we're looking at certain things and we're like how do we not have a system for this you know so it is something that's always that's always evolving but I think what you know if you're listening and you don't have a team yet but you think that you you and maybe after this episode you're like heck yeah I gotta build a team
00:12:14
Speaker
document everything you do. It might seem silly, especially working as a solopreneur and not as part of a team yet, but it will make your life so much easier in the future. Building a little bit on what you're saying and about starting to look to building a team, what are some indications that somebody might be ready for that to take that
Readiness to Hire a Team
00:12:35
Speaker
next step? I think one of the concerns that comes to mind is just like, okay, well, I make X amount right now.
00:12:42
Speaker
This is how much i make well i like how much i make if i bring on somebody else i have to pay them that means at least in the short term i'm gonna make a little bit less how do you get people to start shifting their mindset and you know coming around to maybe some of the benefits and advantages of building a team.
00:12:57
Speaker
The hard thing about this is there's really no one right answer. There's not like this clear, you know, flashing alert moment where it's like, hey, Sam, it's time to hire a team. And so that's, I think, a lot of the time where people get stuck. My recommendation for people is usually if you're making, if you're consistently making $5,000 a month in your business,
00:13:24
Speaker
You could definitely bring somebody on to just take some of the mundane off of your plate. Some of the stuff that really is going to bog you down. The key is to kind of be aware how much of my energy, how much of my time is being spent on
00:13:44
Speaker
tasks or even specific roles, I guess, in the business if you want to kind of divvy it up into, oh, the editor hat or the photographer hat or the admin hat, how much of my time and energy is being spent on things that don't give me life, but that actually take away life. So every photographer I know says, oh my gosh, I love the time I spend with clients. If not, I don't think
00:14:14
Speaker
any of us would have ever gotten into photography. Every designer I know loves the time.
00:14:21
Speaker
the initial conversation, dreaming with the client about what the brand is going to be like and what the site will accomplish. And they love the experience of creating kind of the first mock-up. But then it gets down into nitty-gritty stuff. And that can be the stuff that really drains life from us. For a lot of people I talk to, they're introverts. And so the longer the project or the longer they have to,
00:14:49
Speaker
have conversations with clients the more they are are just completely drained and so if you can start to identify you know is more than fifty percent of my work life being. Taken up with energy stealing or life stealing tasks then probably it's it's time to hire somebody and it doesn't have to be this is like the great thing about the world that we live in is you can find somebody to work two hours a week for you if you want.
00:15:19
Speaker
It was shocking to me how many people were willing, who wanted that. I guess I made the mistake early on of just projecting that everybody wants work. Everybody likes to work and they like to work a lot and they all want to own businesses. Right. Yes. I think we do all fall into that trap.
00:15:41
Speaker
Yeah. And so I just assumed like, yeah, who else, like who would want to come and work, you know, 20 hours a week or whatnot. But there's a lot of people out there who don't want to run a business because, you know, as we all know, and as a lot of people listening know, running a business comes with so much else than, you know, what you were saying, designing the mock-up of the website or, you know, actually the time spent on location, attitude, and delivering the images. So,
00:16:04
Speaker
you know i think all that is wise advice and you know for us it was even on the till side of things on the till agency side of things going through the process of finding people was so interesting because you just you know people that we would never have expected to end up applying so.
The Vetting Process
00:16:24
Speaker
It's one of those things where even if you're on the fence about it, even if you come around to the decision of wanting to hire somebody, throw it out there because you never know who's gonna come around. With that said, I feel like there are definitely obstacles when building a team. It can be hard to understand or to know how much you should vet somebody. Somebody can look really great on paper. Maybe they have a bad interview. How many interviews should people conduct before making a decision?
00:16:52
Speaker
So, maybe you can walk us through a little bit about that and maybe what you've learned from helping others build teams. I assume that the advantage of working with somebody like yourself is that you're doing a lot of that initial vetting first. You're getting a real good understanding of the company and then also of the different candidates and maybe cutting out some of that in between. But how do you go about figuring out, okay, this person
00:17:16
Speaker
you know, is going to be a good fit for this company. And I'm pretty confident that if I make the introduction, things are going to work out. There's so much involved in the I guess what we would call the matching process. And from my end, I'm always very quick to tell people
00:17:32
Speaker
I find people for jobs, not jobs for people. So it is always my responsibility. Not that I don't care about the candidates that we work with. In fact, we really want to create a long-term relationship with anyone who enters our circle. And we do review our open candidates. So it's about finding a match on both sides.
00:17:55
Speaker
In order to start that process, though, we need to have a thorough understanding of what will make someone succeed at our client's company. And I think this is the process that big companies, small companies, solopreneur,
00:18:10
Speaker
Huge huge huge, you know billion dollar company doesn't matter the over and over we see the problem that people Make that the first problem that people have when hiring is that they haven't really defined what success is going to look like for this person how will someone succeed within not just the role but within the
00:18:31
Speaker
the organization itself and so having a really solid understanding of why your company exists to begin with what your core values are and that's something that you can you can pretty much just google around and find some.
00:18:49
Speaker
examples of core values and start to build out your own. There are really good processes. The book traction and I think the book scaling up as well that are really good. They both have, I believe it's a similar process or the same process. I can't remember cause I've read so much, but that's a good place to start for kind of getting those, those big pieces, your mission, your vision, your values in place so that you are even able to, you're at a place where you can project that for the right hire.
00:19:19
Speaker
From there because and that's that's the thing is like so you can't you can't hire somebody maybe Maybe communication is not one of your core values for your company, but you hire a really great communicator and if you do they're going to need more from you than you're able to give on the flip side if having So leadership is one of our company core values And if I hire someone who isn't a leader and can't be a leader it means that
00:19:49
Speaker
the balls drop within the organization in ways that I'm not prepared for them to drop because I set my personal business up so that if I'm out for a day, if I'm out for a week, I can come back and everything will be in place. And so we all need to know what those values are. Otherwise we can't hire the right people. So that's pretty much number one. Number two is that you need to know, I have a really clear picture of what the responsibilities are going to be.
00:20:19
Speaker
We kind of say the best way to discover this is to walk through a day in the life, a day in the week, and a day in the month. What are the everyday responsibilities of this person? Maybe you don't have somebody every day, especially as a solopreneur. I would say start with someone who's going to do two hours, three hours a week.
00:20:38
Speaker
that's totally fine so what what does it look like when they when they do come in are they checking email and making sure that contracts and invoices are sent are they are they just doing editing for you whatever that looks like know exactly what it is that they will be responsible for make sure you spell that out in detail.
00:20:58
Speaker
and know what the qualifications are. And a lot of companies will list off. Everyone has seen that job description. I think we've all been there where we've looked at a job and been like, oh my gosh, this job, it has so many, there are so many things that you're responsible for, so many qualifications. You have to have a degree and you have to have five years of experience in this. And you also have to know this software and you need to whatever. It's like, just boil that down to the bare minimum. What do you actually need to succeed in this role and only include that?
00:21:27
Speaker
Lastly, I would say knowing what you expect. You need to kind of think about this in terms of what will this look like 90 days from now? It takes everyone some time to get adjusted. We've all been in jobs as well where we're going along in the first month and we think everything's going great and then we learn, oh my gosh, I've been doing this wrong for X number of days or months or whatever.
00:21:53
Speaker
And so that's a really important thing is to just be aware that it will take some time. And even what we were talking about earlier is kind of having those processes in place ahead of time gives us a more full picture of what we need to succeed. And so knowing those things going into a search helps you hire the right person.
00:22:13
Speaker
I think that especially as we've grown over at Till Agency, and we do this for Dave and Krista of course too, but we've just more recently hired for Till, so it's top of mind. Coming up with, we call them KPIs for people has really allowed us to get clear and something that we realize as doing them is like, if somebody's not doing what we're hoping they're doing,
00:22:34
Speaker
I mean, the first question that I think we need to ask as leaders is, okay, so potentially what am I doing not to communicate this effectively to the team member? And so it's been good because these KPIs have helped us. I mean, we basically use them in our job descriptions as well because they really do. They outline a lot of the things that you've just touched on about really what does success look like in this position.
00:23:01
Speaker
And you know, I think the tendency to just because it's like every job description out there, which is like three to five years of marketing experience, you know, it's like, what is that even like, why? So it allows us to get away from, but I, but we, you know, not we, but I fall under the trap of going there when writing a description because it's like, it's just what's out there, you know, and when you're, when you're trying to find,
00:23:25
Speaker
So, I appreciate all that. Traction, I have not read, but I've heard so many different, I've heard so many good things
Leadership Insights
00:23:31
Speaker
about. The Advantage is another book that's been recommended to me. I know that you're a reader. Tell me how many books you've read to date this year. So, it's September, I mean, not December, it's October, 15th about-ish.
00:23:45
Speaker
I have completed 123 books this year. Yeah, that is insane. That is insane. I've started 123 books this year. I don't know. I do have a tendency to start books and then just never get around and finish them.
00:24:05
Speaker
But anyways, add that to your list. I think you might enjoy it. As far as going through the process of making sure that somebody is the right fit, so you have these things that you've outlined, defining success and what that looks like, coming up with core values, the actual interview process. Can you talk us through that a little bit? And of course,
00:24:24
Speaker
I'm assuming that in the position you're in, you're not necessarily interviewing for the job or sitting in necessarily on the interview. What would be your recommendation to a business to thoroughly vet a candidate for a position?
00:24:39
Speaker
I'll kind of like break down each stage of our process because we really like to basically only deliver 100% hireable candidates. So ideally, the interview that comes after us is the interview where the entrepreneur that we're working with, the CEO that we're working with says, yes, I like this person.
Recruitment Process Steps
00:25:02
Speaker
And I think they're a fit for the
00:25:06
Speaker
company more than the job we've already vetted for that or I don't think they are a fit for me and for the company. So our process we post a job and depending on the job we'll post like honestly sometimes I just post it on Facebook
00:25:22
Speaker
sometimes that's like my personal profile or in a facebook group that's applicable sometimes we're posting on job boards there are all kinds of places we've used upwork we've used offshore postings are all kinds of everything under the sun exists.
00:25:39
Speaker
You can absolutely find anywhere to post your full time, part time, freelance, whatever job. So getting that job posting. And I think we're all in our world, we're all familiar with the idea of an avatar. But we think of an avatar as someone that we are marketing to as a client.
00:26:00
Speaker
It's really important to have to write your job posting with as much intention towards the avatar of your prospective hire as you would write a Facebook ad or as you would write your website toward that avatar. So that's really the first part of
00:26:16
Speaker
The screening process for us if it's a company that has a very direct Approach to things we're going to write that job posting in a more direct manner. We want people to know kind of just from reading it Okay, this is like a brutal truth kind of place and if that appeals to them then they'll apply and if not then we hope that they'll pass and
00:26:40
Speaker
So that's that's kind of like piece number one. From there, we do a what we call core interview. And this is just making sure that they have the they match up on location, they match up on salary, they match up on the knowledge, experience, skills, education, whatever their background is, it's a fit for what we're looking for. That's typically a 10 to 15 minute interview.
00:27:09
Speaker
And that's really only one sided. That's just about, do we think that they are a match for the basic job? Once we have that out of the way, we actually send them what we call a pre-interview questionnaire. This is something that I stole from my dad's company and made better.
00:27:30
Speaker
It is a full interview in an Excel doc or in the Google Sheet. It makes them review in detail how they would handle certain situations. We learn much more about their technical experience.
00:27:47
Speaker
I'm with technical I don't necessarily mean so when I started out recruiting I was doing IT and engineering positions so it's literally like hey write this piece of code right here but it's not so much about that it's like okay so there was let's say that I'm I'm interviewing for an editor hey how would you handle a situation where the the portraits that we shot had direct son and like just talk me through.
00:28:15
Speaker
what that would be like, how you would go about editing it. And the purpose here is, yes, to understand their technical, where they are technically and their experience, background, all of that. But it's more to understand the way that they think, the way that they approach a specific problem than anything else.
00:28:36
Speaker
So that's for me, that's the biggest thing is like understanding that. And then the third interview that we do is really just for the soft skills, culture, personality, how they fit in with the team, all of that.
Successful Onboarding
00:28:48
Speaker
I like that setup because it gives you an opportunity to see people a few different times and in a few different formats as well, which I think is important because I think
00:28:56
Speaker
And maybe we haven't all been but I feel like I've been on the bad side of an interview, you know? Like, I remember teaching, getting my first job out of college. I was a teacher and I remember one of the first job interviews going in for a really great interview followed by an interview where I feel like I just bombed and I was just like, you know, I know if I was – I know if I could do that over again, you know, that I would have crushed it, right?
00:29:20
Speaker
I should have said that, right? So one thing that Chris and I do when we're hiring people is that we'll do generally a last interview together, but the first time it will be either with me or with her, and then whoever didn't do the first interview will do the second interview, and it gives us an opportunity to see
00:29:40
Speaker
hopefully somebody on different occasions, but then also we try not to talk too much about that first interview. So it is a little bit of a gate. We don't do a second interview with somebody we don't think is gonna be a good fit, but at the same time, it gives us an opportunity both to come up. We have our own opinions. And so if one of us is like, oh, I thought so-and-so would be a great fit, then we can go on to a third interview. But I like the written part because I think some people might just be better.
00:30:10
Speaker
hey, if I have a chance to write down like, you know, because I'm assuming that a lot of the situations you're asking about might not necessarily have to be like a split second, you know, like their situations people can typically reflect on a little bit.
00:30:26
Speaker
Yes, definitely. And a lot of times we actually want them to reflect. So if you can go back to a time in your work history when you were presented with this challenge or with this opportunity, what did you do with it? And like, that's what we want to know is how will you respond if given that challenge or opportunity again? So yeah, we want them to put that thought into it.
00:30:49
Speaker
Yeah, absolutely. So do you have any recommendations to businesses for one, that conversation that they eventually that, you know, that they're having with the candidate or just around evaluation that we haven't covered, and then two for the onboarding process to make it a successful transition?
00:31:08
Speaker
So you've pretty much settled on a candidate. Are there any sort of last things that you just want to check out before bringing somebody on? We covered a lot, so maybe we've covered it. But even if that's not the case, we've settled on a candidate. What does that onboarding process look like? How do you make that a successful transition?
00:31:27
Speaker
So the first thing that I always like to do kind of as I'm making the offer is I like to, and I think this really does speak to the first part of your question, which is like, you know, what, what kind of makes the transition from, okay, you're a candidate too. We want to hire you. And for me, this is the conversation that I have with every single person that I hire and it is.
00:31:48
Speaker
This works for you as long as it works for you. And it works for me as long as it works for me. I hope that it lasts for a long time. But if it doesn't, let's have open communication about that. And I think that in the American workplace, we are not trained to have transparency. We're not
00:32:08
Speaker
we're not given the gift of being able to speak candidly with the person who's supposed to be our boss, we really have a hierarchy built in. And of course, in ways that's healthy, in other ways, it's not. And so I like to kind of level us immediately and say, Hey, you're working for me, but like, I'm working for you too. And this only works as long as it works. So
00:32:32
Speaker
So for me, that's like just the first conversation that we need to have. And then as I'm onboarding, we actually have something that we use. It's called the Great Start tool. It is a, I think it starts out as like a four or five page document. It doesn't probably need to be that long, but it kind of just is like the, we call it the roadmap to success. It is.
00:32:56
Speaker
who are the key people that you will be interfacing with be they clients other team members you know anybody important that they might encounter maybe a friend or a vendor who's gonna pop into the email inbox you don't want your your va to start.
00:33:14
Speaker
saying rude things to the coordinator who refers you the most business because they misunderstand the situation or whatever. So putting all of that into a document as well as any projects that are key projects. What are the quick wins that they can achieve in their first 90 days? What are the bigger projects that we want them to take on in 90 days and that will probably continue but what are those bigger things that
00:33:42
Speaker
that they need at least an awareness of to be working toward them. So thinking through that kind of stuff, I think having a really specific start date, all the expectations that you can think of, putting those down, making sure that they have room to talk about their expectations. You should definitely tell them things like when they're going to get paid, how frequently they're going to get paid, if there could possibly be a question about it.
00:34:10
Speaker
Making sure that that's something that is spelled out so that you are smoothing the or paving the way for success as Two people who truly are on the same team and you both when you start out That's the thing that I think a lot of times we forget Later on is that we are always on the same side. We started on the same side. So let's operate as teammates and
Leadership and Team Success
00:34:34
Speaker
There's no need to be contentious. There's no need to have an adversarial relationship. So if we can start it out that way and keep it that way, I think everything goes much better. Yeah, I like how that tool outlines what success looks like in terms of key projects for the next 90 days. And something that we try to do is give people a single project or make sure they have a single task to get started on right off the bat. And even if their job includes more,
00:35:00
Speaker
Try not to overwhelm them with all the things right away because yeah I mean I certainly find if I can just if I can get one thing out of the way or build in or make sure that I Crush like just one routine that's part of it. Maybe a bigger a bigger system There's a sense of accomplishment there and just kind of really understanding how the how the pieces fit together for sure Is there anything else just when it comes to hiring or thinking through that process that we should cover?
00:35:28
Speaker
I was talking about this actually earlier with someone who just started working with us. We can hire a mediocre person and turn them into an exceptional team member if we lead them well. And so while hiring and getting the right person is important, I really think that it's sort of like the iceberg, right? It's like the hiring is what we see above the surface.
00:35:58
Speaker
but the real success happens in how we lead them. There's a book called The Coaching Habit by Michael. 99% sure that I have that book on my bookshelf and it was good. Yeah. I did finish that one. It is probably my most recommended book of all time. I recommend it to pretty much anyone who is a human.
00:36:26
Speaker
it helps to have conversations like productive conversations with everyone. And so for me, it probably is the thing that most developed my leadership beyond kind of what what I was just like born with. And so I think that learning to lead well, and you even mentioned something earlier, and I won't say it as well as you said it, but it's
00:36:54
Speaker
We're responsible for giving our team the tools that they need to succeed. If I have not given someone the tools that they need or the resources, they can't be expected to succeed. And so just being able to have really good conversations with every team member, me being available to them so that they can, because that's my role, is my role is to make my team successful so that they can go and just kill it for our clients.
00:37:22
Speaker
And if we can, even the solopreneur, even someone who is just like, but how does this apply to me and me and my own business, just being able to have open conversations with the new VA that you hired for two or five or 10 hours a week, that will lead you to having a good hire if you can just start to have those conversations from the very start.
00:37:46
Speaker
Yeah, and I can't agree enough with that. I mean, just communication and expectations and it's not, you know, it sounds so simple, but I think an area so many of us fall short and maybe again, just projecting, but I just find that making sure that people understand exactly what needs to be done and how it needs to be done, it falls on me, you know, as one of the leaders of the two businesses that I run. So, that really has to be the first question that we ask ourselves is when
00:38:12
Speaker
somebody does fall short, did we not set clear expectations, but then just communication being a key part of it as well. And people feeling like they can voice concerns and 100% there with you on that. And I really appreciate you taking the time to share a little bit about what you do.
Follow Megan Keathan
00:38:29
Speaker
If people want to follow along, learn a little bit more about you and your business, where should they go? So I can be found on Instagram at the Queen of Ops.
00:38:40
Speaker
That is like just this week, as of recording it, just this week, we finally started getting our act together on Instagram. On Facebook, I am Meghan Keithan. Last name is K-U-E-T-H-E-N. I'm the only one in the world. So pretty easy to find. I talk a lot about team leadership systems and processes like we kind of talked about in the beginning. So would love for them to follow along there. And hopefully by the time this goes live, we will have our website launched. So yeah.
00:39:08
Speaker
And like I said at the beginning of the interview here, I have very much enjoyed your Facebook content that you're pushing out. So if it's anything like what you're going to be pushing out on Instagram, people would be, I think, well served to head on over there and check it out. So be sure to do that. And like Megan just said, you're talking a lot about, I think, systems and processes and thinking through how much time bringing on the right people can actually save you.
00:39:34
Speaker
Be sure to check all that out. And of course, you'll be able to find it all in the show notes as well. So, Megan, thank you for sharing an hour of your time and just sharing your expertise with us. Thank you so much for having me, Davey. I really appreciate it. Thanks for tuning into the Brands That Book Show. If you enjoyed this episode, please consider subscribing and leaving a review in iTunes. For show notes and other resources, head on over to DaveyandCrista.com.
00:40:10
Speaker
you