The Business Millennials Podcast

2.16 - Why Your Marketing, Sales, and Operations Need to Work Together

• Ashley Dreager • Season 2 • Episode 16

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In this eye-opening episode of the Business Millennials Podcast, Safa Harris and Ashley Dreager dive deep into the critical challenge facing entrepreneurs: ensuring your marketing promises match your actual business delivery. They explore the pitfalls of overpromising, the importance of operational integrity, and provide a strategic framework for scaling your business while maintaining client trust and quality. 

Key Takeaways: 

  • Misalignment between marketing messaging and actual service delivery can seriously damage your business reputation
  • Scaling requires a holistic approach that integrates marketing, sales, operations, and client experience
  • Develop a structured 4-stage framework: assessment, planning, integration, and optimization
  • Document processes and use project management tools to track progress and maintain consistency
  • Prioritize client experience as a fundamental driver of sustainable business growth


Timestamps: 
0:00 - Episode Introduction 
3:20 - The problem with "selling the dream" vs. actual delivery 
12:25 - Importance of maintaining client commitments during business changes 22:30 - Strategies for growth and scaling through operational excellence 
30:36 - Practical tips for optimizing business processes 
43:46 - Teaser for upcoming business support offering

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Intro:

Welcome to the business millennials podcast. This show brings you strategic insights through raw and unfiltered real world advice to accelerate your business growth for longterm success. I'm Safa Harris, and I'm Ashley Drager. We're the founders of scale and thrive co a full service marketing and business development firm, helping visionary companies scale sustainably. Expect us to have the uncomfortable conversations that no one else is having. We'll break down what it really takes to grow and scale your business beyond six Seven or even eight figures, as well as inspiring interviews with diverse leaders across marketing, product development, sales, and more via fly on the wall as we conduct strategy sessions with business owners, experiencing issues such as plateaued income, burnout, and generally dropping the ball, giving you the tools and resources to break through your own roadblocks, but also personal development methods to grow you as a balanced conscious leader amidst business growth. Let's jump into this week's episode.

Safa Harris:

Okay. So you know how our thing is like super ethical marketing and we always have like all that, how we hate clickbait, but that's what makes sales. And both you and I, we've been burned by coaches and marketing before. It's like, Oh, this sounds great. This is exactly what we want. And then once you get in there, like not what you need. And we've had a few conversations about this, actually, of, uh, Our key phrase of, well, well, it depends of what actually a business needs is because they'll sell you in the messaging of like, Oh, this is the one thing you need. It's going to solve all of these issues you have, and that may not be the right fit for all of that. And I think a lot of it comes down for us like in two different ways. But like today, just. Kind of something that's been a bit chewing on was that someone will say something of, Hey, you do this and I guarantee that you're going to get a hundred thousand dollars in this time. And it's of selling the dream. And versus the tangible thing. And it's like this clickbait thing to get people in and get them sucked in and like messing with their emotions and all of those things. And we really try to avoid that and we hate it. And it makes sales a lot harder, but. That's one side of it. But the other side of the same coin is that people will say things of what they know will sell, but that's not necessarily what they're going to, are able to deliver, um, and, or the guarantees that they're making in their messaging, their systems and things are just not there to stand up for that. I think we have a very specific example we could probably dive into based on someone we hired. And how that worked out and essentially is your intentions may not need to lie to your clients and your messaging and your marketing and in your sales process. But if your operations and delivery aren't lining up, you might be lying to your potential clients and selling them something that you necessarily can't deliver on.

Ashley:

Yeah, I, uh, actually just recorded a piece of content yesterday, similar to this, these lines. So, uh, if you follow us on Tik TOK, you probably will have already seen it. Hopefully you've seen it. If you don't, if you haven't follow us more closely. Um,

Safa Harris:

stock are paying.

Ashley:

Yeah. Um, yeah, it's a big issue with the online space. Like, because I, and I think that people do it with good intentions and there is a marketing tactic, a sales tactic to sell them what they want, give them what they need. And I have personal, I have personal feelings about that, but. In order for that to work, you need to know very clearly what those two things are and how your delivery fits into that versus, yeah, I know they want this. My program is going to be about that. And then there's nothing is bridged. It's not actually connected.

Safa Harris:

yeah, I think that's the I think you can tell them what they want, but give them what they need as long as they still get the thing that you said that they want.

Ashley:

They want it. Otherwise that's bait and switch. Like that is illegal.

Safa Harris:

Exactly. Exactly. It's a bait and switch otherwise, because if they're, if you're saying, Oh, I'm going to teach you how to scale your business in like this three step framework, and you're going to do X, Y, Z. Okay, cool. You need to make sure whatever, but we as service providers know, okay, yeah, well, this is like. year long 80 hour a week situation to get it That your messaging and all of that needs to align there And I think part of what i'm thinking about

Ashley:

Okay.

Safa Harris:

this is like, okay Yeah, you're not doing the bait and switch of selling them what they want Um and giving them what they need But like you said, there needs to be a bridge there. But on top of that, if you're making, so I'm just like in my brain, I'm

Ashley:

So, I don't know if that's a good way to put it, but yeah. So, for the opportunity to speak to you. And I hope you have a great day. Thanks. Bye. Good night.

Safa Harris:

to, have to be able to stand up against that, you have to be able to deliver that you have to be able to make that happen, no matter what the external circumstances are, because you made that promise and they paid for that. And you don't know if a particular buyer bought from you. For that one particular bullet point. And then if they're like, Oh yeah, I'm willing to pay this extra premium to this person because of that one bullet point. And then if you drop the ball or you're, you've scaled too quickly or whatever happens and you can't make that one thing happen, you're in a position where you kind of like lie to your clients at that point. Yeah.

Ashley:

very small teams or those who are still in that solopreneur stage wearing all the hats because you are marketing, you are sales, you are operations, you are booking, like you are all the things. So there is a lot on your plate plus then just like normal life circumstances, um, but also for. More established, larger brands that do have those independent departments when there isn't enough oversight or management. To see everything holistically, because if it's just you trying to manage all of the teams and see it holistically and come up with the visionary direction, a lot of things can fall through the cracks then too. So it's not just a, I don't have enough team members to delegate to. It can also be, I have too many team members and there is a disconnect. Between the interpretation or the capacity or, you know, whatever, I'm sure you could speak more to the actual operations aspect of that.

Safa Harris:

and I think those are two very distinct situations, so Not having enough capacity and not having enough team members or whatever, have you to deliver on promises you've made. And then there's another one of having maybe the right amount or too many team members without having the right, either training oversight, conversation pieces, um, connection pieces based on what your framework and processes are of having It not all be one person, you doing it all. And one, either in that transition phase where you're learning to do that, or once you kind of hand it off and you've like started to grow, grow, grow, and then that oversight kind of falls away or get complacent and things like that. And you don't have a way of kind of having checks and balances or oversight to make sure the quality and delivery and all of that is staying. In check over time and longterm, especially as you grow more and more. so if you're starting your Solarprenuer, you have one or two team members. You're starting to get overwhelmed and you're trying to, you're wearing all the hats and you just don't have the capacity to deliver at the way you need to. That needs to happen and you're not to a point, for whatever reason, to hire more people to get that capacity. Right. So at that point, what usually happens is like, okay, I am taking on double the load I have, because this is the amount of money I need to make. These are all the people I working for me. And then I have, this is what I'm out there and this is how I'm doing sales. And then I'm bringing these people and delivering all of that. This is where you still have For the most part, a good sense of what you're marketing and what you're trying to sell, because you're doing it yourself, right? So it's not really like, Oh, we put this out there and whoever is delivering something different because there's like that disconnect there here. It happens. It's like, Oh, well this sells the cells, but this is what I can actually deliver. where that disconnect happens between the different departments. But there's chance of that just because it's all really the same person. It's all you doing all of it down the line. you're gonna be like, oh yeah, I know I said that in on my Instagram post. Oh, I know I said that in the sales call. So I need to make sure I'm giving this person that. Like you can't, you can't really play a game of telephone with yourself for the most part, you know? And sometimes it happens. Moms.

Ashley:

Yeah, goldfish brain.

Safa Harris:

Yes, exactly. Um, but what happens there is like, you have the best of intentions. doing all of that, but you physically are unable to make it happen. at that point, it's a real, like, heart to heart with yourself. It's kind of like having a reality check or like a performance review with yourself being like, okay like I I have taken on all these clients and I am dropping balls. I am dropping them because I told them this YZ and I just cannot make it happen. So like, at this point, what can I do? I either need to make adjustments in what I'm selling, what I'm delivering. And keep it this way, but that also might mean maybe you need to make price adjustments or do anything like that, or am I at a point that I need to focus on system processes, whatever, and like working on my financials and things like that to be able to bring in more capacity in some way to make sure I'm no longer dropping the ball. And this is like the perfect place to move into like, okay, yeah, now we're scaling. Now we're growing and scaling because we are, and ideally, hopefully you're doing the growing and scaling before you get to the point where you're not delivering on the promises you're making in your marketing and your sales process.

Ashley:

Yeah, I was going to say from a, from a customer service standpoint, if that is where you are and you do need to make adjustments, keep your customers and your clients in mind that have already purchased from you. Because I have seen this in the past with coaching programs. Sometimes they will, they will have sold those spots. And that program, and then within a relatively short amount of time changed the deliverables because they no longer had the capacity for that, or they no longer had an interest in that particular structure when that was what sold the program, if that makes sense, like the amount of access or the type of access. That they had to that coach or that provider. Um, if it's a significant feature that's, that would, if it would change the price point of your program, and somebody has already paid for that particular access, just keep that in mind that that, that could really hurt. The outlook

Safa Harris:

Yeah. Cause I think that goes, that's like a whole rabbit hole episode of itself because think that you at that point, have an obligation to figure out a way to make sure the people that have paid at that point, even if you're making changes of what they're going to be, you have figure out a way to make sure you fulfill that until they're, they're like container or whatever their payment

Ashley:

that transaction has been satisfied.

Safa Harris:

It's been satisfied. Like To like a whole, but you

Ashley:

Uh huh. Uh huh. Uh huh. Uh huh.

Safa Harris:

being like, Hey, I'm restructuring this program. This is like what it comes out. I know you paid this. These are the things that are changing and different. Are you okay with that? Like re going through the sales process with them and, or being like, Hey, I'm structuring the program. You're still going to be in there. But on the side for you. Five people, three people, whatever, everybody knew isn't going to get that. But I will deliver this separately as well to you. Cause this is what you paid for. You can't necessarily ethically kind of be like, Hey, I changed it. You signed up for it. This is what it is now. Like good luck. Um, and then on another, I know you brought up like, Hey, if it's going to change the price point, oftentimes what I've seen in, particularly in the coaching sphere, Is that people will make the significant changes to their program that reduces the amount of client input or like output, like a deliverables that they're getting, because everybody's like, Oh, I want to work less. Like I know my value, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. I'm going to keep the price point change and I'm going to be doing. and they're just going to be in my energy. I remember

Ashley:

Yeah.

Safa Harris:

big

Ashley:

Oh my God.

Safa Harris:

in 2020, 21. It's like, you get to be in my energy for an hour.

Ashley:

Okay.

Safa Harris:

It's like your energy ain't doing anything. A

Ashley:

Seriously. I mean, yeah, I, that's a, that's a whole episode in and of itself.

Safa Harris:

Think it's at that point where You're a solopreneur. Maybe you have like a va assistant. That's Helping you with just like basic business management emails type of thing. Or maybe you have a social media manager or whatever small team, mostly it's you solopreneurial status you know what you've sold far as marketing in your sales process. And then you've gotten to a capacity point of not being able to deliver to your Clients, a serious point of starting to look at your strategy at looking at your structure, looking at the operations of your business and finding a way to create more capacity and to make sure what you're selling and what you're marketing is in line with what you're able to deliver. And there's. different ways that that can happen. Do our free audit. We can help you if you're there to figure out what your options are, but it could be anything like restructuring offers, bringing in different types of offers, bringing in team members, creating different types of systems and processes to there's many, many ways to create more capacity in your business. So your marketing sales operations still line up the way. And they all integrate and work well to make sure you're still delivering the promises that you know, sell in your marketing and sales. And that's kind of when you're start transitioning into like, okay, now we're growing and scaling. We're building larger team, larger businesses and moving into that. But then that also brings in new, different challenges of when you need to be paying attention to, okay, it's my marketing sales operations and the delivery of what I'm saying in my marketing and sales. Is that actually lining up? It looks a little bit different, but you, this is now we're moving into like the transition of the new era of your business of growth and scaling.

Ashley:

One of the big costs with all of this is the client experience. Um, but honestly, like if the client experience isn't there, everything else is just going to crumble. Like it, it really becomes a domino effect on everything else. So I know we could do deep dives on client experience and communication in and of itself. But, uh, if I know that anyone that's in business cares about delivering a quality product. Like anybody that's listening to our podcast cares about what they are doing. Like they're not in it for quick cash, like turn and burn deliverables. Like they, they have a passion for what they are doing in business. Um, and you're, this really will impact your client experience if there is the, if these disconnects are there. So this doesn't have to be a forever thing. Like this is very fixable. Um, but just know that. Just keep this on your radar.

Safa Harris:

Yeah, for sure, and it's very easy for that to snowball and create issues of reputation and all of that, because it only takes one person to do it. In an online bubble cohort or whatever for someone to be like, Hey, I'm looking at XYZ. Like, has anybody worked with them before? And it'll be like, Oh no, don't do it because I had XYZ bad experience. And it's just that one person. And it's going to be a group chat of like 10 people and they're never going to buy from you again. And

Ashley:

then that'll be the story that they share in there.

Safa Harris:

exactly.

Ashley:

just, yeah.

Safa Harris:

say there's 10 people in said group chat and two people say oh, yeah, I worked with xyz in 2021 it was great. This is all I got And then third person comes in and says well, actually I worked with them last year I think things have changed and they're not doing things the same way anymore. I did not get the results. I went on their referral Don't do it And that's all it takes, even though you got two rave reviews. So not to be like doom and gloom scary, you have to be perfect all the time forever, but if it's something that is going to be a consistent issue, or if you're going to keep your messaging and everything like that at the top of the funnel, the same, but you're making a change at the bottom of the funnel of like the sale process and delivery. And those twos don't connect. then that's, you're going to get those different reviews of like, Oh yeah, I thought I was buying this and said, person's going to be like, Oh yeah, that is exactly what I bought. And I got it. And then you're like, yeah, but I bought it and I thought that's what I was going to get. And that's what you told me you got. So I bought that. And then it was something different because You as the business owner made a change of four capacity or structure or anything like that, and then didn't go back up and make the changes that's going to lead to reviews. And if there's enough of that going on, at least a bad reputation, even though you're like, Oh yeah, well, I changed, made a change to the program. It's like, well, you got to make a change to the whole shebang

Ashley:

Yeah. Yeah. And if you want,

Safa Harris:

consistency.

Ashley:

yeah. And if you want that word of mouth referral success, this is a focus area for you.

Safa Harris:

And I think word of mouth referral is the biggest, especially in this industry. I feel like that's where you get the snowball of business growth you can funnel in new people and everything like that, but. Like the quicker sales, the hotter leads and all of that. And things that can really snowball is going to be like your six degrees of separation. It's going to be the word of mouth or referrals. So that's going to grow and make the larger business. And I think it makes the biggest difference, especially in this industry. I think it's very important there.

Ashley:

Yeah.

Safa Harris:

So I think when you're at that point, and you are starting to make a transition into your, your, your, you're like, Okay, I'm losing capacity, I need to do all that thing, all of these things that are growth and scaling, A major moment of taking stock of where your business is at, where you're trying to go and leaning into heavy strategy, because if you do not, if you don't understand exactly what you're saying in your messaging, exactly what you're saying in your sales process exactly what you're delivering. And then you're like, you start making changes your delivery because that's, that's really, really important. Where capacity and scaling and growth changes is in the delivery part of your, of your business. When you're looking to grow and scale, that's where the focus is because everything else is honed and stuff like that. That's just a ramp up. Growth and scaling happens in the delivery operations part. So if that's where you're at and we're making changes down here, you need to make sure that you're holistically integrating and doing a consistent change, back up the funnel for marketing sales, and then, um, The delivery is feeding back up So it all aligned. So you're not in a point of like, oh, well, this is not what I was sold. You're like, well, this is what I can do based on capacity. Right? So that's kind of where. I think where we kind of preach and relive it's like, okay, you're having X, Y, Z pain points. Let's do an assessment as to what's giving you those pain points. And let's come up with a solution that integrates all those pieces and making sure their work together with strong strategy. you don't have these costs of doing business, right? So you don't have the, Disconnected messaging. You don't get the bad word of mouth, so you don't get all that because you've made sure all of your, your messaging, your marketing, your sales process, everything is lining up and it's all integrated well, that what you said in your marketing is actually what's getting delivered and sometimes you don't even realize that there's that disconnect.

Ashley:

There's really like four areas to pay attention to, to make sure that everything is working together, that everything is being, is cohesive and in alignment and you're delivering on what you are selling. And then within that, there are certain key metrics KPIs. To have on your radar for each one of those areas. So I think we could talk about a little, talk a little bit about what those core components are to make sure that you're delivering what you're selling and having that cohesiveness across the board. Um, I think it really, you know, we've talked, we've already talked about it, you know, communication. Your team think if there's anything specific to the delivery of the product or the program that you're selling, making sure that your tech stack or your systems are working, do we know that tech can break broken tech is? I don't know. I feel like, uh, tech just maybe it's me. I think I might be the. and then, uh, from like an operations standpoint, the like processes and SOPs, like, I think that the processes and SOPs, especially for the smaller teams, or like when those teams are growing, like we can really pinpoint when that is not established. it becomes very obvious to us.

Safa Harris:

Because it's because especially because we are like a third party, it's very easy to Spot the gaps or the issues because you're we're not in it. So we're seeing high level and we're almost we're seeing it from almost what a client would see we one we hire service providers And we are also service providers. So we see both sides of it So it's very easy for us to kind of identify Things run either from past experience ourselves, either being on the receiving end or delivering it and, or from like our clients experiences, you know? Because every business is unique, but almost. No problem is unique. If that makes sense, there's been some iteration of the same problem somewhere else, and solutions are the ones where you aggregate a few different things together because there's only so many solutions that are viable, but you can put different pieces together to make it match the different pieces of different problems. It's like a Lego set, right? Every business is a Lego set and you just have to put, and every business's problems require different pieces of Legos to like fit together and work and create a foundation. But all of those Lego sets are all standard. So everything that makes up a problem or makes up the solution, they're, they're standard, but the different al amalgamations of the different Lego pieces are different for the problems of the solutions. But we are really familiar with all the Lego pieces and we know how, which Lego pieces fit with which ones to create. The solution to your Lego problem

Ashley:

Yeah, yeah.

Safa Harris:

and that allows us to easily see what the issue is and create a solution just because we're, we're just a bunch of Legos. We are a Lego. That's all we do our entire life.

Ashley:

Well, it's the same. Yeah. I mean, it's the same thing with marketing. I mean, email, social media, SEO, like very common across the board apply to pretty much any business. But within business, it's going to look different. How you're utilizing it is going to look. So it's not necessarily like there's this big, oh, teams, communications, SOPs, that this is like, specific to any one industry or any type of business model. Every business has it, but if you are a coach, that's going to look different than if you were a service provider, that's going to look different than if you make candles, right? It's, you still need all of those pieces, but how it applies to your business is how it gets modified.

Safa Harris:

yeah, for sure.

Ashley:

So if to give people very tangible, um, takeaway from this. To have that highly, highly successful word of mouth referral based growth that you can scale. That's not dependent on your. output, right? You have to be able to deliver what you are selling. There has to be a cohesive bridge. There needs to be a connection between sales, marketing, deliverability. And within that, when all three of those pieces work together, Your client experience is going to be top notch your team communication. And the team morale is going to be high. It's not going to be a lot of turnover. Everything is just going to work together. That's how you get that well oiled machine, that vibe, everything.

Safa Harris:

business,

Ashley:

So focus on, like I said, focus on your communication, focus on your processes and your systems document everything. Don't skip on, on SPs just because they're boring. I get it,

Safa Harris:

yeah,

Ashley:

but they are necessary. Pay attention to your tech. Make sure that everything works well. Try to limit the manual connection as much as possible because the less that you

Safa Harris:

drop

Ashley:

on your plate. Yeah, exactly. And then make sure that your team is on board. They understand they have the tools and the resources to be able to work independently as much as possible. So if those are feeling sticky or you're just like, not really sure if those Areas are where they should be. If they're optimized, what would you recommend that people do about that? And they're like, yeah, I get it. That all makes sense. But how, what does that actually look in practice?

Safa Harris:

Yeah, so you're, we're speaking to a very specific person and I really hope that like this other person is like not even listening to our podcast because of what I'm about to say might be a little bit offensive. So yeah, so we're speaking to someone that you're making promises in your marketing and in your sales process and you have full intentions and you're trying your to deliver on it, but you're And that's bothering you and you're not okay with that. And you are dropping balls and you see it and you're having anxiety and you can't sleep and there's heartburn and it's just, This is not for the people that are like, Oh, I know I can sell this, but this is what I'm going to deliver. And I don't care. I'm making money. Go away. You're not our people. So yeah, if you are feeling that if you are like, this is giving me anxiety, like I, either my business is going to fall apart. Like, I don't know what to do. Like, how do I fix this? How do I still give my clients everything? I want to give them and keep the quality, but still make sure I'm making sales. And like, just like, okay. Ride this V ra wave of this anxiety rant that I'm portraying here. Like if you're there, the first thing you need to do is one step back and assess and really figure out, okay, like what am I marketing? What are the points that I am selling in my marketing? What am I, what are the points that I'm selling in my sales process? And then what are the points that I'm delivering and what parts of my delivery process am I dropping the ball on? What are the issues and what is actually selling that? I need to make sure I retain in my delivery process And what are the parts are there any important parts in the balls that I'm dropping? That's going to make my marketing and my sales process a lie

Ashley:

Just a little,

Safa Harris:

those pieces out

Ashley:

little piece to add in here. This is why having your marketing strategy is so important. Like why you cannot just wing your content. All the time because when you are batch creating your content or when you have that strategy and the content positioning outline, it's so much easier at the, because this is at the very beginning before, like all of the rest of the pieces come after your messaging and the marketing. So don't wing this part and focus on having everything else really structured. Like it has to be structured from the beginning. Mm hmm. Mm

Safa Harris:

you could wing it and you could just be making it up and doing it on the fly, but you're going to end up in this place and guess what leg work and heavy lifting and all the back data and everything that you're going to have to do. To identify your problems, your bottlenecks, and what's not working and what you have to make sure you're keeping. And oftentimes this is the thing that causes the bad reputation. Because you don't have the data and the structure to identify the pieces and your marketing your sales process that people are picking up on and that are selling and those are the very pieces that you're just cutting out in your delivery process name of capacity.

Ashley:

hmm.

Safa Harris:

And then on the flip side, you could make changes in your delivery process, reflect that in your marketing and sales process, and then your sales died because you took the wrong thing out.

Ashley:

Mm hmm. Yep, can you hear me? Okay.

Safa Harris:

that were doing really, really great top of the market, doing all of those things. And then all of a sudden they weren't anymore. And that's because they made changes to their offer structure. It reflected in their marketing and people no longer wanted to buy. So. That side note back to the framework of what you need to be doing Is this assessment of looking at your marketing looking at your sales looking at your operations? See what you need to retain in your marketing and sales process By what is actually doing the sales for you what your money making pieces are in your marketing in your sales and then coming to your Delivery structure processes and offers and then making adjustments there to one retain your money making pieces and then making adjustment in places that you can and creating capacity in that way. So making sure that they all work so that's you're doing the assessment and then you're making a plan of how you're going to make. Those changes, right? So now you have the path forward, so then you find a way and you create a 90 day plan, a year plan, six month plan, whatever it needs to be given the structure and size of where you're at in business.

Ashley:

Once you, once you have your assessment done, you've figured out the gaps, you know, where you are, where you want to be breaking that down into the 90 day plans and coming up with a 90 day projects. Uh, this is where it's going to make it bite size. You can actually gain. Traction, you can make progress on your goals. You can, actually see the growth versus saying, constantly saying, I want to be doing this. I want to achieve this, but feeling like you're spinning your wheels. When you break it down into the 90 day plans, it's really easy to evaluate exactly what you did, what still needs to happen, maybe what you missed the mark on or what project didn't get started. Because once you have those 90 day plans, then you can integrate it. You can delegate it out. You've, you've built the project plans. You have all of those, uh, like subtasks and the milestones on the project plans that you can better track and evaluate. And if you aren't using a task management, project management tool, this is your sign. To get one, do not do this on paper and pen. Do not do this in your head in sticky notes. Um, whenever I see the sticky note, like line in marketing, I'm like, who is actually doing this on sticky notes. If this is you, I'm telling you like 2025 is your year to get organized with project management tool. Okay. Some tough love for you.

Safa Harris:

So exactly. Because when you're making that 90 day plan, because you've come straight off of an assessment, you know exactly what needs to be done. And you've created this plan and creating that real tangible, followable plan. It's going to lead you right into, like, how Our next step in this framework is the integration because you're going to be making sure you're staying on top of what you found in your assessment and what needs to be done and you're, already established, winging it is not it, right? So

Ashley:

Yeah.

Safa Harris:

are doing this tangible step in process and making sure that you are not just winging the plan and losing. The important things, because this is where you're going to start dropping balls again, stop, start dropping the things that are actually important to give you what you're. A scalable capacity wise business that's also marketing successfully and selling successfully in a way that's delivering exactly what you're saying. So you're moving in. Okay. So we have an assessment, we created a plan and now we're. Like integrating and we're implementing all of these things and putting it together. And because the way you did the assessment and because of the way you did the plan, it naturally falls into all of these important pieces. The marketing, the sales, the operations delivery are integrated really well. And as you're doing the implementation, and this is kind of where I was getting at, where you know that your sales process is your, this new structure, whatever you've decided that works for your business live Q3. So then now you can backtrack being like, okay, whoever we talked to in Q2 needs to be going through this new sales. Conversation and new sales messaging. And then, okay, well, I know that six weeks before that is when these people in Q2 that are going through the sales is that's when I started pulling in those leads. So that's when my marketing needs to be there. And so now you're, you've implemented, you've put all those pieces together, and now you've integrated those three pieces and implemented live towards people like front facing. all of those pieces at the right time are working together in this culmination of having people in this new structure and offer that came through this new updated funnel. And actually, I think this is what you were hitting at, um, in the beginning of the episode of, making sure you're paying attention to your customer that's already bought and you're making the changes. So now you have this like transition period of into this new. Capacity growth business, and you're making sure you're

Ashley:

Yeah,

Safa Harris:

for that. So it's all again. It's all integration and working together. Um,

Ashley:

yeah. Yeah.

Safa Harris:

is optimization because that's that's just business. You are going to be in a constant state of optimization. So you're going this is very much like a cyclical. Framework, right? So you go through, um, assessment, planning, integration, implementation, and then you optimize so that you've essentially you're like, okay, well, now what's the next iteration of improvement here? And then you go through that again. You're making the assessment and. As you go through each iteration for a set number of times until you hit another large business growth milestone, the cycle and the framework is going to go quicker because it's going to be continuous improvement once you hit that fourth phase of this, of where it's like smaller iterations, because you're going from minimum viable In the first iteration of improvement and creating capacity, and they're like, okay, well, this time I'm going to improve this. I want to improve this. I want to prove this till you get to a place where you're like, okay, now it's time again for a huge overhaul. So you're gonna be living in that optimization sub circle of the framework, um, until it's. Big change time again.

Ashley:

Yeah, the, the foundations aren't going to be built every single time. Like at some point, you're no longer going to be building the foundations. You're going to be changing the wall color or

Safa Harris:

Yes.

Ashley:

decorating a If you feel like there are gaps somewhere, but you just, you're having a really hard time figuring out where those were, where those are, um, click our link for the free audit, because we will take a look at the information that you're sending us and help you pinpoint exactly where those gaps are and what to do about them. but if you already know what the gaps are and you just need the support to go through this four stage. Implementation plan,

Safa Harris:

that.

Ashley:

keep an eye out

Safa Harris:

talking

Ashley:

very closely on our

Safa Harris:

the, the,

Ashley:

because we're going to have something that is

Safa Harris:

a

Ashley:

Unmatched in the online space

Safa Harris:

today. I

Ashley:

you.

Safa Harris:

to

Ashley:

I know a lot of times people are wanting to sell you into these like really high ticket,

Safa Harris:

about the work

Ashley:

like high touch, high support

Safa Harris:

turn

Ashley:

containers. That's not feasible for everyone, nor do people always care to make that type of investment because you're capable of doing a lot of this on your own. You just need that structure and that guidance. So if that is piquing your interest, keep an eye out because we are going to be introducing something. Very exciting. I haven't been this excited about something in a very long time. It's been begging to let me build this

Safa Harris:

we'll

Ashley:

finally gave me the go ahead.

Safa Harris:

you next

Ashley:

keep an eye out for this because this is going to apply it to you whether you are wanting to get ahead of this. You're still in the earlier stages of your business or you're more established and you're in the thick of the gap filling in optimization stage of it. So

Safa Harris:

the messy middle.

Ashley:

if you're in the messy middle. Yeah. So stay tuned.

Outro:

And that wraps up another episode of the business millennials podcast. We hope you found this conversation, thought provoking, inspirational, and helps you make a larger impact with your business. Growth is not just about profits or revenue. It's a journey of personal development, contribution, and bettering ourselves in society. Our challenge for you take at least one key lesson from our time together today that you can apply not just to your business. But your relationships, creative expression, wellbeing, and personal evolution to, we appreciate you tuning in. If you enjoyed this show, we invite you to pay it forward, share it with an entrepreneur, creative student, or community leader who needs an infusion of insight or inspiration right now. And make sure to subscribe on Apple podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen. So you never miss a single episode. And if you like what you heard, leave us a five star review. See you next week.