April 24, 2025 • 52 mins
In this insightful episode of the E-commerce Evolution Podcast, host Brett Curry sits down with Jhana Li (https://www.linkedin.com/in/jhana-li), founder of Spyglass Ops, to tackle one of the biggest challenges holding back growing businesses: operational constraints. While many entrepreneurs excel at product development and marketing, they often hit a ceiling when it comes to building operational systems and processes. Jhana shares her expertise as a transformational operations consultant who has helped hundreds of seven and eight-figure businesses scale by creating systems that allow founders to work on their business rather than in it.
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Sponsored by OMG Commerce - go to (https://www.omgcommerce.com/contact) and request your FREE strategy session today!
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Chapters:
(00:00) Introducing Jhana & SpyGlass Ops
(04:21) Common Operational Problems Founders Face
(07:52) Developing a Strategic Vision to Break Through Bottlenecks
(14:39) Setting Yourself Apart From Competitors
(17:52) Vision Alignment With Your Team
(20:51) Hiring and Onboarding the Right People
(32:31) Structuring An Effective Hiring Process
(40:28) Coaching a High-Performing Team
(46:04) When To Let Underperformers Go
(50:43) Final Thoughts
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Connect With Brett:
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/thebrettcurry/
- YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@omgcommerce
- Website: https://www.omgcommerce.com/
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Past guests on eCommerce Evolution include Ezra Firestone, Steve Chou, Drew Sanocki, Jacques Spitzer, Jeremy Horowitz, Ryan Moran, Sean Frank, Andrew Youderian, Ryan McKenzie, Joseph Wilkins, Cody Wittick, Miki Agrawal, Justin Brooke, Nish Samantray, Kurt Elster, John Parkes, Chris Mercer, Rabah Rahil, Bear Handlon, Trevor Crump, Frederick Vallaeys, Preston Rutherford, Anthony Mink, Bill D’Allessandro, Bryan Porter and more
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
We got all these all-star athleteson our team, we're saying,
(00:02):
why the heck are you alwaysthree steps behind me?
Why are you always waiting for me to makethe next decision or hand out the next
task or come up with the next idea?
We get so frustrated and what we realizeis actually we haven't told them where
they're going.
(00:28):
Well, hello and welcome to another editionof the E-Commerce Evolution podcast.
I'm your host, BrettCurry, CEO of OMG Commerce.
And today we're talking about operations,
operational constraints,operational bottlenecks,
issues that you need tofix if you want to scale.
Because here's what I believemost agency owners like me,
(00:51):
most brand owners like you,you're really good at product,
you're really good atmarketing or scale or growth,
but operations, maybe that'sa part of the business.
You don't want to think about awhole lot, but I guarantee you,
without operational systems,processes, the right people,
all of that good stuff,
(01:12):
you will hit a ceiling and we're goingto bust through that ceiling on this
episode today. So want to welcometo the show, Ms. Jonna Lee,
she's the founder of Spy GlassOps. More on that in a second.
Jonna, how's it going?And welcome to the show.
Thanks, Brett. I'm really excitedto be here. It's going fantastic.
(01:32):
It's spring here in SaltLake City. No complaints.
Springtime in I love.
I know. I'm ready for it. Love.
Springtime.
And so John and I got to hang out atan event recently hosted by one of my
business partners, TomShipley, called Deal Con.
Jonna was rocking the stage talkingabout how to form good integrations if
you're doing m and a, but it was allaround ops. And so your company, John, us,
(01:56):
by Glass Ops,
you guys help with your transformationaloperations company, right?
So you help with consulting,recruiting, coaching.
You help seven and eight figurebrands and businesses get
unstuck and scale froman operation standpoint.
Can you talk a little more about that,
a little more about your background there?
Yeah, I think you covered it beautifully.So my background is as a COO,
(02:21):
I was in that second in commandoperator position for multiple different
successful startups, and that's where Ireally learned the tools of the trade.
And then I had the opportunity to bean operations coach in this coaching
program that had hundredsof startup owners in it.
And that was really thebig unlock for me, Brett,
because I had hundreds of businessespulling back the kimono, so to speak,
(02:41):
and just showing me the reel ofwhat's going on behind the scenes,
what's not working, what's breaking,
where are they struggling as they'rescaling through 7, 8, 9 figures.
And so I got to just compile all thisdata around what are the common patterns
and themes that hold startupfounders back from achieving,
not just the revenue and the profitgoals that they have for the business,
but also the lifestyle, the freedom goals,
(03:02):
creating a version of their company thatcan actually run without them. And so
that is really what Ibecame passionate about.
And four years ago I started the companyto help entrepreneurs go through that
critical stage of growth so that thecompany can start to become an asset,
a machine that is going torun with or without them,
and they're able to take that to asuccessful multi eight figure nine figure
(03:23):
exit. They're able to take that to alifestyle business that produces passive
cashflow,
but ultimately it's around unlocking thefounder so that they're able to achieve
the best version of their businessand the best version of their life.
It's so great. And yeah, allowingthe founder, the visionary,
you've got brilliant ideas. Andagain, you're a product person,
a marketing person, salesperson, whatever.For me, I'm all about setting vision,
(03:46):
forming partnerships. I like sales,
I like solving interesting marketingproblems. I'm not an ops guy.
I can respect a good system.I can spot a good system.
I'm not going to sit down and design one,
and at least I'm notgoing to do it and enjoy.
Myself.
And so I've had the privilege of workingwith two amazing COOs throughout the
journey of OMG commerce in our path to
(04:10):
multiple seven figures.
So I see the value there and I'm reallyexcited to unpack this and give some
insights to our listeners,
but would love to hear fromyou what are some of the
mistakes, bottlenecks,
issues that you see foundersrunning into when it comes to ops?
(04:33):
Oh my gosh, how long we got? Okay,
so I would say that statistically, right?
So we start all of ourclient relationships with a company-wide operational
audit.
So we've actually looked at the data andwe've run these numbers and about 80 to
90% of the time,
the key and critical bottlenecks holdingstartup founders back fall into one of
four categories. The firstcategory is strategic vision,
(04:56):
meaning they don't actually know wherethey're trying to take the company or how
exactly they're goingto get to their revenue.
Profit goals. We want to growth is.
Our vision exactly more better.
That's hot strategy.
Strategy doesn't offer yourteam a direction to run in,
and it ultimately leaves the founderpretty directionless in terms of what
decisions to make andwhat to drive towards.
(05:17):
So a lack of strategic vision or what'san interesting one that we see, Brett,
is that they'll have a strategic visionthat is totally out of alignment with
their personal goals.
So my personal goal is that I want alifestyle business that's going to run
without me,
but the version of my company that I'mbuilding is one where the product is
totally reliant on me. Nothingcan move forward without me,
and I want to double revenuein the next 12 months.
(05:39):
It's like these things areat odds with each other.
And so we often have tohold up the mirror and say,
which do you want more? And then let'sbuild a roadmap to get you to that and
let's adjust your business and yourplan for growing your business.
So it actually gets you to the goalsthat you have outside of just work and
revenue. So that's a big onethat we see fairly often.
(05:59):
The second big one isa lack of an operator,
which should not be a surprise to anyone.
And this is why we layered in operationsrecruitment as one of our core offers
because either you've got somebodywho's been in that role and is now no
longer cutting it,
in which case we have to figure out canthey grow and can the business afford
the time that it's going to take forthem to grow into the COO that you need,
(06:23):
or you do not have that person.Maybe you think you do, right?
Maybe it's your wife, maybeit's your best friend,
maybe it's a actual COO thatwe hired off on LinkedIn,
but are they actually the personthat you need in the role? Yes or no?
And we need to go out and find thatperson because like you said Brett,
you can respect operations,
but you respect it enough to not touchit and to know the value of having
(06:44):
someone who is an expert whocan actually do the work.
And if the goal is gettingthat building, that machine,
that machine that consistentlyproduces results and spits off
cash, you got to think about ops. And Ireally liked the way you laid that out.
And I think it's one of thosescenarios where we all do want more.
(07:05):
We all do want to grow,
but what will get you thereis not what got you here.
What got you here won't get youthere. The title of that famous book,
and I think that's true both in termsof your systems or lack thereof,
your processes, but alsothat operator, right? Yes,
the COO or the operator that gotyou to 5 million or to 10 million
(07:26):
is probably not the same operator thatwill get you to a hundred million. And
maybe because people can growand people can change and evolve,
but generally speaking,
you're going to have to eitherupgrade that person and upskill them
or find someone who can growyou to 20 million, 50 million,
a hundred million and thattype of thing. So really great.
(07:49):
So I love the way you identify that.So as you kind of lay that out,
where do you see people in that,
let's call it 10 to 50 million range?
I know it's going to be differentdepending on the business category,
brands that can still be a pretty leanteam agencies, that's a pretty big team.
What are some of the hurdlesthat they have to overcome?
(08:11):
What are some of the systems they needto put in place or people they need to
put into place to really becomethat operational machine?
So this really comes down toa couple of core categories,
and the big one that I see in that 10 to50 million range is that it comes down
to leadership and not justcan you as a CEO founder
become a bigger,
better version of yourself and the leaderthat your company needs next from you?
(08:35):
Can you step fully out of our executivecoach calls the three levels of
entrepreneurship. The first level isproducer where you're just showing up,
you're doing everything. Okay, weprobably got out of that a while ago.
We stepped out of that level.The next level is leader. Great.
So now can we be a leader thatis able to delegate tasks,
action, align a team, drive them towardsa vision, that's the leadership level.
(08:59):
And then the third level is visionary.
Can we actually hand off day-to-dayleadership of our team to
managers,
to department heads to people who are notonly able to manage tasks but actually
make decisions on our behalf? Andwhen we're able to create that,
we get to step into the thirdlevel, which is visionary,
(09:19):
where our role,
our highest value work is tomake decisions and set strategy
on behalf of our company and tohave the vision, to hold the vision,
to keep the team alignedaround the vision,
but to then to hand off the actualizationand the execution of that vision to a
team that we've put inplace that we trust.
So hard to do, man, sohard. As someone who I do,
(09:43):
I am a visionary, I'm not the integrator.And so I do setting the vision,
casting the vision,
but giving up controlthe vision or delegating
decision-making can be quite difficult.
Before we get there though,
I do want to maybe step back fora second and talk about how do you
clarify,
(10:04):
and I've got some thoughts here on whatwe've done as an agency and some work
we've done even recently internally.
But you talk about the strategicvision and the strategic vision is not
more do it better, do it more. That'snot it. That's not clear at all.
How do you coach people or whatadvice do you give them to say, okay,
it may be clear in your head,
but the way you're saying itis not clear to your team.
(10:26):
How do you coach people inmaking that vision clear?
Yeah, a hundred percent. So the firstthing is that we have to clarify. Two,
we have to answer two questions and how,
what does success look like? What isthe finish line for this business?
What are the north star goals and metricsthat we are going to drive towards?
So what looks likerevenue, looks like profit,
(10:48):
looks like a target valuationthat you want to exit at.
It's the finish line of therace that you are running.
If you don't have a finish line, howthe heck are you going to run the race?
And so what we often see challengesaround the, what is that?
I talked to a dude at a mastermindwho exited for 50 million million.
So now I want to exit for 50 million.The challenge is that's the vision,
(11:09):
50 million, that's thevision. I did it right?
But the problem is is that50 million means nothing.
That is a totally arbitrary number.It's not attached to any deeper meaning.
It's not attached to any qualityof life you're trying to create.
It is throwing a dart at a dartboard,picking a number and saying.
That's not good or the value,
value you're going to be generating andoffering to the marketplace to be worth
(11:30):
50 million. It says nothing.
A hundred percent.
So we pick these arbitrary finishlines and then what happens?
It gets hard to run the race.
And so we end up just switching thefinish line and picking a different race,
and we end up just pivoting and pivotingand pivoting and creating all these
different sets of goals because we don'tactually have fundamental and intrinsic
conviction or attachment to those goals,
(11:52):
or even we end up hitting thosegoals and then we feel nothing
because it didn't meananything to begin with.
And so that's the existential crisisthat we have to coach our clients through
where they're like, wow, I reallywanted to get to seven figures.
I really wanted to get to eight figuresand now I'm here and I'm more trapped by
(12:12):
my business than ever. I'm fallingout of love with my business.
I've never felt less free.
I'm not doing any of the things that Iwanted to do or that I thought I could do
by the time I reached this,
why the hell am I doing this and do Ineed you to just burn this thing down and
walk away? So strategicvision again is like,
let's define the what and let's definethe what against what actually matters to
you as a founder, as anindividual, as a human,
(12:36):
and not just as an entrepreneur.
And then let's make sure that the targetyou're setting for your business is
actually going to get you what you want.
So that's the first partof strategic vision.
So good.
I'll share a couple of insights fromsome work we've done recently here at OMG
because I really believe that settingthe mission and vision and things like
that, it really shows the team,
(12:56):
this is who we are and howwe're going to show up.
And this is very clearlywhere we're going.
And so I'm a big fan of statements andsimple statements that carry meaning
and that can help makedecisions and help guide you.
And so a couple that we'veleaned into as an agency,
and then I want to talk aboutthe thing called the V two Mom.
I'm curious if you've heard ofthat, talk about that in a second.
(13:17):
But the first thing that we've leanedinto here over the last couple of years is
we want to be the most trusted,
most loved digital marketing agencythat feels like an in-house team. Now,
that may seem a little bit like astrange statement, most trusted,
most love that feels kind of mushy,
but here's what I believethat is tied to that trust
piece that ties back tocompetence in the agency world.
(13:41):
People want agencies they can trust andthat they trust your expertise and they
feel like, Hey, if I'm getting yourfeedback on something, I can count on it,
I can believe it, I can take itto the bank, that type of thing.
The most loved piece is when I figuredI would get a lot of pushback on.
But actually as I've showed this to PEfirms that I know and others are like,
dude, I actually kind of like itbecause, and we've heard this,
we've heard this even from clientsthat are leaving OMG, they're like,
(14:03):
we love you guys. We love your team,but we're leaving for this, that,
or the other. Our teamis we sold or whatever,
but then also feels like an in-house team.
And so it feels like an extension of theteam. We've had people say to us, Hey,
your team feels like my team.
And so we crafted that in sucha way that that should guide.
(14:24):
How are we going to respond to emails?How are we going to show up to meetings?
How are we going to respond inSlack because of those things?
And so that's one of the statements.
Curious how that strikes youOr anything that
sparks there.
I love that so much.
It is a reminiscent of an exercise thatwe walk our clients through EOS calls it
(14:45):
the three uniques. Wecall it the golden triad.
And it is the three corecharacteristics that you from
your competitors, why wouldsomebody choose to work with you?
And the example I always give is thinkabout McDonald's versus a five star
Michelin restaurant, right? Here's thevision statement. I so often hear Brett,
and especially in the agency space,oh my gosh, we want to be the best.
(15:08):
We want to be the bestagency for e-com brands,
but what is the best?
That.
Means nothing to me.McDonald's is the best,
but STO is a Michelin star restaurant.McDonald's is the best at
being fast, cheap and easy.Those are their three uniques.
A Michelin star restaurant is the bestat being a luxury white glove experience,
(15:32):
farm to table, whatever.
So what are the three uniquesthat guide your business,
that differentiate you from others?What I heard you say was loved, trusted,
feels like an extension ofyour in-house team. Cool.
What's amazing about that is that nowwe get to go through our entire client
happiness journey and anythingthat does not directly drive
(15:54):
love, trust, or seamlessintegration, we don't do it.
We don't do it.
We don't have to do it because it'snot why clients choose to work with us.
And we get to become the best at thosethree things because we're not trying to
be the best at everythingelse. Everything.
And that's where most agencies and brandsget stuck is that we're too diluted in
(16:18):
who we serve in how weserve them uniquely well.
We try and be everything for everyoneand then we end up being nothing for no
one.
Yeah, it's one of those things whereyou can do anything. You can be anybody.
Your company can be anything, but itcan't be. Everything can be everything.
You've got to choose. You gotto select. So I'm curious.
We actually went through this process.
(16:38):
Actually our current COO is the one thatturned me onto this called the V two
mom vision, values, methods,
obstacles and measures.
So I think this was actually designedby Salesforce and marketing off there.
It's really cool though.So set your vision.
So this is where we're going clearlywhat we just talked about, your values,
(16:59):
so this is what we believe about ourselvesand what we will or won't do to get
us there.
Then your methods are these are thethings we're going to do in all these
departments, high level obstacles,
these things are standing in our way andthen measures. These are clear targets
that we're setting for ourselvesin all these key areas.
So it's been really great as we craftedthat, shared that with the team,
I think it's, I've already heard itsparked some interesting discussions,
(17:21):
especially around the measures.
We've got this 50% profitabilitytarget within each department and it's
triggering everybody to look at like, Hey,
how is that going to impact theprofitability of the department, right?
Because I know we got this 50% target,
so I don't know that the actualstructure of the strategy really matters.
It's way more about do youhave it? Does it make sense?
(17:44):
And is it guiding the team?
Yes, a hundred percent. And that's sucha key. That final piece is the point,
right? Because what you just said, Brett,
you've got this incrediblevivid vision in your mind.
You as the founder know exactly what thatfinishing line is exactly how you want
to get there.
But if you haven't shared it with yourteam in a way that they not only see it
as clearly as you see it,
(18:05):
but also understand how they canuniquely contribute towards it.
What.
You end up doing is disempowering yourteam to be proactive. Because now again,
no all-star athlete can run a race ifyou don't tell them where the finish line
is. And so we got all these all-starathletes on our team. We're saying,
why the heck are you alwaysthree steps behind me?
(18:25):
Why are you always waiting for me to makethe next decision or hand out the next
task or come up with the next idea?
We get so frustrated and what we realizeis actually we haven't told them where
they're going. So how the heckcould they help us get there?
How could they walk alongside us asopposed to behind us if they have no idea
what to be proactive andwhat to drive towards? So no,
(18:46):
the framework really doesn't matter.EOS has a great one, V two, mom love it.
We have our own right? We callit the navigational chart.
It's less about whether it's the rightframework and more around are you being
consistent with it,
and then are you repeating it andcoming back to it constantly with your
team?
It takes the average person seven to12 times of hearing something before it
(19:08):
actually sinks into their brain. So wesay it once and then we're like, cool,
did that. Everyone's got the vision.Everyone knows where we're going.
Our job becomes to be thechief repeating officer.
We.
Say this again and again.
We articulate the vision and the valuesand the goals and the metrics and all of
these things again andagain and again. And to us,
(19:29):
we feel like crazy people because we'verepeated ourselves a hundred times and
how can they not get it?And when you feel that way,
I can promise you your team isonly just starting to get it.
Keep going.
So good, so good. And I've heardthat forever in the marketing world,
just about the time you're sick ofhearing an ad or hearing a message.
Only then is the market evenbeginning to pay attention, right?
(19:52):
Totally.
And it's sort of similar withinternal communication as well.
You got to repeat it and repeat it andrepeat it before people even start to get
it. And soReally great. Well,
let's talk people for a minutebecause I'm a firm believer.
This is true in the agency space, alsotrue in the brand space. Any business,
you're only as good as thepeople that you have on board.
And I was listening to a podcastfounders podcast that I love,
(20:14):
and they were talking about Steve Jobsand maybe Elon Moss, maybe somebody else.
They were talking about how they don'tworry about overpaying for great talent
because what they've found in certainindustries may be a little bit different
depending on your industry. But SteveJobs said, Hey, the best talent,
they may be two or more times,two or three times more expensive,
but their work isn't two or threetimes better. It's 10 times better,
(20:38):
a hundred times better, the output.And so I don't worry about that.
I am getting the absolute best of my teamnow. Everybody's on their own journey.
And so finding the right person for youisn't going to be what Steve Jobs was
necessarily looking for,
but how do you coachpeople on finding the right
people when to identifythat they need to hire,
(20:59):
and then also would love to hearany hiring tips that you have.
I think this is something that scalingbusinesses are often pretty bad at.
Yeah, a hundred percent. Oh my gosh.
So this pillar of team isprobably where we do the
most amount of work withour clients because again,
it actually becomes the deal breakersystems, not the deal breaker strategy,
not the deal breaker.
(21:19):
Do you have the right people in the rightroles executing the right things and
running in the rightdirection? Without that,
your business will never beable to scale you without that.
You will be that point of escalation.
You'll become the system whereevery decision has to be yours,
every idea has to be yours,
every sign off and every right taskneeds your eyes on it and every
(21:43):
quality assurance.
If you are feeling stuck running theday-to-day of your business right now,
I can almost guarantee you a root causebottleneck is team. Now to be clear,
that doesn't mean thesolution is we have to go out,
fire everyone and then just doubleall of our salaries and that will.
Fix the problem. Exactly.
What we most often see is that clientswill have incredible team members
(22:07):
on the bus,
but what we haven't done iscreated a player environment.
We have a players,But we haven't invited them to bring all
that they are capable of to the table.
We haven't given them a clear strategicvision that they can be proactive and
innovative and creative and run towards.
We haven't empowered them so that theyfeel confident in solving their own
(22:29):
problems. They have the criticalthinking skills to do it,
and they know what they're authorizedto make decisions around versus not.
We haven't given them the right systemsand technology so that they can be
efficient and effective in their role.
We're having them run around chasing downinformation, picking up dropped balls,
putting out fires that didn'tneed to exist to begin with.
And so we're wasting all of their timeplaying defense and doing all this low
(22:52):
value work instead of doingthe really high value,
high leverage things thatyou actually paid them for.
So my number one pro tip around teamis that before you go out and just get
better people,
make sure that you have created anenvironment where your current people are
able to bring their best to the table.
And what that fundamentally comes downto is us as leaders, us as the founder,
(23:14):
and then the leaders that we put in placeto again, manage that frontline team.
Do our leaders know how to build andmanage a players and manage a high
performance team environment?
Sometimes you don't have a players onyour team, you're not ready for them.
You've not done the work to make yourcompany attractive for a players or
(23:34):
where a players can shine.
And I actually was thinking aboutfootball while you were laying that out.
Honestly, I'm a chiefs football fan,longtime chiefs fan from Kansas City,
and they've had severalsituations over recent years where
they'll have a wide receiver that'llleave and go somewhere else and they don't
do very good and they come back and thenthey're on the chiefs. They're amazing.
(23:55):
And it's because you got Patrick Mahomesas your quarterback and you got Andy
Reed who's helping call plays. Yougot a system that's a winning system,
and so maybe a receiver thatreally sucks for another team.
You put 'em in the chief's environmentand they're going to shine because of all
the things around them. And so I thinkthat's one of the things we got to keep
in mind. It's not the key isnot just paying more for talent.
(24:16):
That just means you're guaranteed tohave more money going out the door.
It could work. It's notjust about hiring a talent,
it's about having the system wherethey're going to shine and the environment
where they're going to shine.So what are some of the things,
some of the tips you layout there for business
owners, founders to say,
(24:36):
am I ready for A players and if not,what do I need to do to get ready?
Yeah, great question. SoI would offer a reframe,
which is you probablyalready have a players.
The question is what are you lackingthat's inviting them or not to bring it to
the table? The.
Top may be you, not the team in place.
(24:57):
Correct.
Correct.
Yes. So right,
there are four core HR processes thatI think every team needs to have to
be able to consistently attractand retain a player talent.
You need your hiring process,your onboarding process, which is absolutely key.
Do not skip onboarding. You needyour high performance management.
So that's ongoing management and growthcoaching for the people on your team.
(25:20):
And then you need firing.
How do we systematically either managepeople up if there's underperformance
or manage them out where we determinethey're not the right fit and we get them
off the bus? These thingsneed to happen systematically.
What I often see happen isthey're happening organically.
We're hiring by dropping a job descriptionon Facebook and then hiring the first
person that comes along because weneeded this person three months ago and I
(25:42):
really just need this person.And you seem smart and competent,
not a proven system,
not going to get you the A player.Most of the time onboarding,
we skip entirely.
We just throw 'em in the deep endand we say they're an A player,
they should learn how to swim.
Truly a strong onboarding processwill three x your average employee
retention and increase your averageemployee productivity by 72%.
(26:05):
And that has nothing to do with thecaliber of people that you're hiring and
onboarding.
That just comes down to whether youare onboarding them effectively or not.
Hiring, onboarding, growth,coaching, right? Managing.
This is the area where we get toturn our B players into A players.
This is where we're creatingan environment that invites them to be their best
(26:26):
or not. Are we tapping intotheir intrinsic motivators?
Are we creating an environment of clearlydefined accountability and radical
ownership? Are we paying our peoplefairly with scalable compensation plans?
Have we defined clear and exact roles sopeople know what is my job and what is
not my job? There's awhole checklist, Brett,
I could even send it toyour group. I've got.
(26:47):
That'd be amazing.
Eight core pillars of what goes into ahigh performance, a playing environment.
And I'm happy to share that with everyonebecause just by implementing those
eight things within your existingbusiness, your existing team,
you don't even have to pay them anymore than you're currently paying them.
They.
Promise you you will get a productivityincrease of a minimum of two x because
(27:09):
that's just how big of a deal it is whenyou start turning on a high performance
environment.
Yeah, it's so good. And I want to goback to something I said a minute ago,
just to clarify.
The reason I shared the Steve Jobs ofI don't care if I pay two or three x
times for an employee, they're going to be10 or a hundred times more valuable.
That wasn't about salary,
(27:30):
that was more about the rightperson can unlock things.
But what I think is alsoreally interesting about this environment right now is
that there's a lot of A-players out there.
There's a lot of great talent out there,
and you can get them for a reasonablerate, like a good competitive salary.
It's not the insanity thatwas kind of mid pandemic
(27:53):
when everything was just off the rails.
It's kind of more of a normaljob market to a certain degree.
And so there is good talentout there that you can find.
So would love to have that checklist.We'll put in the show notes,
we'll share that with everybody, butI also like the way you laid that out.
So hiring, onboarding, ongoingcoaching, and then firing.
It's got to be systematic.That's to follow up process.
(28:17):
But I think what most people willdo are like, Hey, you're good.
So come on board and figure stuff out.Watch this person. Watch that person.
You'll get it.
Yes.
Imagine if going back again,going back to a football example,
imagine if that happened there. Thatdoesn't happen. You bring on a player,
you get 'em indoctrinated and what you do,
they immediately go to their positioncoach, they go to all these practices,
they're watching film, they'reconstantly being evaluated, everything,
(28:39):
everything is thought of.
And obviously we're not quitelike a professional sports team,
but we need to be more like one, right?If we want a performance-based culture,
we could probably learn alot from that structure. So.
Yeah, I love that. I love that.
I want to talk a little bit about hiringjust because I think that's something
that.
It's a big one.
Is intimidating to people.We screw it up so often.
(29:01):
I can think about a couple of really badmistakes that I've made as a business
owner when it comes to hiring, butwhat are some of the, yeah, yeah,
I mean we all do, but whatare some of the hiring tips,
insights, processes you recommend?
Should I go with arecruiter or no recruiter?
How am I going to find the right talent?
Yeah. Okay. So a couple of bestpractices when it comes to hiring,
(29:24):
especially because for somepositions or many positions, Brett,
your clients are hiring remoteteam members, which is amazing.
It means we get to tap into internationaljob markets and all of these things.
And also overwhelming becausewhen we launch our average ops COO
hiring funnel, we can get from500 to a thousand applications.
So how do we whittle that down?
(29:47):
I always say that a stronghiring funnel is like a magnet.
What does a magnet do? A magnet attracts,
it attracts your ideal candidateavatar, right? You're a marketer.
If we wanted to build a marketingfunnel, what will we start with?
We would start with our idealclient avatar. Who is this person?
What do they think about at night?What drives them? What motivates them?
(30:07):
What do they want? Let's buildthat for our ideal candidate.
I call the tool that we usefor this, the job scorecard.
We have to define success in the role,
and then we build a hiring funnel thatis messaged towards that person and
is designed to be a magnetthat will attract them through our process so that by
(30:27):
the time they get to theend of our hiring process,
we have COOs who have 20years experience being like,
this was the most incrediblehiring process I've ever gone.
Through. Wow.
I'm so excited to work with your client.
When do I get to have my next interview?
Do you guys have any otherjob opportunities available?
You want them to be so excitedbecause you have built this just
for them? What else does amagnet do? A magnet repels.
(30:52):
So this funnel should be sospecific and so fine tuned
that someone who is not your idealcandidate will self-select out.
They literally will just stop. They'llstop going through the process.
So while we may get 500 COO applicationson our average job description,
by the time our process is done and we'reactually looking like we're looking at
(31:14):
applications, we're looking at resumes,
we're looking at the top 20 to 30 forthat role because we have such a robust
process that it will literally take out95% of the candidates that apply because
they're not the right fit.
And it would literally be a waste of meand my team's time to have any sort of
conversation with them or to spenda minute looking at their resume.
(31:34):
So if you're going for a remote jobmarket where you're getting overwhelmed by
just sheer volume, rely on the process,
let the process kick out 95% of peopleso that you're only focused on the
5%, that could really be thatideal candidate you're looking for.
That's so good. That'sso good. I love that.
The job scorecard and really thinkingabout how am I going to position this
(31:58):
so they get the job done so that it meetsits objectives so that I'm attracting
the right person, repelling thewrong person, really good. And again,
I think a lot of us that listen tous are marketers. If you own a brand,
you're probably good at marketing,
but you don't really put your marketinghat on when you're crafting that job
scorecard or looking at attractingtalent, but you kind of should be, right?
(32:20):
There's quite a few parallels there.It's the same thing, isn't it? It's the.
Same. Humans be humans, andit's a marketing funnel.
Your hiring funnel is a marketingfunnel for your ideal candidate.
Yeah, it's so good. So good.
Any other specific tips youcan give on the hiring process?
What should that look like? Shouldyou outsource it? Should you do it?
How many interviews should you have?
(32:41):
And I know there's all kinds ofconditional statements there,
but any other tips on the hiringprocess that you'd recommend?
So we have a eight step hiring process.
I can walk through it veryquickly if you would like,
but not to get too deepinto the weeds. Essentially,
our proven hiring process is we launchedthe job description on the front end.
The job description will take themdirectly to a written application.
(33:03):
So the application is going to take themoff of whatever job forum they're on,
indeed or LinkedIn. We willdrop JD into these huge, again,
these huge ponds ofcandidates, hundreds of people.
Thousands of people willsee that job description,
but only hundreds of them will clickon the link and apply through our link.
So that's a huge filtration systemthat kicks a lot of people out.
(33:24):
Then we take 'em to thewritten application. The written application is quick.
It's easy for them to fill out,
but the written application takes'em directly to a skill assessment.
The skill assessment is where we generallysee 80% of candidates plus stop the
process.
They literally just won't submit itbecause the skill assessment is hard.
Back to marketing here, Brett. Onething we know about marketing funnels,
(33:44):
the greater the friction in thefunnel, the higher the quality of lead,
right? Yep. Same thing withhiring. So we make it hard.
It shouldn't be.
Hard to, what does thatlook like? I know sometimes,
so it was one thing we do as anagency is we give them a fake project.
Here's an made up client, andhere's a bunch of scenarios.
(34:04):
What are you going to do inthose scenarios, right? Yes.
How are you going to optimize this?And then we grade those answers.
Is that what you're recommending here?
Pretty much, yep. It's two to three. Icall 'em crunchy questions that again,
your A player ideal candidate willhave no problem answering why?
Because they've done this atthree other companies already.
This is as natural to them as breathing,and in fact, they fucking love it.
(34:27):
Such a nerd.
They.
Get to the end of the skill assessmentand they're like, oh my God,
that was so fun. I cannot waitfor this job. Most people,
80% of people will say, this ishard. This is going to take too long.
I don't know how to do this. I don'twant to do this. And they will, again,
self-select apps.
Perfect.
So that's the skill assessment.
See you.
Yep. It's a big one. Fromthere'll then start interviews.
(34:48):
So we'll do a culture interview, askill interview, reference interviews,
and then we'll finallyclose them on the job.
That's amazing. That's amazing.Really, really helpful.
So we've kind of set ourvision, our strategic vision,
and kind of mapped that out. Andwe're now talking about hiring.
And let's talk a little bit about whatthat environment looks like that allows a
(35:09):
player to shine. I know you'vetouched on a handful of things,
but if we want aperformance-based culture,
what are some things we need tohave in place for that to be true?
So I'm assuming you got the jobscorecard for when you hire somebody,
probably a scorecard ongoing where youcan show someone how are you doing and
how can you do better type of thing.
(35:30):
And again, it comes back to onboarding.
So we take that same exact job scorecard,
and then on the very first day ofthat new person starting their job,
I still personally do aculture onboarding call, right?
How important this call is in thisculture onboarding call, we cover vision,
mission, right? Your V two mom,
this is when you would share thatthis is your vision, your mission,
your core values. This is the teamthey're going to be working with.
(35:53):
This is the lay of the land,
and this is your performanceand cultural expectations.
So I'll say things like show up ontime to meetings and be on camera.
Do I have to say that most of clientswould be like, no, they're a players.
I shouldn't have to saythat. Set expectations.
This is client. Think of your teamonboarding. Again, like client onboarding.
(36:16):
We know how important it is.
For.
Successful client onboarding, tohave an incredible experience,
to set realistic expectationsand to understand,
especially in a serviceindustry like agencies, Brett,
what do they need to bring to thetable in order to be successful in this
partnership? That is exactly whatyou're doing on day one. Here's us,
(36:37):
here's what success looks likein your role, job scorecard.
And then the third and critical componentto this conversation is a transfer of
ownership.
The single greatest characteristicof high performance teams is radical
ownership. So here's your jobscorecard. This is yours. Now.
These.
Are not my targets.These are your targets.
(36:58):
These are not my challenges tosolve my daily tasks to fix for you.
These are your tasks, yourchallenges, your growth opportunity,
your level up,
and in fact that the next two weeks oftraining that we're about to launch into
for you, that's yours as well.
You are responsible for becoming theversion of you for gaining the knowledge
that you need to hit these targets andachieve success as measured by this
(37:23):
job scorecard. Welcome to the.
So good, so good. And some peoplewould hate to hear that message,
but the right people, it willlight them up. They will love that.
So even kind of you hintabout some of those things,
I would assume in the hiring processas well to kind of weed out the wrong
people.
Yeah. Again, the hiring processis built for that ideal candidate,
the person who should get lit up.
(37:44):
When we then deliver thatmessage in onboarding,
if by some reason somebody has snuckthrough the hiring process and pulled a
fast one on me,
the onboarding is alsointense from the culture call.
We launch 'em into what we call the14 day bootcamp, and I tell 'em,
the first 14 days on this rolloutare going to be intense. Why?
Because I want to stress test youbecause the person that I met in the
(38:06):
interviews is not the person I'm hiring.
That is a shiny blow upversion of the person that I
just hired.
The person I actually hired is a personwho's six months from now whose kid is
sick and they left the stoveon and the mailman is here,
and there's a client fire exploding.
And how do they show up to theteam meeting? That's the person I.
Hired.
(38:26):
I want to know who that person is,
and I don't want to have to waitsix months to figure it out.
Tell me more about that.That is great because, well,
we've made the mistake in thepast of making the first two weeks
month just so easy,
and part of it's like we want to bea great place to work and we want to
challenge people. We want to coachpeople. And sometimes we made it just way,
(38:47):
way too easy, almost boring.That has since changed.
But how do you stress test in those firsttwo weeks? What does that look like?
So I want to draw a difference betweenhard and disorganized. What does an A
player want? An A player doesn'tmind a high pressure environment.
A player doesn't mind drinking out ofa fire hose in terms of learning new
(39:09):
information. An A player doesn't mindthrowing themselves into something,
getting their hands dirtyand figuring it out.
What doesn't set peopleup for success though,
is again kicking them into the deep end.
So we're just throwing you into thingswith no structure, with no organization,
with no guidance around whatyou should be looking at,
what you should be focused onor what success looks like.
(39:30):
So our responsibility as leadershipis to develop that structure.
So that's what we callthe 14 day bootcamp,
and it's that blow by blowof for the first 14 days,
you're going to train on thesethings with these people.
You're going to watch thesemeetings, shadow these client calls,
read these books. We're going to giveyou all of the information that you need.
We're going to front load it.And at the end of two weeks,
(39:52):
the goal is that you are functional,not that you're exceptional,
that you're functional in the role,
and I'm going to download any and allinformation into your brain that you need
in order to becomefunctional. It will be hard,
but we've got your back.
Also included in that 14 day bootcampis daily check-ins with their manager,
end of week check-ins with me, a 14day check-in around, where are you at?
(40:15):
Where are you struggling, how are youfeeling after your first two weeks?
So there's structure to it, butthat doesn't make it not hard.
It just makes it hard with support.
Yeah. Yeah, man, it's so good.
So we are running out of time a bit,
but I do want to talkabout the final two things.
How are we coaching someone andhelping them really grow and reach peak
(40:38):
performance? And then whendo we fire people as well?
So let's talk about both of those.
What tips or insights can you share onthe coaching and helping someone level
up?
So the first thing is if you want ahigh performance team, coach them.
Every high performer has a coach.Michael Phelps has a coach,
and I hear clients say a lot,if I'm hiring eight players,
(40:58):
why should I have tomanage them? Management is.
Coaching the best. Want a coach? Yeah.
Correct, correct. Right.
And so I have not just coaching as inan end of quarter performance review.
We do active growth coaching on aweekly or biweekly basis with our team
members. So every week for new teammembers, every other week for veterans,
they are sitting down with their directmanager. And what I am working on,
(41:21):
again, included, I'll just send Brett,
I have SOP and tools and templatesfor literally all of this.
I'm just going to give it toyour people. Does that work?
Amazing. Amazing.
Thank you so much. Yeah.
So that includes in there a script and aone-on-one template for how I run these
meetings.
But essentially I am taking the lastone to two weeks of their performance in
the role, and we're using itas data. Where did you do well?
(41:42):
Where could you have done better?
What are you going to dodifferently moving forward?
What are you strugglingwith? What's blocking you?
I have a lot of clients who have alot of fear around giving constructive
feedback,But you're a coach.
Constructive feedbackis literally your job.
What you're afraid ofis demotivating someone.
What you're afraid ofis making them feel bad.
(42:04):
But that must to do with theculture, not the feedback.
If the culture says thatyou getting feedback means you've done something wrong,
then yeah, I'm going to be afraid togive feedback or receive feedback.
If instead,
feedback is an act of serviceand coaching to help every single
person on this team level up all the time.
(42:25):
I have team members cominginto those meetings being like,
what could I do better? Thisis what I struggled with.
How would you tackle this? I feellike I really botched this meeting.
They're looking for it.They're leaning into.
It.
Because they recognize it for what it isBetter,
which is an active level of service,and they want to get better. So again,
this is where we get into the lesstangible side of team development,
(42:45):
which is like,
what's the culture that you've builtaround growth and feedback and failure?
How does your team respond to failure?How do you respond to failure?
If we can control the cultural context,
then every single day my team is showingup, looking for an opportunity to grow.
My job is to just hold up the mirrorand say, Hey, here's your next gap.
(43:06):
Here's your nextopportunity. Grow this way.
Yeah. Yeah. It's so good. Well,
let's talk a little bitabout the F word firing.
So when is it time to fireand move on from somebody?
What insights can you share with us there?
Yeah, so if we've done all therest of this stuff correctly,
(43:29):
then firing becomes actually a prettyeasy process. We've got a job scorecard.
We gave it to them on day one.
We transferred ownershipover those targets to them.
We aligned their goals with company goals.We've coached them every single week,
and we've established a regular rhythmwhere if there's a gap in performance,
we're immediately calling it out, offeringfeedback and trying to correct it.
(43:50):
What then happens if that personis still not able to perform?
We have an immediate conversation,
and it's a very simple conversation thatsays, Hey, this is the job scorecard.
We covered this on day one.This is your job score card.
We covered that on day one, and you'reperforming down here. Help me understand,
what do you need for you? Again,
(44:12):
radical ownership stays withthem for you to close this gap,
and what do you need for meto be successful in that? So it's a growth coaching
conversation to start where I call thatthe pep, the personal elevation plan.
And that is, Hey, as soon as I seea gap, I'm going to call it out,
and we're going to co-create a gameplan for you to close that gap and take
(44:34):
radical ownership for doing so.
Then if I don't see that they've closedthat gap, then we'll escalate to a pip.
That's the last warning conversationof like, Hey, to be clear,
you cannot have this job if you'renot meeting the expectations outlined
in the job scorecard. So again,
help me understand why haven't I seenthe change and what needs to change in
(44:54):
order for you to be successful, becausewe both want you to be successful here.
So the PIP, that's the personalimprovement plan, right? Correct.
This is where you got to improvehere else. This is going to fit.
And my guess is, John,
if you are a company and you're leadingsomeone through this process after the
pip, some people are going to make it alot. People are going to be like, yeah,
this price isn't right. Correct.
The firing is not going to be asurprise to anybody at that point.
(45:17):
You go through that process,
it's going to be a pretty natural nextstep for you and for the person you're
firing.
It's not a surprise.
And what you'll actually see ispeople will just quit that phrase,
manage up or manage out. Credit toLayla Hermo for teaching me that one.
When you've done a great jobof building a high performance,
high pressure environment, people whodon't like that, who don't want that,
(45:40):
who don't want to be held accountableto constant growth and constant targets
will leave. They'll literally just leave.
Which is akay even better,right? Than having to f.
Fire, which is bestcase scenario. Exactly.
Exactly. This is so good,and one thing I'll share too,
and we've had our upsand downs as an agency
(46:01):
when it comes to ops and hiringand firing and things like that.
But what I've also found too,
because I think there's this fear thatbusiness owners have too, about firing.
I can't think of a single timethat we fired someone at OMG where
I've had outrage from the team.Almost always it's like, yeah,
I saw that coming, right?Or yeah, we got that.
We did have to go through a couple ofrounds of layoffs as an agency about 18
(46:25):
months ago. That sucked,and that sucked bad.
A lot of agencies and a lot ofe-comm brands had to do that.
So I did get pushback there. People werelike, how could you let this person go?
I'm like, I know. I know. Itsucked. But the firing piece,
I've never had anybody. How could you, Imean, maybe the person's getting fired,
but everybody else was like, yep, yep.Saw that Maybe you're a little bit late.
(46:45):
Do you want me to offer you areframe so that even that person.
Please, please.
Is on board with it? Andguys, this is, again,
this is coming from me messing thisup so many times because I really
care about my team. I do. Andso I don't want to fire them.
I don't want to hurt them. Oh my God.Maybe they're going to get better.
I'll give them just anothermonth. Just another month,
and then we all knowwhere that ends. Anyway.
Right?
(47:06):
Here's the reframe. I will offer you,
your job as a business owner is to createa vehicle for growth. Growth for you,
growth for your clients,growth for your team.
People deserve to besuccessful in their roles.
They deserve to be able togrow with your business.
And if they are in a rolewhere they cannot be successful or where their pathway
(47:27):
for growth had diverted from yours,
then it is an absolute act oflove and service to let them go
and find the other opportunity where theywill be successful that does get them
to their goals. They deserve that.
It is in fact selfish tolet your own emotional
discomfort at the conversation,
(47:51):
keep them in a place wherethey cannot be successful.
So when I show up to afiring conversation, that's the lens that I bring.
And guess what?
I still get coffee every month with halfthe people I've fired because they're
so grateful and I'm so grateful,and we love each other so much,
and they've found another jobopportunity or started a business,
and they've become these incrediblenext level versions of themselves.
(48:13):
And all we did when we firedthem was determine that, Hey,
the next version of you can'tbe unlocked here. That's okay.
That's so okay. But it'stime for us to part ways.
And understanding that peopledesperately want to be successful.
They do.
They know that they're notbeing successful with your company if they're in this
position, especially if you've got.
A job scorecard.
(48:34):
Especially if you've going throughthis, measur them against that process,
then they really know and they reallyknow. Right? And one story that I heard,
this was in the book, radical Candor,
which is one of my favorites becauseI'm not naturally a candid person.
So that book really helped me.
But I love the story betweenSteve Jobs and Johnny.
Ive and Steve would ask Johnny like, Hey,
did you give thisfeedback to your teammate?
(48:54):
Did you tell them this isn't goodenough? And Johnny would be like, well,
I don't want to hurt their feelingsor whatever. And Steve would say, no,
Johnny, you don't want to be nice.
You're just vain and you wantpeople to like you, right?
It's like you've got to givepeople the feedback. And of course,
we don't have to put on our SteveJobs and show up just the way he
did, not our personalities. But it'sone of those things that say like, yeah,
(49:17):
the frame you gave, it's actuallynot kindness. If you are,
and maybe it's actually selfish if you'reholding onto somebody when you need to
let them go so they can go not bemiserable somewhere and be successful
somewhere.
Or you're holding ontothat piece of feedback that you're unwilling to tell them
when it's actually just deprivingthem of the opportunity.
To.
(49:37):
Know what the gap is so theycan do something about it.
Yeah. Yeah. So good. We could keep going.You've got me fired up for operations.
I'm not even operations guy. This isamazing, John, this, I can't believe it.
So good. So definitely share withus the SOPs. I'll get that out.
We'll put that in the show notes.Anybody can get that. But also,
I'm confident there are peoplelistening that are just like,
(49:58):
I don't need the SOPs. I just wantto work with Jonna and her team.
So how can people connect withspyglass ops? What does that look like?
Who are you right for? Talkto us about working with you.
Yeah, beautiful. So guys,
the best way to connect withme is actually on Instagram,
and if you will add itinto the show notes.
But I'm just going to give youguys my entire resource vault.
(50:19):
So DM me the code word vault, clickon the link in the show notes,
DM me on Instagram. It's thebest way to get in touch.
What Instagram handle.
That is at the Jonna Lee.
So J-H-A-N-A-L-I, Jonna Lee.
Awesome. And so DM you the word vault.
Correct.
You'll get the whole thing there.The whole all the goods, man. Okay.
(50:42):
That's amazing. Jonna,this has been fantastic.
I can't wait to review this, sharethis with my team. Really, really good.
I know this is going tocreate transformational change for people that listen
and apply and especially those that getyour details and or work with you guys,
but you guys are really, you're gearedto work with brands, work with agencies,
(51:03):
work with just service-based companies.You can work with just about anybody,
correct?
Yeah. We work with online basedstartups, right? So eCom brands,
given that you're running yourbusiness off technical systems,
remote team building, that's thestuff we really specialize in.
Awesome. Jonna Lee,
ladies and gentlemen at the Jonna Leeon Instagram, connect with her there,
(51:23):
DM her at the word vault andyou'll get all the goods.
Also put stuff in the show notesas well. So with that, Jonna,
thank you so much. This was amazing.Thanks for bringing the energy.
Thanks for bringing the insights.
Thank you, Brett, it.
Was fantastic.
Appreciate it.
Awesome. And thank you for tuning inas always. We'd love to hear from you.
What would you like to hear more ofon the show? If you've not done so,
(51:45):
please leave us a review on iTunes andif you know somebody who's struggling
with ops share, share with themthis episode and with that,
until next time, thank you for listening.
We got all these all-star athleteson our team, we're saying,
(00:02):
why the heck are you alwaysthree steps behind me?
Why are you always waiting for me to makethe next decision or hand out the next
task or come up with the next idea?
We get so frustrated and what we realizeis actually we haven't told them where
they're going.
(00:28):
Well, hello and welcome to another editionof the E-Commerce Evolution podcast.
I'm your host, BrettCurry, CEO of OMG Commerce.
And today we're talking about operations,
operational constraints,operational bottlenecks,
issues that you need tofix if you want to scale.
Because here's what I believemost agency owners like me,
(00:51):
most brand owners like you,you're really good at product,
you're really good atmarketing or scale or growth,
but operations, maybe that'sa part of the business.
You don't want to think about awhole lot, but I guarantee you,
without operational systems,processes, the right people,
all of that good stuff,
(01:12):
you will hit a ceiling and we're goingto bust through that ceiling on this
episode today. So want to welcometo the show, Ms. Jonna Lee,
she's the founder of Spy GlassOps. More on that in a second.
Jonna, how's it going?And welcome to the show.
Thanks, Brett. I'm really excitedto be here. It's going fantastic.
(01:32):
It's spring here in SaltLake City. No complaints.
Springtime in I love.
I know. I'm ready for it. Love.
Springtime.
And so John and I got to hang out atan event recently hosted by one of my
business partners, TomShipley, called Deal Con.
Jonna was rocking the stage talkingabout how to form good integrations if
you're doing m and a, but it was allaround ops. And so your company, John, us,
(01:56):
by Glass Ops,
you guys help with your transformationaloperations company, right?
So you help with consulting,recruiting, coaching.
You help seven and eight figurebrands and businesses get
unstuck and scale froman operation standpoint.
Can you talk a little more about that,
a little more about your background there?
Yeah, I think you covered it beautifully.So my background is as a COO,
(02:21):
I was in that second in commandoperator position for multiple different
successful startups, and that's where Ireally learned the tools of the trade.
And then I had the opportunity to bean operations coach in this coaching
program that had hundredsof startup owners in it.
And that was really thebig unlock for me, Brett,
because I had hundreds of businessespulling back the kimono, so to speak,
(02:41):
and just showing me the reel ofwhat's going on behind the scenes,
what's not working, what's breaking,
where are they struggling as they'rescaling through 7, 8, 9 figures.
And so I got to just compile all thisdata around what are the common patterns
and themes that hold startupfounders back from achieving,
not just the revenue and the profitgoals that they have for the business,
but also the lifestyle, the freedom goals,
(03:02):
creating a version of their company thatcan actually run without them. And so
that is really what Ibecame passionate about.
And four years ago I started the companyto help entrepreneurs go through that
critical stage of growth so that thecompany can start to become an asset,
a machine that is going torun with or without them,
and they're able to take that to asuccessful multi eight figure nine figure
(03:23):
exit. They're able to take that to alifestyle business that produces passive
cashflow,
but ultimately it's around unlocking thefounder so that they're able to achieve
the best version of their businessand the best version of their life.
It's so great. And yeah, allowingthe founder, the visionary,
you've got brilliant ideas. Andagain, you're a product person,
a marketing person, salesperson, whatever.For me, I'm all about setting vision,
(03:46):
forming partnerships. I like sales,
I like solving interesting marketingproblems. I'm not an ops guy.
I can respect a good system.I can spot a good system.
I'm not going to sit down and design one,
and at least I'm notgoing to do it and enjoy.
Myself.
And so I've had the privilege of workingwith two amazing COOs throughout the
journey of OMG commerce in our path to
(04:10):
multiple seven figures.
So I see the value there and I'm reallyexcited to unpack this and give some
insights to our listeners,
but would love to hear fromyou what are some of the
mistakes, bottlenecks,
issues that you see foundersrunning into when it comes to ops?
(04:33):
Oh my gosh, how long we got? Okay,
so I would say that statistically, right?
So we start all of ourclient relationships with a company-wide operational
audit.
So we've actually looked at the data andwe've run these numbers and about 80 to
90% of the time,
the key and critical bottlenecks holdingstartup founders back fall into one of
four categories. The firstcategory is strategic vision,
(04:56):
meaning they don't actually know wherethey're trying to take the company or how
exactly they're goingto get to their revenue.
Profit goals. We want to growth is.
Our vision exactly more better.
That's hot strategy.
Strategy doesn't offer yourteam a direction to run in,
and it ultimately leaves the founderpretty directionless in terms of what
decisions to make andwhat to drive towards.
(05:17):
So a lack of strategic vision or what'san interesting one that we see, Brett,
is that they'll have a strategic visionthat is totally out of alignment with
their personal goals.
So my personal goal is that I want alifestyle business that's going to run
without me,
but the version of my company that I'mbuilding is one where the product is
totally reliant on me. Nothingcan move forward without me,
and I want to double revenuein the next 12 months.
(05:39):
It's like these things areat odds with each other.
And so we often have tohold up the mirror and say,
which do you want more? And then let'sbuild a roadmap to get you to that and
let's adjust your business and yourplan for growing your business.
So it actually gets you to the goalsthat you have outside of just work and
revenue. So that's a big onethat we see fairly often.
(05:59):
The second big one isa lack of an operator,
which should not be a surprise to anyone.
And this is why we layered in operationsrecruitment as one of our core offers
because either you've got somebodywho's been in that role and is now no
longer cutting it,
in which case we have to figure out canthey grow and can the business afford
the time that it's going to take forthem to grow into the COO that you need,
(06:23):
or you do not have that person.Maybe you think you do, right?
Maybe it's your wife, maybeit's your best friend,
maybe it's a actual COO thatwe hired off on LinkedIn,
but are they actually the personthat you need in the role? Yes or no?
And we need to go out and find thatperson because like you said Brett,
you can respect operations,
but you respect it enough to not touchit and to know the value of having
(06:44):
someone who is an expert whocan actually do the work.
And if the goal is gettingthat building, that machine,
that machine that consistentlyproduces results and spits off
cash, you got to think about ops. And Ireally liked the way you laid that out.
And I think it's one of thosescenarios where we all do want more.
(07:05):
We all do want to grow,
but what will get you thereis not what got you here.
What got you here won't get youthere. The title of that famous book,
and I think that's true both in termsof your systems or lack thereof,
your processes, but alsothat operator, right? Yes,
the COO or the operator that gotyou to 5 million or to 10 million
(07:26):
is probably not the same operator thatwill get you to a hundred million. And
maybe because people can growand people can change and evolve,
but generally speaking,
you're going to have to eitherupgrade that person and upskill them
or find someone who can growyou to 20 million, 50 million,
a hundred million and thattype of thing. So really great.
(07:49):
So I love the way you identify that.So as you kind of lay that out,
where do you see people in that,
let's call it 10 to 50 million range?
I know it's going to be differentdepending on the business category,
brands that can still be a pretty leanteam agencies, that's a pretty big team.
What are some of the hurdlesthat they have to overcome?
(08:11):
What are some of the systems they needto put in place or people they need to
put into place to really becomethat operational machine?
So this really comes down toa couple of core categories,
and the big one that I see in that 10 to50 million range is that it comes down
to leadership and not justcan you as a CEO founder
become a bigger,
better version of yourself and the leaderthat your company needs next from you?
(08:35):
Can you step fully out of our executivecoach calls the three levels of
entrepreneurship. The first level isproducer where you're just showing up,
you're doing everything. Okay, weprobably got out of that a while ago.
We stepped out of that level.The next level is leader. Great.
So now can we be a leader thatis able to delegate tasks,
action, align a team, drive them towardsa vision, that's the leadership level.
(08:59):
And then the third level is visionary.
Can we actually hand off day-to-dayleadership of our team to
managers,
to department heads to people who are notonly able to manage tasks but actually
make decisions on our behalf? Andwhen we're able to create that,
we get to step into the thirdlevel, which is visionary,
(09:19):
where our role,
our highest value work is tomake decisions and set strategy
on behalf of our company and tohave the vision, to hold the vision,
to keep the team alignedaround the vision,
but to then to hand off the actualizationand the execution of that vision to a
team that we've put inplace that we trust.
So hard to do, man, sohard. As someone who I do,
(09:43):
I am a visionary, I'm not the integrator.And so I do setting the vision,
casting the vision,
but giving up controlthe vision or delegating
decision-making can be quite difficult.
Before we get there though,
I do want to maybe step back fora second and talk about how do you
clarify,
(10:04):
and I've got some thoughts here on whatwe've done as an agency and some work
we've done even recently internally.
But you talk about the strategicvision and the strategic vision is not
more do it better, do it more. That'snot it. That's not clear at all.
How do you coach people or whatadvice do you give them to say, okay,
it may be clear in your head,
but the way you're saying itis not clear to your team.
(10:26):
How do you coach people inmaking that vision clear?
Yeah, a hundred percent. So the firstthing is that we have to clarify. Two,
we have to answer two questions and how,
what does success look like? What isthe finish line for this business?
What are the north star goals and metricsthat we are going to drive towards?
So what looks likerevenue, looks like profit,
(10:48):
looks like a target valuationthat you want to exit at.
It's the finish line of therace that you are running.
If you don't have a finish line, howthe heck are you going to run the race?
And so what we often see challengesaround the, what is that?
I talked to a dude at a mastermindwho exited for 50 million million.
So now I want to exit for 50 million.The challenge is that's the vision,
(11:09):
50 million, that's thevision. I did it right?
But the problem is is that50 million means nothing.
That is a totally arbitrary number.It's not attached to any deeper meaning.
It's not attached to any qualityof life you're trying to create.
It is throwing a dart at a dartboard,picking a number and saying.
That's not good or the value,
value you're going to be generating andoffering to the marketplace to be worth
(11:30):
50 million. It says nothing.
A hundred percent.
So we pick these arbitrary finishlines and then what happens?
It gets hard to run the race.
And so we end up just switching thefinish line and picking a different race,
and we end up just pivoting and pivotingand pivoting and creating all these
different sets of goals because we don'tactually have fundamental and intrinsic
conviction or attachment to those goals,
(11:52):
or even we end up hitting thosegoals and then we feel nothing
because it didn't meananything to begin with.
And so that's the existential crisisthat we have to coach our clients through
where they're like, wow, I reallywanted to get to seven figures.
I really wanted to get to eight figuresand now I'm here and I'm more trapped by
(12:12):
my business than ever. I'm fallingout of love with my business.
I've never felt less free.
I'm not doing any of the things that Iwanted to do or that I thought I could do
by the time I reached this,
why the hell am I doing this and do Ineed you to just burn this thing down and
walk away? So strategicvision again is like,
let's define the what and let's definethe what against what actually matters to
you as a founder, as anindividual, as a human,
(12:36):
and not just as an entrepreneur.
And then let's make sure that the targetyou're setting for your business is
actually going to get you what you want.
So that's the first partof strategic vision.
So good.
I'll share a couple of insights fromsome work we've done recently here at OMG
because I really believe that settingthe mission and vision and things like
that, it really shows the team,
(12:56):
this is who we are and howwe're going to show up.
And this is very clearlywhere we're going.
And so I'm a big fan of statements andsimple statements that carry meaning
and that can help makedecisions and help guide you.
And so a couple that we'veleaned into as an agency,
and then I want to talk aboutthe thing called the V two Mom.
I'm curious if you've heard ofthat, talk about that in a second.
(13:17):
But the first thing that we've leanedinto here over the last couple of years is
we want to be the most trusted,
most loved digital marketing agencythat feels like an in-house team. Now,
that may seem a little bit like astrange statement, most trusted,
most love that feels kind of mushy,
but here's what I believethat is tied to that trust
piece that ties back tocompetence in the agency world.
(13:41):
People want agencies they can trust andthat they trust your expertise and they
feel like, Hey, if I'm getting yourfeedback on something, I can count on it,
I can believe it, I can take itto the bank, that type of thing.
The most loved piece is when I figuredI would get a lot of pushback on.
But actually as I've showed this to PEfirms that I know and others are like,
dude, I actually kind of like itbecause, and we've heard this,
we've heard this even from clientsthat are leaving OMG, they're like,
(14:03):
we love you guys. We love your team,but we're leaving for this, that,
or the other. Our teamis we sold or whatever,
but then also feels like an in-house team.
And so it feels like an extension of theteam. We've had people say to us, Hey,
your team feels like my team.
And so we crafted that in sucha way that that should guide.
(14:24):
How are we going to respond to emails?How are we going to show up to meetings?
How are we going to respond inSlack because of those things?
And so that's one of the statements.
Curious how that strikes youOr anything that
sparks there.
I love that so much.
It is a reminiscent of an exercise thatwe walk our clients through EOS calls it
(14:45):
the three uniques. Wecall it the golden triad.
And it is the three corecharacteristics that you from
your competitors, why wouldsomebody choose to work with you?
And the example I always give is thinkabout McDonald's versus a five star
Michelin restaurant, right? Here's thevision statement. I so often hear Brett,
and especially in the agency space,oh my gosh, we want to be the best.
(15:08):
We want to be the bestagency for e-com brands,
but what is the best?
That.
Means nothing to me.McDonald's is the best,
but STO is a Michelin star restaurant.McDonald's is the best at
being fast, cheap and easy.Those are their three uniques.
A Michelin star restaurant is the bestat being a luxury white glove experience,
(15:32):
farm to table, whatever.
So what are the three uniquesthat guide your business,
that differentiate you from others?What I heard you say was loved, trusted,
feels like an extension ofyour in-house team. Cool.
What's amazing about that is that nowwe get to go through our entire client
happiness journey and anythingthat does not directly drive
(15:54):
love, trust, or seamlessintegration, we don't do it.
We don't do it.
We don't have to do it because it'snot why clients choose to work with us.
And we get to become the best at thosethree things because we're not trying to
be the best at everythingelse. Everything.
And that's where most agencies and brandsget stuck is that we're too diluted in
(16:18):
who we serve in how weserve them uniquely well.
We try and be everything for everyoneand then we end up being nothing for no
one.
Yeah, it's one of those things whereyou can do anything. You can be anybody.
Your company can be anything, but itcan't be. Everything can be everything.
You've got to choose. You gotto select. So I'm curious.
We actually went through this process.
(16:38):
Actually our current COO is the one thatturned me onto this called the V two
mom vision, values, methods,
obstacles and measures.
So I think this was actually designedby Salesforce and marketing off there.
It's really cool though.So set your vision.
So this is where we're going clearlywhat we just talked about, your values,
(16:59):
so this is what we believe about ourselvesand what we will or won't do to get
us there.
Then your methods are these are thethings we're going to do in all these
departments, high level obstacles,
these things are standing in our way andthen measures. These are clear targets
that we're setting for ourselvesin all these key areas.
So it's been really great as we craftedthat, shared that with the team,
I think it's, I've already heard itsparked some interesting discussions,
(17:21):
especially around the measures.
We've got this 50% profitabilitytarget within each department and it's
triggering everybody to look at like, Hey,
how is that going to impact theprofitability of the department, right?
Because I know we got this 50% target,
so I don't know that the actualstructure of the strategy really matters.
It's way more about do youhave it? Does it make sense?
(17:44):
And is it guiding the team?
Yes, a hundred percent. And that's sucha key. That final piece is the point,
right? Because what you just said, Brett,
you've got this incrediblevivid vision in your mind.
You as the founder know exactly what thatfinishing line is exactly how you want
to get there.
But if you haven't shared it with yourteam in a way that they not only see it
as clearly as you see it,
(18:05):
but also understand how they canuniquely contribute towards it.
What.
You end up doing is disempowering yourteam to be proactive. Because now again,
no all-star athlete can run a race ifyou don't tell them where the finish line
is. And so we got all these all-starathletes on our team. We're saying,
why the heck are you alwaysthree steps behind me?
(18:25):
Why are you always waiting for me to makethe next decision or hand out the next
task or come up with the next idea?
We get so frustrated and what we realizeis actually we haven't told them where
they're going. So how the heckcould they help us get there?
How could they walk alongside us asopposed to behind us if they have no idea
what to be proactive andwhat to drive towards? So no,
(18:46):
the framework really doesn't matter.EOS has a great one, V two, mom love it.
We have our own right? We callit the navigational chart.
It's less about whether it's the rightframework and more around are you being
consistent with it,
and then are you repeating it andcoming back to it constantly with your
team?
It takes the average person seven to12 times of hearing something before it
(19:08):
actually sinks into their brain. So wesay it once and then we're like, cool,
did that. Everyone's got the vision.Everyone knows where we're going.
Our job becomes to be thechief repeating officer.
We.
Say this again and again.
We articulate the vision and the valuesand the goals and the metrics and all of
these things again andagain and again. And to us,
(19:29):
we feel like crazy people because we'verepeated ourselves a hundred times and
how can they not get it?And when you feel that way,
I can promise you your team isonly just starting to get it.
Keep going.
So good, so good. And I've heardthat forever in the marketing world,
just about the time you're sick ofhearing an ad or hearing a message.
Only then is the market evenbeginning to pay attention, right?
(19:52):
Totally.
And it's sort of similar withinternal communication as well.
You got to repeat it and repeat it andrepeat it before people even start to get
it. And soReally great. Well,
let's talk people for a minutebecause I'm a firm believer.
This is true in the agency space, alsotrue in the brand space. Any business,
you're only as good as thepeople that you have on board.
And I was listening to a podcastfounders podcast that I love,
(20:14):
and they were talking about Steve Jobsand maybe Elon Moss, maybe somebody else.
They were talking about how they don'tworry about overpaying for great talent
because what they've found in certainindustries may be a little bit different
depending on your industry. But SteveJobs said, Hey, the best talent,
they may be two or more times,two or three times more expensive,
but their work isn't two or threetimes better. It's 10 times better,
(20:38):
a hundred times better, the output.And so I don't worry about that.
I am getting the absolute best of my teamnow. Everybody's on their own journey.
And so finding the right person for youisn't going to be what Steve Jobs was
necessarily looking for,
but how do you coachpeople on finding the right
people when to identifythat they need to hire,
(20:59):
and then also would love to hearany hiring tips that you have.
I think this is something that scalingbusinesses are often pretty bad at.
Yeah, a hundred percent. Oh my gosh.
So this pillar of team isprobably where we do the
most amount of work withour clients because again,
it actually becomes the deal breakersystems, not the deal breaker strategy,
not the deal breaker.
(21:19):
Do you have the right people in the rightroles executing the right things and
running in the rightdirection? Without that,
your business will never beable to scale you without that.
You will be that point of escalation.
You'll become the system whereevery decision has to be yours,
every idea has to be yours,
every sign off and every right taskneeds your eyes on it and every
(21:43):
quality assurance.
If you are feeling stuck running theday-to-day of your business right now,
I can almost guarantee you a root causebottleneck is team. Now to be clear,
that doesn't mean thesolution is we have to go out,
fire everyone and then just doubleall of our salaries and that will.
Fix the problem. Exactly.
What we most often see is that clientswill have incredible team members
(22:07):
on the bus,
but what we haven't done iscreated a player environment.
We have a players,But we haven't invited them to bring all
that they are capable of to the table.
We haven't given them a clear strategicvision that they can be proactive and
innovative and creative and run towards.
We haven't empowered them so that theyfeel confident in solving their own
(22:29):
problems. They have the criticalthinking skills to do it,
and they know what they're authorizedto make decisions around versus not.
We haven't given them the right systemsand technology so that they can be
efficient and effective in their role.
We're having them run around chasing downinformation, picking up dropped balls,
putting out fires that didn'tneed to exist to begin with.
And so we're wasting all of their timeplaying defense and doing all this low
(22:52):
value work instead of doingthe really high value,
high leverage things thatyou actually paid them for.
So my number one pro tip around teamis that before you go out and just get
better people,
make sure that you have created anenvironment where your current people are
able to bring their best to the table.
And what that fundamentally comes downto is us as leaders, us as the founder,
(23:14):
and then the leaders that we put in placeto again, manage that frontline team.
Do our leaders know how to build andmanage a players and manage a high
performance team environment?
Sometimes you don't have a players onyour team, you're not ready for them.
You've not done the work to make yourcompany attractive for a players or
(23:34):
where a players can shine.
And I actually was thinking aboutfootball while you were laying that out.
Honestly, I'm a chiefs football fan,longtime chiefs fan from Kansas City,
and they've had severalsituations over recent years where
they'll have a wide receiver that'llleave and go somewhere else and they don't
do very good and they come back and thenthey're on the chiefs. They're amazing.
(23:55):
And it's because you got Patrick Mahomesas your quarterback and you got Andy
Reed who's helping call plays. Yougot a system that's a winning system,
and so maybe a receiver thatreally sucks for another team.
You put 'em in the chief's environmentand they're going to shine because of all
the things around them. And so I thinkthat's one of the things we got to keep
in mind. It's not the key isnot just paying more for talent.
(24:16):
That just means you're guaranteed tohave more money going out the door.
It could work. It's notjust about hiring a talent,
it's about having the system wherethey're going to shine and the environment
where they're going to shine.So what are some of the things,
some of the tips you layout there for business
owners, founders to say,
(24:36):
am I ready for A players and if not,what do I need to do to get ready?
Yeah, great question. SoI would offer a reframe,
which is you probablyalready have a players.
The question is what are you lackingthat's inviting them or not to bring it to
the table? The.
Top may be you, not the team in place.
(24:57):
Correct.
Correct.
Yes. So right,
there are four core HR processes thatI think every team needs to have to
be able to consistently attractand retain a player talent.
You need your hiring process,your onboarding process, which is absolutely key.
Do not skip onboarding. You needyour high performance management.
So that's ongoing management and growthcoaching for the people on your team.
(25:20):
And then you need firing.
How do we systematically either managepeople up if there's underperformance
or manage them out where we determinethey're not the right fit and we get them
off the bus? These thingsneed to happen systematically.
What I often see happen isthey're happening organically.
We're hiring by dropping a job descriptionon Facebook and then hiring the first
person that comes along because weneeded this person three months ago and I
(25:42):
really just need this person.And you seem smart and competent,
not a proven system,
not going to get you the A player.Most of the time onboarding,
we skip entirely.
We just throw 'em in the deep endand we say they're an A player,
they should learn how to swim.
Truly a strong onboarding processwill three x your average employee
retention and increase your averageemployee productivity by 72%.
(26:05):
And that has nothing to do with thecaliber of people that you're hiring and
onboarding.
That just comes down to whether youare onboarding them effectively or not.
Hiring, onboarding, growth,coaching, right? Managing.
This is the area where we get toturn our B players into A players.
This is where we're creatingan environment that invites them to be their best
(26:26):
or not. Are we tapping intotheir intrinsic motivators?
Are we creating an environment of clearlydefined accountability and radical
ownership? Are we paying our peoplefairly with scalable compensation plans?
Have we defined clear and exact roles sopeople know what is my job and what is
not my job? There's awhole checklist, Brett,
I could even send it toyour group. I've got.
(26:47):
That'd be amazing.
Eight core pillars of what goes into ahigh performance, a playing environment.
And I'm happy to share that with everyonebecause just by implementing those
eight things within your existingbusiness, your existing team,
you don't even have to pay them anymore than you're currently paying them.
They.
Promise you you will get a productivityincrease of a minimum of two x because
(27:09):
that's just how big of a deal it is whenyou start turning on a high performance
environment.
Yeah, it's so good. And I want to goback to something I said a minute ago,
just to clarify.
The reason I shared the Steve Jobs ofI don't care if I pay two or three x
times for an employee, they're going to be10 or a hundred times more valuable.
That wasn't about salary,
(27:30):
that was more about the rightperson can unlock things.
But what I think is alsoreally interesting about this environment right now is
that there's a lot of A-players out there.
There's a lot of great talent out there,
and you can get them for a reasonablerate, like a good competitive salary.
It's not the insanity thatwas kind of mid pandemic
(27:53):
when everything was just off the rails.
It's kind of more of a normaljob market to a certain degree.
And so there is good talentout there that you can find.
So would love to have that checklist.We'll put in the show notes,
we'll share that with everybody, butI also like the way you laid that out.
So hiring, onboarding, ongoingcoaching, and then firing.
It's got to be systematic.That's to follow up process.
(28:17):
But I think what most people willdo are like, Hey, you're good.
So come on board and figure stuff out.Watch this person. Watch that person.
You'll get it.
Yes.
Imagine if going back again,going back to a football example,
imagine if that happened there. Thatdoesn't happen. You bring on a player,
you get 'em indoctrinated and what you do,
they immediately go to their positioncoach, they go to all these practices,
they're watching film, they'reconstantly being evaluated, everything,
(28:39):
everything is thought of.
And obviously we're not quitelike a professional sports team,
but we need to be more like one, right?If we want a performance-based culture,
we could probably learn alot from that structure. So.
Yeah, I love that. I love that.
I want to talk a little bit about hiringjust because I think that's something
that.
It's a big one.
Is intimidating to people.We screw it up so often.
(29:01):
I can think about a couple of really badmistakes that I've made as a business
owner when it comes to hiring, butwhat are some of the, yeah, yeah,
I mean we all do, but whatare some of the hiring tips,
insights, processes you recommend?
Should I go with arecruiter or no recruiter?
How am I going to find the right talent?
Yeah. Okay. So a couple of bestpractices when it comes to hiring,
(29:24):
especially because for somepositions or many positions, Brett,
your clients are hiring remoteteam members, which is amazing.
It means we get to tap into internationaljob markets and all of these things.
And also overwhelming becausewhen we launch our average ops COO
hiring funnel, we can get from500 to a thousand applications.
So how do we whittle that down?
(29:47):
I always say that a stronghiring funnel is like a magnet.
What does a magnet do? A magnet attracts,
it attracts your ideal candidateavatar, right? You're a marketer.
If we wanted to build a marketingfunnel, what will we start with?
We would start with our idealclient avatar. Who is this person?
What do they think about at night?What drives them? What motivates them?
(30:07):
What do they want? Let's buildthat for our ideal candidate.
I call the tool that we usefor this, the job scorecard.
We have to define success in the role,
and then we build a hiring funnel thatis messaged towards that person and
is designed to be a magnetthat will attract them through our process so that by
(30:27):
the time they get to theend of our hiring process,
we have COOs who have 20years experience being like,
this was the most incrediblehiring process I've ever gone.
Through. Wow.
I'm so excited to work with your client.
When do I get to have my next interview?
Do you guys have any otherjob opportunities available?
You want them to be so excitedbecause you have built this just
for them? What else does amagnet do? A magnet repels.
(30:52):
So this funnel should be sospecific and so fine tuned
that someone who is not your idealcandidate will self-select out.
They literally will just stop. They'llstop going through the process.
So while we may get 500 COO applicationson our average job description,
by the time our process is done and we'reactually looking like we're looking at
(31:14):
applications, we're looking at resumes,
we're looking at the top 20 to 30 forthat role because we have such a robust
process that it will literally take out95% of the candidates that apply because
they're not the right fit.
And it would literally be a waste of meand my team's time to have any sort of
conversation with them or to spenda minute looking at their resume.
(31:34):
So if you're going for a remote jobmarket where you're getting overwhelmed by
just sheer volume, rely on the process,
let the process kick out 95% of peopleso that you're only focused on the
5%, that could really be thatideal candidate you're looking for.
That's so good. That'sso good. I love that.
The job scorecard and really thinkingabout how am I going to position this
(31:58):
so they get the job done so that it meetsits objectives so that I'm attracting
the right person, repelling thewrong person, really good. And again,
I think a lot of us that listen tous are marketers. If you own a brand,
you're probably good at marketing,
but you don't really put your marketinghat on when you're crafting that job
scorecard or looking at attractingtalent, but you kind of should be, right?
(32:20):
There's quite a few parallels there.It's the same thing, isn't it? It's the.
Same. Humans be humans, andit's a marketing funnel.
Your hiring funnel is a marketingfunnel for your ideal candidate.
Yeah, it's so good. So good.
Any other specific tips youcan give on the hiring process?
What should that look like? Shouldyou outsource it? Should you do it?
How many interviews should you have?
(32:41):
And I know there's all kinds ofconditional statements there,
but any other tips on the hiringprocess that you'd recommend?
So we have a eight step hiring process.
I can walk through it veryquickly if you would like,
but not to get too deepinto the weeds. Essentially,
our proven hiring process is we launchedthe job description on the front end.
The job description will take themdirectly to a written application.
(33:03):
So the application is going to take themoff of whatever job forum they're on,
indeed or LinkedIn. We willdrop JD into these huge, again,
these huge ponds ofcandidates, hundreds of people.
Thousands of people willsee that job description,
but only hundreds of them will clickon the link and apply through our link.
So that's a huge filtration systemthat kicks a lot of people out.
(33:24):
Then we take 'em to thewritten application. The written application is quick.
It's easy for them to fill out,
but the written application takes'em directly to a skill assessment.
The skill assessment is where we generallysee 80% of candidates plus stop the
process.
They literally just won't submit itbecause the skill assessment is hard.
Back to marketing here, Brett. Onething we know about marketing funnels,
(33:44):
the greater the friction in thefunnel, the higher the quality of lead,
right? Yep. Same thing withhiring. So we make it hard.
It shouldn't be.
Hard to, what does thatlook like? I know sometimes,
so it was one thing we do as anagency is we give them a fake project.
Here's an made up client, andhere's a bunch of scenarios.
(34:04):
What are you going to do inthose scenarios, right? Yes.
How are you going to optimize this?And then we grade those answers.
Is that what you're recommending here?
Pretty much, yep. It's two to three. Icall 'em crunchy questions that again,
your A player ideal candidate willhave no problem answering why?
Because they've done this atthree other companies already.
This is as natural to them as breathing,and in fact, they fucking love it.
(34:27):
Such a nerd.
They.
Get to the end of the skill assessmentand they're like, oh my God,
that was so fun. I cannot waitfor this job. Most people,
80% of people will say, this ishard. This is going to take too long.
I don't know how to do this. I don'twant to do this. And they will, again,
self-select apps.
Perfect.
So that's the skill assessment.
See you.
Yep. It's a big one. Fromthere'll then start interviews.
(34:48):
So we'll do a culture interview, askill interview, reference interviews,
and then we'll finallyclose them on the job.
That's amazing. That's amazing.Really, really helpful.
So we've kind of set ourvision, our strategic vision,
and kind of mapped that out. Andwe're now talking about hiring.
And let's talk a little bit about whatthat environment looks like that allows a
(35:09):
player to shine. I know you'vetouched on a handful of things,
but if we want aperformance-based culture,
what are some things we need tohave in place for that to be true?
So I'm assuming you got the jobscorecard for when you hire somebody,
probably a scorecard ongoing where youcan show someone how are you doing and
how can you do better type of thing.
(35:30):
And again, it comes back to onboarding.
So we take that same exact job scorecard,
and then on the very first day ofthat new person starting their job,
I still personally do aculture onboarding call, right?
How important this call is in thisculture onboarding call, we cover vision,
mission, right? Your V two mom,
this is when you would share thatthis is your vision, your mission,
your core values. This is the teamthey're going to be working with.
(35:53):
This is the lay of the land,
and this is your performanceand cultural expectations.
So I'll say things like show up ontime to meetings and be on camera.
Do I have to say that most of clientswould be like, no, they're a players.
I shouldn't have to saythat. Set expectations.
This is client. Think of your teamonboarding. Again, like client onboarding.
(36:16):
We know how important it is.
For.
Successful client onboarding, tohave an incredible experience,
to set realistic expectationsand to understand,
especially in a serviceindustry like agencies, Brett,
what do they need to bring to thetable in order to be successful in this
partnership? That is exactly whatyou're doing on day one. Here's us,
(36:37):
here's what success looks likein your role, job scorecard.
And then the third and critical componentto this conversation is a transfer of
ownership.
The single greatest characteristicof high performance teams is radical
ownership. So here's your jobscorecard. This is yours. Now.
These.
Are not my targets.These are your targets.
(36:58):
These are not my challenges tosolve my daily tasks to fix for you.
These are your tasks, yourchallenges, your growth opportunity,
your level up,
and in fact that the next two weeks oftraining that we're about to launch into
for you, that's yours as well.
You are responsible for becoming theversion of you for gaining the knowledge
that you need to hit these targets andachieve success as measured by this
(37:23):
job scorecard. Welcome to the.
So good, so good. And some peoplewould hate to hear that message,
but the right people, it willlight them up. They will love that.
So even kind of you hintabout some of those things,
I would assume in the hiring processas well to kind of weed out the wrong
people.
Yeah. Again, the hiring processis built for that ideal candidate,
the person who should get lit up.
(37:44):
When we then deliver thatmessage in onboarding,
if by some reason somebody has snuckthrough the hiring process and pulled a
fast one on me,
the onboarding is alsointense from the culture call.
We launch 'em into what we call the14 day bootcamp, and I tell 'em,
the first 14 days on this rolloutare going to be intense. Why?
Because I want to stress test youbecause the person that I met in the
(38:06):
interviews is not the person I'm hiring.
That is a shiny blow upversion of the person that I
just hired.
The person I actually hired is a personwho's six months from now whose kid is
sick and they left the stoveon and the mailman is here,
and there's a client fire exploding.
And how do they show up to theteam meeting? That's the person I.
Hired.
(38:26):
I want to know who that person is,
and I don't want to have to waitsix months to figure it out.
Tell me more about that.That is great because, well,
we've made the mistake in thepast of making the first two weeks
month just so easy,
and part of it's like we want to bea great place to work and we want to
challenge people. We want to coachpeople. And sometimes we made it just way,
(38:47):
way too easy, almost boring.That has since changed.
But how do you stress test in those firsttwo weeks? What does that look like?
So I want to draw a difference betweenhard and disorganized. What does an A
player want? An A player doesn'tmind a high pressure environment.
A player doesn't mind drinking out ofa fire hose in terms of learning new
(39:09):
information. An A player doesn't mindthrowing themselves into something,
getting their hands dirtyand figuring it out.
What doesn't set peopleup for success though,
is again kicking them into the deep end.
So we're just throwing you into thingswith no structure, with no organization,
with no guidance around whatyou should be looking at,
what you should be focused onor what success looks like.
(39:30):
So our responsibility as leadershipis to develop that structure.
So that's what we callthe 14 day bootcamp,
and it's that blow by blowof for the first 14 days,
you're going to train on thesethings with these people.
You're going to watch thesemeetings, shadow these client calls,
read these books. We're going to giveyou all of the information that you need.
We're going to front load it.And at the end of two weeks,
(39:52):
the goal is that you are functional,not that you're exceptional,
that you're functional in the role,
and I'm going to download any and allinformation into your brain that you need
in order to becomefunctional. It will be hard,
but we've got your back.
Also included in that 14 day bootcampis daily check-ins with their manager,
end of week check-ins with me, a 14day check-in around, where are you at?
(40:15):
Where are you struggling, how are youfeeling after your first two weeks?
So there's structure to it, butthat doesn't make it not hard.
It just makes it hard with support.
Yeah. Yeah, man, it's so good.
So we are running out of time a bit,
but I do want to talkabout the final two things.
How are we coaching someone andhelping them really grow and reach peak
(40:38):
performance? And then whendo we fire people as well?
So let's talk about both of those.
What tips or insights can you share onthe coaching and helping someone level
up?
So the first thing is if you want ahigh performance team, coach them.
Every high performer has a coach.Michael Phelps has a coach,
and I hear clients say a lot,if I'm hiring eight players,
(40:58):
why should I have tomanage them? Management is.
Coaching the best. Want a coach? Yeah.
Correct, correct. Right.
And so I have not just coaching as inan end of quarter performance review.
We do active growth coaching on aweekly or biweekly basis with our team
members. So every week for new teammembers, every other week for veterans,
they are sitting down with their directmanager. And what I am working on,
(41:21):
again, included, I'll just send Brett,
I have SOP and tools and templatesfor literally all of this.
I'm just going to give it toyour people. Does that work?
Amazing. Amazing.
Thank you so much. Yeah.
So that includes in there a script and aone-on-one template for how I run these
meetings.
But essentially I am taking the lastone to two weeks of their performance in
the role, and we're using itas data. Where did you do well?
(41:42):
Where could you have done better?
What are you going to dodifferently moving forward?
What are you strugglingwith? What's blocking you?
I have a lot of clients who have alot of fear around giving constructive
feedback,But you're a coach.
Constructive feedbackis literally your job.
What you're afraid ofis demotivating someone.
What you're afraid ofis making them feel bad.
(42:04):
But that must to do with theculture, not the feedback.
If the culture says thatyou getting feedback means you've done something wrong,
then yeah, I'm going to be afraid togive feedback or receive feedback.
If instead,
feedback is an act of serviceand coaching to help every single
person on this team level up all the time.
(42:25):
I have team members cominginto those meetings being like,
what could I do better? Thisis what I struggled with.
How would you tackle this? I feellike I really botched this meeting.
They're looking for it.They're leaning into.
It.
Because they recognize it for what it isBetter,
which is an active level of service,and they want to get better. So again,
this is where we get into the lesstangible side of team development,
(42:45):
which is like,
what's the culture that you've builtaround growth and feedback and failure?
How does your team respond to failure?How do you respond to failure?
If we can control the cultural context,
then every single day my team is showingup, looking for an opportunity to grow.
My job is to just hold up the mirrorand say, Hey, here's your next gap.
(43:06):
Here's your nextopportunity. Grow this way.
Yeah. Yeah. It's so good. Well,
let's talk a little bitabout the F word firing.
So when is it time to fireand move on from somebody?
What insights can you share with us there?
Yeah, so if we've done all therest of this stuff correctly,
(43:29):
then firing becomes actually a prettyeasy process. We've got a job scorecard.
We gave it to them on day one.
We transferred ownershipover those targets to them.
We aligned their goals with company goals.We've coached them every single week,
and we've established a regular rhythmwhere if there's a gap in performance,
we're immediately calling it out, offeringfeedback and trying to correct it.
(43:50):
What then happens if that personis still not able to perform?
We have an immediate conversation,
and it's a very simple conversation thatsays, Hey, this is the job scorecard.
We covered this on day one.This is your job score card.
We covered that on day one, and you'reperforming down here. Help me understand,
what do you need for you? Again,
(44:12):
radical ownership stays withthem for you to close this gap,
and what do you need for meto be successful in that? So it's a growth coaching
conversation to start where I call thatthe pep, the personal elevation plan.
And that is, Hey, as soon as I seea gap, I'm going to call it out,
and we're going to co-create a gameplan for you to close that gap and take
(44:34):
radical ownership for doing so.
Then if I don't see that they've closedthat gap, then we'll escalate to a pip.
That's the last warning conversationof like, Hey, to be clear,
you cannot have this job if you'renot meeting the expectations outlined
in the job scorecard. So again,
help me understand why haven't I seenthe change and what needs to change in
(44:54):
order for you to be successful, becausewe both want you to be successful here.
So the PIP, that's the personalimprovement plan, right? Correct.
This is where you got to improvehere else. This is going to fit.
And my guess is, John,
if you are a company and you're leadingsomeone through this process after the
pip, some people are going to make it alot. People are going to be like, yeah,
this price isn't right. Correct.
The firing is not going to be asurprise to anybody at that point.
(45:17):
You go through that process,
it's going to be a pretty natural nextstep for you and for the person you're
firing.
It's not a surprise.
And what you'll actually see ispeople will just quit that phrase,
manage up or manage out. Credit toLayla Hermo for teaching me that one.
When you've done a great jobof building a high performance,
high pressure environment, people whodon't like that, who don't want that,
(45:40):
who don't want to be held accountableto constant growth and constant targets
will leave. They'll literally just leave.
Which is akay even better,right? Than having to f.
Fire, which is bestcase scenario. Exactly.
Exactly. This is so good,and one thing I'll share too,
and we've had our upsand downs as an agency
(46:01):
when it comes to ops and hiringand firing and things like that.
But what I've also found too,
because I think there's this fear thatbusiness owners have too, about firing.
I can't think of a single timethat we fired someone at OMG where
I've had outrage from the team.Almost always it's like, yeah,
I saw that coming, right?Or yeah, we got that.
We did have to go through a couple ofrounds of layoffs as an agency about 18
(46:25):
months ago. That sucked,and that sucked bad.
A lot of agencies and a lot ofe-comm brands had to do that.
So I did get pushback there. People werelike, how could you let this person go?
I'm like, I know. I know. Itsucked. But the firing piece,
I've never had anybody. How could you, Imean, maybe the person's getting fired,
but everybody else was like, yep, yep.Saw that Maybe you're a little bit late.
(46:45):
Do you want me to offer you areframe so that even that person.
Please, please.
Is on board with it? Andguys, this is, again,
this is coming from me messing thisup so many times because I really
care about my team. I do. Andso I don't want to fire them.
I don't want to hurt them. Oh my God.Maybe they're going to get better.
I'll give them just anothermonth. Just another month,
and then we all knowwhere that ends. Anyway.
Right?
(47:06):
Here's the reframe. I will offer you,
your job as a business owner is to createa vehicle for growth. Growth for you,
growth for your clients,growth for your team.
People deserve to besuccessful in their roles.
They deserve to be able togrow with your business.
And if they are in a rolewhere they cannot be successful or where their pathway
(47:27):
for growth had diverted from yours,
then it is an absolute act oflove and service to let them go
and find the other opportunity where theywill be successful that does get them
to their goals. They deserve that.
It is in fact selfish tolet your own emotional
discomfort at the conversation,
(47:51):
keep them in a place wherethey cannot be successful.
So when I show up to afiring conversation, that's the lens that I bring.
And guess what?
I still get coffee every month with halfthe people I've fired because they're
so grateful and I'm so grateful,and we love each other so much,
and they've found another jobopportunity or started a business,
and they've become these incrediblenext level versions of themselves.
(48:13):
And all we did when we firedthem was determine that, Hey,
the next version of you can'tbe unlocked here. That's okay.
That's so okay. But it'stime for us to part ways.
And understanding that peopledesperately want to be successful.
They do.
They know that they're notbeing successful with your company if they're in this
position, especially if you've got.
A job scorecard.
(48:34):
Especially if you've going throughthis, measur them against that process,
then they really know and they reallyknow. Right? And one story that I heard,
this was in the book, radical Candor,
which is one of my favorites becauseI'm not naturally a candid person.
So that book really helped me.
But I love the story betweenSteve Jobs and Johnny.
Ive and Steve would ask Johnny like, Hey,
did you give thisfeedback to your teammate?
(48:54):
Did you tell them this isn't goodenough? And Johnny would be like, well,
I don't want to hurt their feelingsor whatever. And Steve would say, no,
Johnny, you don't want to be nice.
You're just vain and you wantpeople to like you, right?
It's like you've got to givepeople the feedback. And of course,
we don't have to put on our SteveJobs and show up just the way he
did, not our personalities. But it'sone of those things that say like, yeah,
(49:17):
the frame you gave, it's actuallynot kindness. If you are,
and maybe it's actually selfish if you'reholding onto somebody when you need to
let them go so they can go not bemiserable somewhere and be successful
somewhere.
Or you're holding ontothat piece of feedback that you're unwilling to tell them
when it's actually just deprivingthem of the opportunity.
To.
(49:37):
Know what the gap is so theycan do something about it.
Yeah. Yeah. So good. We could keep going.You've got me fired up for operations.
I'm not even operations guy. This isamazing, John, this, I can't believe it.
So good. So definitely share withus the SOPs. I'll get that out.
We'll put that in the show notes.Anybody can get that. But also,
I'm confident there are peoplelistening that are just like,
(49:58):
I don't need the SOPs. I just wantto work with Jonna and her team.
So how can people connect withspyglass ops? What does that look like?
Who are you right for? Talkto us about working with you.
Yeah, beautiful. So guys,
the best way to connect withme is actually on Instagram,
and if you will add itinto the show notes.
But I'm just going to give youguys my entire resource vault.
(50:19):
So DM me the code word vault, clickon the link in the show notes,
DM me on Instagram. It's thebest way to get in touch.
What Instagram handle.
That is at the Jonna Lee.
So J-H-A-N-A-L-I, Jonna Lee.
Awesome. And so DM you the word vault.
Correct.
You'll get the whole thing there.The whole all the goods, man. Okay.
(50:42):
That's amazing. Jonna,this has been fantastic.
I can't wait to review this, sharethis with my team. Really, really good.
I know this is going tocreate transformational change for people that listen
and apply and especially those that getyour details and or work with you guys,
but you guys are really, you're gearedto work with brands, work with agencies,
(51:03):
work with just service-based companies.You can work with just about anybody,
correct?
Yeah. We work with online basedstartups, right? So eCom brands,
given that you're running yourbusiness off technical systems,
remote team building, that's thestuff we really specialize in.
Awesome. Jonna Lee,
ladies and gentlemen at the Jonna Leeon Instagram, connect with her there,
(51:23):
DM her at the word vault andyou'll get all the goods.
Also put stuff in the show notesas well. So with that, Jonna,
thank you so much. This was amazing.Thanks for bringing the energy.
Thanks for bringing the insights.
Thank you, Brett, it.
Was fantastic.
Appreciate it.
Awesome. And thank you for tuning inas always. We'd love to hear from you.
What would you like to hear more ofon the show? If you've not done so,
(51:45):
please leave us a review on iTunes andif you know somebody who's struggling
with ops share, share with themthis episode and with that,
until next time, thank you for listening.
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