February 3, 2023 • 35 mins
Alyson Caffrey, founder of Operations Agency knows what clear operations framework does for a service based business. She has served as a fractional COO to many high growth businesses. Through her expertise, businesses enjoy streamlined operations that result in higher performing teams, more clients, and improved profitability. As a business owner and mom of two young boys, she is passionate about helping business owner parents create a sustainable system that allows for taking true parental leave.
We discuss a slew of engaging topics with Alyson, tapping into her expertise surrounding hiring strategy, key items to address as you scale your business, and how a company's accounting can tell an interesting story.
Thank you for listening! Subscribe to our YouTube page to be notified with new content. In the meantime, feel free to explore more accounting and business resources. If you think your entrepreneurial story is a perfect fit for an Accountfully Chat, reach out to the marketing team to talk more.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Brad Ebenhoeh (00:09):
Welcome to the Accountfully Chat with Alyson
Caffrey. of Operations Agency.
How you doing today, Alyson?
Alyson Caffrey (00:14):
Good, Brad.
Thanks so much for having me.
Brad Ebenhoeh (00:17):
Yeah, I'm really looking forward to the chat here
to discuss a slew of topicsoperational finance, accounting,
managing your business,maternity leaves, paternity
leaves, everything, you know,from an aspect of your company
name Operations Agency, italways kinda like, makes me
laugh when I see you becauseit's like, You're a cop and
(00:38):
operations agent or whatever.
And you're like that gatekeeperfor that aspect. But anyways,
everything operational.
Accountfully loves to talkabout. So looking forward to the
chat.
Alyson Caffrey (00:47):
Yeah. Likewise, likewise, I always feel like the
name Operations Agency is someta, because we've always like
served agencies and serviceproviders. And we are
technically a full serviceagency by like model and design.
And so every time I tellsomebody that they're like,
"Huh, that's kind of brilliant,but also really confusing".
Brad Ebenhoeh (01:03):
Yes, yes, yes.
Yes. Yes. I love it, though. Butit's very easy to say operations
agency. So good stuff. So allright, well, let's just start
with what is operation agency?
What do you guys do?
Alyson Caffrey (01:14):
Yeah, we really help streamline back end
operations for service basedbusinesses, right, we take a
look at standard operatingprocedures for how they market
convert and fulfill on projectsfor their for their business.
And it's pretty simple. I thinkthat overall, right? When we
start a service based business,or at least with the clients
I've worked with, in the past,they you know, are really,
(01:35):
really good at something andthen someone starts to raise
their hand or a multitude ofpeople start to raise their hand
and say, hey, I want thatresult, and so they just kind of
fall into entrepreneurship, atleast often, with with smaller
service based businesses. Andyou know, they're not operators,
they're not, you know, businessowner, you know, serial business
owners, they don't have some ofthe formal training. And so I'm
(01:56):
not saying that we are the endall be all there on formal
training, but we definitely can,you know, kind of come in
partner alongside them andreally help drill down on okay,
what are the things inside ofthe business that make the most
impact? Right, what brings youthe most value to your clients?
What brings you the mostrevenue, you know, in terms of
like marketing initiatives andconversion mechanisms, and that
sort of stuff. So we help paintthe picture of what's working
(02:18):
well in the business, what wecan amplify and what we can take
away.
Brad Ebenhoeh (02:21):
Awesome. How long have you been around?
Alyson Caffrey (02:23):
Five years. Five beautiful years.
Brad Ebenhoeh (02:26):
Awesome. Why did you start the company, I was
like, hearing that backgroundstory pre-you know...
Alyson Caffrey (02:33):
It's very similar to the one I just kind
of metaphorically walkedthrough, I was an operations
manager at a high growthcompany–a service based company.
We did all the things we didlike PR, marketing, coaching,
and we had events and we likelaunched several different
things. And I quickly rose intoan operations manager position.
And we were really, reallygrowing and scaling fast. I
(02:53):
moved because my husband was inthe military at the time. And so
I had a really honestconversation with the owner, I
was like, Hey, man, I don't knowif I could do this job remotely.
Like we have a lot of in personteam, we do our in person
events. And he was like, Couldyou please for the love of God?
Give me a three month transitionperiod. And I was like, ah, what
must it feel like for somebodywho has started their own thing
(03:16):
and has all this freedom andeverything just to feel so
attached right to one person ontheir team and feel like
everything's gonna go out thedoor with that one person. And
so I very graciously absolutelysupported him through that 90
Day transition period. I waslike, Man, I have no interest in
leaving you in the lurch. Ireally believe in your business,
I really believe in you. And Ireally helped him through that
(03:39):
process. And then when Istopped, I was like, Well, what
am I doing next? Right? Like,what am I what's gonna happen?
And I got two phone calls withinthe first 30 days departing from
that business. And I was like,okay, cool. I'll do some of
these projects. And then withintwo months, I was booked solid.
I was like, absolutely,completely flabbergasted right,
as any person is who just likefalls into entrepreneurship, you
(04:01):
like wonder if you can do it,you wonder if you can, like,
actually enroll clients and allthe things and so I found myself
running a business within 60days of kind of leaving my prior
Brad Ebenhoeh (04:11):
Kudos to you and yeah, it's it's fascinating job.
seeing the although slew clientsthat we work with, in terms of
who's really the the main pointof contact within the
organization that knowseverything. Yeah, they, you
know, they, I think, at somepoint, somebody who was a client
(04:31):
mentioned they call it the damnbus file. I was like, What is
this file? They're like, it'sthe damn bus file. And I'm like,
what does that mean? They said,Well, if I get hit by the damn
damn bus, like this is where–thedocument need to go to to
understand what's going on here.
Like passwords, logins, likethat was like, Oh, that's good
to know. But who's the damn busperson, I guess is always a key
aspect of understanding butanyways, so what I guess who's
(04:53):
your customer like? What like, Iguess I guess let's see. Not
even your customer. Let's stepback a little bit. So service
based company, architect, goahead and start business start
growing, designing architectgreat stuff, right? All sudden,
they're hiring people they'reselling, they're doing
(05:14):
everything right. Like they'remaking $500,000 in revenue, like
I guess, what is your intendedstart to raise in terms of what
are the things that they need tobe worried about and concerned
about as they keep growing andscaling their business? And then
we can kind of discuss kind ofthe life cycle businesses and
how you help them?
Alyson Caffrey (05:32):
Yeah, totally, I think, you know, there's a
couple of big things that Iusually try to caution my owners
toward, right, if we want toscale something past just us,
right, we all have the sameamount of hours in the day. So
when you start to invite teaminto the picture to get results
on your behalf, that's usually abig one, right? A big indicator
that maybe we need to startwriting some of the things that
we're doing down, right. Thesecond big indicator is if we
(05:54):
started having clients likefalling out, like if you have a
retention rate, that's likeabsolute crap, and you're in a
position where maybe the inputinto your business isn't exactly
consistent, we might need tostart thinking through like,
what are the habits that youhave? Right, that's operations,
right? The things that you'reresponsible for every single
day? I know, it doesn't seemlike operations. And I know a
lot of people are like, Oh,well, that's just having a good
(06:16):
project management tool orwhatever. And I'm like, no,
there are actually ways youknow, just like any relationship
in your life, what you put intoit, right, there's an equal and
opposite, or sometimes 10x valueof what comes out on the other
side. And so my opinion is, isthat if we start to lose a lot
of clients, if we start to be ina position where we're doing
like feast or famine months,right, where you're spending
time on sales, spending time onfulfillment, spending time on
(06:37):
sales, planning, Timefulfillment, not scalable, not
like it's just not working out.
And then additionally, right, asyou're enlisting help, so those
are really the three big thingsthat I start to look at. When
someone comes to me and they'relike, man, things feel really
hectic. And I'm like, Okay,well, if you're experiencing one
of these three things, it'sprobably time to start drilling
down on like how things operatein your business.
Brad Ebenhoeh (06:57):
So then, in terms of identifying and drilling
down, like what the, theentrepreneur or the owner or the
founder can do, is that that'sspecific to their skill set
their interest, right?
Alyson Caffrey (07:09):
Yeah, yes. And no, I think like, we want to
obviously make sure that theirexpertise is, is being
translated as much as possiblein the business, right, because
that's going to be the highestvalue, right? For the most part
that have input. Butadditionally, what we want to
take a look at is like, what isbringing us joy and what isn't.
And I think overall, that issomething to that is, I think,
(07:30):
missed early on in the business,especially in a lifecycle of
growing to multiple six figures,you got to ask yourself, if
you're ready to scale thisthing, and you're ready to get
to a million plus, you know, 3million those, those are those
growing pains in a business, youhave to invest a lot of time you
have to invest a lot of money,you have to have good
marketplace awareness. And ifyou're doing something that just
(07:52):
like isn't aligned with you, orisn't feeling good, I personally
have seen a lot of businessowners lose more money than they
probably should, in a positionlike that, where they just feel
dragged into the day to day ordragged into a piece of
fulfillment or what have you.
And so just being reallyintentional about where do I
bring the most value and inputand skill set, like raw skill
(08:16):
set? And then additionally,where do I feel most aligned in
terms of how do I want to spendmy time because I think if you
are in a position where you'recontributing habits into your
life and your business thatactually make you feel really
good, good clients and moneywill follow. That's my opinion.
Brad Ebenhoeh (08:33):
Yeah, I couldn't agree more. So then. So where do
you see somebody like yourselfcoming in to a business, like at
a revenue point at a employeeheadcount point, like what is
when's the best, like timing forsomebody that maybe look
externally for support versusjust internally? Yeah, great
(08:55):
question.
Alyson Caffrey (08:55):
And honestly, this is probably the number one
question that I always get.
Because I think that ultimately,what we want to do is we want to
take a look at operations askeeping a healthy lifestyle or
staying fit, right? If you havemaybe let the wheels fall off
for a little while, there's likean on ramp thing, right? There's
like kind of a, I need to getback in shape, or I need to
start small, and then there'slike this kind of on ramping
(09:15):
period, and then there's aplateau of maintenance, right?
And then maybe you have anothergoal, maybe you want to summit
Everest, right? And then you putan another plan in place, and
you get to kind of like thatmaintenance level of being able
to do some of those things. Andso I think operations and
partnering with somebody like meisn't just a one time thing.
It's a multiple time thing,depending on what you're going
after in your business, right.
(09:38):
So like somebody who's juststarting and trying to work
themselves out of the corefunctions of fulfillment, might
be experiencing the exact samefinancial, operational and team
headaches as somebody who'strying to grow their agency from
one to 3 million right and takeon more director level or
management level employees andreally hold those people to key
performance indicators and keepyou know costs very similar and
(10:01):
margins very similar. It's it'svery similar. It's just
different stages in the game.
And so my opinion is, is thatanytime you're in a position
where you really want to startto operate a little bit better
start to think through, okay?
Can somebody else get thisresult? Or can my business
function, make money and deliverme profits without me? At any
(10:22):
point? If that answer is no, youprobably need some operational
help.
Brad Ebenhoeh (10:27):
Have you ever had to like have a tough
conversation with the actualentrepreneur who hired you of
like, maybe you're not the bestfit for this business?
Alyson Caffrey (10:35):
Oh, totally.
Yeah. So I think like, you know,it's hard because we want to
believe it's just like, likewith kids, right, and I'm a
recent mom, my oldest is two anda half, and I have a nine month
old at home, right. And I wantto believe that I'm the best
solution to teach my childrenevery single thing that they're
ever going to learn in theirlife, I want to be there, I want
to support them, I want to dothat. But there is going to be a
(10:55):
time and that time, maybe soon,where I need to raise my hand
and be like, I'm not the bestperson to get my child this
result or teach them this lessonor do this thing. And so I
really do challenge owners to beobjective about that as much as
humanly possible. Because ifthey want to remain sole owner
of their business, they may needto trade money for time, and
I'll be at time of someone whocan do something better than
(11:19):
they can do it.
Brad Ebenhoeh (11:22):
So then, you know, operationally speaking
here, a lot of a lot of thisconversations around time,
right? And energy and time isdefinitely a finite resource
talents and finite resource.
Money is a finite resource.
Right? So like really analyzing,understanding that individually
for an entrepreneur as hard asyou kind of juggle things. So
(11:43):
clearly, yeah, you're cuttingthrough them with that from an
aspect of, you know, I guessnumber one, like, let's say
hiring, right? Like, what aresome best practices that an
entrepreneur or founder can usefor like hiring the best talent
when they're getting ready todelegate the operational role or
delegate the finance role ordelegate the sales and marketing
(12:05):
role at their organization?
Alyson Caffrey (12:07):
Yeah, so I think first and foremost, routing
anything that you're going tooffload in results, right. So
What results do we want this tocreate for the business? I think
so many people make a list ofresponsibilities. So like input
metrics versus output metrics.
And that's a really hugechallenge, when you start to
communicate expectations topretty much anything, right,
whether it's a piece ofsoftware, and you've decided to
(12:28):
automate a task, or whether it'sa person and you've decided to
pull them into the organizationto help you get a specific
result. It's really, reallyimportant to route this and
like, what does the input thatI'm currently doing generate in
terms of results? And then how,what's the Delta? How do we want
to see that change? Right? Doyou want to see things get
cheaper? Do we want to see, youknow, things get more efficient?
You know, how does that how dowe want that person to change,
(12:49):
and then really just kind ofsolve for the other side of the
equation. Another really solidpiece of advice that I always
give my entrepreneur friends andcurrent clients and colleagues
and everybody is don't be afraidto offload a portion of the task
and not the entire task on thefirst brush. I know so many
people who have hired a personand have given them 910 15
(13:11):
responsibilities, all 100%ownership on them from the first
jump, and they get burned, theyget disappointed. There's
friction there, they're notsuper clear on what exactly
they're looking for. Andinstead, what if we decided to
say, Alright, I'm gonna get 20%of this piece off my plate,
let's see how someone does withthat. I get 20% time back from
(13:32):
doing this task. And then westart to make incremental shifts
in the right direction. I thinkso many issues in hiring come
from going too quick. To pullsomebody into the business.
That's my total and honestopinion.
Brad Ebenhoeh (13:49):
I think that makes a lot of sense. Just from
our experience here of hiringpeople, especially hiring talent
for roles that may not exist,it's really hard to like, Hey,
do this and then you know, youhave this handled and then
without properly qualitycontrol, oversight, check ins
and things like that it can gooff the rails quickly. And, and
(14:09):
definitely we've had we'vegotten burned just with that
aspect as well. And then youlearn, you figure out like, what
do you really need? It's, Ithink, one of Accountfully these
things are, as we've grown toalmost 70 people and then
through the, everything you'retalking about, right? It's just
like, it's like you think youneed something in full when
maybe you don't need the 100%You need the 20% So how do you
(14:31):
feel the 20%? Can you feel itinternally? Can you spread it
out amongst people that were soI think really taking that
pragmatic view of that versuslike I need an HR person? Well,
what is really the goal here?
What do you need it for? Whatare they going to do for you and
and identifying kind of theoverall output plus like input
and how to solve those problems?
Alyson Caffrey (14:51):
Yeah, it's easier to manage people to based
on output, right? You're like,this is what I expect you to
generate. And every time I'veever had like a performance
review or sat in on those withmy clients, and we've had a
number or a metric, or anexpectation put out in front of
a team member, that you'vealways come to the meeting,
already solving the problem thatwe have, right. So we move fast
(15:13):
or past some of these obstaclesand these roadblocks, whereas
like any other time I've had,and poor performance reviews in
my past where I've had to giveterrible feedback to, you know,
employees of mine or employeesof others. And anytime I didn't
have that metric, I would tellthem, hey, listen, sales targets
came in, under this month, oursales targets came in under this
quarter, they immediately get onthe defensive, right? They're
(15:33):
like, No, you know, I did allthis, or I did all that. It just
flips the mindset of how youcome to the table with solutions
and manager teams. So I'vealways found that rooting things
in outcomes is really helpfulfor management, because not only
do they help us find bettersolutions, but also they're less
a little bit chained to theirdesk, right? Like they don't
have to do like the 40 hours ofinput to get some nebulous, you
(15:57):
know, outcome and all the thingsright, they can say, Hey,
listen, if I can get this resultin 10 hours, it saves me time,
it saves the company money, andwe're on the right page.
Brad Ebenhoeh (16:05):
I love it. I think it's definitely a very
interesting kind of topic orweight, a way to look at things
and like how you apply to yourspecific business or your
deliverables or your service toyour clients as well,
internally. Mmm. Interesting. Sonext question I have so managing
(16:26):
leaves, I really wanted to askthis task topic because you're
really focusing on you know, yousaid a baby, we have a nine
month old, nine and a half monthold as well. So very similar in
age where we have twin five yearolds as well. So my wife and I
own the company. So wefacilitated all of this through
everything the last kind ofdecade, right, but okay, so
(16:48):
maternity leaves, managingleaves expectations and just
like backfilling work, right, sokind of just high level of where
we're at, we basically theshared Accountfully, have
probably had three maternityleaves three or four maternity
leaves, plus two or threepaternity leaves where we get
like two weeks off at any point.
So I know everybody else isgoing through this across this,
listen to this. So what's somebest practices to think of to
(17:09):
plan for leaves? Like, what doyou what do you do to help
people plan for leaves? Justkind of give me a little
highlight with that?
Alyson Caffrey (17:17):
Yeah, great, great question. And also amazing
that you guys offer those typesof benefits to your employees.
Because my opinion is, is thatsmall businesses wait a little
bit too long to offer some ofthese more competitive packages,
and they end up losing reallycapable parents to this
transition. And so I justappreciate you for doing that.
And your wife for doing that.
Because I'm sure you guys know,after having twins, that it's
hard, right? And oftentimes, wecan offer competitive packages
(17:39):
to our employees, but who'ssitting here saying, Oh, the
business owner, right, like, howdo we take our time? How do we
do that? How do we budget forthat? And so what we really take
a look at on the team managementside of things, right is real
allocation of responsibilitiesand accountabilities. Right. So
first and foremost, what are theteam member? Who's going out?
What are they responsible for?
(18:01):
What are they looking at interms of accountability and
responsibility? And what I meanby that is, what are they doing
to push buttons and pull levers?
Right, the actual results aregenerating and then
accountabilities might be, ifthey're leading a team, right?
If they're in a management orleadership position, how are
they checking in? How are theyfostering results within the
team that they manage? And sobeing super, you know, inclusive
about that, and making sure totake a really solid inventory of
what the responsibilities theydo have? And then start to ask
(18:24):
ourselves, how accessible isthat information? Right? What
kind of training exists? Whatkind of procedures exist around
some of that stuff? And is thereeven an opportunity to cross
train some of those things? Andhave the team members who are
staying in the organizationreally pick up that load? And
kind of help us through some ofthat transition? And can we do
that in a way that makesfinancial sense to the business,
(18:46):
right, we can't completelytrain, let's just say, you know,
a customer servicerepresentative to get on the
phone and start closing somedeals, but Well, we could
probably do is look internallyand say, Alright, if we front
load this in a way that makessense. And if we can cross train
in a way that makes sense, wecould be able to prop you know,
some of these people up in theirabsence and really support them
(19:06):
through this time versus makingthem feel like they're just kind
of dumping their work onsomebody's plate with no context
are spending hours and hours andhours of valuable company time
training somebody one on one toget the results that they get.
So one of the biggest thingsthat we focus on when we start
to take a look at thistransition is how visible is
company training and howcentralized is the information
(19:28):
on how to get results inside ofthe business. And so that's one
of the biggest things that Ididn't when I prep for my
maternity leave as I was like,How can I help people get the
results that I'm getting for thebusiness and where am I taking
input and so when we shift overto the owner, right, we need to
start taking a look at some ofthose things I mentioned before,
right? What am I putting in whatam I getting out what delivers
(19:49):
the most value and what bringsme the most joy because I'm sure
you and Meredith know. Havingthe babies is just the first
part but like growing a businesswith A family is not for the
faint of heart, andtransparently like it probably
changed. I'm sure for you itchanged for me several times
after becoming a mom, my oldestis only two and a half. And it
(20:10):
just is constant state ofrefining, you know, what we're
doing, how we're spending timeaway from our family, what time
we're spending in the business.
And so we really help, you know,business owners, just take take
a tally there and be able tomake some really solid decisions
on you know, what's next forthem?
Brad Ebenhoeh (20:28):
Yeah, no. It's great, great information. I
think from our end, like I acouple of things, I think, what
is what's helped us through thetransition of these leaves with
us Plus, our team, as at numberone is like, we're very
systematic, systematic, we havedocumentation and standard
(20:48):
operating procedures and tasksbuilt out like an asana and
different tools. So there's,there's there's things out there
that exists that just aren't ineverybody's head, right? I think
that's just step one of thatjust helps this whole process.
You're saying number two is,like talent, I'm telling you
about, like, after we startedhiring really good people, like
probably near five, like, we'reabout almost 11 years. So like
(21:10):
before, we had our twins that westarted hiring really good
talent, like, wow, I see why. Itliterally that the ROI on great
talent and identifying what youneed, whether it's like for us,
we do accounting, billable work,or whether it's pure internal
marketing, HR operations, I'veworked right like it that those
people can leverage so much, andreally create so much
(21:33):
opportunity for you, thebusiness owner to do something
else, or to take the lead orsomebody else. And I think the
third thing is really justopportunity. When people leave
in 90 days, there's a hugeopportunity to cross train, to
identify like, if that person'srole is really needed, not to
eliminate them, but to say, hey,maybe we can enhance their role
or what do we really need thenext step of the next iteration
(21:53):
of Accountfully, or whatever itis, right? So taking somebody
into leaving, leveraging up thenext person and that person
comes back, maybe there's adifferent function or whatever
it going. I really likeidentifying the opportunity that
exists when somebody's gone tosay, really, do we need that
role in a the exact existence?
It does? Or is that more of afractional? Because we've just
(22:13):
spread it out among amongstmultiple people, and can that
person then help in differentfunctions of the business? So
it's really interesting when youlike, it's very scary. I guess
the business owner, when peopletake leaves are like, Oh, no,
but then it always works out.
And then when the day they comeback, you have like a highly
functional brand new employee,basically, who knows what's
(22:34):
going on is like backup andrunning right away. So it's
pretty cool. But it all worksout? Well.
Alyson Caffrey (22:40):
Yeah, no doubt, I love that shift. And I've been
encouraging a lot of the folksthat I'm working with in this
vein to approach Matt leave asan opportunity, right. I mean,
it really is such a greatopportunity. Because like I
said, when I left, theorganization I was ops manager
for right, he was like, I need90 days from you. But some
people do not give that type ofnotice and aren't willing to put
(23:01):
in that type of time. And all ofa sudden, you could be faced
with a situation where somebodywalks out of your organization,
and what a great way to kind ofdemo that is let them go out on
leave. Let them spend the timewith their family refreshed go
through the transition of beinga parent, because you know, it's
a rocky one. And come back, likeyou mentioned, refreshed and
ready to make some waves at theorganization.
Brad Ebenhoeh (23:23):
Yeah, I mean, I know like, you know, it was up
this morning at 430 Hanging outwith two kids. It was great. So
anyways, a couple other topicsas we kind of move forward here
and wrap this up. Number one iswe're accountants that focus on
accounting, bookkeeping,finance, you know, money, like
what are a couple things thatyou touch base on from your, you
(23:43):
know, operational agencyconsulting to your clients,
specifically around money,accounting, you know, all that
type of stuff?
Alyson Caffrey (23:50):
Yeah, money tells a good story, right. So
usually, if you're in a positionwhere you can follow the cache
and show where it's going, andhow much time you know, because
time equals money, especiallywhen you're hiring a team, you
know, you can really tell a goodoperational story from where
your money is going. So if youkind of start there at the base
level, and you can say, Okay,this is taking me X amount of
time equaling X amount of money,you can make some really core
(24:13):
decisions from thereoperationally, meaning, here's
how much margin I have topotentially hire a new person,
here's how much time this mighttake me and how I might need to,
quote future projects or how Imight need to raise my prices.
And I've always said andfrequently experienced with my
clients after we start to kindof, you know, crack and crack
(24:34):
things open and you know, startto take a look at what's
involved in their services. Iknow so many entrepreneurs and
service providers who haveraised their prices as a result
of conversations with me becausethey're like, oh, yeah, I didn't
realize all of that time andmoney and effort went into that
thing. And I'm only chargingfive grand for it. I'm going to
charge 10 grand for it. And I'mlike, Yes, that's what I'm
(24:54):
talking about. Right? If as longas we know, right? So I think
finance provides us with aplatform refer knowing right so
knowing how much time somethingtakes me knowing how much cost,
something takes me. And the morevisibility you can have into
your finances in youroperations. In my opinion, the
better decisions you can make asan owner, right in terms of
direction in terms of hiringsomebody. So trying to decrease
(25:15):
the friction around makingdecisions will ultimately allow
us to net up a lot faster andallow us to serve more people
more easily. And so just havingthat visibility, I know so many
service providers and earlystages of their business that
are either like doing their ownbooks or completely ignoring it.
And I'm like you are doingyourself such a disservice from
not being able to have thatvisibility in your business. And
(25:37):
the same is true withoperations, just like you would
do a chart of accounts for yourfinances, you should also
probably be charting youraccounts for operations. Here's
how long it takes us to deliveron something, here's how long it
takes us to onboard somebody,you know, those types of things
are super crucial when it comesto running a business.
Brad Ebenhoeh (25:53):
Love it couldn't agree more on on that aspect. I
think you need to have good datato make the best decisions you
can. You know one thing aboutpricing, which I always tell
people, like it's easier toconsistently adjust pricing up
over time annually orconsistently versus doing
nothing. And then five yearslater, tripling your your prices
(26:15):
and irritating everybody. And atthe end of the day, your labor
costs money, they get raises andincreases every year, they're
adding more value to yourclients, your consistent
clients. There should be like areflective aspect of that going
on. And I think people reallyhesitate because they're either
scared or they just don't knowand don't even understand all
the inputs that go into thataspect. Yeah, but I mean,
Alyson Caffrey (26:36):
as you become more transparent with your ops,
and how much things are costingyou and you want to raise your
prices, then you also know interms of input, like what more
value can I give my clientthat's not necessarily super
expensive for my agency sale onthat will really bring them I
don't know, maybe justification,right? If that's how you want to
see it, like justification forraising your prices, whether
that's you know, betterfinancial acumen or delivery
(26:58):
acumen from your team,specifically who's working
directly with them. Now, thisperson has another year of
knowledge working with X amountof clients, it's really great to
be able to position value, Ithink in front of your clients
that way.
Brad Ebenhoeh (27:09):
Yes, yes. I couldn't agree more on all that
aspects. So I'm kind of onerandom questions is what is the
most interesting situationyou've ever seen good or bad
from a client. And clearly youcan take this wherever you want.
I'm just very interested by this
Alyson Caffrey (27:28):
interesting situation
Brad Ebenhoeh (27:30):
craziest, or the way they are running their
business or like this mindblowing thing that you've seen.
Alyson Caffrey (27:38):
So I have to I service based one, and then I
actually like 10%, like a smallsliver of my business I like to
leave for just taking on wildstuff. I'm like, I just want to
be challenged, you know. Sotraditional agency issue I was
hired in to help someone doproject management streamlining
inside of their agency, theywere trying to grow from one and
(27:58):
a half to 3 million. And soactually earlier this year, and
I swear to goodness, gracious. Iwas like, Hey, listen, here are
some of the things you reallyneed to do. We need to start to
build this culture in yourbusiness around project
management rules of engagementand how often projects are
updated and tracking time. And Ikid you not I know this sounds
really scary. And it mightactually make me lose customers
(28:18):
for anyone who's listening. Butthey I kid you not lost five
team members, like two dayslater. I kid you not they left.
They just they were like we'redone. Sorry, I can't deal with
this, whatever else. And as Istarted kind of unpacking a
little bit more of maybe whythat happened. It was just a it
(28:39):
was just a practice of they werelike I'm like this, this
entrepreneur specifically hadbeen like, you know, shiny
object syndrome, and probablyall over them all year long. And
so I started to see him loseinterest in our project. And I
was like, they probably thoughtthis wasn't gonna stick and this
isn't gonna work and all ofthose things. So I ended up
going to him and I was like,Hey, listen, dude, I can help
(28:59):
you fractionally because I knowyou really need it. But you've
got to like commit to being ableto do this or else there is no
way you're making it from oneand a half to three. I mean,
that is one of the hardest leapsin service businesses that I
have you ever seen in my fiveyears of working with folks
operationally and so I kid younot, he called me and we was
like, so bla bla bla bla bla blabla bla bla bla quit today. And
(29:23):
I was like,oh my goodness, Krej because I
couldn't believe it. I couldn'tbelieve it.
So that was the craziest story.
And I think I think the biggesttakeaway again, for me, and for
anybody listening isn't that ifyou tell your team that things
are going to operate better,they're all just going to walk
off site. It's that if youcommit to doing something, as an
(29:43):
agency owner, it does trickledown into your team, especially
if you keep similar habits andyou keep operations and finance
top of mind and you really arecommitted to doing those things
to grow the longevity of yourcompany over time. Like I said,
it's like health. It's not easy.
If it was easy, everybody woulddo it. And everybody would have
a six pack. And everybody wouldhave a, you know, multimillion
(30:05):
dollar business. But myencouragement there is just to,
you know, be the leader for yourteam that shows them, hey,
listen, it's important tooperate well and write things
down. And it'll keep, you know,kind of things moving forward in
a positive direction is thesecond crazy ones. We've been
working with this client for awhile. And they are, they have
(30:26):
their medical imaging company,so like totally outside of my
realm of expertise. But they hada super interesting model. And
they have just been acquiringcenters left and right for the
last two years. And so we'vebeen working with them, we've
opened 60 new centers with themwith a standard operating
procedure and, you know,training manual for each of the
(30:48):
new centers, we like plug andplay it. And we actually opened
a location in Jefferson in Julylike Jefferson health hospital,
it was a brutal, crazy, legalthing. And I kind of wanted to
tell you guys this, because Ithink like, there's like two
ends of the spectrum, right?
There's like the crazy frictionbased like high lawyers,
everybody's involved inbreathing down everybody's necks
(31:11):
to like open a new location. Andthen there's like a really
simple way to inject operationsinto a business that like just
helps everything flow a littlebit better. And so I personally
think that folks approach someof these topics, like there's
going to be a ton of red tapeall over my business, and
nobody's going to be able to doanything and taking time off,
it's gonna take 900 steps and600 points of approval, and I'm
(31:33):
gonna have to overpay people andbloat and all that stuff. But in
reality, it's really justtransparency, right? So as long
as we know what we're goingafter we know what's expected,
and we know how to do it, then,for the most part, right? We're
going to be doing really well.
Brad Ebenhoeh (31:49):
Love it. I was always love hearing those types
of stories and real lifeexamples there. All right, so
last two kinds of questionswould, as we've kind of wrap up
this kind of podcast and chatnumber one is what is one
service space business do? Whatis one recommendation for a
business owner no matter thesize for them to do and to
implement on their business?
Operationally, anything?
(32:14):
Anything where you want to talk?
Alyson Caffrey (32:15):
Oh, my goodness, yeah, do what makes you happy.
Like, I mean, I know that soundsso cheesy, but I think so many
times in a day, and this, I'm avictim of this as well, right?
You like follow what's going tomake you more money or what
someone else told you, youshould do or whatever. And I
think that like, especiallyafter becoming a parent to like,
(32:36):
your intuition is a really,really valuable thing. And as
you start to take notice of whatbrings you joy, and what
doesn't, the thing that's goingto sustain a business over time
is going to be consistency andjoy, right, being able to double
down on the things that youreally want to be doing. And I
know so many business owners whosay that, you know, the only
(32:58):
reason why someone's notsuccessful is because they just
didn't stick with it longenough. And I think the reason
why people don't stick with itlong enough, is because they
don't like it, they don't wantto do it. And so really as
objective as you can be aboutassessing that on a regular
basis absolutely is going to bethe key to helping you live a
more fulfilled life and grow athriving business.
Brad Ebenhoeh (33:19):
Couldn't agree more than then what is one
Don't? Don't
Unknown (33:27):
let me say,
Alyson Caffrey (33:28):
Oh, I have a good one. Don't overcomplicate
things. So usually the simplestanswer is the best one. And even
though I talked to so manyowners who are like, this seems
too easy, or this seemswhatever. And I'm like, Yeah, I
mean, if it's easy, thatprobably means it comes easy to
you, you can conceptually kindof get through it pretty simply.
(33:48):
And my opinion is is thesimpler, the better. So what
whether that comes tooperations, whether that comes
to channels in your marketing,whether that comes to conversion
mechanisms, the simpler thebetter, right? Usually it takes
about let's just say 2500 to 3k.
I don't know if that's a ball,it's just a ballpark figure for
it to be worth like getting onthe phone to close in an agency,
right? So like, lifetime valuewise. And so like, perhaps we
(34:11):
need to just be like, if that'sthe simplest way to do it, I
should just offer a $3,000package that gets a specific
result. Get on the phone withpeople, if it converts, well,
that's great. Just keep doingthat thing. You don't need to
overcomplicate it, like multichannel marketing. And so just
keep things simple, keep thingsconsistent. And again, it'll
probably pan out.
Brad Ebenhoeh (34:34):
Yeah, no, I agree with that. Like the services you
sell. Keep them simple andtangible. So they're easily
understandable. decisions youmake internally how you pay
people how you communicate, makeit simple. If it's complex, you
have to over over analyze it orover define it then it's wasting
people's times. It's and it'sfrustrating for everybody so
(34:56):
awesome. Allison, this wasgreat. Love the chat Um, where
can we find you? What are youpromoting? Give us the rundown
here as we kind of in the chat.
Alyson Caffrey (35:05):
Yeah, totally.
I'm super excited for next year.
So my big thing is operationsagency.com You can find most of
my goodies there and a littlebit more about me. We're
actually kind of redoing a lotof our front end offers. So be
on the lookout for those. I'mlaunching a toolkit in 2023
which is super exciting. Sothat'll be live here in a little
bit. And if you're looking toyou know, get some support and
(35:27):
some free resources on planning,maternity leave, whether for
yourself from your business orwith your team, Master maternity
leave a.com is where to find meon that.
Brad Ebenhoeh (35:35):
Awesome. Thanks so much, Alison. I enjoyed the
chat Overbury out there thatlistens enjoys the chat. Again.
This is the Accountfully chatwith Alison Catherine from
operations agency. Thanks,Alison. Thanks, Brad. Appreciate
it.
Welcome to the Accountfully Chat with Alyson
Caffrey. of Operations Agency.
How you doing today, Alyson?
Alyson Caffrey (00:14):
Good, Brad.
Thanks so much for having me.
Brad Ebenhoeh (00:17):
Yeah, I'm really looking forward to the chat here
to discuss a slew of topicsoperational finance, accounting,
managing your business,maternity leaves, paternity
leaves, everything, you know,from an aspect of your company
name Operations Agency, italways kinda like, makes me
laugh when I see you becauseit's like, You're a cop and
(00:38):
operations agent or whatever.
And you're like that gatekeeperfor that aspect. But anyways,
everything operational.
Accountfully loves to talkabout. So looking forward to the
chat.
Alyson Caffrey (00:47):
Yeah. Likewise, likewise, I always feel like the
name Operations Agency is someta, because we've always like
served agencies and serviceproviders. And we are
technically a full serviceagency by like model and design.
And so every time I tellsomebody that they're like,
"Huh, that's kind of brilliant,but also really confusing".
Brad Ebenhoeh (01:03):
Yes, yes, yes.
Yes. Yes. I love it, though. Butit's very easy to say operations
agency. So good stuff. So allright, well, let's just start
with what is operation agency?
What do you guys do?
Alyson Caffrey (01:14):
Yeah, we really help streamline back end
operations for service basedbusinesses, right, we take a
look at standard operatingprocedures for how they market
convert and fulfill on projectsfor their for their business.
And it's pretty simple. I thinkthat overall, right? When we
start a service based business,or at least with the clients
I've worked with, in the past,they you know, are really,
(01:35):
really good at something andthen someone starts to raise
their hand or a multitude ofpeople start to raise their hand
and say, hey, I want thatresult, and so they just kind of
fall into entrepreneurship, atleast often, with with smaller
service based businesses. Andyou know, they're not operators,
they're not, you know, businessowner, you know, serial business
owners, they don't have some ofthe formal training. And so I'm
(01:56):
not saying that we are the endall be all there on formal
training, but we definitely can,you know, kind of come in
partner alongside them andreally help drill down on okay,
what are the things inside ofthe business that make the most
impact? Right, what brings youthe most value to your clients?
What brings you the mostrevenue, you know, in terms of
like marketing initiatives andconversion mechanisms, and that
sort of stuff. So we help paintthe picture of what's working
(02:18):
well in the business, what wecan amplify and what we can take
away.
Brad Ebenhoeh (02:21):
Awesome. How long have you been around?
Alyson Caffrey (02:23):
Five years. Five beautiful years.
Brad Ebenhoeh (02:26):
Awesome. Why did you start the company, I was
like, hearing that backgroundstory pre-you know...
Alyson Caffrey (02:33):
It's very similar to the one I just kind
of metaphorically walkedthrough, I was an operations
manager at a high growthcompany–a service based company.
We did all the things we didlike PR, marketing, coaching,
and we had events and we likelaunched several different
things. And I quickly rose intoan operations manager position.
And we were really, reallygrowing and scaling fast. I
(02:53):
moved because my husband was inthe military at the time. And so
I had a really honestconversation with the owner, I
was like, Hey, man, I don't knowif I could do this job remotely.
Like we have a lot of in personteam, we do our in person
events. And he was like, Couldyou please for the love of God?
Give me a three month transitionperiod. And I was like, ah, what
must it feel like for somebodywho has started their own thing
(03:16):
and has all this freedom andeverything just to feel so
attached right to one person ontheir team and feel like
everything's gonna go out thedoor with that one person. And
so I very graciously absolutelysupported him through that 90
Day transition period. I waslike, Man, I have no interest in
leaving you in the lurch. Ireally believe in your business,
I really believe in you. And Ireally helped him through that
(03:39):
process. And then when Istopped, I was like, Well, what
am I doing next? Right? Like,what am I what's gonna happen?
And I got two phone calls withinthe first 30 days departing from
that business. And I was like,okay, cool. I'll do some of
these projects. And then withintwo months, I was booked solid.
I was like, absolutely,completely flabbergasted right,
as any person is who just likefalls into entrepreneurship, you
(04:01):
like wonder if you can do it,you wonder if you can, like,
actually enroll clients and allthe things and so I found myself
running a business within 60days of kind of leaving my prior
Brad Ebenhoeh (04:11):
Kudos to you and yeah, it's it's fascinating job.
seeing the although slew clientsthat we work with, in terms of
who's really the the main pointof contact within the
organization that knowseverything. Yeah, they, you
know, they, I think, at somepoint, somebody who was a client
(04:31):
mentioned they call it the damnbus file. I was like, What is
this file? They're like, it'sthe damn bus file. And I'm like,
what does that mean? They said,Well, if I get hit by the damn
damn bus, like this is where–thedocument need to go to to
understand what's going on here.
Like passwords, logins, likethat was like, Oh, that's good
to know. But who's the damn busperson, I guess is always a key
aspect of understanding butanyways, so what I guess who's
(04:53):
your customer like? What like, Iguess I guess let's see. Not
even your customer. Let's stepback a little bit. So service
based company, architect, goahead and start business start
growing, designing architectgreat stuff, right? All sudden,
they're hiring people they'reselling, they're doing
(05:14):
everything right. Like they'remaking $500,000 in revenue, like
I guess, what is your intendedstart to raise in terms of what
are the things that they need tobe worried about and concerned
about as they keep growing andscaling their business? And then
we can kind of discuss kind ofthe life cycle businesses and
how you help them?
Alyson Caffrey (05:32):
Yeah, totally, I think, you know, there's a
couple of big things that Iusually try to caution my owners
toward, right, if we want toscale something past just us,
right, we all have the sameamount of hours in the day. So
when you start to invite teaminto the picture to get results
on your behalf, that's usually abig one, right? A big indicator
that maybe we need to startwriting some of the things that
we're doing down, right. Thesecond big indicator is if we
(05:54):
started having clients likefalling out, like if you have a
retention rate, that's likeabsolute crap, and you're in a
position where maybe the inputinto your business isn't exactly
consistent, we might need tostart thinking through like,
what are the habits that youhave? Right, that's operations,
right? The things that you'reresponsible for every single
day? I know, it doesn't seemlike operations. And I know a
lot of people are like, Oh,well, that's just having a good
(06:16):
project management tool orwhatever. And I'm like, no,
there are actually ways youknow, just like any relationship
in your life, what you put intoit, right, there's an equal and
opposite, or sometimes 10x valueof what comes out on the other
side. And so my opinion is, isthat if we start to lose a lot
of clients, if we start to be ina position where we're doing
like feast or famine months,right, where you're spending
time on sales, spending time onfulfillment, spending time on
(06:37):
sales, planning, Timefulfillment, not scalable, not
like it's just not working out.
And then additionally, right, asyou're enlisting help, so those
are really the three big thingsthat I start to look at. When
someone comes to me and they'relike, man, things feel really
hectic. And I'm like, Okay,well, if you're experiencing one
of these three things, it'sprobably time to start drilling
down on like how things operatein your business.
Brad Ebenhoeh (06:57):
So then, in terms of identifying and drilling
down, like what the, theentrepreneur or the owner or the
founder can do, is that that'sspecific to their skill set
their interest, right?
Alyson Caffrey (07:09):
Yeah, yes. And no, I think like, we want to
obviously make sure that theirexpertise is, is being
translated as much as possiblein the business, right, because
that's going to be the highestvalue, right? For the most part
that have input. Butadditionally, what we want to
take a look at is like, what isbringing us joy and what isn't.
And I think overall, that issomething to that is, I think,
(07:30):
missed early on in the business,especially in a lifecycle of
growing to multiple six figures,you got to ask yourself, if
you're ready to scale thisthing, and you're ready to get
to a million plus, you know, 3million those, those are those
growing pains in a business, youhave to invest a lot of time you
have to invest a lot of money,you have to have good
marketplace awareness. And ifyou're doing something that just
(07:52):
like isn't aligned with you, orisn't feeling good, I personally
have seen a lot of businessowners lose more money than they
probably should, in a positionlike that, where they just feel
dragged into the day to day ordragged into a piece of
fulfillment or what have you.
And so just being reallyintentional about where do I
bring the most value and inputand skill set, like raw skill
(08:16):
set? And then additionally,where do I feel most aligned in
terms of how do I want to spendmy time because I think if you
are in a position where you'recontributing habits into your
life and your business thatactually make you feel really
good, good clients and moneywill follow. That's my opinion.
Brad Ebenhoeh (08:33):
Yeah, I couldn't agree more. So then. So where do
you see somebody like yourselfcoming in to a business, like at
a revenue point at a employeeheadcount point, like what is
when's the best, like timing forsomebody that maybe look
externally for support versusjust internally? Yeah, great
(08:55):
question.
Alyson Caffrey (08:55):
And honestly, this is probably the number one
question that I always get.
Because I think that ultimately,what we want to do is we want to
take a look at operations askeeping a healthy lifestyle or
staying fit, right? If you havemaybe let the wheels fall off
for a little while, there's likean on ramp thing, right? There's
like kind of a, I need to getback in shape, or I need to
start small, and then there'slike this kind of on ramping
(09:15):
period, and then there's aplateau of maintenance, right?
And then maybe you have anothergoal, maybe you want to summit
Everest, right? And then you putan another plan in place, and
you get to kind of like thatmaintenance level of being able
to do some of those things. Andso I think operations and
partnering with somebody like meisn't just a one time thing.
It's a multiple time thing,depending on what you're going
after in your business, right.
(09:38):
So like somebody who's juststarting and trying to work
themselves out of the corefunctions of fulfillment, might
be experiencing the exact samefinancial, operational and team
headaches as somebody who'strying to grow their agency from
one to 3 million right and takeon more director level or
management level employees andreally hold those people to key
performance indicators and keepyou know costs very similar and
(10:01):
margins very similar. It's it'svery similar. It's just
different stages in the game.
And so my opinion is, is thatanytime you're in a position
where you really want to startto operate a little bit better
start to think through, okay?
Can somebody else get thisresult? Or can my business
function, make money and deliverme profits without me? At any
(10:22):
point? If that answer is no, youprobably need some operational
help.
Brad Ebenhoeh (10:27):
Have you ever had to like have a tough
conversation with the actualentrepreneur who hired you of
like, maybe you're not the bestfit for this business?
Alyson Caffrey (10:35):
Oh, totally.
Yeah. So I think like, you know,it's hard because we want to
believe it's just like, likewith kids, right, and I'm a
recent mom, my oldest is two anda half, and I have a nine month
old at home, right. And I wantto believe that I'm the best
solution to teach my childrenevery single thing that they're
ever going to learn in theirlife, I want to be there, I want
to support them, I want to dothat. But there is going to be a
(10:55):
time and that time, maybe soon,where I need to raise my hand
and be like, I'm not the bestperson to get my child this
result or teach them this lessonor do this thing. And so I
really do challenge owners to beobjective about that as much as
humanly possible. Because ifthey want to remain sole owner
of their business, they may needto trade money for time, and
I'll be at time of someone whocan do something better than
(11:19):
they can do it.
Brad Ebenhoeh (11:22):
So then, you know, operationally speaking
here, a lot of a lot of thisconversations around time,
right? And energy and time isdefinitely a finite resource
talents and finite resource.
Money is a finite resource.
Right? So like really analyzing,understanding that individually
for an entrepreneur as hard asyou kind of juggle things. So
(11:43):
clearly, yeah, you're cuttingthrough them with that from an
aspect of, you know, I guessnumber one, like, let's say
hiring, right? Like, what aresome best practices that an
entrepreneur or founder can usefor like hiring the best talent
when they're getting ready todelegate the operational role or
delegate the finance role ordelegate the sales and marketing
(12:05):
role at their organization?
Alyson Caffrey (12:07):
Yeah, so I think first and foremost, routing
anything that you're going tooffload in results, right. So
What results do we want this tocreate for the business? I think
so many people make a list ofresponsibilities. So like input
metrics versus output metrics.
And that's a really hugechallenge, when you start to
communicate expectations topretty much anything, right,
whether it's a piece ofsoftware, and you've decided to
(12:28):
automate a task, or whether it'sa person and you've decided to
pull them into the organizationto help you get a specific
result. It's really, reallyimportant to route this and
like, what does the input thatI'm currently doing generate in
terms of results? And then how,what's the Delta? How do we want
to see that change? Right? Doyou want to see things get
cheaper? Do we want to see, youknow, things get more efficient?
You know, how does that how dowe want that person to change,
(12:49):
and then really just kind ofsolve for the other side of the
equation. Another really solidpiece of advice that I always
give my entrepreneur friends andcurrent clients and colleagues
and everybody is don't be afraidto offload a portion of the task
and not the entire task on thefirst brush. I know so many
people who have hired a personand have given them 910 15
(13:11):
responsibilities, all 100%ownership on them from the first
jump, and they get burned, theyget disappointed. There's
friction there, they're notsuper clear on what exactly
they're looking for. Andinstead, what if we decided to
say, Alright, I'm gonna get 20%of this piece off my plate,
let's see how someone does withthat. I get 20% time back from
(13:32):
doing this task. And then westart to make incremental shifts
in the right direction. I thinkso many issues in hiring come
from going too quick. To pullsomebody into the business.
That's my total and honestopinion.
Brad Ebenhoeh (13:49):
I think that makes a lot of sense. Just from
our experience here of hiringpeople, especially hiring talent
for roles that may not exist,it's really hard to like, Hey,
do this and then you know, youhave this handled and then
without properly qualitycontrol, oversight, check ins
and things like that it can gooff the rails quickly. And, and
(14:09):
definitely we've had we'vegotten burned just with that
aspect as well. And then youlearn, you figure out like, what
do you really need? It's, Ithink, one of Accountfully these
things are, as we've grown toalmost 70 people and then
through the, everything you'retalking about, right? It's just
like, it's like you think youneed something in full when
maybe you don't need the 100%You need the 20% So how do you
(14:31):
feel the 20%? Can you feel itinternally? Can you spread it
out amongst people that were soI think really taking that
pragmatic view of that versuslike I need an HR person? Well,
what is really the goal here?
What do you need it for? Whatare they going to do for you and
and identifying kind of theoverall output plus like input
and how to solve those problems?
Alyson Caffrey (14:51):
Yeah, it's easier to manage people to based
on output, right? You're like,this is what I expect you to
generate. And every time I'veever had like a performance
review or sat in on those withmy clients, and we've had a
number or a metric, or anexpectation put out in front of
a team member, that you'vealways come to the meeting,
already solving the problem thatwe have, right. So we move fast
(15:13):
or past some of these obstaclesand these roadblocks, whereas
like any other time I've had,and poor performance reviews in
my past where I've had to giveterrible feedback to, you know,
employees of mine or employeesof others. And anytime I didn't
have that metric, I would tellthem, hey, listen, sales targets
came in, under this month, oursales targets came in under this
quarter, they immediately get onthe defensive, right? They're
(15:33):
like, No, you know, I did allthis, or I did all that. It just
flips the mindset of how youcome to the table with solutions
and manager teams. So I'vealways found that rooting things
in outcomes is really helpfulfor management, because not only
do they help us find bettersolutions, but also they're less
a little bit chained to theirdesk, right? Like they don't
have to do like the 40 hours ofinput to get some nebulous, you
(15:57):
know, outcome and all the thingsright, they can say, Hey,
listen, if I can get this resultin 10 hours, it saves me time,
it saves the company money, andwe're on the right page.
Brad Ebenhoeh (16:05):
I love it. I think it's definitely a very
interesting kind of topic orweight, a way to look at things
and like how you apply to yourspecific business or your
deliverables or your service toyour clients as well,
internally. Mmm. Interesting. Sonext question I have so managing
(16:26):
leaves, I really wanted to askthis task topic because you're
really focusing on you know, yousaid a baby, we have a nine
month old, nine and a half monthold as well. So very similar in
age where we have twin five yearolds as well. So my wife and I
own the company. So wefacilitated all of this through
everything the last kind ofdecade, right, but okay, so
(16:48):
maternity leaves, managingleaves expectations and just
like backfilling work, right, sokind of just high level of where
we're at, we basically theshared Accountfully, have
probably had three maternityleaves three or four maternity
leaves, plus two or threepaternity leaves where we get
like two weeks off at any point.
So I know everybody else isgoing through this across this,
listen to this. So what's somebest practices to think of to
(17:09):
plan for leaves? Like, what doyou what do you do to help
people plan for leaves? Justkind of give me a little
highlight with that?
Alyson Caffrey (17:17):
Yeah, great, great question. And also amazing
that you guys offer those typesof benefits to your employees.
Because my opinion is, is thatsmall businesses wait a little
bit too long to offer some ofthese more competitive packages,
and they end up losing reallycapable parents to this
transition. And so I justappreciate you for doing that.
And your wife for doing that.
Because I'm sure you guys know,after having twins, that it's
hard, right? And oftentimes, wecan offer competitive packages
(17:39):
to our employees, but who'ssitting here saying, Oh, the
business owner, right, like, howdo we take our time? How do we
do that? How do we budget forthat? And so what we really take
a look at on the team managementside of things, right is real
allocation of responsibilitiesand accountabilities. Right. So
first and foremost, what are theteam member? Who's going out?
What are they responsible for?
(18:01):
What are they looking at interms of accountability and
responsibility? And what I meanby that is, what are they doing
to push buttons and pull levers?
Right, the actual results aregenerating and then
accountabilities might be, ifthey're leading a team, right?
If they're in a management orleadership position, how are
they checking in? How are theyfostering results within the
team that they manage? And sobeing super, you know, inclusive
about that, and making sure totake a really solid inventory of
what the responsibilities theydo have? And then start to ask
(18:24):
ourselves, how accessible isthat information? Right? What
kind of training exists? Whatkind of procedures exist around
some of that stuff? And is thereeven an opportunity to cross
train some of those things? Andhave the team members who are
staying in the organizationreally pick up that load? And
kind of help us through some ofthat transition? And can we do
that in a way that makesfinancial sense to the business,
(18:46):
right, we can't completelytrain, let's just say, you know,
a customer servicerepresentative to get on the
phone and start closing somedeals, but Well, we could
probably do is look internallyand say, Alright, if we front
load this in a way that makessense. And if we can cross train
in a way that makes sense, wecould be able to prop you know,
some of these people up in theirabsence and really support them
(19:06):
through this time versus makingthem feel like they're just kind
of dumping their work onsomebody's plate with no context
are spending hours and hours andhours of valuable company time
training somebody one on one toget the results that they get.
So one of the biggest thingsthat we focus on when we start
to take a look at thistransition is how visible is
company training and howcentralized is the information
(19:28):
on how to get results inside ofthe business. And so that's one
of the biggest things that Ididn't when I prep for my
maternity leave as I was like,How can I help people get the
results that I'm getting for thebusiness and where am I taking
input and so when we shift overto the owner, right, we need to
start taking a look at some ofthose things I mentioned before,
right? What am I putting in whatam I getting out what delivers
(19:49):
the most value and what bringsme the most joy because I'm sure
you and Meredith know. Havingthe babies is just the first
part but like growing a businesswith A family is not for the
faint of heart, andtransparently like it probably
changed. I'm sure for you itchanged for me several times
after becoming a mom, my oldestis only two and a half. And it
(20:10):
just is constant state ofrefining, you know, what we're
doing, how we're spending timeaway from our family, what time
we're spending in the business.
And so we really help, you know,business owners, just take take
a tally there and be able tomake some really solid decisions
on you know, what's next forthem?
Brad Ebenhoeh (20:28):
Yeah, no. It's great, great information. I
think from our end, like I acouple of things, I think, what
is what's helped us through thetransition of these leaves with
us Plus, our team, as at numberone is like, we're very
systematic, systematic, we havedocumentation and standard
(20:48):
operating procedures and tasksbuilt out like an asana and
different tools. So there's,there's there's things out there
that exists that just aren't ineverybody's head, right? I think
that's just step one of thatjust helps this whole process.
You're saying number two is,like talent, I'm telling you
about, like, after we startedhiring really good people, like
probably near five, like, we'reabout almost 11 years. So like
(21:10):
before, we had our twins that westarted hiring really good
talent, like, wow, I see why. Itliterally that the ROI on great
talent and identifying what youneed, whether it's like for us,
we do accounting, billable work,or whether it's pure internal
marketing, HR operations, I'veworked right like it that those
people can leverage so much, andreally create so much
(21:33):
opportunity for you, thebusiness owner to do something
else, or to take the lead orsomebody else. And I think the
third thing is really justopportunity. When people leave
in 90 days, there's a hugeopportunity to cross train, to
identify like, if that person'srole is really needed, not to
eliminate them, but to say, hey,maybe we can enhance their role
or what do we really need thenext step of the next iteration
(21:53):
of Accountfully, or whatever itis, right? So taking somebody
into leaving, leveraging up thenext person and that person
comes back, maybe there's adifferent function or whatever
it going. I really likeidentifying the opportunity that
exists when somebody's gone tosay, really, do we need that
role in a the exact existence?
It does? Or is that more of afractional? Because we've just
(22:13):
spread it out among amongstmultiple people, and can that
person then help in differentfunctions of the business? So
it's really interesting when youlike, it's very scary. I guess
the business owner, when peopletake leaves are like, Oh, no,
but then it always works out.
And then when the day they comeback, you have like a highly
functional brand new employee,basically, who knows what's
(22:34):
going on is like backup andrunning right away. So it's
pretty cool. But it all worksout? Well.
Alyson Caffrey (22:40):
Yeah, no doubt, I love that shift. And I've been
encouraging a lot of the folksthat I'm working with in this
vein to approach Matt leave asan opportunity, right. I mean,
it really is such a greatopportunity. Because like I
said, when I left, theorganization I was ops manager
for right, he was like, I need90 days from you. But some
people do not give that type ofnotice and aren't willing to put
(23:01):
in that type of time. And all ofa sudden, you could be faced
with a situation where somebodywalks out of your organization,
and what a great way to kind ofdemo that is let them go out on
leave. Let them spend the timewith their family refreshed go
through the transition of beinga parent, because you know, it's
a rocky one. And come back, likeyou mentioned, refreshed and
ready to make some waves at theorganization.
Brad Ebenhoeh (23:23):
Yeah, I mean, I know like, you know, it was up
this morning at 430 Hanging outwith two kids. It was great. So
anyways, a couple other topicsas we kind of move forward here
and wrap this up. Number one iswe're accountants that focus on
accounting, bookkeeping,finance, you know, money, like
what are a couple things thatyou touch base on from your, you
(23:43):
know, operational agencyconsulting to your clients,
specifically around money,accounting, you know, all that
type of stuff?
Alyson Caffrey (23:50):
Yeah, money tells a good story, right. So
usually, if you're in a positionwhere you can follow the cache
and show where it's going, andhow much time you know, because
time equals money, especiallywhen you're hiring a team, you
know, you can really tell a goodoperational story from where
your money is going. So if youkind of start there at the base
level, and you can say, Okay,this is taking me X amount of
time equaling X amount of money,you can make some really core
(24:13):
decisions from thereoperationally, meaning, here's
how much margin I have topotentially hire a new person,
here's how much time this mighttake me and how I might need to,
quote future projects or how Imight need to raise my prices.
And I've always said andfrequently experienced with my
clients after we start to kindof, you know, crack and crack
(24:34):
things open and you know, startto take a look at what's
involved in their services. Iknow so many entrepreneurs and
service providers who haveraised their prices as a result
of conversations with me becausethey're like, oh, yeah, I didn't
realize all of that time andmoney and effort went into that
thing. And I'm only chargingfive grand for it. I'm going to
charge 10 grand for it. And I'mlike, Yes, that's what I'm
(24:54):
talking about. Right? If as longas we know, right? So I think
finance provides us with aplatform refer knowing right so
knowing how much time somethingtakes me knowing how much cost,
something takes me. And the morevisibility you can have into
your finances in youroperations. In my opinion, the
better decisions you can make asan owner, right in terms of
direction in terms of hiringsomebody. So trying to decrease
(25:15):
the friction around makingdecisions will ultimately allow
us to net up a lot faster andallow us to serve more people
more easily. And so just havingthat visibility, I know so many
service providers and earlystages of their business that
are either like doing their ownbooks or completely ignoring it.
And I'm like you are doingyourself such a disservice from
not being able to have thatvisibility in your business. And
(25:37):
the same is true withoperations, just like you would
do a chart of accounts for yourfinances, you should also
probably be charting youraccounts for operations. Here's
how long it takes us to deliveron something, here's how long it
takes us to onboard somebody,you know, those types of things
are super crucial when it comesto running a business.
Brad Ebenhoeh (25:53):
Love it couldn't agree more on on that aspect. I
think you need to have good datato make the best decisions you
can. You know one thing aboutpricing, which I always tell
people, like it's easier toconsistently adjust pricing up
over time annually orconsistently versus doing
nothing. And then five yearslater, tripling your your prices
(26:15):
and irritating everybody. And atthe end of the day, your labor
costs money, they get raises andincreases every year, they're
adding more value to yourclients, your consistent
clients. There should be like areflective aspect of that going
on. And I think people reallyhesitate because they're either
scared or they just don't knowand don't even understand all
the inputs that go into thataspect. Yeah, but I mean,
Alyson Caffrey (26:36):
as you become more transparent with your ops,
and how much things are costingyou and you want to raise your
prices, then you also know interms of input, like what more
value can I give my clientthat's not necessarily super
expensive for my agency sale onthat will really bring them I
don't know, maybe justification,right? If that's how you want to
see it, like justification forraising your prices, whether
that's you know, betterfinancial acumen or delivery
(26:58):
acumen from your team,specifically who's working
directly with them. Now, thisperson has another year of
knowledge working with X amountof clients, it's really great to
be able to position value, Ithink in front of your clients
that way.
Brad Ebenhoeh (27:09):
Yes, yes. I couldn't agree more on all that
aspects. So I'm kind of onerandom questions is what is the
most interesting situationyou've ever seen good or bad
from a client. And clearly youcan take this wherever you want.
I'm just very interested by this
Alyson Caffrey (27:28):
interesting situation
Brad Ebenhoeh (27:30):
craziest, or the way they are running their
business or like this mindblowing thing that you've seen.
Alyson Caffrey (27:38):
So I have to I service based one, and then I
actually like 10%, like a smallsliver of my business I like to
leave for just taking on wildstuff. I'm like, I just want to
be challenged, you know. Sotraditional agency issue I was
hired in to help someone doproject management streamlining
inside of their agency, theywere trying to grow from one and
(27:58):
a half to 3 million. And soactually earlier this year, and
I swear to goodness, gracious. Iwas like, Hey, listen, here are
some of the things you reallyneed to do. We need to start to
build this culture in yourbusiness around project
management rules of engagementand how often projects are
updated and tracking time. And Ikid you not I know this sounds
really scary. And it mightactually make me lose customers
(28:18):
for anyone who's listening. Butthey I kid you not lost five
team members, like two dayslater. I kid you not they left.
They just they were like we'redone. Sorry, I can't deal with
this, whatever else. And as Istarted kind of unpacking a
little bit more of maybe whythat happened. It was just a it
(28:39):
was just a practice of they werelike I'm like this, this
entrepreneur specifically hadbeen like, you know, shiny
object syndrome, and probablyall over them all year long. And
so I started to see him loseinterest in our project. And I
was like, they probably thoughtthis wasn't gonna stick and this
isn't gonna work and all ofthose things. So I ended up
going to him and I was like,Hey, listen, dude, I can help
(28:59):
you fractionally because I knowyou really need it. But you've
got to like commit to being ableto do this or else there is no
way you're making it from oneand a half to three. I mean,
that is one of the hardest leapsin service businesses that I
have you ever seen in my fiveyears of working with folks
operationally and so I kid younot, he called me and we was
like, so bla bla bla bla bla blabla bla bla bla quit today. And
(29:23):
I was like,oh my goodness, Krej because I
couldn't believe it. I couldn'tbelieve it.
So that was the craziest story.
And I think I think the biggesttakeaway again, for me, and for
anybody listening isn't that ifyou tell your team that things
are going to operate better,they're all just going to walk
off site. It's that if youcommit to doing something, as an
(29:43):
agency owner, it does trickledown into your team, especially
if you keep similar habits andyou keep operations and finance
top of mind and you really arecommitted to doing those things
to grow the longevity of yourcompany over time. Like I said,
it's like health. It's not easy.
If it was easy, everybody woulddo it. And everybody would have
a six pack. And everybody wouldhave a, you know, multimillion
(30:05):
dollar business. But myencouragement there is just to,
you know, be the leader for yourteam that shows them, hey,
listen, it's important tooperate well and write things
down. And it'll keep, you know,kind of things moving forward in
a positive direction is thesecond crazy ones. We've been
working with this client for awhile. And they are, they have
(30:26):
their medical imaging company,so like totally outside of my
realm of expertise. But they hada super interesting model. And
they have just been acquiringcenters left and right for the
last two years. And so we'vebeen working with them, we've
opened 60 new centers with themwith a standard operating
procedure and, you know,training manual for each of the
(30:48):
new centers, we like plug andplay it. And we actually opened
a location in Jefferson in Julylike Jefferson health hospital,
it was a brutal, crazy, legalthing. And I kind of wanted to
tell you guys this, because Ithink like, there's like two
ends of the spectrum, right?
There's like the crazy frictionbased like high lawyers,
everybody's involved inbreathing down everybody's necks
(31:11):
to like open a new location. Andthen there's like a really
simple way to inject operationsinto a business that like just
helps everything flow a littlebit better. And so I personally
think that folks approach someof these topics, like there's
going to be a ton of red tapeall over my business, and
nobody's going to be able to doanything and taking time off,
it's gonna take 900 steps and600 points of approval, and I'm
(31:33):
gonna have to overpay people andbloat and all that stuff. But in
reality, it's really justtransparency, right? So as long
as we know what we're goingafter we know what's expected,
and we know how to do it, then,for the most part, right? We're
going to be doing really well.
Brad Ebenhoeh (31:49):
Love it. I was always love hearing those types
of stories and real lifeexamples there. All right, so
last two kinds of questionswould, as we've kind of wrap up
this kind of podcast and chatnumber one is what is one
service space business do? Whatis one recommendation for a
business owner no matter thesize for them to do and to
implement on their business?
Operationally, anything?
(32:14):
Anything where you want to talk?
Alyson Caffrey (32:15):
Oh, my goodness, yeah, do what makes you happy.
Like, I mean, I know that soundsso cheesy, but I think so many
times in a day, and this, I'm avictim of this as well, right?
You like follow what's going tomake you more money or what
someone else told you, youshould do or whatever. And I
think that like, especiallyafter becoming a parent to like,
(32:36):
your intuition is a really,really valuable thing. And as
you start to take notice of whatbrings you joy, and what
doesn't, the thing that's goingto sustain a business over time
is going to be consistency andjoy, right, being able to double
down on the things that youreally want to be doing. And I
know so many business owners whosay that, you know, the only
(32:58):
reason why someone's notsuccessful is because they just
didn't stick with it longenough. And I think the reason
why people don't stick with itlong enough, is because they
don't like it, they don't wantto do it. And so really as
objective as you can be aboutassessing that on a regular
basis absolutely is going to bethe key to helping you live a
more fulfilled life and grow athriving business.
Brad Ebenhoeh (33:19):
Couldn't agree more than then what is one
Don't? Don't
Unknown (33:27):
let me say,
Alyson Caffrey (33:28):
Oh, I have a good one. Don't overcomplicate
things. So usually the simplestanswer is the best one. And even
though I talked to so manyowners who are like, this seems
too easy, or this seemswhatever. And I'm like, Yeah, I
mean, if it's easy, thatprobably means it comes easy to
you, you can conceptually kindof get through it pretty simply.
(33:48):
And my opinion is is thesimpler, the better. So what
whether that comes tooperations, whether that comes
to channels in your marketing,whether that comes to conversion
mechanisms, the simpler thebetter, right? Usually it takes
about let's just say 2500 to 3k.
I don't know if that's a ball,it's just a ballpark figure for
it to be worth like getting onthe phone to close in an agency,
right? So like, lifetime valuewise. And so like, perhaps we
(34:11):
need to just be like, if that'sthe simplest way to do it, I
should just offer a $3,000package that gets a specific
result. Get on the phone withpeople, if it converts, well,
that's great. Just keep doingthat thing. You don't need to
overcomplicate it, like multichannel marketing. And so just
keep things simple, keep thingsconsistent. And again, it'll
probably pan out.
Brad Ebenhoeh (34:34):
Yeah, no, I agree with that. Like the services you
sell. Keep them simple andtangible. So they're easily
understandable. decisions youmake internally how you pay
people how you communicate, makeit simple. If it's complex, you
have to over over analyze it orover define it then it's wasting
people's times. It's and it'sfrustrating for everybody so
(34:56):
awesome. Allison, this wasgreat. Love the chat Um, where
can we find you? What are youpromoting? Give us the rundown
here as we kind of in the chat.
Alyson Caffrey (35:05):
Yeah, totally.
I'm super excited for next year.
So my big thing is operationsagency.com You can find most of
my goodies there and a littlebit more about me. We're
actually kind of redoing a lotof our front end offers. So be
on the lookout for those. I'mlaunching a toolkit in 2023
which is super exciting. Sothat'll be live here in a little
bit. And if you're looking toyou know, get some support and
(35:27):
some free resources on planning,maternity leave, whether for
yourself from your business orwith your team, Master maternity
leave a.com is where to find meon that.
Brad Ebenhoeh (35:35):
Awesome. Thanks so much, Alison. I enjoyed the
chat Overbury out there thatlistens enjoys the chat. Again.
This is the Accountfully chatwith Alison Catherine from
operations agency. Thanks,Alison. Thanks, Brad. Appreciate
it.
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