November 19, 2024 • 44 mins
Why are efficient systems so essential for building a calmer business? And how do you go about finding the right systems and processes for yourself?
We're continuing in our mini-series on my calmer framework for a calmer business. This week, we're focused on my favorite aspect of my CALMER framework -- efficient systems. We dive into the importance of understanding our own processes before building systems, and then explore some of the many ways our individual systems can look.
We're joined by Amelia Hruby, a writer, educator, and podcaster with a PhD in philosophy. She is the founder of Softer Sounds, a feminist podcast studio for entrepreneurs and creatives. And sheʼs the host of Off the Grid, a podcast about leaving social media without losing all your clients.
On this episode, we learn how to create systems that work fo rus, our teams, and our clients. We also learn what the transition from work without efficient systems to efficient systems can look like, and how it all fits into creating a calmer business for everyone involved.
Listen to the Full Episode to Hear:
- How do you create autonomy through systems?
- What impact can an efficient system have on business and team members?
- How can you operate through a lens of care using systems?
- Why do you need to start with a process before building systems?
Learn more about Amelia Hruby
Learn more about me, Susan Boles:
We value your thoughts and feedback. Feel free to share them with Susan here. Your input is not just valuable, it's crucial in shaping future episodes.
- (00:00) - Introduction to Building a Calmer Business
- (00:51) - The Importance of Efficient Systems
- (02:40) - Guest Introduction: Amelia Ruby
- (04:45) - Challenges Before Implementing Systems
- (16:15) - Developing and Implementing the System
- (29:27) - Impact and Benefits of the New System
- (42:12) - Final Thoughts and Encouragement
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Susan Boles (00:04):
You can't create a calmer business without building
systems. Efficient systems andrepeatable processes are the
tactical work of designing andbuilding a business that feels
calmer. Hi there. I'm SusanBoles and this is Beyond
Margins, the show where wedeconstruct how to engineer a
calmer business. We're in themiddle of a mini series where
(00:27):
we're exploring the commonelements of a calm business.
So what makes a calm businessactually calm, and how do you
intentionally design and buildfor that? So far, we've covered
clarity, autonomy, a lens ofcare, and margins in previous
episodes. So if you've missedthose, I recommend you head back
(00:48):
to the beginning of the seriesand catch up. Today, we're
talking about probably myfavorite element of calmer
businesses, efficient systems.If this isn't your first episode
of Beyond Margins, you've almostcertainly heard me talk about
how important systems arebefore.
I am an operations geek at heartbut I really can't overstate how
(01:11):
critical systems are becausesystems are how you make most of
the other elements of the calmerframework actually happen. How
do you make clarity a reality?Well, you use a system to
communicate your intentions andwhat actions folks should take.
How do you create autonomy? Youdesign ways of working, I e
(01:33):
systems that create theconditions for autonomous work.
How do you operate through alens of care instead of just
having the intention to care?Well, you write it into your
policies. Those policies aresystems. How do you build
margins? Well, you build systemsaround how you work that create
margins.
(01:53):
That might be policies aboutclient emergencies or designing
how you deliver your services orhow you actually execute the
work. How do you build rest andreduce urgency? Again, systems.
When I'm talking systems, I'mnot just talking about your
project management tool here.I'm using the word systems in
kind of its broadest sense.
(02:15):
So policies, procedures,workflows, checklists and yes
your software too. They are allpart of what I'm talking about
when I say system. Basically,anything you use to communicate
or do work is part of yoursystems. And today, we're gonna
hear about the impact ofbuilding strong systems and how
(02:36):
it actually builds calm into abusiness. My guest today is
Amelia Hroubie.
She's the founder of SofterSounds which is a feminist
podcast studio for entrepreneursand creatives. And Amelia is
going to take us inside thesystem she uses for managing the
workflow of client episodes andhow that specific system helped
(02:58):
her stop trying to hold a1000000 pieces of information
about each episode in her head.If you are unfamiliar with
podcasting, putting out apodcast episode basically
entails a 1000000 different tinytasks. And trying to hold that
all in your head, well, that'spretty hard.
Amelia Hruby (03:18):
I am the founder and executive producer at softer
sounds, which is a feministpodcast studio for entrepreneurs
and creatives. So at our core,we edit cool podcasts. We work
with small business owners whoare doing great work, and they
have a show that talks aboutthat in some way. And I like to
tell them that they can havetheir big ideas and record what
(03:40):
they have to say, and then weessentially take it from there.
So we edit the audio, we writeshow notes, we create graphics,
and we schedule episodes to golive for our clients.
Can you describe your team alittle bit for me so that we
have some understanding of whois actually interacting with the
system? So Softr Sounds startedas just me. And before it was
(04:03):
even Softr Sounds, I just didfreelance work for about 5 years
and then eventually I created acompany. And then over the past
three and a half years, I'vehired 4 different roles. My
current team is me and 2 audioeditors and one assistant
producer and one show noteswriter slash transcript cleanup
(04:26):
extraordinaire.
So we're currently 4 contractorsand myself, and I am a, like,
full time employee of thebusiness.
Susan Boles (04:35):
Awesome. Yeah. I always find that it's really
helpful to understand who istrying to use the system and
what you're trying to containbecause everybody's systems tend
to look a little bitdifferently. Talk to me a little
bit about what was going on inyour company before you
implemented the system. So whatdid it feel like?
What was going on?
Amelia Hruby (04:54):
So I'm here to talk about my system for
tracking the progress of clientepisodes through the production
process. And in the verybeginning, that whole system
lived inside my brain. Like,when I had 4 or 5 clients, I
just kinda knew, like, oh, thisone releases weekly, so I have
(05:14):
their episode done by everyFriday so it can go live on
Tuesday. Like, then the businessgrew. Five clients was not
enough for me to, like, make afull time living, so we became
more like 10, 12, 15 clients.
I brought on my first editor whois a friend of mine, still works
with the company. Her name'sJesse. And then the system lived
(05:35):
on paper. I wrote it down everyweek and I would send Jesse some
episodes to do. It has reallyevolved since then.
So when I brought Jesse in, Irealized like this cannot just
all live in my brain. Like Ihave to assign work. I have to
actually communicate to someoneelse what we're doing. That just
kind of kept growing over time.So the feeling I was having was
(05:55):
just like, oh my gosh, there istoo much for me to keep track
of.
I can't keep up with everysingle episode that's going live
every week for our clients. Ican't keep track of is it
edited, does it have show notes,does it have graphics? So the
overall feeling I had was justlike overwhelm and I just wanted
to burn it all down and walkaway from the whole thing
because I was so stressed allthe time.
Susan Boles (06:17):
Yeah. I can imagine. For our listeners who
don't have a podcast, getting aa specific podcast episode just
for one show out the door is anamalgam of, like, 700 little
tiny individual steps and tasksthat are all very much like
you're doing the same thing overand over and over, but there are
(06:40):
so many tiny details in a waythat a lot of processes and kind
of normal business operations,it's just very atypical, at
least in my opinion, becausethere are so many steps and you
do the same thing for everysingle episode, essentially.
Amelia Hruby (06:57):
Yeah. I would completely agree with and
underscore that. Like, podcastsare very process intensive, and
they require a lot of attentionto detail. And that in and of
itself is challenging. One of myfavorite things a client has
said to me is when she startedher show, she was like, Amelia,
I thought it would just be likewriting and publishing a blog
(07:17):
post, which I do all the time.
But then I got into it, andshe's like, it is absolutely
not. It's like I have to writethe blog post, and then I have
to record it, and then I have tothink about if I liked my
recording, and then I have toedit it. And then once it's
edited, then I have to writeshow notes that are not the blog
post, but like the blog post.And then I have to think about
if those are good enough andwrite a title and, like, it just
involves so much more than Ithink even many of my clients
(07:40):
who are great at creatingcontent, like when they get into
podcasting, they're like, wow.This is so many more steps than
I anticipated.
Susan Boles (07:46):
Yeah. And there's just so many different aspects
that you really don't thinkabout. That whole blog post
writing thing. You write a blogpost. You read it.
Maybe you read it out loud tomake sure it's good, and then it
can be done where on thepodcast, if you are listening to
yourself, read that blog post, Iguarantee you, you hate your
voice. Nobody likes hearing thesound of their own voice. And if
(08:08):
you have to edit yourself,that's exponentially worse.
Amelia Hruby (08:11):
Yes. I would agree. Absolutely. In the
beginning, I was like, there isno way on earth I sound like
that. This recording is wrong.
I would rather never deal withthis again, but over time, it
does get easier.
Susan Boles (08:23):
Back to the operational piece, the context
that is really important here isyou were trying to hold, you
know, 500 steps for everyepisode of every show
Amelia Hruby (08:38):
in your head. It was too much. I couldn't do it.
The reality was, like, part ofwhat forced me to make the
system is that things startednot getting done or getting
missed or getting, you know,sent out the door not to quite
the quality I would have likedbecause I was dropping the ball.
Like, there were too many tasks.
And for many shows, we'reworking on multiple episodes at
a time. I think there's alsosomething within podcasting
(09:01):
that, like, it's the episodesrelease sequentially, but often,
like, we're making them in avery overlapped way. So it's not
like I could be like, okay.Here's the 4 episodes I'm doing
this week for the 4 shows Ihave. It was like, oh, no.
Here's, like, the 12 episodesthat need attention across these
4 shows at different stages. Youknow? And in my opinion and in
the opinion of every singlepodcast producer I've ever
(09:22):
talked to, it is too much tokeep inside of one break. Yeah.
Susan Boles (09:26):
Yeah. Yeah. Like, I only have the one show and only
a few episodes kind of inprocess at any given time,
probably more than other folksbecause we normally produce in
content themes. Right now, I'vegot a theme of, like, 8 episodes
that were but even that couldabsolutely not hold that in my
head. So tell me a little bitabout how that felt for you as
(09:47):
the business owner.
So you are not just the producerof all of these shows trying to
hold all of that in your head,but you're also trying to do all
of the other business things.You know? You're the marketer.
You're the ops person. You'rethe finance person.
Talk to me about what that feltlike for you. Well, it felt bad.
Amelia Hruby (10:11):
I'm like, I need to take a big deep breath and
sigh it out. It was verychallenging to context switch in
those moments. Like, my impulsewas always to put the client
work first because that is whatis, like, paying my bills. And
then I would find that I hadvery little time or, like,
(10:31):
mental energy or capacity to dothe important business tasks, to
market my services, to write theblog post to help bring people
our way, to follow-up withpeople, to get testimonials, to
send nice notes to my team, tothank them for the work that
they're doing. Like, it wasreally hard to find space for
that when I was just juggling somuch client work.
(10:54):
And when I say it felt bad, Imean, what felt bad is I just
never felt like the work wasdone. I never felt like I was
doing it to, like, the qualityof excellence that I strive to
do in my work. And over time, itit kind of eroded my belief in
(11:14):
myself. Like, as I felt like Iwasn't as good at my job, that
made it harder and harder andharder to show up in my
business. And I don't thinkpeople talk about this so much
even in, like, the smallbusiness space, but it's, like,
at the core of our businesses,like, we have to believe we
Susan Boles (11:30):
can do it. Part of being a business owner is being
wildly optimistic to the pointof being mildly delusional. Like
Absolutely. I I don't know thatyou can run a business without
some element of that, and it'sso interesting how you put it
because I think you're right. Wereally don't talk about that
(11:52):
kind of getting overwhelmed,leading to losing confidence in
yourself and your work, and thenbeing afraid to sell things or
hiding from doing the work.
Yeah. But also at the same time,being completely full of anxiety
because the, if I don't do thework, then I won't make any
money and then everything willcollapse around me.
Amelia Hruby (12:15):
I am also a huge catastrophizer. So of course,
I'm like, oh, I missed thatclient deadline. Obviously, I'm
gonna lose my house, which Ijust wanna say is it's clearly
not the case. My overwhelm,because I didn't have a
supportive system in place totrack the progress of client
episodes, it's not that anythingever really went wrong. Like
every single episode still wentout on time, but there were more
(12:39):
bumps along the way and everysingle one of those bumps was a
sort of like death by a 1000paper cuts to my confidence.
And I really felt that slippingand I really felt that impacting
my ability to run the business.
Susan Boles (12:53):
I have absolutely been there, and I think it
happens especially when we getoverwhelmed, especially when
we're mired in the I have 1100decisions or actions that I have
to take today. And I haveabsolutely no idea how that's
gonna actually happen because Ihave 3 hours worth of work, and
(13:17):
I have 15 minutes till I have togo pick up my kid from school.
Amelia Hruby (13:19):
Yeah. Exactly. And I think the other thing I
noticed before the system wasput into place is it felt like
every single time I sat down, Ihad to reinvent my to do list. I
was never sure of everythingthat needed to get done because
I was just I had too much on myplate, and I didn't have a
system for tracking it in a waythat I could rely on. And so
(13:41):
that was a big piece of mydecision fatigue and overwhelm
as well.
It was like, well, I have 15minutes to sit down and work,
and I need 45 minutes to evenfigure out what the work is.
Right? The math doesn't maththere.
Susan Boles (13:55):
So take me through what was the trigger. What made
you decide, hey. I need to dosomething to make this better.
Amelia Hruby (14:07):
I think there were 2 stages to this. They're kind
of like 2 stages to the systemitself and 2 different triggers
at different times. So the firsttrigger was that I just hit a
wall with burnout. Kind of aftermy 1st year or so in business, I
was like, I cannot keep goingforward this way. I had this
(14:27):
moment where I was like, maybe Ishould just quit my business.
It's been a nice year. And whenI started having that
conversation with myself, I waslike, no. This is not that hard.
I can do this. I just needbetter systems to put in place.
But the second turning pointthen became that I was bringing
on an assistant producer, and Iwas like, this person cannot do
their job if so much of thisstill lives in my head. And so I
(14:51):
have to externalize theseprocesses. I have to create a
system that someone else canlook at and make sense of. And
so that led me to, like, totallyrehaul the system a second time.
But those are my 2 triggers.
It was like an internal one andan external one that finally got
me to make some systems and getthese tasks out of my head.
Susan Boles (15:12):
And I think those are 2 really common triggers in
terms of a lot of the time whenwe don't have enough margin in
our capacity, when we areoverwhelmed and we are working
well beyond what is sustainable,it it takes some external
triggers to convince you tospend the time building a system
(15:33):
because building systems, itdoes take time. It takes energy,
and it is capacity that you'reusing for your own business
versus being able to use thatcapacity to serve more clients.
And I think it is very easy todismiss that investment up until
(15:53):
the point where you canabsolutely no longer avoid
making the investment, whetherthat's somebody coming in or you
just going, I can't do thisanymore. We are going to take a
quick break to hear from oursponsors, but when we come back,
we are getting geeky. And Ameliais going to take us through the
ins and outs of actuallyimplementing this system.
(16:15):
Tell me about how you decided onwhat system you needed to
implement, what that lookedlike. Take me through that
process.
Amelia Hruby (16:23):
So my first system was the no system system where
everything lives in my brain andit's really not working. I went
from there to another verycommon system which was just a
to do list on paper. The firststep of this was I would start
every day with like a 10 minutesort of brain dump of like this
is everything I think I have todo, I'm gonna go through my
(16:45):
inbox, I'm gonna go through myNotion notifications. I just
write it all down. And I didthat every morning, which worked
a little bit.
Like, I I would say that took mefrom, like, 4 to 6 clients
perhaps. But over time, it wasstill too much. Like, I moved
that paper to do list into mydigital workspace, so I work
primarily in Notion. And then ata certain point, I was like,
(17:06):
this is still too much. I wasstarting every week with this
template that had a list ofevery single one of my clients,
And every Monday morning, Iwould sit down and be like,
okay.
This is everything this clientneeds this week. And then as
work got done, I would manuallycheck it all off. And then at
the end of the week, I wouldclear it out, see what was left
(17:27):
for the next week, and then thenext Monday, I would start over.
And that probably took me up to,like, producing 8 to 10 shows.
And then when I really wanted togrow the studio and I was
working, you know, with now wework with anywhere from, like,
12 to 25 shows at any giventime, That list didn't work
anymore.
It took me the entirety ofMonday to make that list, and I
(17:47):
was like, this is not a good useof my time. So that was also
when I was growing the team. SoI brought on my assistant
producer. I brought on anothereditor and show notes writer,
and I was like, okay. I amdreaming of a database that has
every single episode that wemake for every single client on
it.
And I want that to be visible bythese team members and the
(18:09):
people that need to work onthese things. Almost a year ago
now, when I was on my winterbreak so I closed the studio for
2 weeks at the end of everyyear, and I took those 2 weeks
to build that system. So I wouldsay this is where I, like,
actually built a system. Thiswas the point where I went went
from, okay. I've got versions ofto do lists that I work through
in my head, to do list on paper,daily brain dump, Monday brain
(18:31):
dump.
Those are all systems, but theyjust weren't complex or
integrated enough. And so Ibuilt a database in Notion that
has all of our clients, like,categories for each of our
clients and lists every singleepisode that they are working on
in each month. So at the startof the month, I go through and I
manually add all their episodesfrom their respective dashboards
(18:53):
because they have their owndashboards and their own
workspaces. I manually add theepisodes at the start of each
month from client dashboards,and then I created buttons that
automate the tasks for everysingle episode for every single
show because every single showworks a little bit differently.
And when I put in the episodes,I hit all the buttons and that
(19:14):
populates all of the tasks andwho they're assigned to, and
then I add due dates as audiocomes in and it's ready for team
members.
You built the system. Take methrough the process of actually
implementing it with your team.What went well? What didn't go
well? What did that kind of looklike?
I think overall, the launch ofthe system went very well, and
(19:35):
part of that was because Ialready had the whole team
working
Susan Boles (19:37):
in Notion in their respective workspaces.
Amelia Hruby (19:37):
Since the very beginning of me having
contractors, I have had acontractor dashboard that has
guiding principles for thebusiness. It has policies for
all of our contractors, and ithas respective workspaces
depending on the type of workthey do. So I have an audio
editing workspace, I have a shownotes workspace, and I have an
(19:58):
assistant producer workspacenow. And each of those
workspaces is set up withexclusively the information that
those contractors need. And Iwould say it made the biggest
difference for my assistantproducer because previously, I
was just, like, half hazardlytagging her in things that I had
in mind that I needed her topick up for me.
But now all of her work isassigned through this central
(20:21):
client episode database. Soevery time there's a task that I
need her to do, I just tag herand I'm like, this is ready for
you. And she knows where to gofind it and she knows where to
put it when her work is done.And that was honestly pretty
seamless. I think that the thingthat has been more challenging
to implement is that some thingsare still pretty siloed.
So the audio editors are notcurrently working directly
(20:44):
inside of this client episodedatabase. There's a separate
audio editing database, and Iuse a relation in Notion to
connect the 2. This has been abig question for me is, like,
who needs access to whatinformation? I think that with
my team, we can all work off ofthe central database, but I've
had some moments where it'slike, oh, no. Somebody
(21:05):
accidentally deleted 8 episodes,and I have to go figure out what
happened.
Those are the moments wheresometimes it feels easier to
just be like, I've made thisthing for this type of work and
it lives siloed in this wayrather than living in the core
system that I need to keep thebusiness running. Like, I think
I make myself a bottleneck evenwithin this system, and I would
(21:27):
like to stop doing that so much.
Susan Boles (21:29):
Yeah. I think it's interesting in systems like
Notions. It's so heavilycustomizable, and it doesn't
really have any universal rules,which makes it inherently
flexible. But it also means thatas a user, you have to be the
one thinking about how to siloinformation versus other tools
(21:51):
like ClickUp or Monday orwhatever that have roles and
permissions already created thatinherently I think that's a
particular challenge with Notionespecially, but it is always
really important as you'rethinking about particularly
working with contractors orother team members, making sure
(22:12):
that they have enough of the bigpicture to have the context to
be able to make choices inwhatever their individual work
is, but also not overwhelmingthem or not giving them access
to information that they mightnot need or maybe shouldn't have
access to. And I think that issomething when we're designing
system that is always a hardnuance to get to.
Amelia Hruby (22:34):
As someone who worked as a contractor in many
different businesses, I've beenin all sort I've been in the
position in all the systems.Yeah. Yeah. Like, I've been in
the space where, like, I didn'tget enough information and I had
no context for my work and thatdoesn't go well. And I've also
been in the position where I hadway too much context, and I'm
like, I don't need to know everysingle task on your to do list
(22:54):
for this, like, 2 hour a weekthing that I do for you.
And so I'm always thinking aboutthat balance in how I share
information.
Susan Boles (23:02):
You have to have a really good understanding of how
data is structured and howrelational databases work to
really be able to use iteffectively, and I think that's
what a lot of people findchallenging is that that is a
whole that is a whole subset ofexpertise and information that
most people just don't have orwant to spend brain space on.
Amelia Hruby (23:24):
Part of why I kind of tried to take care with
talking through the iterationsof the system is I was producing
podcast episodes in the exactsame way for two and a half
years before I built this systemaround it. And figuring out the
way that I produce podcastepisodes is a system in and of
itself. Right? The system I'mhighlighting is how did I
document those tasks andautomate the, like, pop up of
(23:47):
the tasks themselves so thatthose could then be distributed
across myself and my team. But,like, before I even got there, I
spent 2 years figuring out,like, what's the best process
for making podcast episodes forclients.
I couldn't build this Notiondatabase until, a, I knew what
that was, and, b, I had beenworking in Notion for years and
knew how to do all the Notion ystuff.
Susan Boles (24:05):
I think that's an excellent point because when we
think about systems, we normallyare thinking about, like, a
software tool or a projectmanagement thing. And I think
there is really a distinctionbetween the process, the
workflow that you actually dohave to spend time iterating on
and learning and then thedocumentation or distribution of
(24:28):
those processes. And I thinkthey're 2 separate things, and
you're right. A lot of people gointo the software tool expecting
the software tool to solve parta, and the software tool is
really just a mechanism todeliver that workflow that
you've already spent timethinking about refining,
iterating, making it moreefficient. Heading back to
(24:54):
permissions, this this is aquestion that I get all the time
with consultants who are peoplewho work with multiple clients
or who in some way they'reinteracting with their clients'
task management system, whetherthat is, you know, a different
software tool or they have tosomehow interact 8 different
(25:14):
client systems.
When you were thinking aboutbuilding this, did you think
about giving clients access tosome sort of client view and
forcing them into your systemversus using their system. When
I started my business, I toldclients, like, I'll just do
whatever you want. And I wasmaking podcasts. Like, I always
(25:35):
had shared files in GoogleDrive. I had shared files in
Dropbox.
I had shared files in Notion.And I was like,
Amelia Hruby (25:40):
this is not gonna work. Like, I cannot work on 15
shows where every single one isa fully different process. There
has to be more cohesion orcoherence between the processes.
And so I would say within the1st 6 months of my business, I
had moved all my clients intoNotion. And so every client gets
their own production dashboardin Notion.
(26:02):
And I tell clients that this iswhere I request that you share
files with me. I don't requirethat they do much more than
that. And I just think aboutNotion, like, they can just link
to the Dropbox folder where theyhave the files and it will embed
that for me and I can grab thefile from there. Every client
uses their production dashboardin their own way and I encourage
them to personalize it. When Isay I make them a production
(26:23):
dashboard, what that means is,like, I have a database that's
pre created for them.
I have different resource pages.They get a little note from me.
This is all set up when Ionboard them, and then they get
to adjust it as they see fit.And they get to use it to the
extent that works for them. AndI just run it from there.
And then I have clients whohave, like, fully transformed
their dashboard and do everysingle part of their podcasting
(26:43):
inside of there. And I just goin to be like, oh, cool stuff
you did and grab my files and domy pieces. So everybody's in
Notion, but it's very flexible,and I encourage them to make it
work for their brain and the waythat they work. Largely because
what I found with podcasting isthat there are a 1,000,000 ways
to make a podcast, and if youdon't do it in a way that works
(27:04):
for you, like, if I try to makemy clients do it my way, they'll
just burn out and quit. And sothe more I can empower them to
find their own path through itwith my advice, then I've found
just the greater longevity theyhave in podcasting.
I did consider whether or not Iwould want to have just client
views of my database where theyonly see their episodes, but I
(27:26):
decided against that primarilyfor two reasons. One is I like
the clients can really customizetheir databases to work for
them, and that can't happen ifthey're working in my database.
Like, I can't have them adding a1000000 different properties
that only they use and nobodyelse uses, and then all of a
sudden my database is litteredwith all this stuff. I have no
(27:47):
clue what it is or all theirnotes that I have no clue what
they're talking about. Right.
I don't want all of that in mylike core database that I run
the whole business from. That'snot gonna work for me. So I want
them to be able to customizewithout it messing up my
workflow. There may be 2 morereasons. One is that, like,
clients change their mind intheir episodes a lot, and I
(28:07):
prefer to check-in with thatmonthly and update as I go, as
opposed to just, like, be at thewhim of them moving everything
around.
Thirdly, just sometimes the viewproperties in Notion get a
little janky. I would constantlybe getting messages from clients
that are like, where'd all myepisodes go? I can't see
anything. I just decided to notdeal with any of that, and they
have their own databases. I havemy core database, and I do the
(28:31):
manual work of updating so thatthe 2 align in terms of what
episodes go live on what days.
Susan Boles (28:36):
Oh, I love that where that's kind of a hybrid
approach of it's sort of in yoursystem, but their process And
there's a little bit of manualwork involved, but at least it's
manual work within the samesystem. So streamline it a
little bit.
Amelia Hruby (28:51):
And I think part of the reason this works for me,
I will say, is that I'm notdoing major corporate or
government or universitycontracts. Right? I think that
there are types of consultingwork where you don't get to
dictate what the system is, andthey're like, great, we're
paying you to work how we work.And I think that those are not
my clients. And I'm typicallyworking with small businesses or
(29:12):
independent creators.
And so they're pretty happy towork within my system. And I
would say for at least half, ifnot more of my clients, they
don't have any system thatthey've been using to make their
podcast, and so they're justreally glad what now exists.
Susan Boles (29:27):
So talk to me a little bit about the impact. We
talked about the before picture.What does it feel like now both
for your team members and foryou personally now that the
system is up?
Amelia Hruby (29:41):
Yeah. It feels so good. Like, life feels so much
easier. I start my weekstypically by, like, opening up
the client episode dashboard andgoing through the database and
kind of being like, okay. Here'swhat's on deck for each client.
Let me make sure that the workis assigned to the correct
contractors. Let me make my ownlittle list of what I need to
(30:01):
do. Although I say make a list,but actually, I have a view of
that database that lives insideof my weekly agenda dashboard.
Board. So I just assign thingsto myself and then it populates
all those tasks for me, whichfeels great as opposed to me
writing things in 20 differentplaces.
All of that just feels sointegrated and streamlined. It
feels like a relief. Like, I canrelax, and it feels like I can
(30:24):
actually do the work withoutstressing about the work all the
time, which is, I think, reallyimportant just for my overall
capacity. The other thing it'sreally done is empower the
people I work with to, like,notice when something needs to
move from, like, one stage toanother or to start tagging each
other to pass off work. And I'vegotten, like, much more
(30:44):
integrated.
And that's a space where I'vebecome less of a bottleneck
because it's not like someonesending me work and then I have
to send it to someone else. Thathas been a huge just like
streamline and shift in theprocess that has made my life so
much easier. And I wouldn't saythe business can, like, run
without me now, but it can do alot more without me, which I
really love. And I
Susan Boles (31:04):
think that's an underestimated piece of systems
is having a really well thoughtthrough, well executed system
means that instead of spendingall day Monday trying to decide
what is the work that I'm doing,you skip that process and you
just look and say, great. Hereis my list that I have of things
(31:27):
to do. And instead of using myenergy to decide things, I can
just go do the thing that it'svery clear that that's what I am
supposed to be doing on thisparticular day. For me, when I
implemented my own systems, justhaving that burden of, I don't
actually have to spend very muchenergy deciding what to do. We
(31:47):
really underestimate how muchtime, attention, energy,
decision fatigue goes into whatam I supposed to be doing today.
Amelia Hruby (31:57):
Oh, absolutely. But now I think I have the same
number of tasks per week. Idon't actually think that the
workload has lessened. It mighteven have increased because we
work on so many more shows thanI did when it was, like, all in
my head, but it feels so mucheasier for all the reasons
you're mentioning because I'mnot spending so much time
figuring out what to do. I knowwhat to do, and I just have to
(32:18):
do it.
And so I can do more in the sameamount of time or even less time
than I could before thanks tothe system. This is why I love
systems.
Susan Boles (32:26):
I love systems. This I should title this episode
an ode to systems.
Amelia Hruby (32:31):
Truly, though. This system specifically has
just transformed my wholerelationship to my business, and
it's been such a relief.
Susan Boles (32:41):
So did anything surprise you during this whole
process?
Amelia Hruby (32:46):
It was way easier to make the system than I
thought it would be. Like, whenI made the database on that
break a year ago, I was like,oh, this only took, like, 2 days
of work. And then I was like, ohmy gosh. There was only 2 days
of work between me and lifebeing this much easier. Amelia,
come on.
Like, I waited.
Susan Boles (33:05):
It's such a universal experience. Like, it's
just everybody who's everprocrastinated. Like, how many
of us have on our to do listthat we move from day to day,
week to week is build system forx, right process for whatever.
And in reality, it takes us 15minutes, maybe a couple of hours
(33:29):
to do the thing that ends upsaving us. You know, in your
case, this was an entire day oftrying to figure out what to do
every single week.
Assuming that you work everyweek, that's 52 workdays.
That's, like, almost 2 months'worth of work that, you know,
you just had to sit down andsay, cool. I'm gonna spend 2
days doing this.
Amelia Hruby (33:51):
Oh, don't drag me like that. So real. I am
laughing because I am a systemsperson. I'm an operations
person, and I still
Susan Boles (33:53):
do this. No. Absolutely. Person, I'm an
operations person, and I stilldo this. No.
Absolutely. So, yeah, leastsurprising surprise ever.
Amelia Hruby (33:59):
It did not take as long as I thought to build the
system and put it into place.The other surprise, perhaps, for
me is that it really hasn'trequired a ton of upkeep or
changing over the course of thepast year. I have set aside,
like, a day this winter to kindof do some fine tuning and
(34:20):
revise some stuff and update thebuttons where client systems
have shifted. I built itspecifically enough, but also
generally enough that it canflex with us as the work shifts,
as the process shifts. I felt alot of pressure for it to be
perfect, but, actually, like, itjust needed to be good enough
that I can keep working with it.
(34:41):
And then now, like, I lookforward to doing this, like,
annual update of it. I thinkit'll be fun to implement some
new spiffy things, but, like,it's working great as it is, and
that's a nice surprise.
Susan Boles (34:52):
I love that. And I think we underestimate how
iterative processes and systemsreally are. And I also think
that's a testament to youspending 2 years figuring out
what is the workflow becausethen you were very clear on how
(35:12):
you thought about information,what tasks actually needed to go
in. And I think for most peopleand most of the clients that I
work with on operation stuff,the hardest part is figuring out
what is the process. The systemall of the systems, whether it's
Notion or ClickUp or Monday orTrello or they all do the same
thing, and it's not about thesystem.
(35:35):
It's about what is the systemdoing and spending more of your
time really iterating on thatprocess, really refining how you
think about episode productionand how that works for you at
your company in your brain. Allof those kinds of things is a
critical piece. And I thinkthat's the piece that most
people miss, which is why theyimplement a new software and go,
(35:58):
well, this isn't working. Thisisn't doing what I needed it to
do. And it's because theyskipped that step that we sort
of skipped over.
But the reality is is that youspent 2 years figuring out what
should be in the system, and youdid all of those iterations
before you got to the system.That's the piece I think for a
lot of people is surprising aswe want it to be perfect when it
(36:20):
happens. But depending on whereyou are on that development of
the process and the workflowversus development of the
system, it's more iterative atthe beginning, less iterative
towards the end.
Amelia Hruby (36:31):
Yeah. That all feels incredibly true to me. I
love this point that you'rereally bringing to the forefront
of, like, the process has tocome before the system. Trying
to implement a system thatdoesn't have a strong process
foundationally underneath it,like, will just get you nowhere
and waste a lot of time. Thereason this system works so well
(36:51):
for me and, like, the piecesI've been able to automate is
because of the type of work I doand because podcasting is so
repetitive.
Susan Boles (36:59):
And I think there there are certainly parts of
every business that areequivalent to podcast
accounting. There's a reasonthat, like, the finance systems
are usually the first ones Itackle because you do the same
thing every week, every month.It's the same checklist. And I
think there is the opportunityto do that in a lot of
(37:19):
consulting or agency projects.But, again, it's really
dependent on spending a lot oftime on that first part where
we're really defining theprocess.
We're really defining what arethe actual deliverables. What is
the process through which we aredelivering this service and
standardizing that as much asyou can and allowing
(37:44):
standardized container forcustomized consulting where the
actual packaging, the deliveryof what you're providing is kind
of the same. You're always doingthis meeting or this process or
this deliverable or thistemplate or whatever. And the
consulting piece is interactive,but kind of the steps, the
(38:05):
container, is as standardized aspossible, which can sort of
bridge the gap a little bitbetween something like
podcasting, which is veryprocess oriented and something
like doing a lot of websitedesign. Right?
If you're doing a websitedesign, the website design for
each company is gonna be verydifferent. You're not building
them the exact same website. Thecopy is gonna be different. The
(38:27):
vibe, the visual design, all thepages, that's gonna be
different. But the processthrough which you collect
information from a client ordeliver the design that can be
very much repeatable.
As long as you spend timethinking about that first part,
that first phase where you'resaying, what is the process?
(38:49):
What are we delivering? How arewe delivering it in the same way
that you did it? It isapplicable. You need to have had
multiple clients who you do thesame sort of thing with before
you can really know
Amelia Hruby (38:59):
what your process is and then build a system from
it. And I work with a lot ofbeginner business owners who I
see try to, like, build thesereally involved systems. And I'm
like, you have literally not hadenough clients yet to know what
this process is such that youshould develop a strong system
for it.
Susan Boles (39:15):
It is the hardest part for me always is to not
systematize things Yes. At thebeginning. Like, you have to
conceptualize it and then do it,not systematized a few times and
figure out where do things gooff the rails. And as much as it
pains me to say it, youabsolutely have to do it really
(39:36):
ugly and inefficiently the firstcouple of times to realize where
you can systematize things oreven what problems you're
actually solving for clients.One of the things that I do with
clients a lot of the times ishelp them develop productized
service offerings.
So we're doing this process. Andit's always easier to do when
(39:56):
you have data about, I'vedelivered it this way with this
client and at this price andthis way with this client at
this price. And I actually likedversion 2 better, but there are
pieces from version 1 that wecan pull in. It's always so
iterative and ugly at thebeginning, and that's how you
figure out what you're solving,what repeatable problems you're
(40:19):
constantly solving for clients,and how you're gonna do that
because I think it looksdifferent for everybody. We've
been talking here specificallyabout a podcast production
workflow, but this process canapply to any system, any process
in any business.
So take something like clientonboarding for example. This is
(40:40):
something that we all do in ourbusinesses, but there are lots
of parts and pieces to it. Youneed to send a proposal or a
contract, send an invoice,accept payments, send onboarding
communications, set up clientfolders and resources, schedule
live calls. There are a millionthings to do and it happens
every single time you bring on aclient. But like podcast
(41:02):
production, it's also somethingwhere you do the same steps over
and over and over.
So taking time to build a systemfor this process can save you a
bunch of time which allows youto build some margin or some
space in your overall capacity.Even just starting with a
reminder checklist of all thethings means that steps don't
(41:22):
get missed. But you could dowhat I do in my own business
where the onboarding iscompletely automated. I have a
system that does all of thosesteps I just mentioned and it
does them automatically. Soevery time I onboard a client,
it probably saves me at least 30minutes if not more.
(41:43):
Less time working means moretime that you get to do
literally anything elseincluding potentially building
more systems like that. So youcan see how those systems can
really quickly snowball. Takinga small action or setting up a
small system in one area of yourbusiness can create the
breathing room to do it inanother area. And eventually,
(42:04):
you realize that most of theadmin stuff you have to deal
with is all taken care of andyou have a much calmer business.
That is really the power ofsystems.
So do you think there's anythingwe should talk about that we
haven't touched on yet that youthink we should bring up?
Amelia Hruby (42:23):
I think there are probably many more folks
listening who have a podcastlike yourself than there are who
have a podcast production studiolike me. And if you're in that
position, I highly encourage youto have a system for your own
podcast and to have some type ofdatabase spreadsheet situation
where you are organizing yourepisodes. Over half my clients
(42:47):
come to me and don't have anysystem for tracking their show,
and I just think that my showsare so much better for having a
clear production dashboard and asystem for, like, here's how I
make every episode, and I makeit sort of the same way every
time. I guess I just wanna say,like, even if you have no need
to make a client episodedatabase and track 20 shows
(43:08):
across time like I do, if youare making even one show,
systems can really transformyour relationship to the show
because one of the leadingcauses of burnout in my
podcasters is when they makeevery single episode a different
way or they feel like they'restarting from scratch every
single time. And the system willkeep you from feeling that way,
(43:29):
and I want you and your amazingpodcast to continue being made.
I don't care how you make it,but, like, please support
yourself with your own podcastsystem.
Susan Boles (43:40):
If you only take one action from listening to
this entire miniseries, itshould be this. Lean into
building systems because it'sthe way you actually engineer
all the other elements in thecalmer framework. It's the how
of building a calmer businessand you don't have to do
everything all at once. Starttiny. Build one checklist.
(44:03):
Outline one workflow. Streamlineone meeting and then do another
one. Tiny actions can build oneach other like bricks.
Eventually, you lay enoughbricks and you end up with a
calmer business. You can supportthe show by leaving a rating or
a review.
It really does help newlisteners hit play with more
(44:25):
confidence. And you can supportour sponsors by using the link
in your show notes. All of thishelps me keep this independent
podcast going and growing. Sothank you for supporting us and
thank you for listening. Untilnext time.
Stay calm.
You can't create a calmer business without building
systems. Efficient systems andrepeatable processes are the
tactical work of designing andbuilding a business that feels
calmer. Hi there. I'm SusanBoles and this is Beyond
Margins, the show where wedeconstruct how to engineer a
calmer business. We're in themiddle of a mini series where
(00:27):
we're exploring the commonelements of a calm business.
So what makes a calm businessactually calm, and how do you
intentionally design and buildfor that? So far, we've covered
clarity, autonomy, a lens ofcare, and margins in previous
episodes. So if you've missedthose, I recommend you head back
(00:48):
to the beginning of the seriesand catch up. Today, we're
talking about probably myfavorite element of calmer
businesses, efficient systems.If this isn't your first episode
of Beyond Margins, you've almostcertainly heard me talk about
how important systems arebefore.
I am an operations geek at heartbut I really can't overstate how
(01:11):
critical systems are becausesystems are how you make most of
the other elements of the calmerframework actually happen. How
do you make clarity a reality?Well, you use a system to
communicate your intentions andwhat actions folks should take.
How do you create autonomy? Youdesign ways of working, I e
(01:33):
systems that create theconditions for autonomous work.
How do you operate through alens of care instead of just
having the intention to care?Well, you write it into your
policies. Those policies aresystems. How do you build
margins? Well, you build systemsaround how you work that create
margins.
(01:53):
That might be policies aboutclient emergencies or designing
how you deliver your services orhow you actually execute the
work. How do you build rest andreduce urgency? Again, systems.
When I'm talking systems, I'mnot just talking about your
project management tool here.I'm using the word systems in
kind of its broadest sense.
(02:15):
So policies, procedures,workflows, checklists and yes
your software too. They are allpart of what I'm talking about
when I say system. Basically,anything you use to communicate
or do work is part of yoursystems. And today, we're gonna
hear about the impact ofbuilding strong systems and how
(02:36):
it actually builds calm into abusiness. My guest today is
Amelia Hroubie.
She's the founder of SofterSounds which is a feminist
podcast studio for entrepreneursand creatives. And Amelia is
going to take us inside thesystem she uses for managing the
workflow of client episodes andhow that specific system helped
(02:58):
her stop trying to hold a1000000 pieces of information
about each episode in her head.If you are unfamiliar with
podcasting, putting out apodcast episode basically
entails a 1000000 different tinytasks. And trying to hold that
all in your head, well, that'spretty hard.
Amelia Hruby (03:18):
I am the founder and executive producer at softer
sounds, which is a feministpodcast studio for entrepreneurs
and creatives. So at our core,we edit cool podcasts. We work
with small business owners whoare doing great work, and they
have a show that talks aboutthat in some way. And I like to
tell them that they can havetheir big ideas and record what
(03:40):
they have to say, and then weessentially take it from there.
So we edit the audio, we writeshow notes, we create graphics,
and we schedule episodes to golive for our clients.
Can you describe your team alittle bit for me so that we
have some understanding of whois actually interacting with the
system? So Softr Sounds startedas just me. And before it was
(04:03):
even Softr Sounds, I just didfreelance work for about 5 years
and then eventually I created acompany. And then over the past
three and a half years, I'vehired 4 different roles. My
current team is me and 2 audioeditors and one assistant
producer and one show noteswriter slash transcript cleanup
(04:26):
extraordinaire.
So we're currently 4 contractorsand myself, and I am a, like,
full time employee of thebusiness.
Susan Boles (04:35):
Awesome. Yeah. I always find that it's really
helpful to understand who istrying to use the system and
what you're trying to containbecause everybody's systems tend
to look a little bitdifferently. Talk to me a little
bit about what was going on inyour company before you
implemented the system. So whatdid it feel like?
What was going on?
Amelia Hruby (04:54):
So I'm here to talk about my system for
tracking the progress of clientepisodes through the production
process. And in the verybeginning, that whole system
lived inside my brain. Like,when I had 4 or 5 clients, I
just kinda knew, like, oh, thisone releases weekly, so I have
(05:14):
their episode done by everyFriday so it can go live on
Tuesday. Like, then the businessgrew. Five clients was not
enough for me to, like, make afull time living, so we became
more like 10, 12, 15 clients.
I brought on my first editor whois a friend of mine, still works
with the company. Her name'sJesse. And then the system lived
(05:35):
on paper. I wrote it down everyweek and I would send Jesse some
episodes to do. It has reallyevolved since then.
So when I brought Jesse in, Irealized like this cannot just
all live in my brain. Like Ihave to assign work. I have to
actually communicate to someoneelse what we're doing. That just
kind of kept growing over time.So the feeling I was having was
(05:55):
just like, oh my gosh, there istoo much for me to keep track
of.
I can't keep up with everysingle episode that's going live
every week for our clients. Ican't keep track of is it
edited, does it have show notes,does it have graphics? So the
overall feeling I had was justlike overwhelm and I just wanted
to burn it all down and walkaway from the whole thing
because I was so stressed allthe time.
Susan Boles (06:17):
Yeah. I can imagine. For our listeners who
don't have a podcast, getting aa specific podcast episode just
for one show out the door is anamalgam of, like, 700 little
tiny individual steps and tasksthat are all very much like
you're doing the same thing overand over and over, but there are
(06:40):
so many tiny details in a waythat a lot of processes and kind
of normal business operations,it's just very atypical, at
least in my opinion, becausethere are so many steps and you
do the same thing for everysingle episode, essentially.
Amelia Hruby (06:57):
Yeah. I would completely agree with and
underscore that. Like, podcastsare very process intensive, and
they require a lot of attentionto detail. And that in and of
itself is challenging. One of myfavorite things a client has
said to me is when she startedher show, she was like, Amelia,
I thought it would just be likewriting and publishing a blog
(07:17):
post, which I do all the time.
But then I got into it, andshe's like, it is absolutely
not. It's like I have to writethe blog post, and then I have
to record it, and then I have tothink about if I liked my
recording, and then I have toedit it. And then once it's
edited, then I have to writeshow notes that are not the blog
post, but like the blog post.And then I have to think about
if those are good enough andwrite a title and, like, it just
involves so much more than Ithink even many of my clients
(07:40):
who are great at creatingcontent, like when they get into
podcasting, they're like, wow.This is so many more steps than
I anticipated.
Susan Boles (07:46):
Yeah. And there's just so many different aspects
that you really don't thinkabout. That whole blog post
writing thing. You write a blogpost. You read it.
Maybe you read it out loud tomake sure it's good, and then it
can be done where on thepodcast, if you are listening to
yourself, read that blog post, Iguarantee you, you hate your
voice. Nobody likes hearing thesound of their own voice. And if
(08:08):
you have to edit yourself,that's exponentially worse.
Amelia Hruby (08:11):
Yes. I would agree. Absolutely. In the
beginning, I was like, there isno way on earth I sound like
that. This recording is wrong.
I would rather never deal withthis again, but over time, it
does get easier.
Susan Boles (08:23):
Back to the operational piece, the context
that is really important here isyou were trying to hold, you
know, 500 steps for everyepisode of every show
Amelia Hruby (08:38):
in your head. It was too much. I couldn't do it.
The reality was, like, part ofwhat forced me to make the
system is that things startednot getting done or getting
missed or getting, you know,sent out the door not to quite
the quality I would have likedbecause I was dropping the ball.
Like, there were too many tasks.
And for many shows, we'reworking on multiple episodes at
a time. I think there's alsosomething within podcasting
(09:01):
that, like, it's the episodesrelease sequentially, but often,
like, we're making them in avery overlapped way. So it's not
like I could be like, okay.Here's the 4 episodes I'm doing
this week for the 4 shows Ihave. It was like, oh, no.
Here's, like, the 12 episodesthat need attention across these
4 shows at different stages. Youknow? And in my opinion and in
the opinion of every singlepodcast producer I've ever
(09:22):
talked to, it is too much tokeep inside of one break. Yeah.
Susan Boles (09:26):
Yeah. Yeah. Like, I only have the one show and only
a few episodes kind of inprocess at any given time,
probably more than other folksbecause we normally produce in
content themes. Right now, I'vegot a theme of, like, 8 episodes
that were but even that couldabsolutely not hold that in my
head. So tell me a little bitabout how that felt for you as
(09:47):
the business owner.
So you are not just the producerof all of these shows trying to
hold all of that in your head,but you're also trying to do all
of the other business things.You know? You're the marketer.
You're the ops person. You'rethe finance person.
Talk to me about what that feltlike for you. Well, it felt bad.
Amelia Hruby (10:11):
I'm like, I need to take a big deep breath and
sigh it out. It was verychallenging to context switch in
those moments. Like, my impulsewas always to put the client
work first because that is whatis, like, paying my bills. And
then I would find that I hadvery little time or, like,
(10:31):
mental energy or capacity to dothe important business tasks, to
market my services, to write theblog post to help bring people
our way, to follow-up withpeople, to get testimonials, to
send nice notes to my team, tothank them for the work that
they're doing. Like, it wasreally hard to find space for
that when I was just juggling somuch client work.
(10:54):
And when I say it felt bad, Imean, what felt bad is I just
never felt like the work wasdone. I never felt like I was
doing it to, like, the qualityof excellence that I strive to
do in my work. And over time, itit kind of eroded my belief in
(11:14):
myself. Like, as I felt like Iwasn't as good at my job, that
made it harder and harder andharder to show up in my
business. And I don't thinkpeople talk about this so much
even in, like, the smallbusiness space, but it's, like,
at the core of our businesses,like, we have to believe we
Susan Boles (11:30):
can do it. Part of being a business owner is being
wildly optimistic to the pointof being mildly delusional. Like
Absolutely. I I don't know thatyou can run a business without
some element of that, and it'sso interesting how you put it
because I think you're right. Wereally don't talk about that
(11:52):
kind of getting overwhelmed,leading to losing confidence in
yourself and your work, and thenbeing afraid to sell things or
hiding from doing the work.
Yeah. But also at the same time,being completely full of anxiety
because the, if I don't do thework, then I won't make any
money and then everything willcollapse around me.
Amelia Hruby (12:15):
I am also a huge catastrophizer. So of course,
I'm like, oh, I missed thatclient deadline. Obviously, I'm
gonna lose my house, which Ijust wanna say is it's clearly
not the case. My overwhelm,because I didn't have a
supportive system in place totrack the progress of client
episodes, it's not that anythingever really went wrong. Like
every single episode still wentout on time, but there were more
(12:39):
bumps along the way and everysingle one of those bumps was a
sort of like death by a 1000paper cuts to my confidence.
And I really felt that slippingand I really felt that impacting
my ability to run the business.
Susan Boles (12:53):
I have absolutely been there, and I think it
happens especially when we getoverwhelmed, especially when
we're mired in the I have 1100decisions or actions that I have
to take today. And I haveabsolutely no idea how that's
gonna actually happen because Ihave 3 hours worth of work, and
(13:17):
I have 15 minutes till I have togo pick up my kid from school.
Amelia Hruby (13:19):
Yeah. Exactly. And I think the other thing I
noticed before the system wasput into place is it felt like
every single time I sat down, Ihad to reinvent my to do list. I
was never sure of everythingthat needed to get done because
I was just I had too much on myplate, and I didn't have a
system for tracking it in a waythat I could rely on. And so
(13:41):
that was a big piece of mydecision fatigue and overwhelm
as well.
It was like, well, I have 15minutes to sit down and work,
and I need 45 minutes to evenfigure out what the work is.
Right? The math doesn't maththere.
Susan Boles (13:55):
So take me through what was the trigger. What made
you decide, hey. I need to dosomething to make this better.
Amelia Hruby (14:07):
I think there were 2 stages to this. They're kind
of like 2 stages to the systemitself and 2 different triggers
at different times. So the firsttrigger was that I just hit a
wall with burnout. Kind of aftermy 1st year or so in business, I
was like, I cannot keep goingforward this way. I had this
(14:27):
moment where I was like, maybe Ishould just quit my business.
It's been a nice year. And whenI started having that
conversation with myself, I waslike, no. This is not that hard.
I can do this. I just needbetter systems to put in place.
But the second turning pointthen became that I was bringing
on an assistant producer, and Iwas like, this person cannot do
their job if so much of thisstill lives in my head. And so I
(14:51):
have to externalize theseprocesses. I have to create a
system that someone else canlook at and make sense of. And
so that led me to, like, totallyrehaul the system a second time.
But those are my 2 triggers.
It was like an internal one andan external one that finally got
me to make some systems and getthese tasks out of my head.
Susan Boles (15:12):
And I think those are 2 really common triggers in
terms of a lot of the time whenwe don't have enough margin in
our capacity, when we areoverwhelmed and we are working
well beyond what is sustainable,it it takes some external
triggers to convince you tospend the time building a system
(15:33):
because building systems, itdoes take time. It takes energy,
and it is capacity that you'reusing for your own business
versus being able to use thatcapacity to serve more clients.
And I think it is very easy todismiss that investment up until
(15:53):
the point where you canabsolutely no longer avoid
making the investment, whetherthat's somebody coming in or you
just going, I can't do thisanymore. We are going to take a
quick break to hear from oursponsors, but when we come back,
we are getting geeky. And Ameliais going to take us through the
ins and outs of actuallyimplementing this system.
(16:15):
Tell me about how you decided onwhat system you needed to
implement, what that lookedlike. Take me through that
process.
Amelia Hruby (16:23):
So my first system was the no system system where
everything lives in my brain andit's really not working. I went
from there to another verycommon system which was just a
to do list on paper. The firststep of this was I would start
every day with like a 10 minutesort of brain dump of like this
is everything I think I have todo, I'm gonna go through my
(16:45):
inbox, I'm gonna go through myNotion notifications. I just
write it all down. And I didthat every morning, which worked
a little bit.
Like, I I would say that took mefrom, like, 4 to 6 clients
perhaps. But over time, it wasstill too much. Like, I moved
that paper to do list into mydigital workspace, so I work
primarily in Notion. And then ata certain point, I was like,
(17:06):
this is still too much. I wasstarting every week with this
template that had a list ofevery single one of my clients,
And every Monday morning, Iwould sit down and be like,
okay.
This is everything this clientneeds this week. And then as
work got done, I would manuallycheck it all off. And then at
the end of the week, I wouldclear it out, see what was left
(17:27):
for the next week, and then thenext Monday, I would start over.
And that probably took me up to,like, producing 8 to 10 shows.
And then when I really wanted togrow the studio and I was
working, you know, with now wework with anywhere from, like,
12 to 25 shows at any giventime, That list didn't work
anymore.
It took me the entirety ofMonday to make that list, and I
(17:47):
was like, this is not a good useof my time. So that was also
when I was growing the team. SoI brought on my assistant
producer. I brought on anothereditor and show notes writer,
and I was like, okay. I amdreaming of a database that has
every single episode that wemake for every single client on
it.
And I want that to be visible bythese team members and the
(18:09):
people that need to work onthese things. Almost a year ago
now, when I was on my winterbreak so I closed the studio for
2 weeks at the end of everyyear, and I took those 2 weeks
to build that system. So I wouldsay this is where I, like,
actually built a system. Thiswas the point where I went went
from, okay. I've got versions ofto do lists that I work through
in my head, to do list on paper,daily brain dump, Monday brain
(18:31):
dump.
Those are all systems, but theyjust weren't complex or
integrated enough. And so Ibuilt a database in Notion that
has all of our clients, like,categories for each of our
clients and lists every singleepisode that they are working on
in each month. So at the startof the month, I go through and I
manually add all their episodesfrom their respective dashboards
(18:53):
because they have their owndashboards and their own
workspaces. I manually add theepisodes at the start of each
month from client dashboards,and then I created buttons that
automate the tasks for everysingle episode for every single
show because every single showworks a little bit differently.
And when I put in the episodes,I hit all the buttons and that
(19:14):
populates all of the tasks andwho they're assigned to, and
then I add due dates as audiocomes in and it's ready for team
members.
You built the system. Take methrough the process of actually
implementing it with your team.What went well? What didn't go
well? What did that kind of looklike?
I think overall, the launch ofthe system went very well, and
(19:35):
part of that was because Ialready had the whole team
working
Susan Boles (19:37):
in Notion in their respective workspaces.
Amelia Hruby (19:37):
Since the very beginning of me having
contractors, I have had acontractor dashboard that has
guiding principles for thebusiness. It has policies for
all of our contractors, and ithas respective workspaces
depending on the type of workthey do. So I have an audio
editing workspace, I have a shownotes workspace, and I have an
(19:58):
assistant producer workspacenow. And each of those
workspaces is set up withexclusively the information that
those contractors need. And Iwould say it made the biggest
difference for my assistantproducer because previously, I
was just, like, half hazardlytagging her in things that I had
in mind that I needed her topick up for me.
But now all of her work isassigned through this central
(20:21):
client episode database. Soevery time there's a task that I
need her to do, I just tag herand I'm like, this is ready for
you. And she knows where to gofind it and she knows where to
put it when her work is done.And that was honestly pretty
seamless. I think that the thingthat has been more challenging
to implement is that some thingsare still pretty siloed.
So the audio editors are notcurrently working directly
(20:44):
inside of this client episodedatabase. There's a separate
audio editing database, and Iuse a relation in Notion to
connect the 2. This has been abig question for me is, like,
who needs access to whatinformation? I think that with
my team, we can all work off ofthe central database, but I've
had some moments where it'slike, oh, no. Somebody
(21:05):
accidentally deleted 8 episodes,and I have to go figure out what
happened.
Those are the moments wheresometimes it feels easier to
just be like, I've made thisthing for this type of work and
it lives siloed in this wayrather than living in the core
system that I need to keep thebusiness running. Like, I think
I make myself a bottleneck evenwithin this system, and I would
(21:27):
like to stop doing that so much.
Susan Boles (21:29):
Yeah. I think it's interesting in systems like
Notions. It's so heavilycustomizable, and it doesn't
really have any universal rules,which makes it inherently
flexible. But it also means thatas a user, you have to be the
one thinking about how to siloinformation versus other tools
(21:51):
like ClickUp or Monday orwhatever that have roles and
permissions already created thatinherently I think that's a
particular challenge with Notionespecially, but it is always
really important as you'rethinking about particularly
working with contractors orother team members, making sure
(22:12):
that they have enough of the bigpicture to have the context to
be able to make choices inwhatever their individual work
is, but also not overwhelmingthem or not giving them access
to information that they mightnot need or maybe shouldn't have
access to. And I think that issomething when we're designing
system that is always a hardnuance to get to.
Amelia Hruby (22:34):
As someone who worked as a contractor in many
different businesses, I've beenin all sort I've been in the
position in all the systems.Yeah. Yeah. Like, I've been in
the space where, like, I didn'tget enough information and I had
no context for my work and thatdoesn't go well. And I've also
been in the position where I hadway too much context, and I'm
like, I don't need to know everysingle task on your to do list
(22:54):
for this, like, 2 hour a weekthing that I do for you.
And so I'm always thinking aboutthat balance in how I share
information.
Susan Boles (23:02):
You have to have a really good understanding of how
data is structured and howrelational databases work to
really be able to use iteffectively, and I think that's
what a lot of people findchallenging is that that is a
whole that is a whole subset ofexpertise and information that
most people just don't have orwant to spend brain space on.
Amelia Hruby (23:24):
Part of why I kind of tried to take care with
talking through the iterationsof the system is I was producing
podcast episodes in the exactsame way for two and a half
years before I built this systemaround it. And figuring out the
way that I produce podcastepisodes is a system in and of
itself. Right? The system I'mhighlighting is how did I
document those tasks andautomate the, like, pop up of
(23:47):
the tasks themselves so thatthose could then be distributed
across myself and my team. But,like, before I even got there, I
spent 2 years figuring out,like, what's the best process
for making podcast episodes forclients.
I couldn't build this Notiondatabase until, a, I knew what
that was, and, b, I had beenworking in Notion for years and
knew how to do all the Notion ystuff.
Susan Boles (24:05):
I think that's an excellent point because when we
think about systems, we normallyare thinking about, like, a
software tool or a projectmanagement thing. And I think
there is really a distinctionbetween the process, the
workflow that you actually dohave to spend time iterating on
and learning and then thedocumentation or distribution of
(24:28):
those processes. And I thinkthey're 2 separate things, and
you're right. A lot of people gointo the software tool expecting
the software tool to solve parta, and the software tool is
really just a mechanism todeliver that workflow that
you've already spent timethinking about refining,
iterating, making it moreefficient. Heading back to
(24:54):
permissions, this this is aquestion that I get all the time
with consultants who are peoplewho work with multiple clients
or who in some way they'reinteracting with their clients'
task management system, whetherthat is, you know, a different
software tool or they have tosomehow interact 8 different
(25:14):
client systems.
When you were thinking aboutbuilding this, did you think
about giving clients access tosome sort of client view and
forcing them into your systemversus using their system. When
I started my business, I toldclients, like, I'll just do
whatever you want. And I wasmaking podcasts. Like, I always
(25:35):
had shared files in GoogleDrive. I had shared files in
Dropbox.
I had shared files in Notion.And I was like,
Amelia Hruby (25:40):
this is not gonna work. Like, I cannot work on 15
shows where every single one isa fully different process. There
has to be more cohesion orcoherence between the processes.
And so I would say within the1st 6 months of my business, I
had moved all my clients intoNotion. And so every client gets
their own production dashboardin Notion.
(26:02):
And I tell clients that this iswhere I request that you share
files with me. I don't requirethat they do much more than
that. And I just think aboutNotion, like, they can just link
to the Dropbox folder where theyhave the files and it will embed
that for me and I can grab thefile from there. Every client
uses their production dashboardin their own way and I encourage
them to personalize it. When Isay I make them a production
(26:23):
dashboard, what that means is,like, I have a database that's
pre created for them.
I have different resource pages.They get a little note from me.
This is all set up when Ionboard them, and then they get
to adjust it as they see fit.And they get to use it to the
extent that works for them. AndI just run it from there.
And then I have clients whohave, like, fully transformed
their dashboard and do everysingle part of their podcasting
(26:43):
inside of there. And I just goin to be like, oh, cool stuff
you did and grab my files and domy pieces. So everybody's in
Notion, but it's very flexible,and I encourage them to make it
work for their brain and the waythat they work. Largely because
what I found with podcasting isthat there are a 1,000,000 ways
to make a podcast, and if youdon't do it in a way that works
(27:04):
for you, like, if I try to makemy clients do it my way, they'll
just burn out and quit. And sothe more I can empower them to
find their own path through itwith my advice, then I've found
just the greater longevity theyhave in podcasting.
I did consider whether or not Iwould want to have just client
views of my database where theyonly see their episodes, but I
(27:26):
decided against that primarilyfor two reasons. One is I like
the clients can really customizetheir databases to work for
them, and that can't happen ifthey're working in my database.
Like, I can't have them adding a1000000 different properties
that only they use and nobodyelse uses, and then all of a
sudden my database is litteredwith all this stuff. I have no
(27:47):
clue what it is or all theirnotes that I have no clue what
they're talking about. Right.
I don't want all of that in mylike core database that I run
the whole business from. That'snot gonna work for me. So I want
them to be able to customizewithout it messing up my
workflow. There may be 2 morereasons. One is that, like,
clients change their mind intheir episodes a lot, and I
(28:07):
prefer to check-in with thatmonthly and update as I go, as
opposed to just, like, be at thewhim of them moving everything
around.
Thirdly, just sometimes the viewproperties in Notion get a
little janky. I would constantlybe getting messages from clients
that are like, where'd all myepisodes go? I can't see
anything. I just decided to notdeal with any of that, and they
have their own databases. I havemy core database, and I do the
(28:31):
manual work of updating so thatthe 2 align in terms of what
episodes go live on what days.
Susan Boles (28:36):
Oh, I love that where that's kind of a hybrid
approach of it's sort of in yoursystem, but their process And
there's a little bit of manualwork involved, but at least it's
manual work within the samesystem. So streamline it a
little bit.
Amelia Hruby (28:51):
And I think part of the reason this works for me,
I will say, is that I'm notdoing major corporate or
government or universitycontracts. Right? I think that
there are types of consultingwork where you don't get to
dictate what the system is, andthey're like, great, we're
paying you to work how we work.And I think that those are not
my clients. And I'm typicallyworking with small businesses or
(29:12):
independent creators.
And so they're pretty happy towork within my system. And I
would say for at least half, ifnot more of my clients, they
don't have any system thatthey've been using to make their
podcast, and so they're justreally glad what now exists.
Susan Boles (29:27):
So talk to me a little bit about the impact. We
talked about the before picture.What does it feel like now both
for your team members and foryou personally now that the
system is up?
Amelia Hruby (29:41):
Yeah. It feels so good. Like, life feels so much
easier. I start my weekstypically by, like, opening up
the client episode dashboard andgoing through the database and
kind of being like, okay. Here'swhat's on deck for each client.
Let me make sure that the workis assigned to the correct
contractors. Let me make my ownlittle list of what I need to
(30:01):
do. Although I say make a list,but actually, I have a view of
that database that lives insideof my weekly agenda dashboard.
Board. So I just assign thingsto myself and then it populates
all those tasks for me, whichfeels great as opposed to me
writing things in 20 differentplaces.
All of that just feels sointegrated and streamlined. It
feels like a relief. Like, I canrelax, and it feels like I can
(30:24):
actually do the work withoutstressing about the work all the
time, which is, I think, reallyimportant just for my overall
capacity. The other thing it'sreally done is empower the
people I work with to, like,notice when something needs to
move from, like, one stage toanother or to start tagging each
other to pass off work. And I'vegotten, like, much more
(30:44):
integrated.
And that's a space where I'vebecome less of a bottleneck
because it's not like someonesending me work and then I have
to send it to someone else. Thathas been a huge just like
streamline and shift in theprocess that has made my life so
much easier. And I wouldn't saythe business can, like, run
without me now, but it can do alot more without me, which I
really love. And I
Susan Boles (31:04):
think that's an underestimated piece of systems
is having a really well thoughtthrough, well executed system
means that instead of spendingall day Monday trying to decide
what is the work that I'm doing,you skip that process and you
just look and say, great. Hereis my list that I have of things
(31:27):
to do. And instead of using myenergy to decide things, I can
just go do the thing that it'svery clear that that's what I am
supposed to be doing on thisparticular day. For me, when I
implemented my own systems, justhaving that burden of, I don't
actually have to spend very muchenergy deciding what to do. We
(31:47):
really underestimate how muchtime, attention, energy,
decision fatigue goes into whatam I supposed to be doing today.
Amelia Hruby (31:57):
Oh, absolutely. But now I think I have the same
number of tasks per week. Idon't actually think that the
workload has lessened. It mighteven have increased because we
work on so many more shows thanI did when it was, like, all in
my head, but it feels so mucheasier for all the reasons
you're mentioning because I'mnot spending so much time
figuring out what to do. I knowwhat to do, and I just have to
(32:18):
do it.
And so I can do more in the sameamount of time or even less time
than I could before thanks tothe system. This is why I love
systems.
Susan Boles (32:26):
I love systems. This I should title this episode
an ode to systems.
Amelia Hruby (32:31):
Truly, though. This system specifically has
just transformed my wholerelationship to my business, and
it's been such a relief.
Susan Boles (32:41):
So did anything surprise you during this whole
process?
Amelia Hruby (32:46):
It was way easier to make the system than I
thought it would be. Like, whenI made the database on that
break a year ago, I was like,oh, this only took, like, 2 days
of work. And then I was like, ohmy gosh. There was only 2 days
of work between me and lifebeing this much easier. Amelia,
come on.
Like, I waited.
Susan Boles (33:05):
It's such a universal experience. Like, it's
just everybody who's everprocrastinated. Like, how many
of us have on our to do listthat we move from day to day,
week to week is build system forx, right process for whatever.
And in reality, it takes us 15minutes, maybe a couple of hours
(33:29):
to do the thing that ends upsaving us. You know, in your
case, this was an entire day oftrying to figure out what to do
every single week.
Assuming that you work everyweek, that's 52 workdays.
That's, like, almost 2 months'worth of work that, you know,
you just had to sit down andsay, cool. I'm gonna spend 2
days doing this.
Amelia Hruby (33:51):
Oh, don't drag me like that. So real. I am
laughing because I am a systemsperson. I'm an operations
person, and I still
Susan Boles (33:53):
do this. No. Absolutely. Person, I'm an
operations person, and I stilldo this. No.
Absolutely. So, yeah, leastsurprising surprise ever.
Amelia Hruby (33:59):
It did not take as long as I thought to build the
system and put it into place.The other surprise, perhaps, for
me is that it really hasn'trequired a ton of upkeep or
changing over the course of thepast year. I have set aside,
like, a day this winter to kindof do some fine tuning and
(34:20):
revise some stuff and update thebuttons where client systems
have shifted. I built itspecifically enough, but also
generally enough that it canflex with us as the work shifts,
as the process shifts. I felt alot of pressure for it to be
perfect, but, actually, like, itjust needed to be good enough
that I can keep working with it.
(34:41):
And then now, like, I lookforward to doing this, like,
annual update of it. I thinkit'll be fun to implement some
new spiffy things, but, like,it's working great as it is, and
that's a nice surprise.
Susan Boles (34:52):
I love that. And I think we underestimate how
iterative processes and systemsreally are. And I also think
that's a testament to youspending 2 years figuring out
what is the workflow becausethen you were very clear on how
(35:12):
you thought about information,what tasks actually needed to go
in. And I think for most peopleand most of the clients that I
work with on operation stuff,the hardest part is figuring out
what is the process. The systemall of the systems, whether it's
Notion or ClickUp or Monday orTrello or they all do the same
thing, and it's not about thesystem.
(35:35):
It's about what is the systemdoing and spending more of your
time really iterating on thatprocess, really refining how you
think about episode productionand how that works for you at
your company in your brain. Allof those kinds of things is a
critical piece. And I thinkthat's the piece that most
people miss, which is why theyimplement a new software and go,
(35:58):
well, this isn't working. Thisisn't doing what I needed it to
do. And it's because theyskipped that step that we sort
of skipped over.
But the reality is is that youspent 2 years figuring out what
should be in the system, and youdid all of those iterations
before you got to the system.That's the piece I think for a
lot of people is surprising aswe want it to be perfect when it
(36:20):
happens. But depending on whereyou are on that development of
the process and the workflowversus development of the
system, it's more iterative atthe beginning, less iterative
towards the end.
Amelia Hruby (36:31):
Yeah. That all feels incredibly true to me. I
love this point that you'rereally bringing to the forefront
of, like, the process has tocome before the system. Trying
to implement a system thatdoesn't have a strong process
foundationally underneath it,like, will just get you nowhere
and waste a lot of time. Thereason this system works so well
(36:51):
for me and, like, the piecesI've been able to automate is
because of the type of work I doand because podcasting is so
repetitive.
Susan Boles (36:59):
And I think there there are certainly parts of
every business that areequivalent to podcast
accounting. There's a reasonthat, like, the finance systems
are usually the first ones Itackle because you do the same
thing every week, every month.It's the same checklist. And I
think there is the opportunityto do that in a lot of
(37:19):
consulting or agency projects.But, again, it's really
dependent on spending a lot oftime on that first part where
we're really defining theprocess.
We're really defining what arethe actual deliverables. What is
the process through which we aredelivering this service and
standardizing that as much asyou can and allowing
(37:44):
standardized container forcustomized consulting where the
actual packaging, the deliveryof what you're providing is kind
of the same. You're always doingthis meeting or this process or
this deliverable or thistemplate or whatever. And the
consulting piece is interactive,but kind of the steps, the
(38:05):
container, is as standardized aspossible, which can sort of
bridge the gap a little bitbetween something like
podcasting, which is veryprocess oriented and something
like doing a lot of websitedesign. Right?
If you're doing a websitedesign, the website design for
each company is gonna be verydifferent. You're not building
them the exact same website. Thecopy is gonna be different. The
(38:27):
vibe, the visual design, all thepages, that's gonna be
different. But the processthrough which you collect
information from a client ordeliver the design that can be
very much repeatable.
As long as you spend timethinking about that first part,
that first phase where you'resaying, what is the process?
(38:49):
What are we delivering? How arewe delivering it in the same way
that you did it? It isapplicable. You need to have had
multiple clients who you do thesame sort of thing with before
you can really know
Amelia Hruby (38:59):
what your process is and then build a system from
it. And I work with a lot ofbeginner business owners who I
see try to, like, build thesereally involved systems. And I'm
like, you have literally not hadenough clients yet to know what
this process is such that youshould develop a strong system
for it.
Susan Boles (39:15):
It is the hardest part for me always is to not
systematize things Yes. At thebeginning. Like, you have to
conceptualize it and then do it,not systematized a few times and
figure out where do things gooff the rails. And as much as it
pains me to say it, youabsolutely have to do it really
(39:36):
ugly and inefficiently the firstcouple of times to realize where
you can systematize things oreven what problems you're
actually solving for clients.One of the things that I do with
clients a lot of the times ishelp them develop productized
service offerings.
So we're doing this process. Andit's always easier to do when
(39:56):
you have data about, I'vedelivered it this way with this
client and at this price andthis way with this client at
this price. And I actually likedversion 2 better, but there are
pieces from version 1 that wecan pull in. It's always so
iterative and ugly at thebeginning, and that's how you
figure out what you're solving,what repeatable problems you're
(40:19):
constantly solving for clients,and how you're gonna do that
because I think it looksdifferent for everybody. We've
been talking here specificallyabout a podcast production
workflow, but this process canapply to any system, any process
in any business.
So take something like clientonboarding for example. This is
(40:40):
something that we all do in ourbusinesses, but there are lots
of parts and pieces to it. Youneed to send a proposal or a
contract, send an invoice,accept payments, send onboarding
communications, set up clientfolders and resources, schedule
live calls. There are a millionthings to do and it happens
every single time you bring on aclient. But like podcast
(41:02):
production, it's also somethingwhere you do the same steps over
and over and over.
So taking time to build a systemfor this process can save you a
bunch of time which allows youto build some margin or some
space in your overall capacity.Even just starting with a
reminder checklist of all thethings means that steps don't
(41:22):
get missed. But you could dowhat I do in my own business
where the onboarding iscompletely automated. I have a
system that does all of thosesteps I just mentioned and it
does them automatically. Soevery time I onboard a client,
it probably saves me at least 30minutes if not more.
(41:43):
Less time working means moretime that you get to do
literally anything elseincluding potentially building
more systems like that. So youcan see how those systems can
really quickly snowball. Takinga small action or setting up a
small system in one area of yourbusiness can create the
breathing room to do it inanother area. And eventually,
(42:04):
you realize that most of theadmin stuff you have to deal
with is all taken care of andyou have a much calmer business.
That is really the power ofsystems.
So do you think there's anythingwe should talk about that we
haven't touched on yet that youthink we should bring up?
Amelia Hruby (42:23):
I think there are probably many more folks
listening who have a podcastlike yourself than there are who
have a podcast production studiolike me. And if you're in that
position, I highly encourage youto have a system for your own
podcast and to have some type ofdatabase spreadsheet situation
where you are organizing yourepisodes. Over half my clients
(42:47):
come to me and don't have anysystem for tracking their show,
and I just think that my showsare so much better for having a
clear production dashboard and asystem for, like, here's how I
make every episode, and I makeit sort of the same way every
time. I guess I just wanna say,like, even if you have no need
to make a client episodedatabase and track 20 shows
(43:08):
across time like I do, if youare making even one show,
systems can really transformyour relationship to the show
because one of the leadingcauses of burnout in my
podcasters is when they makeevery single episode a different
way or they feel like they'restarting from scratch every
single time. And the system willkeep you from feeling that way,
(43:29):
and I want you and your amazingpodcast to continue being made.
I don't care how you make it,but, like, please support
yourself with your own podcastsystem.
Susan Boles (43:40):
If you only take one action from listening to
this entire miniseries, itshould be this. Lean into
building systems because it'sthe way you actually engineer
all the other elements in thecalmer framework. It's the how
of building a calmer businessand you don't have to do
everything all at once. Starttiny. Build one checklist.
(44:03):
Outline one workflow. Streamlineone meeting and then do another
one. Tiny actions can build oneach other like bricks.
Eventually, you lay enoughbricks and you end up with a
calmer business. You can supportthe show by leaving a rating or
a review.
It really does help newlisteners hit play with more
(44:25):
confidence. And you can supportour sponsors by using the link
in your show notes. All of thishelps me keep this independent
podcast going and growing. Sothank you for supporting us and
thank you for listening. Untilnext time.
Stay calm.
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