Building a Small, Effective Team So Your Business Doesn't Stop When You Do

Oct 8

What's this episode of the lionhearted ceo podcast about?

There's a point in your business where you realise that if you want to truly be able to step away without everything grinding to a halt, you need to get some support. But deciding who you need in a team, what exactly they are going to help you with and how it can truly help and not just add more to your plate isn't always a smooth journey!

Pour yourself a cuppa and join Sophie as she shares her journey of scaling her business through effective team building.

Here's what's brewing:

The rollercoaster ride of growing a team (spoiler: it's not always smooth sailing!)
Why hiring for outcomes, not just tasks, is the secret sauce to success
How to find team members who'll thrive in your business's unique environment
The art of delegating entire projects (and why letting go of that last 20% is crucial)
Creating systems that empower your team to shine

Whether you're just starting to build your team or you're looking to level up your leadership skills, this episode is packed with practical tips and inspiring insights that'll help you create a thriving, sustainable business.

Ready to stop being a bottleneck and start being a Lionhearted CEO? Pop the kettle on, grab your favourite biscuits, and let's get stuck in!

READY TO LEAP INTO A

LionHearted CEO Mastermind:

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You've already got your core offers and some scalable offers (maybe too many...!). You might have a podcast or have written a book (or both!). But you know if you truly want to create a business where your revenue isn't tied to your time and energy, you need to be a hell of a lot more intentional about how you're growing your business.

You know you need to probably streamline your offers, invest in team support and actually start leveraging ads... but left doing it on your own, you know it won't happen (well, not fast enough!).

Sound perfect?

The LionHearted CEO is for you!

Click HERE for a video where I spill the tea on the Mastermind and HERE for all the info & how to sign up.

INEVITABLE Minimind:

You're not new to running your own business. You love running your business. But you are ready to take it up a level and start really seeing yourself as a business owner with secure, predictable revenue.

You're probably aiming for around £3-5k/m, you have a core offer but want to start to introduce additional revenue streams, ads, systems maybe some team support.

You know you want to scale and you want to prioritise getting the right foundations in place so that once you are ready, you can dial up the revenue, without burning out.

Sound perfect?

The INEVITABLE Mini Mind is for you!

Click HERE for a video where I spill the tea on the mini mind and HERE for all the info & how to sign up.

Hi! I’m your host Sophie Griffiths, a Meta ads expert and business growth strategist.

The LionHearted CEO podcast is designed for impatiently ambitious women who are ready to scale and often juggling motherhood alongside their thriving online businesses in coaching, course creation, or service-based business.

If you enjoy the podcast, here are some ways you can continue the conversation:

Social:

Love Instagram? Click here to watch a video I made on the Warm audience trap (hint, it's something almost every client struggles with!)More of a LinkedIn fan? I'm there too! Come and follow me here: Sophie Griffiths

Free Resource:

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Work together:

Ready to build an audience of superfans who are excited and ready to buy from you?
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Email me here: hello@sophiegriffiths.co

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Read the transcript:

NOTE: This podcast was transcribed by an AI tool. Please forgive any typos or errors.

[00:00:00] Hello and a big welcome to Lionhearted CEO, the podcast for unapologetically, impatiently ambitious women who know they want to stop being the bottleneck in their business and become the Lionhearted CEO they know they are meant to be. I'm Sophie Griffiths, a tea enthusiast, marketing and Metis ad specialist and firm believer.

The chocolate should never be kept in the fridge. Join me every Tuesday and Thursday for bold, imperfect, fun approach to marketing and scaling your business without burning out every few months. We'll dive into practical strategies and have inspirational conversations that will support you to create a thriving, sustainable business that brings you joy as well as financial freedom.

Okay, let's jump in. 

Hello and welcome to this week's episode. So if you listen to last week's episode, I talked all about. Systems. It was the quite attacky woman shed all the systems I use in my business, how I decided them. And some of the key things I've [00:01:00] made a real difference to me as I've built my business over time, including how, as I bought a team into my business, I had to go back and change some of my systems and really evaluate which ones were going to work best for me. 

Now, this is a real ongoing journey. I'm absolutely not saying that that is my final tech stack they'll ever have. This year, I think more than ever, I have made changes now. I've always chosen tech based on my own preferences. Like which ones I like using this year has really shown me that if I want to scale and grow my business 

so that the revenue is not reliant on my time and energy each month. I really need to look at my systems more strategically. So, if you haven't listened to that episode, I'd highly recommend you listen to it. However, this episode is also standalone, so you don't need to listen to it. In this episode, I'm going to talk about the team. 

Now I've done a few team episodes before, and if you've been following along for a while, you'll know that I have evolved the team quite a lot. And I have had some real challenges bringing a team into my business. In fact, I would probably say it's been the most [00:02:00] challenging part of scaling my business has been growing a team

not because I haven't found great people to work with. That is not the case at all. It's more as the business has grown quite rapidly. 

I haven't known what I wanted. Also I have ADHD and I realized quite quickly that I needed a certain type of support. However, if despite realizing I needed to type a support, I found it quite hard to ask for what I needed. I'm going to talk about that a lot more. 

And I've also really struggled despite having a team, a great team, a really, really competent team feeling like I'm still the bottleneck. Like everything's still stops with me. If I take time out the business. It doesn't keep running on its own in the way that I wanted it to I'm still signing everything off or I'm like looking after 20% of every process. 

So there was nothing that could just happen without my involvement. So I've been working on that hugely. And I've invested in support from people whose main goal is to help you create a really effective efficient team. And allows you to step [00:03:00] away from the business. 

So I'm going to be sharing some of what I've learned from working with them. And some of what I've learned in my own experiences of hiring a team. Now I'm not going to go over all of my history of hiring a team because it's quite a long one. But safe to say one of the biggest challenges I've had, and this has happened multiple times. Where I've started working with someone. I really liked them. 

We really connect. I think they can really help me. And then I think, yes, that's great. We'll go for it. Then we start working together. And they have changed the way they run their business now. Absolutely fine for them to do that. It's their business. That's why you work for yourself to have that autonomy. 

However, the challenge I found was that as the relationship evolved with the way they worked. I was adapting myself and my business to suit their business. And it was really detrimental for awhile until I had a bit of a wake up call and was like, no, I need to find support. That works for me and my business. 

And doesn't require me to adapt. The example I'm going to give you just because I think it [00:04:00] really highlights there, but this has happened in a lot of different ways. Was I started working with a really great VA. We probably worked together for about a month. Everything was kind of going really well. 

And I was like, yeah, this is really working. 

And the way we were working is that she would be in the business four or five days a week, kind of checking in doing anything that needs doing. So it was that ongoing touch point support, like every day , if I needed something done urgently, she was kind of in the business every day. And then she changed her business. 

So she was not going to work four days a week anymore. She was going to work three days and she was going to allocate a specific times when she was going to do specific client lab. So for example, mine would be , if you do all my work on a Tuesday afternoon, Now, fundamentally that doesn't work for me because a, my brain doesn't work in that way. 

There's absolutely no way I'd be able to collate everything. And then have it ready for her to do on a Tuesday afternoon, but also my business doesn't work that way. What happens if a client needs something on a Wednesday and I'm out of the office. What happens if I need support with, responding to DMS on Instagram or emails we can't just store [00:05:00] that up for Tuesday afternoons. 

Now at first I was like, right, how can I restructure my business to suit this? And quite quickly, I was like, no, that isn't what I'm going to do, I'm going to have to find a new VA because of it. And I found it frustrating if I'm really honest that I had to then find someone else, I then had to, go through the whole onboarding and the whole learning period, that relationship again, then after six weeks they changed the goalposts again in terms of how they were going to work. And again, it didn't work for my business and I had to make the really hard decisions. 

I then had to make that really hard decision to find someone else again. So over the period of four or five months. You know, I was constantly looking for someone new, having those zoom calls, onboarding someone. Going through that whole learning period training period. And then to get them up and running only to find out that it wasn't going to be a long term relationship. That's why it's really, really tempting to just adapt to how they want to work. And it was really stressful and I felt like I spent a lot of money that wasn't overly well-spent because you kind of always invest upfront, right. 

With someone new [00:06:00] and then in the longer time it's really gonna pay off. I find it really frustrating and I got to a point where I was like, I don't know if I do want to build a team, if this is how it's going to keep being it doesn't feel like they're helping me. It feels like it's costing me money, time, energy, and stress. However I did then find an incredible VA who has worked with for the last nine months. 

And it has shown me that I can find people who can work in the way that I want them to work. So being in the business every day, Understanding that I will change things last minute that things will come up, that my business in itself, isn't a steady and predictable often it can be quite unpredictable. 

Both from like client onboarding, it's things I need, like responding to the fluctuation of work. There's a lot going on and I need someone who's like really enjoys them thrives on that. A level of unpredictability. The next thing I had to do was work on systems. So as I bought more freelancers into my business again, I did that thing of where I was you'll start to see a theme. Of people pleasing and my [00:07:00] own boundaries was I adapted to using their systems as I started working with me. 

So for example, when my lovely social media manager started working with me, she used WhatsApp to communicate with our clients. She also used Trello to do the posts. So I started doing that, I had my VA on Voxer, but then in slack. So there was just so many systems, so much going on. I didn't feel like I was creating a team , it felt like I become this bottleneck because I'd be firefighting trying to respond to all these different, forms of communication coming in. 

And they'd ask me a question. I'd forget to reply on WhatsApp. I'd be doing something, all my tasks and click up and realized I had actions. They were in Trello or in slack. When I did this systems audit, I talk about in my previous episode, I really had to look at. What are the systems that Sophie Griffis co users as a team. And instead of thinking about me working with individual freelancers, I had to think about how do the team that [00:08:00] support me? 

How do we communicate? And obviously it's their choice as well. , if they don't want to use my systems, which are slack and click up, then I also had to accept that that was fine. But it was okay for me to find someone that did want to, luckily they were lovely and they were really comfortable with using my systems. So they now will use, click up and slack and we're all on the same systems and it all works really well. And also it's allowed me to build that more of a team environment on slack. 

For example, we have like channels. Where all of us connect and we all share what hours were days were working that week. And we celebrate things and we congratulate each other. We really building that sort of team environment. We also have that monthly call as well. But it didn't start that way. 

And I think I just want to highlight as well, even if you're just bringing in a VA, for example, to start with or someone to support you with. An element of client delivery it's really important. Think about if I was to add someone else to the team, how would that work? 

Like would having a [00:09:00] Voxer group work, maybe that does work for you guys? Where is that space where everyone can have individual conversations? Cause there's absolutely necessary. Like we often do have individual conversations with the team. But also like a group space as well. So that if, for example, a few weeks ago, I was out of the office for the day at an event. And the podcast for some reason didn't publish at it should have done. Now, instead of the social media manager who noticed that it hadn't gone up , as it should have done messaging me and saying, oh, it hasn't gone up. 

Can you have a look at it? She was able to message my lovely podcast messenger. And then my VA as well, I'm between them all. They managed to sort out and get it live without me even knowing there was an issue because it wasn't necessary for me to know because they all have their own areas of responsibility. And that's the next thing I want to shut up is a massive shift that I have had as I have been recruiting a team and kind of working out what support I need in the business. 

It has been to work on hiring for outcomes, not tasks. So [00:10:00] initially what I ended up doing was allocating tasks out to everyone. Now the social media management is different. It's always been about an outcome and end goal. It's always been about we want to get out X amount of posts each week and these posts need to do this. 

Like they need to sell this. We've always been really clear on that. But what the rest of the business like the ads management support and delivering for clients. Even my VA the podcast, what I wasn't doing was handing over entire projects. I was sort of like holding on to 20%. The podcast, for example, I record the episode. And then I said, oh, I'm probably the best person to write the show notes. So I'll do that. And if I'm writing the show notes, I may as well edit it. Cause it doesn't take that much longer. But if someone else could then upload it into Squarespace onto the website and then put it into captivate here's everything you need to do. 

Those bets. And you might think that sounds really sensible. 

The problem with that is that recording the podcast itself obviously requires my time and energy [00:11:00] editing. It takes the same amount of time again, if not more. 

And then writing the show notes. it used to take me ages to write the show notes. I really, really obsess over them. Like they had to feel like they were really personalized and SEO optimized, and I really kind of. Spent a lot of time with them. And what it did was it doubled the amount of time. 

Each episode took me to get ready to hand over to someone else to put into the system. And what I really needed to do was just let go of perfection and let go of it being absolutely perfect. So what I've started to do is use AI to support with the show notes, but I don't need to do the AI. So I now have a team member who edits the podcast, uses the transcript in AI with the prompt that I've written. And pulls through three options for titles for me. And show notes then all I need to do is review and edit them. 

Edited the podcast and she's got those titles and show notes ready for me to review that comes onto my task list. I review them quickly, usually make some edits [00:12:00] and then go back to, and say, get this as good to go. So, yes, I'm still involved, but the overarching objective of getting that podcast out each week sits with her much more than it sits with me. And there's a lot of other things I've done in the business. 

Like onboarding clients is now an entire project that is documented, there's automations, there's processes, and completely sits with my VA. Once someone says they want to. Work with me that entire process sits with her. And she gets everybody, in the system having a great experience. 

So that I'm ready then to just jump on the first strategy call with them. It's about, I think, identifying these key areas that you want to hand over. I didn't handle all of that over, in like a month. This has been probably a good six month process where I've identified key things in the business. But I can remove myself, asking myself that question. And over again. Does this have to be me? Really. But really Sophie does it. Like I was used to think I was when I had to do. You know, edit the contracts. 

[00:13:00] Actually, there's a tiny bit in the contract that changes depending on the type of way that I'm going to work with a client. But actually that can be templated. I can tell my VA, which of the templates to use automations can be used. I've done a lot of work. I'm on Zapier. And that sort of thing as well. 

Actually we've just started doing is documenting it, like even replying to emails. A lot of emails have similar responses so at each time I send a response to someone, I write the first response and then I CC in my VA. And she documents that as a response to that question. 

So the next time we have the same question, she can go back with a similar response. There's so many things over time, I've built in where the systems and the team work together so that we really make sure that we are always building on that ability. For me to have my time and energy separate to how the business is running that month. And at the moment we're working towards a goal of me taking, I'm saying, taking December off. 

But really [00:14:00] the goal isn't to step away a hundred percent, I guess it's probably to step away 80% of the business. 

So I want to make sure, all the podcasts are scheduled. The social media is scheduled. The clients will fully supported in the team has in place. And that we spot that we don't drop the revenue in December. Already December's revenue is at five figures because of the way that I've got everything in place. 

So actually I don't need to do a huge amount of selling in December. However, I probably will focus on dialing up sales of the audience builder course. Because that will allow me. To generate that additional revenue without me being there, but they'll still be the team there. So if there's any issues, if there's anything that needs kind of looking at tech wise, they will be there to support the clients. 

And also the more of the running the day-to-day business as well. That is where I'm at with the team. And I think probably my key takeaways. Are. Hiring for outcomes, not tasks has been a real game changer. I'm actually going through a process at the moment of hiring for a permanent position. Of a right-hand person I'm calling them. They're going to be my operations and client experience manager. And that is [00:15:00] going to be someone who is literally like a mini me in the business. I'm organized future thinking a step ahead of me mini me. And then reviewing systems so that you're not the bottleneck. 

So for example this idea that, I had all my different team on boxer and I also have massive shifts. I've made actually with clients from a client delivery side is I now have two ads managers that work with me.

But I was owning all of the strategy and all of the client comms, which I was really happy with. 

I don't want to step away from client comms and from the client strategy. Like that's the bit I love doing. And I would never want anyone to start working with me. I'm thinking, well, I signed up to what was safety and she's like no way to be seen. 

So what was happening was I was having these strategy calls with clients. 

We were mapping out exactly what we needed to do. And then I was handing over to the team in the background, however, because of my obsession with writing written notes what was happening was I would then take all the notes, create the strategy. 

And then I was, again, the bottleneck. I wasn't then telling the team what they needed to do. But again, not [00:16:00] allowing them to own the outcome. I was just telling them the tasks, this is the strategy. Could you set up this campaign? Would this, this, this. So what I've made a real effort to shift to is them owning client accounts alongside me. oh, we both own the strategy and the outcome. 

I'm still leading it. I'm still in all the client strategy calls and I'm the one leading the strategy, but they are much more involved in the creation of that strategy in the implementation of it and the future thinking of it as well. So they're the ones coming up with the tasks. 

Like we know , okay, there's a launch happening in October. These are the dates. This is the approach with the ads. They're then going away, mapping all that out and click up, working out when we need to be looking at the. Copy the creatives, they're creating the tasks. They don't need me to tell them what the tasks are because they're brilliant as managers. But the owning, then the outcome. Making sure that the ads work for the launch rather than me just giving them the tasks to do for the launch. So that's another way where I have removed myself from being the bottleneck. 

Because once I come off that client call, I can just [00:17:00] leave that with the team to make sure that, the tasks go in, the actions happen, the planning happens. And I can then just check in with that week on week, rather than feeling like, oh right. I've just come off back to back calls with clients and I've got now pages of notes. 

I'm going to have to then go through. Translate into tasks uploading to click up and, get the team to do it's been a huge, huge game changer. Shifting to that way of working with the team. And then finally, I think it's just about being clear about what works for me. Unforeseen, iffy Griffith co as a business. 

So if I'm going to be working with someone , one of the fundamental questions will be. Are you happy working in slack and click up? Are you able to be available four or five days a week? Because generally that's what I need from my team. Because things do move so fast. 

I need that flexibility. And not feeling like that's an imposition, understanding that some people love to support people who are slightly chaotic and move fast and everything is like quite dynamic. Other people that. would be absolute hell and that's [00:18:00] fine they don't need to be working with me. 

I can find the right people for me. So that's been an absolute, huge thing. But I think underpinning all of that has been, as you've probably heard, it's been a huge mindset change for me, a real shift in terms of asking for what I need. That's not something that comes easily to me as an eldest child. I find that really hard and also shaping my identity around becoming this leader within the business. 

I've done a lot of work on what that identity looks like. So in the next episode, I'm going to be talking about mindset and identity and the work that I have done around that and how. it's become so foundational to growing the business so much more than the technical strategies. The kind of support I've had around it. 

And some of the key things I now do to make sure that I'm always looking at whether it's my mindset or identity that is getting in the way of me growing the business. Now what I've been talking about today with team and we spoke about. last week with systems are two of the key elements of the lion hearted leadership pillar [00:19:00] that I underpinned the way that I work with clients now in October, the Lionheart is CEO mastermind. And the inevitable mastermind. Both launched their founding. cohorts and I am incredibly excited. 

And I just wanted to share a little bit about both of them with you so you can decide if either one of them might be a good fit for you. The underpinning pillars for both of them are the superfan system. So creating and setting up an ads powered system that grows and nurtures your audience and leads towards a goal offer. So that's an offer that sells from a sales page. So you can be selling and building trust every single day, whether you're working or not.

We're also. looking at revenue stacking to scale. Now this is not about more offers. It's about creating a structure in your business that supports sustainable, scalable growth. Whether it's a low ticket funnel offer having a team to support client delivery or creating more of an agency model. It's really, isn't about a type of business. 

This is about a way of thinking about stacking your revenue now. And it's not about jumping into hundreds of different ways straight away either. [00:20:00] This is about sustainable growth. So building things overtime. And then finally, it's the lighthearted leadership. 

So if you truly want a business that doesn't rely on your time and energy to thrive. You really do need to look at simple systems and effective team. I'm building your identity as a CEO. Now the Lionheart is CEO. mastermind. As for you, if you've already got core offers, you've got some scalable offers, maybe too many, and you're just not promoting them right now. You might have a podcast or written a book or both, but you know, if you truly want to create a business where your revenue isn't tied to your time and energy, you need to be a hell of a lot more intentional about how you're growing your business. You know, you probably need to start streamlining your offers, investing in team support and actually start leveraging ads, but doing on your own, you know, it won't happen and not. nearly fast enough. 

So if that sounds perfect, the Lionheart is CEO is for you. I've created a little video that explains more, and that is in the show notes as well as the sales page, which will tell you more. There's also some exclusive [00:21:00] bonuses for the founding cohort, including the opportunity. If you'd have some done for you, add support.

Now the inevitable mini mind came about from the inevitable challenge last week. Now this is for people who are not new to running your own business. You love running your business, but you're really ready to take upper level and make it more than just you. 

And start seeing yourself as a business owner. With secure and predictable revenue. You're probably aiming for those consistent three to five K months, you have a core offer. But you want to start to introduce additional revenue streams, maybe use ads. Add some systems in, or maybe even some teams support, you know, you want to scale but you want to prioritize getting those right foundations in place so that when you're really ready to fly, you can dial up the revenue without burning out. 

And if that sounds perfect for you, then I would love for you to watch the video as well , in the show notes. And that explains more about the mini mind as well as how you. can get access to the exclusive Bita price. 

When you join the founding cohort. If you've got any questions that you're like, I [00:22:00] just not sure which one is right for me, Sophie then absolutely just drop me a DM on Instagram and I am more than happy to have a bit of a chat. Often it will be invoice note form because that's my favorite. And we can work out which one is right for you, or even jump on a call. 

If that's going to be easiest.

Thank you so much for listening today. Before you go, if this episode struck record with you, I'd be over the moon. If you could take a moment to rate, subscribe, and leave a review, your words not only brighten up my day, but they are also the magic that helps others discover this lion hearted community.

Again, thank you so much and I will see you next week.