The Ops Authority

There are seven areas in your business pulling for your attention. Let’s break them down:

1. Financial Steadiness

This is not all about revenue, but establishing a solid financial foundation. Ask yourself these questions as you think through this pillar:

• Are my business expenses categorized each month?
• Do I look at my profit and loss statement?
• Am I saving for taxes?
• Do I know how much I need to bring home?
• When will I carve out time to get this done?

In the corporate world, the CFO would oversee these responsibilities.

 2. Visibility

You may spend a lot of time here because you want people to be aware of your product, but don’t spend so much time here that you neglect the other six pillars. 

Think through these questions:

• Is my getting name out there?
• Do people know me?

In the corporate world, the CMO would oversee these responsibilities.

3. Product Creation and Refinement

This area is responsible for generating revenue. It’s exciting to dream up new products and services, but you must also integrate and execute these ideas within the context of your mission. You’ll also want to keep refining and improving your current products. 

Ask yourself these questions as you think through this pillar:

• How will I strategically provide my product?
• How will I price it?
• How do I get it into the marketplace?

4. Operational Excellence

This is about people, systems, and software coming together so your business works effectively. This pillar involves automations and workflows. You get time back when you systematize. 

Ask yourself these questions as you think through this pillar:

• What processes will I automate?
• How will my processes fit together to make my business run effectively and efficiently?
• What standard operating procedures can I put in place?
• How can you systematize my business?

You can’t scale without systems. What do we mean by “scale?” There are three phases of business:

1. The building phase is your start-up phase.
2. The growing phase means you have established revenue and you’re looking to increase profit margin. Think of the growing phase as addition.
3. The scaling phase brings in more team members to get products out faster. Think of the scaling phase as the multiplication.

In the corporate world, the COO would oversee these responsibilities.

5. Team Growth

Who do you need on your team to scale your business? You need human capital to run and grow your business because it helps you multiply yourself. In this phase you may lean on a VA, DOO, strategists, or a graphic designer. 

Ask yourself these questions as you think through this pillar:

• Am I providing a succession plan for my team members?
• How can I retain the people most helping my business?
• Do I bring people on as independent contractors or employees?

In the corporate world, the CAO would oversee these responsibilities.

This is about how you’ll delight your customers. Customer Experience involves thinking through what your client will do once she’s signed on. This pillar isn’t about gifts, but more about communication and interacting with your customer throughout your relationship together. 

Ask yourself these questions as you think through this pillar:

• How will I onboard?
• What’s the process for contracts?
• How will I invoice my client?
• How will we communicate?
• What expectations do I need to set?
• What’s the best way to build a relationship with this client?

In the corporate world, the “Director of Happiness” or “Director of Community” would oversee these responsibilities.

7. Growth + Development

This is about how your professional growth. Ask yourself these questions as you think through this pillar:

• What books, courses, paid groups, or masterminds will benefit me?
• What are my work boundaries, and am I articulating those to my family and clients?
• Do I need to stop learning and start doing?

1. Spend 30 minutes and prioritize these seven pillars for yourself. Label them from 1 through 7.
2. Think about one task or project in each area that needs to be addressed. 
3. Post your priority list in the FB group.

Note: In your business, you will spend most of your time on your top two to three pillars. Stay focused!

• “Know that visibility is at the top for most businesses.”
• “When you can make your operations more streamlined and more efficient, that’s where you gain a lot of momentum.” - Andrea Layne 
• “You’re going to scale by using human capital to create growth in your business.”
• “So much of the customer experience comes down to clear communication.”
• “The seven pillars don’t go away. We just learn how to prioritize them better and outsource the weakest links.”
• “What happens with too many distractions? We never meet our vision.”

Andrea Layne is a business engineer who helps her clients take their vision and put smart strategies behind it so they can build a business to last. She started her career in 1999 in a Big Five Firm and serving as a business consultant, then IT project manager for Fortune 100 corporations over 11 years. This experience gave her a foundation and process for helping businesses run more effectively. She has always loved design and art, and in 2011, she decided it was time to pursue this passion. 

Andrea built a high-end wedding floral design company serving the Tampa Bay market until 2017. While she adored "playing with flowers" all the time, she realized it was taking her away from her family more and more as it grew. So after 6 years, she knew it was time to pursue a different option. That's when Andrea came back to her roots as a consultant, but this time working with creative, service-oriented entrepreneurs to guide them to financial success with less overwhelm. 

She knows big business.... she has strategized systems and engineered software for giant corporations. And she deeply knows small business, because Andrea has been there in the trenches.... making mistakes and having successes. She knows what it's like to battle profit margins, feel the weight of wearing all the hats, and worry if she could ever make enough to actually pay her bills through her creative passion.

Andrea took all that she learned on this life journey to create services so her clients can breakthrough the ceiling of stress in their business and finally achieve their goals with sustainable foundations.

Andrea completed the Director of Operations Certification in 2018.

To connect with Andrea Layne, visit her here:

Website

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Email: info@thecreativespring.co