38. Can We Not Keep Marketing to Everyone and Serving No One? | Finding the Right Operations Partner with Ashley Connell

Hiring operations help for your small business is harder than it should be — and most founders are looking at the wrong things when they do it.Ashley Connell, CEO of Prowess Project, has spent seven years matching small business owners with operations partners. She's learned that the skills on a resume tell you almost nothing about whether someone can actually run your business alongside you.In this episode:Why hiring for tech stack and job titles fails service-based business ownersHow to find the right operations partner for your small businessThe four-step framework Ashley's ops partners use from day oneWhy delegating outcomes doesn't work — and what to communicate insteadHow to know if you need an operations partner or if your processes need fixing firstWhat a two-week time study reveals that no hiring process can00:00 The Need for Management00:41 Welcome to Can We Not01:41 Meet Ashley Connell02:22 What is an Ops Partner04:46 Meeting Leah05:42 Flexible and Fulfilling Careers06:59 The 97 Percent Statistic07:38 The Matching Algorithm10:47 Proven Results and Success Stories13:14 Overcomplicating the Journey15:38 Niching Down to Accounting Firms17:22 Testing and Experimentation19:22 Naming the Ops Partner21:20 Experimentation With Intent22:35 Accountability and Feedback26:06 Four Step Delivery Method29:03 Setting Clear Expectations32:24 Behaviors Over Outcomes34:28 Practical AI Integration36:29 Time Study to Simplify38:40 Closing Thoughts