How to get your business systems and processes in place with Sonaya Williams

Today’s episode of the podcast is an interview with Sonaya Williams who is the founder of The CEO Partner®, a systems-driven, profits-obsessed, Digital Implementation agency that helps smart CEOs grow their business and meet their goals. Sonaya ​lives to help CEOs create an operational master plan for themselves and their teams, teaching efficient and effective systems and tools during the process. We talk all about how you can get your own business processes and systems organised to set yourself up for growth and success. KEY TAKEAWAYS COVERED IN THE PODCAST If something doesn’t excite you and give you joy – it is not sustainable and you just won’t do it!When something is your zone of genius, you are really good at doing it. When something isn’t your zone of genius, there will be someone else who can do it!There is always someone who will want to do the bits that you don’t want to do.It is never too early to start documenting your systems – even if it is just you.By documenting systems, you can free up your brain so you can think about growing your business!To start documenting your processes - Write out everything you do every day/week/month.Record yourself on Loom doing tasks you do again and again.Every process should be documented in a separate document to make it easy to search.Keep your processes updated and review them regularly.Team members have to take ownership of processes so they are not reliant on you and you are able to step out of the business.Think about the triggers for each process – are there any you can pass on to your team so you can step away?You have to have processes when you have a team, otherwise everything will still be reliant on you.When you are looking at hiring your first team member – think of it as an investment as you are gaining that time back.EVERYTHING in your business is a system.When something is a process, it becomes so much easier. It also means you can keep making it better and review.It will take time to get all your systems and processes in place but it will be SO worth it! THE ONE THING YOU NEED TO REMEMBER ABOVE ALL ELSE… Start creating a list of things you do every day, then record yourself doing them! HIGHLIGHTS YOU SIMPLY CAN’T MISS An introduction to Sonaya 05:16Zone of genius 10:55Why do I need to think about my systems if it’s just me? 12:32How to start your processes 16:12Being able to step away from your business processes 24:40Bringing on a team and what to give them 28:08 CHECK SONAYA OUT: WebsiteFacebookInstagram RESOURCES MENTIONED LoomTrello Transcript Teresa: Welcome to this week's episode of the podcast. How are you doing? So I have had a very, very busy few weeks. And as you can probably hear from my voice, I am worn out and I'm really glad that I'm recording this episode now almost as if to say to remind you that we're human and there's only so much we can do with our time.Teresa: So the week, last week as I'm recording this, we did two online events and one in-person VIP retreat over the weekend, which was three days in total for me, because obviously I got there the day before. We had a lovely drinks, reception, we had dinner, um, there was about 20 over, it was so good. Then we had a whole day of goal setting, planning, masterminding.Teresa: It was brilliant. And then I spent the night again and, uh, obviously chilled out a bit, but then obviously then packed up the next day. And it was just absolutely awesome. I had the most amazing time, but I'm worn out, completely, utterly worn out. So this week I've been hibernating. That's my go-to thing. It can be really hard because sometimes when you want to hibernate, you think to yourself, I can't, I've got to be able to show I can't not do, you know, turn up and do the thing, but I think I want to remind you that you can, you can hibernate if you need to.Teresa: And if I didn't hibernate, if I didn't just pull back a little bit and cancel some things that you know I could cancel and spend a bit longer in bed or go for more naps or whatever it is then, I would be an absolute state. So if you are feeling worn out, this is, I'm giving you permission to stop, to, to sit down, to take five minutes to not run around and do these things, because it's a time of year where we are running around.Teresa: My daughter's about to break up at the end of this week. Um, my. My husband's away. We go away in a couple of weeks. We've got presents to buy all that stuff. And like I said, it's been a busy, busy time of the year for me. So, like I said, I'd like to give you permission. You have my permission, please take it easy. Because you know, it's really interesting.Teresa: We do all this stuff like getting ready for the next year, goals set for 2022 as if we're going to have all this energy and where does all this energy come from? Like, we need to make sure we rest in order to build that energy. So that's what I'm doing this week. And because I'm doing that, I decided not to give you a solo episode this week.Teresa: I have been very busy over the past. God knows how many weeks batch recording interviews and they're wonderful and brilliant. And, I thought, why not take it easy on me? Because obviously when I do an interview, it's already the chunk of it's already done. I just do this intro and outro. Also give you access to some of these interviews a bit sooner.Teresa: So today we have an interview and it's with the lovely Sonaya Williams. Now Sonaya is a bit of an expert in terms of getting organized. And this actually, I think is perfect timing for this time of year, because as we start to think about starting next year, we might start thinking about how we shift and change.Teresa: I know lots of my members, lots of my students have talked about. They might want to bring a new member stuff. They might want to look at their team. So this is a really, really good episode to look at because she talks about how you get organized. She talks about how to bring people on. She talks about how to do processes and systems.Teresa: That in my world was a game changer. The minutes I could bring in a process, even when it was just me, it was a game-changer. So she's just brilliant. I know you're going to love this episode. I know you forgive me for not bringing you a solo episode this week. I promise when I've had a rest over the Christmas break, I will be back to my normal fierce chatty self. But, uh, until then here is the interview I did with the lovely Sonaya.Teresa: Okay. I am very excited today to welcome to the podcast Sonaya Williams. Sonaya how are you doing?Sonaya: Thank you for having me.Teresa: My absolute pleasure? Absolute pleasure. I'm really excited about today's episode. And it's funny because as we were looking at what we're going to talk about, you've actually got in one of your titles, Why This Isn't Sexy.Teresa: And I think some people might think, well, this doesn't sound like a very like, Ooh podcast episode, but it's very, very useful. Anyway, before we dive into that, I always start the same way by asking you, How you got to do what you do today? So if you can introduce yourself, that would be lovely.Sonaya: Definitely. So I'm Sonaya Williams, the founder of The CEO Partner® I started it in 2011 and it's kind of something I fell into. My background is in technology and banking. So I used to do business process management, I think, different brokerages in America. So E-Trade TD Ameritrade. And what that looked like was I was helping to develop some systems that will deliver the client experiences.Sonaya: The one that I like loved that I did was, you know, how you go to an ATM and some, some ATM's might charge you a couple of thousands of dollars. They're taking money out. Well, we had a feature that we did in 18 rebates. So if the 18 charged you $5, you would get it back on the other day. And I built how that system works.Sonaya: But then in addition to that, it was also how customer service deliver you an experience and all of that. So I think logically, and I think in terms of customer experience and delivering. And that's what I used to do my day job and the whole idea of just, you know, two hour commute to work, two hour commute home.Sonaya: And, you know, there's no such things as you earned it, I knew that whenever I wanted to have kids that I wanted to be home then. I was raised by a single mom and I watched her work so hard to do, just to provide to me and later life to learn that, you know, she was an accountant. She didn't love to do that. And I realized I wanted to have a job that I enjoyed.Sonaya: And while I did enjoy my corporate career, I knew that I could have continued doing it with those hours. So I had...