The Art of Online Business

From Stress to Success. Optimizing Business Productivity with Neill Williams

• Kwadwo [QUĀY.jo] Sampany-Kessie • Episode 855

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Learn from Neill Williams' productivity expertise. She's a master certified coach who has transitioned from teaching Facebook ads to guiding entrepreneurs on optimizing their productivity with a scientific approach. 

Neill has a knack for helping busy entrepreneurs accomplish more in less time, ensuring they can focus on what truly matters in their business and personal life.



Watch Neill's previous episode ‘Achieving Business Success with a 25 Hour Work Week: Neill Williams' Productivity Journey’ 



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Speaker 1:

Welcome back to another episode of the Art of Online Business and if you're watching on YouTube, you can see Neal Williams is back with us and it's been only a couple of days since her first episode released. But if you didn't catch that one one, it's in the show notes below. And two I just got to tell you how phenomenal Neal is. She is a productivity expert who has pivoted, and not in the way that covered up failure, but she went from a very successful business teaching Facebook ads and funnels to now having a business that helps you, as an online entrepreneur, get your productivity in order. And when I say in order, like we talked about in this previous episode, how she was building a business with a successful podcast and building up a successful funnel to 100k in revenue in just 90 days and delivering one-on-one coaching services and all the other behind the scenes operations that I'm sure you listener, as an online business owner, understand, and only working 25 hours a week. And when she told me that, the first thing I said my just instant gut response was like can I do coaching with you? And she was like I have a book. And then, because I need to be a better podcast host, I looked at the notes and realized she does have a book. This deal, I kid you not, is how it unfolded in my brain. And Neil, she's a master certified coach, an entrepreneur, a mom and a wife. She helps busy female entrepreneurs achieve more in less time with a science-backed approach to productivity and performance. And she's also the host of the Success Genius podcast, where science meets entrepreneurial success to help people understand how to function well so they can achieve all the things they want in business.

Speaker 1:

And before we start you're listening to this episode you have to understand. And before we start you're listening to this episode you have to understand. I have worked with Neil for like two-ish years, side by side inside of a high-level mastermind coaching program and I've seen her as a master certified coach, which is far and above a certified coach help so many at least 50-something. I wish I had a specific number, Neil. It's been like, let's just say 57, because it's right around there that I've been called.

Speaker 1:

I'm talking about coaching calls where I have downloaded to my computer that were you coaching another online entrepreneur how to get through their stuff and often resulting in like breakthrough, new ideas, more efficiency on the backend, more revenue, and I'm just like thank God, I'm in this program because I'm getting this coaching for free. It's not me, but Lord, I'm going to listen to it on my walk. And so this is who is on the podcast right now listener, Listen up, scrub back, take this episode, listen to it multiple times. She's going to talk about productivity, but you just got to know who you're listening to, as in the upcoming moments, she'll be sharing why growing a team can feel so challenging, why most entrepreneurs work more, not less, even though they hire folks. Been there, done that with my hand raised. And how to get the right size team for your business, how to put the right people in the right roles for profit and freedom that you want to achieve in your business. And, Neil, good to have you back on this episode.

Speaker 2:

Oh, my goodness, thank you, kwejo. You're welcome. You're welcome, thank you. Thank you for being here.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, thank you, kwejo, you're welcome. You're welcome, thank you. Thank you for being here.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, thank you for having me. I'm so excited and, to your point, that's one of the things I think is most valuable about being in a group, right Is sometimes seeing other people coached is so impactful for you. So I yeah to your point. I think people maybe don't see that it's like maybe it's a strategic byproduct people don't really think about. But that's true for me too. I see someone else coach. I'm like, oh my gosh, that's totally what I was thinking, that's what I was doing, right.

Speaker 1:

Yeah. So I'm just going to ask you the first question. You ready? Yep, okay cool. So like Neil I it's like neil I gotta ask, after having learned that you worked so little and have achieved and are achieving so much, why is it that growing a team is so hard? Like I have team members three, like what's going on. Like I feel like, yeah, I should have more time for the number of team members that I have, and I'm guessing the listener can relate. And then here's the other really vulnerable truth it's my days where my team happens to be off, where I just get really productive. Walk me through that for you, like very selfishly, and for the listener.

Speaker 2:

What's going?

Speaker 1:

on here.

Speaker 2:

Well, I think just a little bit of my background. So I was a trainer. I was basically a director of operations in my prior corporate role. So I did a lot of this like leadership, managing a team, all that kind of stuff, and that's where my first coaching certification actually was in human capital management and so I have a background in this and so I've learned a lot through that, but also in coaching other people.

Speaker 2:

And I think what we do as entrepreneurs if you think about the sheer volume of things we have to learn going into business most of us don't take the skills that we need into business. With this. We like learn as we go right, and growing in teams isn't necessarily something that most entrepreneurs do or have done in their past, and so we don't even know, like, how to get the most out of our human capital. And what we end up doing is we're like hiring people for what we can afford, and then we're like, okay, we're 10 hours per week and here's these activities that you're supposed to do, but what we're doing is we're telling them exactly step-by-step, how to do everything. Then they like pitch it back to do, but what we're doing is we're telling them exactly step-by-step how to do everything.

Speaker 2:

Then they like pitch it back to us. They're like, hey, is this good? I don't know how to do this. How do I do this? Like you're answering a million questions, you're doing all the training, you're doing all of the strategizing, everything for them. And then that's why it feels like I hear this. I can't even tell you how many times I've heard this. I would just be faster and easier if I did it myself. And listen, you're probably right, this is what I want to tell you, right.

Speaker 2:

I feel exposed.

Speaker 1:

I can relate. I can relate in the worst of ways to where I try to sign off at dinner and eat dinner. Sometimes, if I, just after my kids and my wife has gone to sleep, steal away to the office, I can do things faster. I'm like, oh man, keep going.

Speaker 2:

Yep, and that's the thing. So, when we're thinking about hiring, I created this framework which I call the stages of performance. So we typically hire into stage one, and there's a whole theory behind this, which is the S curve, and I'm not going to go into all of the science behind it, but basically what we do is we hire very low on the S curve because that's what we can afford, which I'm putting in quotation marks, right?

Speaker 2:

But, I want you to consider the cost of affording. It's not really like very affordable when you start to look at it because of all the downstream effort and time and frustration and stress and overwhelm that you end up putting into that kind of hire. So one of the things I try to get all my clients to do is to take like this is what I call stage one performances. When you hire someone for a certain number of hours to do activities, certain number of hours to do activities, it's just not very effective and it ends up costing a lot actually on the backend. So what I'd rather people do is hire at least into what I call stage two, or elevate the stage ones into stage two.

Speaker 2:

Where we're hiring people, we don't care about the time. Our focus isn't on the time. Our focus is on you're responsible for getting this done on time and with increasing efficiency. So maybe that's like for you. It might be like okay, I want you to write two emails per week and here are the constraints with the emails, right? So you're not telling them how to do that, necessarily, you're not. You're not giving them all of the training, but that person shows up and figures out the how to do that, so that you're not having to do that part for them.

Speaker 1:

Wait for real.

Speaker 2:

Okay, this is how we onboarded RBA. So just as an example, like I didn't give her any instructions on podcasting, podcast editing, podcast editing nothing- I was like here's what you need to do okay, this is our expectation.

Speaker 2:

This is when we want the episodes produced, and it was so cool I just featured this in. In an email that I did a couple weeks ago. She sent us back a whole sop. She had created the SOP for podcast production, and I have to tell you how fun that is to have teammates that show up to that level right Versus like me, oh my gosh. Okay, today I'm going to put in, I'm going to create the training for how to do podcast production right.

Speaker 2:

Like I don't want to be spending my time doing that. There's lots more valuable ways that I to be spending my time doing that I want to. There's lots more valuable ways that I can be spending my time, I feel like you just keep going, please.

Speaker 1:

I just feel like you just told me how to have a team member that shows up almost at like the level of figured out and get it done, this or two that I whatever one of those endings makes it into a noun figure it out and get it done-ness. That I would show up with for my own business.

Speaker 2:

Yeah. So here's fundamentally like. The mindset I think a lot of us entrepreneurs have is like we hire for good enough and we like settle Versus. If you think about what you're doing, you are creating jobs in the world. It's such an amazing thing to do for the world, right, right, and not settling for like performance or behavior that you don't really want, like that's not, that's not a fun way to build a team or to run a team. That's going to be really frustrating.

Speaker 1:

Whatever you're selling, I'm buying. Keep going.

Speaker 2:

I mean, we put you in my team, my 90 program, but anyways, I want you to think like stage twos are your implementers, like this is. This is why everyone who comes into contact with Kelly wants to hire her, because she is a phenomenal implementer. Now, there actually is a level of beyond that and that is something that would be like an intrapreneur that you would install in your business, and that person is phenomenal as well. That person is responsible for results. So that would be like okay, your number is like then, if I hire somebody else, they're going to be responsible for lifetime value in my business.

Speaker 2:

So that means creating offers and doing the marketing to create those offers, to sell those offers, to increase the lifetime value of my customers Like can you imagine what it'd be like to have somebody in your business that can do that for you?

Speaker 1:

I mean, that would be phenomenal for me.

Speaker 2:

For all of us. I think it would be, as entrepreneurs, right.

Speaker 1:

Because it sounds like you're saying, saying, okay, you're responsible for lifetime value, and then maybe giving them a few other parameters, but they have to put it together. Okay, lifetime value means and then all the things that you and I would have to figure out as a business owner right.

Speaker 2:

So those people, those folks are really good at strategy and you're right. You might tell them like, okay, our lifetime value right now is 3x our cost per acquisition and we want it to be 5x, like that's where we're going, right, yeah, like you'd be very specific about it sure yeah, that's where you have somebody who's in your business, who's collaborating with you, versus like you doing all of it yourself.

Speaker 2:

So I think that even just laying out that there's those different levels I think is really helpful, probably for your audience to be thinking about. Like once I talk about this, usually clients are like oh yeah, everybody's over here in stage one or I actually really need people to move up here to stage two, and that would be awesome if I could add a stage three. But at least gives you kind of a framework and what you can expect out of those different levels. And since we talked about AI in the last episode, what I want to say is what I think the future is is that there will not be a stage one that will be replaced with AI.

Speaker 1:

I think, that's where we're headed. You want to share a little more headed.

Speaker 2:

You want to share a little more? Flush that idea out a little bit. Yeah, there's so much that AI can do, right? So instead of paying somebody to work a certain number of hours per week or to do activities, we can just set up an AI assistant to take care of that, which is going to just do it fast. I mean, we as humans can't outperform in the speed test AI. We just can't. It's just going to always beat us. So if that's really what you're looking for is something like somebody who's doing activities, I think instead you spend the time installing AI to do those activities for you. It's just more affordable.

Speaker 1:

Oh, keep going.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, go ahead.

Speaker 1:

I just had a guest who said at least the first time that I heard it I don't know if he's the one who coined it but that AI won't replace you. You'll be replaced by someone using AI.

Speaker 2:

Ooh, yeah, I think that's possibly true. I mean, it's still, you know, all unfolding, but I see that as one of the potential ways that we can go in as far as teams. So, even like the solopreneurs out there, think about those folks who are like I wish I could add somebody to my team so that I could work less. I would say add AI to your team first to work less, and then be really strategic about adding the people to your team then be really strategic about adding the people to your team.

Speaker 1:

Yes, please, like I learned this lesson only and I'm I think I'm late to the game. Like I've been using AI for a while, but only in the past six weeks, neil, did I change my note taking to one that's AI. First, like previously on my one-on-one coaching calls I was, you know, I had action items. I would take about 30 minutes, believe it or not, after each coaching call it was time-butted on my calendar. Take the ideas that, like we had gone through and like come up with action items for the person on the other side and sure, you're probably like Quajo, they're adults, they could do it themselves.

Speaker 1:

That's what I was doing. And then someone's like, why don't you just use a fathom AI, yeah, and have that in your meeting, and then it gives you notes and you just take those notes and you paste it in an email and you maybe delete, like if there's like a little error or something, and send that. And I was like, for real, they're like, yeah, you should not be spending 30 minutes after every call. And I was like, for real, they're like, yeah, you should not be spending 30 minutes after every call. And I was like oh and boom, just like that. Like my clients are happier, they can click the little link in the AI notes and go to the relevant section of the video and, like it takes me like three minutes. So anyway, Right.

Speaker 2:

So there's so much efficiency that can be gained through the use of AI, but we have to be willing. Here's where I think the reason is that most people aren't doing it, or at least not doing it yet, is they're so busy and overloaded with the things that they're doing every day. They just are not making time to do that, and so but I think, like I mean, I'll just share with you some of the things that we've done with with AI, like once you've kind of get one assistant built it, just like and and some of the things that we're doing is we're helping train people's VAs to do this for them, so they can just install it in their business for them, but but like writing emails.

Speaker 2:

I don't know about you, but email emails are like one of the things where I'm like, oh, I'm going to write another email, so I just create assistants that write the emails for me and then I just edit them so that saves hours of time every week. Coming up with podcast topics, writing podcast show notes. That's all AI-ified inside of our business.

Speaker 1:

For real.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, because the time savings is so extreme and, like, kelly and I are just like, of course, this is what we do. We're kind of efficiency nerds. We're like, ooh, how much time can we save on this? Could we get this down by 50%, you know? So in some ways, it's one of the fun things that we do inside of our business as well, but it's so effective and so powerful.

Speaker 1:

That is super intriguing to me. I want to ask so many questions. I could easily turn this into an AI episode, but I over frayed and just hit you up in the DMs after this, yeah, do it. We're still writing our emails, and how are you getting it? Anyway, wow, okay, all right, all right, all right, so just inspiration right, Just like anything is possible with AI.

Speaker 1:

Anything is possible, even having AI write your emails for you, but in a time-efficient way, because I know I can teach ChatGPT at least my voice and get the topic, but I can have it write something, but I haven't gotten to the point where I'm. However, you show it the emails that come into your inbox and then connect it with Zapier to this or that, and I haven't gotten there. So I'm intrigued. I'm very, very intrigued. My next question, though, which comes sorry, what are all the phases? Let's finish that.

Speaker 2:

So I think we did so just to recap. So stage one is we were paying somebody a certain number of hours and they're doing activities, but it's a really big time and effort commitment on your part. You're going to end up managing people, if that's the stage that you have team members in Stage two, they're what we call the implementers. Their role is to get things done and on time and with increasing efficiency. And those folks that's where you get to. You get to make a shift from managing people to leading and coaching people, which I have found most of our clients are are way more interested in leading and coaching. They don't want to manage people. That just feels yuck for most of them. And then stage three is where those are those folks who are like really creating rois in your business, where it's like they're responsible for revenue from email or they're responsible for a certain number of leads, or they're responsible, like my example, of increasing lifetime value from 3x to 5x or something like that those are are more your introvert viewers.

Speaker 1:

Okay, Now I'm going to ask you the next question that was on my mind. So, having heard of now that I understand, and you recapped these three stages, my next question is how do you put the right people in the right roles? Like, okay, I'm going to go hire folks now, but how do I understand that one person's better at this role than the other one so that I can get the profit and the freedom that I want in my business?

Speaker 2:

yeah. So this is like this kind of like a two-pronged question. So it's like how to hire profitably and also how do I put the people in the roles that gives me the freedom that I want. So we'll kind of like take both pieces.

Speaker 1:

Okay.

Speaker 2:

So the way that I think about and this really has to do with my actuary kind of like finance risk background and I think about the question you and I have gotten this question probably 100 times in the masterminds that we've coached in and it's how do I know that I'm ready to hire?

Speaker 1:

Right.

Speaker 2:

And because there's a lot of confusion, is like I don't know am I ready to put somebody in?

Speaker 2:

I'm just not sure. So the way I think about it is for your stage one, your stage twos, to take a look at what your recurring monthly revenue is and think about what you could pay for help in terms that fits into that recurring revenue bucket. Now here's the reason why I say this, because I've coached enough people at this point to see that business that's like you've heard of this like starting from zero every month. How hard it is to have people on your team when you're like, oh my gosh, I have to make payroll, I have to pay these contractor fees. I'm starting from zero every single month.

Speaker 2:

It's so stressful like so stressful and it's like we wouldn't do that to ourselves in our personal lives. Right Like would you go get a mortgage when you didn't have income coming in? Probably not.

Speaker 2:

No no, no, no. So it's just like thinking about, like some of those personal finance things. They do actually work in business as well. So making sure that you're not over hiring meaning you have more people that you're paying for than what your business can really handle or you increase those recurring revenue streams so that you can add people on. Now that's a stage one and stage twos, a stage three person. It shouldn't matter where your revenue is at, because a stage three person should be creating an ROI for you. So, for instance, like how much would I pay to have somebody on my team that increased our lifetime value from 3x to 4x? Pretty much anything they wanted, right.

Speaker 1:

Yeah right, how much did I pay to give a counteroffer and steal that person from your team?

Speaker 2:

Right. So I think we have to think about it in different ways, like what stage are they at and in the return the business is going to have and what's the impact on profitability. So that's the way I think about, like how do I know if I'm ready to hire, how do I know what the right size team is? So that's doing it in a profitable, I would say more peaceful way, where it's not super stressful. And then, when we're thinking about freedom, I really think about online business and there's like five key areas and you might think about it in a different way, but I think about offers is one of the key areas for most of us. We have to be able to create offers that sell, or we don't have a business. Then there's the marketing and the selling of the offers. And then there is operations, like behind the scenes, all the stuff we do in the backend. There is finance.

Speaker 2:

So, somebody has to take care of the money. And then there is, depending on where your business is, team and leadership might be a fifth one that you have. So, when you're thinking about those five key areas, you're thinking about, okay, what are the stage threes in each of those areas? Who's going to own that area of the business? And for solopreneurs, they're owning all of it, right. Like you're responsible for results in every single one of those areas. Like you're responsible for results in every single one of those areas.

Speaker 2:

If you're wanting to add a stage three person, you just want to think to yourself what's the area that makes the most sense for me to add this really high level person to my world? If I added this person, what does my life look? How does it look different? What kind of time savings do I have if I add this person in? What are the things that I really dislike doing the most?

Speaker 2:

That's probably the area that we want to put somebody into first and then, once you have that figured out, then it's a matter of okay. Who are the implementers that this person needs in order to fulfill the strategy to achieve their goals? Now, sometimes, depending on the size of the business, the stage three is also going to be stage two, like they're going to be doing the brain, the strategy of it, and they're going to be implementing it. Just, it's just depends. Every business is a little bit different in terms of size. But we really need. We need people to effectively implement the strategy and we need people to come up with the strategy. That could be you or it could be somebody else, but you just have to decide who is that so that I get the freedom that I want in my business and cut.

Speaker 1:

I mean this is I've already thinking of ideas, neil that I have conversations that I want to have with my team to kind of not that like I'm happy with the team I have. But you just set a new standard. You know, like for real, and I'm sure the listener is like same thing for me. Tell me a little bit more about that book again so I can go down to the show notes and get it yeah.

Speaker 2:

So the book is more about, like, your own personal productivity, but I do think it's really important to set your team up for success as well. So I mean, if anybody wanted to do this teamwork with us, of course we're happy to do that. We do give them our, our productivity program to deliver to the entire team, because I don't want somebody like you to go do all this work on yourself and then not have the team elevated at the same time, and I don't want you spending time training them. That's just not the best role for you. I would rather just train them for you. So that's yeah, that's the kind of work that we're doing inside of the business.

Speaker 2:

Now I kind of like to circle back to that question that you had in the first episode. This is why I think this is so impactful is because there's so much frustration and stress around like, oh no, you're so well-meaning, they're so service oriented, but we get ourselves in these little traps where it's like, okay, I want to make this impact. I know I'm really good at this and I've sacrificed everything in my life for it and I just want to make that. I want to change that conversation, I want to change that trajectory. I want someone to be able to make an impact and elevate everything in their life, not sacrifice it, if that makes sense.

Speaker 1:

That was an amazing soundbite and it's a good spot to finish this episode. Like Neil, thank you for sharing this. Um, thank you so much. I'm putting the link to the. Well, that link to the, the book is already in the description. So, like you listening, having listened to Neil Lau for this episode and maybe the previous episode, you can grab her book in the show notes. And, neil, that's where you said would be a good spot for somebody to first enter your business world, so to speak, and get help right. Yes, Yep.

Speaker 1:

Absolutely Cool. Well then, thanks for being here.

Speaker 2:

Thank you so much, Kwejo. This was amazing.

Speaker 1:

You're welcome. You're welcome, and until the next time we see you or hear from you, or at least the next time that I see you or hear from you, be blessed, take care, and we'll see you in the next one. Bye.

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