Three Questions to Answer to Automate, Delegate and Elevate Your Business Systems

Oct 5

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Running a proactive instead of a reactive business requires a bit of system planning which can feel intimidating at first. Join us on today's episode as Sabrina breaks down the three questions you need to answer before you can delegate and create a jaw-dropping client experience that gives you more time.

Sabrina Avellán is a Client Systems Strategist based in Austin, TX who is dismantling the belief that not having a 9-5 means you need to work 24/7 for yourself. Using systems as a form of self-care, she consistently sets her clients up to provide more impact, make more income, and have more quality time for themselves.

Website // Instagram // Dubsado VIP Day // Centralize Your Systems Weekly Newsletter

The episode:

Katrina Widener: Hello and welcome to the Badass business Squad podcast. Where I help entrepreneurs like you feel lit up in their businesses by connecting them with the best community, education, and business strategy. I'm your host Katrina Widener. Tune in each week for bite size episodes where I'll share implementable advice, interview guest experts, and highlight key takeaways from real hot seat meetings inside the Badass Business Squad group coaching program.

Hello everyone and welcome back to the Badass Business Squad podcast. I am your host Katrina Widener, and I am very excited! Today we have Sabrina Avellán here, and we are going to talk about automation and delegation and business systems and all of that kind of stuff that really, really elevates your operation side of your business. So thank you so much Sabrina for being here today!

Sabrina Avellán: Yes I'm excited to be here, thanks for the invite!

Katrina Widener: Yeah, you are very welcome. I don't even remember how I first found you on Instagram, but I've been following you for a while, and I feel like we've been having conversations back and forth. And I was just like, "This is a topic that I know a lot of people want to know more about in their businesses," so I think that this is going to be a great episode. Before we dive into everything though, would you mind just telling everyone listening who you are, what you do, what your business is, all that great stuff?

Sabrina Avellán: Yeah, totally gladly. So my name's Sabrina Avellán and I'm a systems strategist for coaches and online service providers. So I've spent a lot of time really wanting to dismantle the belief that working for yourself is a 24/7 gig. This whole like, "If you don't want to work a nine to five, you have to work 24/7 for yourself," is something that I'm really trying to nix so that we have a healthy balance in our business and in our life, and I do that by creating automated systems for my clients. So not only does it create a lot of space in your business for you, but it ultimately creates a better client experience, which in turn increases client retention, client referral rates, and ultimately your ability to make more money. So yeah, that's what I do! And I use a platform called Dubsado, but I also do like audits for people's backend operations, really looking at like how you're managing your client processes.

Katrina Widener: Ooh, that's really cool! I think it's such an important topic too, because I talk a lot about like helping entrepreneurs stop trading their time and energy for money, and systems is a huge way to do that and a huge thing that we talk about in my mastermind and my one-on-one coaching. So yes, I love all of what you're talking about, and I think it's so smart to have those audits in place I'm already like, "Oh my gosh I have people I want to tell about this!"

Sabrina Avellán: Well, it's funny. I feel like systems are something that gets talked about after you've really been in business for a little bit of time, right? Like you're looking for a marketing coach or a business coach in the beginning, but you don't really think about your systems until they're kind of fracturing under the scaling, under the growth that you've built.

Katrina Widener: Yeah.

Sabrina Avellán: And then It's like "Oh, I gotta look back at my systems and figure out how to make them work." So yeah, there's that like space where you can actually get ahead of systems and build a scalable business from the beginning. But it's not something we think about when you're first starting your business, you're just plugging things in.

Katrina Widener: Yes. Yes, I love this. Everyone who listens is like, "I've heard Katrina talk so much about having a proactive business as to opposed to a reactive business." That business where we're able to say like, "Okay so I've already thought about this. I've already been putting this into place now instead of waiting for some magical day in the future where I'll have the time or I'll have the space, or I'll have a VA to do it!" Where it's like, "Well if you do it now, you'll have that time and you'll have that space!"

Sabrina Avellán: Mm-hmm ,and you may not need the VA to do that!

Katrina Widener: Exactly!

Sabrina Avellán: There's so many things that tech can handle that, that VAs don't have to. And there's a lot of things that tech can't handle that you need a person there to help you. So I'm actually surprised at how much people reach out to a VA, not even thinking about automating what they're paying someone else to do!

Katrina Widener: Yes! Yes, I love it. I love it. Okay so now that we'll stop waxing poetic about how amazing systems are, we obviously both really like them. I know that one of the things that we wanted to talk about was ways that people can really figure out for themselves where to get started or what they're wanting to do, and one of the things that you mentioned was that there are a couple questions that people could ask themselves to help them figure this out. So I'm just going to like pass it over to you and let you just spout and truth status all!

Sabrina Avellán: Yeah, so this is a process that I go through every time that I'm building out an automated system for a client, but you can use this process to basically prep yourself to delegate, and you can use the same steps to elevate systems or processes in your business by answering these three questions. And it's so simple. It's almost so simple that you're like, "I don't need to do that. I've got it in my head, like I can do it in my head." But it's incredible how much you hold in your mind that you don't really get granular in your brain, right?

You think about all the steps it takes to do something on the macro side of it, but you don't really get into the micro of what it actually takes to complete a process in your business. So answering these three questions and specifically writing them down, either on pen and paper or opening up a Google doc, and really getting granular with a process in your business is going to give you that space to look at it and really see where you can elevate it, where you can fill in the gaps, how you can automate it. And then honestly just listing these things out, you can hand them over in a really efficient delegation.

So the three questions are "What, when and which?"

So you're going to open up a Google doc, get out of pen and paper. And like I said I do this with my pre-work in my VIP days, but I also do it when I'm on the phone with clients, just kind of like walk them through these questions. And you're going to answer what, when and which for every step of the process that we're talking about. So for example, let's talk about like onboarding a client. If you are a coach or service provider, a lot of times when I'm talking to someone I ask them, "Alright, what's your process for onboarding a client?" and they'll say, "Well after we get off a sales call, you know, I'll send them the contract and a payment link, and then we'll send a welcome email and we'll schedule a call." Those are like, sort of the overview steps, but really what exactly are you doing? When are you doing it, and which piece of content do you need to complete that step?

So let's say after I get off a call with a client sales call, it goes really well. I'm going to send them an email with a contract and the payment link immediately after we get off the call. So the "what" is the sending, the "when" is immediately, and then the "which piece of content" is going to be an email, contract, and a payment link. So then after the client signs the contract and pays the invoice, I send them a welcome email immediately after the contract and the payment is secured via email. So we know that the content is the welcome email, and you just want to get really granular with your steps like that.

Like I said, sounds really simple but once you start typing it out, you're going to be able to delegate it, automate it, or elevate it really easily.

Bonus if you add in the question of "where." So what, when, which piece of content, and where? A lot of times when I'm talking with clients about what they do, when they do it, which piece of content they need, and where they get it done? We start to see that they're using so many different platforms. A lot of elevating your client experience is consolidating steps, consolidating information, and consolidating platforms. People pay more for simplicity. There is a luxury in having less, and when you're sending people to fewer platforms, when you have fewer steps, when you've consolidated information, there is an elevated experience and there's value in that. Because you are not using other people's times or they're bandwidth to try to figure out where they need to go, when they need to do it, and what's going to happen next.

So taking out a piece of paper, getting that doc. You can do it for content creation, say that you write your emails on a Thursday and then your VA uploads them into Convert Kit or whatever, on like a Friday. Walking through those steps, every line needs to answer. What happens? When does it happen, and which piece of content do we need? And that "which" is really valuable because that's where you can start doing things like creating templates is massive. I feel like a lot of especially new business owners, don't really embrace creating their own templates as much as they should.

Seeing like which piece of content you need is so important for setting up automations because you kind of have to work backwards with automations, right? You have to connect all the pieces, but first you need to know which pieces specifically that you need. And lining out what, when, which, and also where in every step of your process is going to basically create a roadmap for you to send off to delegate, or to automate, or to be like, "Where do I have gaps in my business, and how can we elevate it?"

Katrina Widener: I love that you were like, "It's so simple and sweet," but it's like the perfect type of simple and sweet, right? I love the way that you described it because literally you'd be talking, I was like, "Ooh, I'm going to ask her to give an example," and then you're like, "Here's an example!" And then I was like, "Ooh she mentioned, automate, delegate, elevate!" And then you like explained how all of those would work! And I'm like "This is perfect!"

I also really appreciate that this is a system where you would be able to really apply it both to someone who is just newly getting started adding systems, but also someone like me for instance who has systems in place, and I can go through and be like, "Oh have I answered all of these questions in every step of my own systems and operations? My own workflows and taking a look at the things that I've done?" I also really, really appreciate that you mentioned that elevate aspect of consolidating. Because it is, we're all looking to save like time or energy or money, and so to have something that's like so simple, but is really able to help you nail down like, "All right, I can save myself time, or I can save my client time and energy by doing this type of work." It really like almost is that " kills two birds with one stone". Because you're able to help yourself and your own operations and your own time, and give yourself that space back. But you're also able to do it for your clients. Which then, like you said, creates an elevated customer experience!

Sabrina Avellán: It's such a feedback loop. It's so valuable on both sides.

Katrina Widener: Yes.

Sabrina Avellán: And I think that's something that I love so much about systems. A lot of times you can talk about how this is going to help you and your business, or how this is going to help your clients in your business. But this is really one of those things that's like symbiotic. Is that the word for that?

Katrina Widener: Yes. Yeah!

Sabrina Avellán: Yeah! It's like it works for you and it works for your client in so many different ways. There's no way in which it takes away, like you don't have to do more work. You're actually doing less work, but your clients are receiving more.

Katrina Widener: Yes.

Sabrina Avellán: That's what I call high touch, low lift. Where it's very high touch for my clients, but it's super low lift for me.

Katrina Widener: Yes yes! I love that! I also think it really speaks to, we hear a lot of people talk about having like a "CEO mindset". When we're talking about having a CEO mindset, these are the types of things that give you that CEO mindset, right? Like having your operations in place on your end is going to make you feel more confident. You're going to feel more organized. It's going to be simpler for you to work with your clients. It's going to be easier for you to just like have the time and space to do the work with your clients, as opposed to doing like the additional outside extra stuff that we never think about when we're starting our businesses.

Sabrina Avellán: Right!

Katrina Widener: But it really allows you to like step into that CEO role, and I think oftentimes systems and having that operations part organized and feeling confident in that in the background is also what like allows you to move from that first level of business into that next level. Because you're able to have the time and energy to focus on other things. But again, it's going to create that elevated customer experience so that you are also providing to your clients in a new whole new way. I love it. I love it. It's great.

Sabrina Avellán: Totally. I am all snaps over here because I talk about confidence a lot after creating your backend systems. My clients and people I work with, there's another level of confidence you have when you show up to a launch, when you show up to selling your service, knowing that your systems are handled, that your systems are on lock. But on the flip side again on the client's end, when a client is moving through a really clear, really seamless experience? That builds confidence that they made the right choice to invest with you as well.

And especially in your onboarding processes, where I focus the most with my clients. That's like their first experience with working with you, right? They've seen you, they've followed you. They've decided to invest with you, and this is like a make or break moment to help build that confidence or lose that confidence. "If you confuse you lose", is another phrase I use a lot.

If you're confusing through that onboarding process, you're losing that important space for them to build the confidence in you. So, yeah. Confidence is a big thing that I talk about.

Katrina Widener: It just also feels like one of those things where we often overcomplicate things, right? For ourselves in business? Just the exact same way that like, if you're doing a launch and you want to feel confident in your launch, you generally have a launch plan.

It's also like, "Okay well, I'm going to go through onboarding my clients. Wouldn't it feel more confident if I had a plan that I was doing that it lives in my brain and I can remember it perfectly every single time?"

Sabrina Avellán: Yeah. Or that I'll have the time to get to it perfectly every single time.

Katrina Widener: Exactly, and having something that's like, so simple also really I think almost takes it from this big intimidating topic in our minds,

Sabrina Avellán: Mm-hmm.

Katrina Widener: Of like, "Oh my gosh, I have to do my systems and workflows and all this stuff, and it seems like this huge project and I don't really know what I'm doing. So I'm just going to like put my head in the sand and not look at it for a while." When it's like, "No it's really just asking yourself a couple really simple questions about the things that you do, and you can always adjust and improve." and I know even like before you and I hopped on here, we were talking about, I send out a sheet to everyone who comes on the podcast of just like, "Here's what to expect. Here's some tips and tricks. Here's all of this information." And I add to that sheet all the time. Anytime something new comes up I'm just like, "Oh going to add this thing. Oh going to add this thing." It's never like a one and done process, but it means that there's like one less thing I have to do every single time. Then on the other end, it's so much easier for you to show up and be able to do these things.

Also something like a podcast interview, not everyone's super comfortable doing a podcast. So to be able to have a little bit of like, "Here's information, here's a to-do list of things I can cross off," so that I can not guarantee success, but like feel confident and therefore most likely be more successful in whatever your endeavor is. It makes complete sense, makes so much sense.

Sabrina Avellán: No, I loved that doc. So great, it was really clear. Helped me like set everything up, get prepared for the call. I am also really big on every touchpoint with a client at the very end, setting up a "what's next and what to expect". So like what's going to happen next? When am I going to contact you? What information are you going to get next, and what should I expect through that? So that form was so helpful, because it definitely laid out what to expect and that's great for when you're getting on like your first kickoff call with someone. It's great before you're going to have like your first group call, whatever it is like setting up that what to expect. Just this little bit of information, all you need to add sometimes is a couple sentences and it builds that confidence and people show up like, "Okay, I know what's happening here."

Katrina Widener: Yeah, I'm also like a big guide nerd. I have guides for all my clients when they first start working with me and I'm like, "Here's the software you need." I love building those things out. I have been a part of programs where I've been like, "So what is this going to look like? How is this going to operate? What actually is happening?" It makes me feel, in a weird way like less confident showing up to something I've purchased.

And it's so interesting because from a service provider's point of view and like also a coach's point of view, I want my clients to feel confident in the things that they're doing. And the more that I can help them feel confident, even if it's just like, "I feel confident showing up and knowing what my very first mastermind meeting is going to look like and feel like," that helps them feel confident in other areas too, right? There's that ripple effect. Anyway, I'm just like raving over here!

Sabrina Avellán: No, I feel that! And so yeah, going back to like the three questions, when you're doing that for yourself on the backend for your systems and you're writing down exactly what you do and you're looking at it? You're building confidence in creating an automated system from it, or refining your systems, refining your processes. I've been on calls with clients where we're walking through things, and I don't know how many times they say, "Oh I forgot to tell you, but we also do this. Oh, and then there's actually this." And there's a lot of popping around because you think you know how you do something cuz you've done it for years or you do it all the time. But it's funny, until you start really getting granular with it. Whether you're a beginning business owner or you're super seasoned and you've been in biz for a while, sometimes it's even more so on that advanced end because you have so much that you're just doing and in your brain that it's not really getting onto paper, it's not really getting super granular.

You had spoken about like when you're first starting your business, I forget exactly what you're saying, but it kind of reminds me of a lot of times when I talk to people about systems, we talk about implementing them in between growth and expansion. So writing down what, when, which, and where as a bonus. Growth, I mean when you're getting all the master classes and doing all the research and really building out business or a new course or a new program, and then you know what you're doing. You have that kind of on lock.

It's a little bit messy, but you're ready to expand, right? You know what you're doing, who you're doing it for, and you want to expand into more. Expanding into that space is damn near impossible if you don't have these systems in place. If you don't know exactly what you're doing, when you're doing, and have all your content there ready to go. Because expansion takes time and it takes like mental space and it takes creativity, and those things are all hindered when you're, not operating in the most efficient way possible. Because everything's in your head, you don't really know what you're doing, you're just kind of getting it done.

So in order to expand, really bringing out that Google doc as simple as it seems, and writing all these things down and seeing what you can automate, what you can delegate and how you can create more space. And how you can elevate just means like adding value. You don't have to add deliverables. You don't have to add more to your plate. Elevating should just create a better experience, and a better experience is value. People pay to have an elevated experience. Even if going from A to B looks the same with two different people, I'm going to hire the person who seems like it's a lot easier, seamless, and clear.

Katrina Widener: Mm-hmm, 100% and it makes me think too of when I first got started as a coach many years ago, I did not have systems and operations in place when I first got started, right? Very rarely do people do that from the get go, and I think that there is like some experience needed before you actually set that stuff in stone. So anyone who's like a baby, baby beginner? Get some experience first. But that also meant that like I know I dropped the ball in some situations. I know that maybe there was like, "Oh, I gave this person this information or this expectation. I forgot to give it to this other person,"

And it wasn't until I even just like sat down and I was like, "Here's the basic workflow of how I'm going to go with clients," even just in the meetings, right? "We're going to ask these questions, we're going to talk through these things and this is how it's going to look." That was when I started giving a more like succinct customer experience. But that's also to tie back to that confidence part, when I started feeling like really confident in myself as a coach. Because I was able to say, "Here are the ways that I'm showing up the exact same for every single person." I'm not dropping the ball anymore. I'm not forgetting things. I'm not having to send someone an email after the fact to be like, "Oh my gosh, I didn't mention this," or, "Can't believe I forgot this", or "I forgot to record the zoom meeting or whatever it is", right?

That's one of those things too, that for anyone who's listening and who's like, "Okay this is great like cool, got this information," and then is not going to act on it? Because we all know that that happens with podcast episodes, all the freaking time. Also just like a reminder that even the littlest amount that you do now is going to benefit you in the future, and the next time you're onboarding into a client just sit down and write out what you're doing while you're doing it and ask yourself these questions as you're doing it. It doesn't have to be this like, "One day in the future I'm going to have a month off, and then I'm going to be able to sit down and do all my systems at one go." Like, just do it one at a time as you're onboarding someone or as you're off boarding someone or whatever all of the different interactions you have with clients end up looking like. Because that's going to be a way that you can like do it as a bite sized approach.

I have a client right now that we're working on this with and with them I really was like, "Let's just do like one part every single day. I know that you want to do this whole thing." And they're very unique in which they're doing a lot of like videos. So they'll record a video and then transcribe it, explaining what's going to happen in this session essentially, and I'm like, "Just do one video a day." It may be more work than batching it, I love to batch things. I love to tell people batch things. But if it feels intimidating, just take it bite size. Whatever you get done is going to be beneficial. No matter how small it is.

Sabrina Avellán: I love that. I love that writing it down as you're going. That is so major. Or even just like recording screen recording while you're doing something,

Katrina Widener: Yes.

Sabrina Avellán: And then going back and writing it down, I'm big on that. I was definitely the weirdo that had my system set up. Not like I do now, right? But I had some automation to the systems before I even brought on my first client. But they were small, they were little baby automations, but my clients had a great experience and my referral rates from the beginning were just through the roof. And I that's still my referral rates are bananas because of my client experience, and because it's almost like I'm holding their hand when I'm not, I actually don't do any work. Like behind the scenes, I only work when I show up for the VIP day and for the strategy call. All the other stuff is happening kind of behind the scenes. I've been in business for years, but even in the beginning, just setting up these like little things. Definitely taking a look at what you're doing and writing it down bite size, building from there is better than nothing for sure.

Katrina Widener: Right. It's always easier to just be like, "I'm in this software right now. I'm just going to automate this one email," than to have nothing done. I always talk about like, "Let's have achievable results as opposed to like aspirational results." And it's great to be able to say like, "I want to have this whole thing done. I'm going to take this week and I'm going to do all of it." Which if you can do that amazing. If you don't have that time, if that feels actually harder, just do one email today. One!

Sabrina Avellán: Mm-hmm! Mm-hmm.

Katrina Widener: Make one template.

Sabrina Avellán: And what's funny is a lot of times that whole "When I have time"? That's the whole point of creating these systems, right? Is to give yourself time because you don't have that right now. So it's super hard to find that one day.

Katrina Widener: Yes.

Sabrina Avellán: Because things just keep coming up. We know from this whole pandemic that we have no idea what's going to happen next, and so doing what you can now in bite size, or in a big chunk in a day, but not leaving it for one day when I have time because you know, who knows when that's going to be. So, yeah.

Katrina Widener: Yeah!

Sabrina Avellán: I mean, I do know when it's going to be! After we create systems! When you implement all that stuff, right? Then you'll have a little bit more time and you'll fill it up with something else!

Katrina Widener: Yes, yes. Well, I love it! Thank you so much for coming on. This has been I think, super beneficial. I hope everyone listening is inspired by this. But before we officially sign off, I was hoping you could just tell everyone where they can find you after this call, if they want to work with you or get to know you better.

Sabrina Avellán: Yeah, so I'm all over Instagram. My handle is @sabrina_avellan, A-V-E-L-L-A-N, and you can find me on Instagram they've got some links on there that'll send you to my website. You can check out my systems VIP day, which is basically where I automate the system for your program, or your service in a day. And then I also have a super great newsletter that I send out every Sunday. It's called Centralize Your Systems, and I just send out tips, tricks, little bite size things like this in my experience in centralizing my systems and the benefits that it has for your business. So newsletter, website, IG. That's where I'm at!

Katrina Widener: That's awesome, and we will have all of that also linked on the show notes and the full transcription and all of that amazing stuff. So you don't have to have any of this memorized, we'll have the links to find her there! So thank you so much for coming on, this has been great!

Sabrina Avellán: This was fun, thank you so much!

Katrina Widener: Thank you so much for listening to today's episode. If what you heard was impactful in any way, it would mean the world to me if you left a review on iTunes or Apple podcasts. And if we aren't friends on Instagram yet, come join the party at @katrina.widener or come visit the website at www.katrinawidener.com.