The Secrets of the Next Level, with Chelsea Brinkley

Welcome to Amplify the Personal Brand Entrepreneur Show. Today on the show, Bob is speaking with Chelsea Brinkley. Write down absolutely everything you're doing in your business. Are you checking emails? Are you responding to quotes? Sending proposals? Once you have that list compiled, the next thing I want you to do is take a highlighter or a different colour pen and highlight all of the things that only you can do. If you're doing one on one coaching, odds are someone's not going to pay for you to delegate that to somebody else. So one on one coaching is something that only you can do. Highlight that everything else in that piece of paper can be delegated to another team member. Hi there, and welcome back to Amplify the Personal Brand Entrepreneurship. My name is Bob Gentle, and every week I'm joined by amazing people who share what makes their business work. If you just hit play them while you have the app open, hit the subscribe button. And if you're on an iPhone, that's the plus or the follow icon. That way you won't miss a single thing. Now, before I jump into introducing this week's guest, just a quick reminder that after nearly 200 of these interviews, I've learned a thing or two about what makes business work online. It turns out that success does leave clues, and I want to offer you a map. So jump over to my website and grab your copy of The Personal Brand Business Roadmap. It's everything you need to start, scale or just fix your personal brand business. And it's yours for free as a kid for me. Now, as the cliche goes, teamwork makes the dream work. But a lot of people find that particular thing very difficult. You build your business on your own. You're a soloprene Personal brand entrepreneur. It's all about you. And then you get busy, and then you get busy, and then you start dropping balls. And for a lot of people, at that point, they start to get demotivated. They start to wonder how they can fix this, and they start to make compromises. So this week, my guest is Chelsea Brinkley. And her whole thing is helping you cross the void from you to the dream team. So, Chelsea, welcome to the show. Hey, Bob, thanks so much for having me. So I have been trying to speak to you for what feels like months because so many people tell me you're the person that has helped them cross the fiery Gulf from solopreneur to actually starting to work with a team. So I've done it again. Chelsea, I keep introducing the guests rather than letting them introduce themselves. So, Chelsea, for the guest who doesn't know who you are and what you do, why don't you just tell us a little bit about who you are and what you do? Absolutely. So, Hi. My name is Chelsea Brinkley. So as far as what I do, I help entrepreneurs and small business owners create more efficient businesses that's typically done through updating their systems, their processes, workflows, procedures, SOPs galore and just overall organisation and their business, with the ultimate goal being for them to gain their freedom and flexibility back in their lives. It's just something I'm extremely passionate about. And another way that we do that is we help match them up with executive assistants or online business managers. So creating those systems, implementing the systems, and then also bringing on a team member to help them so they don't have it all on their shoulders. So I would like to break that down because getting systems and processes in place, I think that's a really important prerequisite before you bring anyone into your team. And I know you as the person who helps you find the right people for your team. But I wasn't aware of the first part. So can you tell me a little bit about how that works, how you work with clients and how you take them from it's all in my head to it's all documented so somebody else can follow the trails? Absolutely. And that's such a great point. I feel like a lot of entrepreneurs solopreneurs, they step into and they go, I'm overwhelmed, I'm stressed out. I know I need help, but they forget to systemize create those processes, procedures before bringing on a team member. And so they feel this pain point of needing help, and then they jump into, oh, let me just hire someone. Let me just hire a team member to help me. But you don't want to bring someone on before you've got the foundation figured out and the system is created, the process is created and such because otherwise it just turns into even more of a mess where this new team member comes on. They're excited, Yay, they're working with you. You feel like you're going to have so much more time back, but it ends up being they're going, well, what's the process for this? And you're going, well, it's in my head, I don't know. So it's definitely best to start with systemizing, creating that efficiency and organisation in your business before bringing on a team member. And so whenever I step in and help folks do that, we do this framework that I have is systemizing, automating, and then delegating. So first what we do is we customise things. We create those processes, procedures, workflows, the overall organisation, and that's where we start. So I do the consulting and then I step in and have a team that helps to create all the SOPs and implement it into someone's business. So we systemize. And then the second step is to automate because let's try to work smarter and not as hard. Right? So there are so many tools out there that can help us to automate our businesses for various different things. So I'm big on automating what you can. That can't always be done, but sometimes it can. So let's automate what you're able to. And then the third step is where we come in with the delegation piece and help find you a remote team member to help you out. So instinctively when I first met you, I'm making air quotes here. I would have thought authors, consultants, coaches. That makes perfect sense. The creator community. That makes perfect sense. How diverse is your client portfolio or the people that we've worked with in the past? Oh, my goodness. I've literally worked with magicians. We've worked with so many people across, like, Broad Industries. So we've worked with magicians, we've worked with wealth management companies who do that. I've also recently worked with a company that does structures such as Pergolas pavilions and all of those things to help get their workflows better when they bring on a customer who needs a Pavilion in their backyard. So it was really quite broad. It was an important question to ask because it's so easy to make assumptions and that, yeah, this works for this kind of business, but it won't work for this kind of business. Business processes or business processes, they're universal. So that makes a lot of sense. One question I have around in particular is the delegation side of things, and it might just be me, but I'm wondering if you ever experience a certain kind of resistance in your client that you could almost just call entrepreneurial guilt. What happens if the clients see somebody else is involved in the work? You spent your career building this expertise and this profile is the expert, and then suddenly you're passing elements of that off to somebody else. Now a large business owner is going to look at that and go, well, of course you do that. Whereas an inexperienced any of someone that's inexperienced with delegating and adding a team. I suspect there's an awful lot of what I can only think of to call entrepreneurial guilt. Absolutely. Does that question make any sense to you? 100%. And it happens with pretty much every one of our clients, because giving up control is really difficult, which is funny as this is what I do for a living in my business, and I even a lot of times struggle to hand things off to my own team members. It's not rare. It's very common, especially like as entrepreneurs. You've built this business, baby, and it really does feel like you birth this thing. And so it's really difficult to give up control. But if you do, I promise you'll end up having more time. But one of the things that I like to say is just because you can do something doesn't mean you should. I have no doubt you can do all the things in your business. However, the ultimate goal is to get you back to doing the things that only you can do because there are certain things you can delegate to other team members. And you have to think about the opportunity cost there, because if you're doing everything. There's so many other things that you're not doing that only you can do in your business. If you're a coach consultant, more than likely those are things that only you can do in your business. But updating your website, updating imagery or anything like that that can be delegated to another team member. And it's all about working in your strengths and as a business owner, getting back to doing the things that only you can do. So if somebody is listening to this and they're thinking, okay, Bob and Chelsea, tomorrow when I wake up, I'm going to look at my systems. They're not quite ready to speak to you. They're not quite ready to speak to me. What should be on their bullet list of things that they should address? Well, I like to always start with and this is what I would recommend for someone to start with is their pain points. What feels like the biggest pain point? And that's not really like a completely abstract question because you feel it like if you were to ask me a pain point in my business, I would be able to immediately tell you. And so I feel like everybody has those. And so if you're going to wake up and go, okay, what are the biggest pain points in my business as far as the systems and the organisation? Are you having a really hard time finding files or documents? If so, that's a pain point. And that's something the system that you can create to make it so much easier. So I would absolutely start with the pain points. And so do you have customers that are constantly asking for progress updates? Okay, if that's the case, that's a pain point. And there's a system that we can create to make that better and not happen. So I would absolutely start with your biggest pain points and then work your way from there. I'm sitting here thinking, and how many organisations is the CEO in charge of filing? None. And yet as business owners, we all think that we have to do everything. Another thing I'm thinking is a lot of people leave delegation too late and another group of people jump into it too early. What is a good, strong signal that it's time to get help? And I guess I'm coming at that from two perspectives. One, you are just too busy, but the other one is commercially, because I guess there's different kinds of help. You can go the four hour work week route and hire overseas help for cheap, or you can get somebody really good and experienced. And I happen to know you're in the second camp, I'm guessing. I'm not guessing. I have some knowledge, but let's assume that you want to do things well. You want to do things with experienced people. That's going to have a cost attached to it. It's not going to be bargain bin. So where does your business needs to be in order to sustain this. So that's one question, the other element to that. And this is from my own experience, and you can probably speak to this as well. A lot of the time the question comes up, what can I afford it? But what you don't understand is that the time that that frees up will often more than pay for it. And I think that's an important thing maybe for you to address. So sorry for answering half of your question for you, but what are the signals that an entrepreneur should be looking at and seeing and thinking, okay, it's time. Absolutely. So those are great questions. So as far as the signals, one you mentioned being too late to do something like this or too early, I will share that it is absolutely never, ever too late to start to get your business organised. Better system size and in a better place to make it more efficient. I don't care if you've been doing it for 2030 years, it doesn't matter. It's absolutely never too late to get it organised. So there's that. And then as far as the signals of when it would be a good time to do that is I feel like whenever you start to feel those pain points, anytime you start to feel, if you have ever felt, like, really overwhelmed or stressed out in your business and you felt like, I don't have enough time for my family, I don't have enough time for my kids, I don't even have enough time to go on vacations or spend time with people I care about. If you felt that way, there's a reason why you're feeling that way and your business doesn't have to consume your entire life. I'm just a firm believer of if you can put some systems and process organisation in place and delegate some things to other folks, you really do get the freedom and flexibility back that you probably started your business wanting in the entire first place. I know for me that's why I started my business is I wanted freedom and flexibility, right? And then you end up getting bogged down by all the details, feeling like you have to do everything, you're a solopreneur and you may feel like that, but it's not the truth, so you don't have to do anything. So as far as signals, that's kind of where I would start. If you're starting to feel that way and then go, this is a problem where I need to bring someone on or do I need to fix the foundational systems and then really go from there? So start with your gut feeling. If you're feeling those pain points, that's really a good signal that you really need to create those systems organisation and maybe bring on another team member to help you out. So I would really start there. But again, it's never too late. And as far as the question on being able to afford it, you're absolutely true. That's something that you really should consider. One of the things that I guess question back is like if you can afford not to. Because if you think of the priorities in your life, like is it your family, is it your friends, is it your lifestyle? And if your business is pulling you away from any of that, maybe it's time to reevaluate things. And the question is, can you afford not to bring on some help? So time is the only thing we don't get back. And I just really value my time as well as everyone else's time. I think you're absolutely right. What I find most especially in the expert space is if you look at what it takes to execute on that business. Normally the 820 rule applies that there's only 20% of that where you really, really are the X factor, you're the differentiator. The rest of it is admin. I'm calling an admin rather crudely. It's not admin, but it's not something that can only be done by you. And that is a huge opportunity. Because if you had all that time available that you're doing things that anybody competence could do, if you have it available to you, just imagine what you can accomplish. And I actually have an exercise that folks can do to figure out what are the things that they can delegate in their business. So for anybody who is listening, I'd love for you to do this exercise. So truly it's really quick. I'll go through it quickly. But write down everything you do in your business. And this may take a couple of days to do. This may take a couple of weeks as things pile up and you start to do them. But keep a piece of paper and a pen or pencil next to your desk or your laptop wherever you're working and write down absolutely everything you're doing in your business. Are you checking emails? Are you responding to quotes, sending proposals, whatever that looks like? But every little thing you do in your business, write it down. Once you have that list compiled, the next thing I want you to do is take a highlighter or a different colour pen, something along those lines and highlight all of the things that only you can do. Like literally only you can do. If you're doing one on one coaching, odds are someone's not going to pay for you to delegate that to somebody else. So one on one coaching is something that only you can do. Highlight that. Everything else in that piece of paper can be delegated to another team member. So in your business, you focus on two particular kinds of person, the executive assistant and the online business manager. I got that right. Yes. So as far as our full matching process of an entrepreneur or small business owner saying I need some help, that's what we focus on is the EA or the online business manager finding them the right hand person, but we can also help find other remote team members as well with our community that we've built. So with the online business manager and the executive assistant, I imagine the reason you settled on those two is because those are really going to be the game changer people. Can you maybe for the listener and me, who maybe doesn't really understand what these two kinds of person are. Just explain the difference that those two people are there for. Absolutely. So there is a big difference. And I'll also throw in virtual assistant. That's like a really common phrase as well. Very broad term. I will say virtual assistant is more of a task taker and I do not mean that in a demeaning way at all. It's just more of the person that you say, I need X, Y and Z done and X, Y and Z get done very to the point, simple things manually that you just need done in that way. So that's more of a virtual assistant. But we definitely focus, like you said, on the EA's and Obama because they make the biggest difference. And so the difference there is an executive assistant is really seen as your partner. So they look out for you, they have your back, they're very Proactive forward thinking about what they can take off your to do list. Very much a go getter is an EA. Some typical things that might be included that they would do would be email management, maybe your calendar schedule management, any travel arrangements for you. They would handle file, organisation, perhaps communication with your clients or customers on your behalf. We really want this person to understand your brand language, how you talk, all of that. And so you would feel comfortable with this person, that level of responsibility, then communicating with your clients on your behalf, and then of course, administrative duties that come about and all of those things will just end up really freeing up your time, not having to take care of all of that. So that's definitely more of an executive assistant and moving on to an online business manager. It's very different role. And OEM is actually not administrative in nature. So this person is operations driven. They really don't handle the administrative tasks that NEA does. So your email, your calendar management, that really wouldn't be an OVM. The OVM is the implementor to the entrepreneur or business owner. So let's see, it would be like an entrepreneur would communicate their vision and say, oh, I have this idea. They're the visionary, right? I have this idea for this course, this launch, this product, whatever that happens to be. They would share that with their OEM, who would then create a plan as far as what needs to happen, take it to the team. If there is a team broken down into smaller bite sized goals in order for all of those tasks to be completed. And the OEM would also do project management on that, making sure everything is done on time, maybe having those difficult conversations with team members if needed on your behalf. They are really the person who gets stuff done. Creating processes, procedures, workflows, and their operations is the way their brain works. See, I want one of those, please. So a lot of people think that I'm putting myself in the shoes of the average entrepreneur, has been doing things on their own, and those both look like, how would I describe that? They're very different. Well, what I'm thinking is when I've employed people in the past, suddenly I just got ten times busier. And people take a lot of care and attention. They need to be trained and all the rest of it. And that's fine because you have to invest in order to see the return on anybody. But I would worry that I have enough for them to do because these people sound like extremely effective, competent people. So are your people typically looking at part time roles or full time roles or what sort of flexibility is there within that? Because certainly I think for a lot of people, jumping straight into someone like an online business manager, it could be overwhelming for them, not necessarily commercially. But oh, my God, I've suddenly got to fill all this person's time, and I've got to have ideas I didn't have before. And it's just a lot. Whereas if somebody is there just a day or two a week, it's far easier to occupy their time productively without getting swamped by this massive change in your business. And what we typically have, what we do in our process is whenever we have what I call like an intake or discovery call with a client is we talk through, like, how much time they need of this individual. And it doesn't have to be exact by any means. It can just be like, hey, give us kind of an estimate. And what we do is our client will let us know what they need in a candidate and a new team member if they're going I think I just need maybe 10 hours of time for an online business manager every week. Okay, great. And then we go find candidates that match up with the client's needs. And I will share that majority of our EA's and online business managers, majority are looking for part time. They're not wanting a full time role. They likely left their nine to five jobs because they wanted freedom and flexibility, too. They just wanted to be an independent contractor or freelancer and be able to work for multiple clients. And they also love kind of mixing it up and having different types of clients. And it really benefits them to do so because they're learning a lot from these business owners that they get to work with. And so really, majority of our candidates are really looking for something that's part time. So something that is in my head at this point is, again, putting myself in the shoes of the entrepreneurs, maybe never had anybody subordinate it to them. They've never had a direct report, and they don't really know how to do it. They might have fear of confrontation. They might not be very assertive. They might be embarrassed about delegating things that they maybe think are trivial or I don't know, you can kind of hear where I'm going with this. So what kind of support is available for the employer, if you like, in terms of okay, I have questions about how to address this with my new employee. Is that something that you look at or you can support? Absolutely. So I do one on one coaching is an option if someone would like my team and I to help match them with an EA or online business manager. One of the things that I offer is one on one coaching with the client, the entrepreneur, small business owner especially. It's really helpful. Like you said, if they haven't had a team member, they've been doing it all themselves. They haven't had a team member. So there's questions that come up as like, how do I pay them? How do we have that conversation about pay? How do we communicate? How do I delegate things to them without feeling like bossy? But also things need to get done right. And so that's one of the things that I do as well is like that coaching aspect. And I give them my phone number, and it's like, you can call me, text me, we can email, and we also have monthly calls together. But it's a way to help them through this process. And it's not forever. Once they get a grasp on all of this, of having a team member, we don't continue it forever unless they want to. But really, it's just to help them get started with a new team member, especially if they haven't had anybody. So we work through all of those things and they can always reach out. And so I found it extremely helpful for folks, even something as simple as do I pay them through PayPal? Do I pay them through my accounting software? What do they want? You can ask me. And I'll tell you. I think from my own experience, a lot of the things that I want to delegate are jobs I don't like doing. And right there you have a problem. I'm asking somebody else to do something I don't want to do because it's a horrible job. And does that make me a horrible person? So yes, the answer is probably yes, Bob. It makes you a horrible person. Now I just want to go and hide in the cupboard and cry. And I'm paying this person to be allowed to go and hide in the cabin and cry. This just is terrible. So I think that support is really important because that is essentially what goes into making it successful. It's a relationship it takes two people. One of them has no experience of ever having worked with another person before. But yeah, it needs to work. And I mean, another thing to think about is everyone is just working in their strengths. That's the goal, right? Is to get to everyone working in their strengths. And so while it's something that Bob, you may hate doing, it may bring joy to somebody else. And they're like, oh, I love that task. I know it may feel boring or what have you, but they're like, oh, I actually enjoy it kind of jumping in and doing that. Strengths and weaknesses everyone's are different and things that we enjoy, too. I want to dig into your business a little bit rather than the services that you provide, because one thing I'm always curious about is how opportunity comes into a business. A lot of the time it can come through outbound sales activity or it can come through referral, or it can come through content and content marketing and occasionally through ads. And often it's a bit of a blend. But I'm always interested to see how that works in somebody's business. So what does that look like in yours? So to be completely honest with you, my entire business is word of mouth. I've never done marketing. I've never done ads or anything along those lines. And part of me, just to be Frank, may get a little bit worried sometimes, but it comes full circle. And it's always been word of mouth. And I love that. And just something I work with amazing people and incredible human beings and incredible humans. No other incredible humans. And so that's just been a huge blessing that this has been the way it's been set up. And thankfully, clients do recommend me so that I do have more clients and such. So really, it's all been word of mouth. I think that's a really important thing for people to hear because a lot of people assume when you're in the online space, it must be Facebook ads or she must have a crazy busy YouTube channel or a big podcast. But actually, a lot of the time I do hear from people that even if they're doing those things, the big opportunities always come through relationships. It's just sometimes those relationships are with bigger hitters. And I think that's the thing is quality rises to the top and you are focusing on the quality end of the market and the people you serve need that. And now they know where to go. So I love it. So Chelsea, for the listener, Chelsea is stuck in her car right now in the freezing cold outside the Starbucks. She's been very regenerate because she lives in a cabin and a mountaintop in Colorado. Am I right? Yes, in Conifer, Colorado, outside Denver. We've it hasn't sprung for a Starlink yet. So I'm really impressed. You made the time for me and drove all this way to speak. I'm really grateful. But hopefully now you can go and get back into the warm. But for the listener, I'm for me, my idle curiosity, what's one thing you do now that you wish it started five years ago? Well, this naturally goes in hand with my business, but it's something that I really wish I had done five years ago is I wish I myself delegated more. Which is funny, I'm saying this right. I'm trying to convince other people to delegate things to team members, but I failed to do this. I felt like I had to do it all. And I feel like a lot of where my business has come from is learning that in my own failure of I should have delegated this more. So I had my time back to be with family, friends, wasn't so overwhelmed or stressed out. And so I realised that weakness in myself and I felt like I had to just keep everything so close and it wasn't the truth at all. Honestly, if I had delegated more, I would have gotten more time back. And to be honest, my team members, they do a better job of doing the things that I delegate to them than I even would have. My way isn't always the best way. And that's just something I've learned and wish I did myself five years ago. So then I want to ask you a follow up question, which is, what are the things you kept? Well, I kept the one on one consulting, right? I kept the coaching that I do. I don't want to delegate that off. I delegated my website. I delegated because I thought I was like, well, I know Kajabi, I can do it. It was much more of a time consumer for me than it should have been. And what's funny is I delegated that to a team member who that is her strength and she gets it done in half the time that I would have. So I delegated my website, I delegated actual implementation of the things that I advise for clients to do with their systems, processes and procedures, because it's not something I had to do. I trained someone and how I like things implemented in other folks businesses. And so while I do the consulting, she over here will do the implementation and it turns into teamwork. We bounce ideas off of one another. But yeah, so I kept the coaching, the consulting, all of those one on one things with clients, that one I thrive off of and enjoy and I'm passionate about. But it's really in my business something that only I could do. And for the listener who's thinking they maybe want to take things a little further with you, even if just from the processes right through to an online business manager, how can they connect with you and how can they go further with you? Absolutely. Just shoot me an email. So if you go to Chelsea Brinkley.com, there's a contact page in there and my email address and everything. Just reach out even if you wanted to just connect and chat you can reach me there or if you want to book a discovery call it's free. Obviously we can talk about it and see if it's a good fit for you. I will be very honest with you. I have no intent of working with someone if it's not in the best benefit for them. So yes reach out on my website and I'm also on Instagram and pretty active there sharing tips and tutorials and also just kind of showcasing my life and what my family and I are up to. So that's Chelsea Brinkley as well as my tag. You can message me there too and just connect. I love meeting new people. It's worth going to Instagram just to see this cabin guys it's not what you think. It's worth a look Chelsea, you've been an awesome guest. Thank you so much for your time and yeah I really look forward to hopefully meeting you in person sometime soon but for now thank you so much. Thank you Bob. It's been an honour. Thank you so much. Before I go just a quick reminder to subscribe and join our Facebook group. You'll find a link in the show notes or visit amplifyme. Fminsiders also connect with me wherever you hang out. You'll find me on all the social platforms at Bobgentle. If you enjoyed the show then I would love a five star review on Apple podcast. It would make my day and if you shared the show with a friend you would literally make my golden list. My name is Bob gentle thanks to you for listening and I'll see you next week. Thanks.