Moore Style - Still Doing It All Yourself? Systems Expert Shares Virtual EA and AI Automation Tips

Starting point is 00:00:00 inevitably your customers are going to have the same questions over and over again and they are going to expect a speedy response from you there are actual ai employees that exist now right so you could replace some human activity human employees with robots at this point speed to lead is really the name of the game you're listening to more style a podcast to help you transform your image and transform your influence. What if you could stop grinding and start growing, working your business smarter, not harder. Today, I have the pleasure of speaking with Jenna Evola. She is the founder of Evolve Systems and a powerhouse speaker helping entrepreneurs reclaim their time using AI automation and virtual teams. From systemizing

Starting point is 00:00:54 chaos to scaling with ease, Jenna has helped countless business owners break free from overwhelmed and build businesses that practically run themselves. Thanks, Jenna, for being on the show today. Thanks for having me, Celeste. I can't wait to hear about all the things that are going on with you. I know you just got back from a really great conference where you were a speaker. Yes. Yes. I can't wait to get into what speaking really looks like for you now in this new space that you're in. Let's talk about AI first. Okay. So you help entrepreneurs reclaim their time and sanity using AI and automations. So what's the first system or task most business owners should automate today that will help the biggest impact, will have the biggest impact?

Starting point is 00:01:41 I think the biggest thing that you can automate first and most easily is just installing a like a chatbot response bot on your website or wherever it is that you're generating leads and speaking with customers. Inevitably, your customers are going to have the same questions over and over again, and they are going to expect a speedy response from you. And speed to lead is really the name of the game. So just being able to respond automatically to your customers inquiries, book appointments maybe send out links for information that's something that you can automate now completely and it's with really simple available tools that really like if you have somebody that can just build it for you it costs a very low it's a very low cost thing to

Starting point is 00:02:36 implement in your business does it help save with say you wanted to hire someone is this a is this something that you could save on hiring someone and use this instead or is it more to really you know create and stream um your sops really successfully your automations so there there are actual ai employees okay that exists now right so you could replace some human activity human employees with robots at this point. But we also like to just utilize AI to extend the human power in our business, right? So hiring virtual teams that utilize AI on our behalf to do things a little bit faster, a little bit more efficiently. That is kind of the name of the game right now is lower cost employees that are utilizing AI. That makes sense. Now, do you help all businesses,

Starting point is 00:03:35 small, big, large, or is there a special niche that you really help? Yeah. So I started in medicine mostly. So I work with a lot of private clinics. They're very small. Most of them are very small. They're the ones that need the most help because they have the least amount of resources, the least amount of manpower. And a lot of times they didn't have someone establish their systems for them. So I really, really like working with these small businesses because I feel like I can make a huge impact. Um, and coming from having come from really large organizations, um, it's, it's a special, uh, it's a special joy for me to, uh, kind of take the macro to the micro and, um, take what

Starting point is 00:04:26 I learned in, you know, when I worked for General Motors and Ford Motor Company and help, um, these, these entrepreneurs who have maybe like a five or 10 person business, um, take those same systems and leverage that. Ah, that's amazing. I'm sure they're happy to really have that, like those automations so they can really streamline and use their, like you said, use their VAs or whoever's working for them in other instances

Starting point is 00:04:52 where they're more successful in that way. Yeah. Walk us through a real life example of how one of your clients went from overwhelmed to optimizing using your system. And what were the actual steps? so the the first the first business that that I really was able to do this for was my own business um which was our medical clinic that we started about six years ago uh and that was a completely

Starting point is 00:05:24 overwhelming endeavor uh to take on we started that business just before the pandemic hit And it's a high overhead brick and mortar business that requires highly a lot of highly skilled humans who expect to be paid, you know, a reasonable living salary. And when you're just starting off and you have all of these things to worry about as a business owner, it gets very overwhelming very quickly. And it feels almost impossible to grow and to see the other side of things. So the first thing that I started doing was trying to automate the sales process, right? So having faster responses, building a chat bot that would respond to people for the little things that a human doesn't necessarily need to actually step in and do. But the second thing that really changed things for us was discovering that we could hire

Starting point is 00:06:28 remote staff, discovering that we could find people in the Philippines that are already trained in what we need them to be trained in, be it helping out with chart notes, speaking with patients, making sure that emails are responded to. Being able to hire somebody in the Philippines for, you know, four to six dollars per hour, that was like life-saving for our business. I don't think we would have been able to grow the way that we have had we not discovered that. Yeah, I think that that's been game changing even for me. Right. So I'm so grateful for my VAs. Aren't they great? Yeah, they really are. They work so hard. For someone actually on that note, for someone

Starting point is 00:07:14 thinking about hiring a virtual team, what's the first role they should delegate and how can they ensure success without micromanaging? That's a great question. So I believe that every founder, regardless of what industry you're in, what type of business you have needs to start with an executive assistant hire. So this is the right hand that really helps with all of the admin that maybe you as the business owner shouldn't be doing anymore. And that executive assistant should be able to help you grow the rest of your team once that person is installed. So then you can start thinking about operations And you can start thinking about, you know, maybe a CRM manager, a website developer, a whole team that's helping to grow the business from the inside out.

Starting point is 00:08:09 Yeah, that's a good suggestion. I started with a social media manager or person just because I had fired actual company that I was using for two years because I had like zero growth, zero ROI. Like, I just I think that I wasn't quite sure either, like where I was in my space. And it just it felt like so disconnected. So that was I didn't want to, like, dismantle what I had already started to build. And the second was an EA, though, that was life changing, because just having that person be able to get back to emails, because we get flooded, or, you know, the day to days has been game changing. I actually did the same thing. Okay. I hired a social media manager first. Okay. But then I very quickly hired an executive assistant. Those two together then allowed me to hire now eight. Wow. And that's been in a period of about a year. wow oh my god yeah okay i'm not there yet but but i'm almost ready for a third so yeah um what are let's say the top three tools ai or automation you think every entrepreneur should have in their tech stack right now well uh definitely chat gpt or similar right you could use gemini you could use any any of the the big platforms that are out there

Starting point is 00:09:40 Um, but just using it every single day, like, like working the muscle, uh, cause it is a new, it's a new concept. It's a new system. So thinking of how to utilize it every day. Um, I would also say, uh, I take a lot of meetings and I used to spend a lot of time taking meeting notes and sort of taking my focus away from what was really being said in the meeting and trying to make sure I captured everything. Right.

Starting point is 00:10:10 I think every business owner should be using an AI note taker. That way, the meeting is completely summarized. You can pull out action items, nothing gets lost, and you can focus on what's being said in the meeting. Yeah, that's huge. Yeah. Another platform, you know, I've been working with a popular all-in-one CRM called Go High Level for quite a few years now.

Starting point is 00:10:36 Um, you know, there's, there's different platforms that exist, uh, that can help you, you know, automate your social media, automate your, basically your digital presence. Um, that just happens to be my favorite one. I think it's so versatile. Uh, and I think that, um, you can just do so much with it, including now building chatbots on top of that. Um, so that's my, that's my other favorite yeah right now for business owners yeah awesome yeah i like that i like the go high level there's things that really i i wish honestly there was a number one crm that worked for every business but there's not there's not especially someone in a luxury space where i need aesthetics right that's probably my biggest downfall but go high level is a great

Starting point is 00:11:24 platform because it isn't just a CRM, right? You can build courses and websites and, and there's so much there that, like you said, you can build this amazing chat bot, which she's going to be building me. And I'm very excited about. Um, so yeah, I just think, and I know it's like still a young company and it's still growing. And I think there is hopefully potential to make it pretty. Yeah. And, you know, I think I think one mistake and I make this mistake, too, is is because it isn't all in one platform. We try to make it everything. Yeah. Right. And we can just use it for the certain aspects of it that we like and we can still combine it with other platforms. Right. I like to try to simplify things for business owners because the tech can get the

Starting point is 00:12:14 tech can get overwhelming really, really quickly and it really shouldn't, and it really shouldn't need to be that way. Um, but yeah, like sometimes we just use go high level specifically just for the chat bot and maybe the website is somewhere else and that's okay. Yeah. Can you automate, can you bring in other, um, can you bring in a lot of other like integrations in go high level? I think that's probably my favorite part about it is because it does integrate with other platforms very, very easily. There's also third party platforms that essentially build a bridge between, you know, your other platforms. And so, you know, you can remove duplication, you can make sure that things flow, you know, from one thing to the other. And, um, that's another reason that I say, you know, you don't need to put all of your eggs in

Starting point is 00:13:06 the, in the one CRM basket. Okay. You can build a bridge between the things that you like. I'm so excited. Yeah. I can't wait. Cause keep your honey book. Yeah, I know. It's just, I think I pulled my hair out for about four or five months, just trying to find the perfect serum bouncing back and forth, canceling. Nope. This doesn't work. Nope. This. And, uh, yeah, I'm happy I don't have to do that now. Yeah. I still don't think there is a perfect one. Yeah. No. Agreed. Agreed. So many many entrepreneurs equate working more with growing more. Oh, what would you say to someone who's stuck in that hustle loop right now? Well, I keep talking about this book, but there's there's a book that I feel really changed my

Starting point is 00:13:55 perspective on this whole thing completely it's called buy back your time by dan martell so uh i would suggest first reading some books and looking at your mindset around time um because i think uh we have been programmed on a hustle mentality uh doing more equals more and it's It's actually the opposite, especially when you are growing to certain levels in your business. The things that got you there aren't the things that are going to get you to the next place that you're trying to get to, including hustling 80 hours a week to get it all done and not letting anybody else help you and not really looking at, OK, now that I've done all this hard work, what is my per hour value? And am I doing tasks that actually work out to that value or am I really undervaluing myself at this time? And that plays into personal life, too. It's not just, you know, when you're an entrepreneur, it's everything's everything's personal.

Starting point is 00:15:08 There's there's kind of no personal and business. It's all boundaries. There's no boundaries. Right. So which means you have to protect those boundaries even more. Um, and so it might seem self-indulgent to say, you know, have your groceries delivered or have someone come clean your house or, you know, pay other people to do things for you in your personal life. But those are the things as an entrepreneur that you really have to look at that will release

Starting point is 00:15:38 you from that like hamster wheel of, um, just grinding it out and, and, um, not managing your time well. And so ultimately, you don't become burnt out before you even get started. Correct. That is huge. And I can see how that happens very fast. Because it is, I believe, and this is something of experiences in the entrepreneur world. If you want to go fast, right, if you want to move the needle, like, it just life happens, business happens, AI happens a lot faster than I ever remember. And so if you can't keep up, then one, you're going to burn out one, you're just not going to make it. So having these automations are game savers. They are, they give you leverage, you know, and that's what we need. There's, there's no, um, time is our, is our only non-renewable

Starting point is 00:16:36 resource. We can't make more of it. So we have to just learn how to manage it better. Yeah. Well, that's why we have you, the AI queen. I'm just going to call you that. So for women in tech or automations, like who want to be taken seriously and speak without or with authority, what advice would you give them to command a room and own their expertise? talking about time again I I think just continuously showing up and uh doing the work and being able to back up what you're saying with that work and that time put in that's where I believe that I have my confidence from now because I've been doing the hard work when nobody's been looking for years and now I'm just kind of finally coming forward and showing it. And, um, I have, I have all of that experience to draw from. Um, and so I actually really like being, I think you mentioned like being a woman in, in the tech space. I actually really like being one

Starting point is 00:17:50 of the only women in the room in the tech space because I feel that people look at me differently that I've that I have been putting in the work uh and now when I when I go to speak it I I do feel respected it's it's nice um I just left should be thank you I just I just left an event where I felt that very strongly and it was um it was almost surprising to me you know um but I stepped off the stage and I was like, no, I've, I've been putting in the work around this for years. Uh, and so I do have the authority to speak. I do. I know what I'm talking about. Good. How did this event go? It was amazing. Um, and how did you get asked to speak on this panel? I guess first and foremost. Oh yeah. Uh, that's actually a great story. So,

Starting point is 00:18:44 So, you know, when we started that medical business a few years ago and then the pandemic hit, I mentioned, you know, I just started kind of grinding it out and doing the work and learning to automate things and hire remote staff. And one of the other things I realized was that I needed a lot of of education and coaching around business building myself. I came from a corporate environment, which taught me a lot and really prepared me for entrepreneurship in some ways. But in other ways, it it I had zero preparation. You know, I had never run or built a business before, and I felt like I needed other people who had done that before to show me how it's done. So I started seeking out coaches and mentors and putting myself in masterminds. And I guess now I've been doing that for, you know, like about five years. I can remember the first mastermind I put myself through was all about operations because I felt like I didn't understand how to hire, how to fire, how to how to build KPIs, how to hold people accountable, cash flow. like in a business, I, I, all of it was foreign to me and I knew that I needed to be coached on that. So I spent $10,000 on a mastermind so that I could learn how to do all of that stuff. And it

Starting point is 00:20:17 was, that was sort of my entry point into mentor and into mentorship, right? I kind of got addicted to learning and, um, I really liked meeting the other business owners that I met in that group. And then I just started finding more, which led me to, um, super connector, uh, finding you and yes, which is where we met. And actually, um, Amber, who was one of our coaches, um, I had confided in her a couple of years ago that I was really struggling, um, because, uh, you know, brick and mortar is kind of a different beast and she had a construction business. And And so we we we had a lot of sidebar conversations that I felt like she really understood what I was going through. She gave me a lot of great advice and we just became we became friends.

Starting point is 00:21:12 And she I think she saw that I have been, you know, putting myself out there and speaking about AI and virtual teams and automation. And so she reached out and asked me to speak at the event and turned out a bunch of other people from other masterminds along, you know, along the way, along the years. We're also there, too. And it's kind of like a reunion of sorts. And it was fantastic. Yeah. That sounds like a lot of fun. And what did you what did you speak about? I spoke I spoke mostly about hiring virtual teams. OK, I did speak a little bit about AI, but interestingly, the the everybody in the room was very interested in the concept of hiring overseas. And how does that even work and how do you find these people and what does that actually look like day to day? You know, so it was a it was more of a panel style.

Starting point is 00:22:11 OK. And so there was a lot of open Q&A and the crowd was asking really great questions. It's awesome because I didn't know. I mean, you know, my mom and I hired she had at one point three VAs and I had started with one. But even just the whole learning process behind that, like, you know, the screenshots and how to pay them. And like, once you onboard them, they're your employees. So you run your business, how you run your business, either going to be successful or not, you know, so they really look for your guidance for everything. But the beautiful thing that I've learned is I create more of a teamwork system. That is how I love to work. I don't think anybody's voice is smaller or bigger, even though I'm paying them, I would never like we're a team, how can we collectively make the business more productive. And it's been really fun and challenging at the same time, but learned so much. And I, I want them to have as much of a voice as I do. And that's been really exciting. So but yeah, I can imagine someone not understanding how that would work. And I'm great. I'm sure you're happy to have explained that. Yeah, it's it's it's amazing to watch other entrepreneurs discover that. Yeah. Yeah, that's awesome.

Starting point is 00:23:38 So you're coming off of a little bit of a speaker high, huh? Yes. And very little sleep. So I apologize. How do you align your visual brand and presence as a speaker with the high level systems that you teach? I'm not so great at that yet actually and that's something that I'm working on okay um I think that's another thing that over time you just have to get really comfortable with yourself and what you believe and um what you want other business owners to know I know that that is something that I've struggled with social media for years because um you know crafting your message and like, what am I really trying to say and put into the world? Um, but I think the,

Starting point is 00:24:27 the longer you do it again, just like repetition time, putting in the hours, putting in the work, it starts to come naturally. Um, you know, the, the, the brand aligns with the message and, um, and then you start meeting other people like you that can actually help you put the visuals behind it and bring it all together. So I'm excited for you because you, this is just kind of the beginning of your speaking career. It is, it is in this capacity in a former life. I was a news reporter. What? Okay. I did not know that. So you're very comfortable in front of the camera or you're not yet. Well, I'm, I'm comfortable. I was comfortable as a character. I was comfortable as I didn't even use my real name. Um, and I, you know, I spoke about what others wanted me to speak

Starting point is 00:25:27 about. So it was a very different thing. And that's actually been a struggle of mine coming into my own speaking about what I want to speak about. This is the first time in my life that I'm representing me. Yes. So yeah, that's, that's very new. And I'm, yeah, I'm getting comfortable with it. Well, I'm going to dial in Jenna in just a couple days. I'm so excited. And I cannot wait to see what that looks like. You know, I'm really excited for you. Because this, this is going to allow you to truly shine with who you are, your purpose and your message. and this is just so excited for you me too and thank you yeah seriously yeah we're gonna do we're gonna we're gonna show you guys the transformation that happens just like it's

Starting point is 00:26:22 gonna be like here she comes on the stage with their message yes because I've been hiding behind a computer for years it's easy to do and I literally don't really know how to dress myself So thank you. I'll handle the tech. You make me pretty. Yes. See, two sides of the brain that equal one brain. Exactly. Yeah. We need each other. Yes. OK. Is there anything you would like to talk to the audience? Maybe something that I missed in our conversations? Yeah, you know, I think that there's a lot of anxiety right now around AI and people's jobs being replaced and, you know, just feeling like things are moving so fast. uh but i'm i'm actually more excited than i've ever i've ever been for for people like us for entrepreneurs because um things are actually getting easier for us this technology that is now available to us we we should not be scared of it it is here to help us it is here to help us be more human, like leverage our knowledge and, um, and empower each other, honestly. Uh, and so

Starting point is 00:27:41 that's, that's what I want. That's what I want business owners and entrepreneurs to know is that this is actually a really exciting time and to dive in, like use AI every single day. I don't care if it's just, just to figure out how it works. You don't necessarily need to implement in your business right right now but there are so many opportunities that are being created for us that didn't exist six months ago and the stuff that's being created for us like as every week goes by it's just it's so it's mind-blowing to me um how fast things are moving but the opportunities are so abundant and we need to strike while the iron is hot yes i love that mindset because it is here to help us. So thank you for sharing that. And where can people find

Starting point is 00:28:33 you if they're interested in learning more about you or finding maybe want to work with you? Yeah. So my company name is Evolve Systems. My website is evolvesystems.ai. And I live on Instagram a lot. So shoot me a DM. My name is Jenna Avola. And yeah, I would love to help you automate certain aspects of your business so that you can get your time back and, and grow. Boom. Thank you so much for coming on the show. Appreciate all of the conversations. Me too. Thank you. You're welcome.

Moore Style - Still Doing It All Yourself? Systems Expert Shares Virtual EA and AI Automation Tips

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