the bossbabe podcast - 76. The Playbook: How To Create The Holy Grail of Operations with Danielle Canty

Episode Date: January 22, 2020

Join us in this week’s mini episode on The BossBabe Podcast as we discuss how to build a playbook for your business operations. Whether you’re a solopreneur or have a small team, your playbook is the holy grail for all of your processes and procedures. Tune in to learn how we organized our systems to create The BossBabe Playbook, which has been the ultimate game-changer in setting up our team for success.  This episode is brought to you by The Société. Join the community and learn how to start and scale your business at bossbabe.com/connectbuildgrow BossBabe Playbook Template: https://bossbabe.com/playbook/

The key thing is not to be intimidated and just start doing those little things that you do on a daily basis as repetitive tasks. When you start building up that playbook and you start building up this place for these resources to be held, all of a sudden you start releasing yourself from the business. Welcome to the Boss Babe podcast, a place where we share with you the real behind the scenes of building successful businesses, achieving peak performance, and learning how to balance it all. I'm Kaye Snells, head of marketing at Boss Babe, and your host for this week's mini episode. These mini episodes are designed with you in mind.

Each episode, a member of Team Boss Babe will dive into one topic, whether that's product, sales, marketing, community, leadership, you name it, and we'll feature it. So consider this your weekly mini training that's super actionable so you can implement it right away. On today's episode, we've got our very own Danielle Kenty. You'll recognize her as one of the hosts of the Boss Babe podcast, but she's primarily Boss Babe's co-founder and COO. We had her on the podcast last time and you guys loved it so much, so we brought her back.

So as always, screenshot yourself listening to this podcast and share it on your stories along with your biggest takeaway tagging at bossbabe.inc and hashtag the bossbabe podcast. Hey, it's Danielle and I'm so excited to say that this episode is brought to you by our membership community, The Society. Now, The Society is one of my favorite places and it's the place for female entrepreneurs to connect, build and grow. And inside The Society, we provide you all the content and female entrepreneurs to connect, build and grow. And inside the society, we provide you all the content and support that you need to build your businesses. So whether

you're taking it from the startup to six figures, or even beyond every single month, you will receive a new success kit from an expert in their field to help you along the way. You'll also have access to every single previous success kit that we've ever created in the time that we've been having the society, including how to grow your email list, how to get started with Facebook ads and pixels, or even how to reprogram your subconscious mind for success. And on top of all of that, you can definitely consider your fellow society babes as your accountability partners and business BFFs. We are here to inspire, support, and celebrate you every single step of the way.

And you'll also get two live group coaching calls every single month, which are normally with yourself truly, and you'll always feel supported and get those questions answered. In fact, on our goal setting one, I actually start every single one with a meditation and everyone finds it super powerful.

So all you need to do is visit bossbabe.com forward slash connect build grow if the society sounds like a really good fit for you right now i hope to see you in there a boss babe is unapologetically ambitious and paves the way for herself and other women to rise keep going and fighting on she is on a mission to be her best self in all areas. It's just believing in yourself. Confidently stepping outside her comfort zone to create her own vision of success. Welcome back to the other side of the Boss Babe podcast. I love it. I'm so honored that I've been allowed back. You passed the test, Danielle. You did it. So today we're going to

talk about how to build a playbook. And I'm just really excited to have both of us on this because I feel like you and I combined are the most passionate about this. Would you say that's right? I would say that's definitely right. We're the ones who are like, is that in the playbook? Is that in the playbook? Can you link it, please? So I feel like I'm joined by my sidekick here. So thank you, Kay. So excited. Okay. So let's start from the way beginning. So I just want to talk about what is a playbook for someone who has never heard of it? Question. So I would best describe a playbook as being like the index of your business. So it kind of contains all the pieces and the parts that make up your company's like go-to approach for getting things done.

So it's got your systems, it's got your standing operating procedures, it's got templates that basically shape your consistent response and how you respond to things daily, how you respond to your customers and yeah, how you get things done. And so what we do is when we create a playbook, whether it's on a spreadsheet or there's various different ways or a Google Doc, but it's like the overview. So if you're looking for something and you weren't sure where it would be or how to do something, you would go to your playbook as like I started out by saying, as the index to your business. I love the definition. And I think for my definition of a playbook, when I was working at Uber was basically a one pager or

a two pager on how you do a campaign or how you share your learnings with another team. So you can not only have a playbook for your whole company, but you can also have a playbook for one specific thing. And then, you know, depending on how you want to call that, you can call that a process. But in my experience, that was also called a playbook. So for example, if we ran something that was super successful in San Francisco or California, we know it worked really well. We tested it out in that state. And then we passed on those learnings and exactly how to replicate it to other countries around the world. And then they could implement it right away as well. So I think that playbooks are just the holy grail for your business, however you want to implement it.

So I want to chat a little bit about the behind the scenes at Boss Babe. How did you start thinking about a playbook for Boss Babe? So whenever you're growing, and I think even as solopreneurs, I know we also have a lot of solopreneurs listening, and the importance of this is so that if you're on your own and you're a business and you start getting super, super busy, when you want someone to join your company and you want to recruit, if you're not careful, it's all in your head and you have to spend so much precious time really teaching somebody. Whereas when you start creating processes or resources or systems, and we can talk about in a second about what makes a playbook, makes up a playbook, you start being able to say, hey, look, join my company or join my business

and here's everything you need to know about it and so all of a sudden it becomes so much easier for somebody to step in and we call it as you grow like you want to make sure it's a little bit morbid but if anyone gets hit by a bus do we know what they're doing because if it's in someone's head if it's consistently held in someone's mind it's so difficult to extract and also what that means is then there's inconsistencies with how things get done. So for us, it was really important as we were growing to recognize the fact that, hang on a minute, Natty and I need to be, our roles need to be involving. No longer am I the one who's answering the emails at contact.bossbabe.com, right? But I needed to be able to

teach somebody how to answer those emails and what the frequently asked questions were, how they should be answering, what the tonality of our voice was. And so we needed to start creating a place where people could find that thing rather than always having to ask me. So as we started growing and evolving, and as our roles moved on to the next one, we kind of wanted to make sure we were leaving a trail behind us of, okay, this is where we got up to. And yes, those processes and those resources and those systems and those templates can all change, but at least you have the foundations of it to work from. I think that's so key. And I think that you should start a playbook as soon as you can.

As soon as you're thinking of building out your team, you should start working on it. Because I know when I joined, I think I was around like the fifth full-time employee. So we didn't have a playbook yet, right? It was in the works. And so for me, I found myself asking questions like multiple times that I could have found in a playbook, like how to do it. And I think that as you then scale your team, it's so much faster to do that. So I think that you can definitely start it as soon as you're thinking of building out your team, because then your team can start helping you as well in building this out. So I want to chat a little bit about that. Danielle, when you were starting to build this out with a team,

what were the different types of processes, systems that you wanted to start documenting? And how did you encourage the team to actually do that for you? Great questions. Yeah, so essentially as well, when we first started, we had trainings and we had resources, we had templates. And I guess this is the difference between a playbook and having a training. So encourage all of you to start doing this training straight off. And Loom is a really great way to just record your screen or you can document a process in like a

google drive word document whatever but what we were finding is that they were in our google drive and they were in trainings but people couldn't necessarily get that overview and actually k and i were having a conversation around kind of being on the ground versus 6 000 feet versus 30 000 feet and the playbook the way we've created an Excel spreadsheet really gives you that kind of 30,000 foot look down so that you don't have to go rifling through Google Drive to find the trainings that you want to, or you can kind of look and go, oh, hang on, do we have a training on this? No, we don't. Okay. I'll create one or okay. I'm going to need to ask somebody. So definitely first and foremost, like always start doing the trainings from the off,

and then you can kind of develop plugging them into an Excel spreadsheet or whatever from there. And then having said that, like what we have incorporated into our playbook is four kind of main documents. So let's start on the ground. So the first one is like a template. So it might be, okay, you send this email if somebody says this and there's some outlines on how that should look and how that's created. Above that is a process. So how you do something. So if it's like, okay, well, I want to know how I send that email, then there's a process for that.

Okay. And then it might be a resource. A resource is more of a guideline as in like giving you a overview of something. So it might be, okay, we've got the template, which is the actual email, we've got the process and how to utilize that. But the resource might be the background to the product. So it might be okay, well, you're answering emails, and they're emailing about the society, this is all you need to know about the society. So that's a resource. And above that, we have the systems slash your workflows, which are kind of like, okay,

this is what happens, they purchase purchase from us when they go into the society they get this first welcome email and they might respond to that welcome email with this question and so the system is really giving that six thousand slash thirty thousand foot looking around what is happening with each section of the playbook and we might have those for certain products or we might have those for certain flows like Kay was talking about earlier when she at her previous company and she talked about okay if this works well in LA, and this works well in San Francisco, this is like the whole system for it, and you can create those too. And then with regards to how I've got people to really get on board with it, I would just say, it really is getting to

understand the why. People will do things, you can lead people, but if they don't really understand why they're doing it, they're not going to comply. Whereas when we kind of spoke to our whole team, I was like, actually, if we all input, like you all have things that you're doing daily now, which are improved upon, which are better than we created initially.

And we really want you to document that and update the playbook, or in some cases, create this part of the playbook for this new product. It really was like a time to let them say look you are so so valuable and we want to be able to as that team grows into you allow other people to plug into that knowledge and so like you said when you go on holiday we don't want to be bothering you when you're on a holiday with how to do something whereas if we have that bit of your brain downloaded into the playbook it

ultimately means that we can support you better in your role yeah let's take a quick pause to talk about my new favorite all-in-one platform kajabi you know i've been singing their praises lately because they have helped our business run so much smoother and with way less complexity which i love not to mention our team couldn't be happier because now everything is in one place so it makes collecting data, creating pages, collecting payment, all the things so much simpler. One of our mottos at Boss Babe is simplify to amplify and Kajabi has really helped us do that this year. So of course I needed to share it here with you. It's the perfect time of year to do a bit of spring cleaning in your

business you know. Get rid of the complexity and instead really focus on getting organized and making things as smooth as possible I definitely recommend Kajabi to all of my clients and students so if you're listening and haven't checked out Kajabi yet now is the perfect time to do so because they are offering Boss Babe listeners a 30-day free trial go to kajabi.com slash boss babe to claim your 30-day free trial. Go to kajabi.com slash Boss Babe to claim your 30-day free trial. That's kajabi.com slash Boss Babe. Yeah, so I really like that you laid it out in those four different types because I feel like anyone who's listening to this can think through what those look like for their business. And if you do, I would love it if you tagged at Daniel Canty and at Kay Snows in your screenshot of this episode, and just

let us know like which resource, which template, which system that you want to start thinking through, that would be amazing. And I had this completely unrelated thought about how do you convince people in your vision? Like how do you communicate the benefit to the person? And I think it always comes from a place of, okay, what's in it for me? So if you want to convince someone to help build your playbook, you can say, hey, this repetitive task or this thing that you're doing frequently, if you were to create this resource on it, then anyone could do it. And we could maybe hire someone to either support that or more people would know how to do it. So you wouldn't always

be that person that this one task gets funneled to. My unrelated thought there was like with the planet and saving the planet and the environment. I think it's hard to get people to actually care sometimes like a lot of people do, but it's like, how do you communicate the benefit to someone of, you know, saving the environment? I think if you can then look into like multiple ways to do that, for example, thrift shopping, like thrift shopping is more sustainable than always buying new clothes and thrift shopping makes you look cool. So I feel like that person would have a benefit to also helping a greater good and how you can inspire more people to do that. So that

was a completely unrelated side note, but I feel like that's how I think about communicating the benefit to that person of something that you want to achieve. So true. And playbooks are cool, totally. And like to just finish on, I always love these episodes to be really, really actionable. So I just want to give a little rundown about how to create the boss bid playbook so I know people might be or their own playbooks I should say so many people might be listening going okay well where do I start from this so I'm just going to describe it to you like I said we use ours in an excel spreadsheet and we like split it up into areas but we have six key columns and the first column is a link to the actual process or resource

or system whatever that is and we just link it directly and the next column is a link to the actual process or resource or system whatever that is and we just link it directly and the next column is type so we label it so is it a resource is it a template is it a system like what is it so it's really easy to see and the next column is title so we name it really clear so it's okay this is the accounts receivable process or this is how to use zendesk for example and then we have a fourth column which is around comment there's a chance of somebody adds something additional like okay this is a video or this is really important like a must watch for new core team members and then the last two columns are the owners the primary owner so who is ultimately responsible for that task and owns updating that process or

resource and then the secondary owner which might be kind of the line manager above that and they're just really double checking like what's getting done but I just wanted to give that so people aren't feeling overwhelmed because I definitely know that a lot of people hear the word playbook or they hear the word of like okay I've got to create this index in my business I'm terrified I don't know where to start but the key thing is not to be intimidated and just start doing those little things that you do on a daily basis, those repetitive tasks, whether it's, okay, this is how you use Planoly or this is how you respond to these questions. When you start creating that, it uses such a sense of fulfillment and it really helps you move your business forward. And and I think is one of the big differences where it starts allowing you to think beyond you. So it's very easy just to think

okay well I'm indispensable in my business and you know if I don't get it done nobody else is going to get it done. Well when you start building out that playbook and you start building out this place for these resources to be held all of a sudden you start releasing yourself from the business which is such an amazing feeling and ultimately allow you to be held all of a sudden you start releasing yourself from the business which is such an amazing feeling and ultimately allow you to be more creative as you lead because you have other people supporting you in the business to help do some more of those repetitive and mundane tasks but they do need to be done for the growth of your business so I hope this helps everybody and as Kay said make sure you definitely tag us at bossbabe.inc,

at Danielle Canty and at Kay Snells as well, because we definitely love hearing about how you're getting on. Wow. Love it so much. And thank you so much for sharing this. And we have a little bonus, a small surprise for everyone who's listening. If you go to the show notes of this podcast episode, we'll share a link that makes up the four components of a playbook so you can start building your own. We hope you enjoyed this episode. Thank you so much. If you loved this episode, please subscribe, download a few more and please leave us a review. I really want to hear what you enjoyed, what your main takeaways were and I also want to know what you want to hear us talk about next. To say thanks for leaving us a review, we'll send you a copy of

The Boss Babe 25. The Boss Babe 25 is the 25 essential resources you need for personal and professional growth. It covers everything from our favorite rituals, books, and hacks. If you want a copy, just leave us a review, screenshot it, and send at bossbib.com we will then email you a copy ASAP and since we love Instagram you can go to the hashtag the bossbib podcast and find our latest post and leave a question in the comments we love reading through the comments and we'll make sure to answer it on our next podcast