#22: The 4 Steps To Creating Freedom In Your Business
Episode Shownotes
As a business owner, do you vacation without your laptop?
Or does the thought of taking two weeks off work scare you?
Systemizing your business will create the freedom you thought was years away. In this episode, I’ll tell you the how, when, and why this is the answer to your endless to-do list and hours of overtime.
I am currently pivoting and restructuring my own business, Aroha Visuals, and want to share my key learnings with you. In this 30 min episode, I take you through the four steps I'm using to overhaul my business to create more freedom from the inside out.
I encourage you to seek mentors and coaches who have been where you want to go and challenge the barriers and beliefs that are holding you back. One of my favourite business quotes is, ‘Don’t do it if you can delegate. Don’t delegate if you can automate’. This episode is full of powerful analogies and punchy quotes for business inspiration.
Reality Check: You have to set aside your ego to follow your dreams.
My Top Two Book Recommendations for Small Business Owners:
“It's more difficult to enjoy free time than it is to work”— Jenny Blake
As always, think about what problems you want, rather than the problems you have.
Let’s continue the conversation at https://www.instagram.com/emilypeilan/
Meet fellow Freedom Nomads on a unique retreat experience, join here: https://www.freewildsouls.com/retreats
Create more freedom by learning how to attract more website traffic and ideal clients with my free Website & SEO checklists: https://www.arohavisuals.com/resources
Episode Transcript
Are you in a phase in your business where you're slowly starting to resent your business, for your lack of free time and space to enjoy the life and the freedom that it was supposedly supposed to give you. And you find that you can't ever take a vacation and you want to take an actual vacation without your laptop?
This episode is all about why why bother to systematise your business and the freedom that can come from that. So I'm excited. Tune in See you on the other side.
Hello, my beautiful friends and welcome back to another episode. I am excited about this one because my business and just where I am personally, I'm undergoing a lot of pivots. I'm restructuring my business from the inside out. So that I can have more freedom in my life, while still running my business and having incredible people to help support me.
So, I wanted to share a little bit of my backstory, and how I came to this decision to pivot and restructure. And if you've listened to one of my previous episodes on burnout, you'll know that I burnt out my I didn't know if it was a bad one or not, because I've never had any one else. And that nothing else to kind of compare it to. But it was it was bad. And it took me about six months to recover. And during that time, I didn't have a lot of energy to do anything to market to reply to emails to, I was just I didn't care, I was so tired.
I actually started to resent my business. I just felt like I was on this endless, endless hamster wheel of like, go keep going keep going. Otherwise, if you stop, it's all going to come crashing down. And well, it did. I don't when I bought myself out and I couldn't keep going anymore, it actually very close to came crashing all the way down. And it was quite a scary place to be.
But I mean, on a positive note, coming out of that, I realised that it's not sustainable. And I can't keep doing this. I can't keep doing this or running my business in this way. And I feel really grateful to have then coming out of that met some incredible friends, mentors, coaches, who are in a phase where they have scaled their business from six to seven figures. And they shared so much with me and really expanded my, my perspective. And what it is to, well grow what it takes to grow and scale your business and this idea of systematising your business came into my sphere. And yeah, I'm so grateful.
So, I'm in this phase now where I'm like actively working to systematise my business as fast as possible, so that I can have more free time deliver more quality work to my clients on a more consistent basis. And also like scale, the value that I'm able to offer my clients and my audience because at the moment, like me myself, and I can only take on so many projects, I can only do so many things, I can only help so many clients.
But if I was able to create a process for a credit system, and then bring on another junior designer or another developer to come in and help me, we could help three times more clients five times more clients 10 times more clients and deliver more value that way. Or I could have more free time to perhaps create a digital product, a template of some sort and be able to deliver more give more value to people who can't afford a custom website, but they can afford a template and help empower them to customise it themselves.
And so basically just being able to create more value by actually freeing up more time and systematising my business. So that's the business standpoint, from a personal why or personal standpoint. It just gives me more free time to travel with my partner and be off grid without freaking out. I also want to have more time to invest into this podcast for free world souls.
And just in general, this idea this project of free world souls and having the space and also financial stability to be able to organise and plan a retreat in the future and create these passion projects that feel so close to my heart because at the moment if I stop and take my foot off the pedal from our visuals then Things come to a standstill. And I need to get it to a point where it keeps running without me so that then I can pour more of my love and attention into free world sales.
So, all that to be said, it is not possible if you do not have systems in place. And so some of the recent things that I have systematised, and it can always be improved, but I have so far systematised the blogging aspect, my podcasts, for freelancers, but blogging and newsletters for auto visuals. And the next thing that's on my list to systematise are things like my design intensives, my studio days, brand strategy, website strategy, development process, retainer support, project management, and social media. And it's just endless.
There's so many things that you can systematise. And another thing that I added on this morning actually was client gifting. Like I love, I love sending my clients gifts, and I love handwriting letters to them sometimes. And I need actually a system to be able to systematise that even if, whether or not it's for myself, or it's something I want to hand off in the future, having that in place, where to go to what links what kind of how to make the decision to find the correct or not not correct, but like, find an appropriate client gift for this specific client.
There are small nuances and I felt like, oh, only I can do this, because I know my client, but like, you know, what if What are some of the things that I could translate down on to an SOP like a, like a checklist or something, so that maybe in the future, I can hand off and empower my junior designer to go in and, and surprise my client with a beautiful gift or something. So like small things like that you can also systematise.And you'd be surprised how much free space it creates for you.
Next thing is, yeah, so I touched on this idea of like, the hardest thing about this so far is especially if you're creative, you're like, oh, it's all in my head, like people can't like I can't hand this off. I can't outsource it. And you like again to that, I would say you'd be surprised at how much you can actually outsource. You think you don't have time to train someone up? And what if they leave after two months? It would all be for nothing. You know, what if I don't see the value or for you, yourself, if you're everything in your business, you wear all the hats, you're like, oh, maybe I don't see the value, and actually externalising my brain and getting everything down on SOPs, because it's all for me.
And you're like, what's the point? Why would I waste my time doing this. And that's where I was. And now I massively regret massive regrets. Because at some point, if you do want to grow, the way you're going as a solopreneur, it's incredibly unsustainable. You will hit a point where if you want to grow, if you want to have children, if you want to have free time, you need to outsource, you need to have a team.
And if you want free time, you're going to have to systematise, you're going to have to outsource, you're going to have to do this anyway. So anything that you do more than once, create a process for it. And the earlier you do this early you pick up on and this is the third time I'm doing it, let's create that spend two to five times more longer this time around to create a process for it. So that in the future, you can save 500 hours, you never know.
And truly, it is an amazing thing. It keeps you organised and you your future self will definitely just love you, thank you and bow to your genius. Another side to this as well. It's like there's certain parts of our business that we actually love doing that we want to keep doing. But if we're being really honest, it's probably not the highest value task that we could be doing.
And I suppose there was a part of me, for example, I love developing. I just love everything I do in my business really. But I really love the creating the designing the developing. And so I didn't want to document work with this idea that oh, if I documented that I'm planning on handing it off to somebody, but I didn't want to do that. And so kind of unconsciously I chose not to and I chose to procrastinate because yeah, I didn't want to outsource it secretly.
So I continued with a messy sort of put together version of an SOP and notion, like bits and pieces, and it worked until projects are flooding in again. Then I saw the potential for growth. And, and now I'm in the process of like hiring junior designer and simultaneous, I'm realising that I can't, like, she can't just come in and pick out where things left off because I don't have anything for her to pick up. Like, there's no, nothing has been documented. There's no SOPs, there's, everything's a mess. And holy shit, I'm like, Okay, I want to I have a vision of like, where I want to be at the end of next year.
Basically, that I want had this vision of like, this time freedom that I desire, and I cannot get to that without restructuring and systematising my entire business from the inside out. So yeah, I realised what I need to do. I'm in the action of like, making it happen. But it is also difficult. And I think it's interesting for me share this with you, as I'm like, going through this shift as well.
Another thing that came up for me, which was difficult was like, We, I want to be wanted, you know, like, and so it's almost funny, like, why would I create a business that could run without me, I want to be wanted. And so kind of, you really have to set aside the ego. And most people don't even realise this and they become this martyr, this is me, I'm talking about myself as well, like suffering at the expense of my own business.
And in the name of doing the thing that they love saying, like, this is the price I need to pay to follow my dreams and have this freedom. But like, freedom of what, you know, I got to a point where I was burnt out, I had no freedom. I was working seven days a week, 10 hours a day, roughly. Or more sometimes. And the thought of like going away on holiday stressing me out because I had so like, there's so many things I could do. And I didn't want to take time off and what what kind of freedom is that? I don't want that anymore. And so yeah, just having that in mind. And like, what's the why behind it? Because at the start of my business, my why wasn't so much time freedom.
I was like, I just want to be able to have my business take off and have clients and I'll do anything to have clients and make them really happy. So that was my why and to be able to have enough cash flow to live nomadically basically. And now I suppose my why has shifted. And back in the first phase of my business, if people were like talking about systematising and creating processes, and I was like, Ooh, like, gross. I don't need that. I don't want that. And now I'm like, okay, different stage of business. I definitely need that.
So yeah, I suppose it also comes back to like, what phase you're in. But even if you are starting out, take this as like, just the gentle heads up that at some point. systematising early is better than systematising Too late.
So I wanted to share four steps that I'm currently taking to overhaul my business and create more freedom from the inside out.
STEP #1: seek advice from an investing in my business coaching in business coaching and experts.
So for example, I one of my coaches Briony from untapped. She's been, she's given me so much like, just amazing, amazing tips and wisdom. I actually did a podcast episode with her earlier, you can scroll back down Briony and untapped.
So one of the things she said was, you often you'd be surprised that you often need to work less to make more. And that really stuck with me. And her partner Delaney dropped another gem bomb, which was it gets to a point where you start getting paid for how you think, not what you do. I'm gonna let that sink in.
And so for me, being like being very, I would say be very cautious of who you choose to ask or seek advice from and seek advice from people who are already there, like where you want to be.
For me, it's like people who are already smashing six figures, seven figure companies and they have already systematised their business. They have created already this this life of freedom, time freedom. And yeah, they're just kick us pros at at outsourcing and managing a team.
So these are the sorts of people I want to be asking questions and seeking advice from not the people who are also wearing all the hats and doing all the things like I am.
STEP #2: record live videos or document any processes I find myself repeating more than once.
And like even if I forced See, even if I've done it once, but I'm like, Okay, I foresee that I'm going to be doing this again, for example, could be an email that a question that a client asks you and you're like, Okay, I'm sure someone's going to ask this, again, write an email template for it could be a task template, like, you know, for example, how to export images for your website.
Create an SOP in the future, you don't have to do it your VA, or you know, someone else on your team could do it. Or it could be like, yeah, how to optimise images for websites, client tutorials, client gifting, like anything that you might ever see yourself doing more than once, document, live video, anything.
STEP #3: figurE out what can be automated
First through tools and integrations before you actually delegate it to them. So let's say the quote of like, don't do it. If you can delegate, don't delegate if you can automate. So yeah, that's probably a very good advice to live by.
STEP #4: CreatE processes for as many things as possible.
Reflecting on like, what worked and what didn't, and finding holes. So I find I'm like, in the moment, I'm like, asking myself this question all the time, if I was to step away for four, four full weeks, like, what would hit the fan first, like, what would break and what would absolutely crumble without me, that is like the area to improve on, and systematise.
First, I was on a call with my copywriter Paige today. And she actually brought a really, really great analogy as well. It's like she imagines herself spinning all these balls, and you're juggling all these balls. And some of them are plastic balls, and some of them are glass balls.
And so it's knowing like which ones you can put down for now, which are the plastic balls, and which ones are glass balls, which are more delicate, like which ones, if you were to drop them, they would crash into 1000 million pieces, and actually create so much more work for you and cascade everything else or the other balls to also crash.
So I think that's a great one. So yeah, knowing which one is possible, which ones are like you can just drop now and pick them up later, and which ones you absolutely have to prioritise now. And if you don't, well, you are going to create so much problem for yourself. So yeah, and just ending this, this episode with two book recommendations, and a quote that I love.
So two books I can recommend. I both read them recently on Audible. The first one is 10-Year Career by Jody Cook.
And she kind of explains this, she sees it on like a 10 year timeline. And you've got four different phases. The first phase, you're like an execution mode, so you're wearing all the hats, you're learning all the things, and you do everything, basically. But then you get to a point where phase two, which is systematise, you start handing things off, you start freeing up your time. But that requires you to like create processes, and create systems. And then the third phase being scrutinised. It's like, how can you remove yourself almost completely as the bottleneck of your business? How can your business run without you? Because I feel like, you know, in my opinion, you're not a true entrepreneur, or a successful business owner, unless you're able to step away from your business and actually have it run and grow without you. That's my definition of success for that.
And so I want to get myself to a place where it can grow and run without me. And yeah, I mean, think of it like parenting, like, you're not a successful parent. Well, depending on your definition, I don't want to offend anyone. But I feel like you haven't done your job properly, if your child still depends entirely on you, even when they're well past the age of 18. So they're in their mid 20s. And they are still living at home. And they expect you to cook for them, do their washing for them and drive them places and all the things like I feel like as a parent, you've done your job, right? If you've empowered your child to think for themselves, to seek opportunities to grow and be fully independent without you, and that is something that you can be extremely proud to have created. And I do see a business similar to that as well.
So how can you empower your team, your business to like think for itself to seek opportunities and grow without you? Well, that was passionate round. fourth phase, the last phase is exit. If you want to exit if you want to sell your business, then this is the last phase where you basically get your business ready to well, to sell and to close the deal. I don't know if I would ever sell my business but we will. Yeah, we'll come to that thought when we come to that thought.
The second book that ah, this is life changing. It was so good. If you're currently nerding out on systems like me, you have to read this book. It's called free time by Jenny Blake.
I will link both of the books down below in the show notes. And so in this one, she's, she's a genius when it comes to creating systems, she uses notion which is what I use as like a task manager. And basically my external brain, anything that I think of any processes and my business, I put them into notion. And so she, this book is kind of about all the different ways of thinking of identifying what areas of your business is currently being bottlenecked by you how you can identify that. And also then how to design a system that aligns with your values, and empowers your team, and is able to basically get things done more efficiently, without you always having to be there approving, and meddling in everything. So yeah, this is I really liked this book, and I got a lot of takeaways from it.
She also has some great free resources, like templates and notion as well, if you're interested in that. Yeah, just great book got a lot from it can highly recommend not sponsored at all just, I think it would be really valuable for you. So enjoy. And the last thing I wanted to leave you with is this is this quote from her book, actually, she said, it's more difficult to enjoy free time than it is to work.
And it kind of stuck with me, I think, yeah, for a lot of us, it's almost easier to be distracted to be working, even if it is a mindless job than it is to enjoy free time. Like so many of us actually have the privilege to have a lot of free time. And yet we don't use it. We don't take advantage of it. We look for the next project, we look for something else we turn on Netflix, we just busy ourselves so that we don't have free time because it's difficult to enjoy free time.
I don't know where it comes from. For some people, it might be guilt, or something like Oh, everyone else is busy, like I should be doing something I shouldn't be having downtime doing nothing. But then it's like this idea of like, can you allow yourself to have free time? What would you do in your free time? Would that be more valuable than? I don't know. Working five extra hours a day on a low value task? What more could you do with that time? Who could you spend that time with? So yeah, food for thought.
Anyway, I will end this episode here. Thank you so much for listening. I always appreciate your your feedback on these episodes as well and your questions. And I love hearing from you guys. When you DM me on Instagram. It's like your biggest takeaways as well. So yeah, you can always reach me at Emily Peilan. If you have any questions about systematising If you want an accountability partner or something, or yeah, if you're just interested in some of the resources that I've mentioned, I'd be more than happy to share more on that. Have a beautiful day my friends see you in the next episode. Stay wild.
