IAM402 – Business Operations Consultant Specializes in Client Processes

Intro 0:02

Do you want to learn effective ways to build relationships, generate sales, and grow your business from successful entrepreneurs, startups, and CEOs without listening to a long interview? If so, you've come to the right place. Gresham Harkless values your time and is ready to share with you precisely the information you're in search of. This is the I AM CEO Podcast.

Gresham Harkless 0:30

Hello, this is Gresh from the I AM CEO podcast and I have a very special guests on the show today as Melissa Morris. Melissa, it's awesome to have you on the show.

Melissa Morris 0:37

Thanks. I'm excited to be here.

Gresham Harkless 0:39

No problem. Super excited to have you on and what I wanted to do was just read a little bit more about Melissa so you can hear about all the awesome things that she's doing. And Melissa Morris is a business operations consultant who specializes in client processes. Think Client Onboarding, management and offboarding. She uses her 10 years of client management experience to help service based businesses, business owners streamline and automate their processes. Melissa has been seen in INC Magazine and keep business success blog and heard on podcasts such as Boss Mom and the Sassy strategist. She frees business owners from overwhelmed so they can actually work on their business and not just in their business. Melissa, are you ready to speak to the I AM CEO community?

Melissa Morris 1:18

I am ready.

Gresham Harkless 1:19

Awesome. Let's do it. So to kick everything off, I wanted to hear a little bit more about what I call your CEO story. And what led you to get started with your business?

Melissa Morris 1:26

Yeah, so I spent about 10 years working in ad agencies in my role at those ad agencies was client manager. So I was doing a lot of project management, timeline keeping and a lot of working with clients, right? I was the liaison between client, agency, client media, etc. And I love my job, I was good at my job. And a few years ago, I decided I'm going to go out on my own. And I'm going to have a social media agency because I just love advertising. And that's what I'm gonna go do. And fortunately, I built up a pretty good little base of retail clients pretty quickly doing this, you know, social media and online marketing and stuff that was like, hmm, I kind of hate. I don't like doing this at all. This is really strange. Because I loved working at the ad agency, I don't understand what's wrong. And so kind of through some exploration and talking to some friends, I realized it wasn't so much the implementing of the advertising, the writing, the Facebook posts, the refining, the Google ads, and the etc, that I love. It was the managing the clients, it was a project management piece. That was the stuff that I loved, that I had gotten really good at. And that was really the work that I enjoy doing. So I said, Oh, okay, well, I've got to change directions a little bit here. So I had established started dabbling in this locally with my local client and just kind of going to some people that I knew here and saying, you know, we're kind of working on your advertising. But what if we took a peek at this other stuff, right? And, what if we took a look at some of these other pieces of your business, right? And they loved it very quickly. They were like, Oh, I see. And so I actually connected with a coach to figure out how to translate that into the online space. And I was doing locally. And it just seemed to make a lot of sense, because a lot of people who quit their nine to five and go out there often in terms of service providers, i.e. the people I typically work with, they're copywriters, they're bookkeepers, they're designers, they're web developers. And these are all people who are really good at their craft, but in their nine to five never interacted with the client, they had someone like me always playing the middleman, right. And so now they're starting their own business. And they're finding they're very quickly getting trampled by their clients are getting overwhelmed with client work and constant emails, and this and that, and they're getting burnt out very quickly. And I get, you know, frustrating, because I'm like, It's not that your business isn't working, or that you are good at what you do. It's just this client management piece that she needs some support around. And that's just really where I've zoned in on. And that's what I love to help service providers with.

Gresham Harkless 4:01

Nice, I definitely appreciate that. I love that you said the phrase, zone and especially because I was thinking immediately zone a genius, and how important that is to basically know exactly what you're good at, and be able to kind of hire or create partnerships, or whatever you can do to bring on those people. So it's kind of great to hear that that happened for you. But it also happen for the clients you're working with where you found your zone of genius was actually that it is a organizational piece, not necessarily the actual ad management, and things like that and vice versa. Those people love doing that. They don't want to do any of the organizational parts.

Melissa Morris 4:32

Exactly. So it's worked out really well and they get to work better in their zone of genius because I can come in and I offer done for you implementation. So I've come in and get everything set up. So it's very plug and play for them and they can stick in their zone of genius and then I just get to play in mind.

Gresham Harkless 4:51

Exactly. That makes perfect sense. And a lot of times you know because you have so many things, whether it be emails or you know, client messages, whatever it is, you don't necessarily get to show how talented you are maybe in web design or creating a logo or whatever that may be. But when you get those things organized, and you don't have to worry about it, then that allows you to be your best self at whatever it is that you do.

Melissa Morris 5:11

Yes, so true.

Gresham Harkless 5:13

Nice. So I know you touched on it a little bit, can you drill a little bit deeper? Tell us you know exactly what you're doing with your clients and how exactly that process works?

Melissa Morris 5:21

Yeah, so when I meet with clients, we, I really like to get an overview of what their client processes look like. And again, when I say client processes, I mean Client Onboarding, that piece of the contract, the proposal, the invoice, etc, that real kind of kickoff moment, the client management, the actual doing the work, the building, the website, the writing the copy, etc. And then the offboarding piece, which is a really important piece that so many business owners forget about is that offboarding piece. And so I take a look at that. And that's really just putting like a nice bow on all the work that you have done with your clients, right. So I take a look at all of that. And I work people through what I call my disco framework, it's my signature process. And we're going to start with, you know, D, we're going to define, we're going to define what this process looks like and get really clear about that. We're gonna identify ways to streamline I'm gonna identify the gaps, any redundancies, any kind of holes that we've got going on DIS, we're going to streamline right, now that we've got it drilled down that these are the pieces we need, how do we streamline these right? See, how do we create milestones, you have to have milestones within a workflow. This makes delegating way, way easier when you've broken your workflow up into chunks, and you have very specific milestones. And then oh, is we're going to outsource and automate, right? We're going to find those pieces of your workflow, find those pieces of your process that we can ideally automate so that we're not having to pay someone to do them, or we're going to outsource them, Do you need a copywriter to do these pieces, etc. So I work people through this process. And this gives us what I like to call my automation blueprint. Now that I have all of this mapped out. And I, again, identify those things. I know when I'm streamlining I know when I'm automating, then I go in and do the actual tech setup, tech setup often looks like setting up Dubsado for folks and building out those workflows. That streamlining piece comes into play where we're having templates created in Trello, or Asana projects that are created. So then maybe that's not something we can automate. But if we can streamline it, and we can get some templates built in in place, uh huh. That's where some some real time saving is going. So it's kind of a two piece there that building out that blueprint on what your process actually looks like, and then I go in and actually do the tech setup.

Gresham Harkless 7:40

Yeah, I love that. And I love because a lot of times people will come in and just say, Hey, this is what I do. This is exactly how it needs to be done. But you actually doing the due diligence in the beginning to understand exactly it sounds like not only what a person is doing, but it sounds like maybe even what their strengths and weaknesses might be related to that, and why they're doing things better, or how they could be doing things better in a certain way.

Melissa Morris 8:03

That's exactly right. Because we don't just want to go in. And that's why people tend to get frustrated a lot of times to where they say like, oh, I tried Trello and I hate it. And I tried Basecamp and I hate it, or I tried whatever. And they just kind of keep trying to dive right into a tool without ever taking a step back and thinking well, what's the process that I'm really working with. What's the container I'm trying to work within. What are the KPIs. What are the milestones? Again, we're conventions, milestones, great milestones, what is it that I'm even trying to keep track of. And once you do that work upfront, now we can find the tools, the platforms, etc, that we're going to use to implement that blueprint.

Gresham Harkless 8:43

That makes perfect sense. And so you might have already touched on this, but I want to ask you for what I call your secret sauce. And this could be what, sets you apart or your organization, but what do you feel like makes you unique?

Melissa Morris 8:54

Yeah, so we have kind of talked about it a little bit. But to you know, kind of just make that a little more specific. So I like to think of it as like, there are hard skills and soft skills, right? Like when you're hiring someone for a job interview, can they type X number in minutes? Do they know whatever programs, right? Like, those are the hard skills, but there's also the soft skills that are they go getter? Are they motivated, etc. Right? So I think I have those soft skills that a lot of other people who are setting up automations and workflows don't have, because I have 10 years client management experience, right? Like I've actually been in there dealing with clients. So what I bring to the table is I'm not just going to say like, I'll set up this workflow for you. I'm going to tell you, you need five emails as part of your workflow and an email number one, we need to do your expectations, and we need to lay out these four deliverables. And then an email two we're going to set out the kickoff call during the kickoff call, right like I'm actually going to tell you what needs to be included in these pieces. And these are the pieces that make for a much easier client experience. Just because something's automated doesn't mean it's, it's working well, right? It doesn't mean it's efficient, it doesn't mean that it's offering the best possible client experience. So really try and help the business owner see the automation blueprint that I love to build out. Let's fill that out and see, I was on a call earlier today. And she's a brand person and there's always a lot of conversation. She's bringing someone back and forth. She's my clients keep getting stuck on what question, am I supposed to answer? What am I supposed to be going back to? And it's dragging out the process, right? So I said, Okay, well, this is what we're gonna do. Set up by week, or you know, twice a week stand ups with them just quick 10 minute phone calls, where you're going to hop on the phone, and you're going to go through all of this, and make it super easy for them. And then we're going to tell them about the stand ups in the onboarding email, and get them all set up. You've now alleviated a big headache in your clients life, right? Like a big source of really just a time suck, really. And when I was looking what she had, she had this beautiful layout and monday.com. She had this beautiful process all laid out. Right. But it was that soft skill. It was at that client management skill that needs to be brought into the automation mix, right?

Gresham Harkless 11:

Yeah, absolutely. I wanted to switch gears a little bit and ask you for what I call a CEO hack. And this might be an app or book or a habit that you have, but it's something that makes you more effective and efficient.

Melissa Morris 11:25

So I would say I guess it's kind of like a habit, but I love to follow to keep it simple. Different, things than stupid, but just keeping it really thinking of back to basics. Again, I think, you know, sometimes I work with business owners who have these processes in place, but they have way overcomplicated it. And it's often why they find their process isn't working is because they've got Trello boards talking to Trello boards talking to spreadsheets, I you know, and they start breaking it down. And I'm like, Oh my gosh, like, I'm the systems and automation girl. And I can't even follow like the madness. Right? And so like, just bring it way back to basics. And that's something else that I always worked through. Again, as part of that framework, were identifying the redundancies there.

Gresham Harkless 12:15

Yeah, keep it simple. And so now when it asks you for what I call a CEO, nugget, and this is a word of wisdom or piece of advice, or if you can happen to a time machine, what do you tell your younger business self?

Melissa Morris 12:26

Bring it back to basics, when you're communicating with your client, like Know your value, know how far you are down the path.

Gresham Harkless 12:33

Exactly. Love it. And so now I want to ask you my absolute favorite question, which is the definition of what it means to be a CEO. And we're hoping to have different, quote unquote, CEOs on this show. So Melissa, what has been CEO mean to you?

Melissa Morris 12:45

I think it means sharing your gift, right? Like, I love the quote, If you don't build your own dream, someone will hire you to build theirs. I just I read that, quote years ago, and I was like, and it just so stuck with me, it just so resonated with me. And I think we all do have a gift to share and something we're really good at. And so being a CEO means that ability to share my unique gift and my unique skill set and bring that out there and put that out there for other people.

Gresham Harkless 13:17

Absolutely. I love that. And I love that perspective. And a lot of times when you are able to use your gifts, and to celebrate your own gifts, you also enable other people to share theirs, and you give them the permission to be able to do that as well. So I definitely appreciate that, Melissa, I definitely appreciate you appreciate your time and all the awesome things you're doing. I wanted to pass you the mic so to speak, just to see if there's anything additional, you can let our readers and listeners know. And then of course, how best they can get ahold of you and find out about all the awesome things you're doing.

Melissa Morris 13:40

Yeah, so I guess my best piece of advice is know when it's time to implement a system and process. And that can feel tricky. And that's a question that a lot of people have. And I you know, I think a lot of people are gonna say like, Oh, it's right away. But that's not true, like, yes, much earlier than when most business owners come to me, you want to do it before you're overwhelmed before you're burnt out before you're starting to hire team members. You want it to happen then. But you need to have a very clear idea on the service offerings that you're providing. What do those packages look like. What specifically are you offering them. What does it cost every time if you're still in a space where you're very much doing a lot of custom proposals and custom quotes and still kind of navigating what your real signature package looks like. I would recommend you hold off a little bit because here's the thing, I can't automate it if every single contract is different, I can't automate it. If every process and every client who shows up on your door you're doing things differently with so you need to have that nailed down, which you know, I hope most business owners who don't have that yet, that is something that you're working on is really knowing what that looks like. But once you have that figured out, then it's absolutely time to start getting these processes in place. Because we've all seen how momentum can grow quickly right? And the more efficient you can get, and the better you can get in the beginning, the less headache you have down the road, and the less likely that you're going to get stuck in the bad 80-20, where the 20% of your clients are taking up 80% of your time. And they're the 20% of your revenue, right? Because you're just running crazy spinning your wheels with just bad clients. Right? You don't get stuck in that.

Gresham Harkless 15:24

Absolutely, that makes perfect sense. And I think that's a phenomenal point. Because a lot of times you get caught in that, you know, 80-20, I guess the opposite way that you were saying where you're not actually spending the most time in the most valuable place. So it's important to kind of understand that and then, you know, understanding that you have to have or you should have, I should say, a franchise kind of mindset to building your business where you're trying to create those repeatable processes. But if you're doing everything custom, it's a lot harder to do that or with a maybe the appearance of being custom, but you still haven't framework you can have that. But understanding and putting that in place is huge.

Melissa Morris 15:59

Exactly.

Gresham Harkless 16:01

Perfect. So if people that want to reach out to you what would be the best way for them to do that?

Melissa Morris 16:05

So you can find me on Facebook, it's @followmelissavmorris, and then you can check out my website, which is melissavmorris.com.

Gresham Harkless 16:14

Awesome. Well, thank you so much for listening. We'll have those links in the show notes as well. But I appreciate you and I hope you have a phenomenal rest of the day.

Melissa Morris 16:20

You too. Thanks so much.

Outro 16:22

Thank you for listening to the I AM CEO Podcast powered by Blue 16 Media. Tune in next time and visit us at iamceo.co I AM CEO is not just a phrase, it's a community. Be sure to follow us on social media and subscribe to our podcast on iTunes Google Play and everywhere you listen to podcasts, SUBSCRIBE, and leave us a five-star rating grab CEO gear at www.ceogear.co. This has been the I AM CEO Podcast with Gresham Harkless. Thank you for listening.