No Is How I Grow: My Week, My Rules
Download MP3Hello and welcome to the Service Based Business Society podcast. I'm your host, Tiffany Ann Bottcher. I left the corporate world to build my own businesses and along the way I've learned that scaling isn't all highlight reels. It's messy, it's hard, and it's totally worth it. As a mom of three, the author of The Data Driven Method, and a serial entrepreneur, I know firsthand what it takes to build something bigger than yourself.
Tiffany-Ann Bottcher:This show is where we get real about entrepreneurship. The good, the bad, the beautiful, and yes, even the ugly. Each week, I'll pull back the curtain to share stories, lessons, and strategies that help ambitious entrepreneurs scale their success. So let's get started.
Tiffany-Ann Bottcher:Hello, and welcome back to another episode. This week has been crazy busy because it's the short week, and there's nothing like a good stat holiday short week to just really throw the entire schedule for a loop. This time of year, we have multiple set holidays really close together, and the last one was midweek, and I will admit my schedule, it just everything just feels a little bit jumbled and off since then. Throw in it being lacrosse season with multiple tournaments, and I feel like it is just flat out go, go, go all the time and almost a little bit of a blur. When I was planning this week's podcast episode, I was I I had a couple of things that I really wanted to talk about, I wanted to share, but I decided this week's episode was going to really be that kind of deeper look into what I like to call kind of that CEO filter.
Tiffany-Ann Bottcher:As business owners, we ultimately have the same amount of everyone has the same pool of resources within themselves. Every person of their business is wildly successful or struggling, still has twenty four hours in a day. And what you do with those twenty four hours can ultimately be a major difference maker. Now, how can you obviously make more than twenty four hours in a day? Well, it's hiring and scaling through making more of yourself ultimately.
Tiffany-Ann Bottcher:But we can also scale through subtraction, and that's really what this episode is more about. We have what I'm gonna share. Six key no's that I said this week and three key yeses, and all of which I think really contributed to the success overall. When we're looking at scaling businesses, the decision to say no to things is almost equally as important as saying yes. We have to be willing to say yes when opportunity presents itself.
Tiffany-Ann Bottcher:But in order for us to have availability to do so, it means we also had to have said no to something else. It's very easy to just fill the time. Unfortunately, it means that then your time is full. And even if something better comes up, you can't actually take that. So couple of six things that I said no to this week that really helped.
Tiffany-Ann Bottcher:So everyone, like I said, this is Thanksgiving week here in Canada, and it's always on Monday. It's always gonna be tricky because we're in Canada, but we do have a lot of clients based in The US, and they don't celebrate Canadian things. One of the things that I felt was super important when I started my business was having the appropriate coverage. So we had some people, and as people were hired, they either have the Canadian holidays or they have the American holidays. That was their schedule.
Tiffany-Ann Bottcher:Over time, I realized that there was not really anything going on on that day that couldn't wait till the next day. That if we planned appropriately, that we manage deadlines appropriately, that we did all of the prep work, that our entire team could have the day off and rest and recharge. I did check my email a couple of times, and a few things did come in that I could have. Had we been opened, would we have jumped on? Yes.
Tiffany-Ann Bottcher:But nonetheless, nothing. We we just said, we'll absolutely get to this tomorrow. No problem. And there's no other time. Nonissue.
Tiffany-Ann Bottcher:What it did mean was that I could make a great Thanksgiving dinner and focus on time with family, ultimately, meaning that we could start the week in a better spot. So overall, I will say that is a successful no. That's no that I had this week. It's tricky because it kinda comes back to that saying the customer is always right and always wanting to deliver on every promise and try to make the client happy and do all of the things. Sometimes it's tricky because timing doesn't always align.
Tiffany-Ann Bottcher:So one of the things we had this week was a client who signed their agreement. They've gone through the whole onboarding process and we're ready to book their onboarding call. We don't we don't have any time in the onboarding calendar until early next week. And this client was really hoping to onboard sooner. Now here's the thing.
Tiffany-Ann Bottcher:If there is an oppressing deadline, whether maybe that's an audit or they have to very press, their filing has to be done, something like this, we always try to accommodate, but this really didn't have any kind of time sensitivity. They've several months to get it going. And ultimately, we just don't have any more capacity at this stage. So I said, unfortunately, that is the earliest onboarding session we have. It hurt as I said it because normally, would say, absolutely.
Tiffany-Ann Bottcher:We'll figure it out. We'll get it. But at the end of the day, we don't have there is no more time. And saying yes to one thing, although sometimes indirectly, means you're saying no to something else. I have a laundry list of open operational projects that I wanna get to.
Tiffany-Ann Bottcher:I've been working on some content automation pieces for weeks that I just need to sit down and spend a little bit more time on. It's always easy to push those things off, the ones for yourself, in favor of something else. And so in this instance, I'll be honest, given the way that the week looks, I probably won't get to that projects that I wanna get to this week, but I also didn't give up specific time to to onboard that client early. So, yeah, if I had a new client sign this week that legitimately had this processing emergency had to be done this week, would we slide it in somewhere? Sometimes I take meetings, especially if they're in a different time zone.
Tiffany-Ann Bottcher:Too early, really late, I make it work. But if I said yes to the client who didn't really need it, it would mean ultimately that would take away capacity for those actual legitimate emergencies. It's something super tricky. And I think that is tricky in a lot of scheduling. Priority scheduling is tricky in a lot of service based businesses.
Tiffany-Ann Bottcher:If I think back to, I spent a lot of time in technical trades and one of the things that really sticks out in my mind from a scheduling perspective was scheduling out the team so that everyone had work, but also having capacity for those emergency jobs that would come up. Because ultimately if someone is calling and they need someone on an emergency basis, they want someone as soon as possible. But maybe an emergency doesn't come and you don't want to just have someone on your team just sitting there twiddling their thumbs just in case. And so there's always that need for capacity and that need for priority scheduling and figuring out how can we make sure that we're utilizing the time very well. We can't obviously have some decision or waiting for a potential emergency that may never come.
Tiffany-Ann Bottcher:But we also wanna make sure that when potential emergencies do come up, that we have capacity to service them. It's a really tricky piece. There's no perfect formula. Not in a way that guarantees maximum efficiency every time. So in this particular case for us, it wasn't an emergency.
Tiffany-Ann Bottcher:And I I said, unfortunately, there is no earlier capacity. You see, I also did my quarterly app cleanup. If there's one thing that can immediately add money to your bottom line, it is checking your app subscriptions. I am terrible for trying out new things. I probably have six or seven different AI tools because I'm trying out different things.
Tiffany-Ann Bottcher:Does it exist? Can I do that? And I sign up on a nice free trial, and before you know it, I'm on a subscription. So one of the things that I implemented last year was loop banking. So we do use a a more traditional banking institution for most things.
Tiffany-Ann Bottcher:However, when it comes to online purchases, I love loop banking because you can create virtual credit cards that can be used with specific limits. So you can create a credit card that will allow only one charge to go through. If you wanna do a subscription and you're thinking, oh, I don't want that to roll into some kind of monthly membership, something or other, or if I only want to authorize that card for $50 a month, which gets used for x y z, All of that is possible. And that really helps with the random subscription charges. It's I find that unless you're monitoring your credit card very carefully, it's very easy for random subscriptions to continue on to just subscribe.
Tiffany-Ann Bottcher:And so you'll get all of a sudden this charge for $500, and you're like, what is this? And it's something that you used a year ago. You totally forgot about. You're not using it anymore, and now renewal. So I highly recommend doing a quarterly app subscription.
Tiffany-Ann Bottcher:So I said no to a lot of apps. I canceled things. I said no. Some of which I really think are cool apps and I would love to use. But as a test drive, I'm really struggling to create time to work on some of those projects right now.
Tiffany-Ann Bottcher:I don't need to pay for an app for the next seven months in hopes that I get to, at one point, go back to trying it and see if it works. So say no to extra costs, subscriptions, extras that you're just not using. Another thing I said no to this week was a team member I was actually really excited about. I always find it kind of heartbreaking, a little bit of a letdown. When you interview someone and you're super excited about them, and they go through the onboarding process.
Tiffany-Ann Bottcher:And it's oftentimes that can't really show up in there. That's concerning. I'm sure it'll be fine. They're just new. A little further.
Tiffany-Ann Bottcher:How is it not going well? There's a key difference between someone who is learning and has made some mistakes just due to lack of training and education. Perhaps you have a specific method of doing something. Maybe you didn't explain it well enough, or maybe you did explain it really well and they just didn't understand whatever the case may be. There is a specific difference between maybe a skills gap, maybe a system understanding, and just a bad fit.
Tiffany-Ann Bottcher:And determining when people are a bad fit early on saves so much time, stress, headache, heartache, all these things. Because ultimately when you hire someone, you're sending them out into the world to represent your business. And if you're not happy with the representation, then that needs to be evaluated. I learned whether it is an AI employee, an actual employee, subcontractor, if there is someone, something representing your business, will they respond like you would every time? No.
Tiffany-Ann Bottcher:They won't. At times, are you gonna look at communication? Oh, I wouldn't have said it like that. Absolutely. But are we getting it right most of the time?
Tiffany-Ann Bottcher:Are we creating efficiencies that allow us to scale and serve more people? And are we doing trainings to minimize any of those kind of whoopsies? Absolutely. But if you have determined that someone is not a fit, if you're like, no. This is not good.
Tiffany-Ann Bottcher:Don't keep them. No bad apples. It negatively affects clients and negatively affects the team. Because ultimately, if someone is not a fit and you keep them around, you are saying, yep. This is good.
Tiffany-Ann Bottcher:It's a fit. And if it's not, that's really mixed messaging to the people on your team who who are a great fit, who are working really hard, who who do have a high attention to detail. These are all super important things. Next thing I said no to this week was a vendor proposal that just really didn't make sense to me. As much as I can be super excited about a team member, I can also be super excited about working with a vendor.
Tiffany-Ann Bottcher:Maybe they bring something to the table. Maybe it's something that you some kind of operational efficiency, optimization, integration, service, these types of things. And I know a vendor that I really do wanna work with, but their offer just doesn't work. This particular offer is a huge audit cost upfront with no tangible results offered. So you're gonna pay several thousand dollars and, yes, they're gonna audit your business to go through.
Tiffany-Ann Bottcher:We were working on one specific type and style of automation. The problem with that is I said, what prevents you from coming into my business and saying, yep, we can't audit. We can't do that. Good guys. And I'll have paid for the whole fee.
Tiffany-Ann Bottcher:Said, where is there any kind of assurance? When is it where is there some kind of I'm not looking for you to guarantee and say, you're gonna save exactly 5,309 thousand dollars next year. And if you don't, you get your money back. I'm not looking for something back. But I am looking to understand more about the process Because here you have a business in this specific instance that they wanna give out too much information upfront because they obviously don't want you to take, you know, and think, oh, how can I build that out on my own?
Tiffany-Ann Bottcher:They want you to buy what their that package, that information, that proprietary automation system. And so their way of doing of assuring that they're going to get the work is to only keep a little bit of information. The problem is that that little bit of information was ultimately not actually providing the detail. I need to make a decision. So they're saying, Hey, I don't want to give you more information because I don't want you to try and figure this out yourself and cut it, cut us out.
Tiffany-Ann Bottcher:It should say the fact I'm also like, Hey, I don't want to just spend too much money on this audit and hope for the best. And you say, it's great. Your business is pretty automated already. Thanks so much. Can't do anything else.
Tiffany-Ann Bottcher:Goodbye. That is not a good use of money. So I said, you know what? I'm not gonna move ahead of this right now. And if at one point you have a slightly different offer, we can not trace about it then.
Tiffany-Ann Bottcher:I think that was the right decision. Another thing I said no to this week several times actually, but we'll group it under one is, hey. Can you just give me a quick call? Clients some clients love the quick call. They just wanna quickly go over something.
Tiffany-Ann Bottcher:And sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't. And there are some clients that I know a quick call is actually an hour. And sometimes I just don't have the hour at that moment. So I've tried to move away from the quick call in favor of a more slightly of a more of a slightly more structured actual call. It can be on the phone.
Tiffany-Ann Bottcher:We don't always need Zoom, but it needs to have some structure about what are we covering and when is it going in the calendar. When it when it has an actual calendar invite, there is a bit of a framed beginning and end sign. When we say, hey. Let's get on a quick call. Sometimes I could be on a call.
Tiffany-Ann Bottcher:I could be on a on a call for an hour and a half talking through a situation with someone. But ultimately, without some context and understanding what we're going to be talking about, I don't always have the information readily available that can help us answer this question. So I've really tried to move away from the quick call. It it can still be a quick call, fifteen minute phone call, but usually I like them to be scheduled at least a few hours in advance so that everyone can gather hold the information that they need to have an intelligent discussion about whatever is being discussed. So in a to the no's, which there were several, There were many yeses.
Tiffany-Ann Bottcher:I'm gonna focus on three key yeses this week that I really think helped move the needle. So one of the things that I said yes to this week is we have two separate clients that within the last six ish months decided to not move ahead with proposals with one of our companies. And so they decided to go with a different option. Both of those people, have come back this week and said, hey, actually, I feel like I probably should have moved ahead with you. And are you still willing to take us on?
Tiffany-Ann Bottcher:So, yes, we're definitely still willing. But depending on how long ago we talked, we do need to retouch base and decide, Hey, is the situation still the same? Are there new variables that we need to look at? Was progress made between since then and here? And all of those types of things.
Tiffany-Ann Bottcher:But absolutely, you know what? As business owners, we're all just trying to use our resources wisely that comes to time as well as money. And so I will never fault someone for deciding, hey. I think I can get this this same outcome with a different provider. The caveat is most times you get what you pay for.
Tiffany-Ann Bottcher:Every so often, you can find an amazing deal and get something done, but I also see a lot of the flip side where people have spent money and it's over budget they still didn't get deliverables that they wanted. So we said yes to two clients who both came to the approach of, oh, I'm really sorry. I should have moved ahead with you. And are you still willing to take this on? And No.
Tiffany-Ann Bottcher:Let's talk. Let's get on a prearranged quick call. Just discuss where things are at, have there been any changes, what are any shifts and objectives so that we can make sure that our pricing is still something that we can offer. Another thing I said yes to this week was something that ties into the early onboarding discussion. I'm saying, hey.
Tiffany-Ann Bottcher:If we say yes to something, that ultimately doesn't leave room to say yes to something else. And so in this particular instance, we had a client reach out and said, hey. I have this incredible opportunity. I really need to discuss it with you. This has some expansion potential.
Tiffany-Ann Bottcher:They had this whole discussion. And so it was like, hey. Why don't we just grab some lunch and talk about this? We we do have multiple So many clients who are local to us, and that really does present provide the opportunity to be able to connect, go for lunch, go to their office, do these kinds of meetings. We also have clients all over the continent, some of which we can connect with in some kind of VIP day setting weekend where we can connect and go through a bunch of things, latest and strategic planning, but we also do a lot of research.
Tiffany-Ann Bottcher:So in this particular instance, because I just came up and it was a great opportunity for this business center, we absolutely made the time to connect and really work on how we were going to best capitalize on the opportunity that had been presented. Lastly, one of the things I said yes to was strategic partnership with a vendor that can bring an incredible value add to our clients. You know, looking for those types of relationships and networking that can provide value to your clients that can maybe elevate your offer, bring a new fresh take on your offer. Ultimately, just it it really worked out in this particular instance. It doesn't mean it works out every time, but I was super excited to say yes to something where we have some great alignment and the objectives are the same.
Tiffany-Ann Bottcher:Decision making often comes down to viewing data, delegating, outsourcing, automating, doing all of these things to best use the resources you have available to you. Sometimes we get it right, and sometimes we get it wrong. We have a few key projects in within one of my companies that have really been a struggle to kick across the finish line. Not for any particular reason related to us, just the projects, multiple people involved, multiple teams, and there's just been a few delays. Anytime that that happens and it starts kind of that snowball effect of, well, this is a little bit behind, that rolls into that, You get to the point where it's taking time.
Tiffany-Ann Bottcher:The expression, robbing Peter to pay Paul. The read, the time, the resources, and we're saying, hey. This project was supposed to wrap up a month ago now, and we're still working on it. The problem is there were already quite like, the month that it's continued, there was already projects approved till that time. So then, you know, ultimately, then our breading is round, and it sucks.
Tiffany-Ann Bottcher:I heard a very great quote this week, and that was that priorities are never balanced. They are juggled. And I could not agree more. To me, there is really no such thing as perfect work life balance or balance between working in your business and on your business and all of these types of things that sound good. They sound like they they Yes.
Tiffany-Ann Bottcher:Absolutely. But in actual application, if you're serious about scaling your business, I just don't think they always work. Sometimes it's just a matter of being ready to capitalize on the opportunities as they present themselves. So It's been a short week. This week.
Tiffany-Ann Bottcher:Or It will be a short week this week. And really remembering that whether you have five chance to get your work done or if you're doing five days of work in four days, it all comes down to resource juggling and making sure that your objectives are hit. And, ultimately, you still will have some things that don't get done. At this point, if you are truly pushing up against the limits of capacity, if you are grinding and pushing hard, the fact of the matter is you won't get it all done. There won't always be time to get it all finished.
Tiffany-Ann Bottcher:So keeping track of things, making sure that you have an up to date list, making sure that you have the appropriate team members in place to take things on so that you can outsource, automate, delegate. It will only help in scaling your successes.
Tiffany-Ann Bottcher:That's all the time we have for today, but the conversation doesn't stop here. Be sure to subscribe to the Service Based Business Society podcast on all of your favorite apps. And if you're hanging out over on YouTube, search for Tiffany and. Your likes, comments and shares don't just help the show, they help more entrepreneurs find the real stories and strategies that they need to scale. Until next time, keep pushing, keep building, and I'll catch you in the next episode.
Creators and Guests
