2048 – Mastering Operational Leadership for Business Growth with Whitener Professional Services’ Mara Whitener

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1:05With us right now, it's Mara Whitener. Mara, you are a business growth strategist and fractional COO. Your website is whitenerpros.com. To our friend that's listening, just click around in your podcast app, in the show notes, et cetera. And you will find a direct link to Mara's website. Mara, it's great to have you. Well, thank you for having me. I appreciate it. Yeah. Well, I would love to hear from you what you do as a business growth strategist. And certainly, listen, anyone that's providing leadership on the operational side of things, you are a business founder's right-hand person. Everybody needs a great operational leader.

1:45It's one of the biggest life upgrades for nearly any founder entrepreneur to get someone at the helm there operationally that knows what they're doing. Exactly. I've had a career of over 20 years of being an entrepreneur and growing six and seven figure companies. And what I have found is a lot of people have a passion, they have a gift, they have a skill and they want to share it and they go out to be an entrepreneur and start their business. And then what they tend to find is, oh, there's a whole running of a business behind the scenes that can come with that. and it can take them away from their gift.

2:27And what I do is I like to be that, what I call a translator. I work with CEOs. I take the big vision. I want you to paint me the picture. I want to know what we're building. I want to know what we're doing. And then I take that and translate that into all the pieces that need to go in place from your systems to your workflows, to the team or resources you need to have on hand, how you're implementing your marketing and sales. Does it feel easy and fun to you? And I take all of that and then bring that back to you. And that's what we put in place so that you can get back to what you enjoy. You can create the impact that you want to create, but it doesn't feel so heavy or overwhelming or confusing.

3:12You know, there's something like over 15 million, I can't remember the exact number, of small businesses started since COVID. And they're hitting a critical point right now of I'm having some success, but things don't feel easy. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. And listen, there are consequences if you as a founder are far too stretched or, you know, if you are wired to be the evangelist or the teacher or the idea person and you are getting bogged down in operations and, you know, you find yourself putting out fires constantly. there are real consequences, Mara, to that. Do you mind maybe just extrapolating this out?

4:01And I'm sure that you've probably had to talk some founders down off the ledge. Exactly. Tell me a little bit more. Yeah. Operations sometimes is what I feel. I kind of feel like the redheaded stepchild of business. Everyone wants to go for the flashy marketing and sales, and that's how they're going to get ahead. And that's how they're going to make more money. And what they don't realize is by not keeping an eye on how you run and operate your business in the background, you actually have a lot of hidden money that you're just sitting on because you're either not paying attention to it or don't know how to put together those pieces for you.

4:42Gone are the days where there's two, three, four recommended ways to run your business, and that's the only way to run your business. Now it's really the only right way is the right way for you. And so I help CEOs find that right way. But what happens is when we find those right pieces that feel easy and fun and allow you to actually grow and scale without working more, you find all kinds of hidden money. In fact, one of my clients, we found$12 ,000 initially up front, turned that into almost $300 ,000 of hidden savings that she was just sitting on. And now she actually works less. She travels more to see her grandkids.

5:28She has the right people in place to help her. You know, that freedom is what people are craving when they start their own business and too often aren't experiencing. Yeah. And what do you work in particularly industries? Do you do you work with service product? Who do you find yourself working with most? Mostly I work with service-based industries. However, I have retail, brick and mortar, and e-commerce experience. So I love those challenges periodically. I typically don't work with manufacturing, big production, that type of industry, but mostly service-based. Yeah. So, Mauro, in terms of trends that you've seen, I wonder if there's anything that you've been noticing around operational trends over the past year or two.

6:26Have you seen your work evolve? Maybe it's because we have access to better tools or project management platforms. I don't know what you have been seeing, but listen, from your observations on operations, what are you excited about? What's going on in your world? Like, what should the rest of us know about what you've been witnessing and seeing and kind of getting your hands dirty with? Yeah, there's several different trends. There's an overall societal trend to people want to enjoy life more. They want to take advantage of what's around them. They're not inclined to slave away for a job or anything anymore.

7:12So there's this trend to make running your business a whole lot easier, a little bit more so than there has been before. But what comes with that is there's also so many more choices on how to do that. Like you mentioned, there's so many different platforms from project management to CRM to how you can hire team members from 1099 and fractional to W2. There's so many options. it presents an amount of overwhelm and confusion for founders that are trying to figure out those right pieces. And so what I have found is a mix of those that I'm working with are really, hey, I have figured out a lot of these things that work for me, but it's still not feeling easy.

7:56And like I have the life that I want. So we're reevaluating what they've put in place, as well as picking through those options. You know, how do I pick a CRM system? How do I pick a project management system. But then there's the complication, it's kind of how I want to put it, of then how do you build processes around that system and those team members using it? It's kind of the last thing people try to put together, our formal processes to do things. But when you spend some time with that, it can really make things easier. So I'm doing a lot of spot coaching, spot consulting on just building those processes that can provide immediate freedom.

8:43Yeah. Just by simplifying that process. Yeah. Mara, what is the, for someone who maybe they've been kind of at the helm quite a bit, you know, they, what does, like, how do you begin engagement for someone that's never hired a director of operations or certainly a fractional COO? how do you step into that? It's not like you just kind of show up and like, okay, let me roll my sleeves and get to work. There's likely a lot of kind of investigation, strategy. And do you mind maybe sharing a little bit about that process? Oh, absolutely. Anything to work with me in a fractional capacity or further consulting capacity starts with your blueprint to success.

9:28And that's really where I sit down one-on-one with the CEO and we're going to kind of pick everything apart. We're going to figure out what's working. We're going to figure out what's not. We're going to figure out where the gaps are. Having that other set of eyes in your business that may see things that you don't because you're in the middle of it. And we're going to put together your custom blueprint to success. Everything that needs to be addressed, exact step-by-step things that need to be done. and you can either choose to take it from there and work on it yourself and implement it, or that's where my team and I can come into place with helping to implement pieces of that plan or full fractional packages where we come in and are at the helm to help you implement that.

10:16I actually use human design in all of my work. It's my way to really get to know my CEOs at a deeper level, how they tick, how they work, where their natural energy lies. And so we can dive down to a really, really deep level that not everyone that does what I do can. And it's allowed my clients to increase their revenue and average a 25 to 50 percent within a few months of working together. Yeah. Mara, if we were, let's say you're, let's pretend, well, you are addressing a room full of business owners, a lot of SMB founders. If you were to say, listen, let me give you a couple of things. Even if we never worked together, if you are still going to be doing a lot of your own operational leadership for the next year or so, at least start doing this, this, and this.

11:15If you were to give a little mini TED Talk to those founders, what counsel would you give them? Yeah, figure out, do take some time to figure out what your priorities are in life. I'm seeing a lot of shifting of priorities. And that includes, especially if you're a female founder being being pulled between family and your passion work and your passion business, figure out what those priorities are, and figure out what those parameters are there and then you work to build your business around that. That is key number one. That I'm seeing much more often. We have to realign the pieces around what they actually want to do.

11:58Second piece is anything that you find frustrating, angering, overwhelming. If it invokes any of those feelings in your business, it could be a team member. It could be part of a process that doesn't get done, you're like, I don't want to be a part of this anymore. It could be something to the, to a tiny detail. That's actually your clue that you need to address that piece to make it easier. Um, you'd be surprised. There's the saying that the devil's in the details. I actually like to say the magic is in the details because that's where you find those little nuggets that you can shift that make the biggest difference to you.

12:40Yeah. Yeah. Um, So I would imagine, are there any technologies like is AI impacting operations in your world? And if so, how are you kind of leading in that? Or what are you observing right now? Because I mean, from our perspective, what I can say is that AI like ChatGPT has been so crazy valuable in helping with things like decision making, scoping out projects. considerations, doing things like SWOT analysis, you know, just like helping coming up with just ideas that we wouldn't think it can just a lot of considerations. So it's been really, really helpful for planning. And then again, you know, kind of coming up with SOPs.

13:30So it's been a huge time saver for us, but I don't know what your experience has been. Yeah, it's, it's, it has been a huge player in how you can streamline and automate your business as well as you can get that high level insight and expertise sometimes in your business. So, you know, I use it in my business, like you said, to start project planning, like get some starting points, get some insight on different things. But what I caution people is don't take it verbatim. be able to then customize it and tweak it to your context and your situation. So use it as a time saver to get going and to streamline, but then be able to customize it, whether that is content creation, whether that is streamlining workflows, whether that is writing SOPs.

14:28Because remember, AI is AI. It's a computer. It's not people. However, I have found it and clients are finding it very easy to save hours of their time, which is where a lot of the money you're going to save is, by the way. There's a hint for you. Any amount of time that you can save is a huge money saver for you. And so anywhere that you can plug in AI is helpful. Just make sure you know that cutoff. as to what's appropriate for your situation. Yeah, yeah. Mara, your website is whitenerprose.com. You also share some pretty good stuff on LinkedIn. Tell me a bit about what you make available broadly to folks, you know, even if they're not necessarily working with you.

15:20I know on your website, you have a resources tab with a decent blog here. Yeah, I have the free resources page on my website. There's multiple free resources. There's interviews and videos that I've done, but I drop a whole lot more over on LinkedIn on a weekly basis. between videos where I'll share tips and insights to where I will share upcoming free masterclasses and opportunities to get some insight and help in your business. So I would, I love to teach. I love to provide all of the value. I'm an open book. I offer complimentary strategy sessions to folks. I would rather help you move the needle and I not necessarily have to be the one to continue the journey.

16:14If I can point you the right direction to get you the help that you need, that you need right now, I'm your girl. So if that sounds like you, you know, come find me. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Hey, Mara, back on one thing that, you know, now that I'm kind of digging into your blog, one thing that I see you talk about and I see you talking about on LinkedIn as well is helping folks find lost money, like where we as business owners may be overspending. Do you mind maybe calling out a few areas where you commonly find that overspending or that money that could be saved? Yeah, absolutely. This is one of my favorite places to dig in.

16:59This is kind of the first place I go when I start working with the CEO one-on-one. It's the first step in my complete business growth blueprint. We start by finding all of the hidden money. So then once we find it, we can know how to strategically spend it in order to make you more money. And then you can invest all the money that you're making, right? But it really starts with finding the hidden money. And that is your opportunity to take a look at how you're running and operating your business. Believe it or not, there's a lot of money just in your systems and processes, not just saving subscription costs on systems, although there's typically money I find there.

17:41There's a lot of redundancies. People have multiple systems that can do the same thing. So it's really analyzing your need and then scaling that back down to only what you actually need. And along with that are the processes, how you do what you do, how your team does what they do, there's a lot of time and money that is lost in those processes and making sure they're efficient and not cumbersome is really key. Another key place is your team. You can waste a lot of money in your team. I'm seeing a trend towards not necessarily growing your team and having massive teams, but actually having the right people in the right places.

18:27And we're actually scaling them back. We're really dialing into exactly what help you need and exactly what help you can grow with. It's a whole lot less to manage and you're getting a whole lot more return on investment. Yeah. Your website, again, is whitenerpros.com. You do have a free resource guide, how to find the missing five figures in your business. Do you mind sharing how to grab that? Oh, yeah. Head on over to the website. It's actually a pop up right now, but you can also find it on the free resources page. It is my most popular resource. It is this starting point actually walks you through the three key areas that you can start to find hidden money.

19:10There's a workbook. You know, it's not just a three pager. It's a it's a full workbook that you get. it's going to have the questions that you need to start asking yourself to really start analyzing this and then if you're ever interested you will be then notified after that whenever i run a master class to actually teach you and go into more in depth i also run exclusive intensives one day intensives where my eyes are in your business and i'm going to guarantee that i find you that$1 ,000 that it costs for that intensive by the end. Mara Whitener, business growth strategist, fractional COO, your website, whitenerpros.com.

19:52Mara, thank you so much for this conversation. Yeah, thank you for having me. It was a pleasure.

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