2132 - Efficient and Balanced Business Practices with Harmony Consulting Group's La Tonya Roberts

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1:05with us right now latania roberts latania you are a uh see you're a fractional ceo you're an hr consultant and executive coach and you are the founder and ceo of harmony consulting group you're found on the web at harmony consulting group.org latania it's great to have you thank you for having me. Yeah. Well, before we get going, I understand that you are soon on your way to a, on a vacation. Where are you going? I am going to Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. A friend of mine is having a birthday, so it's a little girl's trip and the carnival. Wow. Oh my goodness. And you were showing me something. Do you mind sharing the device that you're pointing out?

1:49So, so as I was refreshed with this knowledge, 98 % of the country speaks Portuguese. And so you were showing me a device. I've used like Google Translate, you know, on my phone, but show me what you have or talk about what you have. So I do not speak any Portuguese and I want to know what the people are saying. So I have these little translator earbuds that I found TikTok shop. I ordered them so that I can understand what people are saying to me. That's amazing. So when it hears something, it just automatically kind of translates it into your ear. In your ears, yep. That is, I'm going to find those.

2:29I'm going to buy that. Now, we were talking, I'm taking, I just about 50 some days ago started Duolingo and I am so hooked. By the way, if anyone else is on Duolingo, you can find me. I'm just all one word, Josh in Orlando. Come friend me. I'm looking for more Duolingo buddies. I'm going to have all the friends, Josh. it's like you're gonna have all the friends bring it on bring it on because uh we're gonna win some challenges together if you friend me i'm a i'm a daily i'm in i'm in so and it's nice you know it's really great like if you live in a community where there is you know different languages spoken so here in orlando i i was i could probably easily speak spanish with someone you know three to five times a week just going to the store or whatever i mean it's it's insanely easy someone just coming by walking around the neighborhood, you know, so thankfully I've got that too.

3:23Well, Latonya, let's talk about what you do with Harmony Consulting Group. Yeah, so Harmony Consulting Group, we are a management consulting firm and we provide mostly fractional chief operations officer and HR consulting support, training, and executive coaching. We have clients from all over the world, So I've worked with people in 30 plus countries. I am a former top five consulting employees. I've worked at New Zealand and Deloitte. And what I do is I bring some of those things that I learned working with the big consulting firms and major government agencies. And I work and I partner with service providers to help them really streamline their operations, grow sustainably, and really live a life that they love and scale with ease, right?

4:13I am all about that anti-burnout just because I've done it in my career before. I've burned out. It's no fun. So I want you to have a business that gives you the freedom to do whatever it is you want, make good money, impact more people, and maximize your income.

4:33Oh, I can't hear you, Josh. I'm so sorry. That was my mute button. That was my cough button as I was taking a drink because I don't need those drink sounds getting into the podcast here. Uh, so tell me a little bit about, um, like who you're working with and what does that engagement actually look like? Sure. I work with a lot of mostly female service providers. I get a few men as well. I have, I'm one guy now, I'm helping him actually launch his book. Um, so doing some project management work. Um, and then with my female service providers are typically coaches or consultants and they are these amazing visionary CEOs that are out there, uh, meeting new people, bringing in new work, but they need someone that is going to help them with all the details.

5:17And I love the details. I'm a problem solver by nature. I love the details. And so what I do is I work with them to help them with their strategic planning, their business development, documenting all of their processes, working with their team members, making sure that they understand the vision, the goals, and the expectations. I serve as project manager. I may support with the sales and marketing team. I do a lot of sales calls for my clients as well. I've spent several years writing proposals. So actually right before we hopped on this, I was just talking to a new client and saying, hey, this is what we think you need and let's add this new service.

5:59So I am kind of, some of my clients call me a utility knife. You know, I can do so many things and I just, I love to be of service. I love to help and I have many talents. So I jump in and help them wherever they need. Yeah. It's my jam. Well, you know, when, you know, I'm very grateful. I have an amazing COO with our organization, but I have to tell you that if I did not have an amazing COO, I cannot imagine doing what I do as a CEO, especially I think if you're working and I would imagine you see this many CEOs, they're kind of more in that kind of visionary role, visionary personality, you know, getting bogged down in the details sometimes is I find to be it.

6:48Well, it just makes business less fun. And I'm just I'm really I know my lane pretty well. And so I've I've worked real hard to find a lot of great people that can kind of buffet me in places. And I would imagine you see this pretty frequently. Yes. Yeah. I tell people, I want you to stay in love with your business, right? A lot of my clients are owner operators, but they're not operators by nature. They're doing it because you start the business. It's team one or team a few, and you don't have all the resources. So you have to wear all of the hats and then you grow because that's what you want your business to do.

7:29And then you burn out because you're doing so many things. And so bringing on someone with my skillset to kind of take on some of those roles so that you can stay working in your zone of genius, stay in love with the job is just such a huge asset that unfortunately a lot of people delay longer than they need to. And we see a lot of people go out of business because they're like, I used to like what I did and now I hate it because I'm doing all the administrative stuff. Oh yeah, totally. And it feels like a job. It feels like a job. That's not why you started your business. You don't want to create another job or jobs for yourself.

8:09So, LaTanya, let's imagine that we have an audience of founders, which is pretty accurate to what I know about our audience. And say they're five or more years into their business. You know, they probably have some really great folks that are helping out doing different tasks. But they may find themselves doing a lot of people leadership and a lot of, you know, just kind of managing operations. Um, now what advice, not other than go get a, go get someone, a director of operations or let's assume that, uh, but let's say that they say, I'm sorry, that's just not going to happen this year. I still am going to have to roll with it throughout the remainder of this year.

8:56What advice would you give them that could help them make their life easier? Sure. So one, I want you to get really clear on what your goals are, thinking about where you want to be next year, three years from now, five years from now. And then I want you to work backwards. What are some of those big milestones that you need to achieve, right? Yearly, quarterly, monthly. And then think about who on your team can actually help you achieve those milestones, right? So getting very clear on your goals. What does the end state look like? who needs to be involved because it doesn't always need to be you and then document how they are involved in this right so putting together a list of roles and responsibilities with clear milestones for them uh clear deadlines for them resources writing all of that down and then checking with them in with them on a regular basis and giving them feedback i like this but i don't like this.

9:56Could you do more of this? Can you not do this? I'm giving examples. So the clarity for you and then for your team is going to be very, very helpful documenting your processes. So if you've done something really, really well, and you're getting great results, document that and train another team member to do that process. And then they can train everyone else. And then putting in your KPIs or key performance indicators to keep people accountable and on track and it gives you the data to know when something is going well and when something isn't so that you can pivot. Latanya, are you seeing use of AI in intelligent ways and are you making recommendations, particularly when we think about systems, processes, and work that can just be sped up so much faster?

10:51Yes, absolutely. So what you can do is do an audit of your repetitive processes, things that you need to do daily, weekly, monthly, and write some of those down. And then look at what AI tools are out there that can help you automate that process. So a lot of people are familiar with ChatGPT. They have done some amazing things over the last few months in terms of helping you really analyze your data. I use Chat to do my brainstorming, to sift through data, to come up with project plans. You can create your own GPTs. Once you understand what the process is, you can develop a good prompt and all the prompt simply is giving it instructions.

11:34What is your role? What is it that you want it to do? What is the outcome and what is the format? And if you don't know, say, chat, I don't know how to do this. Please help me do this thing, right? So you can have that dialogue with chat and use them as a thought partner. And then once you really have refined that prompt, go ahead and create a GPT so that you can share the GPT with your team members and you can get the same thing on a consistent basis. So think about your content writing. Think about your proposal development, your competitor analysis. How are you creating reports? How are you doing your social media?

12:14There's so many things there that you can leverage tools like, like chat GPT, or Claude perplexity perplexity for me is taking over Google. Oh, absolutely. I, I, I chat GPT is my go to for most things, except for perplexity for For simple research, I do a lot, but I am very bullish on perplexity. So do you mind, can we take just a brief deviation? What is perplexity? Perplexity is this amazing research tool. So it's like Google on steroids. It is going to pull in information. So if you said, I need to know the latest, let's say, latest research on XYZ topic. Yeah. And all of this, by the way, compared to ChatGPT is in real time.

13:07Right. Because chat is two years behind. Yeah, roughly. Roughly two years. Unless you use the web thing. But again, this perplexity, this is exactly what it's designed for, is immediate results, what's happening right now. Right. Right. And it can synthesize data. And if you have the pro version, you can ask questions. It's going to give you questions. And so I love perplexity. That is definitely one of my go-tos. And then the last thing I will say is you can tie together different tools using something like make.com or zapier.com, where you can say, start out in chat or start out in perplexity and do your research here, then go over to chat GPT, write this thing out.

13:46You can send it over to your Google Docs. There's just so many ways that you can string things along and create your own sort of AI assistance in a way or just really streamline your processes. And you can do that even before you have, you know, the budget and the resources for a fractional COO to come in. Yeah. Latanya, let's share just a bit about your website to our friend that's been listening to our conversation. You're a great follow, by the way, on LinkedIn. But do you mind sharing resources that you have? You know, if someone goes to your website, HarmonyConsultingGroup.org, what you'd recommend?

14:23Sure. So when you go on my website, of course, you're going to see my different services, whether it's you want to bring me on for a fractional COO, you can apply for that, you can bring me on for training. I love retreat facilitation. I just presented for a retreat doing resilience training, right, because a big part of my job is working with the people and preventing burnout. speaking. I spoke at the Fractional Executive Summit yesterday, actually, on portfolio advantage. So how do you strategically diversify your portfolio? And then you will also find executive coaching on there too. And so what I'm actually getting ready to put up on my site is going to be, I call it my operations goldmine checklist.

15:08And that is just eight different areas that I have outlined to give yourself your own operational health assistant, assessment, excuse me. It is a streamlined version of what I would do if you would hire me. And it's going to take you through things like building out what your services are. How do you lean out your operations? I'm a Lean Six Sigma black belt. So I am really big on efficiency gains. So looking at that, who are the people that you need to bring in? How are you assessing? So building out your KPIs and different things like that, even including your business development. So I'm going to give you a checklist on that.

15:43And then, of course, if you would like to work with me or figure out if we're a good fit, you can always sign up for our consultation. Yeah. Latanya Roberts, again, fractional COO. Sorry, I was digging into your LinkedIn feed here. But fractional COO, HR consultant, executive coach, and again, founder and CEO of Harmony Consulting Group, your website, HarmonyConsultingGroup.org. Thank you, Latanya. Thank you.

16:40empowering one another as thoughtful leaders. And as I mentioned at the beginning of this program, if you're looking for introductions to partners, investors, influencers, and clients, I have had private conversations with over 2000 leaders asking them where their best business comes from. I've got a free video that you can watch right now with no opt-in or email required where I'm going to share the exact steps necessary to be 100 % inbound in your industry over the next six to eight months with no spam, no ads, and no sales. What I teach has worked for me for more than 15 years and has helped me create eight figures in revenue for my own companies.

17:22Just head to upmyinfluence.com and watch my free class on how to create endless high-ticket sales appointments. Make sure to hit subscribe so that tomorrow morning, that's right, seven days a week, you are going to be inspired and motivated to succeed. I promise to bring positivity and inspiration to you for around 15 minutes every single day. Thanks for listening and thank you for being a part of the Thoughtful Entrepreneur Movement.