Episode 75: Tapping Into Your Hidden ROI Goldmine

Welcome to Scale to Seven®! Your behind-the-scenes look at what it really takes to scale your business to seven figures. I'm your host Kathryn Binkley, business and leadership coach for online entrepreneurs. Here's what I know, building a business that will generate millions requires the mindset, strategy, and action of a future seven-figure CEO, starting now. Ready to Scale to Seven®? Let's go!

Well, hello there! Welcome back to the podcast! Today, the day that, this is in your ear is right after I'm getting back from a big vacation with extended family. We're going away for a week to the beach. And it's, you know, so many different people in my family. I'm the oldest of five kids. And we're all grown now and have our own kids, cousins, uncles, and aunts, grandparents, all the things like all these people are going to be at the beach. And I'm looking forward to it. I can't wait to go I've been looking at where we're staying. And we've been planning our meals for the week. And I'm a planner. So we do that kind of stuff ahead of time. And I'm just really looking forward to it and excited. But the day that this comes out, as I said is the day that I'm getting back. And the reason that I'm telling you this in part is because as I'm gearing up to leave for vacation, I'm prepping to make sure my team is going to continue to run, as they always do. 

And to be honest, at this point, there's not as much prep work as there used to be because my team is a team that depends on systems and processes. And they're fairly independent for a lot of their work. There are still times where they need direction and feedback from me. And so I am taking a little extra time to prep for them in advance so that they're ready to go. But the week that I'm on vacation, I'll still have my phone, I'm not going to do an unplugged vacation. But I'm definitely unplugging from work, and my team is still going to run the show. And I'm telling you this because today I want to talk about something that many CEOs missed. So many of you want to get massive results from your investments. And you're focusing on those big investments of your time and money, things like working with coaches and building funnels and investing time into social media, or big launches on the marketing side. But you're missing one of the greatest opportunities for boosting ROI in your business. And that is your team. So I'm going to get an ROI from my team, even while I'm away for an entire week on vacation. But that's in part because I've set things up so that I'm always getting an ROI from my team. And I want you to be able to do the same. So here are three things that you need to know, to really shift your own mindset around your team. 

First, is viewing your team as an investment and not as an expense. You have to be willing to invest time and money into developing your team. Like I said, you invest in coaches and courses, even the time for hiring. But then you view your team as overhead and you hold back on paying them well. So you're willing to invest in certain things in your business, but you're not carrying that through to your team. In every case, some of you are really holding back. And that's because you're treating your team more like overhead. And in fact, I know this because when I help so many of you through the process of hiring, you're hesitant to commit to rising expenses, quote-unquote, out of fear, because you're not tying their responsibility to the results that they're going to get in your business. So when you're hiring one of the things that I do when I work with CEOs is help them understand how that team member is going to impact results before they ever hire them. 

I personally believe you shouldn't hire someone unless they're going to deliver an ROI in some way, whether direct or indirect. Maybe directly they're going to get results because they're going to handle your marketing or maybe indirect because they're freeing up your time so you can spend your time on higher-level activities that will generate revenue and a greater ROI. So don't hold yourself back out of fear to invest more into your team, just because you view them as an expense. Really think about the ROI on each team member. What are the results that they're creating some of you, unfortunately, don't realize the value of a team member until they give their notice and or leave. And by the way, that's too late. At that point, the cost to rehire and retrain is substantial. And you really haven't put in the work upfront. So this isn't just about compensation. Yes, money is a factor, but also time to develop your team, time to educate your team, you've got to put in that time and money upfront, and make sure you're investing well into your team members so that they want to stay. Because once they leave, I hear it from you all, you get someone's notice you have yet again, another team member that's leaving, and you're frustrated. And the work falls back to you. And I want you to imagine the pain. When that happens. Maybe that pain is very familiar because you've experienced it recently. If not, just imagine your team member if they were to leave and everything you were doing either came to a screeching halt or rolled back to you to handle. For some of you, that would be incredibly painful. And for those of you who are like, "Oh, I don't think that's a big deal", then you're not doing the next couple of things that we're going to talk about. And those team members likely aren't really delivering an ROI Right Now, because you haven't set them up to. So let's talk about that. 

The first thing, your team is an investment, not an expense. Second thing, your job as a CEO, is to grow your team so they can grow your business. As soon as you start to hire a team member. As soon as you promote yourself and your own business, your responsibilities changed. And that means that you're shifting from hunting to farming, you're used to going out and hunting down results, you're used to either going out to get the sell or delivering to clients or probably doing it all at some point early in your business. But that has to change. You can't be the one doing everything for forever. And you have to shift to this mode of farming instead of hunting. And yes, it's slower, painfully slow, for some of you. 

Planting a seed and watching the seed grow is not easy for my visionary CEOs who are ready to see results yesterday. I know that you want fast results. But you have to invest in your team to help them get results versus trying to do it yourself. So yes, even though you can do it faster, you can do it better, you can do it easier yourself. Do you really want to handle those responsibilities forever? Every time I asked this question, CEOs tell me No, I don't want to do this for forever but they're acting like they do because they won't let go. If that's you right now. And they're things you're holding on to that, you know, you don't want to do forever, then stop holding on, it's time to let go of those. This is part of the process. It's not going to be fun in the short term. I know it's not satisfying in the short term because it takes longer to get results than if you were to do it yourself. But the fact is, you don't want to always have to do it yourself. So you have to transition that responsibility. Your role is no longer about getting results yourself. It's coaching a team to get results. It's a big shift, not always an easy shift but it's a critical one unless you want to stay in the weeds unless you want to keep doing the things that need to get done in order to move your business forward unless you want to continue to make the business completely reliant on you. And if you're listening to this, if you're here, then I have to assume that you want to scale your business. And you want to scale your freedom because that's what this is all about.

The third thing, which is really how you're going to bring all of this home and how you're going to make sure that you're getting an ROI from your team is to delegate results and not tasks. If you're not getting an ROI from your team right now. I'm curious, what have you delegated? When you look at the work that they're doing, have you simply assigned to them tasks? Or have you given them results to own? Is your team's success based on checking boxes for work completed? Is that how you're checking in and managing them? Just to see if they got something done? Or is their success based on measurable results? Are you giving them KPIs, key performance indicators to track the outcome of the work they're doing? It's not enough just to checkboxes, it's not enough just to give them a to-do list. And yes, I highly recommend using a project management system and organizing the work, and turning it into a process. But not without looking at the greater impact, the greater result of that work. It's all with an intention, not just busywork. So are you dictating step by step what each team member should do? Or are you giving them ownership and autonomy to make recommendations, and to test new strategies, and to really learn and grow as they're working towards this greater goal? If you want an ROI from your team, they need measurable goals, not just a to-do list.

So these are the three key pieces. If you want to get an ROI from your team, then first you've got to shift that mindset and view your team as an investment, not an expense. Second, you have to shift your view of your own role, because it shifts from getting results to growing a team that can grow your business. And third, you have to start delegating results, and not simply tasks. Successful delegation is about so much more than just handing off those tasks. It's about getting an ROI from your team. If you want to delegate successfully if you want to scale both your business and your freedom, check out our workshop, go get your ticket today to "Delegate to Elevate" to learn how to free up at least seven hours of your time per week. But it's about so much more than those hours. It's about stepping into your CEO role. Without lowering your standards, your revenue, or your sanity. It's about being able to do the things that you want to do to spend your time where you want to spend it again. Go to kathrynbinkley.com/delegate and get your ticket for the workshop today!

Hey, if you're ready to Scale to Seven®, I want to invite you to join the Scale to Seven® Mastermind. It's my coaching program designed to turn your online business into a self-sustaining scalable business that can generate millions. Just head over to kathrynbinkley.com/scale-to-seven.  We'll see you inside!