212. How can effective systems turn overwhelm into overjoy? (f. Ashley Haun)
Tired of the daily hustle of managing your business? 🏃♀️Meet Ashley Haun, an expert in business and leadership. She's joins us to share her secrets on how to save time and boost efficiency with smart mentorship and streamlined systems. Discover how you can elevate your business game and reclaim valuable time for what truly matters.
Episode transcription
Lauren
Eager to accelerate your business but find yourself bogged down in the day to day?
Phil
Do you dream of implementing systems that actually work without micromanaging every detail?
Lauren
Our guest today is Ashley Hahn. She is a beacon of wisdom in the world of business and leadership.
phil
She's here to share her secrets on buying speed and time with strategic mentorship, streamlining your business with effective systems, and so much more.
This conversation is so good.
lauren
Let's get right to it.
phil
Well, here's a moment I've been excited about for a while. The beaming sunshine of today's guest is contagious, not only in person, but also the second you land on her website, which, yeah, we will take partial credit for that one. Ashley is a lifestyle and business mentor. She's amazing. I have learned so much. You know, Lauren, you have to agree with me. Like we get some of the most amazing clients and I almost feel like guilty because we get hired to do the website and the branding work, but then we also learn so much in the process. Ashley is one of those people where I feel like I've learned literally so much about leadership, about systems. And now. Listener, you get to also learn. So Ashley, welcome to Brand Therapy.
ashley
Oh my goodness. Thank you for that introduction. If you ever want to feel good, here's the moment.
lauren
If you ever want to feel good, be a guest on Brand Therapy. No, I mean, actually, we don't say that to everyone. I mean, obviously I think that there's something to learn from every person that you interact with. But with you, every single call and interaction that we have had throughout our time of working together has felt like a treat where I am gleaning so much from you. You're so wise and I just love that you really, really understand business and you understand business from a place of compassion. And I think that's why you're such a fantastic mentor and loved by so many.
ashley
Thank you. I really appreciate that guys.
Lauren
You got it. Okay. So could you sort of bring our listeners up to speed with your entrepreneurial journey and how you got to at least a place of becoming a business mentor? And then we'll dig in from there.
ashley
Yeah, absolutely. So I made a great Facebook post today and an Instagram social media post and I talked about Ashley's life in 10 year segments, 15 year old Ashley lost in the world, right? But like what 15 year old knows what they're doing in life. 25 year old Ashley was very much living a life that was presented to me as, Hey, this is the next steps. This is what you do. Had no purpose. Really, like, I don't think you would recognize her as, you know, the person you guys just so nicely described. 35 year old Ashley. Some people say I lost my mind. I concretely left one life. Opened a business, fell in love, found my purpose, and 45 year old Ashley is to the point where I am ready to share all of those lessons and hardships and good with as many people as I possibly can.
I want to take along with me on this journey.
lauren
Fantastic. And just also so the listener knows, because Ashley is very, very humble, Ashley has worked with hundreds of mentees across all industries. You have a lot of experience, particularly from being a micro gym owner and have really, you really turned your business around from a place where it, where it was struggling to one where it's thriving.
And I believe, correct me if I'm wrong, but you actually ended up buying the building that you were releasing your gym from. Is that true?
ashley
Absolutely. I did. I did. I set a goal in 2019 and I said, I'm going to buy this building. And I actually put the goal up in the gym. I was like, Hey, this is a goal of mine. And people will come in and be like, you want to buy the building? Yeah, I want to buy the building. Bought the building in January of 2020. It was epic timing for the gym industry. We were shut down for a few months, but, you know, then we came back strong. And so our business and all businesses do this, you have ups and downs. We all very much want a linear path of like, it's going to be great always. And it's just going to be a trajectory that you are super happy with.
It doesn't happen like that whatsoever. There's up, down, sideways, backwards, forward, but mentorship and learning from others allows you to speed up the trajectory of good quicker.
And it also rely, it allows you to have someone to rely on when, when things aren't good and you need that person because you can't see the trees through the forest. Do this next thing and here's the simple step to getting it done. That's what I love about being able to help others with mentorship and leadership and business.
Lauren
When should someone consider seeking out a business mentor or a leadership mentor? What are maybe some questions they could ask themselves or signs that it's time for them to get help outside of themselves?
ashley
It is not wrong to seek mentorship at the very beginning stages of their career. Business. I met with a guy on Monday that he wants to buy a business, doesn't even know what kind of business he wants to buy. He knows that he loves service industry. He knows that he has a background in construction, but it's still a great time because what I can do is help him filter what he really wants because you don't know what you do want if you don't know what you don't want. So from the beginning, all the way to, ‘Hey, I've been in this thing for 10 years and maybe I don't have the time to spend, you know, Phil and I both love to travel, like to travel, like you wanna buy back some of that time. There is no wrong time to do this because ultimately mentorship buys you speed.
lauren
I love that quote.
phil
I love that quote. I think from the standpoint of someone who's just starting a business, they might be stressed about the cost of hiring someone to help them. We've encountered this in our own industry or with our clients. I'm always fascinated when someone hires us from the very beginning of their business. I actually generally don't like when people hire us from the beginning of their business. I can do it, but it's expensive if you're just getting started.
I feel the stress of someone taking that on if they're just getting started. I think it's better if they do a first version of their own and at least maybe proof of concept in some kind of respect before going and finding that help.
But. I don't think I feel that way about what you do. I think someone actually having that support from the beginning is more beneficial.
ashley
Yeah. You know, and just from your return of investment, right, so ROI of anything that you purchase, you should be getting back two and a half times the cost of it. Right. So what we want to do is with mentorship or with what you guys do, it's very simple to measure these things. People don't often do that.
And so then they question their decisions, but that's part of it. My job is to buy people's feet, to see the ROI on the investment that they've made in me and you guys. And so I think it's thrilling when you can actually like show them the data on it.
phil
Oh, yeah. This is already gold and we're only a few minutes in.
Lauren
That's amazing about even calculating two and a half times your investment. How quickly should that happen? Like, is there a time period where you should recoup that investment? And does that apply to everyone, including staff?
phil
Lauren's ready to put this into our spreadsheet. She's ready to formulate it.
Ashley
Yeah, so I think the rule is 90 days. You should start seeing a return on your investment in 90 days. But you, as the person that says yes to someone like me or you guys, you have to be willing to take the action to do the things that we've asked you to, right?
So this is a symbiotic relationship and my job is to give you clear, easy to understand direction. Every call I should get off of, it should be like, do these three things. And I say this in a, in a joking, but serious manner, like it should be eight year old easy. Everything I tell you to do should be eight year old easy.
And so then in 90 days, it's a very measurable, Hey, I took these actions, this is exactly what Ashley told me to do, and now I can see a return on my investment.
lauren
Amazing. What are the most common challenges that you see when someone hires you as a business mentor.
ashley
We all start businesses because we see a problem that we can solve, and we often have a love that goes along with solving that problem. So15 years ago, I used to love to teach women fitness and help them get their first pull up. Like it was the greatest thing I did. And so I opened my business because I wanted to help more women do that. A few years goes by and, you know, I have money in the bank, I think, I was that person like woke up at 7 30 a. m. Let me check the bank account, but I didn't understand anything about the structure of business. I didn't understand how to read profit and loss statements. I didn't understand how to write a standard operating procedure, systemize the business. So that's the most common problem that we start with with people, because once we structure and systemize the business, then we can build everything else from the ground up.
I always say that stuff is the unsexy stuff. Like, sorry, you got to do the unsexy stuff with me first. I'll make it as fun as possible, but we can't build upon this if we don't.
phil
I love that.
Lauren
Me too. There's so much pressure on a, let's say a small business owner in this case, I think the majority of our listeners are small business owners.
I'm a small business owner, you're a small business owner, like an owner of several businesses. I know for me, even stress that I experience as a business owner is typically related to stress of numbers or stress of things that I don't know because I didn't really go to traditional business school. So I'm even just in here thinking, gosh, these are things I need to learn better. And I probably, if I did learn them better, I would feel more confident in moving forward. You know, we're not really taught those things.
ashley
No, we're not. It's it's, we have four boys and had a conversation, two of them, they're 19, 19, 16 and 14 and the 19 year olds are starting to make their way out into the world, you know, and make some decisions and, uh, it's taxing than right now. And so I was talking to them about taxes. Like this is just the basics of how this works. Like nobody teaches us some of these things like you know, how to pay your taxes, how to buy a house, how to understand your own numbers. And unfortunately we all, we decide that in fourth grade, if we're good at numbers or bad at numbers, it's not a teacher, it's not a parent. It's we make that decision and most people decide like, oh, I'm bad at numbers. And so then therefore we just kind of bury our head in the sand, at least that's what I did for many years on really diving in because it's an uncomfortable process to start to learn numbers and spreadsheets and data and how to read those things.
And then part two is learn to take action based on those things.
lauren
Yeah. So you don't think you have to be good at math and numbers to be good at business?
ashley
There's the deal. When I turned 40, I had this like moment where I was like, okay, we're all done. I am bad at a couple of things. One, numbers, like I can barely subtract if I really had to. Two, I am terrible at grammar and I love to take a nap. Here I am. Love me anyways.
phil
But it's true though, we have so much technology now that like, the technology can do the math. And even now, if we want to get really specific and timely, now technology can write and technology can check and double check and like, it can do everything.
ashley
Yeah, it can. And, and why not use, you know, things like AI and technology and all the wonderful things out there in order to, again, buy us speed in our businesses. We just have to get uncomfortable with learning the thing first.
lauren
So what is your advice to business owners who want to scale, who want to delegate, who want to create SOPs, but are control freaks and scared to let go?
phil
Me. Oh, the control freak.
ashley
So the good news is you still do control what you're doing. You still have, um, authority and you're just getting someone to hold you accountable to getting these things done, but also break it down for you in smaller pieces so you can get it done.
I have a full time staff at my gym, and I do not micromanage them. I don't even care, probably as brand authorities you're gonna kill me, but I don't care if, like, the SOPs are written in the same format or, you know, font or whatnot, because it's not helpful in getting the job done. So it's more important to get the job done than it is to be a perfectionist in what you're putting out.
Most people within their businesses do not have standard operating procedures, do not have playbooks, do not have a social media content calendar that they're rinsing and repeating. It's a mentor's job to take those types of people and say, hey, 50 percent of getting that done for now is good enough.
It's a living, breathing document, and we will get it to 100 percent at some point. But be happy with what you've done.
phil
I need a little bit of that energy.
lauren
Can I ask a selfish question? I guess that's the joy of having a podcast, right? Is asking. Yeah, you can. This is, this is all about me. You ask permission to ask the question, ask it.
So on our side, it's really exciting because we have documented SOPs of how to do everything. And because, there's a lot that we do as an agency, the SOPs are incredibly overwhelming. It's like hundreds of pages of things. And on top of it, as we're bringing more and more people onto our team, we're realizing that the way that we did things before.
So we're documenting SOPs for systems that can absolutely be improved. So is it more important to document everything as it currently is, or should you wait and improve it and then document it as the way you want it to be?
ashley
So here's where I think people like you and I can let go of some stuff. As you're bringing on staff, give them the old SOP and say, Hey, here's the old SOP. Let's you and I train together on the position and how things are to be done. Then I want you to write the new SOP. And this is why my SOPs are not in the same font and format, because I allow my staff to write their own SOPs. And here's why it's threefold.
One, they clearly understand their job. Two, they can take ownership of their position because they put it down on paper. And three, you have just magically created an updated SOP that you did not do the work for.
phil
That you don't have to do the work for. Hmm. My God, genius. And also to format it, by the way, the formatting guy is chiming in now. It's as easy as selecting all and adjusting the font and the size. End of story. I obsess over it and yet, it's literally the easiest thing to fix at the end.
ashley
Yes. Yes. So buy yourself some time and, and, you know, staff then really feel empowered, like they can own their job because they have created how they do their job.
They know that the end product is to get from A to Z. You figure out how to do it, document it, and we are good to go.
lauren
Something that I've always found really tough about delegating and expanding the team and giving responsibilities to other people is that team management part. Because it's not that I don't like working with people I do, but it's more that I don't necessarily have the time to manage and coach and work with people on the team and do the work that clients have hired us to do. And I know Phil feels that this way as well. So do you have any advice on that for entrepreneurs on when to be working for the business versus on the business? Because to me, helping your team members grow and do those SOP’ is more working on the business. But at the same time, you have a business to run and need to get income. So what are your thoughts on that?
ashley
So I think we had this. I learned this from Todd Herman. Um, he he has some great stuff on just leadership and he's actually the gentleman that helped Beyonce come up with Sasha Pierce and Kobe Bryant, you know, like these, these alter egos.
And the way that he looks at meetings and working with staff is, is you can have a three minute meeting, a seven minute meeting and a 12 minute meeting. If you call a 12 minute meeting, this is the biggest meeting of the year. What we get caught up in is when we're training staff is, you know, this has to be an hour long meeting. This has to be, you know, there has to be chit chat in the beginning and the end, and it doesn't, right? So buy yourself back some time by having very efficient conversations and meetings with your team.
The other part is, here's the truth guys, like when we opened businesses, we did not realize that we were going to become HR department. Like nobody signed up for that, right? And then all of a sudden we grow our businesses and now we need to hire. And so you need to come up with a process and a system to which you do that. You get the right people in place, you train them, but then also how do you continue that, what we call the staff journey to keep them on your team longer.
So the goal is, is that, um, we're buying you back time by having shorter readings. We are hiring the right people, training the right people, and then we've got them on a journey where they stay with us forever. Because that's when we're going to have the best staff possible.
lauren
I saw this interesting LinkedIn post yesterday. It was something along the lines of an HR person being like, this person wants more money for their job. And then the business owner was like, well, we can't afford that. And then the HR person goes, well, we have to pay it because it's going to cost way more to hire, meet the salary and keep a new person. Which I thought was like a very interesting perspective. And I think it's even more interesting that you're bringing up how important longevity is, because there's training mode is, is brutal for, I feel like both parties. And the sooner that someone can get up to speed, the sooner your business is going to be functioning.
ashley
Yeah. And if they think about it too, like, you know, I very much believe when we're training staff, we give them one thing to do and then they master that.
And then we give us then the second thing to do, right. The worst thing we can do is just say, hey, here's the whole job. That's when they, they fumble through it. And, you know, I always rate my staff on a one to five scale. Three is you doing your job four and five is you going above and beyond. And that's when you're showing me you would like a promotion.
You deserve a raise. You get more responsibility. So, giving people those, you know, small bites and then opportunities will keep them around for you longer because now what was difficult to do and they didn't understand is super simple and they can just start doing more and more for you.
lauren
You actually give them that scale? Like do you say, you're at a two today, I need you to, like, uh, we do, we do quarterly reviews.
Ashley
So, I'll give you guys a good little tip here. Nobody enjoys the same thing. You know, staff and employee reviews, right? Like, it's kind of a dreaded task. Here's how you get away with this, guys.
Quarter one, you do a full review, right? Sit down with your staff, you know, all that good stuff. If they score above X, okay, you decide what the line is, they don't need a review. For quarter two and quarters three, they do a self evaluation. And quarter four, they do a peer evaluation. And now you've just bought yourself an entire year almost of getting the work done, but not having to do the work yourself.
I personally enjoy having that scale. And we do use that scale in order to help them understand. Like, no, I think everybody can get. Better by 1%. And that's always the goal. My staff is constantly getting better by just 1 percent and I'm okay with that. I have a staff member within the gym business that a couple of years ago, she was not a full time employee yet.
And we had someone that would frequently come to the gym, kind of, he lived in Jacksonville where in the Deland area, uh, he would come and visit on the weekends and he spoke sign language and Diane went out and learned sign language for that day to be able to communicate with him on how to do the workout.
And just, I was like, that's a, that's a 12. That, and now she's a full time employee who does amazing at her job. And so yeah, we, we use that scale.
Lauren
Wow.
phil
Cause it's a way of quantifying it instead of just acknowledging it, but not putting it into a system to actually execute on it.
Ashley
Absolutely.
Lauren
How cool. I remember you told me this story once, Ashley, that it's more important for something to be done than not happen at all. And I remember you said something like, when you're selling something, you have a 90 percent close rate. When someone else on your team is selling something, they might have a 60 percent close rate and that's okay because you're using your time to work on other things. So could you sort of expand on that mentality.
Ashley
Yeah. And, and so, you know, if I walk in the door, I am going to sell at 90 percent because I just have more in it, right? It's, it's just more important to me, but I have to be okay with allowing the staff to sell at a 60 to 70 percent rate because them doing that allows me to, you know, mentor more people.
It allows me to not be in that business, what you were talking about before, like working in the business. It allows me to work on the business. And so giving them a number or KPI at key performance indicator, ‘hey, guys, if you're hitting this, I'm great’. Because you're doing what, you know, and, and again, if they sell it 80%, well, now they're, they're a four.
And so, buying back your time, creating time for you to do what you want in life, is why we really, if we really, like, looked inside of us, is why we opened these businesses. We didn't want to work for the man. And then we get caught up in this sometimes hamster wheel of, you know, and I, I, I so dislike this word, like hustle, the hustle culture, the, you know, like, that's not what we're doing here.
We are creating structured businesses that hire and train and keep really great staff for a long time so then we can go out and very proudly show the lifestyle that we've created. And there's no shame in that at all.
lauren
So when we started off this talk, you had mentioned how they're just pulled in all different ways of business and it can be really stressful and lots of ups and downs have you personally experienced, or have you seen other business owners experience a state of calm when running their business. And I'll just leave this with a caveat because for me, I either feel like I'm stressed because there's too much work or I'm stressed because there's not enough work. And it always feels like this oscillation between those two extremes. It's very rare to just be comfortable and not, I'm not meaning like financially, I'm just meeting in terms of like the mental bandwidth of it all.
Phil
Yeah. Cause we as two people do a lot. We do a lot.
lauren
So, do you, have you, is this like a unicorn that I'm aspiring for or is it possible?
Ashley
It's totally possible and here's how. You have to plan for it. You can't just wake up one day and be like, I'm gonna feel great about, I don't have anything to do today. You have to be intentional with, I'm going to feel uncomfortable, but I'm going to check myself on it. So here's what happens as business owners. We are used to, we spend time being, um, in fight or flight mode, right? Like scientifically here, fight or flight mode. There is a part of our brain that then becomes very used to that. That is our normal state when actually that's not our normal state.
Okay, so we get an opportunity. Things are a little bit slow. But, or we're on vacation, like we've all done this. We're on vacation and we're like let me just check my email. Oh, let me just check, right? And so then you go back because you're nervous about being relaxed. So what has happened is that piece of your brain that is now your normal functioning state has caught your attention and you're going back there.
And you have to then say, I see you, I can see what you're doing here, I'm fine, relax. And then you've got to literally retrain your brain into being able to be in work mode, be, you know, I don't want to use the word stress, but like productive in what you're doing. You also have to train yourself in, hey, it's time to turn it off.
The abundance will come. There's plenty of abundance in this world. And it will come to me too.
Lauren
Very good perspective. Where do you learn all of this, Ashley? Is it, like, experience? Is it, like, I love how you brought up, like, the 7 to 12 minute meeting thing. I love how you brought up the quarterly reviews.
Phil
It's all very tangible and numbers based, which I love.
lauren
Like, how can I learn this? I guess I just need to hire you. Yep, that's the secret sauce.
ashley
So, I hired a mentor. I had this moment in my first business where I was either going to make it or my doors were going to close and I hired a mentor and he taught me data is where you start, right?
It helps you remove emotions from your decisions. Here's how to be, you know, a better leader. And then once I mastered that level, then I got into bigger groups and bigger groups and more people. And we all have imposter syndrome and we're all a little bit scared to spend the money to, you know, gosh, that feels expensive. That is expensive. But every single time I've done it, I have gotten back far more than the two and a half times ROI. So you have to be willing to have imposter syndrome and be okay with it in order to sit in a room of people that are doing more than you and better than you in order to get to the place you want to be.
phil
That's genius.
lauren
Yeah, I've never thought about the ROI of investing in someone else or knowledge or anything before. Not in a tangible way. I just always thought like, oh yeah, this will help increase business. But I've never actually set that goal of if I put $10,000 into something, I hope to get $25,000 minimum back. You know?
Ashley
Right, right. And you should. Like that should be, and there's plenty of ways to measure this. Like, you know, you, did you increase clients? Did you increase your effective hourly rate? Like what's your worth per hour? Did you keep clients longer? Did you add an additional stream of revenue? There's so many opportunities to measure what feels like kind of a non tangible thing in a very tangible way.
Makes our brain feel better.
phil
Yeah. Time for my selfish question. How should someone measure the ROI of something One might argue is more intangible like a brand or a website.
ashley
So, with website, you guys know this but probably our listeners don't like SEO ratings. Is my SEO rating going up? Is my number of clients that I've gotten from the website gone up? Am I getting more looks? Right, just engagements on my website, like all of that is very tangible and seeing ultimately my gross revenue should go up because now what I believe, and you guys are the experts so you can tell me if I'm wrong, a website should get the person from the couch, their computer, their phone, having a conversation with you.
Is the next step. Or I was up early this morning, listening to some stuff and thinking about, you know, sales and, and that. And I always thought sales or like a website is let's get the customer from here to all the way to buy. Like, no, let's get the customer from finding out about us to the next step. So what is just the next step I need to get the customer to do?
Do I need to get them to sign up for a newsletter? Do I need to get them to join my group? Do I need to, right? And by taking them through just the next step, you'll eventually get to the place of sale.
phil
What I like also is that the examples you're giving are numbers. And even if the number doesn't increase month to month, just by tracking it, it means purely that it's a reminder of what you should have on your radar as a business owner. I'm thinking to myself, I should have in my series of spreadsheets, not just the money in on the business, but I should actually list what my domain authority score is in the same spreadsheet, or it might be in the, the second tab or something.
You're right that, that there's so many things we can track and even if there's not a dramatic increase month to month, just by tracking it, it stays on your radar as a priority. It's like this aha moment that you just let us. All of these are like it's 2024, we have ways of tracking literally everything with a number.
ashley
And I, you know, even from the brand perspective, like I was launching The Traveling Bee when I first met you guys, right? And so it really wasn't a business that was fully flushed out yet. But here's what I did. And the reason I decided to do this was it gave me automatic authority that I had such a beautifully polished, presentable brand.
And so, yes, I can give you a KPI and a number, and we can figure out a way to track everything, but I can also look at what kind of clients am I attracting because of the brand that I put out there. And that is a measurable KPI in itself.
Lauren
So you got your 2.5X ROI from working with us?
ashley
I got definitely my 2.5 alright!
Lauren
Nice. That's what I want to hear. But I love Ashley that you're, you're actually calculating that too. Like I think, yeah, it's so, I love it.
phil
I find it incredibly inspiring. Yeah.
ashley
Thanks guys.
lauren
If you think about your time in your business as like a pie of 100%, What percentages do you spend training the team? What percentage do you actually spend like doing work that's sold through your business? Could you just give us like a high level overview of where your time goes? And if you don't feel comfortable saying your own time, maybe just say like the average business owner, or just so that we know what you should kind of aspire for.
Ashley
So inspirational level, right? This is after you've structured your business. This is after you have the staff in place and you have systems in place in which the staff gets constantly fed what they need to, to get fed to the next step. Where I'm at right now is I'm going out and I'm continuing to find the experts in different areas.
So let me find the expert in branding. Let me find the expert in marketing. Let me and then what my job is to learn the things and be able to go back and teach it to my staff because if I can teach it to my staff, it's going to get done. But if I just go back and, you know, kind of keep it for myself and don't set up the meeting to have with them or don't take action on what I'm learning, then the business isn't going to continue to grow.
So the phase that I'm in right now is go find lots of experts, learn from them. Take it back to my staff and have them implement it. But that's the, you know, there's, there's phases of entrepreneurship. I am fortunate at this point to be in that phase. The first phase is that structure systemized unsexy stuff.
Second is getting the staff where you want them to be. Them using the systems and the structure that you've created so that then you can move to this third phase.
phil
Where can people get more from you? Because you just have so much knowledge.
ashley
So you could find me at on Instagram at braveAshleyHaun. You can find me on my website at ashleyhaun.com. And also on Facebook, if you would like to connect and be friends on there. I think that's a good place to.
lauren
Thank you so much.
phil
Fantastic. You also have a freebie. We should tell people about your freebie.
ashley
Yeah, for sure.
phil
You have a freebie. You have a you have an e book.
ashley
I do. I do. I have a couple of e books. One's related to both leadership and the lifestyle side of things that is available for people on my website. Whatever is going to work best for you. I think that this is, you know, a multi pronged effect and we are going to do what's best for you in order to help you move down the path of entrepreneurship.
phil
Beautiful.
lauren
You're so smart, Ashley. Thank you.
ashley
Thank you guys. You are. Thank you for hanging out with us on Brand Therapy.
ashley
Absolutely.
