0:00

If you've been really craving,

0:00

just creating a very inlined

0:03

of vision with your business. So that way you can align with your team

0:04

and the overall growth of the company.

0:07

Then this episode is for you. During this episode, I'm going to be

0:09

interviewing one of my lovely students.

0:12

Who's taken both kickoff with the sauna

0:12

and my breakthrough program who is

0:15

really just seriously shine through.

0:18

She has done some incredible

0:18

things with her from.

0:21

And just continues to grow

0:21

and expand her company.

0:24

And now she's got more team members

0:24

and she's hiring more people and

0:28

aligning herself with her mission. And one thing that really just, I

0:30

absolutely love that we talked about

0:33

in this episode is how she really sat

0:33

down and took a lot of time to really

0:38

think through her longterm vision and

0:38

actually translated this to our team and

0:42

how it really helped them to grow as a

0:42

team together and continue building the

0:46

business and to exactly what she wanted. And this episode, we're going to

0:48

dive into so many different topics.

0:50

And one of my other favorite things

0:50

is she totally implemented an internal

0:54

training program that we actually teach

0:54

our students inside of breakthrough.

0:57

And it is so incredible because she's

0:57

going to be sharing with you how much

1:00

easier it is for her every single

1:00

time that she hires new team members.

1:04

That she doesn't have to do any

1:04

of the training now that she has

1:06

this internal training program. So we're going to be talking about

1:07

aligning your vision with your team.

1:11

Also making sure that you are on the right

1:11

path with your business, no matter what

1:14

stage that you're at, and really just like

1:14

letting go and honing in on like trusting

1:20

your team with that long-term vision. So I hope you enjoyed today's

1:22

episode with Laurie and me.

2:21

Hey everyone and welcome back to yet another episode. I'm so excited because this is

2:23

such an amazing student that I

2:25

have that like is in my world. She's just a bundle of joy and happiness.

2:29

And I'm just so grateful that

2:29

she's one of those people we get

2:32

to interview here on the podcast. I was so pumped because I asked

2:34

all of my breakthrough students, if

2:37

anybody wanted to nominate themselves

2:37

to talk about their experience

2:41

and breakthrough in their journey. And I was totally going to tag this

2:43

lovely guest if she didn't nominate

2:47

herself because she's gone through

2:47

some crazy transitions in her business

2:51

and I just love what she's doing. So without further ado, thank you

2:52

so much, Lori, for being here today.

2:56

Please feel free to introduce yourself. Well, thanks for having me.

2:59

I'm having a bit of a fangirl

2:59

moment just talking to you.

3:04

so my name is Laurie DeWitt and I

3:04

am actually from Western Canada.

3:08

I live in Calgary, Alberta, and, I started

3:08

my bookkeeping business, after I finished

3:14

my maternity leave with my first baby.

3:17

And, my, that baby is almost 16.

3:20

So I've been doing this for a long time.

3:23

but The vision for my business started

3:23

shortly after my husband and I got

3:28

married and we were, I worked at an

3:28

accounting firm and we were driving

3:33

out camping and I said, we were just

3:33

talking and driving through the fog

3:39

to the mountains and, and I said, you

3:39

know, someday I want to have a business.

3:43

A bookkeeping business where, where

3:43

women can come and go and work as they

3:47

please and work around their family. And someone reminded me of this last fall

3:49

and I was like, holy smokes, it's here.

3:55

It's here. I didn't even think

3:55

about it, but it's here.

3:58

So. Oh, how exciting. And you service only

3:59

all of Canada, correct?

4:01

Uh, not all of Canada or

4:01

only a certain part of

4:04

Canada? I just, I just work with

4:05

businesses in my province.

4:08

so what you were saying was that you

4:08

service people from your province.

4:10

So if you want to pick up from there. Yeah. So I just serve as small

4:12

business owners in Calgary.

4:15

I do have some personal tax clients

4:15

that live in other provinces.

4:19

I do actually have some. Bookkeeping clients in the Northern part

4:21

of the province that I've never met.

4:24

and that's the beauty of being able

4:24

to do this job remotely is that you

4:29

don't have to see people face to face.

4:32

You're like, is that a good

4:32

thing for like, you don't want

4:34

to see the people face to face? Well, some.

4:40

No, but it just it shows you

4:40

how flexible we can be, and how

4:44

we can meet needs of people. Like one of my clients

4:46

that lives in the north.

4:48

she's a welder and she

4:48

works on the oil pipelines.

4:52

So she doesn't even live You

4:52

know, she lives in a really small

4:55

town, so she just doesn't have the

4:55

resources available to her, right,

4:59

that someone in a big city would. Oh,

5:01

yeah, that's, well, props to her. I mean, she's doing, she's welding.

5:04

That's amazing. I've always wanted to learn how

5:05

to, like, weld, but that's probably

5:07

not another hobby for another day.

5:12

, so I want to, like, kind of take a

5:12

step back to what you were talking

5:14

about, the mission of the business,

5:14

, that one of your big things, like,

5:17

can you repeat again what it was? I know the generalized context,

5:18

but what is your mission for, The

5:22

people coming to work for you. I rewrite that part.

5:26

So I wanted to have a business

5:26

that initially it was women,

5:30

but I just hired my first guy. So I don't want to, , limit to just

5:32

females, but, , you know, so many

5:36

times mothers stay home, to raise

5:36

their families or, you know, , that's

5:42

the quote unquote, the traditional. way of doing things.

5:45

And yet, women, they're so intelligent

5:45

and bright and they have such, passion

5:50

and, have so much to give still. and there's so many women that, you know,

5:52

then they sell, , a direct sales business

5:55

because they want to do something. They still want to earn money for their

5:57

family and they want to meet other people.

6:02

And so, When I worked in public

6:02

accounting, all of the clients that I had,

6:07

the business clients always said to me, do

6:07

you have a good name of a good bookkeeper?

6:11

And I was, and that's when I realized

6:11

there's a gap and I can fill that gap.

6:17

So when I had was on maternity leave, I

6:17

said to my husband, I'm going to do this.

6:22

And, so that I can stay

6:22

home with our first child.

6:26

And he's like, he was so nervous. And he's like, do you think you could

6:28

possibly, you know, potentially make, you

6:33

know, replace your EI income in Canada?

6:36

That's called employment insurance. That's what you get when

6:37

you're on maternity leave. And I was like, Yes, I'm pretty sure

6:39

I can replace my 400 a week EI, dear.

6:47

Thank you. You're like,

6:49

look at me now. Yeah. And at the time, we did not know

6:52

this, but our daughter has some.

6:56

Major special needs and

6:56

medical complexities.

6:58

And so this business has allowed

6:58

me to be here with her, to take her

7:04

to therapies, to take her to the

7:04

hospital whenever we need to go.

7:07

And my clients know if I'm having a

7:07

hospital day, I'm having a hospital

7:11

day and their work will still get done. So it's been the best

7:14

thing for our family.

7:17

And now that I've hired, started

7:17

hiring people and everyone's at a

7:20

different age and stage of their life. But all of my team, they still want

7:22

to contribute and they have, they

7:27

just don't want to sit idly at home. They're not ready for retirement.

7:30

Some of my teams, they just want part

7:30

time jobs to be, use their brains, right?

7:37

Yeah, it's great. Yeah, I love it.

7:39

And it's funny that you were saying

7:39

that maybe it's changed with, at

7:42

first it was for women and now it's

7:42

expanded over to some of the men

7:45

that you do are starting to hire. I think that's okay.

7:47

I think we start off with our mission

7:47

being one way, but it's just like us as

7:50

human beings, we evolve and it starts

7:50

to change and we start to adapt and

7:53

we start to bring on new opportunities

7:53

for new people and different people.

7:57

So I just love that. I think me and you, I think this is

7:58

why I've always been drawn to you.

8:00

I just love you so much. Um, is because we do have very

8:01

similar underlying missions for

8:06

what we do, especially for our team,

8:06

because I'm the same with like, I

8:08

want them to have the opportunity. To be able to work from wherever

8:10

when life happens, I want to

8:12

be of support in some capacity. the reason this was instilled on

8:14

me actually is when my brother got

8:17

diagnosed with cancer and he was, I

8:17

don't, stationed is not the right word,

8:21

but I can't think of the right word

8:21

I'm trying to say, but he was put at

8:24

the children's hospital, Los Angeles. And at that time we were living

8:26

in somewhere called San Dimas and

8:29

it was about an hour and a half

8:29

of a drive just to go to CHLA.

8:33

Well, my dad's job that he worked for at

8:33

that time when my brother had cancer was

8:38

not really allowing him to have as much

8:38

freedom and flexibility at that time.

8:41

It really wasn't a thing to

8:41

have like virtual positions.

8:44

You know, it's very physical and whatnot. And so I saw my dad, how much it

8:46

really hurt him to not be able to go

8:51

and show up as much as he wanted to.

8:54

And my brother ended up passing. So It hit him even harder.

8:57

And so I said that if I ever had a

8:57

business, I was going to make sure that

8:59

people had an opportunity when you have

8:59

a depressing day, you've got anxiety.

9:03

Personally, I'm going to

9:03

tell you to take the day off.

9:05

you're going to be paid because like,

9:05

I just wish more individuals with the

9:11

opportunity to host teams have like what

9:11

me and you have with our mission, because.

9:16

Usually, unfortunately, that mission

9:16

comes from having a personal experience

9:21

and it's usually not the best, but at

9:21

the same time, it creates more beauty for

9:24

other people. Yeah, it's, it's been a gift to be a work

9:26

from home mom and, you know, my daughter

9:31

was one when I started my business. And then I had my second baby and,

9:33

I would have him, , in my, I have a

9:37

big walk in closet here beside me in

9:37

this bedroom and I'd put his crib in

9:41

there and he'd nap and then I'd work. And it was great.

9:44

It was great. I love it. I love it.

9:47

Well, I love that you have this

9:47

like deep rooted desire of the

9:50

way that you would build things. So how did you get into my world?

9:52

I know we talked about that before we hit record, but how did you get started in my world?

9:56

Where were you at in business? What was going on?

9:58

If you want to just share any of that insight. So,, I first found you or you came up

10:00

as an ad on my Facebook page of how to

10:06

write a workflow in November of 2021.

10:09

So it's been two and a bit years. at that point, my friend

10:12

had been working for me.

10:16

she'd started working for me.

10:18

Like in spring of that year as a

10:18

bookkeeper, and I truly believe

10:23

that anyone can learn bookkeeping. This is not a rocket science.

10:28

I have added caveats to that. You have to be a specific, you

10:29

know, you have to be have skills

10:33

to do this, but anyone can learn

10:33

it if you don't want to don't try.

10:38

That's the bottom line. And so at that point, since that

10:40

was my first hire and so I had

10:45

spent that year trying to get all

10:45

this knowledge out of my head.

10:49

And so when this workflow,

10:49

Challenge workshop happened, I

10:53

was like, oh, this is like gold.

10:56

I need this. So my mom took it with me and

10:56

at that point, my friend had

11:01

quit and I was just looking for.

11:04

A new person and this, my next hire had

11:04

come along and I'm like, if I'm hiring

11:09

someone who's a complete stranger to

11:09

me, who doesn't even know me, it's even

11:12

more imperative because they don't speak

11:12

Lori that we get this written down.

11:18

and so it took what I had already

11:18

started and then it was like.

11:23

Okay, I'm on the right track. And this is how I can use

11:25

Asana to project manage.

11:28

And so I then I bought your

11:28

kickoff with Asana class.

11:32

Yeah. and I think you had just

11:32

started your first breakthrough.

11:36

And at that point, you were cohorting it.

11:38

And I knew I wasn't ready for

11:38

that course yet, or that workshop.

11:41

So I waited until last year,

11:41

when I had to sit my husband

11:46

down and say, I am doing this. Much to his nerves.

11:53

I totally get it. I think, , especially with breakthrough,

11:54

as you know, it's an investment.

11:57

It's not, and also the downfall

11:57

of you is you are in Canada.

12:01

So the conversion rate

12:01

was, it was, it's scary.

12:04

Like it is 30%. Yeah.

12:07

Which is crazy, which I don't even

12:07

want to go down the rabbit hole of like

12:10

conversions, all the different things. It's a whole nother topic for another day.

12:14

But I remember having a consult

12:14

because as most of you who have been

12:17

listening to my podcast know that I

12:17

offer free consult calls because I

12:20

would truly tell you if you're not

12:20

ready for something because I don't want

12:23

anybody to waste our time nor money. We work really hard for what we do.

12:27

The last thing you need is to waste money on something that you're not actually going to do, right?

12:31

So we got on the consult call

12:31

and that was in, that was

12:34

literally almost like a year ago. It was April.

12:37

It was right in the middle

12:37

of tax season for me.

12:39

And my husband was like, you are nuts.

12:42

And I'm like, no, no, no. If there's a sale, I will buy it.

12:46

Now we'll start at May 1st. Everything will be fine.

12:49

And he was like, We were

12:49

almost breakthrough divorcees.

12:55

Breakthrough divorcees. Well, I'm really happy that

12:56

that wasn't the case because

12:59

that would make me really sad. He's like, you're like, I'm doing

13:02

it. So we talked, we talked it out and he,

13:03

then he finally understood my vision.

13:08

Right. And he never says no to me.

13:10

So for all the listeners. We're good.

13:14

He's my rock. I adore him. I would love to kind of unpack that

13:16

because you're not the first person

13:19

who has gotten on a consult call with

13:19

me with I want to call it a money

13:24

objection and I'm not saying that what

13:24

you said was because deep internal

13:28

you didn't believe in what we did. It was more like.

13:30

You've got family things and you've also

13:30

got, you know, a child that you have been

13:34

very honest about some, some things that

13:34

you guys have to work through with them.

13:37

And I'm only assuming that funds

13:37

need to go in certain places

13:40

and be allocated correctly. And I, a lot of listeners

13:41

are like that too. So I'd kind of like to unpack

13:43

to like walking through.

13:47

What that process was like to really

13:47

get him on board, because like you

13:50

said, he's gonna say yes, no matter

13:50

what, he's going to be in full support.

13:53

But what was it that was so

13:53

convincing of what we do?

13:57

And it was probably a part of

13:57

the fact that you already knew

14:00

I can deliver from kickoff of the sauna. Yeah.

15:09

I think what it was, I mean, I really

15:09

respect him, you know, he's part owner of

15:14

my business, even though I run the show. he's just on the registry.

15:19

but I really respect his

15:19

perspective and his insight.

15:23

And he said, what, what can you

15:23

get through this that you couldn't

15:27

get through a local coach? then it was a scramble and I, I used to do

15:29

bookkeeping for coaches and I called them.

15:34

It was a scramble because the time

15:34

was ticking on your sale and I had

15:39

to make a decision very quickly. so then I went to him and, and I

15:41

said, okay, these are the facts

15:45

of, what I would get with a local

15:45

coach and how much it would cost.

15:50

And this is, I said, , I'm

15:50

already in this platform.

15:54

I'm already in this community. It's going to enhance what I'm

15:56

already doing and I don't have

16:01

to try and convince a local coach

16:01

that this is the direction for me.

16:06

And I've done bookkeeping, for clients

16:06

who have participated in group coaching

16:13

and it's, I mean, this is potentially

16:13

going to sound offensive to people,

16:17

but it's almost like a cult in the

16:17

activities that they have to do and

16:21

the money that they have to spend. And there's no, I have as their

16:23

bookkeeper have seen no business benefit.

16:28

It's like a club where they go, to like

16:28

the speed cart to go cart racing and

16:33

they smoke cigars and they cut each other

16:33

on the back of how well they're doing.

16:36

And I'm like, like, I, you don't

16:36

see the benefits of the benefits.

16:40

I'm sorry, but that's what it looks like.

16:42

Yeah, I totally get it. It's so funny because I also work

16:43

with coaches and course creators.

16:46

So a lot of them join masterminds, join

16:46

big, big, large groups and spend thousands

16:50

of dollars, like 30, I totally get it.

16:53

I am one of those. People who also am in some sort

16:54

of a mastermind that is a lot, but

16:58

for me, like, I totally agree with

16:58

you in every capacity because there

17:01

are some people that they join. There's literally no benefit.

17:04

It's like, if you go into that, not

17:04

wanting a benefit and you just truly want

17:08

peer collaboration, I think that's okay. But at the same time, like.

17:12

If that's not your intention,

17:12

you go and there's no result.

17:14

It's like you literally just wasted so much money. Yeah.

17:17

and, you know, my team at that

17:17

point in April was growing,

17:20

I'd hired two more people. , and so when I looked at, you'd sent me

17:22

the outline for the course and it was

17:27

building your corporate culture and

17:27

your structure and your policies and,

17:32

your mindset, you know, on the outline.

17:34

And I, I showed it to him and

17:34

then he was like, yeah, okay.

17:38

Yeah. And I don't think he's, you know,

17:38

he's very, he's an engineer.

17:43

He thinks linearly. And you have to come at that

17:47

with facts and not emotion.

17:50

And I'm a mix of both. Yep.

17:53

You know, accountant, engineer,

17:53

this is like, we talk in

17:57

spreadsheets to each other. Talking spreadsheets.

18:00

That's how we get freaky

18:00

is in spreadsheets, people.

18:02

Yeah. Yeah, I love that. We had a great wedding

18:04

planning spreadsheet, man.

18:06

I can't remember, but

18:06

it was like, beautiful.

18:10

Oh my god, that makes me

18:10

so happy, my little heart.

18:13

We have these little promotional t

18:13

shirts that we do at, certain events

18:16

that we go to for sponsorships for

18:16

my firm, and it says, ladies in the

18:19

streets, freaks in the spreadsheets. And everybody dies like we sold out of

18:21

the t shirts last time because like we

18:26

didn't even sell them they were like given

18:26

away but like because all the places the

18:29

people that we were sponsoring for they

18:29

had a lot of people who loved spreadsheets

18:33

so just like really made sense for them

18:33

and they just like loved it so much so

18:37

I am all about that spreadsheet life. Yeah.

18:40

Right

18:42

how we do it. So. I kind of want to talk about

18:43

like the signing up versus the

18:47

action, because I think like

18:47

you can convince people all day.

18:49

You can do it yourself. You can be convinced. But I think the action is the key

18:51

part that I think a lot of people

18:54

have ever met people or been one of

18:54

those people, because I've totally

18:57

been this person too, that sees

18:57

something is like, if I just get that.

19:01

It's going to change my life, but

19:01

I don't want to put in the work.

19:06

I just want the results. Like sometimes we just want to buy

19:07

the thing or hire the person who's

19:09

going to solve the problem, but that's

19:09

not really how breakthroughs built.

19:13

Like you as the business owner do

19:13

have to put in a lot of work, or if

19:15

you're not going to put in the work,

19:15

then you at least have to have an ops

19:18

person inside of breakthrough with you.

19:20

So I'd love to take a talk about

19:20

the action that you've taken

19:23

because you haven't just signed up. I just talked to someone today who's

19:24

been in Breakthrough for a year.

19:27

Did their strategy call with me today? And they were like, I

19:28

literally haven't touched it. It's you have been a key student

19:30

because you have taken everything

19:36

and you have implemented. So I'd love to hear about the action

19:37

that you've taken since Breakthrough.

19:40

Well, that's who I am. Like, I don't do anything halfway.

19:44

And I think that's what scared

19:44

my husband, because he knows me.

19:49

and he knew that as, as soon as I

19:49

got it, I would just run with it.

19:53

Right. So you had allowed us to have two

19:53

team members do the course with us.

19:58

And so I put my one bookkeeper

19:58

that I had at the time in it.

20:02

And then my executive assistant as well.

20:05

And my executive assistant has just

20:05

gone through it with flying colors.

20:08

They've both completed the course. I haven't because what's happened is,

20:09

. You know, I did the SOP module and then

20:16

I spent a month writing SOPs and then

20:16

it was like, oh, yeah, I need to go back

20:20

and finish this and so I kind of, I have

20:20

this almost tunnel vision and I, I just

20:27

like, I, I wrote a hundred SOPs over

20:27

three weeks and, you know, recorded looms

20:32

and this and that and it's like, Ooh,

20:32

we've got a great SOP database now, but.

20:37

Do I have an onboarding plan? No, but you

20:41

know what, though, like you got to pick and choose. And honestly, the one thing I

20:43

really love about the way that

20:47

breakthrough was structured is

20:47

it's not meant to be in order.

20:50

It's not to be. And that's what the beauty is.

20:53

I think a lot of times it's funny

20:53

because when I first built breakthrough,

20:56

it was actually meant to be in order. And then.

20:59

Feedback came and came from other students

20:59

that they were like, we, because we did

21:02

a first, the first round of breakthrough,

21:02

which is the one that you didn't join.

21:05

I know this because you didn't come

21:05

until after that the first round, we only

21:09

took a certain number of students and we

21:09

did, where we dripped out the content.

21:12

So then we can like, we can kind of

21:12

read the room and we can add more

21:15

content and see what they needed. And we found that some people

21:17

were at just different stages.

21:20

In their business. Like you might be struggling with mindset.

21:23

Well, you know, me, I'm just

21:23

struggling with like, I need

21:26

to hire a team right now. And so the way that we've structured

21:27

it is the five core modules,

21:30

which is mindset offers systems

21:30

team, and then the removability.

21:34

And so it sounds like when you

21:34

jumped in, you were like systems is

21:36

what I need outside of the project

21:36

management system, which you already

21:40

had in place from kickoff with Asana. And so what I did is I, really,

21:42

I took that kickoff with Asana

21:48

and I took the systems and it's

21:48

like, I blew it up on steroids.

21:52

And it's amazing. It's so amazing.

21:56

because that's what we needed because,

21:56

we had another contractor at that time.

22:00

Then coming on as a bookkeeper,

22:00

and it's just like, you know,

22:03

you can get spread so thin. And then that second bookkeeping

22:06

contractor, I hired her as an employee in

22:10

September, and I was going through, , our

22:10

tech and like, I was like, Oh, I need

22:15

to teach her this and this and this. And then I was like, light bulb.

22:18

I'm going to go to the team

22:18

module of a breakthrough.

22:22

I watched all the videos really quickly. I threw together a training program

22:24

and now I don't have to do that again.

22:27

So now I have a training prog. program.

22:29

Yeah. Stop. So now I've had, and now I've hired two

22:31

more people and they've gone through it.

22:34

So three people have now gone

22:34

through my training program.

22:38

And it's like, I'm telling them,

22:38

I'm like, this is extremely homemade.

22:43

No judgment, please tell me, you

22:43

know, you're not going to get

22:48

some fancy made in a studio video.

22:50

This is me talking. And my, the gentleman that I hired,

22:52

he's like, I got to know you.

22:56

Through watching these videos. And I was like, Ooh, yeah.

22:59

Think of that. Yeah. Cause he couldn't see my personality.

23:03

He's like, you're a riot. And he he's like, he's

23:04

three weeks into his job.

23:06

He's like, it's the best job ever. Oh, I love it.

23:09

Oh my gosh. Of all the things I'm like, I've been

23:10

keeping a little list of all things.

23:13

Laurie has accomplished like

23:13

mentally in my brain as you've

23:17

gone through breakthrough new,

23:17

cause you share a lot of your wins,

23:19

which I love when you share them. And I take mental note of these things.

23:22

But. What? What? You just held back this

23:24

golden nugget from me?

23:27

You took the internal training

23:27

program and you did something with it?

23:30

I'm so proud of you. I should, you know what?

23:33

I should send you through my

23:33

internal training program.

23:36

Stop it. I'm so excited right now. This is too much.

23:38

For anyone who's like listening,

23:38

who wants some context.

23:41

So, this idea and concept came to me when

23:41

I was hiring, I can't remember who it was.

23:46

It was actually hiring at Workflow Queen. It wasn't even hiring at my firm.

23:50

anyways at that time. I found that we had to put one of

23:52

our team members and kind of like

23:54

re onboard them and retrain them. And we are in the process of hiring a new

23:56

person that I was like, you know what?

24:00

Every time I've ever worked for more

24:00

corporate type companies, they had an

24:03

internal training program, like, you know,

24:03

target and then like Olive Garden, all

24:06

these different, like bigger corporations. And I was like, what if we took

24:08

that same concept and built her own

24:12

internal training program to help the

24:12

team understand what is our business

24:16

like, and without the corporate bull,

24:16

because the corporate bull is like.

24:20

The corporatey things and like

24:20

dual, you know what I mean?

24:22

Like I wanted it to be personality. And so I built my own internal training

24:24

program for workflow queen specifically.

24:28

And then that's when it

24:28

started to like gain traction.

24:31

Other people were like, you built this program. Like, yeah, it's four weeks.

24:34

My team goes through it. I don't have to train them once.

24:37

The only time that we get, we talk

24:37

to them is the very beginning.

24:39

When we get them on the call to say,

24:39

this is how you access your platform.

24:42

Like that's all you're going to get from us. And, but then we have management following

24:45

up with them to make sure that they're

24:47

on track and they feel confident. Well, anyways, that's when it sparked

24:49

this idea to add this same training inside

24:54

of Breakthrough and to talk about it. Not my training, obviously, but like

24:56

the training of how to build this.

25:00

And so anyone listening, that's what

25:00

we give inside of Breakthrough is

25:03

like this breakdown of like building

25:03

this internal training program.

25:06

Because if you are at that scaling phase,

25:06

you are going to find yourself needing

25:10

more employees and more team members. And as you do, you won't have to

25:11

constantly have to train them, especially

25:15

because I'm assuming they're bookkeepers. Right. Right. So that training program is.

25:18

Geared towards bookkeeping. Well, it's really like homemade.

25:23

I love this. So like the date, the first day is,

25:25

five or six lessons and it's the

25:31

vision, values, culture, who we are.

25:34

and that I got right out of breakthrough. And that we can come back to this.

25:37

That was the hardest thing I have

25:37

done yet with the breakthrough

25:42

works, the work I've done. And then the next sort of 2

25:44

days, it's, it's lessons over the

25:48

tech we use and how we use it. So, it isn't really, how to do

25:50

the bookkeeping, it's how to

25:53

use Asana, how to use our Slack.

25:56

These are our Slack channels

25:56

and, what do we use?

25:59

We use OneDrive and Google Drive, . So,

25:59

it's just sort of a, a little, it's, it's

26:04

the owner's manual enhanced in a, in a

26:04

training program, how we use LastPass, and

26:11

how do you come up with a secure password?

26:14

And I remember I sent you my, my

26:14

homework for that password and you

26:19

wrote back, I can't believe this. I'd never thought of it.

26:22

And it's coming up with the sentence. And using the 1st letter of each

26:24

sentence is your log in to last

26:29

pass and you can change it to at

26:29

symbols and exclamation marks.

26:34

You know, an E can become a 3. so you can write Lori is awesome.

26:39

I love her so much on your wall.

26:42

And that is your, the first letter

26:42

of that sentence of each word in

26:47

that sentence is your past, is

26:47

your past, your master password.

26:50

No one who comes into your office is

26:50

going to think that's your password.

26:55

Unless I come into your office and

26:55

look at little slogans around your

26:58

office, I'm going to figure this out. Yeah, exactly.

27:03

Well, that's a great, I love that. Yes. It's so funny.

27:06

I, I mean. The internal training program,

27:07

I'm telling you, was probably one

27:10

of the most heaviest things on my

27:10

chest as the business owner as well.

27:14

And so seeing the breakthrough

27:14

students who have implemented the

27:17

training program are like at so much

27:17

more peace because we're the same.

27:20

We don't teach like how to do the bookkeeping. It really is vision, value, like

27:22

here's how to create an SOP, you know,

27:26

here's all about notion and like. Because how Lori uses Asana is going

27:28

to be wildly different than me, even

27:32

though we've taken, she's taken my

27:32

program directly related to how to

27:36

use Asana, you still have adapted it

27:36

to yourself and what you expect from

27:39

your team might be different than

27:39

what I would expect from my team.

27:42

And so I think these internal training

27:42

programs, like a good message for

27:44

anyone to hear is that It gives you

27:44

the opportunity to be consistent

27:48

because I think that when we get on

27:48

these calls with these new trainees

27:51

that we're trying to train and

27:51

onboard, we get really distracted.

27:54

We forget to even cover last

27:54

pass or forget to even talk

27:57

about this on these zooms. So if you can't create this internal

27:58

training program, and that just sounds

28:02

like way too much of a feat, because. You probably know it takes

28:03

time and it takes energy and

28:07

it is homemade and that's fine. If anything, just put together an agenda,

28:09

like something to keep you on track.

28:12

If not, you will not be consistent. And that's what I love about

28:14

the internal training programs.

28:16

Videos don't have to be super long. They could be super straightforward.

28:20

And they're fun once you

28:20

get into the rhythm of it.

28:22

Yeah, I think I need to,

28:22

and certainly keep going.

28:26

Like it's, not what it could be.

28:28

And then every now and then I

28:28

think, Oh, I need to put this in.

28:31

And, guy that I hired, he's like,

28:31

well, it says that I'm on day one,

28:35

but this sheet says it's day four. So all my sequencing is out.

28:40

So I'm like, oh, screw it. I don't care. It's going to be

28:44

It makes them proactive. Like, because now they have to like Change

28:46

it! Yeah. I don't care. Well, the beauty is For us, like, I

28:48

think in our internal training program,

28:52

so every day, because we're similar,

28:52

for us, it's four weeks of training,

28:56

but every single day at the end of the

28:56

day, they have, like, an outtake form.

29:00

I don't know if, did you end up taking the outtake form that we did, we gave in Breakthrough?

29:03

I did. I used some of it. I made my own.

29:06

I love it. Good. So you tweaked it.

29:08

So you used it as like the inspiration, right? So like, yeah, what we did was,

29:10

we actually asked for feedback.

29:13

We asked, for, was there anything

29:13

that was confusing or didn't connect?

29:16

And that's how we were able to

29:16

continuously improve the training program.

29:21

Now it's like kind of down to

29:21

like a T like, cause we also

29:24

have one for my firm as well. And man, it's just getting

29:25

the feedback from your team.

29:28

Not only that, but like. Instead of waiting till someone's already

29:29

working on client work to realize that

29:33

they don't understand something, you're

29:33

kind of catching it during their training

29:36

because when they're filling out those

29:36

outtake forms or doing the quizzes for

29:39

maybe your, your internal lessons, you can

29:39

catch that it's not connecting for them.

29:44

And so if you can nip it in the

29:44

butt before then having to wait till

29:47

later and it's just so much easier. Mm

29:49

hmm. . Yeah. Yeah. it's been fun.

29:51

I mean, I have no expectations

29:51

of them thinking I'm this amazing

29:56

person of professional video quality.

29:58

It's just like . But you know what though? Ours is the same.

30:01

Like all I have is like my mic, like you

30:01

me, nobody, obviously people can't see me

30:05

'cause they're gonna see you on our page. Mm-Hmm . But for me, I look crazy right

30:07

now because I just had to go the freaking

30:10

shovel snow , like, I don't care. That's usually how I do my videos.

30:14

And for anybody who doesn't wanna do

30:14

these videos and like, feel like you

30:17

have to like get ready and stuff, just. Film without your video on like, there's

30:19

a lot of videos that I was on, on camera

30:23

for the internal training program. But at that time, Alyssa Truelove

30:24

was working for me and I outsourced a

30:28

lot, like 75 percent of our internal

30:28

training program to her, but she also

30:31

knew the business inside and out. And so whoever you have doing it

30:33

needs to also understand it, but

30:36

you can involve your team as well. Mm hmm.

30:39

Yeah, for sure. Yeah. my assistant that ran through the

30:41

course first would always come

30:46

back to me and say, watch this

30:46

video next, watch this video next.

30:50

Oh, Alyssa said this, we need to do this.

30:52

And so she really was the champion

30:52

to push me to finish the mindset and

30:58

setting the company culture module

30:58

because I had started it and it

31:02

was like, too hard, not doing it.

31:05

We'll come back to this in a year or two.

31:10

So let's talk through that. Cause I know that you had just

31:11

mentioned that that was the hardest

31:13

part of breakthrough, which I agree. I think a lot of times we go into

31:15

any program that talks about mindset.

31:17

It's like, ah, here we go again,

31:17

talking about mindset and vision.

31:20

It's like, we all just skip through

31:20

it, but it is one of the hardest

31:24

things that you can do is to think

31:24

through what do you really want?

31:27

From this business, because it drives everything. Yeah.

31:30

And I think, I think for me, it,

31:30

honestly, the, my initial vision

31:36

was to replace my EI income, right?

31:38

Like that was the goal.

31:41

And, and now all of a

31:41

sudden I have people.

31:45

I'm bossed way too hard. What?

31:47

You girlbossed way too long. Yeah, and I was taught that being

31:49

a stay at home mom was one of the

31:53

most noble things that someone

31:53

could do, and I adore my children,

31:56

but I don't love them that much. I would go insane if I had

31:59

to stay at home with them.

32:03

They're great. But come on. Sorry, I love don't be sorry.

32:08

I think this is like you are my spirit animal.

32:11

So I think I needed a break. I mean, there's only so much Max

32:13

and Ruby that you can take on

32:17

treehouse that you're going insane.

32:19

And I would come and sit in my

32:19

office and I would look up at my

32:22

degree on the wall and go, I do.

32:25

No thanks. There are things up here.

32:28

And like, where's Caillou's mom, right? Like she's never in any of the episodes

32:30

and any parent out there is going to

32:34

know exactly what I'm talking about. High five.

32:36

I see you. You will get through your stage of life.

32:40

Anyway. so I never, like it came so fast.

32:44

This, this booming into this

32:44

more success than I, Dreamed.

32:50

Yeah. And it was so honestly overwhelming.

32:54

and all the insecurities of who am I? Why do I deserve this?

32:58

it was hard. It was really, really hard.

33:01

And, to sit down and then do that

33:01

business audit and, and see, you

33:06

know, like, we're really miserably

33:06

failing at a couple of areas and.

33:12

it was systems and it was customer service

33:12

and I thought if we get our systems

33:16

together, the customer service will come. And that's why I focused so hard

33:18

on the systems and it did and.

33:23

We've gotten tons of clients since

33:23

focusing on systems and I don't

33:29

advertise this is something that I

33:29

don't know if I've ever said, I have

33:33

never advertised a day in my life. and I choose not to, all of our business

33:35

is referrals and word of mouth, through

33:40

the accounting firms that we work with

33:40

and the business owners that we have.

33:44

So I'm very, very choosy in who I

33:44

say yes to, And I've, let clients

33:49

go when they've gotten to the top of

33:49

our skill set, and I've let clients

33:54

go that don't align with our vision. And I recently fired a client a month

33:56

ago, just before Christmas, that I'm

34:01

like, you can't treat me this way. You cannot treat my staff this way.

34:04

Yeah, this is, thank you, but

34:04

be blessed and be on your way.

34:09

Bye. Yeah. and my husband looked at me and,

34:10

you know, I'm sitting there like

34:13

nauseous and, you know, ready to barf.

34:17

And he looked at me and

34:17

he says, good for you.

34:20

Or having a business that you're

34:20

confident to say goodbye to people

34:27

because you know that it will come back. And and so I think that, the

34:29

mindset of acknowledging that.

34:35

I know my staff of.

34:37

being okay with the success that I

34:37

have when I don't feel like I've done

34:41

anything to deserve it was really hard.

34:44

And then putting it on paper

34:44

was really, really challenging.

34:50

And Cassie, my executive

34:50

assistant, she's like, you know

34:53

it, Lori, you know, your vision. And I'm like, how do I put it into words?

34:57

And she says, it's inside you. And I'm like, how do I write this?

35:02

So you had, visit pages of

35:02

prompts and I made myself sit

35:08

and answer every single question. And some of the questions was, my

35:09

answers was, this is a great question.

35:16

We need to circle back to this. Right. But I made myself write it out and it

35:18

ended up being 7, 000 words at the end.

35:26

and then from there, then

35:26

I could piece it down into.

35:30

What our vision was something more tangible for the team.

35:33

It's so funny that you say that because I

35:33

did the same exercise with my own version

35:37

of vision prompts, back in 2020 of March.

35:40

And I went through and I wrote on many

35:40

pieces of paper, like many pieces of

35:44

paper, answering every single question,

35:44

every single prompt, every little

35:48

thing that I could possibly think of. And then it just started to flow.

35:51

Like once you start answering and

35:51

then the picture comes together.

35:53

And now you're like, Not

35:53

even answering questions.

35:55

Now you're actually like going into

35:55

this like vision, but it's so funny

35:59

because I had to pack up my house

35:59

because I just bought this house

36:02

and I moved like a couple weeks ago. And in that process, I found that

36:03

stack of papers and I read through it.

36:08

Falling, of course, like, in my office

36:08

that's literally packed up that, like,

36:14

I already have a really hard time

36:14

detaching from the offices that I have

36:18

moved from because, like, you create

36:18

memories, different, milestones, like,

36:22

that I've hit in each of the offices

36:22

I've owned or, or, that I've lived in

36:25

and I've, You know, that's been my home. And man, when I saw that vision, it

36:27

was just like almost all of those

36:31

things were checked off, except

36:31

for one of them was a boyfriend.

36:34

I was dating at the time that I clearly

36:34

I thought was going to be around.

36:36

Like it's not there anymore, but

36:36

like even down to like living

36:41

in the snow, I literally did

36:41

not live anywhere near the snow.

36:44

When I wrote that back in 2020, I had

36:44

no idea I would be living where I did.

36:49

It's just so, so powerful that

36:49

when you just really connect

36:52

to what you really want. It does come out in words, but

36:53

sometimes the hardest part is the first

36:56

couple steps. Yeah. Yeah, exactly.

36:59

It was, it was hard. So, but you got it out and now you're

37:02

able to share it with the team and.

37:06

And it was, and we had a staff

37:06

retreat in November and, the push

37:11

was to get this vision out so I could

37:11

share it with the team in November.

37:15

And I knew that, and I'm like, we

37:15

pulled a tick this planning together

37:19

in like six weeks to plan this thing.

37:21

. So it Like I already said, it, it

37:21

was like that passion project, like,

37:26

was all I did for that period of time

37:26

because I had to throw myself into it.

37:30

But I knew if it didn't happen before

37:30

Christmas, we weren't going to be able

37:33

to do it till June, just because of

37:33

the cycle of taxes and, and stuff.

37:37

So, when I shared it with the team,

37:37

when I read it, I cried like I bawled

37:42

at the, we had, we rented a boardroom. , we all live in the same city.

37:45

So we went and rented a boardroom and

37:45

we had a day and we had snacks and lunch

37:50

brought in and gifts and it was wonderful.

37:53

But I said to them, it feels like I'm

37:53

leaving my soul on the table and because.

37:59

at that point, I had a

37:59

team of three plus me.

38:02

So for, I knew that the risk

38:02

of losing them was high.

38:07

If they could not align themselves

38:07

to that vision and my values.

38:12

And I thought that they would. I mean, I thought everyone's

38:14

going to be okay with this, but

38:17

that that risk of them saying.

38:20

You have a great business plan. You have a great vision.

38:22

This is not for me is there and

38:22

every subsequent hire now will be

38:28

showing this prior to them getting

38:28

hired and they get to choose.

38:32

So there will be a very different

38:32

relationship with the new

38:37

staff post writing this, this

38:37

vision than the existing staff.

38:41

Right? So that that fear of potentially

38:42

losing them was very high.

38:47

Yeah, but did you though? I didn't lose anybody.

38:50

Yeah, because you probably exuded your

38:50

vision in a way that you just couldn't

38:53

articulate like you couldn't explain. Yeah, well, and they probably

38:55

were like a full body.

38:57

Hell. Yes, like when you read it like that. Yeah in full alignment.

39:01

I think everyone was crying and And

39:01

I asked them to sign, I mean, a non

39:07

binding thing, but just, uh, you know,

39:07

we acknowledge this and, and I will do

39:11

everything I can to uphold these values.

39:13

And, and at the end, the end of the

39:13

day, it's my reputation that's in

39:19

their hands but I have a great team.

39:21

I have a great team. And you know, everyone's Yeah.

39:24

Just as crazy as I am. Yeah. Which is great.

39:26

I mean, like, I feel like if you can

39:26

really lay out to people what your long

39:30

term vision is and what's happening,

39:30

even if you can't, if you struggle to

39:33

articulate it, or even if like, you don't

39:33

even know fancy versions of your values,

39:38

you know, sometimes you go to people's

39:38

website, they have fancy versions of them.

39:41

Like it's okay. For anyone listening, if you don't

39:42

have anything fancy and you don't

39:45

even know the right terms or the

39:45

things that you're trying to use,

39:49

just having open conversations with

39:49

your team about these things really

39:53

real lines them and really gets them

39:53

on the same page to stand behind you.

39:59

And then also know that they're in

39:59

alignment to know that you're going

40:01

to take care of them, because that's

40:01

another thing you're literally selling.

40:04

Like you're asking someone to trade

40:04

their life to come work for you.

40:08

And so how can I sell it? And so I love what you touched on just

40:09

a second ago, when you were talking

40:13

about how now everybody before they're

40:13

even hired now gets to choose if this

40:17

vision will align with them or not. And I think that that's where a lot

40:19

of people in this industry really fail

40:22

is that they just do a generic job

40:22

description that just does, here's a

40:26

couple of things and here's what we do. It's like, I'm assuming you've included

40:27

it somehow in your job sourcing, correct?

40:32

Yeah, so I just hired, someone, I

40:32

posted an ad just before Christmas, on,

40:38

you know, one of the job sites and, I

40:38

said who we are, so I tried to put as

40:44

much, this is who we are into, you know,

40:44

that paragraph that you can, that you

40:48

have room for, but what was fascinating

40:48

is the people's responses that I got,

40:56

the guy that I hired, he was one of the

40:56

first people I interviewed I interviewed

41:01

six people, And some of them were

41:01

like, you'll be a great contractor.

41:06

They'll be a great contractor. You know, this is the person

41:07

for this job and, and so on.

41:10

And I kept, coming back to two people

41:10

and I couldn't choose between the two.

41:16

So I hired them both. Good.

41:18

Yeah. A lot of people do that. And, I hired the guy.

41:22

Was going to be a contractor to become

41:22

employee and then, like, the next day,

41:26

something happened and it's like, okay,

41:26

it's time for you to become an employee.

41:30

And he just laughed at me. but something about every single candidate

41:32

that even though it was time, time had

41:37

elapsed and I would reply and say, I

41:37

really respect the things you said.

41:44

Could we can keep communication lines

41:44

open because there's opportunities on

41:49

the horizon and I think that you will be

41:49

a good fit for the team at some point.

41:53

Every one of them has said yes. So something about either

41:55

our interview or the job ad.

42:01

They really want to work with me and

42:01

the flexibility that I am promoting,

42:06

which is part of our vision and values.

42:08

Right? Yeah. Yeah. I love that.

42:11

I love that you're sprinkling

42:11

it into like all parts of even

42:14

just finding and vetting people. Because you really will.

42:17

I mean, people can read. My job description would be like,

42:19

this girl is way too crazy for me.

42:22

Like rockstar, kick ass,

42:22

unicorns, blah, blah, blah.

42:25

Like, it's just like too much

42:25

at one time, but it's okay.

42:27

Because like, that's going to just push

42:27

away naturally the people who are just not

42:32

as fun and just want to be Debbie Downers. It's like, I don't have time for that.

42:35

I don't got the energy for all that. Like, you know what I mean?

42:38

So I think that it's, this is why it's

42:38

so important for anyone listening who

42:41

is going through the process of hiring. That you need to try to put your

42:43

personality into it because you are

42:46

a reflection of your company, even

42:46

if they're not going to, you're

42:48

not going to be the person that

42:48

they're like talking to all the time.

42:51

Maybe they're talking to a manager

42:51

because it is so key to make sure

42:54

that you attract people that like. You can go to bed knowing that you're

42:56

confident and that you feel in full

42:59

alignment with and them to you as well.

43:02

And I think that this is what creates a

43:02

very unique job description, you know.

43:07

Did you use the bot that we

43:07

put inside of Breakthrough or

43:10

did you hire before we released the bot?

43:12

That was right before

43:12

you released the bot.

43:15

I sent it to you and you

43:15

fed it through the thing.

43:19

I think I was a test case. and so I did it.

43:22

But I had also. With the search function on the

43:24

Facebook group, I had found a couple

43:28

other people who had said, this

43:28

is my job description and job ad.

43:32

And so from all of that, I pulled it

43:32

together what I wanted and, my husband,

43:38

I, had used the word rockstar because that

43:38

was in one of the big, one of them that

43:42

are from someone, you or another lady.

43:45

And he's like, Really, Lori?

43:47

He's amazing. He goes, Is this really you?

43:50

And I'm like, No. But I don't know what word to use.

43:55

It just fits. And he's like, how about happy?

44:00

And I'm like, okay. And happy is my, work happy is one

44:01

of my visions, our corporate culture.

44:07

That's what we have, work happy. and so that's what our

44:10

secret word was, was happy.

44:13

Oh, that's cool. Like your secret subject line for the job.

44:15

Oh, I love that. Yes. All we changed it from rockstar to happy.

44:19

Yep. Yep. Everyone's ours is like,

44:20

I found my dream company. It's got a unicorn emoji.

44:23

And that part's important

44:23

because some people skip unicorn.

44:26

So if they skip it, you're out. But yeah, so a lot of fruit.

44:30

For anybody who's listening,

44:30

who's like, what the hell is

44:32

everyone talking about here? So we, created, I invested in hiring,

44:33

a company, uh, a guy who was, like a

44:37

software engineer to build a custom

44:37

bot for breakthrough students only.

44:42

And essentially it takes like the.

44:45

The ways that I do my job description are probably the best way I can describe how it's built.

44:49

It's like my fluffiness and all the

44:49

different unique things that I do

44:53

that are above and beyond most people

44:53

who, like, have job descriptions.

44:56

It takes my methodologies and

44:56

essentially you can tell it what role

45:00

you're looking for, what personality

45:00

traits you're looking for, the amount

45:03

of time that you have to hire for and

45:03

some, your secret subject line, and

45:07

it will spit out the job description. It does need to be reworked.

45:10

Like I sent it to you. You definitely had to rework some

45:11

of the things, but It doesn't get

45:14

people stalled to have the excuse

45:14

that like, Alyssa, I just, I don't

45:17

have time to create a job description. Well, now it's, now it's, a lot

45:18

of the heavy lifting is done.

45:22

All I gotta do is tweak it to

45:22

make your personality stick out.

45:25

Yeah, and what I'm gonna do now is and

45:25

I told all my staff this in November at

45:30

their team retreat, was everyone's getting

45:30

job performance reviews this month.

45:35

And so, I'm going to be sending

45:35

the job descriptions to our junior

45:40

bookkeeping team to say, okay,

45:40

these are the skills that I expect.

45:44

Now at this, at this role, because

45:44

we have people in intermediate

45:49

and senior bookkeeping roles. And so I have to define what makes

45:51

it the difference between each.

45:57

Job, and so it's 1 of those same

45:57

things with the vision and values.

46:02

It's okay. It's time to write this down now, and it's

46:02

time to make a policy so that people can

46:07

understand why I'm pushing them to take

46:07

a course or or why I need them to be.

46:13

really good at this skill. Well, this is your job.

46:15

This is in the job description. And, and I feel like I'm doing everything

46:17

backwards and upside down and wrong

46:22

10 ways to Sunday, but it's working.

46:27

It's working. Yeah, it's happening.

46:29

It's working. He hopped on one of the coaching

46:30

calls last week or the week before

46:35

I'd had a really rough morning. I hopped on, I think for the last

46:37

20 minutes and, Someone was really

46:41

struggling and I'm like, I can, I,

46:41

let me show you what I've done and

46:45

it really helped them and I got off

46:45

the call and I called my husband.

46:48

I'm like. I do know what I'm doing. I'm not failing.

46:53

This is really encouraging. So even I got something out of it because

46:55

it was like, I am on the right track.

47:00

It may feel like I'm, you know, you know,

47:00

those little wind up toys that you You let

47:07

go and then they go in like a direction

47:07

different from what you anticipated.

47:11

Like, it feels like I'm a wind up. I know the feeling.

47:14

I know the feeling. I think a lot of people feel like that.

47:18

Yeah. And I think that every step is always

47:18

one step closer to like the end result.

47:21

And the thing is, it'll never be an end. And this business journey that we're

47:23

on, I feel like it's so, I just love it.

47:27

I'm so intrigued by people's stories

47:27

and how they got to where they are

47:30

and their journey, because like,

47:30

that's so much more fun than like,

47:33

if we had some sort of an end result. Yeah.

47:36

It would be nice to have, never have

47:36

to tweak a system, never have to fix

47:39

anything, just have the same consistency.

47:41

It's just not, I find that our business

47:41

is really, truly this, what Brooke

47:45

says all the time on coaching calls and

47:45

breakthrough, that we are a reflection

47:48

of our business or our business is

47:48

a reflection of us as individuals.

47:51

So if our life is chaos, our business

47:51

is going to be chaos or, and not

47:54

to say that that's what it is. I, that sounded so bad when it came out.

47:56

Now I feel like. Yeah. Well,

47:59

sometimes if you feel like a wind

47:59

up toy in your real life, then

48:02

maybe that's why you find you

48:02

feel like that in your business.

48:05

And that's not what I meant in any capacity. What I mean is I can find that even

48:07

though I'm not as involved in the

48:11

companies anymore and I'm more detached.

48:15

The company and the direction it's

48:15

going does reflect based off what I

48:18

want and what I desire from, from me. Right.

48:20

But when my life starts to get

48:20

crumbly or messy or gets really

48:25

good, things just are really great.

48:27

Or just they're crumbly and messy. Like I find that like right now

48:28

I'm at so much peace with my

48:32

business, especially because we're

48:32

doing what I'm calling a rebirth.

48:35

Of my firm. we are not announcing it cause I don't

48:37

want anybody to steal the name, but

48:39

we are going through a rebirth is what

48:39

I'd like to call it and not a rebrand.

48:43

And I just feel so much

48:43

at peace right now.

48:46

Like I feel so in alignment,

48:46

but I feel like it's because

48:48

also my life is feeling aligned. Right.

48:50

And so, you know, and I think

48:50

that that's just an important

48:52

thing that the journey is. Such an experience and I think you've

48:54

done such an incredible job of like

48:59

Taking what's given to you and and running

48:59

with it because I think a lot of people

49:02

have that problem They get stalled they

49:02

get stuck and they get overwhelmed.

49:05

Yeah, it was interesting because

49:05

just the last since Saturday you know

49:11

you asked me to come on this podcast

49:11

and and a client has asked me to

49:15

speak and I'm like I can't do this.

49:20

My husband's like, yes, you can. And he's like, you do it all the time.

49:25

And I and it's just again,

49:25

it's one of those natural.

49:29

It's just so natural to me.

49:32

It is not an effort at all.

49:35

And, and so I don't think that that's

49:35

what I'm doing when I'm doing it.

49:39

It was really interesting. My dad is a really A business, really

49:41

smart business executive, and he helped

49:46

me work through the vision and values. And, he said to me, that which

49:48

stresses you out the most

49:51

is what you value the most. And I had never thought

49:54

about that in a positive way.

49:59

And so I was able to identify

49:59

the things that really I get the

50:03

most anxiety about with my team.

50:06

Or my clients and I turned it

50:06

into, this is why it stresses me

50:10

out because I value it so much.

50:12

He cares so much about it. And it's, it's been such a relief to

50:14

see the positive side of a stressor.

50:21

Right? I like that. I'm like, I have a lot

50:23

of things that stress me out. Yeah.

50:25

And it's a look at it. And what can you change about it?

50:30

Right. and one of my big things is communication.

50:33

And we did the strengths

50:33

finder test as part of our team

50:37

retreat prep and 32 or 34 items.

50:42

Well, my communication was

50:42

like second from the bottom.

50:44

I'm like, yeah. That means I have to work really hard to

50:46

communicate and that's why it stresses me

50:51

out and therefore that is why I value it

50:51

because it does not come naturally to me.

50:56

Yeah, 100%. And my whole team was like, they

50:57

never would have guessed that

51:01

communication was not in my top 10.

51:04

And I'm like, that just

51:04

shows you how hard I work to

51:07

communicate my strengths finder is I don't

51:07

have any relationship building at all.

51:12

Like no joke. If you look at my strengths

51:13

finders lineup, I'll link this

51:16

below to anyone who's interested. It's really amazing. Cause you can see like your

51:18

top five strings, 10 strings.

51:20

I did the full report. I think it's like 33 or 35.

51:22

I can't remember the exact amount,

51:22

but, my top ones, like I'm,

51:26

it's like competitive strategic. Analytical, like just like, just

51:28

all these things that have like

51:32

zero desire to be like relationship

51:32

driven across all of mine.

51:37

I have zero relationship building,

51:37

like, cause they, you know how

51:40

they put them in little pockets. And I was like, does that

51:41

make me a shitty human being?

51:46

It's really funny because one of my

51:46

bookkeepers, her, like most of her

51:50

top 10 is relationship building.

51:54

And I was like, This is fascinating,

51:54

because she can ruffle feathers, or I

52:00

mean, she can calm ruffled feathers like

52:00

nobody's business, be it a client or me,

52:07

and I'm like, huh, this is fascinating.

52:11

Right. Yeah. We've had, um, team members that based

52:12

off the results from StrengthsFinders

52:16

and we like deep dove into how

52:16

to, translate the information.

52:19

We actually changed a team member's role

52:19

because of StrengthsFinders when we found

52:24

out that like they really excelled in

52:24

like, it was a communication key part.

52:28

And we found that all of our other

52:28

team members were, very strategic

52:31

in the strategy and analytical.

52:33

But we needed someone who was going

52:33

to be able to fit that bucket of

52:36

communication because it's relationship

52:36

building and it's not to say that

52:39

just because I don't have relationship

52:39

building in there doesn't mean I'm not

52:41

that people are like, that's so crazy. Like you'd like to talk, I'm like, but

52:43

at the same time, like I don't, and I

52:46

actually really like to just solve the

52:46

problem and get past the emotional.

52:50

Yeah, it was so interesting.

52:53

My executive assistant. So, at that time, my team was

52:55

comprised of 2 bookkeepers,

52:58

an executive assistant and me. So, 4 of us.

53:01

So, my 2 bookkeepers

53:01

had no top 5 the same.

53:06

Yeah, it's fascinating. And I had, and that, but my executive

53:08

assistant, all of her top 10, was

53:15

commonality with one other person. So she is like the glue that holds us

53:17

together because she has shared her.

53:23

Skills sets with each of us. And we only had one strength that we

53:25

all had in that top 10 that was shared

53:29

among all three of us, or all four of us. So it's really been fascinating.

53:34

So this year, one of the things we do each

53:34

month is we do a monthly team challenge

53:39

and we have a slack channel called a

53:39

monthly challenge and it's, this month,

53:44

because we've got two, three new people.

53:46

We're, we're doing a deep dive

53:46

into, getting to know you questions.

53:51

And so, but next month, we're gonna

53:51

start diving into our strengths.

53:56

And I bought the book from the strengths

53:56

finder for the managers or something.

54:01

so that it will ask. Pointed questions.

54:04

Okay. This is you're reliable. What does that mean?

54:07

What is your blind spot? And so that we can get to know each

54:08

other on a, on a different level.

54:13

Yeah. I love that. You should check out the

54:14

guest expert session. I don't know if you know this.

54:17

Brian, did you check out his session?

54:19

No, I haven't yet. Okay. So inside of the coaching call

54:21

replay portal, inside a breakthrough,

54:24

there is a session by Brian Baker. So he is a strengths finders expert.

54:28

And essentially he did a session where he like. like, talk through my stre needed to

54:31

use somebody's he's actually a coach.

54:36

So finders coaches to come i

54:36

and he does that with the cool.

54:41

So he talked about About how you want

54:41

things correlating with your team.

54:46

And it was very, very, very interesting. so definitely check out

54:47

that guest expert replay.

54:50

I think you'd really benefit from that. Very exciting.

54:53

I think we covered so many things. I know we're a little bit over time,

54:54

so I want to respect your time.

54:56

I greatly appreciate you, Lori,

54:56

for taking the time to do this.

55:00

for anybody who is potentially on

55:00

the fence about joining Breakthrough,

55:03

who's at a similar stage as you, what

55:03

would be the one thing that you would.

55:06

give to them or say to them to help them

55:06

decide if this is the right fit for them.

55:10

I think I would say if, if you're on the

55:10

fence, like, just listen to your gut.

55:15

If you're gut saying no, don't. If you're gut saying yes, do it.

55:18

Sorry. Hang on. Um, and it, I have never regretted

55:19

it, even though, like, I'm

55:28

probably 10 months in and I have

55:28

not completed all of the lessons.

55:33

It has been so valuable, invaluable

55:33

to me, in bringing consistency,

55:39

clarity to how to brand.

55:42

Even an email, templating an email, right?

55:45

It's just things you

55:45

just don't think about.

55:47

Um, you don't have to reinvent the wheel.

55:51

So, and yes, I paid 30 percent

55:51

more because I am in Canada and

55:55

it has been totally worth it.

55:58

It's like a testament. Well, I appreciate you, Lori,

56:02

so very much for being here.

56:05

And if anybody wants to reach out, get

56:05

connected with you or wants to learn

56:08

more about your firm, what is the best

56:08

way that people can reach out to you?

56:12

So, I do not have any socials,

56:12

and I was thinking about that

56:15

last week as I was listening. To your two girls that you interviewed.

56:19

And I'm like, I don't have any socials. I'm on Instagram personally

56:20

and Facebook personally.

56:24

So if people find me, sure, go ahead. I'll friend you.

56:28

But you can reach me at

56:28

Laurie, L O R I at DWP books.

56:34

ca. Yay. Well, very exciting.

56:37

Well, thank you once again, Laurie, for being here. I really appreciate you for taking

56:38

the time and I can't wait for

56:42

you to hear this lovely episode. Yeah.

56:45

Thanks.