Gabrielle Mills is the owner and co-founder of Sourced., a company providing a full-service back office solution to overwhelmed business owners and entrepreneurs. Specializing in bookkeeping, content marketing, office assistance, and placements services, Sourced. is an a la carte option for business owners to access critical resources without the burden of managing a full staff. Gabrielle began the business in 2016, and since it’s opening, Sourced. has won multiple awards and been recognized as a leader in the small business community. Sourced. gives back 10% of their monthly profits to foster care charities and other non-profit organizations, and looks to eventually expand into a national franchise.

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mike: [00:00:00] Hey everybody. This is in the trenches with Michael King where we talk with business owners, leaders, and executives about the lessons they've learned while fighting in the trenches of the business battlefield. I am Michael King. I'm really excited to bring this conversation to you. Today. We're talking about two of my favorite topics.

[00:00:16] We're going to talk about systems and processes, and we're going to talk about your why, so systems and processes. If you want to build a business. North of say, $500,000 or $1 million. If you want to get a business that's kind of North of that range, you are almost a hundred percent going to have to have a team around you.

[00:00:39] So maybe that's a W2 team,  actual employees. Maybe there's subcontractors on your team, but you really can't do it by yourself. There's going to have to be some teamwork involved. And I'll tell you if, if you want to find yourself in a really frustrating spot. And if you want to find your team in a really frustrating spot, then build a team without having any processes or procedures.

[00:01:05] Let me tell you what's going to happen. The team's going to come on. You're going to give them their marching orders, tell them what they need to go do, and you're going to find that they're constantly having to come back to you. And say, how do I do this? How do I do that? Is this right? And it's all because you don't have processes and procedures in place for them to follow.

[00:01:25] So what you'll have to do is kind of hit pause and put some things in place and then it hit play again. But really what you need to be doing is putting processes and procedures in place before you hire a team. Now the challenge with that is. It takes a significant amount of time to build out robust processes and procedures that really anybody can look at and follow.

[00:01:47] And so a lot of times is, is younger entrepreneurs, we're really busy.  we have a lot going on. It can be challenging to find the time to carve out to, to put those processes and procedures in place. But boy, it will pay off in the long run. And so today I'm going to talk with Gabrielle mills. Gabrielle is the CEO of sourced.

[00:02:07] They provide outsourced bookkeeping.  marketing and administrative services to companies. And Gabrielle had a similar experience to mine where,  she started to build this team and didn't have processes and procedures in place, and it ended up causing a lot of turmoil internally. It led to some turnover issues and it also led to some customer.

[00:02:30]  satisfaction issues. So, Gabrielle and I are going to talk about how to build out processes and procedures, when to do it, what some of the tactics look like behind it. And then we're going to talk a little bit about how as CEOs, when we don't hit our goals and our metrics, in other words, when, when we fail, how that can take a pretty hefty blow.

[00:02:52] To our self-confidence and Cabrio is going to share a story, whether it's about how early on in sourced life cycle, she had some pretty big misses and that led to borderline depression, and she's going to share a really authentic story with us about how it was because of her. Why. That she was able to pull herself out of that.

[00:03:14] She knew that she had a greater purpose and a greater cause and that she had to pick herself up out of it. And so, we're going to talk about how you determine your why and how that can really help you when times are bad. So, without further ado, here's my conversation with Gabrielle mills.

[00:03:39] Gabrielle, how's it going? 

[00:03:41] Gabrielle Mills: [00:03:41] That's great night. Thanks for having me. 

[00:03:44] mike: [00:03:44] Absolutely. How are you today? 

[00:03:46] Gabrielle Mills: [00:03:46] I am good. I am having a really productive day today, and that's always a win when you get some time to actually get some stuff done. So, it's good. Good 

[00:03:56] mike: [00:03:56] for you. So, before we started the interview, you had given me a little bit of a of a quote, and that was that when God decides it's time for you to level up your business.

[00:04:08] You have to strip it down in order to build it up bigger. I'm really interested to hear what happened with you that that led you to that realization, but before we do, why don't you tell us a little bit about you and get sourced and how you got here today. 

[00:04:23] Gabrielle Mills: [00:04:23] Yes. Thank you for the opportunity to share and I'd love to tell you about it.

[00:04:27] So sourced started in 2016 my mom and I started it together. Her name is Chrissy. We always had a dream of building a business and we went through a journey of figuring out what kind of business we wanted to have. And at the end of the journey, we built source and it is a full service, all a cart back, office dilution or small to medium sized businesses.

[00:04:51] And that's a lot of words to say that we basically allow businesses to completely outsource the back end of what they do. We do content marketing, bookkeeping, administrative assistance. We will help hire full time employees. We do payroll, all the back-office stuff that is needed. Businesses can outsource to outsource it to us.

[00:05:14] We have a staff of people that are professional as an each one of their fields, and we end up providing an innovative approach to receiving resources and help in your business that don't necessarily look like the traditional full-time employee or full staff. So, it's a little different, but we love what we do, and we get to help lots of different types of small to medium size businesses and a lot of fun for us.

[00:05:40] mike: [00:05:40] Based on what you were telling me before, your background isn't in that kind 

[00:05:44] Gabrielle Mills: [00:05:44] of work, right? Oh, hell no. When I started this, I knew nothing. I thought I knew some stuff. I knew nothing. I was 26 when I quit my corporate job. I was at a large fatality and hotel company. Doing marketing and branding too, which I loved, loved my job, loved the people.

[00:06:03] But as I'll tell you in my story, that just right off the bat, I'm a very spiritual person and God told me he wanted me to open a business and I didn't know when that was coming. And it was when I was 26 and he basically closed all the doors and he said, this is what I want you to do. And kind of forced me into it.

[00:06:23]  and we had this really great idea that was coming off the ground on it though. And that was the impotence for me starting. I had a marketing background, so that kind of helped when I was. Developing the marketing side of our business, but I had never done accounting and bookkeeping.  I had been an admin as a necessity for like a second,  just as a cause somebody needed me to fill that role.

[00:06:46] I have never hired anyone. The only time I was ever involved in,  the hiring of an employee was when I was interviewing. So, everything that I've learned from my business has been. From the ground up. And luckily we have hired amazing people onto our team that actually know what they're doing so we can provide this service because we have lots of great people and I've learned over time, we've been doing this long enough now that I know all of the ins and outs.

[00:07:15] First of all, when I first started, 

[00:07:18] mike: [00:07:18] so I'm trying to imagine you're, you were at IHG, the hotel group, right? And, and one day you wake up and you said,  no more brand managing for IHG.  and I can just picture you sitting like drinking a latte or something and  your friends or your family are like, well, what are you going to do?

[00:07:41] And you just say,  probably like outsource content marketing and bookkeeping, maybe, maybe some assistant work, I don't know. How did you go from marketing brand management to content marketing, bookkeeping? And. What does that journey look like? 

[00:08:01] Gabrielle Mills: [00:08:01]  I can laugh about it now because it wasn't too far off what you just described, but I'll tell you, I like to keep it pretty real.

[00:08:14] And  I think there are a lot of amazing entrepreneurs out there, and there's nothing worse than somebody that thinks they know what they're doing and says it to the world, but they actually don't. I am not one of them. So,  I'm here to like just air all my dirty laundry because I want people to go and do this.

[00:08:28] But back to your question, the story is my, my reality is that I knew God wanted me to open a business. I had absolutely no idea what. I had no idea when, what I was supposed to do, nothing. It has so happened that while my mom, Chrissy and I were looking for franchises at first because we decided we wanted to have this business.

[00:08:49] We didn't know what we wanted to do. We thought that would be a really good place to start. And we, through that process, we learned we wanted to do B2B work. I thought I wanted to do some marketing because again, that's the only thing that I knew, realized we didn't want to do a franchise anymore. So, then I tried to, or I didn't try.

[00:09:06] I just kind of dipped my toe into freelance marketing, realized I hated it. I actually loved marketing strategy but did not want to be the person that actually did the marketing thing. That was a very valuable lesson that I quickly learned and I'm glad I did. But then I had no ideas of what it is I wanted to do and honest to God, this concept just fell into my hands.

[00:09:28] We asked a bunch of business owners,  through the process of what do we do now, what it is that they needed. They gave us a bunch of answers of where they felt under supported or where they needed more help or where they were not receiving value from other people. And we put all these answers up on the board.

[00:09:49] On a whiteboard, we still have it. It's a giant whiteboard. And we've basically put stores together based on what they told us. So I'd love to say that a lot of it was within our control, and it was because we went out and we got that information and we did a lot of research and we talked to a lot of people, but there was a big part of it that it just kind of happened on to me.

[00:10:12] And when we had this idea, we loved it, but we needed to float it. We needed to make sure that it was going to work. So, we came up with that concept around February of 2016 and between that and July, which is when I actually quit my job,  I started floating it back to the business owners that we had spoken to about it.

[00:10:32] And,  just about their feedback. And I'm not kidding, Mike, they were like, we want to do this. Can I write you a check? Can we get started? And I had just so happened to have accepted a promoted job three months before and it was my dream job and everything I had been aspiring toward. I just kind of been doing this entrepreneur exploit exploration on the side.

[00:10:56] And then I've got these people like writing the checks that I've been, there's new job that is,  I'm working like 13-hour days and I had to make a decision. I'm like, what is it that I'm supposed to do? And for me, God was telling me to take the entrepreneur route because while I was absolutely in my dream job, what I had aspired to be doing, I completely sucked at it.

[00:11:21]  I don't know if it was just like all the doors were clothing or if like, I actually wasn't good at it, but I just, I was busting my butt every day and I felt like I was terrible at it and there was just a lot of things happening in my life that. And all signs were pointing to just take late, take lead, take the leap, and.

[00:11:39] I don't know if you've ever had a moment like that in your life, but it was really the loudest one in mine where it was like, okay, well I guess, I guess I just have to do this. So, I had a concept. I had a website,  my mom, like for Thea, and I had had many, like long, extensive conversations about how we were going to develop this business.

[00:11:57] So luckily when I went into to quit, I did have a concept to tell people and I said, this is what we're going to be doing. Granted, I had not actually done it. So,  there was. Some, like we're going to kind of figure it out along the way. The funniest part of what I remember from this time in my life is the look on people's faces because I was coming from a very stable corporate career with a trajectory in my dream job that I'll be at.

[00:12:29] I did not, I did not think I was good at that. I could get good at it and maybe that was another people's perception, but that's mine. And.  people kept asking me, they're like, you're going to do what you're, you're going to, you're going to, you're, you're going to start your own thing. You're going to quit. Some people were very concerned.

[00:12:47]  they were like, Oh, that is not a good idea. If you're about to just completely mess up your life. Other people were not so. Kind and they just looked at me like, all right, we'll see you back here in a year. That kind of stuff.  but then there was a lot of people that shared with me that they also had that dream that they were never in a financial situation or brave enough to take the leap.

[00:13:10] And that was really cool to see some people share that with me because you can tell they didn't feel comfortable sharing that and in their place of work. So, it was a very interesting time. I know that was a  winded story, but that's, that's how it all went down. 

[00:13:23] mike: [00:13:23] No, that's awesome. I think,  the other day I was recording a mini episode,  that are going to start going live here soon, where it's just me talking about things that I've come across in business.

[00:13:34] And the topic of that was there's so many people that these like wantrepreneur types that,  they, they come up with a concept for a business and they invest in a website and them. Do all this market, you know what they're called? Market research. And they plan and plan and plan, and they have these complex forecast and projections.

[00:13:55] And  there, there may be tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars in months and months or years into the planning part of the business. And at no point along the way, do they ever go to market and say, who's willing to buy this? Who's willing to put their money where their mouth is. And so, they get,  hundreds of thousands of their dollars potentially into a business venture or maybe millions of dollars of investor money.

[00:14:21] And they have no proof of concept. They have no, at no point has the market said,  we're willing to write you a check for this. So, it's really refreshing to hear you talk about the fact that you act, you went out and talk to prospective clients and said, what do you need. And then you said, Hey, how do I build, how do I answer this?

[00:14:38] How do I answer this problem? And so, you did. And then you went back and said, okay, now put your money where your mouth is. And they said, gladly, is that 

[00:14:47] Gabrielle Mills: [00:14:47] accurate? Thank God they did. That is 100% accurate because I luckily,  we, we took that six months between July and December to sit down and dig in on the business.

[00:14:57] Full time receiving no money because we weren't open yet technically, but we focused on contracts and processes and hiring and software’s and everything that we were going to need when it came time to open doors. So, when somebody actually put their money where their mouth was, we weren't only open for two weeks and figuring it out along the way, we at least wanted to feel prepared.

[00:15:18] And luckily that happened. So, we went back to those people and they got us a check and they said, we got started. Pretty immediately. I like to think that it was because we were ready, but with all entrepreneurship, there is an element of luck, so I won't downgrade that. There's probably some luck. It's like two.

[00:15:36] mike: [00:15:36] The, the term luck in entrepreneurship is, is a sore point with me. It's amazing how many times people have told me, wow, you're so lucky. You're so lucky. But the thing that really,  the thing that really pisses me off about that is I said,  there was some amounts that was out of my control here, but the preparation.

[00:15:56] The years of reading and studying and listening to podcasts and going to masterminds and all the things that I do prepared me so that when this opportunity came my way, I was able to capitalize on it. And so,

[00:16:16]  it's, it's,  it's really frustrating when people talk about like, Oh, you're so lucky. Well, I said, well,  as long as you define. Yeah. As long as you define luck is the intersection of preparation and opportunity, then  I'm lucky, but I didn't go to Vegas and roll the dice and hit sevens. Right?

[00:16:34] Like that's not what happened. There is,  when I tell people I read 20 to 30 books a year, that's reading books. That's not audible or anything else. That's legitimate books that I read on top of the audibles on top of the book clubs and all the other things. And so. It's really frustrating when people say like, Oh, you're so lucky.

[00:16:55] Gabrielle Mills: [00:16:55] Well, no, you can absolutely argue with, with the word. Let me clarify what I believe luck is. I believe you put hard work in, and you show up to as many places as you can show up to, and the luck factor is who's in the room. And the luck factor is, is did you, did you actually say nothing you planned on saying, or did you black out on something else happened?

[00:17:19] Or,  things like that where it's, you need to be prepared, but there are some, some things that are outside of your control. And for me, I think more so than luck, I have found intuition is one of the most undervalued assets of an entrepreneur. Whenever I have listened to my intuition, I have been right.

[00:17:43] So it doesn't matter what circumstance that kind of that falls under when my Spidey senses goes off about a networking event, a person a way should handle a problem. Something that I'm hearing what I should do. That to me is heavier weighted than any kind of luck and really any kind of preparation too.

[00:18:03] It's a little off topic, but kind of what I'm able to think of. 

[00:18:06] mike: [00:18:06] No, that's absolutely right. I was just having a conversation with Carlos yesterday about intuition and we were talking about how there were,  as we reflect back on 2019 and what went right and what went wrong, what things almost went wrong.

[00:18:19] We had the same conversation about intuition. I had made a comment of, boy, I'm glad we didn't go down that rabbit hole.  my gut told me this was something to avoid. And now looking at where that opportunity is six months later, that could have been catastrophic for us. So, I, I agree a hundred percent listen to your intuition.

[00:18:36] Gabrielle Mills: [00:18:36] Yeah. Holy crap. If you don't get anything else from this podcast, listen to your intuition every time. Every, every freaking time. 

[00:18:45] mike: [00:18:45] So it sounds like things took off pretty well. You had. Done some research, put together a solution. People put their money where their mouth was. You've got clients. Has it been all a yellow brick road from there?

[00:19:00] Gabrielle Mills: [00:19:00] I can tell you the first year was when I quit my job. The first call I made was to the only other entrepreneur I knew at the time, which happened to be my uncle, and he told me he didn't celebrate with me at all. I was literally like. At the red light with my office building behind me. And he told me, I need you to write this down and put it on your mirror.

[00:19:24] And remember the first two years are going to be hell. And I'll never forget that because you've totally deflated my joy. I had just done the biggest thing I'd ever done in my job, and I wanted a little celebration. I got that. And my first year was not hell. So, I thought I had it all figured out. We had prepared and researched enough to have avoided that.

[00:19:52]  we had a dream of a first year. And that probably is because I got an average of three hours of sleep a night. Not an exaggeration. I wore a Fitbit. That's the data. So, I could have been really just dreaming, but it was absolutely wonderful. We had very minimal problems. The issues came in year two and year three.

[00:20:14] Year two was we grew, therefore we had growing pains. And year three. Things just kind of came apart at the scenes that having been removed from it. Now I can see that all of those things were so necessary and all of those issues and problems and growing pains that we had made us into a better business that we may not have ever been without it.

[00:20:40] So 

[00:20:40] mike: [00:20:40] all over some of those growing pains. 

[00:20:42] Gabrielle Mills: [00:20:42] Oh God, everything. Well, first of all, Mike, I'm in a people business and people, if you ask any business owner and you know yourself are the hardest part of the business, why made a business around people. I don't know because I just signed up for hard. Love it. Cause I'm completely in love with working with people.

[00:20:59] I love people. I'm extroverted. I get energy from being around people. But there's just stuff. So, clients have stuff, people have stuff, preferences, mismanaged expectations. A lot of that was in year two we had turnover and turnover, which we had no turnover in year one. So. Kind of didn't think that was a thing.

[00:21:19] And then we just had interesting situations. We had some like medical situation, then clients just expecting things that I don't know where those expectations came from. And I learned a lot of valuable lessons just about good like business acumen, if you will. Because remember I had, I had some smarts, I kind of knew some stuff about the world, but not really until I actually got in and got in the trenches.

[00:21:45] I really started learning for myself. Now, year three, 

[00:21:52] mike: [00:21:52] let's take a pause there. So, in year two you mentioned. Two or three times a version of mismanaged expectations with clients. And this has been a bit of a common theme with many of the entrepreneurs that I've talked to. This was a problem for me. I did a mini episode last week about this as well.

[00:22:15] This has been a problem,  with me in the way that I put it was setting and holding boundaries, healthy boundaries with clients. That was my mismanaged expectation. What were some of the symptoms and root causes? Each of the mismanaged expectations that you and your clients struggled with? 

[00:22:33] Gabrielle Mills: [00:22:33] I can tell you they were entirely my fault

[00:22:39] always. But even more so sourced. It's founded on being able to help businesses with their back office, and that's all the stuff that they don't have business owners don't have time for and they don't want to do that. They need help with. So, our brand is. Being can do. Yes, man, kind of people because we're picking up all the pieces that the owner cannot or does not want to deal with.

[00:23:04] So when we went to market, we very intentionally, and we're still this way, lead very heavy into being helpful and doing anything that we can to help that business owner, whether it falls in our purview or not. And we will do that until the Dawn of time because that's truly what we stand for and what we love.

[00:23:23] That got in the way when we did not know how to set boundaries, as you were saying, and really structure ourselves. So, when we had no clients back in that period when we were developing the business, we had a lot of theory. We had a lot of ideas of how things were going to go, but it wasn't until we ran into issues.

[00:23:44]  even minor issues, we didn't know what was going to come our way. Therefore, we couldn't quite plan for it. We could do our best, but we, there was no real-life experiences to be able to say,  that's, that's a flag that we're going to need to address. Or we got something coming up here. So, what we really got into was clients wanting the world because we, we, and more so myself, because I'm the only salesperson being able to say.

[00:24:12]  we can do that. Sure. We can help you in any way that you need, any way that you need. We'll sometimes, any way that you need is not something that we know how to do or that we're good at, or you know what have you. Another way is I learned that in being helpful, you have the best intentions and want to try.

[00:24:30] But sometimes what the right, right slash wrong depending on how you look at it. Person just saying yes to try Seth, an expectation that you will succeed and that didn't always happen, so we don't do it. Nothing. I see. Like we have, we have administrative people who know how to use email and wow, this sounds like,  Google and Microsoft office cloud and, and things like that, but we don't do it.

[00:24:56] We ran into a situation with a client who wanted us to help. She had like six email addresses and wanted us to help merge those into one and we're decently SAR people. We were like, sure, we could figure this out. Well. And trying to figure it out. We realized it was an it issues and not just something that we can help as an admin.

[00:25:17] And I even got involved, and I'm, I'm pretty technology savvy and I still put figure it out. And, but by the time that we realized it had gone, it was too deep. We had already had a perceived failure in her eyes because we couldn't figure it out, even though that wasn't our specialty. But we told her we would try.

[00:25:34] But  it just, it the gray space that you have to be really careful of. And. Now we know that if we run into a situation where we're going to try, we will still try that. We will manage that expectation upfront of, Hey, this is not our first view. We, we very well may not be able to do this. And you need to know that moving forward.

[00:25:54] And if you approve that, we will proceed to do our best job. If you don't, and I want to understand. 

[00:26:01] mike: [00:26:01] Interesting. So rather than saying. Hey, what you're asking us to do with, for example, these six email addresses, that's not content marketing. It's not bookkeeping. So, we're not going to do it. You'll say, Hey, we're happy to try to help, but just,  set expectations that if, if we can't, we tried our best, but, and we're willing to do our best, but just know that we're not its people.

[00:26:25] This isn't something that we specialize in, but we would love to try to solve your problem for you. And you've had good response to that. 

[00:26:32] Gabrielle Mills: [00:26:32] Oh  a lot. I have learned that I've had to, and our sales team has had to really focus on client expectations across the board from the beginning.  a lot of that comes from,  we've talked about that quote and the beginning about things falling down to be filled back up for us.

[00:26:51] That was a lot of our processes and procedures. Now that we've got a lot of that in place and we know it works and we know it solves a lot of problems, we're able to manage those expectations up front to say, Hey, this is how we work. This is how we will be successful with you. A, B, C, and D. and if we run into,  F and we do G, H and I, and we're able to have those conversations well before we even get down the road, instead of being reactive, we've gone up around the block a couple of times to be able to say,  we got this.

[00:27:22] Just trust us, especially when it comes to people's financials.  that we don't always want to be, yes men we do, but we have to make sure that our client's wellbeing comes first. And if that means admitting to something not being in our purview, being really honest about that and having that be the priority over just being helpful, which is our brand, and we'll always uphold it, but taking care of them.

[00:27:51] That way comes first every time. 

[00:27:54] mike: [00:27:54] Where do you draw the line though? 

[00:27:56] Gabrielle Mills: [00:27:56] It's a gray space because we cover so many things in the back office and we can take on so much. There is a lot of gray in what we do now. We've made 90% of that black and white, but there's still a bit of gray and it's amazing what comes up and that gray space sometimes, but at the end of the day, we are not the business owner.

[00:28:15] We know a lot. We can give you a lot of recommendations, but we are not going to tell you how to run your business, nor are we going to run. So, we will tell you when we're inside of our specialty, we will be very honest and say. You should go this way. If you don't want to go that way, that's fine. We'll follow you.

[00:28:33] But we have found it goes better this way. If they come to us and there, they have a suggestion, they're like, eh, I don't think you want to do that. And then when it doesn't fall in our purview at all, we'll straight up say it just, it doesn't fall in our camp because it's not our business. 

[00:28:48] mike: [00:28:48] Tell me about your three now.

[00:28:49] You're one was great, year two started to have some issues with managing expectations and turnover and some other things, and then year three wasn't much better. 

[00:28:59] Gabrielle Mills: [00:28:59] Your three was just the cluster, but like, you know what, I'll tell you, it was my favorite year. Now that I've been through it, now that I can laugh about it with my husband and my business partner would probably think I was nuts for saying that.

[00:29:12] But you're free shines a light on all of our gaps. That's really what it comes down to.  we had lots fishes.  lots of gaps in our business that we had no idea were even there. Again, because there's a lot of, there was, until we fixed it a lot of gray, we were just there helping people and doing our best job that we could and doing it the way that we had anticipated it being done before.

[00:29:40] We had real life example and we would kind of adjust as we went along, but we never had. A huge bomb to be able to say,  this doesn't work. Or we're, or we're building, we're building a foundation on straw.   we just didn't know that until we ran into some,  some more serious things.

[00:30:02] And then we were like, Holy crap, we got to fix the locks. 

[00:30:07] mike: [00:30:07] Serious things. That was kind of an aha moment that we've got to change some things. 

[00:30:12] Gabrielle Mills: [00:30:12] Yeah. So, the probably the biggest takeaway from this year is standardized processes. I can't stress enough for people who are building a business that standardized processes are critical, like so critical I, that is not how my brain operates.

[00:30:31] I'm right brained. I love people. I love leading people. I love sales. I love vision. The word processes is so not what gets me excited at all, but I've learned through the course of this year that it is literally what you build a business on, which sounds so common sense to me right now, but I just didn't know then because I just left and.

[00:30:54] Started working. What we had found this year is that we were going through the motions with lots of different clients and we were doing a decent job with a lot of them, but we were doing them differently every time. So, what happened in year three was client one had this issue. Client two had a completely different issue, but it was kind of related but totally different.

[00:31:17] And then three was another of the same. It was sort of in the same camp, a totally different cause we were doing everything differently. So, we were just, we let the client tell us how they wanted it done, and every business is different, and we want to respect that. But at the same time, like I said, we have an obligation of doing right by that client.

[00:31:35] Even if maybe they don't know that that's the right answer yet, right? 

[00:31:38] mike: [00:31:38] If you look at KFCs playbook, it says, what are our keys to success? And one of them is efficiency and effectiveness, and we accomplish this through standardized processes and procedures. And I 100% believe. Believe in them, but I think where a lot of people struggle is.

[00:31:55] To what extent am I processing things out? Right? Is it,  am I going down to the level of granularity of how to go make coffee or, or are we talking,  really high level,  cause a process can to have five steps or it can have 500 steps?  I can make a process to get coffee at 500 steps.

[00:32:12] So for you, what problem did you identify and say,  Hey, back in July.  I came to work one day and realize that,  for these three clients, we were reinventing the wheel every month. And it was because,  my team wasn't collaborating on,  for all the, maybe it's a book, it'd be like a QuickBooks thing, right?

[00:32:35] Like,  we should have just put a process in place. And once we did that, the headaches went away. So, whatever that looks like, look like for you 

[00:32:41] Gabrielle Mills: [00:32:41] guys, one example that ended up being a big example was within our bookkeeping procedures. So, we have. Accountants who, well, they're bookkeepers, but they are accounting, but they only do bookkeep who everybody does bookkeeping a different way.

[00:32:55] The numbers are the numbers. You can get to the final answer by doing it like 20 different ways and the way that we had set our original quote unquote processes were based on how the client wanted it done, and we still do a lot of that. But at the end of the day, somebody would do a reconciliation one way this way, or they would process it and process an invoice this way, or they would make a payment this way, which sounds like all of those things would be done the same way, except they're not, because everyone's got a different way of working.

[00:33:29]  and that's the same for accounting. Did I know that? No, I didn't because did I do accounting? No, I didn't. So., I gave that work to professionals who knew what they were doing, but I did not understand that you could do it lots of different ways. So, what happened was, is we had,  multiple clients and the bookkeeping space that all had some kind of issue at the same time, and all of them were major.

[00:33:55] And then we had to fix all of these completely different problems at the same time. Because they just happened to occur all at the same time. I still don't know why they all happened in the same six months, but they did. And that made for a hellish time in our business because we had so many problems we had to solve when none of it would have been a problem if we just had a more concrete process in the beginning, instead of just, we're going to do our reconciliation or we're going to expense categories.

[00:34:25] So now instead of saying, Hey. Your job is to listen to the client and do it exactly the way that they want it to do. That is partly true, but they have a sourced way of doing it. Meaning you have these deliverables and these expectations, and I want it done this way. There is some flexibility in there for client preferences on how they.

[00:34:49] File or how they,  what system they're on, how they want to communicate with you, when things need to get done, the way that it gets done, the brass tacks of it. That is my responsibility was sourced and this is how I want you to do it every time and I'm going to verify that it is being done that way.

[00:35:09] So for content marketing and bookkeeping and office assistance, all of those processes and procedures look wildly different. As you can imagine. But we get pretty granular. Like,  you gave an example earlier of making coffee.  we tell people how to make coffee. We don't tell you what coffee to make, but we certainly tell you how to use the coffee maker step by step by step.

[00:35:30] So I'm not afraid of detail what, and maybe because I'm still learning, I've swung too far on the other side of the pendulum but for me at this moment, I would rather people have more to follow and then we can back off. Then have too much flexibility and then we go to hell in a hand basket. 

[00:35:51] mike: [00:35:51] What advice would you give to a budding entrepreneur that maybe they've just hired their first team member, whether it's an employee or a subcontractor, maybe they've just done that or they're thinking about 

[00:36:04] Gabrielle Mills: [00:36:04] it.

[00:36:05] mike: [00:36:05] How much time would you recommend they invest in developing these processes and procedures? Where would you recommend, they start? When they say what, which, which things should they document first? 

[00:36:17] Gabrielle Mills: [00:36:17] Excellent question. Okay, so it just kind of depends on what your business looks like, what stage you're in.

[00:36:22] In an ideal sense. You really should have your processes and procedures done before you hire somebody. You really need to be strategic and look across all the areas of your business and make a leadership decision on how you want things to be done and how you expect people to do them. Now, there is a level of error there if you don't know the ins and outs of that role.

[00:36:45] I'm a marketer. I can't tell an accountant everything how to do their job because I'm not an accountant, but I, I can, I know enough. And I know how to run my business to be able to,  package it together. So ideally you want to do that beforehand. And when you bring that person in, if you're kind of like me and you're, you're, you're figuring it out, you don't have all the pieces, you can have them help you inform that, but not necessarily do it.

[00:37:10] Sometimes you'll have it faster on or a quicker and more reliable result if you do it after the fact. But I'm always a fan of pre preparation. So, if you can do it. Before somebody comes in and you can start off that person, day one, walking them through the process and why you're doing it. I think that's always the better way.

[00:37:30] mike: [00:37:30] If you had to estimate how many people hours per month would you say are dedicated to writing or reviewing processes 

[00:37:38] Gabrielle Mills: [00:37:38] while we've been able to cut back, cut that back pretty significantly since like toward the tail end of our 2019 because. We, part of our growth was standardizing our processes. So, our documentation.

[00:37:53] Early 2019 and in 2018 was y'all just document how you do your job, but everyone does their job differently and everyone documents differently. So, all that documentation looked different. So, we spent a lot of time focusing on like how do we just standardize that across the business and how do we get documentation with the least amount of effort, but the best quality from a high level?

[00:38:15] Like how do, how do we do that from the top? Therefore, people just have to fill out the details. So, not a lot of time is spent on the high-level stuff. And that primarily comes in the beginning of a process with sales and with account management, making sure all of that's done. I would say maybe 10% of their job moving forward.

[00:38:36]  once all that initial documentation has done,  is taken to actual document, like the, how toss. But by the time we get through all of the detailed stuff. There's really not a whole lot left besides like how to log in places and where to find things and, and little details that are super important, but they don't take that long to dot.

[00:38:56] mike: [00:38:56] Tell me about what led to the aha moment that it was that you, you needed to build level up your business, but to get there, you're going to have to strip it down. What was that aha moment and how did you realize that you're going to need to strip it down?  

[00:39:10] Gabrielle Mills: [00:39:10]  and this comes back to my faith and I,  there's a lot of people that have different faiths and I certainly don't want to get on this platform and just preach that now what I'm trying to do, but that has been my experience.

[00:39:22] I didn't make a choice to strip it down. It stripped it; it fell apart before my eyes. And I'll tell you the biggest casualty art to our business wasn't revenue, wasn't clients worth for people. It was my self-confidence and the, the thing that broke down the most with me, because I did not know that this can happen.

[00:39:43] I knew it like,  theoretically, but I didn't know how it could actually happen in practice. My year. One was great. We had planned, we had worked. Year two was, was okay. I mean, we had some issues, but it was also really great, but we didn't have bonds and the bombs are normal in business. What I didn't know is that they could all come at multiple times and  I'm looking back on it.

[00:40:12] It's not a normal, we just, I just didn't know. We didn't know the gaps, but I took that very hard personally because I had a lot of my self-confidence and my worth tied up in what I was able to produce in this business. And then we had problems everywhere. That's somewhere in our control. If I would've known better, some were not in my control, but they were still happening, and I still didn't know how to fix it and I had to figure it out.

[00:40:42] So for me, it wasn't my choice to look across the business and say, okay, we just need to like re how we do all of this. It was really done on to me because it just, I mean, we just had issues come out of nowhere from everywhere. And that was the impetus to be like, okay. Clearly this is not working this way.

[00:41:01] This is working fine, but this whole section needs the radio. I couldn't ignore it at that point. I think it's a really great practice now that I've been through this, that,  don't, you don't have to go through that in your business to learn the same lesson. Just do it proactively.  it just because everything's great doesn't mean everything's right.

[00:41:20] I mean, take a critical look at your business all the time, but now I know to do that on purpose instead of just kind of letting clients bring issues to me and then I'm reactive instead of proactive. 

[00:41:32] mike: [00:41:32] It sounds like when you weren't producing the way, at least you thought you should have it, it was pretty damaging to your self-esteem.

[00:41:41] Gabrielle Mills: [00:41:41] Totally. Totally huge. Huge hit. 

[00:41:44] mike: [00:41:44] When you say produce, when you say the that you are, the business wasn't producing what you thought it should have, what is produced 

[00:41:54] mean? 

[00:41:55] Gabrielle Mills: [00:41:55] It was a lot of things. I was wearing a lot of hats, so I think each hat had a different answer. Which is totally not a BS answer. I'm really trying not to like to ask you, but its kind of was.

[00:42:05] So the sales hat may I, I wasn't able to go and do sales the way I want to because I was too busy having to deal with the problems, which were more important at the time. And probably if I were to do it again, still important to take care of those issues. So, there were the sales there I wasn't producing in terms of sales and numbers like I wanted to because my focus had to be shifted.

[00:42:29] So also in my business,  revenue, but in operations, it just, we weren't, the vision wasn't being met. What the purpose that we had every day to take care of our clients and do right by them did not seem to be working. Because there were so many problems that felt like I wasn't doing what I had set out to do and our business wasn't doing what it set out to do.

[00:42:51] Hindsight, it was fine, but in the moment,  I didn't feel like it was, 

[00:42:56] mike: [00:42:56] did those client satisfaction issues manifest through churned clients? 

[00:43:01] Gabrielle Mills: [00:43:01] Some sounded. We were able to keep a lot. We're still rebuilding our reputation and trust because of some of that, but. Yeah. Some we lost in there. 

[00:43:14] mike: [00:43:14] So the revenue growth, new client acquisition wasn't where you wanted it to be.

[00:43:17] You've got some amount of churn and this is all taking a pretty big impact on, on you and kind of your mental health a little bit over dramatic, 

[00:43:30] Gabrielle Mills: [00:43:30] or is that accurate? A totally accurate, totally accurate. You don't know what you don't know. And I've always been a real big believer of that, but I did not know what that truly meant in terms of entrepreneurship.

[00:43:42] Entrepreneurship is fricking really hard, and everybody tells you it's hard, but it's unless you like have the bug and the passion and you're just nutso about it and love it, it could be perceived as torture. That was one of those moments I didn't love what I did. I kind of, every day was an uphill climb and I couldn't see my way out of it, and therefore it was just torture because I wasn't in love with what I was doing at the time.

[00:44:11] I had to learn to fall in love with my business every day, and I had to fall in love with my business and even the crappiest of moments and figure out how to uplift myself so I could uplift my team. Thank God my team stuck around and they're phenomenal people because I was a prep leader for a long time and thank God, I had a business partner because she drove the bus while I was dealing with what was going on in my head.

[00:44:37] Yeah. If I didn't have her, we wouldn't have the business right now because it was just, I just didn't know. I didn't know that it could be that challenging. I knew hard and I knew tired and I knew focused and I knew. You're never off the clock, and I knew you have so much to do all the time and a lot of people counting on you.

[00:44:58] What I did not know is the mental toughness. It takes you when times are hard to lift yourself up so you can lift other people up, and that's what I had to learn. I was really tough. 

[00:45:09] mike: [00:45:09] If there's somebody listening on their drive to work right now, or they're there on their way home or over coffee in the morning.

[00:45:18] And they're looking at their P and L and revenue is 40 50% less of where they thought it would be a year ago. If their net profit is,  40% less than what they wanted to take home this year, and there, they're full of self-doubt. And they feel like a complete imposter and they're kind of lost.

[00:45:43] What advice would you give them to help them turn the corner? 

[00:45:48] Gabrielle Mills: [00:45:48] I wish I could give them a hug. I just wish I could because the first thing I would say is, you're not alone. I felt very alone, and my mom is also, my business partner told me this was normal. And they, and she told me that this happens to a lot of people because she had seen built businesses and built businesses before.

[00:46:13] Not in this sense that she knew. I didn't know. I thought that what my business was able to produce was directly tied to how smart I was and how capable I was and if I was worthy of this business, and it was a direct reflection of me. So, when the business wasn't performing at the level that I would expect that my standard, I felt like I had failed personally because it was a business that I worked really hard for.

[00:46:44] And there's a problem with business owners and entrepreneurs in our community. And what I love about your podcast, that people aren't being vocal about the problems. So, when you personally go through it, you truly feel like you're the only one. And you don't want to share it with anybody because then people will think you don't know what you're doing.

[00:47:05] And sometimes you'd hope I didn't when I started, but that you're, that you're not smart enough to handle it or whatever goes on in your head and you are, it's just a time. But I didn't know that, and I didn't understand that. And  if, if somebody were sitting across from me, I would tell them, one, you're not alone.

[00:47:23] Two, you're smart enough to do this. You're capable enough to do this. And the success of your business is not directly tied. To what it is that you can produce. In addition to that, I would want to tell them that we'll, and I really hope I don't piss some people off with this, but this is what I feel.

[00:47:43] Your business is not worth you and it's not worth pure identity, and I don't care how much time and how much money and how much of your, everything you've put in this business. What is more important is you. And what's more important is your happiness and your joy and your zeal for life. And if your business is getting in the way of that, you need to step back and you need to look at your business and either figure out how to find the joy, fix it or walk away.

[00:48:17] And sometimes that's a really hard decision to make. I was in a position to where I could find the joy and I could step back and I can just reassess and fix the problems. I don't know what it's like for somebody that has to choose to walk away, but I do know that whatever that business is, it is not worth your life and it's not worth your sanity and it's not worth your happiness period.

[00:48:39] And I think there's a really important distinction that I have to make here that I think you've touched on. You have to know the difference and you can only know this from experience and going through it. You have to know the difference between a final decision and a season. I was in a season; it was just really hard.

[00:48:58] I hadn't been up against a mountain that big, but it wasn't over for me and I knew it wasn't over for me. I knew there was so much more that I had to give, and I wasn't ready to walk away. Not even close. But I didn't know how to get myself out of the whole life. You can figure out how to get out of the hole.

[00:49:18] You can figure out how to just like get down and survive the season. Or it's time to go. And you have to be very clear with yourself and, and, and if you have a faith, your faith and the situations and your financial situation, and to figure out, is it, is it time, is it really time or is this just a really shitty time that I just need to grin and bear it real?

[00:49:43] And  I thank God that I just knuckled down and did it because if I were to have walked away, Oh my God, the regrets, because. We built a phenomenal business.  I, I had a fantastic business with the help of Christine and our team, and if, if my weakness caused that to just end because of my own self confidence and because of my own mental crap, all the opportunities and things in life I would have missed out on just because I couldn't get out of my own head and I couldn't help it at the time.

[00:50:20] But. I'm, I'm really glad that I didn't do that, and I want to be really clear with somebody that is in the middle of it and you're, you're freaking crying every day and you're fighting with everyone every day, and however you manifest that, and it's all the time, every hour, that doesn't mean it's over.

[00:50:38] Because a lot of times, I would say more times than not, there's something to salvage there. You just have to figure out. How to take what's salvageable and make something better out of it instead of just throwing out the baby with the bath water because you didn't come this far to go this far. It's one of my favorite quotes.

[00:50:55] It's like,  you didn't, you didn't do all of this work just to walk away and say, well, that was nice. I enjoyed that for a second. Glad it's over. Like for me, I was like, I don't want to go back to corporate. Love my job. Never want to go back to corporate. I'm going to keep figuring this out. And I preach a lot with people who are entrepreneurs, and I did this long before this season of my life, and I had to take my own advice here and we talked about a why earlier.

[00:51:24] You have to know your why, but for a leader, I think it's your purpose and your overall vision, and it is an absolute requirement. That whatever your why is, is much, much, much bigger than you are. Because sometime in the worst of times, it is the only thing that you keep going. It is the only thing that will get you out of bed that will get you to a meeting that will get you in the shower to get you wherever you got to go.

[00:51:54] You only have that one lie. And that's it. So, it better be damn good and it better be damn strong because otherwise you really have nothing to hold on to. And maybe you only did come this far to go this far, you know 

[00:52:08] mike: [00:52:08] what is, what is your why and how did you find it? How do you walk through the process of finding your why?

[00:52:14] What did that look like for you? 

[00:52:17] Gabrielle Mills: [00:52:17] That's a really tough question for me to answer, Mike, because. You. We talked about lucky, but I got really lucky and  every time it comes out of my mouth, it sounds like a load of crap. And I'm, I, this is my reality. I told you it was my,  God wanted me to start a business and it was the only thing I have ever heard his voice clearly on.

[00:52:39] You said, Gabrielle, I want you to start a business. Never in my life. Have I heard it clearly since after, I still sounds really kooky to me, but it really happens that way? I was in the middle of my bathroom just brushing my teeth, so I had no base. I wasn't even thinking about its business at the time, and I just knew.

[00:52:58] I just knew because it was on my heart that God wanted me to do this and I just, no source exists to do major positive change for the world. I have zero idea what that is. I have absolutely no clue what kind of good this business will do for the world, but I know that God put it on my heart to build this business, to do that, whatever that is.

[00:53:24] So my why is clear to me because I was told to do it. Not everybody is as lucky as that, but I will say when I'm telling other people. About their why. One, nobody can tell you what your why is, but you that period, you have to live your life the way you want it to. And if something's on your heart strongly and clearly and you can't ever get rid of it.

[00:53:56] That's probably something you need to listen to. I don't think that our big ideas are sometimes just imagination. I think our big ideas are something that is in our purpose and it's in our makeup, and a lot of times we just write that off as things that I always just had a good idea that just came from my imagination.

[00:54:15] Oh, I just had this idea once. But if you're thinking of this idea for like a fricking year. You probably should think about doing it seriously, because that's something that's on your heart. So, God may not speak to you, but that's telling you something. And the other thing I would say is that it's, it has to be so driving, like if I were to go back and answer this question, not having this divine intervention moment.

[00:54:43] What I would advise myself is to put myself in the absolute worst of circumstances that I can possibly imagine for me in my business and put whatever my quote unquote, why is up to that litness test. And if it still drives me, that's probably close to your why and you've probably got something there.

[00:55:08] If on your darkest and darkest, darkest of days. That doesn't seem to matter to you, or if it's just something that someone said you should do or something that you think you should do or kind of have an interest in, that's going to fall apart when it's put to the test. So, it's got to be big. I've heard a lot of people talk about they want to build a business to have something to leave to their kids.

[00:55:31] That's pretty strong. I've heard people talk about how. They,  they started a wellness company because they almost died, and they don't want that to happen to someone else. That's pretty strong. These things are really, really, really big. It's got to be big and it's got to be motivating enough to get you through what could be and hopefully not.

[00:55:48] That could be the worst times of your life, but also on the other side will be the most rewarding if you just hold onto whatever that is. I don't, I don't know if that answers your question. That was my best shot. 

[00:55:59] mike: [00:55:59] No, it's, I think it's,  a different, the journey is different for everybody. On how they come to it.

[00:56:06] It's not a is as much as you and I love processes, I don't know that there's a process that you can sit down. Not one that I've found. I, I, I wish there was one. And if anybody listening knows of a process, boy, please, please share it with me. But I think it's,  that existential discovery thing is different for everybody.

[00:56:25] But I think it's important to find out what yours is and do it.  it just, it gives you such a North star for life. It gives you such clarity on how to make decisions and what to say yes to and what to say no to. And I remember when, when I had mine years ago, it was a game changer. And. For me business. I don't have kids, but I imagine that having a business is a lot like having kids where it's the best 

[00:56:51] Gabrielle Mills: [00:56:51] thing.

[00:56:53] mike: [00:56:53] Yeah. It's the, it's the best thing. The worst thing, the happiest thing, the most stressful thing, the thing that will cause you the most anger all in one day before lunch

[00:57:05] Gabrielle Mills: [00:57:05] made that analogy. And I don't have kids either.

[00:57:10] I've never met anyone that does the same thing, 

[00:57:14] mike: [00:57:14] but my journey to figure out my kind of my why was like that. The, the journey itself was, it was scary, and it was happy. I was happy and I was angry, and I was, I was scared all through this journey that took place over the course of a few days as I kind of worked through it.

[00:57:29] But, but your journey was a lot different. And everybody I've talked to about this, their journey is very different, but like I said, it,  when you come out the other end, the clarity that you have in your ability to weather the seasons is infinitely stronger. So 

[00:57:44] Gabrielle Mills: [00:57:44] thank you for, I think the, I've adults and especially as business owners, because we're in business.

[00:57:55] For one, we tend to lead with logic thinking, and even somebody who's right, brains like me who just kind of follows gut a lot of the time, we still have a very logical mind and want to do things that are going to increase someone's value of life or make us money or give us more flexible work schedule and we logic into what we'll do that.

[00:58:22] When we're looking at how we find out, why, it has nothing to do with your head and Anne Ellis, in my experience, it has everything to do with on your heart. And I think adults and society and all, they all the Vets out there don't really like to focus on things that are heart driven because it's vulnerable and it's scary and it's,  up for criticism and you don't know how people are going to take it.

[00:58:50] But. That's where the why comes from is what's on your heart and you have to listen to it. I'll 

[00:58:57] mike: [00:58:57] grab you all. Thank you so much for sharing your story. If there's small business owners out there that need help with somebody taking some of the work off of their plate that they probably don't love doing.

[00:59:09] Things like social media, a bookkeeping or general office assistance, where do they find you? How do they help? 

[00:59:16] Gabrielle Mills: [00:59:16] We've got their back office so you can find out.

[00:59:24] So GE, T S L view, R C P d.com or you can call us at six seven eight seven four eight, eight, seven, seven or find me on LinkedIn, or we're on all the social media sites. So just put in a Google, you'll find us, 

[00:59:40] mike: [00:59:40] and I'll have all the links, links in the show notes. So, if anybody's looking to get in touch with Gabrielle and her team, just check out the show notes.

[00:59:47] You don't have to write down the websites and the phone numbers. We'll have it all there for you. Again, Gabrielle, thank you so much for being here today. I really appreciate your time and vulnerability and have a great rest of your day. 

[00:59:58] Gabrielle Mills: [00:59:58] Thank you.

[01:00:05] mike: [01:00:05] Thanks for joining us today. Please don't forget to subscribe to in the trenches with Michael King on your favorite podcast platform like Apple, Google, or Spotify. Once again, I'm Michael King with KFC solutions. We'll see you again next week.