Amy Porterfield is the host of the Online Marketing Made Easy podcast, creator of Digital Course Academy, and helps thousands of online entrepreneurs build a life and business they love.
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Resource
Ready to IMPLEMENT SYSTEMS AND BUILD A TEAM? The Common Path to Uncommon Success is available NOW! Visit UncommonSuccessBook.com to order your copy today!
3 Value Bombs
1) Having a system in your company or business is essential.
2) Focus on different sections of your company or business.
3) The use of business tools and software can help your business grow faster.
Sponsors
Thrivetime Show: Looking for a business coach who has helped thousands of entrepreneurs just like you to increase their profitability by an average of 104% per year? Schedule your free consultation today with Clay Clark at ThrivetimeShow.com/fire!
ZipRecruiter: When you post a job on ZipRecruiter, their matching technology finds qualified candidates and invites them to apply! Try it for free at ZipRecruiter.com/fire.
Show Notes
**Click the time stamp to jump directly to that point in the episode.
Today’s Audio MASTERCLASS: Amy Porterfield on Implementing Systems and Building a Team
[1:42] – Amy went from leaving corporate to launching her own online business – and she vowed never to build a large team. What changed?
- She was ready not to build an empire, but she started to see success in selling her digital courses.
- She wanted to do more to help more people and be more available to those who needed help.
[3:34] – Amy talks about the significance of systems both from a personal and business perspective.
- When her team started to grow, they did not have a lot of systems in place yet.
- Having a system became the foundation of how they do business.
- Now they have different standard operating principles for everything they do.
[4:49] – A timeout to thank our sponsors, Thrivetime Show and ZipRecruiter!
[7:26] – 4-Different Departments make up Amy’s business: a marketing department, a content development department, a community department, and an operations department. What is the importance of setting up these departments, and how do each of them run?
- Amy realized that different sections of the business needed focus.
- Marketing – runs all the launches.
- Evergreen, live launches, social media, and podcasts.
- Community – runs all free and paid Facebook groups.
- Focus is on the audience and increasing engagement.
- Content – creating all the digital courses.
- Writing outlines for podcasts and putting the freebies all together.
- Operations – Implementation of Company Guidelines and Policies.
- Marketing – runs all the launches.
[9:31] – Amys shares a few business tools and the software she couldn’t live without.
- No one in Amy’s company uses email; they use Slack to communicate. Quick conversations are essential since they are working virtually.
- The business uses Asana for project management and deadlines.
[11:06] – Call to action for Fire Nation.
- The Common Path To Uncommon Success – A Road Map To Financial Freedom and Fulfillment!
Transcript
0 (3s):
Shake the room, Fire Nation, JLD here with an audio master class on implementing systems and building a team to drop these value bombs. I brought Amy Porterfield on the mic. She is a host of the online marketing made easy podcast creator of Digital Course Academy and helps thousands of online entrepreneurs build a life and business they love. And today Fire Nation, we talking about how to build a team the right way, the four departments that Amy has for her team, the significance of implementing systems to build that team and a couple of business tools she couldn't live without and so much more Fire Nation. When we get back from thanking our sponsors.
ZipRecruiter (43s):
Hiring is challenging, especially with everything else you have to consider today. But there's one place where hiring is simple, fast, and smart. That place is ZipRecruiter. Try ZipRecruiter for free at ZipRecruiter.com/fire. That's ZipRecruiter.com/fire ZipRecruiter. The smartest way to hire.
0 (1m 2s):
Looking for a business coach who has helped thousands of entrepreneurs, just like you to increase your profitability by an average of 104% per year, all for less money than would cost to hire a full-time minimum wage employee. Schedule your free consultation today with Clay Clark, a former small business administration entrepreneur of the year at Thrivetimeshow.com/fire Thrivetimeshow.com/fire. Amy Porterfield. Thank you for joining me once again on Entrepreneurs On Fire. And you've been a guest multiple times over the years, I can still remember how nervous I was to interview you back in 2012. And I was just like, baby, we were babies girl.
0 (1m 43s):
You haven't, by the way, visually aged a year. I mean, you still look amazing. Obviously there's people who are watching this video can see and tell, and man, it's just been like this journey. We've both been on, we've done different things. And one thing that, you know, I found very interesting, you know, and this is why I asked you to come and be a feature on my book in this part was when you left corporate America, you vowed to never ever like build a large team. You're pretty adamant about that as have I been by the way over the years. And I still only have three virtual assistants to my entire team, but something changed for you at some point in the past couple of years. Tell us about that.
1 (2m 17s):
Yes. So I was, you know, ready to never, ever build that empire. And then what happened was I started to see success with selling my digital courses and I wanted to do more so that I could help more people. I wanted to sell more courses. I wanted to be more available for my audience. I wanted to support them in bigger ways. And I couldn't do that with this really small team that I had. And so I thought, okay, either I go out and make a bigger impact and reach more people and build my team along the way, or I just kind of stay smaller with what I wanted to do and just keep a small team and keep a smaller business.
1 (3m 2s):
And my why of supporting people. There's this girl in a cubicle right now, no she's made for more, wants to do something on her own. Doesn't know how to do it. I have to reach her. I'm obsessed with that. It meant I had to have a bigger team to do so. So my why became bigger and I wanted to support more people. So I decided to grow my team.
0 (3m 22s):
I think that you inspire me by, by the way is right now, because of that decision that you made, you have literally created countless dream jobs for people that are now working for Amy Porterfield, helping you spread that vision, you are literally feeding families, paying mortgages, sending kids to school. I mean, you're doing incredible things in this world. So I just want to commend you for that and the bravery and the courage that it takes to build a large team. Believe me. I do not think as small, in fact, I know it's huge. So congratulations on that. And let's talk about the significance, you know, the significance of implementing systems and building a team because you couldn't just build this big team and have no systems.
0 (4m 5s):
So talk about that systems significance.
1 (4m 9s):
What happened was, as the team got bigger at first, we didn't have a lot of systems. And what I kept hearing was, Oh, I didn't know that. Or I wasn't told that by my team members or what w what's going on what's happening. And it was driving me crazy. I took it personal, like, come on, you guys get it together. And then I realized, wait a second, I have put zero systems or processes together. It has become the foundation of how we do business. So we have different standard operating principles for everything we do. We have different tools that we live in die by. We know how we do business by the systems and processes. It literally, we couldn't do what we do without putting these in place.
1 (4m 51s):
And let me tell you, they have taken a while. It's been a lot of trial and error. Usually a system comes about because something's broken, Oh, that didn't work. Let's go back to the drawing board and put a system together. And sometimes we don't want to do it because it takes time. But then we just know the pain of not having it. So it literally is how we do business
0 (5m 9s):
And Fire Nation. That's what you need to be working towards is just getting there, jumping, building that parachute along the way down, because you never know what's going to come until it comes. And then boom, okay, now let's identify it. Now let's fix it. Let's be stronger for that next time. Let's become anti-fragile. As the seam tele would say vast, a critical part of the process and Fire Nation. When we get back, we will be breaking down. Amy's four different departments. So let's thank our sponsors, looking for a business coach who has helped thousands of entrepreneurs, just like you to increase their profitability by an average of 104% per year, all for less money than would cost to hire a full-time at minimum wage employee by our nation meet clay Clark Clay has been coaching businesses just like yours since 2006.
0 (5m 51s):
Yep. Even through the great recession. And he does it for less money than would cost to hire a full-time minimum wage employee at a time Inc. Magazine reports that by default 96% of businesses will fail. Within 10 years. Clay's is helping businesses like yours to grow on average by 104% annually. How's this even possible clay only takes on 160 clients. So he personally designed your business plan. Plus Clay's team helps you execute that plan with access to graphic designers, Google certified search engine, optimizers, web developers, online ad managers, videographers workflow, mappers and accounting coaches visit Thrivetimeshow.com/fire, to see thousands of video testimonials from real people, just like you, who clay has helped over the years. That's right. Do your research and view thousands, not hundreds of proven, documented and archived video testimonials from real people, just like you at Thrivetimeshow.com/fire, Thrivetimeshow.com/fire.
0 (6m 42s):
Then schedule your free consultation with clay himself to see how he and his team can help you thrive.
ZipRecruiter (6m 48s):
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ZipRecruiter (7m 31s):
It's no wonder that four out of five employers who post on ZipRecruiter get a quality candidate within the first day. And right now you can try ZipRecruiter for free at ZipRecruiter.com/fire. That's ZipRecruiter.com/fire. All you need is wifi. To try it for free visit ZipRecruiter.com/fire ZipRecruiter. The smartest way to hire.
0 (7m 50s):
Among the many things that I admire about what you've done. I love the fact that you've broken your team out your entire company, out into these four different departments. I mean, you have a marketing department, a content development department, community department, and an operations department.
1 (8m 6s):
So talk to us about those four departments. I mean, I know we don't have to go into super depth on each one, but just a few things on each. And this took years to develop. I could have gotten there faster if I had a model. So anyone listening right now, this is something you can start to put in place right now. And you don't have to wait 10 years into your business, but this is fairly new. A couple of years into my business, I realized that there were different, different sections of the business that needed focus. So marketing runs all the launches, evergreen and live launches. It's all there. And social media and marketing the podcast. And then community is all our free and paid Facebook groups.
1 (8m 47s):
They are in there. They're focused on the people that we serve and they are encouraged to increase engagement in all we do. And we have content and content. That's my baby. When I worked at Tony Robbins, I was the director of content. So I always have my hands in the content department a little bit, but that is all about creating our digital courses, writing our outlines for our podcasts, putting together all of our freebies. It all happens in the content department. And then operations would be, now that I have a bigger team, we need, unfortunately got, what is it called? Policy guidebooks for like the company. I don't even know how sophisticated I am.
1 (9m 28s):
Right? But wait, when you have a bigger company, you need all the policies in place and everybody needs to be able to get to them. So we had to put that together and then HR and payment processing and customer support. So a lot falls into operations, for sure. So, and every department has a director and then I meet with the directors once a week so that they have access to me and I have access to them. And this is how we run the business.
0 (9m 55s):
I love it. And Amy, we have gotten to the final, bring it home question for us because listen, there's something that I know people want to know. That's the fact you use software, you use tools to just make running your team, your business easier and better. So give us a little insight on a couple of those systems, a couple of those tools, and then we'll say goodbye.
1 (10m 20s):
Okay. So we do not use email inside of our company. Nobody in my business, my team members do not email each other. We communicate few Slack. So quick conversations like, I mean, Hey, did you check this out? Do you have this kind of conversations? Because we're virtual. It all happens through Slack, but the business happens in the Asana, ASANA, Asana is my tool of choice for project management deadlines. Who's doing what, when they're doing it, how they're doing it, links and resources. All of that is communicated within project plans inside of Asana. That is also how we do business. It's inside of Asana
0 (10m 59s):
Fire Nation, listen to the master, follow the system that works like you said, Amy. I mean, if you had had some kind of system, some kind of model to follow years before things would have been so much easier, things would have been so much better, but she didn't and you had to learn the hard way. And that's okay, because you got there. You're here now. And we can learn, frankly, you know, from some of your struggles, some of your obstacles, some of your challenges, that's kind of part of why we do what we do. And, and I just want to say, thank you so much for number one, coming on, sharing all this knowledge with us today. Like we don't take it for granted. Number two, thank you for being part of my first traditionally published book, The Common Path to Uncommon Success.
0 (11m 43s):
You are a critical part. You are one of 17 all-star entrepreneurs. I got to contribute to this book. Every one of them, just an a plus entrepreneur to give their thoughts, their guidance on that part of the step, which is a 17 step roadmap to financial freedom and fulfillment. And if you're hearing our voices right now, and it's before March 23rd, it's not too late to pre-order this book, because when you pre-order, you're getting all three of our journals literally shipped to your door. It's $150 worth of journals shipped to your door for a pre-order for other amazing bonuses, Uncommonsuccessbook.com, Uncommonsuccessbook.com.
0 (12m 28s):
Amy, thank you for sharing your, your thoughts, your wisdom, your experience, your knowledge with Fire Nation. For that we salute you and we'll catch you on the flip side.
1 (12m 38s):
John, I'm so excited about the book. This is the book that I wish I had when I was starting 10, 11 years ago. So I am so honored to be a part of it, but more importantly, I'm so excited. You got this book out there and you're going to get it into the hands that people can now fast track their success and learn from all of our mistakes. So congratulations. This is going to be such a valuable resource.
0 (13m 4s):
Thanks a lot, Amy, you are a rockstar looking for a business coach who has helped thousands of entrepreneurs, just like you to increase their profitability by an average of 104% per year, all for less money than it would cost to hire a full-time minimum wage employee. Schedule your free consultation today with Clay Clark, a former small business administration entrepreneur of the year at Thrivetimeshow.com/fire Thrivetimeshow.com/fire.
ZipRecruiter (13m 32s):
Hiring is challenging, especially with everything else you have to consider today. But there's one place where hiring is simple, fast, and smart. That place is ZipRecruiter. Try ZipRecruiter for free at ZipRecruiter.com/fire that's ZipRecruiter.com/fire ZipRecruiter. The smartest way to hire.
Killer Resources!
1) The Common Path to Uncommon Success: JLD’s 1st traditionally published book! Over 3000 interviews with the world’s most successful Entrepreneurs compiled into a 17-step roadmap to financial freedom and fulfillment!
2) Free Podcast Course: Learn from JLD how to create and launch your podcast!
3) Podcasters’ Paradise: The #1 podcasting community in the world!