Speaker 1 00:00:05 Hey there, thoughtful listener. Are you looking for introductions to partners, investors, influencers and clients? Well, I've had private conversations with over 2000 leaders asking them where their best business comes from. I've got a free video you can watch with no opt in required, where I'll share the exact steps necessary to be 100% inbound in your industry over the next 6 to 8 months, with no spam, no ads, and no sales. What I teach has worked for me for over 15 years, and has helped me create eight figures in revenue for my own companies. Just head to up my influence. Com and watch my free class on how to create endless high ticket sales appointments. Also, don't forget the thoughtful entrepreneur is always looking for great guests. Go to up my influence. Com and click on podcast. I'd love to have you. With us right now, it's Maura Whitener. Maura, you are a business growth strategist and fractional CEO. Your website is whitener. pros.com. To our friend that's listening.

Speaker 1 00:01:17 Just click around in your podcast app in the show notes, etc. and you will find a direct link tomorrow's website. Maura, it's great to have you.

Speaker 2 00:01:24 Well thank you for having me I appreciate it.

Speaker 1 00:01:26 Yeah. Well, I would love to hear from you. what you do as a business growth strategist. And certainly, listen, anyone that's providing leadership on the operational side of things, you are a business founders, right hand person. Everybody needs a great operational leader is one of the biggest life upgrades for nearly any founder entrepreneur to get someone at the helm there operationally that knows what they're doing.

Speaker 2 00:01:55 Exactly. I've I've had a career of over 20 years of being an entrepreneur and growing six and seven figure, companies. And what I have found is a lot of people have a passion, they have a gift, they have a skill, and they want to share it, and they go out to be an entrepreneur and start their business. And then what they tend to find is, oh, there's a whole running of a business behind the scenes that can come with that, and it can take them away from their, their gift.

Speaker 2 00:02:27 And what I do is I like to be that what I call a translator. I work with CEOs. I take the big vision. I want you to paint me the picture. I want to know what we're building. I want to know what we're doing. And then I take that and translate that into all the pieces that need to go in place, from your systems to your workflows, to the team or resources you need to have on hand how you're implementing your marketing and sales. Does it feel easy and fun to you? And I take all of that and then bring that back to you. And that's what we put in place so that you can get back to what you enjoy. You can create the impact that you want to create. What? It doesn't feel so heavy or overwhelming or confusing. you know, there's something like over 15 million. I can't remember the exact number of small businesses started since Covid, and they're hitting a critical point right now of I'm having some success, but things don't feel easy.

Speaker 1 00:03:32 Yeah, yeah, yeah. And listen, there are consequences. if you as a is a founder, are far too stretched or, you know, if you are wired to be the evangelist or the teacher or the idea person, and you are getting bogged down in operations and, you know, you find yourself putting out fires constantly, there are real consequences to that. Do you mind maybe just extrapolating this out and I'm sure that you've, you know, probably had to talk some founders down off the ledge.

Speaker 2 00:04:07 Exactly.

Speaker 1 00:04:08 Tell me a little bit more.

Speaker 2 00:04:09 Yeah. Operations sometimes is what I feel. I kind of feel like the redheaded stepchild of business. Everyone wants to go for the flashy marketing and sales, and that's how they're going to get ahead. And that's how they're going to make more money. And what they don't realize is by not keeping an eye on how you run and operate your business in the background, you actually have a lot of hidden money that you're just sitting on because you're either not paying attention to it or don't know how to put together those pieces for you.

Speaker 2 00:04:42 You know, gone are the days where there's two, three, four recommended ways to run your business, and that's the only way to run your business. Now, it's really the only right way is the right way for you. And so I help CEOs find that right way. But what happens is when we find those right pieces that feel easy and fun and allow you to actually grow in scale. What? Without working more, you find all kinds of hidden money. In fact, one of my clients, we found $12,000 initially up front. Turn that into almost $300,000 of hidden savings that she was just sitting on. And now she actually works less. She travels more to see her grandkids. She has the right people in place to help her. You know that freedom is what people are craving when they start their own business and too often aren't experiencing.

Speaker 1 00:05:42 Yeah. and what do you work in, particularly industries? Do you, do you work with, service product? What who do you find yourself working with most?

Speaker 2 00:05:53 Mostly I work with service based industries.

Speaker 2 00:05:56 However, I have retail, brick and mortar and e-commerce experience, so I love those those challenges periodically. I typically don't work with manufacturing, big production, that type of industry, but mostly service based.

Speaker 1 00:06:12 Yeah. so Moreau, in terms of trends that you've seen, I wonder if there's anything that that you've been noticing around operational trends over the past year or two. have you seen your work evolve? Maybe it's because we have access to better tools or project management platforms. I don't know what what you have been seeing, but listen, from your, you know, from your observations on on operations, what are you excited about? What's going on in your world? Like, what should the rest of us know about what you've been witnessing and seeing and kind of getting your hands dirty with.

Speaker 2 00:06:56 Yeah, there's several different trends. There's. There's an overall societal trend to people want to enjoy life more. They want to Take advantage of what's around them. They're not inclined to slave away for a job or anything anymore.

Speaker 2 00:07:12 So there's this trend to make running your business a whole lot easier, a little bit more so than there has been before. But what comes with that is there's also so many more choices on how to do that. Like you mentioned, there's so many different platforms, from project management to CRM to how you can hire team members from 1099 and fractional to W-2. There's so many options, it presents an amount of overwhelm and confusion for founders that are trying to figure out those right pieces. And so what I have found is a mix of those that I'm working with are really hey, I have figured out a lot of these things that work for me, but it's still not feeling easy and like I have the life that I want. So we're reevaluating what they've put in place, as well as picking through those options. You know, how do I pick a CRM system? How do I pick a project management system? But then there's there's the complication. It's kind of how I want to put it of then how do you build processes around that system and those team members using it? it's kind of the last thing people try to put together our formal processes to do things.

Speaker 2 00:08:29 But when you spend some time with that, it can really make things easier. So I'm doing a lot of spot coaching, spot consulting on just building those processes that can that can provide immediate freedom. Yeah. Just by simplifying that process.

Speaker 1 00:08:45 Yeah. Mara, what is the for someone who maybe they've been kind of at the helm quite a bit. You know, they, what does like? How do you begin engagement for someone that's never hired a director of operations or certainly a fractional CEO? how do you step into that? It's not like you just kind of show up and like, okay, let me roll up my sleeves and get to work. There's likely a lot of kind of investigations strategy. And and do you mind maybe sharing a little bit about that process.

Speaker 2 00:09:17 Oh, absolutely. any anything to work with me in a fractional capacity or further consulting capacity starts with your blueprint to success. And that's really where I sit down one on one with the CEO. And we're going to kind of pick everything apart.

Speaker 2 00:09:34 We're going to figure out what's working, we're going to figure out what's not. We're going to figure out where the gaps are having that, having that other set of eyes in your business that may see things that you don't because you're in the middle of it. And we're going to put together your custom blueprint to success. Everything that needs to be addressed exact step by step, things that need to be done. And you can either choose to take it from there and and work on it yourself and implement it, or that's where my team and I can come into place with helping to implement pieces of that plan, or full fractional packages where we come in and are at the helm to help you implement that. I actually use human design in all of my work. It's my way to really get to know my CEOs at a deeper level how they tick, how they work, where their natural energy lies. and so we can dive down to a really, really deep level that not everyone that does what I do can.

Speaker 2 00:10:36 And it's allowed my clients to increase their revenue an average of 25 to 50% within a few months of of working together.

Speaker 1 00:10:46 Yeah. Mara, if we were, let's say you're let's pretend. Well, you are addressing a roomful of business owners, a lot of SMB founders. If you were to say, listen, let's just let me give you a couple of things. You know, even if we never work together, if you, you know, are still going to be doing a lot of your own operational leadership, you know, for the next year or so, at least start doing this, this and this. Like if you were to give like a little mini TEDx talk to those founders, what counsel would you give them?

Speaker 2 00:11:21 Yeah. Figure out, do take some time to figure out what your priorities are in life. I'm seeing a lot of shifting of priorities. and that includes, especially if you're a female founder, being being pulled between family and your passion work and your passion business. Figure out what those priorities are and figure out what those parameters are there.

Speaker 2 00:11:45 And then you work to build your business around that. That is key. Number one. that that I'm seeing much more often. We have to realign the pieces around what they actually want to do. Second piece is anything that you find frustrating, angering, overwhelming. If it if it invokes any of those feelings in your business, it could be a team member. It could be part of a process that doesn't get done. You're like, I don't want to be a part of this anymore. It could be something to the to a tiny detail that's actually your clue that you need to address that piece to make it easier. you'd be surprised. There's the saying that the devil's in the details actually like to say the magic is in the details, because that's where you find those little nuggets that you can shift that make the biggest difference to you.

Speaker 1 00:12:40 Yeah. Yeah. so I would imagine are there any technologies like is, is I Impacting operations in your world, and if so, how are you kind of leading in that? Or what are you observing right now? Because, I mean, from our perspective, you know, what I can say is that, you know, I like ChatGPT has been so crazy valuable in helping with things like decision making, scoping out projects, considerations, doing things like Swot analysis, you know, just like helping, coming up with just ideas that we wouldn't think just a lot of considerations.

Speaker 1 00:13:23 So it's been really, really helpful for planning. and then again, you know, kind of coming up with SOPs. So it's been a huge time saver for us. But I don't know what your experience has been.

Speaker 2 00:13:35 Yeah, it's it's it has been a huge player in how you can streamline and automate your business as well as you can get that high level, insight and expertise sometimes in your business. So, you know, I use it in my business, like you said to, to start project planning, like get get some starting points, get some insight on, on different things. But what I caution people is, is don't don't take it verbatim. Be able to then customize it and tweak it to your context and your situation. So use it as a time saver to get going and to streamline, but then be able to customize it, whether that is content creation, whether that is streamlining workflows, whether that is writing SOPs. Because remember I is I it's a computer. Yeah. It's it's not people.

Speaker 2 00:14:33 however I have found it and and clients are finding it very easy to save hours of their time, which is where a lot of the money you're going to save is, by the way, there's there's a there's a hint for you, any, any amount of time that you can save is a huge money saver for you. And so anywhere that you can plug in AI is helpful. Just make sure you know that cutoff as to what's appropriate for your situation.

Speaker 1 00:15:01 Yeah, yeah. Mara, your website is, whitener pros.com. You also share some pretty good stuff on LinkedIn. so tell me a bit about, what you make available broadly to, to folks, you know, even if they're not necessarily working with you, I know on your website you have a resources, tab with a decent blog here.

Speaker 3 00:15:26 Yeah, I, I have the free resources page.

Speaker 2 00:15:30 On my website. There's multiple free resources. There's interviews and videos that I've done, but I drop a whole lot more over on LinkedIn on a weekly basis.

Speaker 2 00:15:40 Yeah, yeah. between videos where I'll share tips and insights to where I will share Upcoming free masterclasses and opportunities to get some insight and help in your business. so I would I love to teach, I love to provide all of the value. I'm an open book. I offer complimentary strategy sessions to folks. I would rather help you move the needle, and I not necessarily have to be the one to continue the journey. If I can point you the right direction to get you the help that you need, that you need right now, I'm your girl. So if that sounds like you, you know, come find me.

Speaker 1 00:16:25 Yeah, yeah, yeah. Hey, my back on one thing that, you know, now that I'm kind of digging into your blog, one thing that I see you talk about and I see you talking about on LinkedIn as well, is, helping folks find lost money, like, you know, where we as business owners may be overspending. Do you mind maybe calling out a few areas where you commonly find that overspending or that that that money that could be saved.

Speaker 2 00:16:55 Yeah, absolutely. This is this is one of my favorite places to dig in. This is kind of the first place, I go when I start working with the CEO one on one. It's the first step in my complete business growth blueprint. We start by finding all of the hidden money. So then once we find it, we can know how to strategically spend it in order to make you more money. And then you can invest all the money that you're making, right? But it really starts with finding the hidden money, and that is your opportunity to take a look at how you're running and operating your business. believe it or not, there's a lot of money just in your systems and processes, not just saving subscription costs on systems, although there's typically money I find there, there's a lot of redundancies. People have multiple systems that can do the same thing. So it's really analyzing your need and then scaling that back down to only what you actually need. And along with that or the processes, how you do what you do, how your team does what they do.

Speaker 2 00:18:01 There's a lot of time and money that is lost in those processes, and making sure they're efficient, and not cumbersome is is really key. another key place is your team. You can you can waste a lot of money in your team. I'm seeing a trend towards not necessarily growing your team and having massive teams, but actually having the right people in the right places, and we're actually scaling them back. We're really dialing in to exactly what help you need and exactly what help you can grow with. It's a whole lot less to manage, and you're getting a whole lot more return on investment.

Speaker 1 00:18:42 Yeah, your website again is waiting for pro.com. You do have a free resource guide how to find the missing five figures in your business. Do you mind sharing how to grab that?

Speaker 2 00:18:53 Oh yeah. head on over to the website. It's actually a pop up right now, but you can also find it on the free resources page. It is my most popular resource. It is. This starting point actually walks you through the three key areas that you can start to find hidden money.

Speaker 2 00:19:10 There's a workbook. You know, it's not just a three pager, it's a it's a full workbook that you get, it's going to have the questions that you need to start asking yourself to really start analysing this. And then if you're ever interested, you will be then notified after that. Whenever I run a masterclass to actually teach you and go into more in depth. I also run exclusive intensives one day intensives where my eyes are in your business, and I'm going to guarantee that I find you that $1,000 that it costs for that intensive.

Speaker 4 00:19:44 By the Morrow.

Speaker 1 00:19:45 Whitener business growth strategist fractional co. Your website whitener pros. Com Mara thank you so much for this conversation.

Speaker 2 00:19:54 Yeah. Thank you for having me. It was a pleasure.

Speaker 1 00:20:03 Thanks for listening to the Thoughtful Entrepreneur Show. If you are a thoughtful business owner or professional who would like to be on this daily program, please visit up my influence. Com and click on podcast. We believe that every person has a message that can positively impact the world.

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