Yvonne Heimann [00:00:00]
I am back. Let's hope audio is working well with this. It seems to be coming in pretty good. I know in my past solo episode, we were talking about, and I announced that I am firing myself from my company. Now, for everybody that's watching the video or potentially listening in and hearing the background noise, Yvi is back on the road.
If you can't see Hippo, well, you really should be on YouTube watching the podcast episode. For everybody not watching, yes, I'm paying attention to the street, and you just get to go on a road trip with me
Yvonne Heimann [00:00:41]
Last solo episode, I was talking about firing myself, and thanks for the lovely messages I've gotten from a few of you. Love the support. I've got a couple of messages that said, "Yeah, you might be the single point of failure, and you are also potentially the single source of success in some of the areas," and that's correct. And to be able to be more of a source of success, that's why I'm firing myself from my company, right? Because for years... I've, I do this for my clients, right? I always preach, your business cannot rely on a single person. It doesn't matter if it's a small business. It doesn't matter if it's a corporation.
And I love... Little sidetrack here. I love Aunt Bri on TikTok. Love her HR videos. I'm even subscribed. Hi, Aunt Bri. And there was one video where she was talking about and, and replaying, I don't know if she's live recording, I think she is, a call with a company she was brought in with just only one accountant, and one single accountant, and there's multiple issues there because they are already, paying their 401Ks too late, and there's a whole bunch of issues where they are already accruing penalties.
Yvonne Heimann [00:02:13]
Now, that's corporate. You could be like, "Yeah, but that's corporate. There are so many people, right? It happens." No, no, it happens in the small ways, too, and that's what I wanna talk about in today's episode, where I nearly lost my business while trying to save somebody's life. If you are new to me and, and my little slice of the universe. My late husband got diagnosed with cancer in 2012 and passed away end of 2014. Those two years, Ask Yvi at that point was still a web design company, web design and social media, and everything was dependent on me. Everything. I was the one marketing, I was the one building, I was the one selling, I was the one fixing, I was the one maintaining. It was all me. It was... I was a solopreneur before that working with Pete, and now suddenly I had to tell my clients, "I don't know when I can get to your stuff." Not only that, it started with, "I don't know when I can get to your stuff," to by the second year of cancer treatments to, "I have to hand you off," because, yes, I had a couple clients here and there that didn't need anything major that stuck with me to support us, and oh, my God, did we have support during that time.
Yvonne Heimann [00:03:57]
I had so many angels in my life, where our landlord didn't force rent. We had donations. We had all the things, right? If we would have not had that community, I wouldn't be here today. And also, that didn't help my clients. My business died. My business died because I spent every day with medication schedules, with pain management, with doctor drives, with surgeries, with chemo, with radiation, with not just even my sick husband, but also his elderly parents, and I was just surviving.
I was living from one day to another and just trying to make one thing at a time. I really just lived 24 hours by 24 hours. Pete's medication schedule took both doors of the fridge, the upper half of each door. Morning schedule, evening schedules. That how, that's how much the medical schedule was at the end of those.
I'm German, right? I am used to having a social net. I knew what I signed up for coming to the States. I knew that I was not going to have unemployment. I knew that w- I was not going to have social security. Now, at that point- My whole immigration was a whole shit show still too, thanks to my first husband.
There's a reason why I have trust issues. That's, that's a topic for another podcast episode And I knew that I would need to build my own safety net. I knew that I was needing to build my own retirement. I knew that it was all on me. There is nobody catching me. There is no social safety net. There is no medical insurance.
Yvonne Heimann [00:06:13]
That was before Obamacare. The amount of money we would have needed to spend on health insurance, and again, lucky enough, we didn't have any savings or income, so thank God that Kaiser took care of it, and their donations, and their funds that they have. Or, on top of pretty much losing my business, I would have also had millions and millions of dollar in medical cost. Where am I going with this?
I knew at that point, I've always been assistant's person, right? I knew that I was needing to build my own, and I didn't have the time. I didn't make the time because I was in my 20s. Who needs to worry about retirement and medical cost in their 20s? I'm healthy. I don't barely need to see a doctor. I can get my contraception at Planned Parenthood, right?
And even though I am the German and I love to have insurance for insurances and all the things, right, I put it aside. Like, yeah, I'm in my 20s, it's fine. I can do that tomorrow. Till Pete got diagnosed, and suddenly over the two years, I had no income. I had no clients left because everything was reliant on me.
So I promised myself when Pete passed away and I started to rebuild and I started to grow and restructured the business to what it is now, not web design anymore, but business efficiency consultants, realizing I see systems where other people see chaos, realizing that people came to me for web design and left with full-on business coaching.
I promised myself I'm never gonna do this mistake again. And guess what, guess what happened? Life happened. Did I, did I implement all of the systems and processes? Fuck no. Because life happens, and the economy happens, and narcissistic exes happen. And I got back into the rut of just doing and taking care of my clients and Doing the thing how I've always done the thing. Do as I say, not as I do.
Yvonne Heimann [00:08:56]
And as much as I hate... I was living what I hate in every other coach. Seriously. It, it pisses me off when people pretty much do as I say, not as I do. And what was I doing? The same thing. With the company growing and bringing on more team simultaneously happening with what's happening in the coaching industry right now, and the coaching industry is breaking down.
I can't, I can't hide behind do as I say, not as I do anymore. I can't be preaching to get yourself out of your business and make itself sustainable when I don't do it myself. That is, that is the first driver. That is the first driver. The second driver, I also have a team of five people. There is a responsibility there.
I can't just be like, "Oh yeah, you've done the work, but I can't pay you." What is it... What if I get sick? Look at me. I had, I had my tubes removed and ended up in, in two days full of just the, the medical hangover. It can happen that your body just goes in full on fuck you mode after surgery. That's what happened for me after my tube removal, and I was, I was unusable, unusable for more than a week.
Things can happen. You can get a cold, and you are out for a week because you don't have a voice and nothing works. Can your team, can your business function if you just get a cold? And not only that, I just got to see my team in person. I... We're heading now to Austin. Before I spent time in Michigan, I spent time in Stratford, and I was in Europe 19 days, four countries, four flights, two cars on both sides of the road, and we barely worked during that time, all of us. Can you take a goddamn vacation? Because if you cannot get out of your business for a weekend... Don't even try to get out of your business for four weeks right now. If you have not put anything into place, don't.
Yvonne Heimann [00:11:31]
You will miserably fail and feel bad about it. Let's not do that. Let's start slow. Can you leave your business right now, Friday afternoon at 4:00, put the phone aside, turn off the laptop, not look at your email till Monday, without the shit falling apart, without you coming back to 10,000 emails and 5,000 notifications?
Start with a weekend. Then start with a business day. Grow it to two business days. That's, that's your task right there, and believe me, when you are able, you as the CEO are able to leave the business for a month, for a month, and you can come back and just plug right back in, you've done it. And don't tell me it's not possible because everything is just based on your knowledge and your frameworks and your sparkles.
Yes, it is possible. Yes, it is. There is ways of transferring the your knowledge. There is ways of building offers and programs around your knowledge. It's an excuse, and I think that is the biggest problems for solopreneurs and small business owners. That's what my fault was. Ego. Oh, yeah, I feel it. Ego, because we're the only ones that can do it.
Oh, bullshit. We are not reinventing the wheel. Do I have ego in what we have built? Oh my God, yes. Oh my God, yes, especially when it comes to systems and processes. You have the systems people that have no idea on how to deal with humans, then you have the change management people that have no idea how to deal with the systems.
We are sitting perfectly in between. We are combining systems and humans. So am I proud of what we are doing, what we have built? Oh my God, fucking yes. Is it new? No, the bits and pieces have existed for ages. So why do I have such a freaking ego that I think I'm the only one who can do this? No, I can't.
Yvonne Heimann [00:14:01]
I'm the only one that might be able to connect the pieces, but the pieces can be done by everybody else. So if you cannot take a weekend off, if you cannot take a week off, if you not can take four weeks off, and your life, the food on your table, the roof over your head is reliant on your business, and this is not just a hobby, you need to change something, and I invite you.
We are doing this series for you, and also to hold myself accountable. I invite you to go along with me. I already told you in the last episode, we made the decision, I made the decision to fire myself. So if you have not yet made the decision to fire yourself, that's your first step. Time to decide to fire yourself.
Done? Cool. Next step, and we'll link the, the freebie below. The next step is for you to figure out what is your money maker process. Your money maker process is the process that keeps your business going and brings money into the business. What are you delivering? What is your offer? I have a workbook to map that out.
That is your most important process. Work through it, figure it out, mark it down. Everybody in your company needs to know what that money-maker process is, how it works, and how to keep it going. And after that, we'll come back for more episodes for you to fire yourself, start optimizing your business, and then automating it.
So while I walk through my own process with myself. Our trademarked, registered process is called S.O.A.R.R. framework. The S.O.A.R.R. framework is systemize, optimize, automate, review, and then rinse and repeat. And apparently I'm American now because that should be one. Right now, we are in the phase of systemizing everything, not just our money maker process.
We have the advantage of building systems for everybody else. So we are systemizing. Some processes that we already systemized in the past are being optimized right now. Some of the optimized processes, like our podcast production system, is being more and more automated now. Here's your to-do for this episode.
Yvonne Heimann [00:16:51]
Number one: decide that you are going to fire yourself from your business. If you've decided that, I want you in my email. If you are listening to this podcast and you're not on my email list, email, heythere@askyvi.com. We'll get you on the email list. I wanna hear from you. I want you to commit to, "I'm firing myself."
If you're on my email list, just reply and say, "I'm firing myself." If you're not on the email list, email heythere@askyvi.com and say, "I'm firing myself." I'm here to hold you accountable. That's the first step. Second step: download the Money Maker Process Workbook. Discover it, figure it out, get those processes on paper so you know where we need to start digging deeper.
And make sure you subscribe to the podcast so you get to come along as we do the same thing, because I don't want you ending up where I was, two years of trying to save my loved one's life, losing that battle, and nearly losing my business. If I had not had friends after all of this, I wouldn't be here today.
I would be living under a bridge somewhere or maybe jumped off of it. Who knows? We do this business because we love what we do, because we are passionate about making a difference. So let's make sure your business is just as supportive and passionate as you are. Told you. Comment, email me. I wanna hear you, passion and commitment to yourself and your business, and I'll see you in the next episode