LOCAL MARKET MONOPOLY EPISODE 92
How to Increase Operational Efficiency and Productivity in Your Business
Podcast by Clarence Fisher
Business Operational Efficiency

About This Episode

Ready to make your business run smoother and smarter?

Then you've got to hear what Danielle Baily has to say in our latest podcast episode! She's all about making business work better for you, from nailing project planning to keeping things steady and targeting the stuff that really matters.

Danielle's got tips for making sure your business goals match what you do every day and puts your customers first.

She shares secrets on managing time like a boss and setting up business processes that really work.

And if you're feeling overwhelmed, don't sweat it—Danielle shares when and how to get the help you need to keep rolling.

So, if you want to work smarter, not harder, this is the episode for you. Tune in and take a massive step towards a more efficient business today!

author avatar
Clarence Fisher

Disclaimer: The transcription below is provided for your convenience. Please excuse any mistakes that the automated service made in translation.

Danielle Baily: Imagine a day when we wake up and everything is prepared. Everyone knows what they're supposed to be doing. All of the priority is set and further imagine you don't react to the things that happen throughout your day. That feels freeing, right?
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Clarence Fisher: Welcome back It's Clarence Fisher, You're listening to Local Market Monopoly. And if you think your business is running at its peak efficiency, think again. What I'm about to reveal with our guests today will not only challenge your current beliefs, but also revolutionize the way you operate. So brace yourself or paradigm ship that will elevate your business from good to exceptional. We're going to unlock the untapped potential in your organization. Hold on.

You are listening to Local Market Monopoly with Clarence Fisher uncovering the tools, tactics, and strategies, the most successful small businesses used to dominate their local market and own the block.
Alright. Welcome back, welcome back, welcome back. And today's guest on the, I've always wanted to use the word illustrious, but I don't think it fits this podcast. It may fit you, but it doesn't fit this podcast. Danielle Bailey, how are you?

Danielle Baily: I am well, Clarence. Thank you for having me.

Clarence Fisher: Absolutely. Thank you for saying yes to appear. So can you tell us a little bit about Bailett Consulting and how you're helping your clients?

Danielle Baily: Sure, absolutely. What we do here at Bailett Consulting is we help busy stressed out, overwhelmed entrepreneurs, business owners and nonprofits to reach their goals and create their ideal futures. And we do that through helping them create repeatable habits and tactical plans. One of the things that I've realized is it's all in the habits and it's all in the plan on how you get what you say you want.

Clarence Fisher: Oh, wow. So when you said stressed out and busy, I mean, you've got us pegged as far as entrepreneurs, and you've worked with, you've been around entrepreneurs for a while, huh?

Danielle Baily: I have, I have... I started my business nine years ago, so in 2014, and prior to that I was still even working with business owners and entrepreneurs through a referral marketing company.

Clarence Fisher: So

Danielle Baily: Since 2009, I can't do math.

Clarence Fisher: I just looked at the clock and the calendar on my desktop. Okay, nine, carry the three. Oh yeah, you've been doing this a while. So what's the difference in when we achieve this outcome that you help us achieve? And so we start out, we're busy, we're overwhelmed, right? Do we really not, I'm trying to imagine a world where I'm not busy and I'm not overwhelmed. Do you find it that's difficult for your clients to imagine that?

Danielle Baily: Yes. And there's a couple of reasons to that. Number one, your brain is actually wired to protect you and it doesn't like to vision.
So when you're here today and everything is coming at you today, your brain cannot see anything past today. And then the other thing that happens is we are so busy and stressed out and overwhelmed that we can't imagine anything differently because this is how we've always been. We've gotten to this level, we've gotten to this plateau, and this is how we've done it. So it makes sense that we have to maintain this same set of craziness to get to the next one. That's not true. That next level, they say every level has its devil. That next level is where increased productivity and efficiency can help you get there and not as a crazy person.

Clarence Fisher: So what does that look like as far as increased productivity and efficiency? Because we all think that that's what we're trying to do anyway. Actually, maybe not, because actually as entrepreneurs we're just like sell something, just sell something. However we can get that sold and it typically ends up being as far as the business owner in opposition of what my team really wants. I'm putting so much pressure, you know what I mean? I don't care how it's sold, sell it and deliver it. And what do you mean it's not delivered yet? You know what I mean? You're laughing, but this is exactly what it is. Right?

Danielle Baily: Exactly what it's, it's sell it however you can sell it, but it's often selling it at the expense of the employees producing the product. And then that's where interpersonal relationships happen and issues happen. I deal with that a lot with business owners, how to create a business to where all sections are happy. Whether you're a solopreneur or an entrepreneur with employees, solopreneurs will often hire out, whether it's 10 99 contractors or whatever, they'll often hire things out. So how do you not be that person that just makes extra work for the people who work with you? And so it's just hilarious and how that really looks is okay, let's just imagine for a second. Let's stop. Try to stop laughing. It's so true. And imagine a day when we wake up and everything is prepared. Everyone knows what they're supposed to be doing. All of the priority is set and further imagine you don't react to the things that happen throughout your day that feels freeing, right?

Clarence Fisher: And this is what you help us to do.

Danielle Baily: Exactly. This is what I help people to do all day. The busy, the stressed out, and the first thing I do, we've got to stop reacting. Urgency triggers what is truly urgent to all seriousness. Your email is not urgent. I can almost guarantee it, but in all seriousness, your urgency is like blood death, fire, broken bone. The police are at your front door, the media is at your office. Those things are urgent. But in our day, in this day and time, we react to all the bings and trills and light of every device we own. Every application wants to push us notifications, and we become super reactive. So that super reactivity is what stresses us out. It is what makes us feel busy. It is what wears us down to the bone to not be able to imagine a different way. So starting out with what is truly urgent can stop the reactivity.
And one of those things we do is we customize what that looks like. What does it look like for you to have urgency triggers? What does it look like for your business? What does it look like for your personal life? What does it look like for your employees? Because your employees can also create urgency triggers with your help as the owner, so they know what they should react to, therefore they're not pulled out of production time. So when you sell that thing and you're like, why isn't it packaged and delivered? Reacting, remove that reaction. They can package and deliver.

Clarence Fisher: Okay. So one of the questions that I had for you was how do our listeners gauge if moving, if becoming more efficient, more productive is right for them? But I don't have to ask that question. It is right for them, right? It's right for all of us. Everyone listening. So okay, let's say that we're already frustrated because we're already frustrated, we're already overwhelmed. Business life is not typically as beautiful as you just explained it.
That was awesome. And I know my team who's listening to this is like, no, it's not. Not like that. So what would you say, okay, if they're already there and they, well, let's do it like this. What are some of the biggest myths that you feel are out there when it comes to becoming, going down that road of becoming more efficient, becoming more product, having more productivity? To me, for one, it's really hard to take the time. Even SOPs, it's super in my mind, I know you're going to tell me that. No, it's not that hard, but it's difficult in my mind to say, to stop and slow down and say, Hey, I'm going to create this SOP or have the person that is doing that thing create the SOP,

Danielle Baily: Taking them away from that productive work

Clarence Fisher: And get away from the productive

Danielle Baily: Work.

Clarence Fisher: Yeah.

Danielle Baily: So the biggest myths out there are yes, it takes the time that it takes. Seems like a waste of time. The other myth that I think I struggle with a lot with people is I need to have a specific software until I find this software, this unicorn software, I can't stabilize my business. No, that's not true. Number one, there is no unicorn software. Spoiler alert, the software developers are listening. There is no unicorn. You are not it. I'm very sorry. If you'd like to prove me wrong, I would love to hear about it in my email. And that email is Clarence. No, I'm kidding.

Clarence Fisher: Oh wow.

Danielle Baily: No, I'm kidding. So the software is, the difficult part is because I just had a guy the other day where we were talking, and this is a multimillion dollar company, and he's like, well, I'm just trying to figure out what software to write my processes in. So we're using the software as an avoidance technique to not do the thing that's going to scale and grow and create a repeatable, trainable business. And he looked at me and he said, yes, okay, fair enough.

Clarence Fisher: Wow. Everything starts with telling progress starts with telling the truth. They say, right,

Danielle Baily: It does. It does. And accepting where they are as a business. And so the software thing is nothing. It's still a problem, but it's not as big as what you just said as the time that it takes. There's a book I read once, it was a business development book that said, for every hour of planning, you save three hours. Okay, so what if here, let's tell another story. What if you wanted to take a two month vacation to Costa Rica? Could your business still run without you? And this is why taking the time to plan is so important because we want to be able to take that vacation to Costa Rica, so the time that we take planning will save us time in the future. Also fund statistic, 87% of all issues, mistakes and miscommunication come from unclear expectation. The only way to clarify the expectation is to create the SOPs, is to create the duties lists, is to do these foundational business processes that will allow you to be scalable, repeatable, trainable, all the buzzwords. But taking that time is, it's a myth because when we do it correctly, we can say the words As a business owner, we can say, so did you check the process?

Clarence Fisher: Yes, yes.

Danielle Baily: Because one of the things that happens when we have employees or subcontractors, anyone who works with us, they will come to us with the questions because we have the answers, but it wastes our time. If we are constantly being bombarded and interrupted with how do I do this? How do I check the process? So it empowers them to do their job correctly, it empowers a business owner to have them do their job correctly by crafting the process in the way they want them to do it. It takes out the whole, if you want something done right, you have to do it yourself. No, if you want something done right, you need to create a process. Hello.

Clarence Fisher: Is this more difficult with creative work? I wonder?

Danielle Baily: It is. It is more difficult with creative work because there seems to be a lot of variability,
But there's not. There are different ways to create process to prepare to be consistent in the creative space. There's even different time management techniques, and one of the things I love to do is figure out what time management techniques works for the client. So are you a maker manager time? Are you a hour time blocker? Are you a task stacker? Are you a speed tasker? That one's fun. What is it? Are you a Pomodoro person? Are you a flow time person? So we get to go through all the techniques and figure out what works best for you. So it's not a cookie cutter, I did this for someone else and this is going to be what's right for the next person.

Clarence Fisher: That's a great point. One that I would not have thought of that, but I think a lot of us have gone through all of those different types of ways of working. And depending on what you read, it says This is the best way, which I have found. For me, it is 50 minutes pomodoro. Then I get a 10 minute break, and then I'm doing 50 minutes and trying to stay deep into it. And if it gets really, really busy, then I'm still 8, but I'm knocking it down at 25 minutes, a task where it's 25 minutes. And then we said, but I've gone through those trying to set the days and I, for whatever reason, end up doing something else that day. This day, this is supposed to be podcast day. It really is. Two years ago I set that this was podcast day and it generally is, but what'll happen is I'll also start answering emails and project management on the day as well.

Danielle Baily: Well, and part of it's figuring out what your behavior is. If that's your common behavior, then you just take a block of time and do that manager time, which is your emails and your project managing. You take that time and then do the rest as podcast time. It flexes, it changes. And

Clarence Fisher: Don't beat myself up for not,

Danielle Baily: Don't beat yourself up. Do what you do. If you're naturally doing these things, naturally build it in. So I naturally get a second wind at 8:00 PM

Clarence Fisher: Oh wow.

Danielle Baily: So you will often find me working between 8:30 and 10:30 PM I get a second wind. I'm not going to ruin it on TV and housework. I'm going to do it. I'm going to be productive in the time that works best for me.

Clarence Fisher: You're so young. People like me are like eight o'clock. It was good time, good night.

Danielle Baily: No, I would love to be in bed at eight. You have no idea. I do not like that. My body does this.

Clarence Fisher: Yeah,

Danielle Baily: I don't like it. I would love to be asleep also because

Clarence Fisher: I don't like what do you during those? Okay, alright. So I see the second win. I get the second win about three o'clock, but it only lasts about two hours. So I'm still good. So I'm good early in the morning and then in that the day, ultimately go for a walk or something and push stuff during that. Is that what you do? Do you do your less important stuff during that time? Or

Danielle Baily: If I'm getting my second wind, I'm going to do my deep focus work time. I'm going to be content creating. I'm going to be doing the things that lead me toward my future. I'm going to create this content to push out this course, or I keep it at massively income producing activity in that timeframe.

Clarence Fisher: Okay, I see. I see. So how do we get past these fears, this fear of it, not of it taking so much time, fear of even the people that are doing the work that it's going to take time for them to do the work or do the SOP do the process and all that stuff, but that's pulling them away from the work. Is it just like, hey man, just suck it up and just eat that? Or how do you get someone past those fears?

Danielle Baily: Well, there's a couple of things that tend to help. When I tell people that your employees only work about 60% of their day. On a good day, the moon and the stars are aligned, their clothes feel good, and their big toe doesn't hurt.

Clarence Fisher: I still don't want to believe that. I so don't want to

Danielle Baily: Believe you get 60% on their best day on their average day, you get 45. So I'm going to tell you something,

Clarence Fisher: Okay.

Danielle Baily: If they're only giving you an average of 45% of their day, why can't they take the time to write their processes also?

Clarence Fisher: Wow. What is that two, three hours?

Danielle Baily: Yes, it's about three to four.

Clarence Fisher: Wow.

Danielle Baily: It really just kind of depends on the person, it depends on their tasks, how much they love the tasks. There's a big human behavior element behind all of these things and having a human behavior degree, it allows me to understand where each person is coming from in the business, even the owner to the employee, to the whoever, and really figure out what's the route to get them to work more efficiently. I had one guy, he was working about 50% of his day, the owner came to me and said, Danielle, he's doing nothing all day. And I came back and said, you're right. He's working about 50% of his day. But here's the problem. You haven't told him what to do. So he's making it up 50% of his day. We got him, and he was an older gentleman and he had a really good work ethic. We got him his processes, the things he needed to do his job, the authority and the responsibility to do the things, and he went up to a 75% consistent productivity during every day.

Clarence Fisher: Wow. When the average is 40, 45,

Danielle Baily: Average is 45.

Clarence Fisher: Oh wow.

Danielle Baily: Yeah, 60% on a good day. Wow,

Clarence Fisher: That's crazy because we're paying for eight.

Danielle Baily: Yes sir.

Clarence Fisher: Okay. It's a facts. Alright, so exactly when we're talking about efficiency, we're talking about productivity. Exactly. How would someone get into that zone? If you're going to give us exactly three steps to get into that, what would that be?

Danielle Baily: So it'd definitely be preparation. We need to prepare everything and have anyone who works with us prepare everything. So we're preparing for meetings the day before, all the way down to what are we going to wear tomorrow? What are we going to eat for lunch tomorrow? What happens is, is we make on average of 35,000 decisions a day, and it's no wonder why we have decision fatigue. So owners, business owners are walking around with decision fatigue all day long expecting to make these decisions. Danielle, you need to write these processes for your people. I don't even know what to eat. What do you mean?

Clarence Fisher: So

Danielle Baily: Preparation really helps decrease the decisions that you're making daily in the moment. So I always recommend what I like to call an evening routine. Everyone talks about a morning routine. Here's a hint, Danielle will not be getting up at 5:00 AM

Clarence Fisher: No, no, no,

Danielle Baily: Danielle. Nope, nope, that's not Danielle. So I often work well with the A-D-D-A-D-H-D, the neurodivergent folks because we're all special and different and we get to work with that. But preparing the night before, I call it an evening routine. Do you have all of your cords? Do you have all of your electronics? Is that presentation ready for tomorrow? What shoes are you going to wear? Make sure you know where your left shoe is. I don't know why I haven't left shoes, just walk away. It's weird.
But preparing everything and then having your team prepare everything so that when you walk into Monday morning, Tuesday morning, Wednesday morning, you are not having to make decisions. What am I going to eat today? What am I going to wear? Because all of these little minute decisions that you have to make take away from your ability to be productive. So when you prepare everything, you can be productive in the moment as things are happening because everything's done. It's not raining with an umbrella. You have two unmatching socks and your presentation is on the kitchen table. You're at your office and you can't go back. We've all I think had those types of days. So definitely need preparation, consistency. So one of the things I love about working with entrepreneurs is their idea people. What is their passion becomes their mission, becomes their business. That's great. I love that. Then they get all these ideas,

Clarence Fisher: Sorry,

Danielle Baily: One of my favorite quotes from Dr. Ivan Meisner is do six things 1000 times, not 1000 things six times. So being consistent and being so I consistency is one, but being, I guess consistency would be two. We've got preparation, consistency and then consistency in the right tasks. All the ideas are good, all the things are good. However, if we aren't consistent in the right tasks, we could be building a different goal or idea than the one that we're actually shooting for. So I think that that's where the implementation section comes in of what we do here at Bailett Consulting is we create that plan. So everybody's going to prepare, we're going to be consistent, we're going to be consistent on the right tasks, but we're going to plan in what order these things need to get done to reach that goal. Oftentimes we'll get halfway three quarters of the way there and that new idea comes up and we're over here when we never finished the one we were just on. So we have all of these pieces of really good things. I talked to a lot of businesses who have pieces of their foundation, their processes, their duties, all of that stuff. They have pieces because they hear the next best thing or the next this or the most popular motivational speaker talk about it, but they don't finish it because that next idea comes along.

Clarence Fisher: That's huge. Even with myself, I so relate to that because, and it was told to me too that exactly how you were saying it as far as this new thing comes along, you stop where you're at on the thing that you were working on, and then you go jump on this thing and then all of a sudden you have all these open loops and then either something else comes up or you realize, oh crap, we needed to get this one. We needed to get that we, okay, so now let's go back to that. And so you're jumping back and you're jumping back. Why is it so difficult to just stay focused and finish the race on that one thing?

Danielle Baily: Because not all of us are finishers.

Clarence Fisher: Very good, very good. Not

Danielle Baily: All of us are finishers. We all have different personalities. That's why all these personality tests are so popular, and that is not my forte. I don't work in anyone, I don't specialize in anyone, and we'll have to talk offline as to why that is. But we're all different. And so not all of us are finishers. So sometimes we need to recognize that we're not a completer, not a finisher, and we need to hire someone who is.

Clarence Fisher: So you come in, it sounds a lot like you come in as the sayer of the truth. You come in as the truth of, look man, you're not a finisher because I know me personally, I'm a quick start. I am a quick start. We have an idea. I'll rally up the troops, get it sold. Well, like I said earlier, from idea to product, let's go. But I did find out that I did need to hire finishers because I'm done with it really at that point.

Danielle Baily: Well, because your excitement is in, the new idea is in the how do we get it going? How do I get it produced? How do I get it sold? You're the motivator. You're the person that creates and motivates other people to get

Clarence Fisher: It done. I'm the visionary.
What we found is, which is why I do good at consulting. I can drop in and as far as the marketing plan, get it together. Hey, what would happen if we did this and we did that and we did that? Okay, what would do that? But it took a minute to realize that I need to take that plan and then run it over to the team and allow them to do that and push it down. Take it across the finish line. Yeah. Okay, I get it. I get it. So a lot of this stuff I've had to do really difficult and hard training on and trial and error. And so what you're coming in and doing is saving that time

Danielle Baily: And the hardship and the heartache. Because the thing about leaving a bunch of projects open is that's when the negative self-talk comes in. That's when the imposter syndrome sets in. Who am I to do these things? And those negative, that negative self-talk, those spirals that end up happening inside our brains, that's what makes it so hard for business owners, for entrepreneurs, for solopreneurs, for people to push through, is we have all these unfinished things going on. We don't understand why we can't finish anything. And now we've got the negative self-talk that helps us make it true
That we don't do these things or that we always leave things open or that I'm no good at this or I mean all the things. And so taking away some of the pressure, the time, the hardship, and sometimes I often hear myself telling clients, you are where you are supposed to be. It's okay. We don't need to think. We're supposed to be 800 years down the road or 800 miles down the road or 800 chapters down the road, comparing ourselves to other people. It's okay to be where you are with what you have. I often say you've done what you've made the decisions with the information that you have. Let's get you new information. Let's get you new skills, and then we can see where it's going to go.

Clarence Fisher: I love that. It's okay to be where you are with what you have.
Oh my goodness, that's getting posted. That is awesome. I love it. I love it.
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So I pick up so much stuff from you that is just good for life.

Danielle Baily: Yes.

Clarence Fisher: All right. So in your experience, okay, so we talked about preparation. It was consistency and consistently or consistently doing the right thing,

Danielle Baily: Right tasks,

Clarence Fisher: The right tasks. Cool. So those are the three. And then what do you feel like in bringing you in, or let's not even talk about bringing you in yet, what do you think are the biggest obstacles that businesses face in getting these three things done? Getting started here,

Danielle Baily: Right? Working backwards. It would be knowing the right tasks to be consistent on. So they often have a very business owners to have a struggle with knowing what are the right tasks, and that is going to have to do with goal alignment. So where is that goal? What are we aligning to? And then what are the tasks that are going to help us get there? So what tasks to be consistent on is difficult. And then how to be consistent because nothing in our world helps us be consistent. Everything works against us. With all of those notifications that we talked about, the emails, the constant stream of social media messages and the pressure to, I don't know, apparently post everything you eat, I don't know. So nothing in our world allows for consistency. So it's hard to build that habit. And that's exactly what it's, it is a habit that no matter what, you're going to be consistent in your business and in your personal life you can do both. And then you now know what tasks you're going to be consistent on and you're going to be consistent. So that's a big struggle. And then preparation is, again, we're all just running by the seat of our pants. A lot of, I run into a lot of people. I have this lady who she just has a blockage with preparation because her father was in the military, so he obviously had them prepare everything. So it's almost like her inner child is pushing back.
And so really getting her to understand that it's not about the way he made you feel in preparation. It's about how preparing everything is going to feel. Does that make any sense? Did I,

Clarence Fisher: Oh yeah. Very good.

Danielle Baily: Okay. Sometimes I take a circle, but I'm not sure if I ever get back.

Clarence Fisher: No, no. It's very good. And I see that show up in not in so many things that I don't want to be that because I've got that trauma.

Danielle Baily: There's a lot of it. And especially when we talk about these things like preparation, consistency and consistency in the right task. Because what comes next is the time to do those things and ain't nobody want to be told what to do,

Clarence Fisher: Right?

Danielle Baily: So it's working on taking the time to get all of these things done, but nobody wants to take the time because I'd rather be doing this or I'd rather be doing that. And nobody tells me what to do, Danielle, I can't have a calendar. Tell me what to do. Can you breathe? It'll all be okay.

Clarence Fisher: Breathe.

Danielle Baily: The good news is you get to tell you what to do.

Clarence Fisher: Okay.

Danielle Baily: So if you as a business owner, if you aren't doing the things that you say you want to do, I would take that CEO meeting in the mirror and say, why don't I want to listen to me?

Clarence Fisher: And why is that? What are some of the pitfalls that you see that, okay, we've got that obstacle and I'm going this way. What are some of those little known pitfalls, those common mistakes that you see people making when they're on the road here? Okay, so now we're getting on the road. I've identified that this is an obstacle that's standing in my way, but what are some of the pitfalls that the people run into?

Danielle Baily: So it would definitely be trusting themselves, be trusting themselves because again, this world called business ownership called entrepreneurship, even though there's a lot of us in it, we decide that we're on an island and we're the only ones that have ever had this, and we're the only ones who can fix this. And that becomes a huge obstacle to get past. And it's really in our own heads of why can't we get these things done? So obstacles with time management, pitfalls with, I don't want a calendar telling me what to do. That's hilarious because you made the calendar, babe.

Clarence Fisher: Absolutely.

Danielle Baily: So what are you not wanting you to do? Unfortunately, or fortunately, depending on how you look at it, business ownership is a lot about behavior ownership, owning your behaviors, owning what you need, not need, because need presents, lack knowing what you get to do to change those behaviors to get what you want. So I'd say pitfalls are falling into the old behaviors, not trusting yourself, not asking for help. And my favorite is, I know what I need to do, I just need to do it, but you would've already done it, so do you really know?

Clarence Fisher: So let's go with that. Let's go with knowing what you need to do. I just need to do it. Of course. That's what we all say. I could do it anytime I want to if I wanted to, and then asking for help. Okay. So what's keeping them from asking for your help? What's keeping us from bringing, besides is ego in there at all? What keeps us from asking? Is it, I don't know.

Danielle Baily: I would definitely think ego's in there also. However, I think in the consulting world, in the consulting and in the coaching world, there is a lot of bad press. There's a lot of people who have experiences that when I get someone literally two weeks ago, Danielle, I need to know how much you cost before I like you. And I asked them, well, tell me more about that. And what ended up being is they had gone to a consultant before to get the things that my business does, but they never had a result from that massive amount of money that they spent.
So I understand their reservation. So I think in the world of efficiency and implementation consulting, it's different than business consulting. Efficiency and implementation consulting is about practical and tactical application. We are going to do it and we're going to do it together. Whereas in the world of business coaching, business consulting, and all of the ads we see on Facebook, all of the people that are hanging around and they, they're good people. I'm not saying that they're not. I think that some people don't want to ask for help because they're looking for the tactical application and they're not seeing it in the marketplace. They need help making these things happen, knowing what comes first. It's not just about the time management, the prioritization, the process generation, it's about the implementation. So when we look in the world and we have these experiences with people that we don't get results from. I had a lady just the other day, she's like, well, I've just spent $6,000 and I haven't gotten any result. Okay, well did you do the work is my first question.

Clarence Fisher: But

Danielle Baily: Beyond that, she asked for help, but she didn't get what she want, which shut her down. And there's a lot of these stories out there. There's a lot of businesses out there and business owners that have sought out help and it didn't work.

Clarence Fisher: So she spent that with someone else. And what you're saying is they got the theory, they got all of this stuff, but

Danielle Baily: They didn't get whatever it was that they were looking for. They didn't get out of that. And I think that there's that other piece when you ask for help, you have to know what you're asking someone, what you're asking them to do. What is your goal in asking for help? Are you wanting help on X, Y, Z? What specifically? You can't just say, I need help. What does that mean? What do you need help doing? And make sure you're aligning yourself with the right people who can finish that goal, can get you where you say you want to go. So that I think it's difficult for people to ask for help in the industry because of past experiences. But I think society-wise, we are a very individualistic culture here in the United States. So other cultures that are more don't have problems asking for help. So I think there's multiple levels of reason why this is difficult.

Clarence Fisher: Yeah. Can you share an example of how you've helped your clients overcome all of these obstacles and actually succeed, actually implement and execute and increase their efficiency and productivity?

Danielle Baily: Productivity? Sure.

Clarence Fisher: I mean, no names or anything, but

Danielle Baily: Right. So the cool part about, I had this company approach me, it was a medium-sized, actually small construction company. Really it was 32 people. And what had happened is they had exploded. It was three employees, then it was nine employees, then it was 32, and there was some clear bottlenecks, clear places that the process stopped. One in the engineering and one in the warehouse. And when I got introduced to the vice president, we were talking and we decided to work in those areas, but he said, Danielle, we had someone else come in that's supposed to be helping us write our SOPs, and they didn't work, our employees didn't take to it, so I hope you can do better. What ended up happening was that the other person that they had brought in had the employees write their processes, except they had someone who didn't do the job, write the processes, which meant the person who does do the job, didn't have any buy-in have buy-in in the process like, this is stupid. Why would we do it this way? I would never do it this way. So upon further investigation, what we ended up figuring out was is the engineering department was upset because they didn't get to write to have a say in what happens, and they're the expert. Also, he spent six hours on Facebook a day. So I had the IT guy block Facebook on the server, but that's another story.
So I think the piece that's missing in a lot of this stuff is the personal interaction. It is the meeting and talking together and figuring out what it is that is stopping this process. And so when I worked with that engineer, I figured out what was stopping this process, told him to fix it, how would you do it? And him and I created what he would do. I was just there for accountability. He is engineering smart HVAC systems. I have no clue, but that's the cool part. I don't have to know what you do to get you to do it better. So I took his ideas to the vp. The VP looked at it and said, this is great. This is awesome. This came out of my guy. Oftentimes we don't stop to think and talk to my guy and figure it all out. So all of the engineers ideas and plans were created and set with an additional, the VP says, I think I would like to put a checklist.
Okay, go back to the engineer. Hey engineer, you want to create a checklist for this? Oh, that's a great idea. And then we go from engineering or engineering projects every three weeks to every three days, and nothing makes a VP feel better. Then going from three weeks to three days, nothing makes an engineer feel better that he's heard, he's validated, and he is needed. And then he's going from three weeks to three days. And so the emotional repercussion of that is positive when we take the time to listen, to figure it out, and to apply the things that are necessary. If we keep doing what we've always done, we get what we've always got. Right? Thanks. Dad hated that. He told me that as a kid more so I hated he was right. So I worked in that. That's that one department. We went from engineering in three weeks to three days, and then we go out to the warehouse and we spend time out there and we figure out what's going on out there. We've got too much inventory. And if it's a smart HVAC system, smart systems are just like our cell phones. They go out of, well, the next new model is here in months, let's say. And so we can't keep a bunch of this stuff on. And so we go through and we figured that out. And that's actually that story I just told earlier about the person that only works half of their day. That was that warehouse person.
That was that warehouse person. So we recouped $60,000 just in inventory by selling off the stuff we didn't need, created his processes and the things that he's supposed to do. So he actually also increased his productivity from about 50 to 75%. And the cool part is in the whole supply chain, but let's think about it. This is a whole company from sales all the way through to engineering all the way through to order parts to service parts to install. We only worked in two areas and the whole process got better and everyone was happier. So there's an opportunity there for the feelings and everyone in the supply chain to be happier even when we work just in specific areas. So emotionally, they all felt better. And it also helps that over a course of 11 months, they saved $311,000. That also helps. And we rewrote those processes. So that is a covert cost savings now every single 11 months. So the other part of this whole thing about preparation, consistency and consistency in the right tasks is you are going to save time. You're going to save money, whether it's overt costs or covert costs, just by preparing, staying consistent and being consistent in the right tasks.

Clarence Fisher: Wow. What inspired you to start doing this?

Danielle Baily: So the funny part, this is why I'm giggling. The funny part about this is I'm a child of entrepreneurs, so I never wanted to work that hard. So when someone asked me in 2011, I finished all these degrees and all this expensive paper and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, and the job hunt was terrible at the time. And so someone asked me, have you considered starting your own business? And I literally told them, no, I don't want to work that hard.
I've been working since I was six. I have seen the havoc, bad processes, workaholic, workaholic, workaholism. There we go. I've seen how negatively this impacts family and business. I don't want to do this. So two weeks later I started my own consulting firm so that others don't have to do that. They don't have to create that type of busy, stressed out, overwhelmed, consistently maddening feelings, emotions, business processes, craziness. We don't have to create that. It can be different. And since I experienced it as a child, I also know how my client's children feel. I know how my client's spouses feel. I worked for my parents and my parents worked with each other. So there's a lot of depth there. So what inspired me to do it was I didn't want to be that solopreneur, that entrepreneur that had bad processes that wore themselves out that I didn't want it. So I created a space for other people to have an opportunity to create the repeatable habits, implement the tactical plans, and work on their time management process generation prioritization and implementation. And that's all I do.

Clarence Fisher: That is so great. That is so great. And a lot of times it is the story of people who in their way have their own trauma of going on and helping other people to not have to experience that. Man. That's awesome. So when you started yourself, I mean there were tons of lessons that you learned or ways that affected you when you were so young starting to work and experiencing this with entrepreneur parents, which I've never even thought about how even my kids would have felt when things get bad, right? Everything's great when it's great, but when it's bad, it's like all hands are on deck. Everything we have is on deck. It's like,
So I've never thought about that. Thank you. Now I've got to call my grown children and be like, look, I'm sorry. Can you come over for dinner? And I'm going to be curious to hear the stories from their perspective. So that's one thing that I'm definitely going to do and I'll let you know about that. Thankfully, they all still come over once a month for dinner, so I didn't ruin it too much. But can you share a lesson that you learned early on when starting your business that still affects the way that you do business today?

Danielle Baily: Oh my goodness, yes. Always do what's right for the client. So when I first started out, I had someone who had said that they were going to help me by the way, they said that they were going to help me. And so in return for them helping me, I was going to work with them. I was not going to charge them. You guys know how it goes. We start businesses, we do stupid things. And so I don't even have the excuse. I was like 26 years old. I don't even have an excuse of being young either. I was not. My brain was fully developed. I should have known better. One of the things that I noticed with this person though, is that as I watched them do business, I realized I didn't want to do business like them. They were on the phone with someone and with a client, and they flat out lied
And they called the person who was doing the project and they devised a way to do what honored the business, not honored the client. I was in this office in this listening to this conversation and just in absolute awe that someone would prioritize themselves over the client. It just blew me away. And so it was very early on, this is three months in, and I still wasn't getting paid, and she also still hadn't introduced me to anybody, but that's another story for another day. But I'm sitting in this office and I'm like, I never want to do this. The client's not always right. We do also need to insulate ourselves from people pleasing, however, doing what's right for the client, even if that's letting them go because they're not getting those results that they want or they're not doing the work well, they're not getting the results because they're not doing the work. But again, something different. That is what I learned early on, and as long as I stuck to do what's right for the client and not prioritize my own needs, everything's just worked out so swimmingly. Everybody's been happy, everybody. I've had people come off my client deck and come back on and it's just been great. So I think that biggest lesson is prioritize the client and what's best for them, even if it may not be the best thing for you and your business. There is, however a fine line with that. So

Clarence Fisher: Right, client first, client first. So what should clients or what should businesses look for in closing and wrapping up? What should businesses look for when they are asking themselves? We need to become more efficient. We need to become more product productive. And you know what? Let's bring in some help. What should they be looking for?

Danielle Baily: So identifying what they really need in their business is going to be hard because you can't really see it when you're in it. So it's more of a feeling if they're like, I have no time. Then if they say, I have no time, by the way, every single person has the same time in the day. How is one person more successful than another? So if they say, I have no time, there is a flag of need someone to be, we need help in becoming more efficient with our time. And then to look for would be a time management expert. There are a lot of people out there who say, I work in time management, but what is their experience in said time management

Clarence Fisher: And

Danielle Baily: Do they walk that talk? I had a lady the other day I met and as a time management expert, I love talking to other time management people because I want to learn from them too. Well, she never made the appointment IE, she didn't show up, she didn't show up,
But all the processes were in place, the reminders, the this, the that. So I think that feeling what they feel like when you're walking through your day and you're like, this is crazy. I don't want to feel like this anymore. What is the process that's making you feel that way? What is the item, the thing, the task. You don't even have to call it a process. What is the item, the thing, the task that's making you feel this way? And then you can go out and find someone who does that, who can help you with that. Because business ownership is a lot about production, but it's more about how it makes you feel. It's more about if I feel good, I'm giving out good work. So how do I create a holistic feel good, do good, be good, have a good business

Clarence Fisher: And client first. Okay, so I've got that time management, I'm bringing you in. If I'm looking and interviewing the people, the consultant that's going to come in, the things that I should look for are number one, they're walking the walk. Anything else that I need to be looking at? Is that the main thing? I guess that's the main thing.

Danielle Baily: Yeah, it really is the main thing. And then also too, it's when you talk to these people, it has to be a good fit. If you are a person who's soft spoken and you're slow paced, the consultant that is not going to fit you is that high energy, super fast person. They're going to stress you out. And conversely, if you are a high energy top performer or go person, you're not going to want that slow paced consultant to help you because they can't meet you where you are.
And then there's some of us that can actually meet people where they are and mirror their energy so that they can get the most out of it. But making sure that that person's right for you and because this is asking for help and hiring a consultant for any part of your business is a long-term commitment. My clients stay on one and a half to three years on average and sometimes longer. So this is a long-term commitment. So we've got to be sure that we're going to work well with that person and we align well with that person.

Clarence Fisher: Very cool. So do you have any final words of wisdom? What should someone listening to this episode, what should they be doing in the next 30, 90 days a year to get their, I'll leave it at that. Do you have any final words of wisdom for our listeners here? Or maybe we go with the next thing that needs to be done?

Danielle Baily: Right. Well, and I think it's identifying where you really want to go. I think we often do tasks for task think, but what are we doing? Why do we have our business and what is it working to fund? Because oftentimes I think business owners will put their business on top of their family as opposed to having their business support their family. So really the last words of wisdoms are what are you actually wanting to do? And does your business support that and start an evening routine?

Clarence Fisher: You got Oprah on in about to make me cry. I'm sitting there. Oh, that is the biggest question. After, I don't know, eight years, nine years in business, sitting back and saying, you know what? My business is supposed to be supporting my life, the life that I want. Not the other way around. But we are so told, and again, like you said earlier, comparing ourselves to other people, especially in your particular industry, right? Whatever industry you're in, it's so hard to, I forget, for instance, let's just take digital marketing agencies, a digital marketing agency. So I'm always looking at the biggest agencies. I wake up and they're my measuring. It doesn't make sense. It really doesn't. Then you read an article about the CEO of that company that hates his life. Thank you for that. You had to leave me with moist eyes here. Okay, so my last question, I do this every time. I have a deck of cards here, and each one of these cards have questions on them and they're off the wall questions. So what I would like you to do is pick a number between one 20 and then I'm going to pick that card and ask you that question.

Danielle Baily: Eight.

Clarence Fisher: Eight. Alright. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7. We have eight. And eight is what is one thing you wish you spent more time doing when you were younger?

Danielle Baily: Ooh, being amazing. No, I've always been amazing. Let's see. Don't like questions. I'm not prepared for Clarence.

Clarence Fisher: I know, I know, I know.

Danielle Baily: You know what? I'm just going to do it. Napping. Napping. I wish I had done more napping to understand its power in productivity.

Clarence Fisher: And you brought it around, you brought it all the way. I love it. How can our listeners find out more from you? And we've covered how you can help them, but how do they get in touch with you?

Danielle Baily: Absolutely. So email is always the best way to get ahold of me. I actually have a couple of websites that they can go check out. There's a daniellebaily.com. That's Bailey without the e.com. And then learn.daniellebaily.com is one of my favorites. It's my learning management system. So there's lots of cool stuff on there. Programs and different things that allow people to come in and test and see what it's like to, what are the things that I like to do, how I like to work. I just started a new consistency bootcamp. I do focused work sessions each month. And so it's a really good way to get introduced to me without having to have that awkward, I think I might want to consultation with you. It's a fun way. I also have an amazing YouTube channel that you guys get to know me because it's got like 101 videos. Lots of tips, lots of tricks. I'm all over social, but I think for a direct contact, if people really want to just have a conversation, emailing me would be a great idea.

Clarence Fisher: Excellent. And we'll put that email. Do you want to say the email address and then we'll also put say also it in the show notes?

Danielle Baily: Yeah, definitely put it in the show notes. I have to spell it people, because one thing I didn't think about is how I named my business when I named it. So it's Danielle, D-A-N-I-E-L-L-E@ Bailett, B-A-I-L-E-T-T, consulting all one word.com.

Clarence Fisher: I love it. I hear a jingle. Best show

Danielle Baily: Notes. It [email protected], right?

Clarence Fisher: I love it. All right, so in the show notes, we will put your email link to the YouTube, link to the websites and all of that great stuff. Daniel, thank you so much for coming on today and sharing all of this wisdom with us.

Danielle Baily: Thank you, Clarence. Thank you for having me.

Clarence Fisher: All right, there you have it. Listen, listen, Linda, you need to reach out to Danielle. Efficiency and productivity is something that we are always looking to increase and become better at, and she is amazing at it and an amazing person, just downright amazing. So next week I expect to see you here at Local Market Monopoly. Take the advice that she gave you today, and like I said, reach out to her so that you can drill down even deeper for your business. But whatever you do, you know what we need to do. Go own your block.

Closing: We appreciate you listening to Local Market Monopoly. Be sure to rate, review and subscribe to the show and visit localmarketmonopoly.com for more resources that will help you dominate your local markets and own the block.

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