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Welcome everyone to our today's episode on our podcast.

We are thrilled.

To have back the lovely Megan Cain, her company is called

Spacious Op and she is a visionary.

Today we're going to talk about visionary clarity at the top.

And I think, I just feel like this is such an important topic that oftentimes,

especially when you start as a solopreneur, you don't actually move into

because you just don't think that big yet.

But even before we go into that, Megan, why don't you tell us a little

bit about you and your business?

Sure.

Thanks for having me back.

It's funny that you said I'm a visionary because I actually

don't think I am a visionary.

I work with a lot of visionaries and I've always thought I have two businesses

and I've always thought I should hire a visionary to work for my business.

One of my friends doesn't agree.

She does.

She thinks I'm a visionary, but I don't know if that's actually true.

Um, but I visionaries.

So CEOs, founders, and.

What I love to do is help them operationalize their vision.

So before the podcast started, we were talking a little bit about

a lot of people that come to me.

They know what they want their business to look like, but they

don't know how to get there.

They don't know how to move from vision to action.

And that's where.

I assist, so helping people get out of the weeds, get out of the confusion

and lack of clarity and back into that seat of visionary clarity.

Yeah, I love that.

A friend of ours always says clarity is velocity.

And we love that.

And it is so true.

If you know exactly where you're going, you're going to have an easier time to

get there than if you're floundering, not quite sure where you're going.

Yeah, I think that's true.

I actually think that visionaries, they need to know the what, but

they don't need to know the how.

You can have other people on your team that are helping you figure out the

how and actually executing the how, but the what sits with the visionary.

It's so amazing that you say that because we have had so many

clients who come on with us.

And once they have the virtual assistant up and running, they say things like,

I always thought I had a big vision, but now that I understand what having

a support person can do for me, I realized I could do so much more.

And if you think about it, I think a lot of business owners.

They do have a vision, but they often have shiny object syndrome.

So they might have 20 different visions.

Having someone take those different, different parts of their vision

and helping them really dial in on what's most important and how they

want to implement it and really getting that clarity is so important.

It's what's it like for you when you first sit down with someone and you're helping

them bring it all together with a vision?

Yeah.

The first thing that we do, I have, I work with people, most clients

that they work with me through what I call momentum mapping.

And basically what I'm doing is pulling as much as possible out of their head.

So people come to me cause they're feeling overwhelmed and they're

not exactly sure where to go next.

Stuck in the weeds.

So the first step is to, we take a tour through their business,

through all the operational buckets.

I thought you were going to say you're going to, you take

a tour through their brain.

That's what I thought you were going to say.

It's the same thing, right?

Their business lives in their brain.

Yeah.

So I've been touring through their brain and business, through

all the operational buckets.

And operations is really cross cutting throughout your whole,

organization or business.

It touches every piece.

And so I just pull things out.

I ask a lot of questions.

I take a lot of notes and we just do a big brain dump.

And then after that, sometimes people feel a little overwhelmed in the beginning,

but then they feel this sense of relief.

Okay.

It's out there.

Someone else can see it.

And then I started.

Start to organize it.

So I have a very strategic brain and I make a lot of connections.

And so once we get it all out on the table, then we can start to

synthesize it and organize it and see where there are connections.

And really what we're trying to figure out is.

Okay, where is the next place, best place to go from here?

And it's different for every business.

So there's certainly similarities between businesses, but I always

say before we go through the, the momentum mapping, I don't know where

we're going to end up at the end.

We don't know.

It's a mysterious process.

It's synergistic.

Um, but it's really fascinating because sometimes people come to me

and they think they need one thing.

And then we go through that process and we realize, Oh no.

You need actually something totally different as this next step.

So we're trying to get really clear on, okay.

How, what are the next best steps to help you move forward towards that vision?

It's like peeling an onion, isn't it?

They just keep going layer by layer.

Yeah.

It's so fascinating because with business owners, sometimes it's letting

go of a product or service or letting go of a marketing channel or choosing

to, or choosing to add new things onto the business and it's exciting, but.

Having someone like you help them really decide what will my next

steps be and then who can we get in place to help me implement those.

That's so powerful.

I love the idea of the momentum mapping.

I think that's such a great title for what you do.

Yeah.

And I think that's a good point that you make, Kirsten, is that we, when

we see all the things that need to happen, we're going to simplify.

You can't do all the things at once, but we try to figure out, okay, we don't

want everything to fall to the visionary.

Unless you're a really small business and you can, you're not quite at the

point yet financially where you can hire help, then you might have to do.

More of the things, but if you're in a situation where you can afford to hire

help, then we can get really clear.

We see what kind of help you need, and then we can decide strategically, then

who do we hire to put in that position.

And it's always different depending on the people that I'm working with.

Yeah, so it's a fascinating process and there are all kinds

of things have come out of it.

At the end, one, one client decided she needed to revisit her business structure.

She had a team and re figure out, okay, I need to, I actually have

to take a big step back and I have to figure out, do I want a team?

Do I not want a team?

Sometimes people realize, Oh, I need to hire another person.

Sometimes you realize they need a lot of operational help.

And then that's where I come in.

Yeah.

So it's really, yeah, it's a really fascinating process

because everybody's business is so unique to them and their vision.

And for all of you out there, this is our second interview with Megan, and we

will put a link to her first interview up here so you guys can check that out.

So one of the things we talked about in that last one was we talked

about vision, strategy, operation, and then kind of task, right?

And one of the things that we've done since our last conversation is we

put an operations manager in place.

She's not fully up and running in that role yet, but it is really nice

to start thinking about the things that we can back ourselves out of

and having her take over more of the management of the team and the tasks.

It's really exciting.

Jeanne, how are you feeling about that?

Fabulous.

It's so fabulous to have somebody who you can, something

needs to be done, Here you go.

Handle that, get that to whoever needs it and organize the structure for it.

And she's just, she's amazing.

And it really does take that pressure off of you and take that energy off of you.

So you feel freer to make bigger decisions, to think bigger.

Because all that chaos isn't going on around and in your head.

I've had clients say that when we start to get those higher level support, sometimes

I come in at strategy and management.

Sometimes, like you said, we hire an operations manager and they just,

that's the same thing they say.

They just have more space to think, to breathe.

To really do the things that they only they can do.

So I always say, if you're the visionary, you should be doing

the things that only you can do.

And a lot of the times those are the things that you really love to do.

And the reasons why you started the business in the first place, but.

As your business grows and you become more successful, there's more and

more stuff that needs to be done.

And I always have this visual of a visionary being dragged into the

weeds by all the day to day details, which you probably don't want to be

doing, which, and I try to normalize it with my clients and saying, that's

not really what you should be doing.

It's okay if you don't want to be doing it because you're the visionary and that's

not really what you should be doing.

It's funny because the character in my mind is this person running around

with a little fire extinguisher, trying to put out all the little tiny

fires that pop up in your business.

And none of them are usually big fires.

It's just little things that have to be dealt with, but you're not

the best person to deal with them.

You get someone else to put out a fire extinguisher.

But it's so funny because since we made this choice, Jeanne and I have actually

started working on a second program that we're going to roll out to help

our clients have a virtual assistant and get them booked on podcasts.

And I'll have to tell you, like, having just the brain space to do that and having

the excitement around it, because I know sometimes Jeanne and I both love creating

things and we love helping our clients with things that they've asked us for.

We've got a lot of people asking us about getting booked on

podcasts and having help with that.

And it's so exciting when you have the time and the energy to get

really involved in a new project and just see it through really quickly.

Because I think that's the other thing, like with Clarity equals

Velocity, most of us business owners, we like to move at the speed of light,

otherwise we get bored or distracted.

Yeah, and we were reading somewhere, it said, you don't want entrepreneurs

who are bored, they get in a lot of trouble, we need to have, we

need to have things going on.

Yes.

And if you want to be moving, like you said, moving at that velocity,

then you need support people that are going to help take those actions.

You want, you're moving forward in your vision really quickly

because you think quickly.

A lot of visionaries are quick starts on the Colby index.

And so you need that support system in place that can really take those,

take that vision and start really managing it and implementing it.

It sounds like the two of you have.

Done a great job doing that.

Kirsten and I are both quick starts.

Yeah.

Janie's a more balanced human being.

She has other qualities.

I'm just like all quick start.

There's nothing else.

I'm one dimensional.

She can at least bring something else to the table.

So that's exciting for us.

So once they have that vision, do you find that a lot of the clients you work with

then struggle with how to make it happen?

Like they know what they want, but they don't know the how?

Yes.

I think there are a lot of people that don't exactly know

how to make Their vision happen.

Oh, I had an interesting.

Conversation with someone, we were on a discovery call and she said,

how do I know if I have what it takes to be successful as an entrepreneur?

And I thought, Oh, that's a very interesting question.

And I had told her, I think just the fact that one, you have a clear vision.

So that's really important.

But two, you reached out to me because you're realizing

that you need support to help.

Create that vision.

I said, I think sometimes the people who are less successful

just try to do everything themselves and they're overworking.

And like we said, they're stuck in the details.

They're putting out all those fires and think if I think there are people that

Keep a very small business that can be very successful as a solopreneur, but

most business owners that I know have at least a very small support team.

So like you're saying, so that you have space to maybe think about

launching another program, or you want to write a book, or you want to

start speaking and traveling around.

It's really hard to do some of those big picture things if you're

also doing all the day to day.

Yeah, that's why we came out with the other program we have,

the Marketing VA Advantage, was because it takes all the marketing

responsibilities off of the business owner, so they can do their business.

Because you always have to market consistently, all the time, you

have so many different places to be.

So yeah, that makes total sense.

I remember our clients who got on to write books, it's amazing.

When you free up that space, and a lot of them are creating YouTube videos,

or they started in that process of creating content, they realize, Hey, I

know so much, I want to write a book.

And then having that space to do that is amazing.

It's when you talk, I love, I'm going to circle back to this question.

How do I know what it takes to be successful?

That was a very insightful question for someone to ask.

And I love the fact that you said the fact that you reached out to

me says a lot in and of itself.

We talk about a lot in the entrepreneurial world about burnout.

But something we don't talk enough about is how much entrepreneurs beat themselves

up because they can't do everything.

So there becomes, there's a lot of negative talk and a lot of self

deprivation and things that really, I think, just destroy the vision because

you're beating yourself up over.

I can't do this and I can't do that.

I can't keep up with what this other person's doing or

this other business is doing.

And it's because you are trying to do it all yourself and

realizing that people that are.

Showing up on different social media platforms or people that are on podcast

interviews or people that you seem to take the right steps all the time.

They're seeking out support like you to help them know

what are those next right step.

And it's so funny because I've done a couple podcast interviews

and the title has been, um, outsourcing as a form of self care.

You think about it.

We think about self care is taking a hot bath or taking

a walk or going to a retreat.

But the reality is a business owner.

Self care is buying yourself the space and the time to be able to 1

focus on the part of your business.

You love, but also have time for your friends and your family.

Not always feel exhausted and not always.

Be in a position where you're beating yourself up over all the

things that you can't get done.

Yeah, I think that's a great point.

And you get to support other people in doing what they love.

If you hire an assistant, they love being organized and

helping organize your business.

One of my clients, my longtime clients, When we were talking later, she said,

one of the reasons I hired you is because you love to do the thing,

all the things that I hate to do.

And she said, and worse that I'm not even very good at.

So there are people out there that are really good compliments to you.

And I think it's really fun.

That's why I like love working with visionaries because I think they're

very complimentary to my personality.

I'm more structured, but we both meet at the strategic level.

Cause I love to think strategically, but.

Yeah, you can build a business where you're also supporting

other people in their businesses.

If you maybe you decide you want to have employees, then you're supporting

people or helping support people.

And, or even if you have just contractors, all those contractors

often have their own businesses.

And so then you're supporting other people with their own

businesses, just like you do.

So I think it's, it can be really fun too.

It's a beautiful thing.

I joke about the fact that I couldn't even log into my Canva account if I

needed to, and it's amazing to think that there are people who love to create

graphic design, who love video editing, and they have, they do an amazing job.

And I always say, I don't have to know how to edit a video to be able

to say if I like it, edit, or dislike it, edit, or if I like a piece

of B roll where I don't like it.

I can give you feedback on what I love about the video editing or what I

dislike about it without knowing how to.

And I think that I think that's something for women.

They often feel like they have to know how to do everything before they can hire.

And personally, I think that's a big mistake because then you spend so much of

your time learning skills and learn how to do things that you don't want to do.

You don't enjoy doing them.

It's not it doesn't bring you if it doesn't bring you any joy.

Okay.

Why the heck would you do it as a business owner?

You take all this risk to be self employed.

Doesn't it make sense to spend as much time in your business

doing what you really love?

And yeah, having someone else who loves doing video editing, who loves doing

graphic design, it's exciting to see how excited they get for what they've created.

And it's a win win.

I think that's one of the things that Jeanne and I have loved so much about

outsourcing and helping people learn the value of outsourcing is that it's

You're really helping two people.

We're not just helping our clients.

We're helping these people halfway around the world get these

amazing jobs and get to do that.

Yeah.

I think that's a great point.

And I think you're right.

It's completely unrealistic to think that one person that you as the business

owner or the marketing person and their operations person and the HR and the

finance person, if in bigger companies, there's, At least if not one person in

that job, then a whole team, a financial team, a marketing team, a sales team.

And so, yeah, I don't, it's not realistic to think that you can

do everything yourself and still have your nights and weekends.

And like you said, Kirsten, time with family and vacations, because

then things all fall apart.

You decide to take a week vacation and you're stressed

out or you're still working.

So yeah, I think it's good that it would be great for us to spread

that message out more of that.

You can't, as a business owner, it's not, no one, you shouldn't

expect yourself to do everything.

It's just not feasible and it's really stressful as well.

Yeah.

I remember when I was doing way back, very long time ago when I had my

marketing agency and I kept thinking, to Kirshen's point, it was my fault.

I wasn't organized enough.

I was not working enough hours.

I was, when the reality was, things weren't getting done just because

there weren't enough hours in the day.

And then you would end up, at least for me, I would end

up doing what had to be done.

But then the important things, the strategic thinking, the planning,

the moving forward, Wasn't getting done because it was like, I'll do

that once I get all this stuff done.

Once I get all the things filed, then I can move on to the next project.

And nine times out of 10, it just keeps getting pushed back.

Also, Kirsten, I wanted to circle back to the point that you made of people

feeling like they have to have everything figured out before they hire somebody.

So I had one of my clients say to me.

I, when you, when we did the momentum mapping, I lifted up the

rug so that you could see the mess underneath there and it was scary.

And I've had other clients say that too.

It feels really vulnerable to, to invite somebody into your business and not be

perfect, not have everything figured out.

I always tell my clients, I love the mess.

I do not want to go into a business where everything is already figured out.

That's so boring.

The fun is in the chaos.

And I think that I'm not the only one that says that, right?

There's going back to hiring people that really compliment you.

It's for some people that the chaos and the mess is the exciting part and helping

to streamline it and create processes and systems and get more clarity is the fun.

And so, you know, That's just a reminder for anybody listening is, yeah, don't

wait until you have everything figured out to hire somebody because you can

hire people that will help you figure it out or even just figure it out for you.

I have clients that are like, okay, I'm trying to figure this out.

We're trying to figure out benefits for one of my clients that has.

Employees.

So I just, we had a quick conversation and she's like, all right, we'll

run the numbers, look at the budget.

You make the final decision.

That's that's great for her.

She just freed up so much time.

I'm trying to sit with all the plans and blah, blah, blah.

So I think you can hire people for different seats in your business that can

either help you figure things out or just check in with you and then you empower

them to figure it out on their own.

And that is really, I think.

Another level of being in business that you start to surround yourself

with people that can really help your business even be better and bigger.

And you have more spaciousness.

When you talk about SOP standard operating procedures, you talk

about putting structure in place.

I think for a lot of entrepreneurs, they have that same mindset as a lot of

artists, which is they like the chaos.

They like the mess.

They like the stress that they need that in order to function.

And the reality is, it's just the opposite.

Generally, once someone has embraced a structure that makes sense to them and

they're able to use it consistently, they love it because they realize

it frees up their mind so much.

And I love that saying, if you do something, More than three

times that has three steps.

You need to document it, create a process for it.

So you can hand it off to someone else.

And I think that's when a person goes from being like self employed.

I created this job for myself to being like a true CEO and visionary of, Oh, I,

I want to continue to create, and I want to have structure in place so that other

people can do things and it will be free.

But I do think that is a big challenge for a lot of people

is letting go of Of the chaos.

Plus, if you've been running your business by yourself for a long time.

That chaos feels familiar.

It's what you're touching on.

There's some deeper kind of mindset and work that also needs

to be done, which is true, right?

We all, we're all business owners.

And I think who owning a business has been quite a journey.

And if I had known everything that I w I didn't know when I started, I don't know.

It's interesting to think when I have made the same decision, I've loved it, but it's

been, it's not easy to be an entrepreneur.

And that's why I love working with entrepreneurs because I feel like it's

A very brave bunch of people, like really gutsy people that are scrappy

and are willing to go out on their own, which is unpredictable and scary.

And they're, I don't know, they choose to go on the adventure

that is entrepreneurship and it's a very rewarding adventure.

And journey.

But I also think there there's a lot of highs and lows.

Yeah, I think it's the same.

Those are all the same reasons we love working with entrepreneurs.

They're open minded.

They want it.

They're, they're vulnerable.

They want to get better.

They want to change the world.

They know that they can't always do it by themselves.

So I love when they seek out like the support and the help that

they need from someone like you.

And it, it makes all the difference in the world.

So yeah, they are brave.

We are all brave.

Megan, it has been such a pleasure to have you as always.

You are.

Such a wealth of information and you always inspire me every time you come on.

So thank you very much for being here today.

Thank you both for having me back.

I always love our conversations and you always ask great questions.

So thanks.

Thank you.

How can people reach out to you if they want to, if they want to connect with you?

Yeah, you can find me at my website.

I'm having, I'm getting a brand new website, which I'm really excited about.

You can find me at Megan, M E G A N Cain, C A I N.

com.

Megan Cain.

com and reach out.

I'd love to chat.

You can book a discovery call on my website.

Perfect.

Thanks for listening to the six figure business mastery podcast.

If you enjoyed listening to this episode and you are ready to leverage video

marketing on all online platforms, or maybe even start your own video

podcast, then you need to check out the done for you and done with you

program at the marketing VA advantage.

com and take your business to the next level.