The Real Reason Your Systems Are Not Working

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Most founders that I talk to

already know that something's

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off, so they do what makes sense.

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They find a new tool, that maybe

somebody told them about or, it's

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the latest tool that's on the market.

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They think it's better than the

existing tool that they're using,

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and there's a huge learning curve,

especially, like, with training or

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maybe they are the ones who need

to figure out how to use the tool.

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They hire someone who they think knows

the tool, and they get a beautiful ClickUp

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dashboard or maybe it's nothing like

you imagined that it would look like.

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And then six months later, they're in the

same exact place, except now they have

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another system to manage, another person

that could not actually solve the problem.

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Because the real problem was never

the tool, and oftentimes it's also

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not the person that they hired,

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and the problem is not

a capacity issue either.

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That's just what it looks like.

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Especially on the surface.

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So when you go a little bit deeper,

what you usually find is that the system

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exists, but nobody's following them,

especially the way that they're written.

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The SOPs are there, but they're

somewhere in la-la land, and they're

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built around how things are supposed

to go, not how your team operates.

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. So it seems like they're skipping steps

or things are falling through the cracks.

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when real life happens, the

process doesn't really hold.

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So if there's an emergency or there

is a delay, everything goes haywire.

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Things fall through the cracks.

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And it's not because nobody's trying,

but it's because the system was

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never built around the habits and the

behaviors of the people inside of it.

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So things end up backing up, nothing

moves forward, and it starts to

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look like there's not enough time or

not enough people, that's actually

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not the real problem either.

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The real problem is that nobody

connected the tool to the vision of

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the founder and the company, the gaps

that currently exist and the way that

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the business is currently operating,

especially the founder in the business.

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Most founders know that this is an

operational problem, and underneath

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of all of it, though, it's actually

an identity problem as well.

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Most people only fix one layer.

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But this show here is

about all three of them.

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So You're lying awake wondering

how you're going to make payroll.

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Someone on your team is underperforming,

and you haven't quite figured

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out how you're gonna address it.

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Maybe you've been avoiding it, and the

revenue is just not where it needs to

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be, and you really can't figure out why.

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You may have even tried the strategies,

and you've taken the advice and all of

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it, but everything still feels chaotic.

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Nothing is really connected, so you ask

yourself the same question on repeat.

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Do you hire somebody?

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Do you get a new tool?

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Do you force yourself into another

10-hour week to manage all the execution?

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You're the leader.

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You don't get the clock out

at 5:00 like everybody else.

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And the answer you need is not that

far away, but when fear is the one

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running the show, you can't see the

solutions that are in front of you.

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I'm Alicia Nicole, the founder of The

Ops House, and if you're listening to

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this podcast and you're a founder trying

to scale sustainably, then you're in the

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right place, and let me tell you why.

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an entrepreneur in some form or

another since I was 14, across multiple

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different industries, from health,

wellness, and web design to coaching.

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I served as a director of operations

for one of the largest fintech companies

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in the world, where I led a team that

reached number seven in the market

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twice in a row, and this was out

of thousands of other competitors.

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This was the first time that this company

reached number seven in the history,

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and I was the one who led the team.

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I've been NLP trained, and I spent

time directly coaching founders

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alongside Rachel Rodgers in Hello

Seven We Should All Be Millionaires.

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This is one of the most recognized

business growth communities for

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entrepreneurs building towards

million-dollar businesses, and a lot

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of people actually still know me from

there, so you may have found me by that.

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I have been inside of the mindset issues,

the structural issues, the team issues.

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I've been all the way up and

through people's businesses,

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and I know what it looks like.

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So when I talk about operations,

I'm not just speaking from theory.

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here's what I know

after doing all of that.

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Most founders don't actually

have an ideas problems.

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They think they have an ideas problem,

and it seems that way because maybe

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you have so many ideas, and you

can't find a way to package them.

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You can't find a way to structure them.

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They're just running all over the place,

and you're trying to execute all of them.

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You got more ideas than you

can package or distribute.

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But they also think that they have a

capacity problem, but what they actually

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have is an infrastructure problem.

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So they hire the wrong role too fast,

or they wait too long, or they bring

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somebody in who builds systems for

themselves or for generic businesses

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And when none of it works, they end up

spending time doing what they either paid

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somebody else to do or what they shouldn't

have been doing in the first place.

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This is what this show is here to fix.

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Well-Behaved Operations is about

building businesses that don't break

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the people inside of it, including you.

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It's about making operations

proactive and not reactive.

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It's about removing yourself from

the bottleneck by starting with

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the one thing that most operation

podcasts never talk about, identity.

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Because the way that you lead shapes

how you run your business, always.

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And I wanna be honest with you

This podcast is faith-based.

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I believe this work is bigger than any

strategy, any system, and I believe

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in God's original design for how

businesses should operate, and for me,

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that does not include burnout, toxic

workplaces, or founders running on empty.

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While not every podcast will have a

biblical scripture or anything like that,

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you will feel that in the foundations

of everything that we build here.

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And we're gonna talk about all of the

things that come along with running a

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business, the pivots, the payroll panics

at midnight, the team breakdowns, the

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money mindset, the characteristics that

are keeping you stuck, the lessons learned

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along the way, because well-behaved

operations is not just about systems.

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Most operators stop there and miss

the entire point, the behavior behind

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the business, the identity of the

leader, and the alignment between

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your values and the way you operate

day to day is what matters the most.

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This is a holistic view, and

that's what this show is built on.

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So if you ever sat across from

your business and thought, "I

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built this business, I know what

needs to change, so why does it

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feel like I'm running on empty?"

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Or, "Why does it feel like everything

is just broken and chaotic and

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scattered and all over the place?"

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Then this is the show for you.

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I started this podcast because,

honestly, seeing small businesses

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go under really breaks my heart,

and most of the time it's because

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the operations could've been fixed.

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And I wanna get to people sooner.

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I have been a patron of some of the

most beautiful businesses, and whenever

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I can't find their specialized product

or I can't buy from them, especially

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when I'm deeply committed to their

businesses, it really does break my heart.

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So if you're a founder and you're done

with chaotic systems and you're ready to

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go from scattered to seamless, then follow

Well-Behaved Operations wherever you

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listen to your podcasts, and there will

be more episodes, new episodes coming soon