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Welcome back to another episode of In Systems We Trust. My name is Marquis. I'm your host. And today I'm speaking with Chloe Handelman. Chloe helps overburdened, purpose-driven businesses to eradicate operational challenges by designing custom operations strategies, processes, and systems.

Whether preparing to sell or scale, she supports busy CEOs and founders by downloading their company vision and implementing new operational tactics to save time, earn more money, and reduce the stress of running a business. Welcome to the show, Chloe.

Hey, Marky. Really happy to be here.

I'm glad we finally got to do this. I know we had to reschedule a couple times, but I feel like it was for the better, because I feel like we've changed and grown, and we have so much more to talk about. I mean, not that we ever didn't have enough to talk about, but you know, you know how life works. Yeah, this is really cool. I'm excited to have this chat.

I mean, for the listeners, to provide some context, Chloe and I used to work together. She was our senior business analyst at Ditto, the consultancy that I used to run. And when I met Chloe, I mean, the business was in a completely different place. Chloe, you started as a business analyst, I guess, working with a couple of our clients.

Yes.

And we quickly realized that her skills could be used in just other places of the business. And Chloe led our team of business analysts, was instrumental in rolling out of our new processes and like taking the lead on just like our process improvement overall. And so I just want to say it loud and clear off the top of this episode that I owe the success of Ditto a lot to the work that Chloe did and led us through. So with that context, again, welcome. Let's dive in.

Thanks, Marquee. I'm blushing over here.

Did I miss anything? I know that was like a really like broad overview but like let's start there like what did you do?

With ditto or when I was working with you?

With ditto yeah I mean yeah let's start there and talk about you know where we really started you were working with some clients you know there was a an opportunity obviously within the business to improve how we were working. And you saw some of those opportunities. You're always like the person that was like calling some of them out. So let's kind of start there on like how you got that start and where you really took things.

Yeah, I think this is it's really fun that we're bringing us back to where we started when I was on initial client projects because I think this is kind of how my role often evolves within organizations. I find some companies I work with or talk with and they say that they need 1 thing, right? And that just kind of opens the door to seeing a lot of things that are challenging the business owners or the team members. And that's what we found. And we even, I think at the first discussions, you and I had already kind of started recognizing there might be some value that I could add directly to the company, not just with the client projects.

But what I think is really fun about the work that I do is like I like getting in and jumping into the actual doing role for periods of time, because unless you're in the doing role and the delivery of work, you don't sometimes see all of the challenges that are getting faced. So I think, you know, we, the first client that I got thrown on, it was just that big, like big messy client, you know, it got, you know, pulled in all different directions, roles were not clear between our team, and it just kind of shed light on some of the operational challenges. So then, you know, yes, we were like raising our hands constantly like, all right, like, how can we improve this next time? How can we improve our internal systems? How can we improve our internal communication about what's going on?

And that was kind of what spit it's been balled into just, you know, really starting some internal and focusing and having that, you know, bigger attention on focusing on those internal improvement projects, which pretty much is what I transferred into ultimately was that was only working on internal projects for the company. So

Yeah, yeah, it was a lot. I mean, I remember that first project, like we were still trying to figure out how we were delivering and like sales were starting to ramp up. And we had a lot to figure out around delivery. Right. And so, yeah, this project was, I think it shed a light on a lot of the areas that we needed to focus.

And then it was out of that that we started, you know, these internal, you know, initiatives to improve. And I even remember going back to your onboarding, right? Like, I had put out at the point in time, you know, a really robust onboarding program and lots of like, next steps and information and context. And you were just poking holes at it, right? Like in a good way, it was like, hey, this doesn't make sense, or this doesn't connect to that.

Hey, we should do this. Hey, how do we do this? And then all of a sudden I'm at this place where I'm the CEO and I'm like, this is good. This is good. Like, I wanna hear these things.

But at the same time, it's like, oh man, like I thought, you know, we had it together and that just launched a whole other initiative around improving how we onboarded our team members.

Yeah. Yeah, and I think that's the fun in the challenge and the dance that I'm always evolving in my ability to communicate with the CEOs or the founders or the team members because it's your baby, right? I don't want to be calling your baby ugly, but the top and the shorts don't match, right? We got a mismatched outfit right now. And that is, it's the dance.

It's consulting is like an art and a science right and that's that's the art of it right how can I deliver and I know there's probably times that I said things that you probably got off the call and you're like oh my god Chloe stop right like too much you're saying too many problems But I think that sometimes is the big realization point and you have to kind of throw that mirror up? And as an ops consultant, it can be challenging when you go into a company and they're like, oh, well, we don't have internal budget for ops or we don't have the space and time. And I'm like, yeah, but look at all this. Right. And we do need to focus on it.

We do need to put some effort towards it and being able to communicate that and find those slivers of budget and time and resource capacity to actually focus on those pieces, that's where it's, yeah, fun and challenging.

And That was 1 of our problems too, right? Like not being able to find that budget because we had, you know, our team was growing quickly and they're dedicated to client projects and we didn't have the internal budget in a lot of cases to involve the necessary team members in those process improvement engagements. And then there was the training and adoption aspect of it as well that we had to like find, you know, budget for so that we can fully align the team. So, so many challenges, but let's get down to the core of it. I want to know if we can back up a little bit.

Just like, how did you get your start in this world, Chloe? And what inspired you to pursue business process improvement for organizations and CEOs?

Well, my start in the world happened when my mom gave birth to me. So, I'll just be clear with that part.

All right. All right.

In the world. Yeah, I got you. But no, as soon as you asked, I was like, oh, I'm going to make a joke. No, but My background actually is in industrial and systems engineering. So if a lot of people aren't actually familiar what that means, even I think I call the degree technically the wrong degree sometimes.

It's a complicated title, but ultimately industrial engineers focus on creating efficiencies in business, in industry, in engineering, like in so many different factors. And every time I had a work experience during my studies, I, in my internships, I did cooperative educations, I took a semester off and just worked the whole time. Everything I was doing was being the intermediary between engineering or a technical field and business people. From there, I really recognize that there are, you know, often so many cross departmental system challenges that there just needs to be someone who can look at everything and have a holistic understanding and help the players communicate to 1 another and understand how things are interconnected. And that interested me and I found that I was good at it.

I was able to really have that ability to communicate to the different stakeholders at different levels and understand how their role played into the bigger part. And so fast forward, I started working at Accenture. I was in consulting, looking at same thing. There's always in projects where I was doing process improvement, I was mapping workflows, I was implementing change management, they're considering the implications of big tech changes and the change management that needed to go alongside of it. And again, I've just like always been super interested in how can I make people's lives easier?

Because ultimately at the end of the day, you go in and you sit with these people and these companies and there's these business challenges, but then you sit at the desk next to someone and they're frustrated, they're upset, they're working long hours. There was this woman working for an insurance company who would come in at like 3 in the morning because the system was broken. And if she didn't come in at 3 in the morning, it would send the wrong thing. So she would have to just go in and sit down at 3am to stop the auto send of this, I can't remember what it was. But those are the people, you know, those are...

That's what I found so much interest in, right? Is the people who are running these businesses and how their lives are impacted by poor systems, by poor training, by poor communication, poor process, lack of documentation, how people's lives are actually impacted by that. And that's really where my interest began. And it's obviously, it's definitely involved into who I'm now working with today. That's a whole other train of thought of where that I've been now evolved into that.

But that is from like a technical and like a truly skill set wise. How I kind of got here is through that interest and making people's lives better through processes and systems.

Super interesting, because it always comes down to the people, right? And how they're impacted in the day to day. And a lot of my conversations as of late have been around how the people within our systems we create are impacted. So does it ever become overwhelming for you? I mean, you're not only taking on the business problems and then needing to strategize ways to improve, but you're also taking on the weight of how these people are impacted and like what they're taking home potentially and how their lives really look at the end of the day.

So is it ever too much for you? And then how do you compartmentalize and figure out next steps?

I think a big challenge can be, you know, when taking it, like taking it so personally. I think that's where I get overwhelmed where you know I'm doing my best you know I'm coming up with the system I'm working really hard and things start to kind of maybe maybe there's a challenge right with the with the founder people in the company and they're not showing up or they have a change in priorities or they're not showing up. And I, and, or if a solution just, we build it out and then again, the requirements change and then the solution I built isn't working and it's like, wait, that's not, that's, it's not my fault, You know, like, and it is, I have responsibility, but like, there's so many factors at play. So in those moments, I definitely get overwhelmed because I really, the last thing I want to do is fail. I don't want to mess up.

I don't want to screw up someone's company. I don't want to make someone feel like their investment wasn't worth it. So that pressure of that when I'm working independently, it can be quite overwhelming. And I think it's also in the same step, it's so rewarding, right? When you can actually then move to the other side.

And I know we used to say the saying, we're turning the ship, right? And like, I love that phrase because it's like, we really have to remember that like turning a ship into a different direction takes a bunch of time and it takes a bunch of effort. And it might feel really, really, really, really hard but if we're consistent, persistent and just really showing up every day once the ship gets moving in the other direction, it's like, wow, look at the way that all this effort paid off, right? And it was worth making these iterations and changes and improvements.

Yeah. Can you talk about, you know, just kind of the focus or how you plan, you know, when it comes to turning the ship, right? We all know it's a gradual thing. You can't turn on a dime. So can you talk about how you break those big rocks down?

Because I mean, for the listeners, you know, you and I would be on calls, right? And we would have this big problem, and it was you and I back and forth strategizing, and then I would send you away to go, like, communicate with the rest of the team and get some feedback, And there were some times where, you know, it was clear that I was overwhelmed, right? And it was too much. And I'm like, Chloe, I need you, right, to take this on. And there was a lot of like trust there as well.

But like to tie that back to your earlier point, right? Like The people that you're helping, they need you. And like, whether you see it or not, right? Like I can tell you like having calls back and forth with you was like therapy for me. It was so good because I knew that there was a person on the other side that understood my problems, right?

That understood how to fix them and knew we'd have to break them down into these, you know, small steps so we could gradually turn the ship. So I want to, if I haven't already, like, and I probably will like a million times this episode, just like say thank you. But yeah, speak to and you can use the examples of ditto or what you've learned since like, how do you break down these big problems into small, smaller rocks that are easier to move?

Yeah, this is the funny answer. It depends, right? So the way that we decide to break down the problem is gonna depend a lot on the business, the CEO, and the priorities and the goals of the company. So, and priorities and goals, and then also the most major gaps. So if a team has already, and what was really great about Ditto, for example, you already had a system for documentation.

So when we were doing things, we could very quickly add SOPs into our database. Like I had a very quick means and like the team's already kind of trained where to look for information, right? But when we're in these big change management, like for other clients, like they don't even have that system set up, right? So we need, there's like all these problems and we have to break it down, but like there's sometimes a need to not even break the problems down yet and get some foundational operational pieces in place so that when we do implement the changes. We can actually communicate those effectively to the team.

And there's actually a way to support the team into using these new solutions. So I think, again, it does depend on that. But I think truly you hit the nail on the head. 1 of the beginning spots is building that trust with the CEO, right? Like there was points and it's building the trust, the CEO trusting me, but me also trusting the CEO to be able to, or founder to be able to like speak to or take action on.

So sometimes there is this interesting dance between, I'd be like, for you and I, like, I'd come to you and be like, what do you want me to do? And you're like, I don't know, you tell me. And I'm like, okay, okay. But like, sometimes, like, it would be like, it's like, no, no, no, you need to tell me like, I can't make this decision. Like, this is not a me decision.

This is a company, like vision decision, right? And like, I can advise what I would, I would do, but like, this isn't my choice. So there's the trust in the relationship building, which is really important. And to get to the point as well where, yeah, you really can let go of some of that, with that trust being able to let go of some of that decision-making control, right? And just allowing things to get rolled out by your trusted ops person, right?

To be able to actually do it and go and execute. But other methods in terms of breaking things down, so creating an operation strategy. So going through, doing an assessment of all of the different areas of business, like team management, team communication, internal knowledge space, client delivery, all these different pieces of business, going across all those areas, identifying the biggest challenges are, right? And then again, against the priorities of the business, prioritizing those projects, right? So if we're having major issues with client onboarding, I'm going to focus on that first.

If we are onboarding clients and like your service offering is a month over and a month renewal and your onboarding is crap and you lose your client after month 1 or month 2 because it didn't get onboarded properly. That's where we're going to start. We're not going to focus on client offboarding. That's not important. So it's really knowing the business needs, knowing their highest priorities and focusing on it.

And like some businesses, it might actually be in sales and marketing, like challenges with that. I know for Ditto, for example, we had a challenge with the sales to deliver a handoff for a piece, right? So like sales and delivery weren't aligned. What we were selling wasn't like project management hadn't been able to assess whether or not it were able to deliver it right in that budget. And looking at that, we had to fix that handoff piece in order to then build out the delivery model.

So the fun answer, It depends on how we can break things down. But it's, again, it's first building that trust and then really understanding the company's vision, mission, goals, and major pain points, blockers, gaps, and assessing that in order to come up with a strategic operations plan.

Yeah. And that just reminded me that I think we're seeing a lot of silos even inside of Ditto. And a lot of the communication was then fragmented as a result. So sales was me, right? And, you know, Chris, you know, Huebe was involved for a time as well, but you know, sales happened in a bubble, and then it was handed over to delivery and then they just had to figure out how to deliver it within, you know, these confines.

And then I think, you know, obviously, it was, it seemed to be so obvious, but we just didn't take those steps early on, was to bring delivery into the sales conversation, have them be a part of the proposal and the review and the estimations at that stage. So it just seemed like it was such an easy example, but without pausing and really looking at it and assessing where is this breaking down, right, like we're just kind of spinning our wheels. And like I said, communication is fragmented and you find yourself in a world of mess, you know, if you're not careful and looking in the right places. So, question here is around, you know, change management, right? Like, things are a mess, you know, you're sailing this ship, you need to make changes.

Like, I think I said to you or someone at 1 point, like, I just want to stop everything right now, like stop operations, stop sales, stop absolutely everything, fix it, like almost like we would take a vacation, right? Or a break from from work and delivery and just fix everything, bring everyone back, retrain them and have a fresh start. But that's just not possible when it comes to business. So how do you approach that? Maybe like with some of your other clients, how have you approached that conversation where it's like, We have to move this through in stages, test, iterate, right?

And then move on to the next stage.

There's a, what's this analogy? I'm going to butcher it. There was like an analogy that I recently used with a client when they were getting overwhelmed about and saying very much the same thing. It's like, I just want this in and I want it fixed and I want everything to work. And the challenge with operations is it's like you're flying a plane while trying to change the screws on the engine.

So you have to be super careful. You have to know that you're probably going to have some turbulence, and you have to prepare your flight crew to support your passengers along the way. And you have to hold steady and you have to pay attention and you have to just keep on going. And I think that is communication and really preparing not just the CEO, from my perspective, not just the CEO, but the whole team that we expect, we anticipate, and we expect things to kind of be challenging for a period of time and we all have to be ready for mistakes to be made and things might fall through the cracks, you might lose a client and we have to be okay with that. You know we want to, we're going to mitigate that as much as possible.

The last thing I would want is someone to lose a client from it. But you have to also understand that sometimes change can get messy. But at the end of the day, what it looks like on the other side is so much smoother and you're gonna be able to get 3 clients, 4 clients, 5 clients back because of the way that you have improved what you're doing. And so for preparing teams, I think preparing teams for change is really, again, building that trust, coming in, really being able to communicate what the whole thing is going to look like and what really is all included, right? Because we can't just change a template and just say that we're going to change our Asana template and it's perfect.

It's like, no, you change the Asana template, you create new training videos on how to actually use the template, you have to update your SOPs related to how to use the template, you have to roll it out, maybe give a team training, you have to then change it over to all of your existing client projects if you need to do that, right? So there's pieces that everyone needs to consider and the challenge with ops is often people think that you can just, oh, we're gonna just change. It's like, no, we've got a whole process for change And we really need to be prepared for that. And what was really beautiful at the end of Ditto was we got into such a cadence of it, right? So it started to be a point where anytime there was a challenge, anytime there was an improvement request, it would filter through our system, right?

The intake request form. We'd go in and actually make the change, update the SOPs, put it out in the weekly training or the status updates, and then have it go live. And that's ultimately what we... The cadence you get into once a team is able to adopt a culture of improvement and a culture of change management and continuous improvement, where you start learning that flow of what has to happen each time something gets improved and changed. But at the start, it feels so clunky.

And you just have to be ready for it.

Yeah, absolutely. You do. And I want to call out the kind of differences. And I'm going to bear all today, like an open book, right? Like everything you're saying, Chloe, it's like, it's bringing me right back to where we were at because like, we were changing so quickly because we needed to, right?

We needed to improve, but it's almost like we were going at a pace that wasn't sustainable for like long-term success, right? And I remember hearing from some of the team members through different channels, it's like, oh, another change, oh, we're changing this again, or I thought we just did this, or this is confusing. And I'm like, why is this happening? Right. Like we're doing this for the betterment of the team, but it's just not being received that way.

And so like, I think that's 1 of the things that, you know, founders, CEOs need to be aware of is like, when it comes to improving, it's not just like go, go, go all the time. It's, it's this, this state of continual improvement where you fix something, test, iterate, let it level out and then move on to the next, to the next stage.

Yeah. Right. Yeah. I think it's, it's that a knowledge and awareness, but it's also in what I want, like what my biggest dreams are, is that more and more founders, CEOs, business owners, people who start things to consider ops from the start. And I know you did.

I'm not saying you didn't at all, but even the most, the people who think that they've thought it all through, there's a lot sometimes that can fall through the cracks. So implementing knowledge management systems from the start, right? Again, you already had those pieces in place, but having those from the start, having training, regular team trainings just slotted in, team communications, weekly updates slotted in, right? Pieces related to team management and team training available from the start so that, and part of onboarding is like teaching them about how we are continuously changing. And I think people are more and more adapted to it.

But yeah, it definitely is that, that can help mitigate some of those challenges in some regards, because I think some of the challenges we were facing was we were still kind of like implementing our change management system. But also, you're spot on. It's like really giving the changes a chance to bake for a little bit, like put things in, let things play, and have a a small task, a bunch of sub tasks that say all the improvements for v2 and v3 and v4, right? So like being able to actually slot future improvements and be okay with the fact that everything's not perfect right away.

And I remember, like, Kate, Kate Penny was 1 of those people on the team who's always like, are we just going to like relax for a little bit? Like, we just changed, like, let's figure it out, like, we should be changing so quickly. And she would always bug me about that. And be like, why are we moving so quickly? And like, I didn't want to hear it at the time.

She was so right. Right? Like, we don't have to be moving this quickly, we should give some things time to settle. So let's talk about that, that long term sustainable, like transformation, like, You talk about knowledge systems. What are your recommendations around how to effectively train and then create these knowledge systems so that these transformations can be long lasting and the team feels like they're a betterment to the company, not a hindrance to their work.

Yeah, completely. And I think we've touched on this a little bit throughout this conversation, but to summarize it in many ways is choosing a knowledge repository. I think you have great YouTube videos up also on how to do that in Asana. I'm pretty sure, I think you have a YouTube video on that. But being able to build it, whether you're in Asana, ClickUp, Notion, anywhere that you can dynamically track knowledge and also ideally be able to assign people and mark with things are in or out of date and Google Sheets or Google Docs.

I'm like, oh, so that's why I like a Sonic look up or notion where you can actually tag things and create interdependencies between things. But if you don't even have that, just a Google Doc is fine, right? Like document, Have a system for documentation of process. That is going to be super foundational in order to really have places and single sources of truth of how things need to be done in your business. And without that, there's always going to be finger pointing.

There's always going to be, oh, you told me to do it this way or that way or da-da-da-da-da. When you have a single source of truth for how to actually do your job, there's no debate. And ultimately, if someone ends up doing something according to plan, there's 2 options. Either they do something according to plan and it's wrong, and then you change the plan, or the person doesn't follow the plan and they're wrong for not following the plan. So you have much more visibility and alignment within the organization and it speeds up training, it speeds up onboarding and all that.

So I would say at a foundational level of getting some documentation in place and not making it over complicated. Like I think like there's you know you shouldn't have a SOP that has more than 10-15 steps. You know if it's bigger than that that's more of a workflow right. And so you know really being able to have some of that internal knowledge stored. That's 1 piece of it.

And then, like I said as well, so like knowledge repository, internal knowledge system, whatever you want to call it, SOP, index, anything. Then you've got the piece related to team training and communication. So I like to keep those 2 connected, right? So you don't necessarily need to have team training every week. You could have team training every other week.

But I would definitely have these opportunities where the team can come together and talk about process and systems and like what's changed and what's been improved, ask questions about what's going on, but also having regular status updates going out. So the team can expect and know that they're going to be updated on anything that's coming out or they need to be reminded of or whatever else is new within the company. And having a system to track those, right? So these status updates and have records of all the status updates that have come out, all the team trainings that have come out and being able to have that type of system in place as well is super important for the team to really stay aligned. So I think I can't remember if that's all the pieces but

no that was

great. That

was great. Can you speak practically like to the to the systems that that you built like we're talking about internal knowledge management, external knowledge management, like let's talk about the HubSpot, you know, client knowledge base.

Oh yeah, that 1 was fun.

The SOP index and tech we use in the stack, if you remember, right, Can you just talk about that? Because we still use it to this day and all the SLPs are interwoven into the project templates for delivery, for onboarding. It's all there. So can you elaborate on that and the approach you went through to branch all of that together

so that

it made sense.

Oh man, yeah. That's many, many beach walks in Bali. I was dreaming over how to make those systems all interrelated. You know, the things you dream about when you're working for working in process improvement, but Yeah, so I think again like single source of truth, right? So when if you can link everything back to a single location That's always like the best.

So what we had was we had, yeah, we had the knowledge, internal knowledge base, which was in Asana. Our work management was also in Asana. Keeping all of that in 1 place is great because if you have an SOP that says how to send an email on HubSpot and then you have a task, a template for a project delivery for client onboarding, it says send the client and the onboarding welcome email from HubSpot. That's the task. In the task, you can tag the Asana task, which is an SOP that says how to send an email in HubSpot.

When you change that, what's beautiful about that is When you change the name of that SOP in Asana, it changes the name of the SOP in that task template. So, you don't have to... I've had clients who were wanting some things in Notion and some things in Asana, and then you have to hyperlink it. And I'm like, oh yeah, but it's not going to always be perfect, like the exact name. So I always like to have everything in 1 spot and 1 tool.

So those hyperlinks are quite easy and responsive. But I think what's really great as well is being able to track then in those SOP, in the SOP index, for example, what things it relates to. So if it relates to the tech, you can link the tech and you can go over to the text, like we'll have the hyperlink to HubSpot because it's how to send an email on HubSpot. You can click HubSpot and you can read all of the other SOPs related to HubSpot. Like perhaps you're having an access issue to HubSpot.

Then you can open that tech stack up and you can see if you're having an issue running into logging into your HubSpot account, this is how you fix it. Right. So I think that these internal knowledge management systems are just really important. I don't know. Did I, did I paint a picture of what those looked like enough?

I'm not sure.

We could spend 3 hours talking about it. I think I think that's probably the best like summary.

But something I created recently, it was actually it was actually a notion was and I'm not sure if we could do it. I was trying to think about how you can do it in some regards in Asana. But what was really fun is I did this build out that you have your SOPs and Notion and each of the SOPs also linked to a workflow. And then you could click open, you have a workflow database and in your workflow database, you can have, so like, let's say it was like sending an email in HubSpot, for example, and we know that that's connected to multiple workflows, So you could tag multiple workflows. But for example, this workflow is related to client onboarding.

You click into client onboarding and Notion opens up that page in the database for workflows. And you can have like an entire intro into what client onboarding looks like. And then you can link and filter all of the SOPs that are just tagged with that workflow. So then you have all the SOPs for that workflow. And then what's really cool as well is like, within that SOP, you can actually link roles.

So then it's like, I selected that all of the client success manager would use this SOP. Or you can say all roles, but like Client Success Manager does. So then you can click Client Success Manager and it opens up their page in their own database. And you can give the whole intro to Client Success Manager. And then you can also pull in all the SOPs the client success manager would need and section them out by workflow.

And then you can actually then tag it to your internal team, your team directory, right? You've got a team directory and they're tagged to the role. So then you can actually then see in the CSM role who on your team is assigned to that. And so that I would like, I haven't loved Notion for, because there's a lot of people who are like huge Notion users. I'm a new, like I'm like getting more and more into learning more in Notion.

But this experience, I was like, whoa, maybe. So that was a really fun, that was a fun, fun build and really created a super centralized. Everything was there, you know, the team directory, you know, the trainings and all those pieces. But the challenge with that is unless you build out your project management within Notion 2, then you're still going to have those linking, sometimes the linking challenges and whatnot. But you can't make it as that pretty and like that interconnected in Asana or ClickUp.

You can do pieces and yeah, parts of what I just described but not like that whole build. So that was when I just nerded out on recently.

These are the conversations I love and I'm laughing, because I'm like, I just want to talk about this all day. And on the Notion point, like, yeah, I came back to Notion at the beginning of this year. I'd used it years ago. SOPs were in Notion before Asana, you know, and project management was in Notion before Asana. And now I came back and I'm using it to manage like personal life stuff.

So I've created databases for all of our, you know, insurance documents and, you know, just things we need to like run our lives. And I love what Notion does around different views. It makes it so simple, because what you just said, you can filter absolutely anything, just create a database view around, you know, filtered criteria. And so, to your point, like, I started doing this in Asana. So we have, as you know, the stack tech we use, and then everything filters to the SLP index.

But we had, I can't remember where this dropped off or why we didn't do it, but There was a point where we wanted to put our processes or workflows inside of Asana. Yeah. And so I've recently started that project back up again, where now every single high-level workflow from sales calls to, you know, and how those are run, how to, let me just pull it up really quickly because I don't want to mess this up. Because exactly what you just said is what, I was, is what I just started doing. So let me just read it off here.

1 second. Okay, so what I've done is I've broken it down by sales, onboarding, services, like service delivery, marketing, finance, and then offboarding. So under sales, there's calls and meetings. And then within that, there would be how to conduct our Connect call, Explore call, Proposal Review call, Project Alignment call before the proposal is signed. And then there's proposals.

So how to do everything inside of Pandadoc, Sales Pipeline, how to do everything inside of HubSpot, and then all the cascading how-tos that go under all these categories. Now there's custom fields for the roles that would need to be involved within that SOP as well. So I'm thinking now it's like we've got a project, which is the database for every single process or workflow. And then we've got the project for all of the technology we use and all of their cascading how-tos. And then they all get filtered to this massive SOP index that's searchable and sectioned off by either role or department or function, right?

And then make that searchable. But now I'm like, if I wanna do like different views like we would in in Notion, I would have to create another project or filter it and have to keep changing those filters. And so there there is definitely a distinction there and I'd love to see that Notion build out. But like it's cool that you're doing that there. I feel like Asana is like so close to like linking all of this back and it's like this

is

the stuff that I nerd out about right? Like this is why I could chat about this all day but yeah just very cool what you're doing.

I think it's fun when you're in roles that challenge you, because I wouldn't have chosen to do it in Notion, but my client was like, no, I want it. It was a requirement that it was in Notion. I was like, okay. And I think that's what's fun about the way you're in my brain's work as well, is that we know the system. Asana is what I feel really comfortable in, right?

And right now I'm being challenged with like doing building things out in ClickUp and Inotion and some other softwares that I've not touched. And it's like, once you recognize how you'd like, if you have a common understanding of how businesses need to operate and how you need to organize work across departments and across like, not just across departments, but then how you can for delivery and team management and all those different pieces. Do you know those like foundational business areas which most, and a lot of CEOs and like founders and they get it all, but they don't practically get it all. They understand that they're doing it all but like they don't have, they've not been trained often and how to actually then go ahead and organize that in a really easy to follow, easy to track way. So that's, what's really fun about what we do is it's like, we know how all of those pieces all get interconnected, how they're all at play, how they all impact online-based businesses, and how you can really, and not even necessarily online, but businesses that need to operate using online tools, and are able to do that for, take those processes out of the CEO's head and put it into systems that can work for the whole team.

And that's what is really fun. And this is actually funny, full circle from backwards, like, how did I get here? Is I left corporate because I felt like I couldn't actually impact that, you know, that the CEO, the founder, or like these, the employees and like have direct impact. Right. I was, I was like hogging the wheel of like the big corporate ladder.

Right. And I was just, you know, helping some rich company get richer. And, and there's, you know, there's, I'm not shaming that in any regard, but for me, I wanted it to have more of that direct impact, right? And being able to help this founder organize their brain so it's out of their head and they can maybe step outside their business and maybe take a vacation for once. That is what is so cool for me.

And that's kind of, you know, that's ultimately how I got here and why I love this specific work that I'm doing.

Oh, good. So good. Chloe, we're going to have to have another conversation. But if you had to leave the audience today with just 1 message regarding, I know, dig deep, right? If 1 message around either your role as a founder and how process improvement plays a role in the success of your company, what would that message be?

Oh man, really put me on the spot. I would say that don't abandon your operations. Make sure that you're paying attention, slotting time and budget towards improving your operations. There's so much focus goes on sales, growth, which is very important. You need money to make the business run, but forgetting operations, forgetting to take care of your team, That's where, once you make the sale, if you can't deliver and your team's not happy, why are you doing what you're doing anyway?

So don't forget your business operations and find the resources out there that can help you. Podcasts like yours, YouTube channels like yours. There's lots of free resources out there, but there's also lots and lots of people that are really ready to help. So you're not alone if you're having operations challenges and You get the help you need.

Chloe shared some great resources. Another 1 is ChloeHandleman.com if you want to check out what Chloe's doing. Where's the best place to connect with you? Is it LinkedIn, Instagram, Twitter? Where are you hanging out these days?

LinkedIn and website. I think even there's a contact form on my website. I gotta make sure there's an easy way. I think it's yeah, contact form, you can book a call to connect and talk about your business and then LinkedIn as well. I am always happy to chat.

So yeah, those are the best places for me.

Awesome. Thanks so much, Chloe. And listeners, if you're looking for someone to come into your business, streamline how things work, work with you long term and really integrate into your team in a more fractional sense, then definitely connect with Chloe. I'm forever, you know, grateful for the work that Chloe did with Inditto. And I'm thankful for your time and you coming on today and sharing.

It was so good catching up. Thanks for

being here. So good. Thank you, Mikey.