Emily Allen has been working with women entrepreneurs, shaping their business strategy and planning, allowing them to have more time and freedom to lead. In this episode, she shares her thoughts on how to regain control of your business during times of uncertainty. Emily talks about the importance of stepping back and evaluating your personal and business situation, about time management, and building systems into your business.
Emily Allen is dedicated to helping women entrepreneurs create a business that sets them free so they can get back to running a business that is flexible, scalable, and fun. Emily partners with big-hearted business owners, creative CEOs, and growing entrepreneurs to help them take back control of their most important asset, their time. So they can show up as a leader and do the work that matters.
Emily often emphasizes that the more you’re organized, the more freedom you can have- and that will inevitably translate to more success. Emily’s professional background is in project management in the corporate world, where she worked for over 15 years.
In this episode, she shares her thoughts on how to regain control of your business during times of uncertainty. Emily talks about the importance of stepping back and evaluating your personal and professional situation, about time management, and building systems into your business.
Emily discusses how to organize and optimize your time to continue performing in your leadership role. She shares some techniques on managing schedules and planning, with an emphasis on the necessity for multiple back-up plans. She talks about time management and building a system or structure flow, as well as taking notes.
If you’re interested in learning more about how to feel in control of your business, how to stop feeling overwhelmed, and how to take back control of your time, this episode is for you!
You can learn more about Emily on her website: http://emilyallen.co
Connect with Emily on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/emilyallenfan
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/emily-ann/
Instagram:
https://www.instagram.com/emilyann.allen/
- [Narrator] Welcome to Leading Through Crisis, a conversation series exploring the idea of leadership in challenging times.
- Hi, welcome to Leading Through Crisis, I'm Celine Williams and I'm here today with Emily Allen. Emily is dedicated to helping woman entrepreneurs and female business owners create a business that sets them free and gets back to the way running a business should be, flexible, scalable and fun. She believes that time shouldn't be a luxury and that through clear processing simplified systems and rock solid support in your business you can have more time to focus on your zone of genius, family, friends and play. Emily, thank you for joining me today.
- Thank you for having me, I'm excited to be here.
- I'm excited to talk to you, so we're connected through social channels like many of the people in the world right now and so I'm gonna ask you to tell me a little bit about what you do and why you were compelled and interested in talking about this concept, this theme of Leading Through Crisis.
- Wonderful. Yes, so again, working with the female business owners, entrepreneurs who are kind of spinning their wheels, feeling a little bit overwhelmed, maybe a lot overwhelmed with all the things that are going on in their business as they're continuing to grow. It's one thing to build a business but then to continue to grow it, you kinda reach a plateau sometimes where it's like I can't bring in more clients or maybe I can't bring on more team until I get a few things kind of figured out. So I love being able to work with them to evaluate, where are you at today? You know, what are you struggling with? Where is it that you wanna be? And helping them put a plan together so that they don't have to spin their wheels, so that they don't feel overwhelmed and that we can start to understand where we can leverage more of their time so that they can get more, get back to doing more of what they love and what they're really good at in their business and so I felt really compelled and drawn to you to speak today because I think it's such a opportunity, especially with everything that's going on is to really look at our businesses, look at how things are running and see where we can optimize and see where we can make changes and improve so that we can continue, 'cause this is gonna end, we don't know when, but it's going to and we wanna have ourselves be in a good position to then move forward even though we may not think so, we feel a little bit more in control or more confident in who we are and where we're going and we just have this roadmap to help people feel like there is, you know, we can have some control and so I just wanna be able to offer my support and guidance for woman and in their businesses.
- So I think it's really interesting, the idea of control right now because I think most people are feeling more than ever, very out of control.
- Exactly.
- So--
- being able to, yeah, just kinda dive into have you feeling like you are in more control on some things with your business, you're still making things, you're improving. It may not look like exactly how it was before but you're definitely setting yourself up for success going forward.
- So if you had to, if someone was to come to you now with everything that's happening, where would you say they start looking? Or what would be sort of a starting point to take? I guess I wanna say feel more grounded or centered or in control in some way because you know, my experience has been the conversations I've been having is there's a lot of extreme lack of focus and control and reaction to what's happening and it's not, that's not surprising given the uncertainty in the world, right? So where could someone start? Or what could be a way to begin this process of feeling more in control or feeling more focused or to what you're saying, setting yourself up for the future now?
- Yeah and I think this looks different for every different person, I often like to start with just look at you first, right? We gotta take care of ourselves, making sure that during this time that you are doing self-care, whatever that looks like, I'm not gonna go there but I think there's lots of different things and just making sure that you're feeling good that way and then starting to look at the business pieces of it and it can be looking at your vision and your goals and what did you have planned? How are you gonna adjust? Can you continue working on the things that you already outlined? And I think that can give some sense of control there as well. It might be, like I said, diving into some of those things on the list that are lower on the priority, maybe you're looking to bring on team down the road and you wanna evaluate processes or you have a lot of things in your head that you're like, I just need to document that in some sort of process so that I can then delegate that on. It might be cleaning up your inbox, it might be you know, for those of us working at home with kids around too, it's setting some boundaries around here's my office hours, right? Here's when I'm gonna work and just structured flow is what I like to call it, that let's put some structure around some things so that we're doing work, we are making progress and taking steps forward but we're also realizing that we're in this really uncertain time and things aren't gonna be the way we once thought they were.
- So I know you work primarily with woman and I'm gonna ask this question, are you seeing anything, any trends that are sort of popping up right now with woman or with this idea of leading in a time of crisis for woman in particular? Maybe you're noticing something with your clients or with sort of your communities around this.
- You know surprisingly, I'm seeing a lot of people continuing to just move forward, that they are strong and that they are leaders, now that's not to say they're not struggling with things as well because we all are but that they are pushing forward which is awesome to see that.
- Yeah I agree, I will say and I don't know if you're seeing this so, I have seen more, I would say more with woman than, for some more female entrepreneurs than male entrepreneurs but it's by no mean a hard bucket here.
- Yeah.
- But this resistance to making offers or putting things out there or selling or marketing right now or this like, I'm gonna continue doing the thing I was doing two months ago without stopping. With woman in particular, I'm seeing these two extremes.
- I would agree, there's the I'm gonna offer everything for free or I'm gonna deeply discount it, you know, sympathize with you and then yes, some that are like nope, I'm just gonna keep on yes--
- Almost with blinders on to the situation.
- Right, even though it's going on, I've still got this great business, I'm gonna keep moving forward and I think you know, to each their own but I think there's a good middle ground to have as well where it's like you know? I understand what's going on but I do still have a business to run myself so I'm gonna keep going but also being aware of what's going on and you might be talking to, I see people talking to the audiences a little bit different as well.
- So I guess I would ask, are you talking to, how are you speaking to your audience? So you know, you have a Facebook group and you lead a community of woman so how are you leading differently? Or are you leading differently?
- I think I'm definitely showing up even more than I was before because people need to see that in a leader, somebody that is moving forward and how they're doing that. I think that then elevates other people as well, so I'm offering support, right? Whatever that looks like, it might be something personal, it might be business related, right? I'm here to support you not necessarily looking for money or anything but also moving forward with like right, here's tips, here's tricks, kind of the normal things that I would put out as well but also throwing in positive affirmations, right? To just keep us going because for all of us it is hard. People are still out there wanting to invest in their business but not making that 100% the focus.
- Right--
- Pulling back a little bit on that.
- So it's still a option but it's not necessarily the main driver because there are a lot of people impacted financially.
- Yeah, definitely.
- So as you show up differently for your people, how are they responding? Like from your lens obviously, I get you're not in their shoes to be able to say 100% but maybe you're getting feedback, maybe you're hearing things, maybe they're showing up more or less or but have you seen anything in how they're responding to you showing up you know, differently right now?
- I definitely did see it as a positive you know, obviously the more, the positive things that I put out there or the offers to help, people are more likely to respond to that 'cause that feels, it's comforting, it's warming, right? It's positive, so I'm seeing that they like that and I'm just gonna continue to offer information and more trainings and things like that and I think it just builds that relationship which is good anyway which is what we should be doing but I am still seeing, even though they're warm to that, I still see some that are struggling, some that are you know, a little more hesitant and some that are just continuing to move forward with their businesses as well. I think there's just, there's quite a spectrum of people.
- Are people asking for anything different? Or are they coming, you know, your clients, do they have different concerns right now? Are there trends in those concerns? Are the people in your group, are they asking for something different right now? I'm really curious because--
- No, yeah. They're not 'cause it's still around this, if anything it's more evident right? Like they knew maybe it was a problem but they could kinda like push it to the side. I think it's more evident now that how important structure and systems and streamlining and planning, whether that's meal planning or you know, just planning the next 90 days in your business that that's what's needed, I'm seeing they want structure and how do I handle with the kids home and what do I do? And so the same skill-set applies, sometimes it's looking more at the home or their personal life versus just business although I like to touch on, it's all intertwined anyway but yeah so for me, it's essentially the same thing, just looks a little bit different right now.
- I'm curious how you're doing things like or how you're approaching the conversation around 90 day planning or even 30 day planning right now because there are, we just don't know, we don't know when you know, I'm in Toronto and we have been asked to socially distant and non-essential services are shutdown and we're doing that to the most of us, I'm sure not all of us but are aware of that and doing that to the best of our abilities and you know, you see restaurants who are now offering, I mean they're all offering only takeout or delivery if they're even open, a lot of them are closed and you know, salons whatever, I had a hair appointment that had to be changed, as an example.
- Me too.
- Yeah and my hair stylist and she owns her salon and she was like I don't know when we'll be open, email me in two weeks and like maybe we book something for a month from then and hope that we can be open, we don't know. So I say this because in a lot, and this is online entrepreneurs are experiencing the same thing--
- Right.
- Because a lot of people and not everyone but there are people who have you know, stable clients or stable income but they, you know their plans to grow in 30 days have been minimized or their plans to you know, I work with a lot of speakers who have no speaking engagements now for the foreseeable future 'cause they've all been canceled and people are saying you can do virtual summits but then they don't get paid for that and if you rely on speaking as your paid revenue so all of this, like all of these sorts of pieces are to say, how are you approaching the idea of 30 or 90 day planning right now when it's like who knows where we'll be in 30 days?
- Right, right. So yeah I am approaching it in a looking at our options, right? Are there others things we or that they can do and talking through and just offering different things. Yeah I had a client where she's like yeah all my stuff is being canceled, my in person and I said okay well, let's really brainstorm what would be you know, some great incentives for somebody to do it online and do it virtual even though yes you tend to get better results but what, you know, and just being able to talk that through and kinda have this partnership of like, we don't know and we're just gonna plan and we're gonna try it and be open to the idea of trying something differently and like yes, let's plan out 90 days knowing that we still may have to have some adjustments and let's just continue to monitor it and meet it and talk about the issues or what are the risks or what's that backup plan for that backup plan and just be willing to be really flexible with it because like you said, we don't know.
- Like everyone has become a risk-strategist unintentionally.
- Right, this one's always gonna be listed going forward, right?
- Yeah 100%. I mean I think that makes a lot of sense to me to say like let's do the best we can with the information we have and then have a backup plan and then a backup plan to that backup plan and I think this is, I talk a lot about in general that the idea of intention, right? What is the intention of, I mean, whether you work with me or you're my friend, it's probably the most annoying thing I do is I'll be like, I'll do a Facebook post, what is the intention of that post? Is that just to get attention or are you trying to give value? What is the intention behind all of the things that we are doing and I think when you set an intention for a plan, so it's like here's my intention but you're not attached to the outcome looking a certain way that that is a really good skill to cultivate, I mean I would say as a leader in general so it doesn't have to take these eight steps to get there but especially right now.
- It may take 10, it may take 15 things that aren't on that plan, right? And I think it is, like you said, put that intention and I'll even go back to what was the vision? What did you set out for this year to even look like? Are you writing a book? Are you launching, like are you, I don't wanna say are you truly impacted, right? But you're gonna have get clear with your numbers, you're gonna have to get intimate, if you weren't intimate before, get intimate now to really understand how does this impact me? Can I take money from savings if that's what I need to do? Does that alleviate some stress? Or overwhelmed or feeling like I have to come up with this new plan. So it's being able to step back a little bit and just kinda take this birds eye view of your business and say, how much do I really need to push forward? How much can I kinda ride it a little bit and know that I have some cushion? Just really evaluate that for yourself and your business, that's gonna help.
- Yes and listen, my experience has been that business owners, it's so interesting working, you know, having a background in corporate, working with corporate then working with individual business owners whether they have a small team or they are, unless they have an accountant, their willingness or the regularity with which they look at their numbers, actually look at their numbers is not great, I have to say.
- Yes and I'll touch on this with the people that I work with you know, let's just start measuring something, let's start somewhere so that we can see because what happens is we start to operate on this like, well I feel like we're doing good so let's spare this person or spend this money or invest in this thing and you just don't wanna put yourself in a position, you wanna know what's going on. I mean maybe you don't have to know it down to the penny but just so that you can make good sound decisions, especially now when something like this comes up. Can I make an investment in a coach? In a, you know, somebody that can help me stay economical during this time or have a conversation, right? I just need to talk to somebody that can handle business and life and we may generate some ideas together that's gonna move me forward and make me feel comfortable. You know, if you don't know those numbers then it's harder to make that or you feel uneasy about it, again, knowing those numbers, it puts you back in control a little bit or a lot I should say. So...
- Yeah, I loved that we circled back to the idea of control because it sounds like to me you know, so I don't love the conversations that we have quite often around certainty in the sense that I don't think that we can be certain, the future is entirely unknown so our idea of certainty is false, in my opinion a lot of times but I love that we've circled back around to control because in control there's a choice and you can make that choice and give yourself, if you need the concept of safety and certainty to feel good about where you're going, it really comes from that taking control and making those choices and so I love that we've circle back around to that because it sounds to me like from what you're talking about inside of your business that and what you do that that is kind of a foundation, I'm not saying you haven't written this by the way, but it sounds like from the outside that that is a foundational piece of what you do with people.
- Yes, I want them to feel in control. Whether that's your calendar, whether that's the pile of papers on your desk or how you're communicating with your team. When we don't have that then it is just chaotic, it's mess, look at what's going on in the world, right? And we don't know, we can't do these things, we're just not in control but in our business we can put some of these things, that structure, that foundation you know, it doesn't have to be a system, like a software, it can be a process, it can be a planner whatever that is but just knowing that this is how we do things, this is how I run my business, it just frees up so much more space for you to think about the big things, the vision, do the strategy, that's the fun stuff, that's where I want you to play and bring more greatness and more success to the world. So that's yes, exactly, that's what I love to be able to do. Give them this foundation that you have that and you can move forward. Slow down for a little bit to then move forward a little bit faster.
- So in your life, business, whatever it is, what are some of the, what are some of your practices that you use to feel like you have control? I'm guessing in general but also especially right now.
- Yes, so my calendar is my safety, it's guiding me where I go, right? But the time-blocking, I made sure that I allocate the time to look at my finances, to look at limiting time on social media, making sure that there's time for content creation, all that kind of good stuff but I'm also somebody who can sit here and work and work and work and that I have to make sure that I do take that time to step away from myself to think, I'm not gonna be able to generate any new ideas and that's not helping clients either if I'm so focused in work all the time, there's gotta be some fun in there as well. You know, I don't have a large team right now, I just have a couple of people supporting but I always make sure I write my stuff down so that I can easily hand that off, taking those ideas planning them out I mean, project manager is my background so there's lot's of planning and organizing that goes on and so that is what gives me control, when I feel like I have things in order, then I can move forward from there. Even stepping away and I'll go clean something or organize something, that's just really from my personality type and who I am, that's super helpful.
- And I would say that in general I'm also a person that, I was a project manager, I was a terrible project manager though I did not do very well, I did much better at change management which was people focused than project. I was like there's just a lot of organizing so not my thing and I still note that my calendar is my like if it's not in my, I joke all the time, if it's not in my calendar, it's not real. It has to be in my calendar, I have to, I'm getting better at time blocking when I don't have calls or things but I would say that I think it's, I know a lot of people who especially entrepreneurs who don't have a lot of corporate experience or haven't worked in larger organizations who just don't use calendars effectively at all. Whereas I think if you come from a larger company or organization you default into having to do it, right?
- You do, yes. I would agree. Yes.
- So I love that you said that because I think it's a really important, it's such a simple thing but it's a really important thing and I think right now especially with people with kids at home, trying to manage all these things, building a system, whatever that looks like calendar wise, to make your life easier and to make you feel like you're in control and to still give yourself time and space to do what you need to do.
- [Emily] Yes, yes.
- More than ever right now I think it's a really great staring point.
- Yeah and then giving yourself the grace that you know, it might work for a week and then the following week it might not work so you make adjustments or you just kinda roll then into the next week, right? That's the impression I never wanna get that it is so corporate that we have to be exactly and there's no flexibility because in this online space there's so many creative, visionary people that we have to have some flow in there and things come up and things happen but we do have to, it is so helpful to honor that time. Whether it's project time or strategy time and I love being able to help people kind of think about what does that look like? It's like again, stepping back and saying oh I am the visionary, I am the owner, how do I want this to work? I get to kind of dictate it not everything else around me dictating it 'cause when you do that, then you're gonna get more freedom in a different way as well.
- How do you help people honor the time that they put aside? So you said you know, you limit social media time for example, right?
- [Emily] Right.
- So how do you help people or do you have any suggestions for people, well and especially now because I think a lot of people are on social media way more than they were before. Do you have any suggestions of how to limit social media but also honor time? If I have two hours in my calendar for writing a book, how do I actually honor that instead of ending up on my phone scrolling social media or like oh I've all these emails, let me do that instead. Do you have any tips for people?
- Yeah, yeah. I always suggest having time on your calendar to check emails because it can be this like social media you just kinda keep going but it's understanding a little bit more too about when you go in to email, are you like working and responding to those or are you like processing those 'cause there's, in my world there's a difference, we can go through those and say this one's an action item so I'm gonna put it on my to-do list or it goes into my project management software or whatever that looks like for you and I know that I have dedicated time to then work on that later but I'm just getting through the emails, oh that's an invite, accept that, this is sent to my assistant and just kind of processing versus like doing--
- [Celine] Right.
- So there's a little bit too of understanding how does that person work to make sure that that calendar is set up correctly but then the other piece is right, if you're blocking time for projects or you're blocking time for writing that book, well what does that mean? Do you have, I'll go back to my project management, do you have a project plan? Or do you have a list of like what are the 10 things that need to be done over this month? And have you thought about what goes on this week and this week and this week? So that when you land upon that two hour chunk, you're like yeah, I'm working on chapters two and three and these are the topics or it's defined more because when it is too open, then it is like, I don't know what I'm supposed to do today, maybe I'm just gonna check this here and then you do find yourself somewhere that you didn't want to and then you're beating yourself up for, well I didn't do the thing I was supposed to do. So, it's great to have the time block but we need to then make sure we know what we're working on during that time, so they really go together. I mean other tips and trick, I know there's different apps and things out there, right? To block your time on social media, that it just turns off or turn off your notifications so you see nothing. I'll often times just close my email so I don't hear--
- That ding that gets us all--
- Right, or I'll just turn the volume off and I'll have it open you know, in case I have to reference something. Setting a timer, right? The Pomodoro technique or method, I mean that's a good one. Just again, if you have those tasks, you can then say I'm gonna work on this thing for 25 minutes and I think people will be amazed that the less time you have, the more you're actually gonna accomplish, sometimes.
- Hmm, I think that's a really--
- So--
- Yeah.
- Yeah, so those are some quick things to try but it's definitely knowing like backing it up though, what is it that I need to be working on? And is that the important thing? Does that support me in where I wanna go? Whether that's a goal for yourself personally or your business.
- I think that's a great overview of some things that people can consider and do now you know, specifically and in general, they're good tips, don't get me wrong but I think now they're more applicable than ever because people, a lot of people are on social media scrolling mindlessly and getting distracted much more easily 'cause they are in situations they're not used to being in, working from home is a whole different ball game for people if they're not used to doing it.
- Right, the other thing I would say too, setting office hours, it might even just be, I'm gonna work three hours, close the door, put a note on and just say don't interrupt if that's an option. Again, everybody's got different situations with partners and kids and all that but another thing you can do too I'll do with my clients is just brain dump, like take everything that's in your head and just write it on a sheet of paper, doesn't matter what it is, small, big, large, I don't know, business, personal and then just start to evaluate, I love the Franklin Covey or Dwight D. Eisenhower matrix method right, where we start to say well what's urgent? What's important? And then start to fill out, what do I really need to plan and work on? What just needs to be done right now? Do I need to file my taxes? Or do I need to file for unemployment? Or do I need to do certain things? And then there are other things that you can just delegate or maybe they're just so old you don't even do them anymore 'cause they're just not relevant. So , again, whether it's Post-it Notes, writing it on your whiteboard, just getting it out is very helpful as well. So then again, you've got more space in your head to do other things.
- Yeah no that's great, thank you. I'm gonna ask this question before we sort of wrap this up and that is, is there anything that you would like to leave the listeners slash viewers depending how they consume this with and the answer can be no, there's no, but if there's anything that you didn't get a chance to say or that you sort of want to sum things up, this is the chance to do that.
- Yeah. I think it really just comes back to take that time, just slow down for, whether it's now or in the future to do the, I'm super passionate about planning and setting up that foundation in your business as you're continuing to grow so that you don't have to worry, not that you're never gonna have to worry but again, that you've got this system for the way that you're running your business and you feel more in control with those things so that you can go do these big other things and that I just wanna stress the importance of that and how again, planning and being organized does lead to success in your business. So more money, more freedom, more time, all that good stuff that lots of people talk about but just really wanna reiterate that.
- No I appreciate that, thank you. I'm going to, so Emily has a Facebook group called Woman Entrepreneurs Scaling Up. The link will be in the show notes, I'm not gonna read it out because like Facebook groups, there's all numbers and crazy but that's the name of the group and I recommend everyone go check that out and there'll be links to a planning power hour for people that Emily's offered for room as well. So that'll all be there. Thank you for joining me, I really appreciate you.
- Well thank you.
- Yeah.
- Great to be here.
- It's been my pleasure. Thanks for listening to us talk around leadership in challenging times. If you would like to learn more about us or any of our guests, you can find us online at www.leadingthroughcrisis.ca. If you liked the show please subscribe and leave us a review wherever you get your podcast from.