The art of outsourcing and Kayla´s experience as an online entrepreneur

Most Valuable Lesson or Insight

The most valuable lesson from this conversation is that running a successful online business requires a holistic approach that balances personal well-being, business growth, and adaptability. Kayla emphasizes the importance of understanding both the business and personal sides of entrepreneurship, including health, family, and mental well-being. She also highlights the need to embrace flexibility, learn from mistakes, and focus on long-term goals while being kind to yourself during the process.

Top 5 Between-the-Lines Lessons

1. Success is a Journey, Not a Destination: Kayla’s evolving goals and shifting priorities show that success is not a fixed endpoint but a continuous process of growth and adaptation.

2. Self-Care is Non-Negotiable: Balancing business growth with personal health and well-being is crucial for sustainable success. Kayla’s experience with health challenges underscores the importance of prioritizing self-care.

3. Learning by Doing is Key: Kayla’s approach of trying things herself before outsourcing helps her understand what she truly needs and wants, which is invaluable for making informed decisions.

4. Community and Networking are Essential: Building relationships, both online and offline, provides support, inspiration, and opportunities for collaboration, which are vital for overcoming the isolation of entrepreneurship.

5. Flexibility and Adaptability are Critical: Planning is important, but being open to change and adjusting goals as life happens is equally crucial for long-term success.

5 Actionable Steps

1. Focus on One Major Goal at a Time: Instead of overwhelming yourself with multiple goals, prioritize one key area (e.g., email marketing, launching a product) and maintain other aspects of your business without overextending.

2. Conduct a Holistic Business Audit: Assess not only your business processes but also how your personal life, health, and well-being impact your work. Identify areas where you need support or adjustments.

3. Start Building Your Email List: If you haven’t already, focus on growing and engaging your email list. Use it to communicate consistently with your audience, even if it’s just to share updates or valuable content.

4. Experiment Before Outsourcing: Before hiring help, try handling tasks yourself to understand what you truly need. This will help you define roles and responsibilities more clearly when you’re ready to delegate.

5. Plan in Six-Month Increments: Instead of setting rigid annual goals, create flexible plans for the next six months. This allows you to adapt to changes and avoid feeling overwhelmed by long-term expectations.

Transcript:

[Speaker 2]

Business chat and on this business chat we're going to be talking with Kayla. She is an interior design mentor and she's going to share all of her secrets to have a successful online business. I'm sorry I cannot type and also talk live.

Hi Kayla. Hey, how are you? I'm great, how are you?

Doing well, thank you so much for inviting me. Of course, I'm so happy to have you. You're the first one in the business chat.

This is going to be so much fun. Yay! So for everyone watching, tell us what it is that you do.

[Speaker 1]

Okay, so I am a business strategist for interior design professionals and it's crossed into also creative entrepreneurs. So it's kind of a little, I like to kind of say that I know a little bit of a lot of things and I like to kind of help my fellow interior design professionals. My background is actually in interior design.

I was an interior design designer. I taught interior design courses and then it kind of transitioned naturally into me seeing where I could fit as or in the profile.

[Speaker 2]

I'm sorry my internet, let me just take that off. I feel like, okay now can you hear me? Yes, amazing.

Well, I feel like also that's the story with a lot of online entrepreneurs. Like we sort of started with one thing, one industry and you have to know so many things about so many things that you sort of just naturally learn how to do business. Yeah, I started as a designer and now I'm like, okay I know how to do my accountant.

How did that happen? I have no idea.

[Speaker 1]

And it's, in my opinion, it's really important to know those things as a business owner. Like you can rely on a lot of professionals out there and, you know, create a team, but it is so important to not kind of be invisible to what's going on in those things. You need to know like the approximate of how things work.

You don't have to be a perfectionist on that, but you definitely need to know how things work on that. So there's not, it's not a bad thing, but it definitely I think surprises most people that you do so many things as a business owner.

[Speaker 2]

It's insane. My head is spinning half the time. It's crazy.

So how are you working mainly online or are you working with clients face to face?

[Speaker 1]

So I have a few clients that are local, but the majority of my business is online. In 2016, I transitioned into the online realm. I was kind of dabbling into things, but I never really fully stuck my foot fully into it until like 21, 2021.

And that was majorly because COVID happened. I was teaching and it was a burnout. I was in burnout.

I was like, okay, now is the time to focus on what I really want to grow my business to actually look like.

[Speaker 2]

Yeah. You're part of the, the pandemic baby companies.

[Speaker 1]

I just started doing like the bread baking that everyone was doing this year. So I'm a few years behind because I was focused on teaching. So I'm a few years behind on most things pandemic, but I have learned that I absolutely love, I've always been a fan of the online realm.

I've met my many of my closest friends exclusively online and then eventually in real life. But I mean, the online realm, the internet has been like the greatest invention in my opinion. Honestly, like we wouldn't be talking right now if it wasn't for it.

[Speaker 2]

I would never have met you if this had not happened. Yeah, exactly. And you have like, you have so many opportunities with the online world.

You can work with anyone anywhere at any moment. Absolutely. So do you think that you have made it in the online realm?

Are you successful as an online business?

[Speaker 1]

I have a lot to grow into. I'm still, I feel like I am in this year was a lot of educating myself on how to take care of myself, while also helping others. So while intentionally, I had planned on doing a lot of the growth things this year, not on myself, this year ended up taking a little bit a lot of a turn actually on healthcare.

So I've had to deal with health things. I've had diagnoses this year, like there's just a lot of things that have happened this year, which I feel like every year I'm like, okay, this is my year, this is what we're going to do. And then like, something's like, haha, we got to go through this first.

But I feel like there's like an energy that I'm feeling that I'm like, okay, I've got a medical team that's helping me. I've got like, the family life is going well. Okay, everyone, just stay where you're at.

And let's 2024. Let's do this. Nobody moves, right?

[Speaker 2]

Let me just do it. Yeah, I totally get it. For sure.

It's not easy. And there's so much to do. That even if you move forward with your business, I feel like there's you still feel like you haven't accomplished much.

But you actually have like you build a frickin business and you're working on that all all of your time.

[Speaker 1]

So it's, it's interesting, because I feel like I'll be like, okay, if I just get to this point, I'll have done what I want. But then that point keeps growing. And I'm like, and it changes, which is fine.

Like, this is the beauty of what and it's our businesses, so we can do what we want with it. But it's like, I'm like, well, that's not even a thing anymore that went away. And now it's like replaced with something even higher.

And it's like, but I mean, that's the beauty of this. Like, I love that. I love the goal, like the goal that I am trying to reach.

Even if that goal changes. I love having a goal. That is like, I'm very mission driven.

Like I need that goal to be in my peripheral, I need to be able to see it.

[Speaker 2]

And it's so much fun trying to just get there and trying to figure out how this works, how that works. Like you have to be a problem solver to be able to have an online business right now. Yes, there's no other way.

[Speaker 1]

It's everything that I've learned. And part of it, I mean, I know and I want and I will hire people when I need to. But like part of it is the beauty of figuring out what I don't want before I hire someone.

So like I go through all of the mistakes myself, it probably takes me a million times longer than it should. But I go through all of that so that when I'm ready, like I know, okay, these are the things I don't want. And then I'm able to kind of move forward with what I do.

[Speaker 2]

Yeah, so right now you're working alone.

[Speaker 1]

Yeah, it's all me. I do have a dog who likes to be my sidekick, but he has no opposable thumbs. So it's really hard for him to do anything.

[Speaker 2]

His only job is to be cute. That's it. And he does that very well.

That's very good. Then he deserves all of the cuddles. Yeah, absolutely.

So do you think that next year, you're going to start hiring?

[Speaker 1]

You know, that's a very good question. It's not really a 2024 in the horizon goal. That doesn't mean it's not going to happen.

But 20 because 2023 went a little bit in a different direction than I had intended. There's a lot of things that are in limbo that are like all in different stages that just need to be done, need to be dealt with need to get out there. I've got a few courses that I that I've been working on.

I've got a few products that I like digital products that I'm getting ready to launch things that because my goal is not just to be one on one. I want to have resources for people who are in different places financially or just wherever they are in their business. If they're like me when I was starting out, you know, I wanted to do a lot of stuff on my own with assistance, but not one on one assistance.

And so that's what I'm hoping to grow into next year is to establish that, you know, I'm focusing more on the first half. I'm kind of sitting here going the first two quarters are this these are the goals for the first and I haven't even thought about the second half of 2020 because so much changes and I don't like to open myself up for failure and every year I think okay by this time next year it'll be different or this time next year this will happen and it is something throws it off and then I get kind of bummed and I'm like you know what we're gonna do something different next year we're going to look six months ahead and you have these great big growth goals but you don't really have like it has to happen by these times because we're focusing on six months.

[Speaker 2]

Yeah I feel like as an entrepreneur you have to give yourself you don't realize it but you do have to account for that time of just maybe working on admin or just solving issues that come up and personal life or just in business sometimes you have to deal with whatever happens happens and you have to just tackle it. And I was talking to you the other day.

[Speaker 1]

Go ahead, sorry, go ahead, go ahead. No, no, no, no. I just I know that my business is not ready to have someone like I'm not ready to be able to say okay these are the things that I need you to handle like that's because and that's something that you have to know before you can say I need to hire someone you need to know what they're going to do or what you're willing to give up and I don't have anything yet that I can fully say okay this is a complete job for someone to do and I know that that is you know that's obviously like the number one thing is I can't the disaster that is my business right now would not allow anyone to come in.

[Speaker 2]

I dare anyone listening to this to say my business is not a disaster. I feel like everyone feels like their own business is a mess and we don't know what's happening all the time. It's like how did I end up here?

It's insane. I feel like to be able to only also to hire someone you have to not only know what it is that they need to do but how long is it going to take them because if you hire like a VA per hour then how much are you going to spend on that VA? How much do you have to increase your prices to cover that cost?

You have to take all of that into account to be able to actually move forward and you're not going to be able to do it unless you do it yourself so it's like it's definitely a process. It's a growth process.

[Speaker 1]

Not only how much you're going to spend but how much time does it need to take to actually educate them on what it is that makes it to your standards or what it needs to be for your business because you know especially with design there's a lot of amazing VAs out there but not many people who understand the design business and so you have to and there's nothing wrong with that. People are fully capable and want to learn it but there's a learning curve and so that means that you have to take away time from whatever you're doing to also teach someone and some people are just like I don't have the time for that. I might as well just do it myself so you know you kind of have to weigh all of those things to know when is the perfect time to move in and pull someone in.

[Speaker 2]

Exactly you have to invest a little bit of time to onboard them and explain how it works and how you want things to be done because even if they do a great job doing it their way that they are doing it maybe it's not how you want it to be done so you have to go through that whole process and really look into it until you find the perfect way the perfect way.

[Speaker 1]

Well and it's also finding the right person because even though I mean this is this is for anything like when I was teaching you know you learn that there are so many people that learn things differently and so you know you can get to the same results or potentially get to the same result but you have to figure out how that needs to be communicated and some people don't have either the ability to figure out how to re-communicate things or sometimes it's just not a perfect fit and so you need to allow for the time of not looking at it as as it as wasted but looking at it as okay I've learned something these are the things that I'm now going to look for moving forward while also saying you know what maybe that's not the best job for you with me but maybe I can recommend you to someone else or you just kind of split ways but again it's not just the actual task it's also the the communication levels that are such a big big commitment especially in the beginning.

[Speaker 2]

For sure absolutely and since we were talking about planning and planning the first semester of 2024 do you have any specific goals or a specific way of planning your year because I've been trying to do it a little bit differently yeah and I'm losing my mind so what tips do you have for me?

[Speaker 1]

So at the moment I am trying to not over think or like last year I said okay I'm going to do xyz every single month and that was just way too much so like for me I think my biggest one is I'm going to focus on one thing as like a new thing and then the other things I'm going to kind of just say okay maintain these but I'm going to focus on this I haven't decided exactly what I'm focusing on I'm working on email like getting my email marketing I have nearly 2,000 people on my email list but it's not which is exactly but they don't know who I am because every time I'm like I'm going to do this I disappear because of life no so they're they're very good people because these people have been with me for like a year now so they have learned that I show up and then I just disappear but and you'll notice that on social media I'll be like okay here's all of this stuff and then I'll be like and then I'll just disappear for like a month or two it's not on purpose life happens yeah but that's the beauty of entrepreneurship is that I have that and I have to I've actually learned how to not be mad at myself for not doing things because that's just that's the beauty of what I'm doing is I have the ability to take care of my health take care of my family take care of whatever needs to happen even if that's not my business now that could you could say that that means that my business is not my priority that's not true I'm thinking about my business like 24 7 but what I'm doing is I'm putting I mean I have lists of of things that I need to do I have lists of notes of things that I want to say you know all of those things um I know a blog is on one of my big things because there's all of these things that I've written down or I know need to be said that need to be out there but I think email is probably the first one um while also I'm kind of like fiddling with some stuff for I've got a couple digital products that I created like last year and at the beginning of this year that I just haven't launched on my website yet so and part of that is because I have a certain look in my mind and I just haven't been able to commit what that look is going to look like on my website but those are like the two things email and finish the template shop

[Speaker 2]

but that's good I mean there's a lot of good things and fun things coming on your website this year that anyone listening you need to sign up to her email list so you can get all the news whenever she decides listen this is life at least you're really doing it there's people that don't even dare and that takes a lot of merit I really appreciate that you came with me to this call thank you this is awesome I feel like we need like three hours to really dive into business because I have so many questions that I need to ask you I'm an open book it's not easy to get to where we are and and I feel like I'm still a baby and

[Speaker 1]

there's so much more to do it never ends and things come up new like the place that we met each other was a platform that's like a new platform that I literally just heard about in the last couple months so I mean yeah so I mean there's like little things like you just never know what and that's also something I love I love that I learned something new at least weekly because I'm either doing something different or learning about a new platform and then being like

[Speaker 2]

oh my god that's amazing yeah it's fascinating yes like it's always you're always after something new and something exciting and something and creating yes some new things even if it's not a product you're creating new relationships you're creating new friendships you're creating a world outside of your home and that's so freaking cool I just love it and I love it because

[Speaker 1]

we can do it on a global level you know it's not like I can do it just like in my neighborhood or community like local community I have a network that is literally worldwide and I mean right now yeah I know and I love that I can do that that I can meet people that we can have communication like this anyways I know we're getting we're getting into a very long chat but I just I love that we can that the internet makes it so that it brings this business our businesses you know to something that we can meet people and become friends and communities without actually knowing each other physically in person in in the same area I think that's absolutely beautiful love that

[Speaker 2]

it is it's amazing and speaking of helping people with their businesses I know you have a specific call or type of assistance that you offer to entrepreneurs can you tell us about it

[Speaker 1]

yeah so I call it clarity calls with Kayla it is a clarity call so basically it's it really covers a vast type of subjects it really can be anything ideally it was developed for interior design professionals because that's my background it's what I know I worked for a firm for quite some time it was a small firm she let me do everything from the start to finish of a project and it was just that was beautiful because I learned so much hands-on and with her she had been in business for 40 years at that point so I had learned I learned so much from her that it just became you know it was something that I was like okay I actually don't mind the business side of things as well as design sometimes I like the business side better so that's when when I was teaching I was like okay all of these people are bringing in I was at a community college and a lot of them and that's something that's kind of beautiful about design is a lot of design professionals are second and third careers so and that's something that it doesn't matter your age or what stage you're in the industry welcomes you and that's one thing that I've absolutely loved about the industry and so when I was teaching I would I would get all of these different views from students whether it be their careers whether it be we're in a very local area or our local area is very much worldwide there's so many influence from people because I'm near DC so we've got people that work their families came like I mean there's just amazing amount of people and culture and like you learn so much about people in this area and so when I was a teacher I got to learn even more because my students would bring their own influence in and it was just this beautiful thing but it also allowed me to see that there are so many people who have those stories or those personalities or those pieces but they don't necessarily know how to bring it into what they're trying to do in business whether it's design whether it's something else creative because once I started doing this I had friends who were like hey I am doing xyz and I need help with this and I'm like well I've learned a little bit about that can I share you know this and so it just kind of grew a little bit to to be more than just design professionals and so when I was developing this I wanted it to be very user directed the person who is purchasing this I wanted them to really explain where they're at in life and business give me a picture of what's going on because so much of what we do as business owners it's not just the business that influences us right it's our health it's our family it's our life situation it's our stage of whatever's going on and so I am very much a believer in a holistic approach to my consultations to my meetings in that I look at you as an individual as a whole not just you as your business because I want to see how I can help you and see is it just your business that you're having questions on or is there some other influence that I can maybe say you know what there's something going on here let's chat about that and kind of dig in a little bit and then see how that applies to your business I have one client who I often will hear unspoken words in the way she'll talk and it seems kind of silly and and a little bit wooey out there but it's I really do believe that that we may not know what is actually physically bothering us or dealing with something in our business and so when you bring someone in who can look at it from a fresh you know perspective they can sometimes see something that you don't and so that's the beauty of these calls is you may think that this is your priority but as we're talking I may I may actually see that you are saying something that you may not realize you're saying or not saying something that you may not realize you're not saying and so I can kind of help to dig in it's it's almost like therapy meets business assistance because it really does it's it's a much more holistic it's a much more therapeutic approach at the same time as we are talking about things and you're mentioning things about business or whatever I have all of these connections or I have resources that I have collected that I've used that I can say hey let's recommend you know you do something like this or what if you thought about offering something like this I'm also very much especially with design professionals because they are very bad about charging what they are worth yeah we all are truly but but really seeing it and being like first of all you're not charging enough and that's almost always the conversation but also seeing it's not just you're not charging enough but you have to realize that you're worth charging more yeah and so having that conversation and really kind of believe it and trust in it yeah for

[Speaker 2]

sure yeah yeah well those sound amazing those those calls I'm definitely going to tell everyone to with you because really you need a holistic approach to to business like it's not just going to an office doing your 95 and going back home is it's also your baby you have to nurture it and make sure that you're doing what's right for it and absolutely I love that approach I think it's super important so listen thank you so much for joining me today again I you have to do this again sometime I don't know seriously like you really have to because you're inspiring

[Speaker 1]

me to do it though because I've seen like right so now I'm also like so I already said I was doing email but now like talking with you and like looking at because there's been a couple people that have been doing something similar and I'm like well maybe because that's actually kind of cool and like it I was it just would be really fun you know and so maybe just do maybe ask some of

[Speaker 2]

your clients to do one of these coaching calls yeah live yeah so other people can learn out of that experience just a little bit maybe 10 minutes of it live and we can all just look and see what's

[Speaker 1]

happening yeah I mean you should do it this is the beauty of social media and live and and having the like the opportunities are endless so I do appreciate you putting this together I'm so excited to catch the next versions like I already know your books for like I think you until March

[Speaker 2]

right until March yeah I cannot believe it is crazy so I'm excited what's happening I just this

[Speaker 1]

there's a glitch on this thing I don't know it's amazing this is a brilliant idea so I I'm glad that you pulled it together I'm glad that and again for anyone who is signing up I've already told you but for anyone who has signed up like you've put this together it is so well organized it is so easy so I really appreciate you also being so easy to set it up and work with and just have this conversation because it's been fun I really enjoy oh thank you well if you do it just let me know I will definitely jump on a call you'll be like my first one because if I was

[Speaker 2]

your first one I need to have you as my first one yeah of course for sure well again thank you so much I hope you have a great rest of your day thank you anyone watching just go back and check out the rest of the videos so you learn a lot about planning and everything that has to do with

[Speaker 1]

having an online business yeah thank you so much thank you thank you for everyone watching bye