Podcast

Episode 390: Behind The Scenes With My Community Manager

Long-time podcast listeners will have heard me mention Daisy, my community and operations manager, when I’ve chatted about my business. In this episode you’ll hear from Daisy about how my team and I run things behind the scenes, including the decisions and questions that have come up in the process of growing my business.

You’ll also hear about Daisy’s journey to working with her perfectionism mindset since she joined PGSD in 2019. Daisy went from getting in her own way to following through with her plans with the help of PGSD.

By the end of this episode, you’ll learn how my team creates processes to scale my business, how we support our clients, and Daisy’s #1 tip so you can begin working on your perfectionist mindset.

Find the full episode transcript and show notes at samlaurabrown.com/episode390.

In This Episode You’ll Learn:

  • Daisy’s honest experience with letting go of her perfectionism handbrake in PGSD
  • Why the support inside PGSD helps perfectionist entrepreneurs grow
  • How my community manager supports our customers behind the scenes
  • Daisy’s #1 tip to begin working with your perfectionist mindset right now
  • How to create processes to scale your business
  • Why leaning into your own wisdom is important in business (even when it goes against popular business advice)

Featured In The Episode:

Listen To The Episode

Listen to the episode on the player above, click here to download the episode and take it with you or listen anywhere you normally listen to podcasts – just find Episode 390 of The Perfectionism Project Podcast!

Subscribe To The Perfectionism Project Podcast

FULL EPISODE TRANSCRIPT

Introduction

Hi, and welcome to another episode of The Perfectionism Project, a podcast full of perfectionism advice for entrepreneurs. My name is Sam Laura Brown, I help entrepreneurs release that perfectionism handbrake so they can get out of that way, and build a fulfilling and profitable business. I’m the founder of the Power Planning Course and Perfectionist Getting Shit Done, which is otherwise known as PGSD. And for even more perfectionism advice to help you with your business, you can follow me on Instagram @perfectionismproject.

Renae
Hello, I am a different voice. My name is Renae and I’m on Sam’s team as her marketing manager, Sam was on maternity leave giving birth to her twin boys. So Daisy and I wanted to take this opportunity for you to hear way more behind the scenes from, not Sam. And so I want to introduce you to Daisy. She is our community manager and our operations manager. She has been with Sam for so long now she is Sam’s right hand lady, and she’s here to tell us all the gust from behind the scenes. Hi, Daisy.

Daisy
Hi, Renae. I often like you said, I often run stuff behind the scenes. It’s a little strange to be to be hearing myself here. But yeah, this is so awesome.

Renae
That’s so awesome. All right. So I asked questions on social media to get questions for Daisy to hear behind the scenes of Sam’s business that she’s built in scale now. But first, Daisy has a very interesting story because she started with Sam as a PGSD member. And Daisy, would you please go to let us know why you signed up for PGSD? What was going on in your life? Because Daisy story, is so amazing to hear.

Daisy
Thank you for saying that, Renae. Yeah, so I started with, I signed up for PGSD end of 2019. And at that time, I was working at a corporate job that I was super grateful to have. I learned a lot there. But I could feel like that I had a next step that I wanted to do. I had this dream to move to Toronto to Canada, which pointer alert, I live here now. So Renae is recording this from over in Sydney, Australia. And I’m over here in Toronto in the evening.

So yeah, we I joined PGSD because I felt like I couldn’t get to where I wanted to go on my own being the person, the perfectionist who never really got things done the important things done, and never seem to be able to follow through on any of my plans. And so that was what got me into PGSD wanting to learn to work on my perfectionism that had helped me so much as a student but hadn’t really helped me as much once I had started my career.

Renae
Yes, and I had the pleasure of reading through the 27 pages of Daisy’s persistence logs. So persistence logs are this amazing support that’s provided inside PGSD, which is your way of being able to check in with the community and get one to one coaching inside the persistence logs and looking through Daisy’s persistence logs. One thing that was so amazing is the self awareness you just grew because of doing the perfectionism work. What was it like though in those beginning days when you’re starting to really see your perfectionism handbrake?

Daisy
Well, at first for sure, when I signed up, like many of our new PGSDers so in the group coaching program, perfectionist getting shit done for those of you who are just listening now. So similar to many perfectionist, I started by lurking in PGSD for a few weeks, I was like, what did I get myself into? What is this uncomfortable thing that I’ve chosen to do uncomfortable in the sense that it was so new, and and really, like, it felt scary in the moment to commit to like, I want to learn to do things differently.

And it’s, and we’ve since learned, it’s always uncomfortable, it may not hurt in the physical sense, where it’s uncomfortable to like, do something new and really face how you’ve been doing things and how it’s not been working. And so in the beginning, as I often tell PGSDers there’s often a period of time, where you start to build your awareness of the ways your perfectionism has been holding you back.

For me specifically, I found that I had I over thought I procrastinated in the sense of we often call it procrasti-working, where I would work on things that made me feel busy and I’d finish them but they weren’t really the important things. So then when I looked back months later, it felt like I hadn’t really moved forward, because I hadn’t really tackled the big thing.

So those were the ways that I noticed myself really, really holding myself back and they were often so subtle. It often felt like I was being productive. And many perfectionist say that when they come in PGSD or many of the perfectionist I talked to since I’ve started working with Sam, it feels like you’re running on a wheel on a hamster wheel, and you’re just doing all the things and you’re never really resting and you’re busy. But at the end of the day, you look back and you’re like, what did I do? And the answer is not much.

Renae
Yes, we can all relate to that. Oh, my goodness. And when did you like? Is there a specific remark or memory you have of when you started to come out of that place, and you started to look back on your day and realize, hmm, I actually did achieve what I wanted to and they were needle movers.

Daisy
Yeah, even a few weeks into the PGSD, at that time, and when I joined in, Sam was still was still developing power planning. So it still isn’t what it was today. But we definitely went through that learning to plan in the community. And as power planning came up adopting that. So even a few weeks in, I noticed that one of the big things was I would notice, and this is something by the way, that you will often notice with power planning, but then, but then that’s the first step to then work on it.

Like I would notice how when there were feelings that were uncomfortable to me, if I felt scared, if I felt nervous, if I felt like something was new to me, I would run away from it, in the sense that I would procrastinate, I wouldn’t do the thing that I felt like was bringing up all these feelings I didn’t want to feel. And then so I just kept not doing the thing. But the thing was what I really wanted to do or like, like, it’s, it’s that step that I knew would take me to where I wanted to go.

But then I didn’t want to face those feelings I saw power planning helped me to see, hey, why is this thing? Why am I always moving this task over to the next week. So that was one of the ways for example, that I started to see, like, build my awareness, oh, what’s going on here. And then with the coaching and PGSD, like, really seeing really seeing why I did the things I did, or didn’t do the things that I didn’t do, and then committing to do differently.

It’s not an overnight thing. It’s not like you magically, you magically like, are this, you know, this person who does everything right from the get go the week after, but for sure, as I just kept practicing it, and just trusting that each time I was, I was keeping a promise to myself, I was really building my trust in myself and building the self image that Sam often talks about the kind of person that I wanted to be the person who I really was, if I did the stuff that I only thought about all the time. So that was one of the big things, it started to show up in everything. Like it felt almost like a domino effect for me. And I know for many PGSDers they say the same.

Like as the weeks have going on, you start to get this awareness and you start practicing and building the skill of following through, I then would notice things like, hey, in this situation in the past, I wouldn’t stand up for myself in this sort of situation. But now I actually said something, hey, I had this difficult conversation with a client that I would never have had before. So all these things slowly, slowly adding up and just creating this evidence for myself that I can do the things that I want to do. And if I choose to commit to them, they will happen.

Renae
That’s so powerful. And before we got on this call, Daisy shared with me a big overarching change that all of this work has now equal to would you like to share it?

Daisy
Oh, yeah, I was telling you before this call, like about a year after I joined PGSD. So that was in 2020. So in the middle of the pandemic, I made some new friends. And that was one of the things I decided I wanted to do. I included that in my planning. I wanted to make business friends, I wanted to build relationships. So I had been taking time to talk with people and just to get to know them and and I liked people, but I just never put that time in my calendar before because I was always so busy.

And yeah, there were there was a friend that I had made that year and still have a meaningful friendship with till now. And they introduced me to other friends that they had that they wanted me to get to know. And they and by the way this person didn’t know anything about the work I was doing in PGSD. And they said, Hey, this my friend Daisy, and Daisy always does, she’s the friend always does what she says she’ll do.

And you should have seen my face. It was like that mind blown emoji like this person. Oh my god, this person who? Who has just met me we’ve built this friendship. And she looks at me and she’s just like, Daisy that’s what she says she does. That’s that’s just who she is. And, and it was so big to me to be like Oh, it’s actually not something I just feel anymore. It’s showing the way I’m showing up in different areas of my life, not only in business, but also snowballing into other areas, which is just feels like magic when it happens.

Renae
And that took a lot of hard work. They’re like reading your persistence logs, you really put in the work and, and had to challenge those thoughts, those, that perfectionism mindset that comes up. And to know that with that persistence, you Yeah, that had it so recognizable to people around you. Goes goes to show the work you’ve put in and where it can take you.

Daisy
Yeah, I remember early on, for example, that I wouldn’t give myself credit for things. And that’s often something many perfectionists feel. And if you’re listening to this, and you relate, know that it’s not just you that often will do something people saying, Oh, that was, that was great, or even like we realizing that we completed something that we said we would do, and, and then feeling like, Oh, that wasn’t anything special. Or everybody can do that, though. That’s normal. And at the beginning, even with even things like, because I was looking at making a shift in in my career and in business, even little things like noting that achievement I had in my career.

I at the very beginning, I couldn’t think of anything. And I actually needed other people to point out to me, Daisy don’t you remember the thing you did? And my answer was always, Oh, that wasn’t really anything. And PGSD helped me to catch that and be like, Why do I say, Why do I say that? And then to work on that and myself. And, and yeah, and just to grow. But that’s just one of the many, many things that that happened for me because of the perfectionism work we do.

Renae
That is so amazing to hear. And lastly, one thing that you’ve said to me that really left a lasting impression on me was that you really like yourself now. Can you share? That is amazing.

Daisy
Yeah. And I’ve seen it not only myself, but other PGSDers as well. They’re there. There’s, there was a PGSDer recently who, who let Sam know that she likes herself now. And I completely understand that because there was something that I experienced, because of the work I did in PGSD as well. It’s not that I wasn’t an unlikable person before, it’s not that any of us perfectionists are, you know, people who are not loved or anything like that. But it can feel that way. When you feel like you’re the kind of person who just never does what you say you will do. You set a plan.

But you know, in the back of your mind all the time, even as simple as I’m waking up tomorrow morning at this certain time, but knowing in the back of your mind that you’re never going to do it, or telling a family member or partner that I’m going to do this or that and knowing that it’s not going to happen. And even things like always flaking on things that I promise, or always telling people that I’m gonna do it this time, this time, I’m gonna do it, or I’m gonna follow through on this course I just bought and then not doing it. Like that builds that built up. And I was just like, there was this feeling of shame.

And that often, that’s something we talk about. In PGSD, we talk about on the podcast that sometimes Sam talks about that perfectionism is really about wanting to avoid shame. So there was the shame around, not being perfect. And now, after all the work, I’ve done, my perfectionism, in PGSD, and then the work on myself, like, there’s just this feeling of compassion for my past self, that I was doing the best I could with the popular advice that didn’t really work for perfectionists.

And it, I just didn’t know any better, and I was doing my best. And now I do know better. I’ve done the work. And I know when I say committing to something, I’m going to do it. And if something comes up, and I’m going to have to make adjustments because life happens, Sam also talks about that. There’s no drama around it of like, Ah, there you go again, like, like you’re always like this, like there’s none of that, that beating ourselves down.

And I see that time and time again, with other PGSDers as well. That one of the magic things is that when that self thought that negative self talk disappears, and you learn to be kind to yourself, you’ll learn to like yourself. It becomes it. It’s just this transformation where Oh, you can actually be this person and do all these things without needing to beat yourself up to get things done, and it’s just so much more enjoyable, it feels easier.

And it also means you can then focus on the real work that you need to do in your business and your life. Instead of always focusing on getting out of your getting out of your own way. And, and going around your own, your own, like the mechanisms, the coping mechanisms you do to deal with your perfectionism, you can now get unstuck and actually work on the things that you know, you need to do to grow your business and in other areas of your life.

Renae
Yes, and you can tell exactly why Daisy makes the best community manager because she’s lived and breathed perfectionism, she’s always doing the work on herself. And you can see what she’s been through to get to this place. And a superpower that Daisy has that is blows my mind away is her memory. You definitely want to play a memory game with her because she remembers every client, their stories, if I asked her like, Oh, can you tell me about a coaching call that was about this? She’d be like, oh, yeah, that’s episode 173. Like, how did you know that? And so you can just imagine the support and love that she provides.

And this is one of the reasons why I wanted to do this podcast with Daisy is because I wanted to understand how you had the takeaways and the lessons you’ve learned along the way being inside of Sam’s teams, team from the perspective of being the community manager, and she’s also all over the operations. She’s helped Sam so much set up so many things behind the scenes that has allowed Sam to be able to scale to what Sam is doing today and what Sam’s gonna continue to do with the business. So Daisy, first of all, what do you love about being Community Manager? And what are your top lessons that you’ve learnt?

Daisy
I’m gonna things I love about it. And you anybody that talks with me on Sam’s team knows that I’m just bubbling over with weird like, the positivity going on in in the community. One of the things I love is getting to it feels like a privilege to get to support people. And I say this genuinely the PGSDers knows this that I’ve said this to them, it feels like such a privilege to see people go from where they were when they were perfectionism was holding them back to learning to work with their mindset and how that unlocked things for them.

And it’s always so awesome to me to see people working with things week by week, feeling uncomfortable, at first, as we all do when something is new, and yet trusting that they will figure it out. And then seeing things start to click. And just hearing all the different stories. There are all sorts of PGSDers now of all sorts of businesses, there are doulas, there are coaches, there are knitters, they’re fashion designers, they’re artists, they’re musicians, they’re, I could give, I could keep going there are people who work in manufacturing, there are people who work with consulting.

So it’s just wonderful seeing how being a perfectionist entrepreneur, it really, I would say, I’m looking forward right now it it essentially goes above it, whatever industry you’re in, because often the things that perfectionist struggle with in your mind, and I’m headed to the lessons now that I’ve seen so many managers, these lessons, these, these things that perfectionism, often the ways it manifests in our brains, it’s true, regardless what industry you’re in, and that makes PGSD.

So I’m gonna say so powerful, because often, and we’ve said this quite a few times, and I know it may be difficult to get your head around at first, like really listening to somebody else get coach, and that’s one of my favorite things in PGSD as seen as community manager, listening to someone else, get coach or seeing someone else get coached, will lead me to break through. But that’s because often the voices in our mind we feel like it’s just us.

But actually it’s all these people voice voices saying the same similar things. For example, it’s funny, but they’re there were two PGSDers, for example, who mentioned that, one said, I named my inner critic and somebody was like, Oh, I mean, my inner critic, too. And then they were talking about how their inner critic sub names and it’s just like such a random thing, but only something that would happen in a perfectionist community. And so, for example, we just there would be stuck on a project.

They were stuck on it for months. And then I pointed them to a coaching call for another PGSDer. They’re in a completely different industry, who had been feeling behind and had been getting coached on that from the PGSD coaches and feeling behind. And it showed her next steps, this PGSDer on the call, showed her the next step, oh, why are you feeling behind what’s underneath that? And it led her to a solid plan for her to do that got her unstuck.

And that call was what that particular call was, like half an hour, because our coaching calls are like an hour long. And the other PGSDer listen to it. She came back to us, I know exactly what to do. And I said, What are you going to do and it was so detailed. And and this was something that they had been stuck on for months, and just listening to somebody else get coached. And I often hear this from PGSDers, they said the words, I would have said, if I were sitting in that seat, and I hear that over and over again.

And that often means that the help you get the support you get in PGSD as a perfectionist, it multiplies because it’s not only the value and you are getting coached, but when you hear others getting coached, who have similar dialogue going on in their brains, similar ways of that that perfectionism is manifesting. And you can see it so clearly that you can then apply it to your situation without Yeah, without like, with some with guidance from us, of course, but it it doesn’t feel like something that’s completely foreign. It’s like oh, yeah, that’s me. That’s often what you just need to say.

Renae
Yes, and you have less mental drama, because you’re hearing someone else’s story, you’re getting lost in hearing their story. And then that you’re able to see it from such an objective point of view. And then you’re like, Oh, hang on, I relate to this a lot. And you’ve just gotten the advice that might have taken you another month of work to, to receive. But because you’re able to listen to someone else’s story, you got out of the mental drama to actually hear the solution and how you can help yourself. Get your mindset, your perfectionist mindset to work for you.

Daisy
100%. And, for example, when I was when I had joined the PGSD, as a PGSDer, I only got coached twice in PGSD that’s a fun fact for you. I’ve never said that to anybody. Except for Sam. I’ve only got that coach twice. I had so many opportunities, but it was so confronting for me, I found it so uncomfortable at that time, that that period of time, which is so funny, because Sam often says I’m pretty coachable.

And I know that I’m pretty coachable. Now based on you know, I have a lot of evidence of that the work I’ve done, but even then, when I’m the one sitting there, and and it’s not that it’s a bad experience, but I often found it would be like, Oh, is that really true? Like there was all this drama, this defense? And then if I heard somebody else say the words that I would like to say, and it’s like, yeah, that’s what I’m thinking. I’m not saying if I’m not the one getting coached.

Now, that’s what I’m thinking. I often find even as community manager supporting the PGSDers, I leave the coaching calls with like, pages and pages of notes. And I often find myself really listening and Sam’s like part of your job is to listen to the calls that listen to calls. And I’m like, it doesn’t feel like a job. Even if you didn’t pay me, I would listen to the calls multiple times, because I, I would get things from it that would apply to my own personal situation, even even though I was there to support everybody else.

Renae
Yes. And that’s funny, you’ve only been coached twice in PGSD. But I know you get some private coaching behind the scenes.

Daisy
So I have said to Sam at one point like, and I know you wanted to bring up how it’s like working for Sam and her team, one of the things I brought up to Sam was that I can’t believe I’m getting paid to get coached. And of course, there’s a lot more to it to the work I do with Sam, but there definitely have been a lot of times that my professional growth has happened. Because of coaching. And that’s part of what Sam does, as the leader of her team, as somebody who really wants to make sure her team feel supported. And so yeah, it’s led to a lot of growth for me as well to have those honest conversations and just like pinpoint different thought errors that have led to certain ways that the team has been performing, for example.

Renae
Yes, definitely. And I think that is something that is like, so inspirational to hear of just how you like your journey to be where you are today. And that, like you’ve had you fall in more in love with yourself through the process, as opposed to beating yourself up.

Daisy
Yeah, and, and just yeah, I’m seeing like, even things like when I don’t get something perfect, for example, because as we all know, none of us are, but before it always felt like I had to prove myself. And it always felt like before, before I’d done the work on my perfectionism that I had to like, explain why things had ended up that way. Or had, like, you know, like, I can do better next time, or things like, or the sense of shame. Like I basically needed to rationalize it or something like that. And now if I find myself messing up, it’s just like, it’s just amusing. Oh, hi brain. There you are. With the there’s my perfectionism mindset. I’m feeling something right now. Oh, I caught that.

Okay, let’s, let’s get back on track. And so it’s no longer a problem. And at the same time, I’ve learned to and we’ve talked about this with Sam, I’ve learned to like the fact that I have high standards, like I can, before it used to. I used to feel ashamed to even say that I wanted to achieve things and be high achieving it always felt like there were all these stories of like, Oh, am I not grateful for what I have now. There’s nothing better than this already. You know, I just the scarcity mindset, this fixed mindset.

And now it’s just like, Yeah, I like I like having high standards. I may not reach them all the time, but I do my best and everytime I grow and just like being less fearful of failure, just so many things like that, that that you can imagine that that affects because that affects anything really what how I approach business, how I approach relationships, the conversations I’m more willing to have with people at work and out of work. It just like leads to such a difference. And the interesting thing is all of this was already inside me and I find many PGSDers have that experience.

All of this is already in you, you already have that wisdom. Yes, you’re not perfect. But you already have these zones of genius. You already have these different things that are priorities to you in life that you are really investing yourself in. And learning to work with your perfectionism mindset in PGSD is just making how what you know, they just have one PGSDer put it, making what you know, match what you actually do on the outside.

Renae
Wow. And I can just see that in the whole community that the support that happens to help people get to that place because that perfectionism mindset, and that HandBrake is a real thing. And you Daisy is proof that you can take it off, and then it is it’s like constantly being aware of it. And that is like the beautiful thing about what Sam teaches is it’s very realistic, it’s, it’s very down to earth, it’s very grounded.

Daisy
Yes, and for anybody who takes the power planning course or goes into PGSD, you’ll see that in how the lessons that you watch, and I could talk about this all day, obviously, but that you watch, they’re not actually that long. That often surprises many people when they sign up. They especially people who are used to having procrasti-learned before and not from obviously, everybody’s doing their best just this feeling before that I need to learn all the things before I am ready to do something like it’s just a natural thought we perfectionists have. But for example, a lot of the coursework in the power planning course, the power planning course, you can go through it in an afternoon, people never believe me.

You can go through all the videos in the afternoon and you know, this Renae, you went through it. And PGSD the videos as well, like each module is less than an hour long. And so there’s really a lot of time spent on applying what you’re learning. And there’s and it’s even true behind the scenes in the team, we talk about that a lot, that it’s not genuine to be teaching this if we’re not embodying as well as a team. That, that we’re not being an example of a growth mindset, we’re not being our word. We’re not planning properly and, and getting shit done.

And it’s also something we need to be we need to be doing not perfectly but consistently and really seeing the results of that. And and that means that often there’s this question in PGSD like and it happens in all the coaching that happens in the courses. Okay, these are your breakthroughs. What are you committing to doing now? It always happens on the calls the coaching calls each week. Okay, so what is your next step? What are you doing now? It’s not just a thought. It’s not just a thought project.

It’s, there’s always okay, what are you doing now, and even when you watch a power planning course, there’s always your next step after this lesson, is to do this. And I think that’s so helpful for perfectionist who are often used to like, really taking in all this knowledge because it feels like you need more a bit to feel ready to do something. And PGSD is like no, you know enough for next step. You can learn that when you when you need to again later on, but for now go and do things.

Renae
Yes, yes, you’ve already mastered learning, you’ve got that you can always go back and find out more. But and that is exactly what everything is set up to do is to hold you to the growth goal that you have set and actually help you achieve it. So power planning is the tool to be able to do that. And PGSD is the perfectionism work to really support you in that next level.

And so what is really, as you could hear, we could talk about this all day because we live and breathe it behind the scenes. But before I ask you some questions about operations and community management, I would love for you to wrap up in an action for us all to take with us on a perfectionism piece of advice that has supported you the most if you can pick one throughout your journey so far.

Daisy
Yeah, one of the things there are many Okay, there are there are many Renae and everybody does know this. But I will say one action step to take is to do something you had in the back of your mind. And as perfectionist, there’s always something, there’s something you have in the back of your mind before you feel ready. That sounds so simple when you say it out loud. But often many of the things and I see this a lot in PGSD. And that’s something you can do even before you sign up for the power planning course.

And of course, as we just talked about, there’s a lot you can learn in there about working on your perfectionism. But just seeing that, okay, I’ve learned enough about this thing. I’ve spent all this time gone through all this stuff, talk to people, I know enough to get started. And I’m gonna do it without needing to feel ready. And that’s something that Sam has talked about, that’s definitely an action step it can feel it can feel scary. But at the same time, as we learn in the PGSD.

Like, what do you really have to lose the cost of inaction is often higher than just doing the thing and seeing what you learn from it. And often from there, you’ll see the next step after that, and the next step, and, and yeah, just like doing it in a way that’s simple and easy. That’s like that kind of connects both doing it in a way that simple and easy that’s why we often talk about that that Tim Ferriss question that Sam mentioned in the podcast and on her social media.

Because often as perfectionist, we overcomplicate in our minds, and it’s something that I also remember, while helping run the team for Sam, that if we make things overly complicated, it will it won’t help our clients get out of their own way. And that’s true, regardless of what business model you have. Things can be fun things can be nice, the bells and whistles, nothing wrong with all with having them there.

But if they’re keeping you from actually giving the thing to people, and you have like, you know, all this draft project ideas in various documents, Google Docs, and they’re just they’ve just been sitting there 80% done for for months and years. Like it’s it’s time to just look at it and be like, what’s needed here to send it out into the world. And the answer isn’t that I should feel ready. Just going over it. And then and then letting it go. And moving on to the next thing. finally

Renae
Yes. Oh, my goodness. Okay. So that’s a really big takeaway. If right now you decide on one thing that has been in your mind, and decide right now that you are ready to get started and do it even though you don’t feel ready, but you actually are ready. And it’s all just mental drama. And just to wrap this up, because I think it will really just bring home this lesson is what is one thing that comes to your mind where you did do it before you’re ready.

Daisy
One of the things that came, one of the things that that recently happened, actually, there was some it’s a small thing, but I think it’s something a lot of professions entrepreneurs can relate to, I kept putting off. And this is so funny, because I love people. So as a community manager, I kept putting off replying to people, because I had this thought that there was the right way to reply. And, and it was keeping me from replying to people because it has to be the right way.

It has to be the thing that will get you know everything I want to tell them across everything they need to be helped with across and just became this huge all or nothing thing. And what what happened was, I just decided that I was ready. I just decided, You know what, I’m gonna decide that I’m ready. And I know exactly what to say. And when they see a message, that’s where my growth is as community manager.

When I see a message, I reply to it right away. Because I know what to say. And I would sit there sometimes and I would be like, oh then we’re gonna say and then I’d be like, no Daisy, if you knew what to say. And you could reply right away, what would you say? And then it would just like flow and it was all there. Like it just cut through. The mental journal was just going this has to be nothing but but then when I reply right away, and any of you listening can apply this to selling.

When I reply right away, there are then lots of opportunities to sell to people. It’s like posting something on social media. It’s so heavy to think of making the one perfect TikTok or the one perfect Instagram reel, or whatever, versus bringing out multiple, multiple ideas out into the world, and counting each one as one of the many chances to talk to your people. And that feels so much more comfortable than then thinking there’s one right way. And I have to get it right, right now.

Renae
Wow, thank you so much for sharing that. Which brings me to a question that Sophia asked, which was your system for content creation? And keeping on a good routine with that. And Daisy is the operations manager behind the scenes that makes sure that that content creation happens. Can you tell us how you’ve developed that system behind the scenes?

Daisy
Sure. So one of the things. So when I came on to help Sam with the social media with the content creation, one of the things, and this is a framework, I’m calling it a framework at this point, because I realized that we’d been we’d created this as we work together, and we keep using it. So at the beginning, Sam, and I were like, how do we want this process to look like, what is the end goal of this, and Sam’s at, and we decided that the end goal was Sam. And obviously, this context is, Sam has created a team.

But this is something that you can still apply to your own your own business, like depending on how you want it to look like but in our case, Sam wanted it to be, I’m just gonna create things. And I don’t have to worry about anything else. And she’s touched on this a little bit in the podcast, of like, just wanting to get in, do the, to the thing that she’s where her zone of genius is, we’re just talking about perfectionism and really teaching us to look at it in a different way work with your perfectionist mindset.

And then she goes out, and she knows that it’ll all be done. And so. So we started by creating a process and reviewing it every time. So we create a process, we apply it. And so right now, the way we do things is, and it’s different for each, depending on which content channel we have. But for the podcast, for example, Sam will record a podcast, I will write the show notes. And another member of our team will take care of pocast production.

And there’s the thing we do not only content creation, but with, we aim to do with every processes we have in the team to not double handle things. Number one. So this one, the big things that we did was everybody owns their piece of the work. And you’re in charge of reviewing your own work as well. So, for example, if I’m writing an email, I’m going to I’m going to be the one reviewing the email as well. And it’s not that I expect a next person to look at it. And of course, we all help each other.

If you see something, we all help each other that way, but there’s no expectation that somebody else has to has to fix what I’m doing, I’m going to, I’m going to own this task. And I’m going to let people know, if something happens that is not going to be there on time. So everybody knows what’s going on. And so we do that. And the next thing that has been really important in the content process is letting people lean into their zones of genius. And so that actually led to and Sam talk about this a bit in the podcast is actually led to hiring Renae.

So this actually led the hiring you Renae, because I was like Instagrams not my zone of genius. And I was like Instagram is note my zone of genius either. I like Instagram, but it’s not my thing. It’s marketing is not my thing. Operations is my thing, people are my thing. And for Sam leaving is your thing. And Instagram has become busy work for her at this stage of the business. And then so we bring in Renae, who marketing is your thing, and, and she can take care of that piece.

And we can all take care of the pieces that we’re good at. And mine right now is making sure everything goes out when it’s supposed to. Everybody’s doing what they’re supposed to be doing, whether it’s reels or tiktoks, or podcasts or emails or whatever it is. And and then it all just comes out when it’s supposed to come out. And that’s what I do. And Renae handles the con that what it actually says and Sam handles the ideas behind it. So this is just this piece where everybody knows what they’re doing.

And anytime we review and from time to time we review it, we iterate on it, and then we iterate it’s like what Sam talks about Power Planning, we make little tweaks to it based on what we’re seeing, and, and then we let it go again. And it sounds so simple. But in the last five launches, I believe, am I miscounting Renae? 5 launches the time of this recording?

Renae
Yeah.

Daisy
Since the four the five launches in 2022. The team processes just, you can’t. All these little tweaks when you look at us, at the end of 2021, and you look at us now, it’s, it looks completely different. And one of the other things that we’ve decided with Sam is that we would like to make our process that I’m being transparent about this make our process in such a way that though people need to be on boarded, when you join Sam’s team, and you have the skills for it, you’re able to hit the ground running.

Yes, it won’t be perfect, you’ll have to ask about some things. But in essence, you can look at what’s going on. And you can be like, oh, yeah, that makes sense. That makes sense. Oh, I see where I fit in. And that just makes everything smoother. And hopefully Renae has experience, because that was the goal. That was one of the goals we had with things like processes and content creation.

Renae
Yeah, definitely, the biggest thing I’ve taken away is that you guys have made a decision on whatever that process might be for content, let’s say. And then you act on that decision, and then you tweak but if you never are making a decision, and you’re staying in all the drama of like, oh, what should my process be, and never making a decision, then you’ve got nothing to actually tweak on. And so when I came in, I could see the different processes that you have running. So using airtable as a as a big mover to be able to pass things from person to person.

And with airtable, you just tag the person essentially, and it gets them passed on to them. And by having those processes, you can tap into the system. So then you’re not bugged, because decisions have been made, you can then come in and do your part. So even if you are, you know, a one man show right now, one woman show right now, then it’s even though your your editing, for example, might not be your genius zone. But right now you might need to do it.

It’s essentially just deciding on your system and making that decision today and actioning it so that then you can tweak it and I know Sam in the past she set aside half a day to record reels and then she did her part. She passed it on to you Daisy, and you took control and then you hand it over to another lady that then did the editing and then you got it all in into Planoly and it all got scheduled out is that basically how that process went?

Daisy
Yeah, the other the other person actually gets it all into social media already. But yeah.

Renae
There you go see, and I don’t know that part because I’m not in that process.

Daisy
Yeah, everyone’s doing their piece and for example, with podcast, and some of you have heard how Sam has had interviews had on the podcast. Now the process has gotten to a place. Sam and I agreed, we’re going to make this so that Sam just shows up, records her part, brings the magic that she’s so good at. And then she doesn’t have to tell the other person what to do that it’s really part of the process, they already are there, they’re ready to record, they know what to do. There may be a few questions here and there.

But the basics are done with record, done in an hour. And, and then it moves on to the next person and then next person, and then it almost feels like magic that all the podcast is on Spotify in the data it’s supposed to be on the time it’s supposed to be and it almost feels like it almost feels like me as operations manager right now it almost feels like and I didn’t really have to do anything. And that’s because the decisions have been made. And yeah, you can definitely do that as a one woman show like, things that can be documented. It feels.

And Sam has brought this up a few episodes back in building during the show notes about the perfection that’s believed she had released to build her team. Like how when something you feel like something will take you only five minutes to do 10 minutes to do 15 minutes to do. So you can do it yourself. But actually, if you take that time to document it, especially if it’s not your zone of genius and just like decide how it’s going to go.

And then even if it’s just you and you just decide to just keep doing it that way every time. It then becomes easier and easier because you’re essentially practicing getting good at something. Because it the process is not changing. But you are because you’re building your skills. And then yeah, next thing you know, you look back on it, and it’s not taking you as much time as it used to.

Renae
Yes, yes. And so what would you say since you’ve been on the team is the favorite system slash process that you’ve implemented that has really helped us all out?

Daisy
Oh, I would say… I think you knew I was going to say that Renae. Yeah, I’m really proud of the testimonial collection process for PGSD. So for those of you if you look at our Instagram perfectionism project, and on tiktok, and on like the website, you’ll see these different stories from PGSDers about the things that have happened to them the transformation they’ve had because of PGSD. And getting to that point, the process to get those testimonials was a journey was a journey for sure. And that was a journey was started by the second imagine the previous operations manager before I came on.

And, and they, we had tried different things, tried to get people on calls to record them saying answering questions, we tried various things really like you normally hear the wisdom you normally hear and you’re like get testimonials, send these types of emails to people, ask them for you just like all the things and and Sam and I kept iterating on it, we realize that perfectionist we know our client best, we’re gonna lean into our wisdom and make these tweaks.

And so one of the things we do is that based on what people say in PGSD, what people say about their own progress as we coach them. And this is a, PGSD is a safe, it’s a safe place. For sure. It’s it’s this place where you can talk about the things you’re going through, and the breakthroughs you’ve had. And you know that nobody is going to, like go in to say anything negative and people are going to celebrate you for that, which is so awesome.

And so because of how I often remember people and the different things they’ve said over the years, what the process is to put together their words and into a short testimonial. Send it to some send it to people ask them to approve it. Because it’s so much easier to approve a draft that somebody wrote than to read something from scratch, especially if you’re a perfectionist was like, I know, there’s only you know, 100 words, I know there’s only three sentences, but what am I going to say?

And basically, we said it, these are your words, they make little tweaks what they want to do. And then they often record a video. And they they often record a video to go with it. And they just treat their words their own words that we haven’t embellished as a script. And so it just feels easy. And I tell them 30 seconds is great. It doesn’t have to be long. It’s better if it isn’t, and it just feels so easy. And so yeah, in a matter of weeks, we suddenly had all these testimonials.

And they were so awesome. And I cleared as you can probably hear, I clearly love celebrating people. So they were so awesome people sharing how much they earn since they started working in PGSD, people sharing about how many clients they’d signed on or just different breakthroughs they’d had starting a podcast when they wanted to start for years now. And just all the things that they were saying so beautifully and just saying us themselves.

But we had to get there through like this. As Renae said, this is the process. What’s not working with this? What’s working well, with this tweaking that really leaning into our own wisdom about perfectionist until we came up with something that doesn’t take that long, all the decisions have been made, doesn’t take that long for us doesn’t take that long for our PGSDers. And yet, we have such beautiful stories from them.

Renae
That’s so good, because we’ve all been there where you would love to get more testimonials in for your business because you want to celebrate your people. Plus, you’d love to be able to show it to new people who are coming into your world. And people just yeah, they procrastinate that they could be perfectionist, perfectionist about it. Or it’s just another thing to add to their to do list and you just never get that testimonial through. And so yeah, you can bribe people and offer them like a free training video or something to be able to get that testimonial, or depending on how you’ve got it set up.

Yeah, like Daisy said, You guys created decided a process that would work well for your community to be able to get testimonials. And because of the persistence logs and the community, you’ve set up, people already sharing their wins. They’re already sharing what’s happening in their world. And you take those words, and turn it into a testimonial draft that then they can edit and approve. And you’ve now got the testimonial.

Daisy
Yeah. And to add to it as well, when we were doing it, then the popular way, the way everybody said you should do it. And it’s not to say that you shouldn’t whoever is listening to this, but it didn’t work for us. We found that when we sent emails to people like saying like, you’d get this if you did a testimonial, or we’d love if you do this, here’s some guide questions for you. This is what we’re looking for. Because our clients are perfectionist, often the dialogue in their minds when they open the email, and I got this from them. A few of them told me was, Oh, I really want to do this. This is such an important thing I really want to help. PGSD helps them the way that I’ve been helped in the community.

What am I going to say? My wins aren’t as awesome as other people’s wins that I see in the community? Do I really want to share my win? It’s probably not enough to really show how awesome PGSDers. And then it’s just like, I guess I’m not going to do it, maybe next time. And it’s so interesting, because that’s the way you’re supposed to do it. When you try to Google like how to get testimonials. They’re all these like template emails, that again, aren’t bad, but they don’t work for our business.

They don’t work for our type of client. But you don’t discover that until you try something. And Sam and I often ask each other. Is this good enough to go? Yes. And then is this good enough to go? Yes. And then I often just make notes for like version two, version three, for next time like this thing. But you know what? It’s fine for now. But we’ll revisit this the next time we look at it. And that’s how that also is how our testimonial collection process ended up the way it is now.

Renae
Yes. And would you like to celebrate some of your favorite testimonials you’ve collected over the years share a few specific.

Daisy
There are so many there are so many. And I’m sharing testimonials that I have gotten permission, obviously that we’ve gotten permission from people the shares really important. And, by the way, for any PGSDers listening, you all know that I appreciate all of you and I appreciate you as well for allowing us to share your stories to people and celebrate you.

Renae
And celebrate you.

Daisy
So I’m thinking for example of I’m thinking of people there have been a few videos featured on the podcast and their stories are awesome. You can go and listen to them. I’m thinking of some of them like Melissa. So Melissa is a grease travel coach when he came into PGSD. She had never even looked at her revenue before because it just felt so scary to see the money side of things in her business.

And because of the work she did in PGSD for the first time she sat down, she figured out how much money she was making, what her expenses were and and started to feel less scared about the money side of things and then for the first time ever, she set a revenue goal, because how can you set a goal, a money goal for your business if you don’t know how much money you’re making? And so now that you knew well, she set a goal for our business. And she proceeded to have her highest earning revenue month, last quarter. That’s awesome.

So yeah, Melissa is one person that I’d love to celebrate, I also want to, I also want to celebrate, I’m thinking about Kristen actually, Kristen has been on the podcast, but I just want to celebrate her because she continues to do the work to like, tweak her business, she’s continuing to really lean into her wisdom, and make decisions and notice, like, Oh, this is what I’ve been, this is what I’ve been doing in my business. And I need to change that. And just making that decision, I need to change the way I’m doing this week. And going through. And the other one, and as you’re listening know that Renae is watching.

This is all just coming from memory, I’m just pulling, there’s so many people in my head that I’d love to talk about. But for the purposes of the length of this episode, that’s not going to be happening. So the other the other person I’m thinking of right now is I’m thinking about it’s so hard to pick, I’m thinking of Ann, so Ann as a sustainability consultant. When she came on to be PGSD, she was struggling with overwhelm. She struggling with procrastination.

And it’s like what I talked about in my own story, she’s learned to catch that and get out of it, she’s learned to take her clean rest. And that’s actually led to not only getting meeting her milestone goals, meeting and exceeding quarter by quarter, I believe she’s on quarter three now, at the time of this recording, but yes, she’s been exceeding each milestone. And also while learning to she’s currently learning to do what she promises that she will do, and in different areas of her life, it’s just been so amazing to see.

And the last person that I wanted to mention is Eliska, who is pretty new and PGSD. But I wanted to mention, let’s go because Eliska has two businesses. And I just wanted to celebrate her because she recently met her quarterly milestone that she had set her revenue goal. And I remember she was setting it, she was feeling pretty nervous about it. She wasn’t sure if she could meet it. But she met it. Even while in the last few weeks, a lot has been going on in her personal life that she had not expected as often happens for all of us.

And then she had to keep going back and adjusting her planning. But even then, she met her goal. And I can say that for a lot of PGSD. So yeah, just anybody listening, I want to celebrate all of you. I do it all the time, the community. And yeah, it’s something I’m just so glad that we get to see all these perfectionist entrepreneurs, going from just thinking about doing the thing, and beating themselves up for not doing the thing to doing the thing. And when their perfectionism handbreak, occasionally the signs manifests.

It’s essentially off, because they notice it. In the moment, they catch it, they’re like, Nope, I’m not going to do that. I know, I already know that that doesn’t work for me, I already know that this way doesn’t serve me and then making adjustments on their own. So essentially, when you’re in PGSD, you learn to do the work on what your power planning is bringing up that you learned from the power planning course. And ultimately, you learn how to coach yourself. Because you catch yourself you don’t need somebody else to do to tell you, Hey, you get that support for sure in PGSD.

But eventually you will get that support from a place of want. I want it I don’t need it is this place of abundance now of like, I, I’m empowered to do the things I’m empowered to be the type of person that I want to be. At the same time I have access to the support to this coaching on the calls and in the forum. And it helps me to see my blind spots and encourages me when I’m going through bad weeks as we all have gone through, but you’re not able to go to get that value from this place of I want that it helps me it helps me to accelerate my journey with my business. But I also know that I can do the things I can trust myself now.

Renae
Yes, and honestly, if you can feel one thing is that it truly is empowerment. The everything is built to empower you to to be able to build the self trust to a whole new level so that you really can achieve the goal and it’s no fluffing around it is holding you to actually achieving that goal that you have in your business. But and honestly, from behind the scenes, watching Sam and watching her built this business for over many years now I’ve watched her, and obviously so has Daisy, it is amazing to watch someone like Sam, and then let alone all these other PGSDers and see them finally set a goal. And then each week working towards that goal because their power planning, they’re noticing when their perfectionism is coming up, they’ve got the support to lean on when they need to. And they’re getting better at taking their own handbrake off. And it’s such a beautiful process to watch.

You Daisy especially and all the coaches and Sam, empower people to build that relationship with themselves so that they can achieve their goals, which is a reason why they started their business they started, you’ve started your business, for a reason to provide for your family, to be able to live, maybe it’s with more freedom, whatever is valuable to you. And just to see you guys doing that work. And now being on the team myself and supporting the whole process. It is such a beautiful thing. And I just want to thank you so much for being here and answering the questions and telling us about yourself as well.

Daisy
Yeah, thank you so much, Renae, this was so fun. And yeah, as we continue to, as some of you may have heard, we’re up leveling PGSD, it’s closed right now. And I’m super excited for that. Honestly, as a community manager. And just because it’s going to lead to so much for our PGSDers to be able to cover some topics in the more advanced way to be able to dig deeper into certain things that we may not have done before, when PGSD was mostly focused on power planning, and it’s not that there won’t be power planning in there.

But now that you’re learning it in the power planning course, you’re then able, as we uplevel PGSD, you’ll then be able to dive into it and just do this perfectionism work in there that you often don’t notice, because on the surface, it looks productive. It looks high functioning, it looks, it looks like you’re doing things, but you’re not actually doing the things you want to do. And the power planning shows you that that’s happening. And PGSD helps you to, to then address that and work on it for yourself long term in a sustainable way, in a way that actually feels fun. So yeah, really excited for everybody to get to experience that as we’re building on that behind the scenes right now.

Renae
Yes. And so for anyone who is interested, go check power planning out the course right now because it is available. And you can already get a big head start on all of this so that you’re ready for the launch of PGSD 2.0 when it’s here, but that power planning course is. Yeah, exactly. And you can you’ll see it on the page. It’s exactly what’s helped Sam build and scale her business today, with the perfectionist mindset that never goes away, you’ve just got to learn to make it work for you, not against you. Is there anything else you’d like to say Daisy, before we leave?

Daisy
I just wanted to encourage every perfectionist who is listening to this that and I hear this over and over in the community. I hear it over and over from my own story. When I look at my my journals in the past, I definitely went back down memory lane looking in prep for this episode, because there’s some things that feel so normal now that I forget that they weren’t normal years ago. And one thing I want to say is that if you feel like you’re getting your own way, you feel stuck. You feel like you’re overworking you don’t do what you said you would do your businesses going.

Like it’s not just you. Like, like, there’s often this sense of shame of like I said, it’s gonna go full time if that was your plan, or I said I was gonna make this business a certain way. Be the kind of person who has this type of business and it’s not happening, and it feels like something is wrong with you. But something is not actually wrong with you. You just have to learn how to do things in a way that works for your perfectionist mindset. And it’s not about changing yourself because because you’re broken.

We talk about this a lot in PGSD, but it’s really about learning to work in a way that works best for you. And then that empowers you to really become the person you want to be. To build the business you want to have, and then impact people the way you want to begin to make that impact in that way and actually seeing it happen in real life instead of just a dream that you’re you’ve been having for so long. So yeah, just know that there’s a different way.

And it’s not. It doesn’t mean anything bad about you that you haven’t been able to get out of your way on your own. That’s okay. Everybody has been there. I’ve been there. Renae has been there. PGSDer has been there. Sam has been there. And yeah, that’s just what I want to leave everybody with. Clearly I’m a community manager. Receiving encouragement. It’s often the first thing that comes to my mind. Yeah, just really encouraging everybody that yeah, you can get there. You just need to learn how.

Renae
Yeah, thank you so much. That’s a perfect note to end on. Thank you so much, Daisy.

Outro

If you want to make sure that the hard work you’re putting into your business isn’t a waste of effort, then I invite you to check out the power planning course. It’ll teach you how to plan properly as a perfectionist with power planning so that you can get out of your own way in your business. And so that every hour you put into your business gets doubles the return. You can find out more and sign up today at samlaurabrown.com/powerplanning.

Author: Sam Brown