Big Deal Energy

How to Stop the Overwhelm with Angela Proffitt

July 14, 2020 Laura Khalil Episode 32
Big Deal Energy
How to Stop the Overwhelm with Angela Proffitt
Show Notes Transcript

“If my team is miserable and they’re not excited about a project, it affects the outcome of an event, sales funnel or whatever we’re doing for that company. It definitely affects the outcome, so it’s really important that you like working with your clients, but it starts with you communicating the boundaries.” - Angela Proffit

At this point in time especially, many people are working from home and are finding themselves completely overwhelmed, without enough time in the day to get everything done. If you are stressed and working more, not less, then you’ll want to hear what today’s Brave By Design guest reveals in this episode to help stop the overwhelm and help you boost your productivity. 

Angela Profitt is the Founder of GSD Creative, a company who works daily to enable professionals to work more productively, grow their business steadily, and impress their clients consistently. 

Angela is a Productivity Expert, Celebrity Event Planner, Author and Speaker that travels the world, helping CEO’s, executives, entrepreneurs, and solopreneurs grow their company  brand. As a serial entrepreneur and certified True Colors Facilitator, Angela spent two decades mastering effective business processes and consulting for multimillion-dollar brands and startups. She knows what drives conversions, sold-out events, and consumer engagement - and it’s not the fluff. It is Angela’s background in Psychology, her effective communication techniques, and the “Get Shit Done” attitude that helps drive success.

Connect with Angela: https://www.gsdcreative.com/

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What You’ll Hear In This Episode: 

  • The three things people want to know about productivity during these challenging times [1:52]
     
  • A methodology called True Colors, how it works and why Angela uses it as a pillar in her business [2:58]

  • How to utilize people’s strengths, communicate effectively, and use processes and software to increase productivity significantly [9:15]

  • Why educating your clients and creating boundaries really starts with you [17:54]

  • Strategies for setting clear goals, executing them and learning how to pivot in these times of uncertainty [20:12]

Additional Links & Resources: 

Angela’s Personal Website

Her Instagram, Facebook & Twitter

Marco Polo, Slack & Asana


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Weekly Tips on Growing and Monetizing your B2B Business --> go.bravebydesign.net/newsletter


Angela Proffitt :

If my team is measurable and they're not excited about a project, it affects the outcome of an event or a sales funnel, or whatever we're doing for that company. It definitely affects the outcome. So it's really important that you like working with your clients, but it starts with you, you communicating the boundaries.

Laura Khalil :

Welcome to brave by design. I'm your host Laura Khalil. I'm an entrepreneur, coach and speaker. I love thinking bait, exploring the power of personal development and sharing the best strategies from thought leaders and pioneers in business to empower ambitious women and allies to bravely rise and thrive. Let's get started. Everyone, welcome to this episode of brave by design. I am so excited for you to meet our guest today. Angela profit is a productivity consultant with two decades of experience within the luxury hospitality and events industry. She thrives in helping others by using her background in psychology and she has been voted best event planner by the Nashville scene. What the heck, Angela? That's incredible. She currently serves as a social chair for the Nashville chapter of the entrepreneurs organization, a global business network for entrepreneurs who have more than over 1 million in revenue. I talked to Angela on her podcast a few weeks ago. She is such a badass Angela, welcome to break by design. Hi,

Unknown Speaker :

Laura. Thanks so much for having me. I'm excited.

Laura Khalil :

I am so excited to have you here with us because one of the things that we need to talk about and one of the things that people are going through and I noticed that especially in this era of Coronavirus, is a lot of people are working from home and a lot of people are completely overwhelmed. They don't have enough Time the day to get anything done. They feel like they're not working less, but they're working more. And they are stressed, anxious. And it's just it's a mess. And what, let's just start there, because what do we do? How do we even begin to address this challenge?

Angela Proffitt :

Yeah, so the most common question I get as a productivity consultant is, there's three things that people really want to know. And it all has to do with how you're spending your time. And so I want to share three tips that have been highly effective to a lot of our clients because, you know, they come back and tell us like, Oh my gosh, this was life changing. But really, the three things with productivity is communication time, because it's precious, and what are our goals? And I know it just seems so easy to say it but You really have to practice it. And so the first tool that I'll share with you, I learned almost Gosh, I don't even think I was 20 yet so you know, well over two decades ago, but I went to school to be psychologist and so I worked in a mental health hospital. And I was very young, but I got to see how to be patient with people. And I love people, I love to help people. The number one tool that made our patients really open up to me as a therapist was a methodology culture colors. Now, we would do 32 assessments on our patients. So I'm talking about Myers Briggs, enneagram disc culture index, there's really great tools. Yeah, there's so many great tools out there. So if you're not using a tool for productivity for communication, that's the first thing my favorite happens to be true callers. will think I can read their minds. But basically the the high level overview of true colors, it's super easy to understand. four colors. There's gold, orange, green, and blue. And at a high level, gold is very loyal. They're type A they value tradition. In a workplace. They are the ones that they want to do the to do list. They take accountability they want to do in their way there is no gray, it is black and white. And with clients, we really like to do this methodology on them before we actually start to work with them so we understand how to communicate. So gold. Typically they need an email with a checklist and deadlines. They want to know what they're going to do on what you're going to do. And let me tell you peeps, if you let them down, there's no getting their trust back.

Unknown Speaker :

You know what, I think I'm a gold. Are you? Hearing you? I'm like, Uh huh, yeah,

Angela Proffitt :

we all have four colors, but there is a little numbers game that I will share with you. So you can put it in the show notes for your audience. If they want to do it. It's like a five minute little thing, but it's very effective. And then the blues are very customer service oriented. So these are the people that truly value taking care of people. If they make other people happy, they're happy. From a client perspective, these are the ones that sacrifice their happiness to make other people happy. So digging decisions out of them sometimes is a little bit of a challenge. But in the workplace, this is definitely the customer service division that is truly genuinely taking care of people. And you've got your wrenches, which I'm very orange entrepreneur itis where we have to be doing something different every day. We value flexibility, we value experience, and we like the Wow. And people are like, you're the life of the party. But sometimes they think I'm very reckless as an entrepreneur because they're like, what are you doing? And like I'm not the person that thinks through and researches I'm like, yeah, let's just try that. If we fail, we'll fail fast. And then we'll get up and do it again. Better.

Unknown Speaker :

Oh, interesting. Okay,

Angela Proffitt :

yeah. And client orange cloud. As that's typically who we work with, because they don't really have time to micromanage, they typically have heard from someone else, that we will take care of them. And it's not so much about money, money, money budget, it's more about the experience that we can provide with great quality. And so yeah, and so last but not least, we've got the greens. So the greens, they are introverted, they typically like to work alone. They love research, they love analytics. These are like your attorneys or accountants, and these are like my operations managers. So if we're setting up for an event, and we have a tent, and they're like, well, how many people is it? How much power do we need? What is the band aid was the caterer needs so they can get the appropriate generators? And what is the band aid and then we'll have all these great chandelier and they're like, well, how much do all these things weigh? And I'm like, Well, I don't know, figure it out, and make sure that the tent structure can hold it. So you know, things don't fall down on people. So with green clients, they don't need all the fluff blues need a little fluff, but greens, they just need straight to the point and they need the facts. And that's really all they need. And they want to make sure again, that they're getting a great deal. So that's the number one tool that we use to communicate with everyone. I use it in personal and professional life. In our office. Everyone's like you guys talk in color code. But just to run your business we do. Not only do I use it to run all of the businesses, but in all the consulting that we do the very first step because there's really four processes to GST, which is get shut none. And so the first component is if we're going to go in, usually consultants come in and they make changes and it should be a positive change for a profitable outcome. And so that this is the first thing that we do when we go when we assess our audience so that we can customize the message the way they need to hear it so that they can appreciate the buy in. So some people think it's manipulative. I think it's genius. And it works because I've been doing it for two decades, and it's worked. It's got

Laura Khalil :

I don't think it's manipulative. I think it's speaking to people in ways that they value. Absolutely. And that is really the mark. I mean, when so I love what you're talking about. And guys, we will put a link to this because I actually want to go do this, I think I might be a gold, I can see other parts of myself. So you're probably people are probably like a mix.

Angela Proffitt :

Absolutely they are. And when you go through the numbers, I like to call it a game on an assessment, because I'm orange, but you you're gonna have like they call it the brightest colors and the palest color. And so what I look for in a company is and just a little tip, a little secret here that when you add up everything has to equal 60. And so basically, when you're looking for your four numbers, you're typically going to have people in the 20s like I'm a 24 orange, and I'm a six gold, which is pretty drastic. Yeah. So when you're looking for leaders in a company, you want to look for that drastic difference. But if you're looking for someone can be good at everything flexible jack of all trades, you don't want somebody in the high 20s because they're going to be a little bit more flexible to change. So there's a lot of insight like I'm going to share like the very tip with you guys. And if people want to know more, they can always reach out to me to

Unknown Speaker :

wait. So Angela, why do you want someone in leadership who has some of these really varying numbers?

Angela Proffitt :

Well, in the 20s, which is your highest and again, like a Strength Finders and Myers Briggs, it's like what's your highest strength and I want to focus on I don't want to try to change people. I don't want to try to develop people's weaknesses like on time for all that. I want to take the the most bright color, which is their highest strength and put them in a department that they're going to thrive in on their own because it's our their brains are naturally wired that way so it ends up being fun to them. I didn't really realize how useful this was until I started really traveling the world and doing destination weddings and events and conferences and So many of the people that I worked with at some of these resorts, they're like, How are your people so happy and you're not crazy, because, you know, planners kind of get a bad rap.

Unknown Speaker :

So, and you

Angela Proffitt :

know, I'm a control freak, because I want the experience to be perfect. But the way we get perfection starts at the top, and you have to make sure that from the top down, everyone is communicating the way they need to hear it. So that's really the key.

Laura Khalil :

So let's bridge this to productivity because you said it's one of the like, the pillars of productivity is around this communication aspect. So I'd love for you to share a little bit more about Okay, if I go do this assessment, and let's say I get my colleagues to do it or you know, my partner, whatever, maybe, how can this help me in that communication room and with being more productive?

Angela Proffitt :

Yeah. So and this slides right into my second point of time, we don't have enough time and the older I get the busier It seems we get on me about it.

Unknown Speaker :

noisier life

Angela Proffitt :

But really the way I see that is the older we get the more life and work experience we have. And so people are going to especially like younger entrepreneurs, and I'm not talking age, I'm talking life experience and experience. People sometimes try to latch on to other people's, I don't know accomplishments, not that that's a bad thing. You want to surround yourself with people who are doing what you want to do, that's not a bad thing. And so you want to make sure that you're surrounding yourself with people that it's going to be wise for your time. Again, it's precious. Some of the things that some of the tools like the top tools that we use, and this will go back to the true colors methodology. The number one communication app is Marco Polo, it used to be free, and there's still a free version.

Unknown Speaker :

I am so on it.

Angela Proffitt :

It's like my favorite. I think now like if you want the full spectrum of it, it's like 60 bucks a year but y'all it's totally worth it. I try and they're not paying me to say this like is a video texting app. And so I'll give you a few examples about the four colors. But I am not a fan of email and texting and like we do need that. And we need it to be efficient. However, it can be misread depending on what color the person is in their personality. So for example, internally, we specifically use Marco Polo to communicate, so give you an example. So if I am Marco Polo in an orange on our team, I would say, hey, I need you to pay attention, give me your 100% attention, because I need you to be at your computer and I need you to be paying attention. And I'm probably going to say it three times because I'm an orange, and I like multitask, you know, like that. So I'm just like, and I know that like, I need their attention. That's the number one thing I need. And it needs to be short and quick and don't repeat yourself because you're going to lose them after about 30 seconds with the blues if I'm Marco Polo, and I'm going to say hey, you're hot. In a great day, I saw a picture of your dog and social media, it was so cute. And you know, they knew like that, yeah, they need that affirmation. And so the delivery of the message, it's saying the same thing, but in a very different way. And then at the end of the message, I would, you know, say, I hope that you have a great day. If you need anything at all, please reach out to me and let me know blues need support, they need people to know that you are there to support them. And blues have a really hard time making decisions on their own. So you have to be very direct, don't give blues like the task of going to like reprimand or fire someone like they'll be up puking all night. And then with gold people, I would say, hey, I need you to be sitting down in front of your to do list and there's three things that I need you to do by five o'clock central time today. And so you've got to set deadlines. Otherwise if you don't give them clear expectations, it stresses them the hell out and then they're going to come back with questions and so my idea when I'm trying to marcopolo and get things off my list are things that I have to do in between meetings is to be very, very clear. But I always have an open door of if they need clarity, which helps me become a better leader and a better communicator. So always leaving that door open. And then last but not least, we have greens. So with greens, again, they don't need Hi, I hope you're having a great day I saw your dog like, they don't need any of that. It's like, hey, I need you to research these three things. And their favorite word is why why do you need me to do this because I want to make sure it's a good use of my time. So hey, I need you to do this because we're looking to expand in these zip codes. And if the market can't handle it, or if the area that we're looking in the household income is below 75 K a year, then we're probably not going to be able to go into that market. So I need you to research over the next few days these things. And so being very specific and then also they're able to see my face. They're able to see any emotion that comes along with that. Things that I'm asking us. And so that's like the number one thing, the other two components to this as far as saving time. We did a case study years ago by sharing Dropbox and Google Drive like Google Docs and Google, you know, like Excel sheets, Google Sheets with our clients, and asking them to collaborate that way, rather than through email. And so we were able to get our emails down around 300 a day. So we would get like 1000 ish emails a day, when people were like, yeah, people like to have kids. I'm like, yeah, about 50. I mean, they're my babies. They're my quads. But we really crazy. Yeah, we really learned to streamline the processes of not going back and forth so much with email, and making sure that the clients always knew when our next meeting or call or zoom call was, and we would we call it potty train their brain to put their notes in Google is like in a Google Doc that said like notes. And then each time that we would talk or meet, we would have that list. Now, people have problems. Sometimes they have challenges. I'm like, if someone's dying, let us know. But again, we really try to like we don't take phone calls unless they're scheduled. I don't want clients texting me all day, like I don't need to be needed. Like we know they need us because they've hired us. So really putting boundaries in place with your time and utilizing productivity apps, like also a lot of people are using slot now they're using Asana, and they're sharing these tools with their clients. The other thing that the clients really loved is that they could use these tools outside of planning an event or a wedding or doing their branding or doing sales funnels, they would go back to their office and like use these things and use these tools, which you know, again, is another value add. So that's the other big thing. And then the third thing

Laura Khalil :

is I just gotta stop you there because I got it. absolutely love this. Um, he and I think this is so cool. And you know, one of the things that when I would work with entrepreneurs that were starting a business, a lot of them deal with overwhelm and what I hear you saying and what I've said to them in a slightly different way, but I love this is you you have to teach your clients how to treat you. If you are working and this goes broke, folks for who are listening, if you're in a full time gig, same thing, you teach your bosses you teach your co workers how to treat you. So if you're available 24 seven on Slack, or 24, seven over text, you're telling people there's no boundary. And so what I love about this is creating those healthy containers for here's how I work in actually it helps us work better together because I don't have to sift through 100 different emails from you. Hmm, love it.

Angela Proffitt :

Yeah. And I will say to like, I didn't come up with all this stuff on my own you guys like I hired A coach I've had every year for probably the past 15 years, every year, I get a new coach through you mentioned entrepreneur program, we always have a mentor, a new mentor each year, that means different things to the table. And so I had a coach one year that taught me how to track my time. And I thought that if I wasn't available to my clients, 24 seven, especially some of our clients that are spending emotional money, and it's not like a corporate purchase order or something they were, you know, in order to keep their business and keep them happy. I need to be available 24 seven, and so I would tell them, like, Hey, 365 days a year, like what, whatever you need. Now, did I really mean that Hell no, like, and then we get mad. I'm like, why are they texting me at two in the morning like, this is so rude. But it's like I told them that was for it. Exactly. So it was my fault. And so we have to take a step back and be accountable and my coach back then he came to some of my meetings and observed what I was saying, I didn't even know what I was saying I did. But I didn't know what what it meant. And like, so having an open dialogue with somebody to be able to take that. I mean, it was it was kind of harsh, like it was to take that feedback. But my gosh, it changed my life. Like it changed my life. It changed our bank account, it changed everything. Because we were able to track our time and teach our clients what the boundaries were. And teach them like this is what's coming. Now, we always have one or two a year that just don't get it. And sometimes we just have to part ways and say, you know what this isn't. I've learned it's not about the money at all it is about the experience on both ends. It's good. And if my team is miserable, and they're not excited about a project, it affects the outcome of an event or a sales funnel, or whatever we're doing for that company. It definitely affects the outcome. So it's really important that you like Working with your clients, but it starts with you. You communicating the boundaries. I love

Laura Khalil :

this Angela. So okay, so we've talked about communication. We've talked about time. Now tell us about goals.

Angela Proffitt :

Yes. So the third thing is, and especially the busier you get, and the more public you are, I mean, social media did not exist when I started my first company, and it's a blessing and a curse at the same time, you know, we have to be very strategic with what we're putting out because I'm involved in multiple companies, and it can definitely completely confused the hell out of the consumer. They're like, what do you do? And they are once they experience our services, and one or other of the businesses which they all kind of feed into each other actually, people are like, what they can feed into each other really. We did that on purpose. Like I was very strategic and I had a goal. I have a goal that we always have one big goal every single year, if you have too many big goals, come on, let's be honest, you're not going to do it. And in my mind, if it's not on my calendar, it doesn't exist, it's not going to get done. So you actually should block time on your calendar. So you can work on your business, not in your business. And so I'll give you an example. Every year, we really try at the end of the year to do a tips book or some type of an experience sharing book at the end of the year. The things that happened to us and what we would have done differently, we do it every year. In fact, one of our interns the other day, she's like, you guys are like the Taylor Swift of the industry. Like she writes a song and then you guys go write a book,

Unknown Speaker :

and oh my gosh,

Angela Proffitt :

she out some of her ex boyfriends like we don't out our clients. Like that's not the point of it. The point of it, is to learn from your experiences. And if we ever stop learning, like then what are we doing like it, you know, so it's always a point to learn and how to be better and how to become clear with what your goals are. Because I definitely have entrepreneur itis I'm not even going to pretend with each company. Each year, we have three goals of, we're going to focus on x, y, z. Now, you mentioned COVID. So we do this every December with our team. And last December, if you looked at our goals and what we were going to do, it wasn't anything, it's not anything.

Laura Khalil :

On,

Angela Proffitt :

you have to be able to adapt your goals. Yeah. However, it's a whole reason of doing this as if if someone asked you to be part of a project or a new business, or it's a new venture, or it's like, hey, we'll swap surfaces with you if you do this, and I'll do this and it's like, that doesn't always turn out very good. So it's like if it is not in alignment with what our goals are, the answer is like, I hate the word No, but I'm just like, thank you for considering us as long and align with our goals this year. I wish you the best of luck. So, you know, it's like in and I've really had to learn because I'm usually not the person that can Mike say no, I can't help you because I do want to help everybody. And also understand Tom is precious. And, you know, I really didn't understand until my mid 30s when my dad was sick, my sister got sick in the same year and I'm like, Oh my gosh, I need to be there for my family. You know, my dad's like, you can always make more money, but you can't use that money to buy time together. And so you know, really makes you stop in your tracks and think life is short time is precious. And so if you're not fulfilled and doing something, it's okay to say no, it is okay. So just the third thing is set clear goals. I would set no more than 30 and make sure you stick to those goals. Now with Corona coming up. You know, we really had to pivot when all this happened for about two days. I was like, Oh my god, there goes half a million dollars a revenue out the window. You know, we have other income streams. Thank goodness because we sell classes online. We have sponsorships for a popular Things like that. But everyone was evaluating what they're spending money on, and what is the value you are bringing to their life. So thankfully for us, even during quarantine, and with COVID, people still needed to be productive. And the most important thing was a lot of companies were coming to us to help teach their people how to work virtually, how to come up with a schedule I know for and again, you can't say the same thing for everybody. So it's like all the single people that live alone, we addressed one way or the people with kids who partner or a spouse, you have to set boundaries, you have to set a schedule, because the people that live alone with dogs are no dogs are going to take it differently than the people who have other people to worry about and have concern for and risk not one size fits all. It's not. And so we really we were lucky that we had people coming to us and some people were like, how do you use zoom? Can you do a zoom class? Oh my god. We've been using this For five years, so it's really forced people to embrace what's available to us to help us save time. technology helps us save time by using zoom and having our clients are all over the world. In fact, no one really lives where, in fact, my team members, we don't even live in the same. Some of them. We don't live in the same country. Yeah, yeah. So just all through relationships and networking with other entrepreneurs, we've been able to really put together a good team and outsource people, I don't care where people are in the world, as long as they're getting the job done. And they're meeting the expectations. And so quarantine has really, you know, we saw it as a positive thing, like, I'm not even going to sit back and pretend like this

Unknown Speaker :

is the worst thing ever, like it actually

Angela Proffitt :

be the best thing because it helps us reevaluate, or Tom learn how to be flexible. Now, depending on your color and true colors. People have handled it differently. But I'm thankful that we have the knowledge on how to share that with other entrepreneurs. Other companies, other business owners to help them through. It's almost like a therapy session on how to give people tools on how to get through all these changes. It's been a really neat, interesting time, you know, to say the least. But I would say like, first for a lot of people once they got into the right mindset of, Okay, this sucks. However, this can be time for me to reevaluate, where am I going? Who are the people that I really need on my team? Do I really need to be spending this money on all these platforms? We a lot of people come to us and say, I'm paying these marketing agencies thousands of dollars, what's the ROI? And I'm like, What? So you know, people are taking a step back, and they're like, is this smart money? And unfortunately, for a lot of these clients, I feel like God sends us the messages. And it's like, we're there to kind of clean it up. And what I'm finding there's a major blind spot in marketing where people are not educating their clients. And they're not educating them. They're just doing whatever their client asked for. But typically clients don't understand the big picture. So one example, and then I know we have to wrap up. Yeah, we get people a lot. They're like, can you run a Facebook ad for us? And unlike you will earn Instagram and I'm like, Will. I'm looking at your digital footprint and your website's outdated. It's a non responsive website, they have a landing page where you're going to send them and you have a sales funnel. And you know, there's all these components that you really need to have good ROI on Facebook and Facebook ads work. They definitely can work, but it takes a strategy, you're not going to go to bed, wake up and make a million dollars every day.

Unknown Speaker :

Do it nice, Louise.

Angela Proffitt :

Yeah. And so you know, I'm the person where I'm like, I'll take your money, but we're not going to use your money to run an ad. Like what get you set up, we need to do ABCD before we get to Xyz, and it's probably going to be a 30 day or 60 day process, and then we're going to set you up for success. So it's usually like a 90 day commitment. And they're like, well, you're the only person that has told me this. And so you know, as a as a small business owner, it pains me that other small businesses, especially women, that we give our money to people trusting them, and then they're not educating us. So that's the other thing like with your goals, and make sure that you're surrounding yourself with the right people and you're getting the education that you need to grow.

Laura Khalil :

Angela, I absolutely love this. I have learned so much from you in the last 30 minutes. I want to thank you so much for being with me on brave by design. And let me ask you this. For people who want to do the true colors assessment and want to learn more about you and all the amazing work you do. Where can they learn more

Angela Proffitt :

Yeah, you can go to G SD, which stands for get shit done. She is d creative calm is our website and true colors. They do sell a little books and the cards you can only get them from certified facilitators you can't get me on Amazon or on Google or anything like that. So if anybody wants a book, I can share that link with you. And then you can order it note the company will send it to you.

Unknown Speaker :

Awesome. Anyone. Thank you so much.

Angela Proffitt :

You're so welcome, everybody. Have a great day. Thank you so much.

Laura Khalil :

I want to thank you for joining me and remember to subscribe through your favorite app so you can stay up to date, and I would love your review. If you've enjoyed this episode, please leave a review and comment on Apple podcasts. You can also keep in touch with me online. You can find me on LinkedIn and I'm also on Instagram at force of badassery. All that information will be available in the show notes. Until next time, Stay brave