About the Episode

‍Join us as we delve into the vibrant realm of tech stacks and workflow optimization with our expert guest, Sara Loretta.

With her wealth of experience in technology and systems innovation, Sara lends valuable insights to business leaders seeking improvement.

In our conversation, we peel back the layers of interacting with tech tools and optimizing operations for content creators and companies alike.

Today, we'll cover:‍

- How Sara Loretta conducts full tech audits to streamline a company's tech stack and optimize remote team dynamics
- Sara's approach to internal training and the pivotal role it plays before considering outsourcing talent
- Sara Loretta's personal journey with content creation, her battle with consistency, and the challenges of scaling returns
- How to strike the right balance between automation and hiring and decide where to invest energy and resources effectively
- Strategies for evaluating roles within your business, the importance of long-term virtual assistant planning, and the benefits of a team audit

2 Ideas from the Podcast

Idea #1: Embracing Tech Agnosticism

Adopt a tech-agnostic approach to stay adaptable and tailored in your digital processes through:

1. Comprehensive Tech Audits: Perform complete evaluations of your tech stack, as Sara does with each department, to ensure software and tools align with overarching company goals, avoiding redundancy and promoting synergy.

2. Continuous Learning: Remain informed about ever-evolving tech trends. Sara Loretta stresses the necessity of staying current with new tools, which reinforces her ability to provide the most effective solutions without bias toward specific platforms.

3. Versatile Problem-Solving: As demonstrated by Sara's pivot from Notion to rectify a poorly configured ClickUp setup, being tech-agnostic allows for flexible problem-solving strategies that prioritize client needs over platform loyalty.

Idea #2: The Strategic Importance of Internal Capacity Building

Foster growth and sustainability by cultivating internal expertise before outsourcing by:

1. Defining Employee Roles and Responsibilities: Sara encourages companies to adopt a training model that mandates understanding each position within the organization. This knowledge foundation proves crucial before considering outsourcing, ensuring informed decisions regarding which tasks can be efficiently managed internally and which require external expertise.

2. Identifying and Training Tech Personnel: This strategic focus is evidenced in Sara's support for her clients in pinpointing potential tech personnel within their ranks. By equipping these team members with the necessary skills and knowledge, businesses can handle tech-related tasks in-house, enhancing the team's long-term resilience and adaptability.

3. Not Just Outsourcing but Optimizing: Sara underscores the potential pitfalls of outsourcing prematurely, notably the loss of quality control and understanding of the nuances of each role. By prioritizing internal capacity building, companies can maintain standards of excellence and cultivate a strong sense of ownership and accountability within their teams.

1 Key Learning: Systemize to Thrive, Not Just Survive

Creating a cohesive tech stack and investing in workflow optimization can transform an overwhelming workload into an efficient and enjoyable process. Sara's systematic approach to analyzing and revamping business processes helps companies flourish in an increasingly remote and asynchronous work environment.

By paying close attention to the synergy between technology, culture, and training, businesses can shift from surviving to thriving. The results are improved productivity, a better client and customer experience, and a team more aligned with the business's long-term objectives.

Episode Timestamps

‍00:00 Transitioning from employee to freelancer
04:37 Becoming the 10th Certified Notion Consultant in the U.S
09:01 Conducting thorough tech audits and optimizing processes
11:14 The pitfalls of outsourcing content
15:50 YouTube success and the challenges of expanding content niche
20:12 Simplifying platform switching and customization
22:58 Developing an innovative workflow to increase content production
24:49 Business automation and virtual assistants
28:17 Reflecting on project outcomes, consulting with a business therapist
33:08 Using personality tests to improve productivity

Successful Business Turnaround: "By the time I left, we had just everything automated and systemized, and we went from owing the city almost 100 grand a year because reporting was wrong to being one of the top performing organizations in the city because of the work that I did." — Sara Loretta [00:02:45 → 00:03:01]

The Myth of Indispensability in Business: "Everyone's replaceable, and it just is what it is when we are building businesses or building products. Yes, we are emotionally attached to that. But at the end of the day, if you want to take a sabbatical, if you up and decide one day, hey, I'm done, I don't want to work here anymore, the company's still going to move forward and we have to build businesses with that in mind. A lot of people just don't do that." — Sara Loretta [00:04:14 → 00:04:37]

Pioneering Notion for Business: "I was kind of the first person to talk about having a design business and using Notion for it. That video popped off. Notion came to me a couple of months later, and I then became the 10th Certified Notion Consultant in the US." — Sara Loretta [00:04:49 → 00:05:01]

Corporate Miscommunication and Culture Issues: "And this is where a lot of the culture comes in, is because you have this massive disconnect between the CEO and the low level assistant coming in to support projects and there's no true line of succession, there's no communication plans." — Sara Loretta [00:08:12 → 00:08:32]

Optimizing Business Processes with Technology: "We find where the overlaps are that an entire team can utilize a tool. Then we go into the culture piece. So what is the internal expectations of working with a remote async team versus what is the external expectations?" — Sara Loretta [00:09:21 → 00:09:37]

Navigating Productivity Tools: "And so I actually started building out a little cheat sheet of each tool and what's possible on each. So that way I don't have to go into ChatGPT and be like, ‘How do I do this? How do I write this formula?’ And I can just easily, when I'm on a sales call or a strategy call verbatim, just drop and say, this platform is going to work for you, or this one isn't." — Sara Loretta [00:20:37 → 00:20:58]

Innovative Workflow Improvements: "And so we built this really cool workflow that auto triggers the next person in that flow when something's marked as complete." — Sara Loretta [00:22:58 → 00:23:05]

Efficient Business Automation: "I don't touch onboarding. It's one click to send an email to a client after a sales call, and the entire thing is completely automated." — Sara Loretta [00:24:57 → 00:25:05]

Client Reviews and Self-Reflection: "So after the end of every project, I sit down and I look at what skills did I learn? What red flags were there in the client? Did I charge what I said I was going to? What skills did I learn? What do I want to keep exploring?" — Sara Loretta [00:28:21 → 00:28:34]

Team Management Insights: "She had her whole team take the Myers Briggs assessment, take, I think, the Enneagram and some personality quiz, and she plugged them into ChatGPT and said, ‘What role, what tasks fit these personalities best?’ She said she just did little tiny tweaks. And her team is the best productive, smooth sailing environment that she's ever curated." — Sara Loretta [00:33:32 → 00:33:50]