Interview
Natasha: Can you share a story where you had to find a creative solution to a situation, where you dropped the ball because of an inefficient system? How did you recover?
Nathalie: One big “dropped ball” happened last summer when I ran the free 30 Day List Building Challenge… the break down happened because our email marketing system experienced deliverability issues, and we hadn’t anticipated or prepared for such a thing. My assistant was on vacation, I was also traveling, and we ended up with more support inquiries surrounding the challenge emails than I would have liked.
Our recovery plan was to get on the phone with our email company, and to send some emails manually outside of the system. This was not ideal, but it got the job done. It also led the way for our new system, where we can now see which day in the challenge someone is currently on, and we can resend specific emails. This was more work to set up in our back-end, but it really smoothed out the entire 30 Day List Building Challenge process for everyone involved!
Natasha: Please describe a system/process that you can’t imagine running your business without.
Nathalie: It’s our content creation and publication process, and it’s responsible for keeping us in front of our potential customers and fans. It starts with the writing of video scripts, booking a video shoot day, filming and editing the videos, uploading the videos, writing the accompanying article and newsletter, formatting the content, and hitting send.
All of these steps might seem simple or small, but if there’s one piece missing then the content doesn’t get published, and there are different people involved at different steps – from the make-up artist, video production crew, and my assistant… so it’s important to be a well oiled process.
Natasha: How does having this system in place affect your profits?
Nathalie: Without it, I wouldn’t be able to put together my weekly videos and communicate with my audience… and as a result I wouldn’t be attracting new customers and clients. I also think that this process allows me to take time away from the tasks I used to do (video editing, uploading, etc) so I can focus on the high leverage activities in my business, like working directly with my clients, writing copy, and delivering on products and programs.
Topics
- Importance of contingency plans
- How making something happen requires a well defined and oiled process
- How to leverage your time using systems
Resources
30 Day List Building Challenge
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Bio
Nathalie Lussier has been making web sites since she was 12 years old, and graduated with a degree in Software Engineering and a job offer from Wall Street. In a gutsy move, she turned down this job to start her own business right out of college. Now running a six figure consulting company, Nathalie helps thousands of people all over the world get techy with it, and has been featured in Forbes, Inc., Venture Beat, Mashable, and Under 30 CEO.
