Navigating Business Challenges: Strategies for Effective Restructuring with Alicia Butler Pierre

Navigating Business Challenges: Strategies for Effective Restructuring with Alicia Butler Pierre

Sean: Alicia I want to know. Equilibria Tell us about the company. What do you do? What are the problems that you solve? We want to know more about you. We want to know how to recommend you to other people.

Alicia: Thank you so much for asking. Equilibria is a boutique operations management consulting firm. So funny you would talk about your operations manager.

And what we specialize in Sean, is we create what I call business infrastructure for fast-growing small businesses. When most people think of infrastructure, a lot of times they think about transportation, roads and planes, and boats, and how do you connect all of those different modes of transportation so that people and goods can move about as seamlessly as possible?

Well, when we talk about business infrastructure, think about your people, your processes, and all of the different tools and technologies that you’re using and how we bring those three elements together so that you can build a foundation for not just growing your business, but truly scaling it to the next level. And that’s what we specialize in.

And we use these cool ways in helping these companies figure out what their business infrastructure looks like. Sean and so just using very simple tools like stick figures and index cards, we can help these small businesses put some structure in order.

And here’s where the organizing piece comes in, that organizational skill that may be lacking in their businesses so that they can handle the growth. I think I was telling you before we started recording, you’re great at what you do, search engine optimization, bringing attention to businesses, and making sure customers are coming in through the door, and visiting those websites.

But what happens, Sean, when you go from a problem of not having enough customers to having too many? So now because of the clients that you’re helping, they may have more business than they can handle.

And in fact, they may have so many people visit their website that the website crashes. Well, that’s usually an indication that they need some of those back-office operational things in place. They need that business infrastructure.

Sean: Okay. So how does the entire process begin, Alicia? How do you identify, oh, you’re the perfect client for us to come into because you’re having these problems right now? Like, what are the most common problems that signal to you that this business needs my help?

Alicia: The absolute number one problem is the rise in customer complaints. So you’ve been doing well for a while and then all of a sudden your customers become very angry. And as you know, Sean, angry customers are always louder than happy customers, unfortunately.

Another thing is high employee turnover, the turnover rate, the attrition of your team members, and their frustration because things are growing, nothing is documented. And so the way Sean does, it might be different from the way Sally does it, different from the way Maria does it. And there’s no cohesion, there’s no consistency.

And again, that’s why your customers start to become angry because they’ve become used to having a certain experience with you, your company, its products, and its services, and all of a sudden that’s changed, and it’s continuously changing, and that poses a problem. Another thing is failed audits.

A lot of times certain businesses are heavily regulated, whether by government entities or some other type of governing body, and they start to fail those audits because they don’t have certain organizational or operational things in place. So those are some of the telltale signs immediately when I can tell, okay, this company could benefit from the business infrastructure.

They need those processes documented. They need to be able to grow the team. You know, you need to grow. But where on earth do you start? Who do you hire next and how do you make sure?

Sean: There you go. That’s the perfect next question, right? I mean, Alicia, a lot of companies, you know this, you’re in this business, there’s a ton, a ton of them. Maybe they’re not willing to pay you, but there’s a ton of them right out there.

They exist, and we know that, right? So I want to know if you’ve identified these problems. Your customer complaint has blown up like a volcano. You’re so surprised as a CEO and that shouldn’t be the case. What are the first things that you do to come in and help them?

Alicia: One of the first questions we ask, Sean, is what work needs to be performed. And that might seem like such a really basic, simple question, but it’s a profound question because one of the first things that we do is get everyone into a room together at the same time, preferably if you can do this in person.

You certainly can do this remotely, but if you can get together in person. Imagine having this brainstorming session where you’re writing down every single thing that takes place in your company, no matter how mundane or how complex. And I want you to imagine, Sean, that you start to write those different tasks or activities onto index cards. And I just have this just as an example, I’m holding up three small index cards and they say A1, C1, and B3.

Just imagine those represent actual activities that are being performed in your company. Now, here’s another trick to this exercise. Not only do you want to identify the things that you do today, but you also want to capture any activities that you recognize you should be doing that you may not be doing.

So, for example, if I’m facilitating this exercise, I may ask what about search engine optimization and that client might, and that client’s team may say, well, what is that? And then it allows us to have a conversation about what search engine, and SEO is all about. And then from there, I can start asking even more probing questions.

Now that you know what it is. Is this something that you would like to pursue in the future? And that’s when we would start documenting those activities as well. Now, what happens next? Sean, we would then spread all of those index cards out across the table. And you would start to group anything, any similar activities.

You’re going to group those into columns on that table. And I’ll then ask you if you had to assign the activities that are associated with this very first column of activities that you have, if you had to assign those activities to a department, what would the name of that department be? And so here again, just for illustrative purposes, you know, have tasks two and three.

And so we’ll say, well, that’s Department A, of course, right, Sean Or you know, and just some ideas for different departments. It could be your sales department, your marketing department, your operations department, production design, so forth, and so on. This is us starting to lay the foundation.

What does your company look like on the inside and how is it structured? And then one more exercise that I want to share with you quickly. We then have a discussion, with Sean, about now that we know what work needs to be performed. We know how that work is organized into departments who ideally should perform these different activities, not who’s currently doing it.

Because oftentimes as small businesses, as the CEOs especially, we might be doing several things that we really shouldn’t be doing, but we might have to do them. So let’s say, for example, you have activity or task A2 and you may tell me, Well, Alicia, I do that I’m the CEO. This is I do A2 but Sean, is that the best use of your time? Should you be doing A2 or should it be an office manager, for example?

So this allows us to have a conversation. And by having these little stick figures, by having those index cards, it’s a very tactile exercise. It gets everybody standing up on their feet. You’re moving things around on the table. You’re starting to have conversations that you’ve never had before. And everyone is engaged.

Everyone now has a vested interest in figuring this out. How do we lay this foundation so that we can continue to grow? And that information, believe it or not, just knowing what activities have to be performed, what the departments are, and who the people are.

From there, you can figure out what processes you need to document. You can figure out how to spatially organize your workspace according to the departments you’ve identified. You can create your company’s organizational chart.

There are many things that you can do just from those very simple exercises, low-tech, very inexpensive ways of getting that information out of everyone’s heads and onto paper.

Sean: Low tech, but super fun and engaging, for sure. Yeah. And I was about to ask you, what? I can’t buy the office paper clips anymore as the CEO? It has to be an office manager?

Alicia: That’s right. It has to be. Yes. Yeah, that’s right.

Sean: One of the things I’m wondering now, Alicia, is so there are different levels of small businesses, right? There are small businesses that have figured this out halfway or 70% of the way. They have departments already. They have job descriptions already.

Do you still do this with them, or is this exercise only for those small businesses that have no idea yet about these things?

Alicia: I’m so glad you asked that question. And let me tell you why. Because we assume that businesses have these things figured out. But, Sean, my experience has been it’s been more businesses that don’t have this in place than have all of these things in place. And even much larger organizations like the Coca-Cola of the world.

You would be surprised, especially when it comes to the process piece. The process is oftentimes just not documented. Everything is in people’s heads. That’s very dangerous because the minute those people leave the company, for whatever reason, you could be out on holiday, you could be out sick, or you might just decide to leave the company altogether.

What happens to that knowledge? That knowledge often leaves that person. I don’t want anyone who’s listening or watching this right now to be too hard on themselves. If you don’t have these things in place.

Because just keep in mind, there are much larger organizations that also don’t have a lot of these things in place. And if they do, they may function in silos where the left-hand doesn’t know what the right hand is doing. So they could also, believe it or not, still benefit from some of these core lessons that we learn as a result of building this business infrastructure.

Sean: That’s amazing. And yeah, don’t go around the room handcuffing people who you think if they leave, you’re going to go up and smoke, right? I mean.

Alicia: Right.

Sean: Yeah, definitely don’t do that because that’s just going to push them to leave all the more. Would you need to make sure you know Alicia, I can’t thank you enough for outlining the entire process here with us? I took notes. I don’t know if you noticed. I was typing all the way. And I love what you just said. I 100% agree and believe so much in this. And I couldn’t believe you didn’t exist until today, at least in my world.

Alicia: I don’t exist in a lot of people’s worlds, that’s why I’m so grateful to you Sean for giving me this opportunity to share this information with your audience.

Allowing me to share this information with your audience. I appreciate it because you’re right, not a lot of people know about this. And so I’m on a personal mission to try to get in front of as many people as I can to show them there is a better way. Things don’t have to be so chaotic.

Sean: Yeah, I 100% agree. And I do believe, you know, nine out of ten businesses fail that statistic. I always say that that’s the statistic. Not because you’re unlucky or the world economy shifted. It’s usually because of behavior and mindset.

If you are so egoistic or you’re so high up there with hubris that you think, you know, whatever I’m doing works, and then probably going to be the nine out of ten. But if you’re humble enough to say, I need to restructure, I need this.

This is what a lot of these businesses need. Alicia, I love the fact that you know this, that you’re doing this, and that you’re sharing this with us. Here’s what I want to know: With this entire restructuring, what are the key moments in key individuals for this organization to succeed?

Because I’m sure you do a lot of these things, but then I’m also sure that not a lot of them push through, like the reorganization that you suggest would face some resistance from the team because they’re comfortable with where they are.

They don’t want to change. I don’t want more work on my plate. Right. What are those key moments or key people that you need to have complete buy-in for you to make these things succeed?

Alicia: It starts at the top. So whoever is in charge, whether that’s the founder of the company, the person who is the CEO at 22, the COO, or whoever is in charge, you always need that buy-in from the top and then it starts to trickle down.

One of the first points of resistance can come if you don’t invite everyone to the table, literally inviting people to the table. Because the sooner you start to get participation from everyone who works on your team, the greater the likelihood that they will start to accept and embrace the changes. Why? Because they are a part of those changes.

They have a voice. They can express their opinion and know that their opinion is valued. And that’s another important thing. You have to listen as the leader that’s in the room with the rest of your team. You have to listen, listen to what everyone is saying, encourage everyone to contribute. Another huge point of resistance, Sean, happens when we start to get into the process because.

People have a natural tendency to want to hoard information. Yeah, because they think if I tell you how I do what I do, you’re going to use this to replace me. You might try. You might get a robot to replace me. You might find some type of automation to replace me. You might find another person to replace me. So I’m not going to tell you everything that I do.

I might give you a little information, but I’m not going to tell you everything. But again, you just have to get people into the habit of understanding that it’s to everyone’s benefit. If things are documented because people will get sick, people will have to take time off from work to deal with a sick child, or they may take time off for a holiday or whatever the case may be.

And you have to get them to understand that everything can’t stop, and operate only because you are not physically present. We still need to be able to service our customers and produce our products or deliver our services. So please be a team player and tell us how you do what you do.

Sean: Yeah, yeah, for sure. Otherwise, we’re going to go ahead and take a video camera and follow you all around 24 seven. But yeah, get it. You know that. Completely true. Completely valid point right there, people. I don’t know why, right? You know, the heart of a leader is to serve others, right? That’s the heart of a leader. And you got to have a culture of that.

You gotta keep showing that to people that, hey, I’m here to serve you, to support you. I’ll give you everything I know. I’ll share it with you. I’ll give you my resources. But you go ahead and do the same and pay it forward to other people on the team, right?

Alicia: That’s right.