EP368: Strategies for Turning Your Business into a Scalable Machine With Raul Hernandez Ochoa | Do Good Work

Stacy Jones: Welcome to marketing mistakes and how to avoid them. I’m Stacey Jones, and I’m so happy to be here with you all today, and I want to get a very warm welcome to Raul Hernandez.Stacy Jones: Powell is the founder and CEO of do good work, a consulting practice that helps independent digital businesses achieve profitable growth

Stacy Jones: with extensive experience as a digital growth strategist and entrepreneur role is known for helping businesses achieve profitable growth and make a meaningful impact.

Stacy Jones: Mit Ctl and Rawl has tripled the growth of digital businesses, generated millions of revenue and designed high-performing marketing and sales teams. He’s been responsible for driving million in sales and overseeing million in Ad. Spent, and has trained thousands of entrepreneurs through private programs and live events, .

Stacy Jones: Rawl is also a published author and a sought after a public speaker sharing his insights and strategies for success.

Stacy Jones: Today Raul and I are going to be chatting about strategies for achieving profitable growth, and how to transform your business into a scalable machine. We’ll learn what works from all’s perspective what it should be avoided, and how some businesses just miss the mark.

Stacy Jones: All welcome. So happy to have you here today. Hey? Thanks for having me, Stacey, of course, so I always like starting off with

Stacy Jones: what got you here today? Where you this Mecca of strategy growth? And how’d you land here?

Raul Hernandez Ochoa: Oh, man definitely, not the Mecca. But by accident. Actually, I was trying to start a software company, and that turned into partnering with a friend that I’ve never met, but we were connected on Skype. He used to remember what that is. he was in Brooklyn. I was in San Diego. We started the company. And we’re like, Hey, let’s dive into solving a problem for the market. Turns out that market that we were serving needed marketing

Raul Hernandez Ochoa: and sales. I’m like, okay, let’s learn it. So we learned it started doing services. More freelance, fractional

Raul Hernandez Ochoa: agency started developing booking clients. And that took me out of my day job in finance. I was at Jp. Morgan retail banking side, and it’s a that was like sales at scale, like kind of move quarter of a million dollars from one being to it like that game. So I learned the learn that there then.

Raul Hernandez Ochoa: building the company online, we’re like, Hey, this is not what we want to do because we were building into what we need to hire a team. And I really love being in the weeds and doing the work. So from there help transition to help other agencies digital marketing agencies grow from acquisitions to a merger to all that fun stuff.

Raul Hernandez Ochoa: it’s a leading teams and being part of some thought leaders in in the space. And that’s where I got my first exposure to training and support. And during that experience. I’ve also helped day that one agency that you mentioned we triple them in less than a year almost tripled, nearly tripled. So I got to be transparent there in less than a year, and my

Raul Hernandez Ochoa: my coach at the time was like, Hey, you kind of write that down like right? What down like the thing, like the thing that you like the process you took it. It’s not really a process, just like some principles that I tie together, and we got stuff stuff done. It’s like, write it down. Whatever wrote it down, turn out to be a book, start doing coaching and consulting, and then helping interesting clients and teams grow and been part of really fascinating projects. I’ve been honored to work with really great marketers and sales people and teams online. And that’s how we’re here. It’s still a work in progress, and still

Raul Hernandez Ochoa: try my best every day with a zip of coffee every time

Stacy Jones: that works well.

Stacy Jones: So scalable. That’s a word that we hear a lot about how to scale your business. And it sounds like you kind of

Stacy Jones: fell into creating this new business that you have. It’s not so new, but

Stacy Jones: because you are told to write it down so that you could scale basically

Raul Hernandez Ochoa: part of it. Yeah, scaling the thoughts like I.

Raul Hernandez Ochoa: It leaned into doing, consulting, and I’m more of a practitioner where I can speak from experience. But I can also do which I think is a rare thing. You don’t want to learn how to get fit from someone who’s not fit, so how to do that.

Stacy Jones: And so when you’re working with a new client. What is the first step that you take? How do you help?

Stacy Jones: First of all, figure out what’s actually needing to be fixed, and to where the growth opportunities are. And then

Stacy Jones: how do you figure out from there what the next step is?

I think I mean, I’ll just tell you real experiences and real examples.

Raul Hernandez Ochoa: it’s I mean, there’s always the audit piece, I mean, you’ll hear this from them. And the Mackenzie is the or the big like consultants. But you guys do the audit review what they’re doing, and then find what’s from here to there. What’s the next like? That’s the obvious, but I think what makes it different is always aligning to the goal of a business owner.

Raul Hernandez Ochoa: I come from a boost strapped entrepreneur background. I work with people who have to make their marketing pay for itself. I have to work with people who live and die by their sales. I love that, and I honor that? I don’t. I have worked in the past with some that are might have funding, or whatever. But it’s

Raul Hernandez Ochoa: the bootstrapped entrepreneur we always have to line what is their actual intention with starting this business, and what is their end outcome? And we overlook that a lot of the time we talk about revenue we talk about growth. Is all that fun stuff? Great? Why.

Raul Hernandez Ochoa: I think that’s an important question. Because, answering that, why? Answers the strategy piece, do you want to exit? for example, I have a small group of cohorts. So I just finished the first call this morning, or new a cohort group. And a lot of the question was.

Raul Hernandez Ochoa: does anyone here desire to sell their company to a private equity or to ex a one day, and maybe % of the room open their like, raise their hands. Some want to do it because they want to have cash flow, invest in other parts of their life or businesses, or even just a portfolio. Others want to do it because this is their passion, and they’re going to do this for the next years. Others want to do this because they want to ex in the next to years. Just depending. Answering. That question first allows you to design backwards what we’re building. And I look at it through a design perspective.

Raul Hernandez Ochoa: I actually was going to be in animation. And I won’t tell you the animation from that I wanted to go to. But back with my Aol account just to remember that one I used to email it like animation director. So I come from a creative lens first, and then putting the analytical on top of that. But it’s all designed. What are you designing to?

Raul Hernandez Ochoa: And what is the best row to achieve that growth number or that exit number.

Stacy Jones: And going back to something you said at the very beginning.

Stacy Jones: So why do you find that a lot of business owners don’t actually know their why. And you have to actually get through working that out. Are you finding that people have their why firmly established. They know their intent and their overall plan

Raul Hernandez Ochoa: thankfully when they come to me. It’s gone so much

Raul Hernandez Ochoa: to the point where they’re either bottlenecked, burnt out or frustrated, that they know exactly why they want to make the necessary steps. I mean, I I like to power lift with the barbells and the heavy lifting. So I can. I can relate to the work that we do is more foundational. It’s setting the right form for your body to adapt to higher stress, and then taking those repetitions in those actions. So

Raul Hernandez Ochoa: in the beginning, I think a lot of people

Raul Hernandez Ochoa: or entrepreneurs that I work with are who are all they? They’re excited, they follow whatever the hype is on Youtube or whatever, and they take action. Then they hit a wall.

Raul Hernandez Ochoa: They’re stuck in their growth.

Raul Hernandez Ochoa: They’re frustrated with what’s going on. They don’t know how to like breach the gap, and they’re just they’re in the stage of stuck. And through that interest faction they realized, wow! This is what I really need to do. And with that internal motivation, then they pivot, or they make the change to, hey? Or what you can get me unstuck, or how do we do this together? So they come already prepared for that, and unfortunately have to learn it for themselves, and it’s not something that I can just teach you or go through with you like you have to experience it for yourself.

Stacy Jones: So once you’ve gotten this, why, and you’ve learned, you know what their overall

Stacy Jones: plan is, whether to grow or whether it is to exit. What’s the next step from there.

Raul Hernandez Ochoa: I think it’s designing their growth plan. So, understanding what the parameters are like, one of our teams, or

Raul Hernandez Ochoa: I call my clients teams one of our clients. they’re a nonprofit, and they want to scale

Raul Hernandez Ochoa: pretty dramatically over the next years like, it’s a pretty dramatic pivot. So the question isn’t around. Can this be done? The question is, how are we going to do this? Based on the the Sam lot that we’re playing in your parameters, your fundraising, your goals, the number that you want to reach and your team availability and resources. So it’s creating a custom growth plan depending on what’s going on in the marketplace. What’s going on internally with your team?

Raul Hernandez Ochoa: Who are you actually serving? What’s their internal psychology? What are their motivators? And the reason we do that a lot. If I focus that on that, a lot is because I don’t think that in business there’s silo departments specifically for Bootstrap companies like .

Raul Hernandez Ochoa: It’s all one, your marketing influences, your sales and that influences your product development, that influences your client experience, that influences your user experience and your future iterations and your partnership. So it’s not just oh, marketing just to your thing here sales to your thing, their product team to your thing here.

Raul Hernandez Ochoa: I don’t have a word to call, but it’s all one symbiotic relationship.

Raul Hernandez Ochoa: So I look at that from a psychology perspective. Who are we actually serving? What’s their internal dialogue? What’s the world view, and what’s their internal motivator to work with you as a company or as a product?

Raul Hernandez Ochoa: And diving into

Raul Hernandez Ochoa: positioning marketing design sales design and then products fulfillment to meet those those client needs.

Stacy Jones: And so you’re really diving across in time company, and what you’re working with.

Raul Hernandez Ochoa: Yeah, it’s a holistic approach, with the emphasis of front-facing, marketing and sales to to drive revenue. Essentially.

Stacy Jones: where do you see this causing issues. You, does anyone say, Oh, my God! This is just too much to try to figure out how to embed throughout, or does it make natural sense to everyone.

Raul Hernandez Ochoa: I think it makes natural sense. Once you see the process, the only times that I

Raul Hernandez Ochoa: anytime I teach your talk, it’s based on experience. So no theoretical here, so that I know that there comes with the limitations to that. But anytime I’ve seen a real issue around, that is, when

Raul Hernandez Ochoa: the leaders or the founding team doesn’t get

Raul Hernandez Ochoa: strategy or they don’t get marketing, or they don’t get how

Raul Hernandez Ochoa: they all play a role together, or the team is too fractional.

Stacy Jones: And where are some of the other missteps that happen?

Raul Hernandez Ochoa: I think the key missteps.

Raul Hernandez Ochoa: That’s a really good question. Like. if you don’t get what’s going on here. The key, Miss Step, in my opinion, is

Raul Hernandez Ochoa: when you start to take action. to not being able to measure and identify progress. And what does progress mean? And having the set parameters to start like you’ll have in it. You see this, too, in the agency world as well like.

Raul Hernandez Ochoa: you might have an agency or a team that works with an agency or multiple agencies. But how do you keep everyone accountable? How do you have that transparency specifically in a remote world.

Raul Hernandez Ochoa: And one of the things that I tend to do is that where, when you’re a founder, if the veil of transparency is there anyone on the team, or any vendor or any agency can get away with things without you ever finding out, not to say that everyone’s there is malicious, but it’s how do we keep everyone accountable towards one true North?

Raul Hernandez Ochoa: So that’s one of the biggest mistakes I see to the State.

Stacy Jones: I will add in just completely, probably not even relevant to specifically what you’re saying. But when you’re talking about the veil of transparency, it just triggered it for me. We have a client who recently shared that they were not actually sure of some of the internal campaigns that different departments were doing within their own organization, and they were too nervous to ask about it.

Stacy Jones: which meant as our agency, it was very hard to actually, fully and comprehensively understand what the end goal was, and what all the moving parts were in the specifics. And that’s something that happens. A lot of companies

Stacy Jones: where people aren’t transparent. And they actually put up A

Stacy Jones: and the area where people are going to not be able to work successfully together because of fear

Stacy Jones: within that organization. So I’m sure you’ve seen that happen as well.

Raul Hernandez Ochoa: one of the problem with the part of the solution. The solutions aren’t these difficult strategies there? Aren’t these marketing strategies, these branding strategies, the sale. Those are not the solution actually comes back to leading yourself and leading others effectively through a remote online fractional workload environment. I think that’s one of the biggest stressors that we’ve been seeing since left. What is it? , since the last years?

Raul Hernandez Ochoa: And it’s how do we adapt to that and accept that as a is a new way of operating.

Stacy Jones: Yeah, I’ve seen more and more companies who have employees who, you know, they’re either fully remote.

Stacy Jones: and they’re just not getting the

Stacy Jones: the hearing of what’s going on in their company.

Stacy Jones: and they’re trying to juggle it versus. I don’t know anyone who’s just all in anymore that truly knows everything that’s going on. If they’re not in their office. , ,

Raul Hernandez Ochoa: yeah, I think it has to have specifically for remote teams. There is a higher intention in your communication where over communication becomes a normal. And I’ve only worked with remote teams and scale remote team. So I I know that having in person is a competitive advantage. But I also think, and this is not not

Raul Hernandez Ochoa: to this point, but I hear it on mine. I think it’s a cop out to say that everyone has to return to the office. I think that’s a cop out on leadership to be honest with you. Yeah, I think it depends on your organization what’s needed within it, and your industry, too. So that’s in your interest. Yeah, and how your company works, and everything else, but

Stacy Jones: being fully remote, does enable a lot of the gaps to happen

Stacy Jones: more so that founders and leaders need to actually understand how to bring people together and fill in that information and not just sending out unless emails. Because we’re now on a data overload, too. No one can actually keep up with everything their inbox, and unless they have a photographic memory they’re going to read all the stuff, and if they’re if they’re a verbal learn or versus like a visual reading learner. They’re not going to get the information.

Raul Hernandez Ochoa: Yeah, there has to be a heartbeat to the organization, and that heartbeat has to come in either from the executive or the coo, but someone in leadership that continually have that pulse across the company in the organization, and it’s not as hard as you think, but it is intentional.

Raul Hernandez Ochoa: You have to be more mindful.

Stacy Jones: Where have you seen? I know we’re getting a little bit. But where have you seen people be successful with this? How do you? How have you seen remote? Come, teams that you’re working with be able to actually dial this in. Well.

Raul Hernandez Ochoa: well, that’s a fantastic question. So much so that I created my own little operating system around it. I think there we have to look at. I mean, you can do this. Live here, too, when you’re listening to this is that there’s lines of communication within the team, vertical and horizontally, and then identifying what are the key vertical inter team communications that need to happen. And who is the lead per team? And this is creating leverage and creating kind of a decentralized brain. You want to have a master brain of your organization with all the actions

Raul Hernandez Ochoa: that the team or the company is taking initiatives, goals, rocks, whatever you want to call them, daily task habits

Raul Hernandez Ochoa: and then information.

Raul Hernandez Ochoa: resources, logins, trainings, updates, memos in one spot, not in like a plethora of emails. Because, you know, nowadays we check email, linkedin base camp slack click. All these different fractional pieces, one centralized spot where is the source of truth.

Raul Hernandez Ochoa: And then, finally, where is your source of truth, of communication?

Raul Hernandez Ochoa: And those are that I call that the trifect of digital work. If you have your information, communication, and action in one centralized repository, where everyone has access full transparency based on either their pot or their team vertically, and then also for the leadership. If it’s senior management, middle management, or executives having horizontal communication lines with those same things

Raul Hernandez Ochoa: you can win in that, in my opinion, when you have that

Raul Hernandez Ochoa: again, I’ve only scaled and work with remote teams. You can do this successfully in the the most I’ve had under my responsibility, or about people.

Raul Hernandez Ochoa: So I I mean, I can’t say that I’ve done it for , but I know that the scales, because in organizations of or , or ,. They’re essentially small pods of to people per department, or whatever.

Stacy Jones: Are there certain platforms that yield themselves to working better for this. Like our team. For example, we use Monday. We use teams we use sometimes slack. We use, you know, there, there’s a lot. And just even more from that.

Raul Hernandez Ochoa: And every week there’s new ones coming out with the I and the different tools. So I think the tools that the tools matter less, in my opinion. But I always get asked, what’s tools to use? I’ve personally depending on the modality

Raul Hernandez Ochoa: the ones that I always revert to are slack.

Raul Hernandez Ochoa: click up

Raul Hernandez Ochoa: base camp and Google drive. So you can use this any which way you want. But again, the tools matter less. Is it as long as you have the framework in this framework foundation. Again.

Raul Hernandez Ochoa: this doesn’t sound like gross. It doesn’t sound sexy, but growth is initiated by having someone have the same idea in their brain that’s in your brain. And how do you duplicate that idea into their brain and facilitate their action

Raul Hernandez Ochoa: specifically as you’re trying to scale so that it’s not all on you. It’s not all on your team. And this is why we have to go through this foundational work.

Stacy Jones: So what are the next steps with that? So everyone is communicating on the right single solitary platform. Hub!

Stacy Jones: What’s the next step?

Raul Hernandez Ochoa: Making sure that we have the right initiatives in alignment to your goals. So usually, I like to break down companies in departments, marketing product and operations operations and admin finance. They focus on their own thing. They might have the CEO of the Cfo manage that

Raul Hernandez Ochoa: for product, you have your head of product or your product developer, or your service fulfillment. If you’re delivering services, they own product, and they all fulfillment and promises.

Raul Hernandez Ochoa: And then for marketing, it’s marketing and sales revenue generation like, then there’s those initiatives. So, making sure per department, you have your top one to actions to focus on, or deliverables, or outcomes either for the quarter and or for the year, and breaking those down into. Is this a one off action that I just need to get done?

Raul Hernandez Ochoa: Is this a habit I need to implement and execute with a team?

Raul Hernandez Ochoa: Or is this a multi-prong project that is similar to a one-time thing? But it’s going to take longer time to execute

Raul Hernandez Ochoa: and dissecting things that way that you can really get to work in alignment towards

Raul Hernandez Ochoa: what is our end? Why, why are we doing this? And then you just build, and then you have all the simple habits of daily exercise coming in, communicating, executing, updating transparency, tracking, accountability.

Raul Hernandez Ochoa: and making sure that we have open and fluid communications, and enabling and empowering others to execute?

Raul Hernandez Ochoa: And is there any place in this that things just go wrong? Are there any standard mistakes that people tend to make like? Do they try to do it all at once? Yes, so there’s major ones. One is on the leadership, and the other is on the initiative. Is one trying to do too many things in one small stance. So things take typically longer than expected. Unfortunately, specifically in tech, I’m pretty sure you know that as well like anytime you try to do something in tech. It’s like twice the cost, and times as

Stacy Jones: our construction. I can tell you that right now we’re building it. And so yes, I well, here in Kallow I’m here in California, I mean oh, my gosh, that that.

Raul Hernandez Ochoa: Yep, that is definitely twice the cost, and hopefully it’ll be done. Yeah.

Raul Hernandez Ochoa: So those, in my opinion.

Raul Hernandez Ochoa: when you buy it off too much, you start resetting the same goals every quarter, and that becomes an issue, and I’ve failed that doing that as well. I’ve had that issue in the past as opposed to saying, this is our one focal point, depending on the adaptability of the team.

Raul Hernandez Ochoa: If the team takes a long time like a moving train where it takes a long time to turn. Then, you know, you should focus on less and not do more. If your team is very agile and you’re very in a startup environment. You can break things quickly, move fast, adjust, and pivot within sprints.

Raul Hernandez Ochoa: short timeframes. weeks, weeks, sixtys. Whatever your cycle is.

Raul Hernandez Ochoa: then maybe you can do to initiatives and get things in that rhythm. So it’s in alignment to your team, your cadence, and your rhythm. The heartbeat of the company. The second issue I see the most of specifically online, specifically with small businesses is that the team culture is a reflection of the leader and the CEO, which can be good and bad.

Raul Hernandez Ochoa: good because of the good virtues that you have and how you show up, can help other people on the team and culture and proof. But also.

Raul Hernandez Ochoa: if your leadership style doesn’t allow. For.

Raul Hernandez Ochoa: for example, I have one CEO founder like he. He had hesitancy around hiring someone who was at a hire like a top-tier player, because, like, I’ve never let her manage someone who’s like a pro in their industry like

Raul Hernandez Ochoa: like, I’m afraid I’m going to screw it up.

Raul Hernandez Ochoa: So limiting your own growth, based on your personal growth, is another issue that I’ve seen.

Stacy Jones: And obviously, you know some leaders have it dialed in, and they’re just excellent. Most leaders don’t have it dialed in.

Raul Hernandez Ochoa: because people are still learning just like the teams are, and there’s an awful lot of weight that goes on a leader to perform and provide a cellar environment. And, you know, make sure that everyone is feeling like they’re inspired and supported. Oh, yeah, yeah, right? Oh, yeah. I mean, I don’t think we have to have it perfect. I think we just need to be aware of our strengths and aware of what we need to focus on

Raul Hernandez Ochoa: through actually going through growing pains. And I’m talking about like growth pains which are either

Raul Hernandez Ochoa: burn out bottlenecks, issues, cash all these things that happen as you scale up. So it’s happened to business owners. No, I mean, I know. But like through that. I’ve

Raul Hernandez Ochoa: kind of consolidated what are like the characteristics or the pillars

Raul Hernandez Ochoa: of leadership that I think help navigate through that. And I like just like branded him as the pillars of heroic leadership. Hero, because you need to do things that are uncomfortable, and that take courage to have this conversations, etc. But I think for leaders.

Raul Hernandez Ochoa: You may not be perfect right now, and absolutely. I don’t think anyone is, but I think if you are cognizant of these pillars and see, where can I improve? How can I facilitate this with my team? How can I empower them? I think it’s a pro a work in progress, and gradually getting stronger and better every time that you show up.

Raul Hernandez Ochoa: we can go through the pillars if you want.

Raul Hernandez Ochoa: I think the first pillar is being able to set the stage

Raul Hernandez Ochoa: meaning the words that you use, the intentionality of each meeting and the intentionality of how teams communicate. You can set the frame of mind. You’re the director in people’s minds, specifically online and remote.

Raul Hernandez Ochoa: Or you want them to focus on on that scene. You can have them focus on it. If you want to focus on the bad and the negative, have the team operate that way. You can do that, or you can set the stage of how you want them to think. So. It is using persuasion. It is using influence. But it’s also using, using intentionality of words, intentionality of how we’re framing situations, how we’re empowering the team to think.

Raul Hernandez Ochoa: I think that’s one of the first the first pillar. The second pillar is being steady.

Raul Hernandez Ochoa: If you focus on one path.

Raul Hernandez Ochoa: not deviate because it’s shiny off it, since you’re not evening and bouncing around and multiple things just steady and maintaining the course of what we said. That we would do. That doesn’t mean you can’t pivot.

Raul Hernandez Ochoa: but it also doesn’t mean that, like you’re bouncing around like in the team. Feels like this guy or this guy’s unstable like. Oh, my gosh! Where are they going to go next like you want to have people who work with you feel secure

Raul Hernandez Ochoa: because everyone secretly has a little sign in their head saying, one.

Raul Hernandez Ochoa: I want to be led specifically people who are not entrepreneur. They just want to have a clear understanding. What is expected of me. What do I need to do? Can you lead me to that outcome.

Raul Hernandez Ochoa: the third is taking data-driven, informed execution.

Raul Hernandez Ochoa: not just decision making, but executing, based on empirical data, not just in a motion, not just a feeling. Obviously the gut feeling has a a key role here. but not just shooting from the hip all the time. And I think there’s a lot of books that tell you shoot from the hip. I’m here to tell you.

Raul Hernandez Ochoa: That’ll only get you so far.

Raul Hernandez Ochoa: especially if you want to break a a milestone the fourth is to facilitate movement.

Raul Hernandez Ochoa: You are no longer the do or the hands you want to facilitate and empower teams to be decentralized, giving them how you would think how you would execute, and the tools and the resources so that they can be self sufficient. And you’re now a facilitator, a conductor, an orchestra, and the team plays a symphony. But you’re facilitating that

Stacy Jones: one of the hardest ones, at least for me. That’s why you’re a business owner. You probably started the business because you were awfully good at whatever you did and didn’t feel like the organization you were in was doing as good as a job, or that you felt you could do it better. But that means you are doing.

Stacy Jones: And you thought you could leave that organization and start a new one and do again and do create and build.

Stacy Jones: But that’s you doing. And if you have spent your entire career doing, it’s very hard for some leaders to

Stacy Jones: position over, to enable their teams to do and learn from them without getting their own hands, you know, really, really dirty, and

Stacy Jones: by doing so keeping their team from actually doing.

Raul Hernandez Ochoa: Yeah, that’s brilliant. Because this this is where operations comes in. And this is where I call the Mla the minimum level of acceptability specifically for client facing like right now, your clients can only tell the difference between % of what you can do in a %.

Raul Hernandez Ochoa: And maybe if you execute the task or you execute the work you’ll always perform at , ,, because you’re like you’re you’re the star. But your team struggles at .

Raul Hernandez Ochoa: But the client can’t tell the difference between, you know, and . So as long as they’re above % in competency. You’re you’re fine. That doesn’t mean to cop out and say, Oh, just focus on low quality work. That just means have your team perform higher than the client expectation, and then train them and work with them, and this is the fifth pillar to feel them fuel others, and power them with the support, the mindset, whatever they need the tools or resources

Raul Hernandez Ochoa: to do, an increase from that % in this example to % to %, and over time they will get better. But in the beginning they will not be

Raul Hernandez Ochoa: for your app. But over time, when you have these little pockets of teams, different parts of the company they’re going to together, execute at a higher rate, with a higher

Raul Hernandez Ochoa: success rate than you ever will, because you. Just you just want you in.

Stacy Jones: and

Stacy Jones: I think again that I know it means true for me. But this is one of the biggest stumbling blocks that I see with entrepreneurs.

Raul Hernandez Ochoa: Hmm! The empowerment or the fueling.

Stacy Jones: The that’s what I hear a lot of the

Stacy Jones: how to let go and have to that. They’re going, that your team is going to

Stacy Jones: still help you grow and still accomplish at the level that you could do. And I think your point of saying that you know

Stacy Jones: there is a point to get them to at that , and then work with them to get higher and let go of your own ego, and to let go of your own need for perfection out of the gate, because that perfection actually, if you sit there as an leader, and you continually

Stacy Jones: show the imperfections of what someone else has done is going to make them not want to do in the future.

Raul Hernandez Ochoa: There is, there is a fine balance to that. But I think, going to the first point that you mentioned. I think business owners, and like even me, going through, I think we fear it

Raul Hernandez Ochoa: because we think it’s an act of trust and hope like, I hope this works, and I’m making a bet that it does. It doesn’t. Then it slams in my face versus actually having a strategy

Raul Hernandez Ochoa: and going through. So I there’s a a A process I call core operations and literally listing out and working to create the machine of your business. If you go through that process and you have the tools, and you know exactly how it’s going to get done. Who’s going to get done, how you’re going to empower them? How are you going to track and measure, and how you’re going to make sure that it’s done to the level of expectation that the client wants that you want.

Raul Hernandez Ochoa: and you’ve captured your signature way of doing things in a way that people can execute on it. If you do that, it becomes less of. I hope this works, too. I did the hard work now it’s time to test it with the team and iterate and become better.

Raul Hernandez Ochoa: And I think, having a strategy to deploy that we can dive into the core Ops. If you want.

Stacy Jones: I would love to hear more. And I yeah, I kept you from your fifth recent

Raul Hernandez Ochoa: So that was the fifth pillar, the the fueling, others feeling, others to to grow.

Stacy Jones: No, that would be lovely.

Raul Hernandez Ochoa: So the core operations is a simple

Raul Hernandez Ochoa: is a simple framework, and it’s a it has separate elements. But it’s all. It’s very basic. It’s identifying in your company. What is the

Raul Hernandez Ochoa: the leading indicator? I call them operating Kpis. So everyone we always focus on sales and revenue. But those are lagging indicators. What are the leading inputs for all part of your company.

Raul Hernandez Ochoa: your marketing to your sales, your fulfillment to your operations, to your finance. What are the leading indicators? And you know, having I’ve only

Raul Hernandez Ochoa: you around the bush for too long, and I have only work with companies

Raul Hernandez Ochoa: from making their first million to strategize and hit their hundredth right? So this is limited. So it’s not. I don’t.

Raul Hernandez Ochoa: I’m not going to make stuff up. But I haven’t seen companies have more

Raul Hernandez Ochoa: than leading indicators. That’s a lot right? So you might have right now to to and , if you want to get fancy.

Raul Hernandez Ochoa: But those leading indicators you’re focusing on, what are the key inputs that my team does in marketing. Okay, I need leads cool. What are the leading indicators that we have to focus on

Raul Hernandez Ochoa: and designing this backwards so that you always win because you can control your leading indicators and then associating each leading indicator to a habit.

Raul Hernandez Ochoa: And the reason I focus on habits because a company. a habit, is either done by you, someone on your team or a machine.

Raul Hernandez Ochoa: and the quality of that habit determines the quality of the leading indicator, the execution. the third elements, the first elements, the operating Kpi, the leading indicator. The second is, what’s habit is associated with that?

Raul Hernandez Ochoa: The third is, who on your team owns it?

Raul Hernandez Ochoa: Who is responsible for this leading indicator who is going to day in and day out part of their job description. But are there their job role focusing on the health of that. So you, as a leader, know if I need to optimize, I know who to go. If it’s working well, I know who to praise who to give a bonus to?

Raul Hernandez Ochoa: And then the fourth is measurement. How are we going to measure? This

Raul Hernandez Ochoa: doesn’t matter. The as long as you have accurate tracking. It doesn’t matter what tool you use, and you don’t I? I gave a talk, and in the New Orleans about this, and there was some data and analytical and app developers. There, I I it. But here, if you’re one of those, please go like this, put your fingers in your ears. I don’t care if you’re tracking on a piece of paper as long as you’re measuring the leading indicators. You’re not measuring

Raul Hernandez Ochoa: to .

Raul Hernandez Ochoa: And then finally, what’s the standard operating procedure? How do you execute that one habit?

Raul Hernandez Ochoa: And if you do this, you create a machine for your business.

Raul Hernandez Ochoa: And again, heavy lifting work. A lot of people don’t see this, but this is what can help you differentiate, because if you have a unique style, the way that you execute for clients. and then, whether you work with clients, get that unique style.

Raul Hernandez Ochoa: you can capture that and have a team member execute on that and work to iterate and improve over time. so that strategy

Raul Hernandez Ochoa: becomes more of a I know what I’m doing. Who’s doing it? Here’s how we’re going to execute it

Raul Hernandez Ochoa: versus. I hope this gun is going to work as a hired X. Y. And Z. Person to take care of it.

Raul Hernandez Ochoa: Think you’re on mute?

Stacy Jones: Are you saying that by hiring. You know, person Xyz, without giving them your vision.

Stacy Jones: and just expecting that because they had a really great resume that’s not going to work for you.

Raul Hernandez Ochoa: No, I mean it. It might. But I I like to be on the caution of

Raul Hernandez Ochoa: How can we almost guaranteed things to work?

Stacy Jones: And I think the measurables that you mentioned. You know, we always talked about measuring something so that we can actually know what to scale and how to scale, but it still is an area that a lot of companies have a work work to do on. And it’s also figuring out what to measure versus measuring everything under the sun, because I’ve seen a lot of companies go down that

Stacy Jones: track where now their team is, you know, dotting every T and I and counting when those teas and eyes didn’t get crossed. And you’re getting so in the minutia of it all that you missed the big picture of what you should be doing as an organization.

Raul Hernandez Ochoa: Yeah. And I I think there is a place for for measuring everything in terms of like, maybe your your accounting or the finance. But here, when it comes to your operations and scalable operations, you want to measure the leading indicators, the ones that you have complete control over. You’re designing this game to win.

Raul Hernandez Ochoa: So you can. You’re not. You’re not in complete control right now of your revenue. You’re completing control of what inputs drive that revenue.

Stacy Jones: and so that could be anything from. If you’re in marketing sales, the amount of outreach that you’re doing, or the type of cold calls, the types of inbound content, the types of social content, that number of ads where you’re running ads, the dollars you’re spending. so those are all leading metrics that you’d be looking at as well.

Raul Hernandez Ochoa: Yes, and then, knowing the conversion points and working backwards. If I want X amount of sales calls or X amount of prospective clients. I know that we can successfully work with that hop on the call. That means I need to get an X amount of calls. That means I need to send these many emails, outreach, etc. So you do work backwards. And then you just set the goals. These are our goals. Let’s make this work. And

Raul Hernandez Ochoa: Mit, Ctl and things work out. Goals are achievable. It’s not just an endless set of hopefully I reach that goal. And what happens for companies, and I know we’ve struggled with myself as an agency, you know, throughout the years where we’re figuring this out of

Stacy Jones: setting goals, when, if you haven’t been actually tracking. So if you’re starting from, you know, you’re sitting down as a team, and you’re like we’re going to set goals now, and we’re going to set metrics now, and someone tools has well, how many you know, how many outbound calls should we be making?

Stacy Jones: And someone’s like, I don’t know, because I’m never tracked how many outbound calls I’ve made no idea. So there’s also that where you might want to go from to very quickly getting there. But some realities here depending on how advanced and and healthy your company is that you’re running. You may have some baby steps that you have to take.

Raul Hernandez Ochoa: Yeah. And there’s no judgment here. I think we’re all learning and all growing. And I think the number one stuff there. It’s just a set of baseline guesstimate.

Raul Hernandez Ochoa: Okay? I think I took calls this week. I think, maybe. Okay, that’s fine cool out of those how many were like qualified, how many more it will be able to help? Oh, x amount. Okay, cool. And then how many conversations do you do follow ups that you have. Let me look at my calendar.

Raul Hernandez Ochoa: and I think from there it’s just doing an audit and setting a baseline. Is this baseline perfect. No. Does it have to be? Absolutely not, but it’s something.

Raul Hernandez Ochoa: And then from there, now that you have a baseline, then you can measure against that baseline and see what’s the actual delta? What’s that difference?

Raul Hernandez Ochoa: And when you do that, you like. Okay, our true baseline is this for this department or for this measurement.

Raul Hernandez Ochoa: and once you have the true baseline, then you can start setting goals. Okay, cool. Well, if I do more here, or I increase the number of outreaches here it should influence our conversion. Number.

Raul Hernandez Ochoa: Go, run with the test, they come back. And again, this is a cycle. This is not a one and done thing. But the thing is, it’s best to start now versus years from now, years from now, years from now, because what’s going to happen is that time is going to go by anyways, this might as well just start now.

Stacy Jones: Well, now is a great time for you to share. How can all of our listeners find you? And they’re like, I need help. How do I know where to go for all

Raul Hernandez Ochoa: The best place is just the website at, do go to work. I/O.

Raul Hernandez Ochoa: Forward. Slash for marketing mistakes. That’s do good work. I O forward slash! you’ll have access to a free free book, access to trainings and online, and a way to contact me.

Stacy Jones: And so again for our listeners. If you did not just catch that you get incredibly cool, free things that he has put together for our listeners, for marketing mistakes and how to avoid them today so that you can accelerate your own growth, plan within your organization. So make sure that you check that out.

Stacy Jones: and then I’ll where do you think. after all, the steps are taken. What is the next thing that

Stacy Jones: leaders need to keep in mind when they’re trying to cohesively put this all together?

Raul Hernandez Ochoa: If the journey matters along we set these goals and these expectations of the destination and the outcome. And that’s great. You’ll reach it.

Raul Hernandez Ochoa: But also the journey does matter because the journey does determine and influence the outcome. So just that enjoying your journey

Stacy Jones: and getting to the end is not going to yield you happiness unless you actually have indeed enjoyed that journey. And one of the things I really like talking with Raoul about before we even started. This is

Stacy Jones: making sure that you are approaching life and work with a little bit of humor.

Stacy Jones: because, day in, day out, we’re all just trying to work and be successful and still be human. And the great degrees of angst that one can feel or not, something that’s going to benefit and drive your organization or your client relationships for or your customers, for without being able to see that things happen, and sometimes you need to shift a little bit along the way.

Raul Hernandez Ochoa: Oh, absolutely

Stacy Jones: any last words of advice for our listeners today.

Raul Hernandez Ochoa: I think that every goal that you have right now is accomplishable and just, being honest with yourself and just sticking in it for the long term, and making it happen step by step, day by day, and the progress may not be great. But I think that if you focus on h of execution per day you will be able to see those

Stacy Jones: inflection points and those pivot points along the way. Well, thank you so much for joining us today. I really appreciate your time, and I’m looking forward to reading your book, as I have not yet so thank you again for sharing

Stacy Jones: your insights to all of our listeners today.

Stacy Jones: Hey? This was fun, Stacey. Thanks for having me, of course, and to all of our listeners. Thank you for tuning into another episode of marketing mistakes and how to avoid them. I look forward to chatting with you this next week, and until then, if you have any interest in learning how you can better leverage your own brand into other people’s content, like TV shows and feature films or celebrities and influencer feeds, reach out to my team, and we can chat about how to integrate your brand with pop culture. Have a great one.