December 2021 Recap: Hiring, Choosing the Right Mentor, and How to Build Intentional Time Off
Episode 607: Show Notes
December 2021 may have been the busiest and most strategic December we’ve ever had on record! Although we only took three days off this month, which is a huge deviation from how we normally run things, we’re extremely excited about how all our planning and purpose in December has set us up for a great Q1 in 2022! While it was tough having such a busy December, it was all with very particular goals and intentions in mind.
So much of our decision-making came back to growing our organization and looking at new employees and the positions that need to be filled as we continue to grow and scale. We had a lot of hiring decisions in the works, which formed a big part of our top priorities in December, but they were all 100% worth it. Luckily, because of the way we set things up in December, Q1 of 2022 is set to be the most intentional Q1 we've ever had!
Listen on your favorite podcast player
New Roles and People We Brought On the Team (Two We’ve Been Waiting 6 Years to Do!)
Our business has been growing and scaling up tremendously in the last few months. While it’s been an adjustment, it's also been incredibly exciting growing our team and reassessing our needs and positions. The first position we were actively hiring for was a program manager, who would ensure that our clients always get what they need. Our top priority is making sure our clients are successful. We have very clear ideas and metrics on what success looks like for our clients. Because this is of such importance to us, we wanted to make sure that our program goals, and client success, would never be put on the back-burner or be considered secondary to anything else. Regardless of what we’re working towards personally, we wanted someone that would be 100% focused on client success at all times. This was a massive driver for why we brought on a program manager. We wanted to ensure that our clients would always be top of mind!
We interviewed loads of extremely qualified candidates, and ultimately decided to internally promote an existing member of our team. We’re so excited for all of you to continue to get to know Caitlin. She has a tremendous amount of enthusiasm, dedication, and love for what we’re doing. She has already shown so much promise in this new role and we can’t wait to see how she grows! She really cares about what we're trying to achieve and is invested in our mission just as much as we are.
Our next bit of hiring felt like it had been a long time coming. Two members of our team have been contractors for a good long while, and Miranda has been with us for many years in a variety of positions, everything from community management in our Facebook group, to blog writing, to tech management, to answering email, and all sorts of things! We’re delighted to announce that she now has a hybrid role that is split between copywriting for our website and emails and serving as our program and tech assistant. She’s making sure that everything behind the scenes is connected! The fact that we were able to hire her full time, was due in no small part to the success of our Incubator program and our launch.
Two other major hires have been both of our partners, Jared and Bryan, coming onboard. Many of our listeners will know Jared from previous episodes and also because, for years, we called him our best unpaid volunteer. He went from primarily posting on social media to really demanding that our entire department be developed and become a more holistic ecosystem that supports the whole business. We transitioned to a contractor over the summer so that we could truly start to bring our marketing department back in-house and work on that full-time.
Through a fortuitous culmination of circumstances, it also became apparent that Emylee’s partner, Bryan, would fit perfectly into a full-time role that we desperately needed! At the time he was becoming increasingly frustrated with the way things were going at his company, and when we realized we needed someone with exactly his skill set to step up he was able to slot in perfectly! It was actually incredible how quickly it all happened!
Two New Programs We Invested in and Our Thoughts on How to Filter to Find the Right Mentor
One of the things that defined 2021, which many of you will probably be aware of, is that we started a whole bunch of continued learning experiences. We decided that in 2021, we were going to be intentional about growth and learning new things. We decided to invest in two new things this December. The first concerned leadership. We started doing some digging and asked around with our coach as well as some of the programs we’re in, for recommendations on reading material, podcasts, programs, etc.
We finally settled on a program by Makeda Andrews called The New Manager Accelerator Program. Essentially it’s for you to put your managers through if you are the CEO or owner of a company. However, we still wanted something specifically for us in executive leadership positions. Executive leadership is only slightly different from management, but there are still a few key distinctions. So we reached out to Makeda and asked whether, in addition to training our managers, we could work on something for executive leadership. She ended up putting together a great five-week program for us, that we are currently about to wrap up. It’s been immensely helpful and very rewarding!
The next thing we did was similar but took things to the next level. We joined a mastermind and reinvested with our coach. She’s someone who we resonate with on many levels, from her outlook on life to her incredible brain to her overall approach to life and business. This is also something we’ve learned from working with coaches and mentors. We’ve noticed time and again that it’s really important to find someone where you respect and value their approach to business and life. Because then you’re much more likely to be in alignment. We believe that’s a critical piece of advice when investing in a coach or mentor, because if you don't like how they are living, then you're probably not going to like how they're working.
How Working Too Many Days in December Shaped Our Time-Off Policy for 2022
Our December this year was pretty hectic - we were closed for only three days! In the past, we’ve always taken a substantial amount of time off in December, but this year was different because there was just so much intentional preparation and work that needed to be done. Because December was so busy, the first thing we did when we mapped out our launch calendar for 2022, was schedule time off. In the past, with just the two of us, scheduling time off has been pretty flexible, but with our growing team, we’ve had to take a much more structured approach to it. We decided to do a combination of intentional closures for everyone on the whole team, as well as blackout dates where we expect everyone to be in the office.
We feel like we've made massive strides towards creating a rewarding work culture. We are highly cognizant of the fact that if you continually go at this high pace you will burn out, so we intentionally build in busy seasons, as well as seasons of relaxation. We are planning to get a huge amount of work done in 2022 and we cannot wait to tell you all of the things that we've accomplished in January. We hope this little sneak peek into our December gave you a clue of how intentional we are being in 2022. This is quite possibly the biggest growth we've experienced in the history of our business and we’re so excited for where it will take us!
Quote This
I think we've made massive, massive strides towards creating a work culture that is rewarding.
Highlights
New Roles and People We Brought On the Team (Two We’ve Been Waiting 6 Years to Do!) [0:04:17]
Two New Programs We Invested in and Our Thoughts on How to Filter to Find the Right Mentor [0:25:01]
How Working Too Many Days in December Shaped Our Time-Off Policy for 2022 [0:48:18]
ON TODAY’S SHOW
Abagail & Emylee
The Strategy Hour Podcast
We help overwhelmed and creative entrepreneurs break down their Oprah-sized dreams to create a functioning command center to tame the chaos of their business. Basically, we think you’re totally bomb diggity, we’re about to uplevel the shiz out of your business.
KEY TOPICS
Hiring, Leadership, Mentors, Coaches, Scheduling, Time off, Healthcare
