Chaya Gutnick, CEO, Chaos Control
Chaya helps ambitious agency owners who cannot seem to get off the hamster wheel. She helps agencies control their chaos through strategy, systems, automation, and delegation. This allows the agencies Chaya works with to massively scale with less stress! Chaya is pursuing a Doctoral Degree in Organizational Leadership and is constantly learning. When she is not figuring out a new automation or integration she is hanging out with her husband and kids or reading!
https://www.controlmychaos.com/
https://www.linkedin.com/in/chayagutnick/
AUTOMATED EPISODE TRANSCRIPT
[00:00:01] You're listening to Scaling Up Services where we speak with entrepreneurs authors business experts and thought leaders to give you the knowledge and insights you need to scale your service based business faster and easier. And now here is your host Business Coach Bruce Eckfeldt.
[00:00:22] Are you a CEO looking to scale your company faster and easier. Checkout Thrive Roundtable thrive combines a moderated peer group mastermind expert one on one coaching access to proven growth tools and a 24/7 support community created by Inc award winning CEO and certified scaling up business coach Bruce Eckfeldt. Thrive will help you grow your business more quickly and with less drama. For more details about the program, visit eckfeldt.com/thrive . That’s E C K F E L D T. com / thrive.
[00:00:54] Welcome everyone. This is Scaling up Services. I'm Bruce Eckfeldt. I'm your host and our guest today is Chaya Gutnick and she is CEO of Chaos Control. We're gonna talk to her a little bit about the work that she does with agency is helping them with operational efficiencies and productivity, hopefully. So the owners and senior executives can be more strategic. Maybe even get out of the office a little bit more. I know being involved in the agency world for a long time, it can it can be chaos and maybe chaos is a nice way of putting it. So I'm excited to talk about what I was doing with agencies, how she's helping them and really drive productivity so they can be more focused, be more profitable, be more successful, grow and scale. With that CIO, welcome to the program.
[00:01:32] Thank you so much. I'm so glad to be here. So I would like to start with a little bit of background understanding how guests got into the work that they do. What was the backstory? What was your federal background and how do you get into helping working with agencies?
[00:01:45] That's actually a really interesting story. Probably very different than a lot of the guests on your show. I started off in education. I was in an educational leadership position. I had my master's degree. I did really great work. I loved my job, but certain like health concerns that made it really hard for me to work in that type of environment. So there was a point where I moved and I was like, I'm not doing that anymore. You know, I'm gonna pivot. I'm going to do consulting. I had consulting work lined up. And then there was a school who approached me and asked me to take a leadership position. And I was most like, no. And then I was like, you know what? If you let me be onsite only 20 hours a week, I'll do it. Interesting. Yeah. Right. So I ended up taking the job because it was in my community. It was meaningful to me. And I was like, maybe the 20 hours will help with kind of balance aspect of it. So I did that and I was able to do pretty much a full time job. And in 20 or even less hours a week, it was mostly through delegation productivity, you know, real, real intense focus on priorities and things like that. And when I kind of, you know, I tried that and I was like and not really fitting in with my life. Well, I had health concerns. I needed more flexibility. I have young children. And so I was looking to pivot, get back into business and consulting. And when I was really thinking about where my intense skill lay and I really realized that so many people would be able to benefit from being able to do full time jobs and less time or work the same amount of hours, but be able to do double the amount of work and therefore be double as profitable.
[00:03:16] Yeah, I mean, I always find that an interesting kind of conundrum in general, in services, particularly in agencies. Anytime you're you're kind of doing dealing with production work. Is that am I paying you for the hour or am I paying you for the result? And it's a tough one. It's a tough one to kind of figure out as a service provider. Like, how do I how do I kind of manage or kind of model the engagement and how do I deal with those that hourly stuff? So I guess what was your what was your take on that or how did you kind of grapple with that hourly versus result based pricing or, you know, how you kind of charge things or your fee structure you're seeing for myself or for agencies?
[00:03:50] For yourself? For myself. So it's all results based. You know, I work with agencies, will do a strategy call. I'll help them with implementation. But it's all based on results. I mean, I do a lot of research. I'm a researcher by nature. I'm working on a doctoral degree for fun.
[00:04:05] Wait a minute. You're working on a doctorial degree for fun. Not now. Fun, but for fun. Yes. OK.
[00:04:13] And that will be an organizational leadership. I mean, I love research. I love learning.
[00:04:17] But what I was trying to say is that the results I'm able to get is because I have so much knowledge and because I keep updated with, you know, current software and things like that and different ways to create these efficiencies. So because I've only worked with you for an hour, but I've giving you all the stuff that I've been researching for the past year doesn't mean that you should be paying for an hour of my time. So and I also recommend agencies in general moving from hourly work to totally project faith like you work on getting people results. People want results. And once you start getting doing hourly, it's so time consuming to count the hours and figure out. And then you end up having to ask questions before you work on new things and you're so worried about, you know. So I totally I'm not a fan of our best work, not on myself and not for the clients I work with.
[00:05:07] Yeah. I think it's strategically it's a much better position to be in to be focused on results, billing for the results, you know, then you can optimize. And this has always been the conundrum I've seen in service based businesses. When you're hourly, is your improvement in efficiency. An ability to get the work done faster actually hurts you, right, because you're you're certainly losing billable time because you're getting it done faster, but you're not getting paid anymore. So now you've got to go out and sell more. Fill that time versus if you move into a results based, you know, success based model and actually any improvement that you make to your process, if you can take it, what it was a 10 hour task to make it a five hour task. Well, you you reap the benefit of that improvement.
[00:05:46] Right. And it's also why agencies are businesses who do work with me. It wouldn't make sense so much for them to offer our lead based work because then my services aren't needed. They don't need to be more efficient. Yeah.
[00:05:58] Yeah. So tell me about how you kind of how you got the business started. Who who did you know, first couple of clients. What looked like what did you learn? I'm always curious how people kind of get their businesses up and running and there's just find there's always learning steps in the right steps and then.
[00:06:14] And tell us a little bit about that process. You.
[00:06:16] Right. So when I started, you know, I was working with all businesses at that point, I was really, you know, just kind of getting a feel of what exactly what I wanted to do. I definitely started out doing free work. And I recommend that to all new business owners, you know, like you're new at doing something and get some referral testimonials and learn your exact process. So I did two clients for free at the beginning, and these were people really trusted in the industry. So I know, like at the beginning, people were like, oh, I saw her recommendation on your LinkedIn profile. Like, you must be really good at what you do like. And she worked for you. You know, I did I did free work strategically.
[00:06:51] Interesting, you know, respectable people in industry so that I was, you know, able to kind of push through after that because people are like, oh, you work with them, you know, so. So that definitely, like, I guess helped me break in. And yeah, I mean, I do most of my marketing via LinkedIn.
[00:07:10] Okay. And when y y linked in, what was what have you found about the platform or kind of how LinkedIn works. It has been successful for you.
[00:07:17] So, you know, when you think of of which social platform to be on. Right. You obviously think like we are your people on. Right. So agency owners generally, especially ones who need my services, are extremely busy and generally not so much scrolling through Facebook and Instagram. Yeah. So they may not be so much on LinkedIn either, but because right now LinkedIn is under utilized, there's a lot further reach.
[00:07:40] Like I have posts that get 7000 views. I'm kind of working towards ten thousand views a day. That that's my goal, you know, post views. So right now LinkedIn is so under utilized in that way that it was it was more like the timing rather than the platform, you know, like the timing. Bullington worked out really well, that it's that it's underutilized and it's also business focus. So it obviously made sense. You know, like I'm not on tick tock right now. You know, there it's probably, you know, like I and I get it because there's you know, it's also underutilized, especially in business right now. But I don't know that my ideal client is there. So I'm not, you know, making use of that. I have that platform.
[00:08:20] Yeah, I always talk about that. Your core customer, your ideal customer needs to be on the platform and they need to be open to buying conversation. Right. So they could be there. I mean, you know, maybe some of your customers have, you know, very extensive tock accounts. But, you know, that's just not where that they are. They're not looking for conversations around business. I'm not looking for conversations around the problems are having a booth business, you know. So it's it's really that two part thing I always find is I have to be on there and they have to be willing to have that type of conversation. I think LinkedIn works. Really.
[00:08:49] Yeah, yeah. Yeah. So so, I mean, that's really how I pivoted. And and I guess I, I also have a big network.
[00:08:55] So that was on my side, you know, I would just like reach out to people, you know, and that's really, really how it started, you know, and and talk to me about the type of agency is that you typically work with, how big they are, what what situation they're in, what kind of rounds out an ideal customer or a typical client for you.
[00:09:15] Right. So I work with agencies of all sizes from like, you know, just one person who's trying to work up into that agency, you know, like a freelancer who's trying to work into agency. Up to the biggest agency right now I worked with was eighty five employees. You know, there's obviously bigger ones out there, but that was my kind of biggest one that I've worked so hard to find, that the sweet spot for my services is kind of somewhere between 10 and 20 because you they started growing.
[00:09:45] You know, things are becoming a little less control. You know, like when you when it's a lot smaller, right. When there are five people in an agency, they're like lead. They're all chatting. Things kind of flow a little bit easier. Once you grow to 10, 12, 15, 20, things become a little more all over the place. And you don't necessarily have an operations manager at that point, which, you know, as a five point, people are always like, oh, do you work with agencies?
[00:10:09] You have you have an operations, you know, person. And I definitely do, because what I do is a bit beyond that. But these these type of agencies, they they don't even have that. And so they're trying to. All they're trying to scale up to, you know, certain levels and things are kind of all over the place, so I find that to be the sweet spot of agencies that work with me.
[00:10:29] And kind of the challenges that they're seeing is like they can't keep the quality of the work or certain employees are kind of not keeping to the quality of work that they'd like to see. They get back long because let's say, you know, they have a copywriter who has way more work than the design people because they have to design people. And so they get backlogged at the copywriter, you know, every time they're building a Web site or every time they need copy for an ad. Right. Like they're getting backlog, let's say, at the copywriter now and then as a more general thing, it's just like they feel like things are all over the place. They can't, you know, leave the office without checking their phone, without being glued to their phone. They certainly can't say they can go for a week on vacation, you know, without checking their phone. And that's really the goal of this. The goal. So for me is every business owner has different goals and I want them to be able to meet their goals. And sometimes you will think like owning a business has to be hard. I always have to be on. I think, like, that's the biggest, you know, misunderstanding that I'm always, like, kind of spreading the truth there that you always have to be on. You don't always have to be connected. You don't always have to be messaging or on the phone. You know, being a business owner doesn't have to be like that.
[00:11:40] So what do you think? What do you think that happens? I mean, what do you think? You know, the company starts to grow, you know, and it increases that kind of as kind of, you know, demand on the senior leaders, you know, whether it's the founder or, you know, the CEO or or the senior managers, you know, that that their lives, their day to day becomes just a lot of chaos. I use your term, you know, in terms of that their schedule and their the demands that are placed upon them, sort of immediate, urgent demands that are placed on them.
[00:12:09] So I'll tell you why. I think because generally agency owners, the way they got into this business is because they're creative. And let's say they had a background in web design or they had a background in graphic design or whatever it was, and they were able to grow their business to a point where it started growing. Right. And they could hire employees and things like that. But in the end, they're really just that creative who has the experience in whichever, you know, part of that they have, you know, whether it's design strategy, copywriting, web development, whatever it is. And they don't really have that experience or knowledge of leadership and organizations and business. They really don't have that background. So I think that is one of the main reasons that happens. And not just agencies. I might mean like many businesses. Right? Like if you're a travel agent. Right. And you've worked for yourself, you know, well, you work by yourself and you figured out how to scale your travel agency and now you have 10 employees. You never really got that business background or that leadership background. And you don't have that. Yeah. So I think that's why it happened.
[00:13:16] And I think my kind of experience, you know, having having been in part of lots of kind of consulting and agency type of work, and I started my started my profession in and more creative agency and they got more into software consulting. I think there is something about creative agency. Is that a I think the nature of work is very diverse. You know, each project can be quite different. And I also think that there is sort of an underlying psychology or mindset or, you know, view of the world that makes it difficult to establish process. I guess, because I think a software engineering, you know, there's a little bit more of a process mentality and you can kind of think through like, okay, like this is the way we're going to run projects. They're going to have six steps and this is how we're gonna organize it. You know, I think fundamentally with creative, particularly real creative agency, is that there's a certain amount of while we want the work to be creative, it doesn't need to mean that every time we do, a project has to be different and we have to redesign it every time. And I think that's a little bit of a conundrum for that for the creative agencies. I'm just kind of curious what you've seen in that and how you see that come up.
[00:14:17] So, yeah, it comes up all the time, like all the time. But I also have to say that I don't believe it's only agencies because I've worked with its owners and they'll all tell me, oh, well, you know, each client is different, more like, you know, I can't do that, you know, and and I do hear that a lot in agencies for sure. But also in in really all businesses. And what my goal is, is to try and find a way to simplify it as much as possible and keep it, you know, a certain process and system while still allowing for that creative, because I have a lot of respect for that creative work.
[00:14:53] And I know that creative work is naturally not the type of thing that can be, you know, OK, so you need to do this web development. It's going to take you five hours. You know, you need to design the graphic. It's going to take you this amount of hours, you know, real creative work like the agencies who are doing like real creative things, you know, creative strategy. Also, it's harder to put a time and a number of hours on it. So I do appreciate. What and so that's you know, I'm able to work with agency them and creatives in putting a system that doesn't stifle the creativity. That's really the goal.
[00:15:30] It's that that balance between how do I systematise this announced that I can reduce the chaos, I can grow and scale this effectively and efficiently, but yet still provide the creativity where I need creativity in terms of the actual services I'm providing for the account.
[00:15:45] What are what are some of the challenges like when you when you go in and you see begin to work with a client? What is said that the assessments are the things you're looking for? Do you have a checklist of common problems? Do you have, you know, a certain assessment that you give them? How do you kind of diagnose the situation before you start making tradeoffs?
[00:16:02] Right. So before a client works with me, they fill out a pretty extensive form with just like details about their agency, what their goals are. You know, the people who work for them and what their titles are, what services they offer, you know, all those type of things. So on our first call, where can be as efficient as possible? You know, not waste time and all that background. And then, you know, we chat for about an hour and a half, two hours in that first cold call to really diagnose what is holding up their agency at that point, whether it's that there are no systems, that they're not using their project management system. Well, that the people don't know how to use their time because generally creatives are not so linear and not necessarily so focused or productive, naturally. You know what I mean? Like, that kind of comes as a package deal, right? Or maybe they have certain employees that are kind of holding them back. Or maybe they need to let one employee go because they have way too many design people and not enough web development people. You know, so through that, those aren't like the main issues. I would say, you know, also the CEO or the leader of the agency being way too and but once the way too involved in day to day and people are relying I mean, like their employees are relying on them so much for actual work or actual design work or creative work or strategy. And then that CEO or whatever title he she has chosen for themselves is they're not able to to do all that leadership work and make sure that they have their vision, they have their goals, they know where they're headed and they know what they need to do in order to get there. So that, I find, is one of especially in the agency sizes that I work with regularly, you know, between 10 and 20. That is definitely a big transition that helps a lot. You know, to kind of take them out of the they're not working in the business. They only work on.
[00:17:57] Yeah. And that's a tough one. Go see so many kind of, you know, service based businesses that the owner and the problem are typically for me, what I find is that the owner is very good at what they do. And they're a great designer. They're a great technologists. They're a great advertising strategist. And they're they're exceptionally good. In fact, they're probably the best person in the company. Right, if they continue to try to do the work. There's always going to be the bottleneck and it's getting kind of getting them out of some of it's sort of logical in terms of process and how they bring other people to do other steps of the process that that are not as predictable or actually find people that can do the work at least good enough for what the clients need. But then there's the kind of mental side of it and there's there's almost ego. It's like it's think their their self-worth is tied into actually doing the work. And unless that's solved or unless that's changed, it really they will find ways to continue to insert themselves.
[00:18:46] I think actually, interestingly enough, I have found in some agencies that that owner or founder has taken the title of like creative director and then hires a CEO or a serious operations manager who takes over kind of those leadership male leadership capacity as well in some places where like that owner was just like so invested in the creative and the creative was so part of his or her identity that they didn't want to give it up.
[00:19:15] And that's fine. Like, I'm all for like there are many ways to run a business, right. And running a business, is it now doing what you want and finding joy in your work? And if you don't find joy in that leadership type work? I think it's amazing to be able to say, let's hire somebody else as the CEO and I'll be the creative director, you know, like, yeah, yeah.
[00:19:34] And that's a smart strategy. I mean, I do agree.
[00:19:36] It's like it's you know, if you're not gonna be happy in that leadership role, if you're not happy in a leadership role where you are now, if we double the size of the company, it's probably going to make you twice as unhappy. And so there's a certain amount of kind of soul searching or, you know, kind of reflection that they have to do to figure out what do they really want to have and talk to me about. Once you've kind of figured that out, you've worked with the founder, whether they be a creative director or CEO. How do you actually go about implementing some of the changes? Where do you start? How do you work with the teams? What is the actual implementation process look like for you?
[00:20:09] Right. So obviously, like every business different, you know, depending on the clients, you know, depending on exactly what their challenges and goals are. We focus on different things differently, like some. We really just have to work on the CEO and the rest kind of falls into place through that. But most of the time, you know, I'll start by working with the CEO, making sure they're on board, making sure I understand their vision and their goals, because obviously everything depends on that. And then I go and usually work with either the project manager of operations manager and we talk about how things are running and where there are bottlenecks and how we can change that. I do a project management software audit, so that means I'll go through their project management software or any other software they're using as well and audit it to see that they're using it in the smartest way possible, that they're using that they're getting the most out of its features.
[00:20:58] Like I had an agency. It was actually really funny. Knew they had a project management software and then had this whole, like, fancy zap your connection to, like, something else. And I did like, you know, that you can do this in your software, like project management software had it. They had like built this like whole other thing that was like way less efficient and effective and easy to use. Then like what was built into their software.
[00:21:20] So why do you think that happens? Like what's the situation that leads to that kind of operational design?
[00:21:25] I do. Project management software is have a big learning curve. And the project manager might be so overwhelmed by just running day today that they get that initial onboarding into the project management software, but they don't dive deep enough. And again, it's not about fault. They're like overwhelmed. They only make it through the day. Right. Like, it's not a fault. Right. Like that's, you know, just what it is. Well, I believe that's what it is. And I just do believe, like even for myself, when I'm looking through a new project management software, all of them have like a little bit their own little things. And it takes time to learn a new a new software. So I would say that that's probably the biggest reason.
[00:22:05] Yeah. And I think it's tough to come in from the outside with the kind of perspective and knowledge and sort of time to be able to look at these systems and really understand them and not appreciate that the folks that are in the business are you know, they're they're they're treading water.
[00:22:19] Right. Right.
[00:22:20] You know, they could if they had the time and they had kind of the space mental space to actually sit down and use it, they could figure it out. But the promise, they just don't they're trying to they're trying to get stuff out the door. Right. They're trying to deliver on clients.
[00:22:32] So you can see why people end up calling me, you know, because it's not in pretty much most consultants. You know, everything you can find on the Web working like you can figure out most things on the Web, you know, but to find the exact piece of knowledge you need, you know, at the right time and and have that accountability, you know, his is very hard.
[00:22:51] Yeah, well, I've seen the patterns. I mean, I think the other thing I'm sure I'm sure you've seen as you go from client to client, a client, you begin to see pattern and you begin to see what typically solves those patterns. You know, if first time as a company dealing with a situation you don't have that you don't you can't see the pattern as well. You can't see the solution as easily. So, yeah. So that's kind of coming in from the outside has a lot of advantages. And yes, one of the big value of consultants and coaches, as said this, is to bring that kind of learning to the table. What are some takeaways for the folks listening to the podcast that are in kind of agency environments? What are some things that you suggest they do in terms of whether it's planning, kind of figuring out how they're going to grow the business, dealing with operational issues? What are some steps they can take to begin to figure out how they can drive productivity and make it easier to grow and scale?
[00:23:34] Right. So I'll give you one tip for the agency owners and then some general tips for for all business owners here. So and actually, they're they're really both for most business owners. But the first thing is take all the services you offer, you know, everything you offer, everything all your employees do every day and just turn them into checklists, make checklists for everything. And that's the way that things won't fall through the cracks. You know, you won't have to be like constantly like word. Oh, did I remind her to do that? She's not doing this right now. Here's like a checklist and everything is there. Every little detail, kind communication, everything. That's definitely, I would say the simplest. It's not easy. It's very painful to make those checklists. Yeah, I have to say.
[00:24:17] But it is a simple way to really control your chaos, you know, and really get to a point where you can either scale or leave the office and things like that, you know, really making those checklists of all the services you offer. The next step from that would be to put it into project management system, into templates with automation, so that every time you get a new client, you just start a new template and the checklist is right there and assigns the right tasks to the right people with the right due dates, because you have a template on the timeline design.
[00:24:48] So, you know, that's already next level. But at the most basic level, even if it's you type it up on Google Docs or word or whatever and print them, I don't know if you want to have them online or peop or whatever, but that everybody should be checking off checklist as they do their work to make sure that you're able to keep that quality and you know, you're really reliable in your service.
[00:25:10] Yeah. Good. Yeah. Checklist I'm on a big checklist fan checklist manifesto, one of my favorite books and yeah there's a there's a certain art to writing checklist I find that I get and it's. Make them full enough to catch the things that need be caught, but not bloated with too many steps that they're not used because, you know, someone pulls out a 15 page checklist and, you know, chances are operationally they're just they're gonna be under pressure just to get interesting.
[00:25:34] And then, yeah, I was just gonna add four for business owners like in general. And this is really for all people. But what I find, you know, regarding productivity, which is most ignored, is your like mental capacity.
[00:25:48] And people they totally like don't realize that when they're trying so hard to remember things because they have written them down or they're so busy making small decisions like what to eat for lunch or, you know, should I use burn list. Right. Like relatively unimportant decisions. All of those great. Your mental energy and then you're not able to make those bigger, more important decisions and really be focused on what needs to get done. So I would say, like for me, that's the most like ignored tip that I would share.
[00:26:21] Yeah, it's almost there. The Steve Jobs strategy of wearing, you know, a black turtleneck and jeans every day. So he didn't have to decide what he would wear every morning. Right. He could take that energy and focus out on bigger, more important decisions. I think there's there's a lot of opportunities for that, just making automatic systems, automatic decisions so that you can focus your energy on the bigger ones. Good tips. Good tips. If people want to find out more about you, about the business and the consulting that you do with agencies, what's the best way to get that information?
[00:26:46] So I'm most active on LinkedIn. I'm very active on LinkedIn, most at least once a day. And I engaged with all the comments and stuff. So if you want to reach me, I would definitely recommend LinkedIn. My link is just with my name offhand and then also online at my Web site, which is control my chaos dot com. So that should be pretty easy to remember.
[00:27:04] Sure. And I will put both your linked in the phone, linked in your URL and the euro for your website and the Shonai so people can click through and get those khaya. There's a bit of pleasure. Thank you so much for taking the time. Great insights. I always love to talk to people who are focusing on this kind of the service based business world and particularly the agency world in the creative world. It brings back memories of when I was there. I remember it well, but thank you for taking the time today. I really appreciate it.
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