We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Deezana Allen a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
Deezana, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. Quality control is a challenge almost every entrepreneur has had to focus on when growing – any advice, stories or insight around how to best ensure quality is maintained as your business scales?
As every company grows it’s important that they have systems and processes in place to continue to help them streamline operationally. That is the focus at everything that we do here at Organized Concepts LLC. We help Businesses, and start-up entrepreneurs create the right systems and processes that allow them to continue to grow, function, and operate fully at all times.
When I first started Organized Concepts LLC, I realized that your operations are the forefront of everything that you need, how your client experiences you, how your client receives the best experience and service, and how you make sales all come down to your operations and processes. the same way that consistency and routine is how you achieve all your goals, and discipline is the forefront for all of that the same goes for your business.
For example, a quality control for us at Organized Concepts LLC is reports. We value our customer’s feedback, we value the investment they make with us every month, and every month we ensure they get a report from us detailing everything that we have completed for them that month, and we ask for their feedback. Once received we take their feedback and ensure that any issues are properly addressed. These reports ensure we know that we are always keeping our “Standard of Excellence” that we have set for our company, and our clients are never getting anything less than excellent work.
If you run a small team quality control may include your Human Resource Process – Hiring, Onboarding, Firing, and performance review structure. Depending on your organization quality control could also be implementing review systems within your team, and if it’s just you are implementing an email system and automation to help you ménage incoming leads, follow-ups, and calls as you continue to grow your team, and put in back-end processes.
As your business continues to grow, you’ll want to inventory your quality controls and ensure they continue to grow as your business is growing, and your team is expanding.
As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?
About Organized Concepts LLC and Dee Allen:
Organized Concepts LLC was started initially as a Professional Home Organizing service. We serviced clients in creating systems, and processes in their homes that would work for the families, and the lives they wanted to live. We specifically created systems around each client’s routines. As we continued to do this, I had clients ask me if we did any other forms of Organization, and then I moved into doing office and business organization, which eventually led into Virtual Assistance. What many don’t know is that prior to starting Organized Concepts LLC I wanted to be a virtual assistant but hadn’t quite figured out how to do it. Well two years into Organized Concepts, I decided to take away all in-person services and transform Organized Concepts LLC into a virtual assistant agency that would assist small and medium sized business owners with managing their business. The agency manages all things relating to administrative support, project management, and Operations Management for business owners.
Like all businesses starting is hard, getting people to trust that you know what you’re doing, believe in the virtual service that you are offering, and choosing to invest their money in-itself is a hard process. Consistency in marketing, and consistency in the level of service we provide to our clients was key in getting us to where we stand today as a business. We have been able to offer each of our clients a tailor-made experience, and it keeps them choosing to be with us, while also choosing to refer us, promote us, and remain loyal clients to us.
What issues we have faced:
Starting and maintaining a business has definitely not been easy, like most entrepreneurs when you take that leap of faith to start a business you struggle with imposter syndrome, you struggle with trying to do what everyone else is doing on social media to market their own service, and you struggle financially.
What sets me apart:
What sets me apart from my competitors the most is my ability to make real relationships with my clients. I believe customer service is a relationship, and I don’t just care about my client’s businesses, I care about them as people. I am heavily involved in their goals and helping them work towards them whether that be business or personal!
What problems I solve for my clients and package information:
assist small and medium sized business owners with managing their business. The agency manages all things relating to administrative support, project management, and Operations Management for business owners. If you have a business and are in need of Operations Support to help you really nail down the ins and outs, the best practices, systems, and procedures for your business please reach out to us! Our basic package for minimum 5- 15 hours monthly starts at around $400 and up from there and our gold package of up to 40 hours a month can range between $900-$1500 monthly.
What are you most proud of?
There’re so many things in the beginning I tried to do myself, Social Media Marketing, creating my own graphics, designs, and wearing all the hats, which ultimately led to me feeling extremely overwhelmed, and not bringing my best service to my clients. Over time I learned I am only one person, and although I have a business that can be great, I can only do what I can do. That is when I chose to expand my team, which ultimately led to expanding my business as my clients felt cared for, and properly supported in the ways they desired. Now as a team of four myself, my operations assistant, my graphic designer and a social Media Manager it has made Organized Concepts stronger, more capable of giving the service I have always dreamed of to my clients, and overall more capable of the mission and vision that we have for Organized Concepts and that is what I a most proud of, our ability to be resilient and continue to grow even through the challenges, and ensuring that customer service was always at the center.
Let’s talk about resilience next – do you have a story you can share with us?
As a Jamaica native who moved to the US at 9 years old i experienced culture shock, adversary, and toughness at a young age. America was the first place I learned that color was a thing, I had never known this before. In school I would be bullied because of my accent, my clothes, my hair, my dark skin, almost everything when I first arrived because I didn’t fit the bill of what my young peers had seen before. I would say I learned during this stage of my life how to be resilient. The culture shock of going from a small country to this was shocking, hurtful and a trying time. It was during this time I learned that you aren’t going to be it for everyone, and not everyone will like you and that’s okay. Eventually did gain friends, and I found my way through the public school system all the way to college, and graduated and joined the corporate world. I navigated co-workers who had differences in opinions on immigration, color, and life, and I managed to show up for myself, speak for myself, and stand up for what was important for me.
These years taught me just how resilient I could be, and it’s something I have held on to during my adult life.
We often hear about learning lessons – but just as important is unlearning lessons. Have you ever had to unlearn a lesson?
As a young adult now navigating life, failure, emotional, mental, and spiritual growth, I have had to unlearn that failure is a bad thing. I was taught that failing was bad, and it came with a lot of shame, guilt, and disappointment. As an adult now I am unlearning that failing is bad, failing means you have not hit the mark. It means you still try and try and try until you have finally hit the mark that you have set for yourself. Not what the world has decided it is, but what you have decided for yourself. We decide what success looks like for us individually. It isn’t your family, your parents, your friends, your job, or anything else. Internally we all decide what success looks like for us, and once you realize this what you consider to be a failure completely changes.
Contact Info:
- Website: OrganizedConceptsonline.com
- Instagram: @Organizedconcepts
Image Credits
Royce Photography – CamRoyce Jackson