We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Kayla Droog. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Kayla below.

Hi Kayla, thanks for joining us today. So let’s jump to your mission – what’s the backstory behind how you developed the mission that drives your brand?

Our mission is to support heart-centered entrepreneurs who are growing businesses that they love and believe can make a difference.

Why heart-centered? What does this mean to us?

The business owners that we work with are focused on their clients and creating the best experience they can for them. Client care and genuinely serving their clients are key values of their businesses. These are entrepreneurs who lead from the heart rather than from the bottom line.

Before founding my company, I worked in multiple corporate roles in various industries. It took me years to realize that the reason why these jobs made me anxious and stressed all the time was because their approach was not in alignment with my values. I reached the point where I was constantly sick from the stress and I was on the verge of a health crisis.

That was my wake up call!

At that point, I took the time to be honest with myself about what I really wanted and needed in my career. I realized that I wanted to be working for a company that was more focused on client care and helping people than on revenue and billable hours.

It turns out I had to create that company myself!

I designed my company based on these values. As our client roster grew, I realized it was also important that our clients follow these same values in their own businesses, so that our services can best support them.

Today, we help our clients set up systems and processes in their businesses that support their clients and help them achieve success.

We strongly believe that it is possible to have a successful business while doing work you love and creating an amazing experience for your clients!

Kayla, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

I am a NERD about systems! Setting up a beautiful automation that saves you time and supports your clients makes my day.

At Kayla Droog Consulting, we help heart-centered small business owners set up systems and processes that save time and reduce overwhelm so they can focus on serving their clients and growing their businesses.

I’ve seen so many newbie entrepreneurs who are focused on the services they offer – the things they are good at and are passionate about. And that’s great! But what they don’t think about is the infrastructure of their business – all of the administrative tasks, tech, marketing, etc. that can end up taking SO much time. These are often not revenue-generating tasks, meaning these business owners are spending hours on things that aren’t directly making them money. That’s where we come in!

Many of our clients come to us because they are overwhelmed with their day to day tasks and feel like they spend more time putting out fires than actually doing the things they love and are good at. They are putting in long hours, but they never seem to get ahead on their to do list and they have projects that they keep having to put off while they try to keep up with their daily operations. We help our clients streamline their daily tasks and take over the time-consuming setup of these systems.

No matter what stage of business you are in, we have services that can help you save time and create more efficiency. If you are a newer business owner, we can help you solidify your processes and figure out what systems you need to best support your clients and your business growth. We also work with more established business owners who need help setting up a new offering (like an online course or program), adding automation to their business, or cleaning up old systems that aren’t working anymore.

We most commonly work with businesses in a VIP Day format – this means that a systems specialist is focused on one business for a full or half day, and that business could have new or updated systems in as little as 24 hours!

Some common VIP day services that we offer include setup, cleanup, or updates of:
-CRM software (17hats or Honeybook)
-Workflows and automation
-Online scheduling
-Online courses (Thinkific or Teachable)
-Websites – basic set up, new landing pages, updates (Squarespace or Wix)
-Email marketing software

We can help you reduce overwhelm and come up with strategies and solutions for managing your business tasks and operations. We help you choose the software that’s right for you (if you haven’t chosen already), outline your processes to manage your tasks and best serve your clients, and do the tech setup for you so you don’t have to.

These are not cookie cutter done-for-you services. We tailor everything to your business and your unique needs. We offer recommendations for the best systems for you, and ways to streamline your business so that you’re focusing your attention on the things that will actually move your business forward.

Our focus is on client care – how can we help you support your clients so that they rave about you to their family and friends, give you amazing testimonials, and come back to work with you again and again? Let’s find out together!

What’s a lesson you had to unlearn and what’s the backstory?

I am a recovering people pleaser, and this is one of the biggest lessons I have had to unlearn in my business!

When I first started out, I was so focused on keeping my clients happy. I tried to answer every email and message immediately, even outside my business hours. I worked evenings and weekends. Every emergency for one of my clients was an emergency for me.

But I realized this wasn’t sustainable. By continuing to have terrible boundaries in my business, I was not serving my clients – I was heading for burnout. I knew that if I hit burnout, it wouldn’t just hurt me – it would hurt my clients as well. I would no longer have the capacity to support them, and I could be leaving them in the position of not being able to run their businesses or needing to find new help very quickly.

I wasn’t willing to let that happen!

I knew I needed a better way to operate my business. But I couldn’t do it alone. I started working with an amazing Work-Life Balance Coach – Christine Lynn Coaching. The work we have done together has focused on creating effective boundaries in my business without sacrificing the quality of the services my company provides. In fact, my business has grown as a result of this work!

My company also no longer works with clients who aren’t in alignment with our boundaries. This allows us to ensure that ALL of our clients receive the best support possible.

Have you ever had to pivot?

About two years into my business, one of the biggest issues I faced was that my business model was based on trading time for money. I could only grow so much without being limited by the number of hours in a day.

To combat this problem, I focused on growing a team who could help me serve my clients. I worked with some great people who do great work, but I eventually realized that this agency approach wasn’t in alignment with me and the type of business I wanted to run.

Part of what I love about my business is the personal approach I have with my clients. I do have team members who support me and my clients, but I still have personal contact with every one of our clients and I oversee their services. I realized that I didn’t want to reach the point where there were clients in my business that I didn’t know and didn’t have contact with.

But I still wanted my business to have the ability to grow, so I needed another approach.

Many of the services I was offering at that time were services that business owners needed, but weren’t necessarily things that I was passionate about and that were within my greatest areas of expertise. I made what felt like a very scary decision at the time – I decided to get rid of all of the services I didn’t love and change the entire format of my business.

Before, I had been running a general virtual assistant business – working with a small roster of ongoing clients, supporting them with daily administrative and marketing tasks.

I looked back at all of the different tasks and projects I had worked on with clients and realized that what I was really great at was business systems – helping businesses streamline their processes and do their back-end tech setup the right way. So my team and I pivoted to focus exclusively on these services.

The most nerve-wracking part about changing the company to focus on business systems is that a lot of this work is not ongoing – we have lots of repeat clients, but we aren’t working with them every week or every month. They come back when they have new projects they need help with and then move on when those projects are finished. This is an entirely different business model from having a small group of ongoing clients.

But it has also been so exciting and rewarding. With this new format, we are able to help more businesses than we ever could before, because we aren’t limited by the number of clients we can fit into our regular weekly rotation. We work with many of our clients in a VIP Day format, so we can help them set up new systems FAST.

This pivot has been one of the best things I have done for both my business and my clients!

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.kayladroog.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/kayladroogconsulting/
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kayladroog/
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@kayladroogconsulting

Image Credits
Fedora Media