We recently connected with Liz Strong and have shared our conversation below.

Liz, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today Do you have any advice regarding quality control and maintaining quality as your brand grows?

I was recently brought on to a new client’s company as their Business Manager. They had been following me for years and we’d actually done a one-time strategy session together a year prior, so they were familiar with my work and how I setup systems and the backend of businesses.

When I hopped on our kick off call, one of the first things my client told me was her struggle with her team and doing quality control (QC) on client work. She was finding that she was constantly getting stuck with a team member in the QC phase, going through the same issues, project after project.

I asked her if she had provided SOPs (Standard Operating Procedures) to her team to complete the task. One that clearly explained the exact process to follow, including video walkthroughs (for those who are visual learners), as well as a checklist they can quickly tick off as they go through it.

She told me she didn’t yet have that yet. She also didn’t have a checklist for the team to run through before they notified her to review their work. After she shared that, I knew that was the first thing we had to work on. That was why she was spending so much time doing QC — she didn’t have the process outline clearly for her team to follow so they were missing steps and not getting as granular on things as she was wanting. All of which caused her to be spending way more time than was necessary checking their work.

In order for you to grow and for you to step out of the daily weeds and quality control, you need to have your processes clearly documented. If you don’t write down or record how you want something done, how will your team know how to complete their work to the extent you expect?

By having clearly documented processes (written and visual), not only will your team have an easy way to make sure they did their task, but you’ll also have one too. You’ll be able to go through the checklist and confirm faster if X, Y, and Z were completed (or not).

While you’re doing quality control, if you notice steps are being skipped or not to the extent you expect, ask if they didn’t have clear enough instructions for the step they missed or got wrong. Oftentimes steps are skipped or not done fully if it’s not clear enough. From here you can determine what part of the process needs to be updated, clarified, or expanded, in order for you to spend less time on QC. Ideally, the more frequently your team runs through the checklist before handing it to you, the less QC you’ll actually have to do.

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?

I’m Liz, an OBM (Online Business Manager) for brand & web designers, copywriters, and email strategists at Lux & Vita. Although my love of tech has always been around, I wasn’t always an OBM, I actually started out as a brand and web designer, after coming from a graphic design background.

My love of tech was brought back into focus in the confusion of contact forms. As I designed websites, I’d ask my clients about their contact forms and inquiry process… only to find they had none.

Because of my love for serving and giving a great client experience, I’d help them create that process. Before I knew it I had pivoted my business to include Virtual Assistance, where my primary role was setting up and running those systems. Before I knew it, I had a client roster of 20 clients, and several of whom had multiple businesses.

Over time I noticed my clients needed higher level support, and they needed someone who had a systems mind to actually bring it to life. But more than that, they wanted someone who understood what it took to run a creative business like theirs. It turns out I was already doing OBM work, but was labeling myself as a VA. Once that realization hit me, I pivoted my business one more time to what it is now — online business management for female brand & web designers, copywriters, and email strategists.

I now work with clients in both short- and long-term capacities. For those who need their systems working smoother, smarter, more efficiently and effectively, so they can get back to what they actually want to be doing, I recommend the Implementensive. Think of this as a time for a second set of eyes on your business, not just for creating a strategy but for actually helping you do the work that needs to be done. So you can take it off your punch list once and for all.

For ongoing support, I work with small but mighty teams and mini agencies as their OBM or Operations Coordinator. My team and I take care of the day-to-day operations of our client’s business so they can get back to delivering industry-leading work. We create simple but effective systems that allow you to step out of the operations and back into your creative zone of genius. We’re basically the left-brain support for right-brain creatives.

There’s nothing I love more than helping creative entrepreneurs to build simple, organized, and thoughtful businesses that work for the way they think. Because if it doesn’t work the way you think, you’re never going to use it.

How’d you build such a strong reputation within your market?

The first few years of my business I was heavily invested in helping others and answering their questions in Facebook groups. I was a part of several groups that I knew had my ideal client in there, so I’d spend time every day in there engaging, answering questions, and promoting other businesses when someone was looking to hire outside of what I offered.

After a while I started to become one of the primary names that people would recommend when someone had a question or needed to hire someone like me.

My mentality when it came to Facebook groups wasn’t that I was there to pitch people (never a good idea), but to genuinely be there to answer questions. Even if it meant I literally Googled their question or went through support articles to find the answer (if I didn’t know it). If it was a situation that it started to get to be more than just answering some simple questions (ie. creating a custom strategy or doing actual work for them), then I’d gently guide them towards my services. The bulk of my original retainer clients came from Facebook groups. Even a few years after doing that consistently, I’d get new leads saying they saw my name pop up repeatedly in the groups they were a part of and found what I said helpful and they wanted to hire me. For a long time Facebook was my primary referral source, even after I stopped engaging in groups.

Can you talk to us about how your side-hustle turned into something more.

My first real (post-high school / non-Starbucks) job was as a graphic designer for a regional nonprofit office. During that time, the work I was doing for the office was getting noticed by those the nonprofit supported. They began asking if I’d be able to design for them as well. I began designing one-off projects on the side, and even had several return clients — this was my first official step into freelancing. After a couple years, my boss and I had a conversation about moving my role to a freelance position instead of as an employee. This allowed me to have more time to test out freelancing full-time.

I eventually got offered a full-time job as a communications director with another company, which I accepted, but I kept doing a little bit of freelancing in my downtime. A few years later we had to move for my husbands job. We knew the move was coming, so I started to ramp up the freelance business again by diving into Facebook groups to build up my client roster. It was then that I finally started an LLC and stopped being a freelancer. My boss at that job ended up hiring my company, as they weren’t ready to hire someone again full-time for the role I had.

It was a fairly smooth transition for me to go from a full-time job to freelancer to full-time job to finally running my own business. For me it really helped that my full-time jobs were in a similar line of work as my side-hustle even with all of the pivots I’ve made over the years.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://luxandvita.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/luxandvitadsn/

Image Credits
Bry Penny Photo