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

Alright, Rachael thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. One of our favorite things to brainstorm about with friends who’ve built something entrepreneurial is what they would do differently if they were to start over today. Surely, there are things you’ve learned that would allow you to do it over faster, more efficiently. We’d love to hear how you would go about setting things up if you were starting over today, knowing everything that you already know.

If I was starting over today, from scratch, I would put my blinders on from the beginning. So often I see online business owners (myself included) getting sucked into outside influence from social media, what other people are doing, and can quickly lose sight of our own mission and business goals. Understand your why – why am i doing what I do? How is this serving others? How do I want to show up? Then operate from there.

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

Hey there, Rachael here. Virtual COO and Systems Expert. But I wasn’t always a systems pro. Flash back to 2015 – my partner and I started our first business, and to say I became overwhelmed *fast* is an understatement.

I felt like I was always SO busy, but felt stuck and like I wasn’t really moving the needle forward. I was constantly working IN things on the day to day admin “stuff”. And I learned really quickly that this lifestyle and work mindset was not sustainable. I was totally burnt out.

After about my 100th emotional breakdown, we started to analyze what needed to change. There had to be a better way!

We immediately invested in some project management tools, I started to delegate and outsource more, and I spent countless hours refining, tweaking, and creating a system to organize and streamline things that actually works.

And I have helped not only my own businesses with these strategies, but also countless clients too! Things like…Automating behind the scenes so they aren’t doing *everything* manually by themselves, organizing and streamlining their systems to work smarter (not harder), hiring support + learning to delegate more, and ultimately spending more time ON their business, thinking about the bigger picture, and growing their impact + income.

We’d love to hear about how you keep in touch with clients.

Always deliver a white glove client experience. I have systems to thank for supporting me on this one, because I do not have to manage every step of my client journey manually. Through tools, like a Client Management platform (CRM) and our Project Management platform (we use Clickup), there is a lot that happens behind the scenes, automatically.

For example, if a new lead reaches out on your website Friday afternoon around 4pm, and they don’t hear from you until Monday or Tuesday the following week – how does that make them feel? How would that make you feel?

Versus, if as soon as they reach out, an automated email drops into their inbox thanking them and letting them know the next steps, you are assigned an automated task to review their form and send an email template, and your project management platform adds them into a lead tracker to keep track of things internally behind the scenes.

Completely different experience!

You can also apply this idea for check-ins and follow up, post-project testimonials, and even referrals or follow up projects. Everyone’s business is special, and there are a lot of ways to customize and tailor automations to work for your business and client experience.

Are there any books, videos or other content that you feel have meaningfully impacted your thinking?

There are a handful of books I have read over the years that have completely changed my life! My top 5 are: The 12 Week Year, Profit First, Who Moved My Cheese, When: The Scientific Secrets of Perfect Timing, and The Power of Fun

Contact Info:

• Website: https://heyrachael.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/hey.rachael

Image Credits
Mattie Krall Photography