Ari Meisel

Project Management vs Process Management

When we’re talking about running our businesses to the best of our abilities, there are two terms that stand out:

Process management and project management.

Since they sound alike, a lot of people use them interchangeably. However, they’re not one and the same.

Each is used for different things and comes with its own set of benefits and tools.

Fortunately, you can automate both.

What Is the Difference Between Process Management and Project Management?

Project management is managing a lot of tasks that are going to help you achieve your goal.

So let’s say your company has a big marketing campaign for the spring of 2019 planned. Project management means managing all the things that need to get done:

  • Ad creatives
  • Channels and campaign distribution
  • Task delegation

Or, to put it simply, project management answers the question: What needs to get done in order to get where we want to be?

Process management, on the other hand, manages standard operational procedures at your business.

For example, customer onboarding.

With process management, you’d define, organize and standardize all the different steps of the customer onboarding process such as:

  1. Customer signs this document.
  2. Customer is added to the CRM system or internal records.
  3. Customer is sent a follow-up email.

And so on.

In order for the process to be completed, certain steps have to be taken. With time, they also have to be optimized and improved.

Or, to put it simply, process management answers the question: How do things need to get done in order to get where we want to be?

Now, people commonly confuse the two because there’s a lot of tasks in both. Which software do you even use to manage and automate it? Would you use Trello for process management, and Process Street for project management?

No.

Trello is a great tool — it’s a Kanban board, and it’s great for project management because it helps you visualize everything. However, it’s not a checklist.

And a workflow tool like Process Street is great at process management, but just doesn’t work for project management. Projects are specific, and Process Street excels at standardization — just like a checklist.

Benefits of Process Management Automation

Let’s say you wanted to manage a 47-step process of customer onboarding at your business. And keep in mind that 47 steps aren’t that much — it’s a standard number.

You’d have to have a documented process. It’s more efficient than just winging it every time a new customer comes in.

And when you have a documented process, you stick by it. Over time, you may even make adjustments and optimize it to better fit the customer.

The main benefit of going fully automated with process management is that you’re already doing it.

You have a well-documented process and if you automate it with tools like Process Street, you’re reducing your workload and making sure that the customer is onboarded successfully at the same time.

When you’re at the stage that automation is natural, it means that the process itself won’t feel dehumanized. Instead, you and your team can focus on more meaningful interactions that actually require you to communicate with customers.

Automation software can send automated onboarding emails, and you can get in touch with customers and help improve their experience where it matters.

Benefits of Project Management Automation

Since process management takes care of the minutiae of operations at your business, project management has to take care of the more high-level stuff.

With project management automation, the key area of focus is helping the manager or leader know where they should direct their attention to at any given time.

This means knowing:

  • What the priorities are
  • What tasks are at risk of being delayed
  • Which team members have been assigned to which task
  • Who needs help
  • What needs to change

A project management software like Trello shows the manager what’s going on, without them having to understand the specifics.

They can jump in if something needs changing or if someone needs help, but otherwise, they’re free to focus on more important things.

Can Project and Process Management Overlap?

Yes, and they often do.

Let’s say your company is hiring someone new.

In process management, the manager would see all the 47 steps, which isn’t that important unless the manager is personally taking the hire through the process.

In project management software like Trello, they’d just see that a new hire has been added, and trained at the end. If the onboarding process has additional steps like background checks, they could be set up in Trello by stages such as:

  1. Hire added
  2. Background check
  3. Training
  4. Onboarding finished

Instead of seeing every part of the process (e.g. in background check — files submitted, processed, approved), the manager viewing it in project management software would just see that each stage has been completed.

They’d see the results — which is the main goal of project management (software).

Or, to paraphrase it:

Process management is about the journey. Project management is about the destination.

Which One Do I Need?

That depends on what your role is, and what your company is like.

In some cases, you may be needed as a part of the process (e.g. interviewing new hires, or talking to new clients before they’re onboarded).

In other cases, you might just be getting in the way.

And while the two terms frequently overlap, the most important thing is understanding where you and your role fit in your business’ journey.

Do you need to be a part of the process or just a part of the project?

Using Personality Tests For Hiring and Teamwork

I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but there’s a lot of personality tests out there.

We’ve all heard about some of the most popular ones like:

  • Myers-Briggs
  • DISC
  • Kolbe
  • Strengthfinders
  • Colored Brain

There’s a lot of them, right?

But before we jump into using them, there’s a couple of things to clarify when it comes to using personality tests to hire people and work within teams.

Using them to be able to say: “Oh, I’m an INFJ” is not the same as giving them to potential employees and understanding how that’s going to reflect on our business or our teams.

When it comes to understanding personalities, I love the boots on the ground approach.

I want to understand how someone acts in an actual situation.

Now, don’t get me wrong — we see a lot of Kolbe tests in strategic coaching. I even know my score — I’m a complete 8–4–3–4.

What Do Personality Tests Really Mean?

According to Kolbe, getting that score means that I’m quick to start things but I’m probably not going to finish them.

If you ask me a question, I’m going to say: “YES!” even before I’ve heard the end of it.

So, what does that mean? If I were to work at your company, what would you deduct from those results?

  1. He’s quick to start things
  2. He’s not good at finishing them
  3. He’s good at simplifying things and getting them going (but not getting them done)

Who would you have me work with?

Logically, the answer would be someone who finishes things. It’s a natural match.

But here’s the thing: I don’t need a huge personality test to tell me that. Most of our employees know what their strengths and weaknesses are, so the question really becomes…

How Do You Identify Different Personalities when Hiring?

The obvious solution is using these kinds of tests and using them consistently.

However, I’ll repeat myself: I love the boots on the ground approach. I think it’s important to get to the core of how people react when things are not going their way when they’re not the perfect picture of themselves.

Let’s say I’m hiring a writer. I could ask them for their portfolio, but they’d show me their best articles. This is similar to testing someone with a personality test.

Personality profiles give us people in ideal situations.

What I’d do with writers is give them a horrible piece of copy and say: make it better. Or if I’m hiring a developer, I’d want to give them a broken page and have them fix the problem.

That way, they’re not starting out with an ideal situation. They’re starting out with your regular, run-of-the-mill scenario that occurs every day.

You want to see how people react when things are not ideal, and they have to make lemonade.

Real Personality in Real Situations

When it comes to personality profiles when hiring, the best thing you can do is come up with actual situations that are going to require certain characteristics to perform a task well.

That’s why so many companies have questions like: “Describe a situation when you were faced with a crisis, and you successfully resolved it.”

A lot of companies use machine learning to gauge this. Say we need something written. By analyzing the paragraph, we can see how long someone was writing it for, what kind of attention to detail they had.

Now, that’s a very high-tech solution.

But at my former virtual assistant company, we conducted personality tests by creating tasks that required a candidate to actually pick up the phone and get answers.

That was how we tested if someone was proactive. And we could actually see three groups of people:

  1. People who googled the answer and got it wrong
  2. People who didn’t understand the task
  3. The people who went the extra mile did the work and got the answer.

Now, we could’ve used a personality test, but most people would check the box next to “Are you proactive?” and we wouldn’t know for sure until we’ve taken the jump and started working with them.

So even though personality profiles gauged through tests can be useful, there’s nothing like real situations. In most cases, you just need a little creativity to get there.

Using Personality Profiles for Teamwork

Sometimes the only way to know for sure is by having the potential candidate work with you for a certain amount of time.

This is especially true if you’ve got a specific company culture, and the quality of your work depends on the integration of each team member.

You want to really understand who you’re bringing to your team, and there’s no way to work around that with shortcuts.

And, of course, remember the Peter Principle: most people perform worse after they’ve been hired.

You want to see them on the spot to really understand their personality.

Should You Use Personality Tests for Hiring and Teamwork?

Yes, definitely. They are an important piece of the puzzle.

However, they don’t show the whole picture. For me, personality tests are great once I’m working with someone and running the business.

You want to see people on the spot to really understand their personality, but having them take personality tests helps a lot — especially if you’re hiring for specific positions.

For example, I’m great at idea generation as a quick start (according to Kolbe), but you’d want someone who’s a long-fact finder to run the actual operations.

So it all boils down to one thing:

Understand who you need, and find the best way to determine who that person is.

There are no shortcuts, but the ride is worth the time it takes.

Find Your Voice. Then Outsource It.

An Introduction to Less Doing’s VoicePrint

I produce a staggering amount of content. But I don’t do it alone. Automation and Outsourcing have enabled me to get my message “out there” in myriad ways, and on most digital platforms you can imagine.

It’s not mysterious or expensive.

It’s an optimized process that only really requires a four-minute Voxer rant or a two minute Facebook Live to get the process going. The rest is up to someone or something else. Click here to read more about my content dissemination machine.

https://medium.com/@arimeisel/how-to-stop-reacting-with-content-and-automate-it-instead-a61fd5099913

Still, one of the biggest sticking points for entrepreneurs who are desperate to cement their place in a verrrry crowded content world is an inability to nail down their distinct voice. Authenticity sells. If you are not projecting your true self, especially through the written word, it’s as obvious and cringe-worthy to the reader as a 60-year-old saying his coffee is LIT AF.

Yuck.

A lot of folks I work with come to me and say, “I sent this out to a respected copywriter, but when it came back, it just didn’t sound like me.”

My answer has always been the same, “Well, what does ‘me’ sound like?” and that’s where most people glaze over. They haven’t first taken the time to analyze their communication style.

Analyzing Your Communication Style

And no, there’s not an app for that. But there is a terrific two-person exercise you can do that will solidify not only how you communicate, but how that message is received. The importance of working through these steps with another person is simple. The sweet spot for content lies where your intention and its reception live.

For example, you may think you are one funny guy, but maybe your comedic arsenal is overstocked with Dad Jokes. Dad jokes your audience has heard a million times. Perhaps you love to cite other thought leaders to bolster your observations or arguments. But your audience wants to hear from you and what you think. We’ve all become quite adept at sniffing out BS, so don’t waste your time pretending to be something you are not. Your story is enough. Your point-of-view is unique.

Margaret Atwood, the author of “The Handmaids Tale,” among other fantastic reads, said something worth remembering when embarking on the journey to find your voice. “The only way you can write the truth is to assume that what you set down will never be read.”

Next, it’s imperative to work through not just your style and tone, but to do an audit of existing content, (to use it as samples for a prospective writer), and then prioritize the intent of your content.

Setting a Content Intention

Do you want to entertain? Inform? Educate?

Who is your audience? The one you have and the one you want. Describe them with words that give texture. Don’t just say, “Financial Advisors,” say, “People who are fully committed to protecting the financial future of their clients through cutting edge technology and the human touch.”

Commit to writing the foundational principles of your business. These are big concepts, like Integrity, Expertise, Empathy, Experience. If you have trouble coming up with these pillars, and many people do, it’s time to take a moment to think back to why you started your business in the first place. What was that moment of inspiration like? Describe that.

Working With The VoicePrint

The rest of the exercise is relatively self-explanatory. Make two copies of this VoicePrint. Fill one out yourself and have a trusted ally fill out one as well. Then get together and compare notes. Where both points of view collide, is where you should focus your messaging.

Next, comes the outsourcing part.

It’s been my experience that asking writers to send samples of their work is a big old waste of time. You have no idea how long it took them to write that masterful 500-word blog post. You don’t know if they even wrote it or who edited it for them. I prefer to send them a piece of copy and ask them to fix it using the VoicePrint as their guide. It can be a raw transcription of a part of a speech, interview, Facebook Live or a rant I voiced into my phone when something inspirational struck me while I was driving.

Obviously, pay the scribe’s hourly rate. No one should work for free. But give the writer a limited amount of time to fix it and then see if he or she was able to mimic your VoicePrint.

It’s like owning a burger place and interviewing new cooks. You wouldn’t say, “Tell me more about all the great hamburgers you’ve cooked.” You would send them into the kitchen and ask them to make you a burger.

I’ve found that this process works for just about every business and it has the added benefit of really crystalizing your Marketing Strategy and Customer Journey. Because once you have developed an identity, it’s clear to see what works and what doesn’t, who you can help and who you can’t.

The VoicePrint is attached below. Onward!

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The Best Investments Entrepreneurs Can Make At Every Stage of Growth

There’s one question I get asked by entrepreneurs all the time:

What’s the most important thing I can invest my money and resources to make sure my business grows?

If you’re an entrepreneur, you’ve probably asked yourself the same. I know I have.

It always seems like there’s not enough money or time to allocate to all those important things. And that’s problem number one.

Problem number two is that there’s no one-size-fits-all solution that’s going to help every entrepreneur out there.

The answer depends on the stage your business is currently at.

If you’re running a 100k MRR business and spending 80% of it on overhead costs, you’re probably going to want to automate as many tasks as possible.

On the other hand, if you’re only starting out and your business is still your side hustle, you’re going to need to get profit to make it full-time. Fast.

9 Stages of Growth

We’re going to be using Alex Charfen’s data for different stages of entrepreneurial growth.

http://billionairecode.com/hosted/images/6d/294020d63911e88bec41cf7da3afb2/BC-Accelerator.png ]

Alex sums up the process nicely. Each stage of your business’ growth needs different things, so responding to a question of what you should invest in now depends on what your business needs now.

Growing Your Side Hustle to a Business

This is the first stage of the entrepreneurial journey. Usually, before we reach the $100,000 mark, we’re still at the part-time mark and our businesses are side hustles we’re looking to grow.

The main thing to do at this stage is finding product-market fit.

What does this mean? Should you invest in tech?

No.

All you need to do at this stage is put out feelers and see how people (the market, your audience) respond to your idea.

Let’s say you’re developing a new product that’s going to help 20–30-year-olds develop their careers much faster than with traditional channels.

You need to get out there and tell them about your idea.

You need to talk to your audience and see whether they think it’s useful and whether they even understand why they need your product.

The best thing to invest your money and resources into at this stage is creating content.

Create content that’s going to reach and resonate with your audience. This can be blog posts, eBooks, videos, webinars — anything that adds more value.

Content is king, after all.

For example, I’m doing it with Facebook Lives to get in touch with the people who are my target audience, and to understand how I can develop my product to best serve their needs (product-market fit is all about that).

I’m still agile in my approach so I can change strategies and adapt my product to what my audience responds best to.

If you invest in tech at this stage, you’re still unsure of the product-market fit, and the chances of losing money by investing into the wrong thing are very high. It’s better to get in touch with your future customers and find the ones who need your product or educate them.

Of course, you can also add people to your mail list with tools like MailChimp which are free for up to 2,000 subscribers.

And this is another perk of creating awesome content — people will want to read more, they’ll want to stay informed on what you’re doing.

Promoting Your Ideas

When you’re at the $100,000 mark, that’s when you should start asking people if they’d like what you have to offer.

By then, you’ve gained their trust with valuable content.

And your main mission at this stage is spreading your voice, promoting your content even more until you’ve grown from $100,000 to $300,000.

If you want to invest in something when you’ve got quality foundations like the ones you’ve set with content, invest into technology that’s going to help you reach even more people.

Next Stop: Leveraged Sales

The next stop is definitely sales.

Sell as much as possible.

You’ve found the right kind of customers, motivated them with content, and its time to leverage that (and tech) to get sales.

If you’re doing it right, you may find that the best thing to invest in here is automating your sales process.

Why?

You want to be focusing on scaling your business and increasing sales, and you can’t do that if you’re still doing everything manually. That’s why we need some degree of automation to get leveraged sales.

Yes, I often talk about not needing CRM systems (customer relationship management systems) but they can be a good fit if you’ve got specific needs.

If you need something right now, improvise a CRM system to get leveraged sales with Trello and Zapier.

You can create corresponding boards with Trello, and automate the process with Zapier. The best thing is that you can get a lot of automation done with just free accounts.

For streamlining bookings and learning more about clients’ unique needs, check out Calendly.

At this stage of your business’ growth, you need to introduce some degree of automation to be able to generate even more revenue.

Creating Systems & Processes

Once you’re en route from $300,000 to $1 million, you can no longer say that you’ve got limited funds.

However, your needs change. You no longer need to push as hard on sales manually, or focus on getting your content out there.

What you need are systematization and processes.

You want to create systems and processes that reflect the methods that helped you reach this level of success. If you want to replicate them and use them to fuel your future growth, you need to make a system out of these behaviors and methods.

This is the point where you get a bit more into automation. You use software like Process Street to help you understand, organize and optimize your process and workflow.

You may also need more advanced communication systems to keep everything up and running successfully. Usually, entrepreneurs use Slack to communicate with their teams, and Intercom to communicate with customers.

The main goal of this stage is understanding what methods led you to success, and turning them into systems that will keep the machine going, bringing you even more revenue as you focus on different strategies.

Do We Need Tools to Grow as Entrepreneurs?

Honestly?

No.

You can reach your million in revenue without spending a single cent on tech, but it can be time-consuming. That’s why I encourage tech in moderate amounts to make the workload easier.

However, the main thing to remember is that you have to focus on things that bring immediate value and explain the benefits of your business for your potential customers.

After that, conversion becomes a piece of cake.

25 Tasks to Give a VA Service To Make Your Life Easier

I asked the VA service we use most often, GetMagic, to give me a list of all the things they did for my team and me in December. Not because I was checking up on them. We’re long past that level of control. Not because I wanted to see if we were outsourcing inefficiencies, I mean I did invent this methodology that forbids inefficient outsourcing processes. Please. And not because I wanted to see if I could get a better price somewhere else. The relationship we have with GetMagic is not about price. It’s about trust, which as we all know is the basis for any good relationship and can’t be quantified in dollars and cents. Or euros.

No, I wanted the list because people ask me ALL THE TIME, “So what do you give them to do?”

Well, I use Magic for both my business and my personal life, so the answer is two-fold. What I’ve discovered is that the support I get in both areas, helps the other so seamlessly, that I am free to become replaceable in my business and more present in my personal life.

Outsourcing to the right people at the right time saves money and time and if you find the right VA company, will give you the freedom to pursue the things you want to do. The things you have to do can be in someone else’s wheelhouse.

BUSINESS

Process St. — Member Onboarding
 A complicated and multi-step process that requires an attention to detail I sorely lack.

Manage Catering Service for Workshop 
I will not remember a gluten-free option, but Magic already knows the dietary needs of everyone attending.

The Replaceable Founder Book Process
The steps involved in publishing my latest book were monstrous. Magic organized it all and since they kept meticulous records, could document it for our community.

Request Refund for Calendly Account
They always get us a refund. Always.

Send Books to New Members
Every new Less Doing Leaders is gifted several copies of my book. Magic organizes this in a timely fashion.

Update Intercom Profiles
Our leads come into Intercom with spotty profiles. Magic rounds them out, so we have a complete picture of a potential client.

Send Jotform to Workshop Attendees
An automation alerts them to act, follow-up and ensure that we have all the information we need.

Add events to Calendar
 Forwarding an email to Magic takes two seconds.

Less Doing Academy Account Cancellation
We closed a membership tier within the organization, and the cancellation and refund process was repetitive but critical. Enter Magic.

Setting reminders for the Less Doing Team 
 These are a virtual tap on the shoulder for us.

Upload Process Hacker and Tech Talk to Member Site
 Magic has all of our log-ins, so it’s simple to upload files, videos, and assets.

Adding Information to Trello cards
Project Management is more fluid when Magic can go in and set deadlines, add checklists, and team members assigned to a task.

Printing Service for Workshop Workbook
Once an outside vendor completes the book, Magic sources a printer near the event and plans the production and delivery.

Instagram Integration with Meet Edgar 
 Our SM library and posting site now allow Instagram posts. Magic dealt with the integration and loaded postings to our content library there.

Sent summary of purchases Magic made on behalf of the team.
 End of year assessment of individual expenses.

Book flights
 Magic has the team’s preferences for seat assignments, airlines and FF numbers.

PERSONAL

Handle Monthly Payments
 Every single bill my family receives, Magic handles.

Placed Online Orders and Monitor Delivery
 All I do is tell them what to order; they handle the rest

Daily Reminder to Say Something Nice to Husband/Wife

Research Painting Classes

Research School Schedule
I have four children in three different schools, with three different schedules

Research After School Activities
See above

Make dentist appointments
 See above

Set up birthday parties
 See above

Process Amazon Returns
 We order a lot through Amazon, but we return a lot as well.

Remember, it is impossible to become more productive, both in business and your personal life if you outsource an inefficient process. Giving vague direction and spotty information will make the outsourcing practice a nightmare. Know what you want, have a budget and a time frame and give simple, clear instructions. It takes practice, but anything worthwhile does. Not to oversell it or anything, but if you sign up with GetMagic using the referral link, you get one free request!

I Published a Book in Less Than Four Months. You Can Too!

So you want to write a book? Super cool. If you closely follow my Optimize, Automate, and Outsource Methodology, I’m pretty sure you’ll have a completed, something you’ll be proud of, project in just a few months.

What follows is how GetMagic, (our VA service) and I published “The Replaceable Founder” (which went to #1 on Amazon on Day One, if that matters to you).

First, what is your raw material? Is it a course? A series of speeches you presented? An anthology of blog posts that all point to the same general theme? What about a collection of podcasts you hosted?

Well, all of these can become the scaffolding for a good book. We are not talking about “To Kill A Mockingbird” or “Outliers”, but if you are interested in using your content for marketing purposes, you can take that raw material and craft it into a book that is eminently readable.

Our inspiration came from our “Genius Model”; the scaffolding for our business’s mission.

In order to become replaceable as a business owner; to find focus, flexibility, and freedom there are three major mindsets that need alteration. We look at Communicating Effectively, Perfect Processes and Managing Projects. All three activities have succinct processes attached to them that enable founders to achieve the sweet spot in the center of our work.

So, we used “The Optimized Operator Online course (now known as The Replaceable Founder) as our beginning. I recorded and presented all nine sessions of the curriculum, so it was easy to upload each of those lessons onto temi.com (the AI-powered transcription service). Once we had the transcripts, eleven separate lessons, we had the general outline for the book.

We discussed the arc of the book and the need to follow the industry standard for non-fiction business books. Introduction, case studies, a thorough explanation of each of the steps explained in the introduction, and a conclusion. A foreward written by a leader in your field is not necessary, but adds an enormous amount of value and marketing possibilities, so it’s good to include if you can.

Finding a competent writer and editor to assist you, is tricky, but not impossible. It’s no good, saying, “Just make it sound like me.” One cannot expect a writer to understand the nuances of how you speak, what your intention is and what impression you want to leave with the reader with vague instruction. Are you funny? Do you use research to support your ideas? Do you speak anecdotally? Are you looking to inspire? Inform? Entertain?

Additionally, do not ask to see a prospective writer’s portfolio. It has little value. You have no idea how long it took the writer to do the work presented, heck you don’t even know if he or she wrote it. So send them a very rough draft of about 500 words with general instructions that answer the questions above and see what the writer comes up with. Be upfront about the project, pay the writer for her time during this process, (No good writer writes for free), and once you find someone you can work with, set a hard deadline for completion and establish how often you want to see chapters, Holding a writer to firm deadlines is imperative. Accountability is everything.

(If you are in the Less Doing Leaders program you have access to our VoicePrint process which will assist you in outsourcing your writing quite easily.)

Next came the hard part. Online courses do not easily translate into the written word, because there are times where the narrator, (me, in this case) says things like, “Now refer to the slide and write down your observations in your workbook.” Well, that doesn’t really mean anything to a reader who has no context. So it’s incredibly valuable that temi.com timestamps its transcriptions, so the writer can refer back to the original audio or video for an explanation.

As you near the deadline, it’s time to begin organizing the book production. Establish a launch date and work back from that to help stay on track. For example, if you want the book to launch on October 1, 2019, give yourself at least a month to work on the production, meaning the manuscript should be in hand by August 31st.

What follows are the tasks my writing partner Amy, assigned to Magic throughout the process. Our VA service proved invaluable in the project, kept everything flowing, and handled hiccups easily. They were invested in the book and their commitment to getting it right was admirable. It was also energizing for them to work on a multi-faceted creative project where they could make independent decisions and judgment calls.

Now that the manuscript was formatted and complete we uploaded it to CreateSpace (Amazon’s self-publishing platform). It underwent a review process and was then made available for sale.

The marketing aspect is obviously crucial, as you are using the book as a tool.

  • Are you looking to increase your email list? Use the first two chapters as an opt-in on your website.
  • Do you want to increase your social media presence? Create a quick video on either lumen5 or Animoto to announce the book’s publication, as video gets way more engagement than text. Use a CTA like “The Kindle version of my new book is available for the next 24 hours for only 99 cents.
  • Use the publication of the book as a hook for getting on Podcasts.
  • Do Facebook Lives with influencers in your industry space.
  • Buy your own book in bulk at the author’s price on Amazon and use it as a gift at live events you may host.
  • Ask your community to leave five-star reviews on Amazon and then use them for social media postings.

The entire project took about four months.