Virtual Assistant Services: Joanna Zhang’s Sustainable Scaling Blueprint | Ep. 189

Joanna Zhang: 00:00:00

Energy management even more important than time management. But I am the world's biggest super fan.

Intro: 00:00:07

You're like a super fan. Welcome to the Business Superfans podcast.

We will discuss how establishing business superfans from customers, employees and business partners can elevate your success exponentially. Learn why these advocates are a key factor to achieving excellence in the world of commerce.

This is the Business Super Super Fans podcast with your host, Freddie D. Ready?

Freddy D: 00:00:35

Hey super fans. Superstar Freddie D. Here in this episode 189 we're joined by Joanne Shank, founder of the operations genius.

Joanne helps entrepreneurs and leaders scale sustainably by building plug and play teams and systems that truly work with her core value on power to grow and at the heart of everything she does, Joanne blends smart strategy with conscious leadership to create freedom, flow and long term growth. Get ready for an inspiring conversation about scaling with intention and learning with purpose.

Freddy D: 00:01:11

Welcome Joanna to the Business Superfans Advantage podcast. Great conversation that we had before we started recording. And welcome from one of my favorite cities, Sydney, Australia.

I envy you all the time because I love that place and been there as I mentioned six times and I'm looking to probably go back there again next year. So welcome to the show.

Joanna Zhang: 00:01:33

Thank you so much, Freddie. I'm so grateful to be here.

Freddy D: 00:01:36

So Joanna, I know that you have a pretty cool company where you're really helping a lot of businesses with getting them va help with the things that they need, but how did this all come about? I mean it just didn't pop up yesterday. There's a whole story of how you created your agency and led to the creation of that agency.

Joanna Zhang: 00:01:57

Right. Thank you for asking. Well, I think everyone started something, probably must have a reason behind it.

There was a story some of them are planned, some of them are not. And the mile was like not part of the plan, but somehow it was kind of destined. Why?

I'm saying that it's because when I started my own business I actually was a self employed financial planner. So totally different profession. But at the time transition from a professional into a business owner, I had a lot to learn, right.

And then in terms of the mindset, the way of operating everything.

And I also noticed realized that I have a lot of things need help from the behind scenes, you know, because a lot of things I'm not good at and there are certain things I don't really enjoy that much either. So I started to delegate working with different VAs from the Philippines to start with.

But I have to say I had a lot of challenges when I was Working with them.

But somehow because I was quite dedicated to make things through so I can actually started to customize the team within my budget to support my business to start with. Because at the time I couldn't find a model that really I can because most of them are like a full time part time model.

I don't have that much budget and I can't hire five, 10 people, you know, in my team. I don't have that much work either. So I couldn't find a solution. So even though that was very hard for me, I figured out a solution.

I started to support my own business. Then I thought why don't I share that with other business? And that's literally how this business born.

And without a plan but somehow destined why I'm mentioning about it because three years, four years ago I had a soul awakening event. From that event I found out my soul mission, soul power, soul purpose. And it is actually my this lifetime.

It is to help team and their members to grow to create a better world. And now I understand.

Even though that was very hard to work with a team of people, but somehow I made it through because that was part of my mission and passion and somehow is destined. Yeah. To work out this way. I hope that makes sense.

Freddy D: 00:03:54

Yeah, that's a good story because in a sense you came up with a need because of what you needed for yourself and then you realized that other people are going to have that need and so how can you really help those people? And that's how basically a business was kind of born.

Joanna Zhang: 00:04:11

Yeah, that's so true.

Freddy D: 00:04:13

So how did you start finding customers for the VAs that you had working for yourself? What's the story story with that?

Joanna Zhang: 00:04:22

I'm a natural networker and it is a networking people, you know like I started to actually initially I had a stage of trying digitally because at a time there was close to I up running a few years and I started to have some thinking of oh, digital marketing is coming up. Right. So it sounds like a simple, easy without me touching so many things I can really deliver something.

Then I started to try out on the digital marketing side. There was some outcome but somehow there's still something missing because I'm a natural networking person.

But I actually let go of that part of me behind the scenes behind a computer to do something somehow cold but become warm connections. So I started to really open up to say I need to go back to people and then to really connect with them.

Because by simply thinking use a simple easy way to generate the outcome. Sounds all right. But if there's something is missing from our soul, there's a sign for us to make some changes.

So from that time I started to go to the networking, go to different events and get to know about people and connect. And even until now, the majority of the leads actually coming from the networking, to be honest.

And then Another channel is LinkedIn, like a professional outreaching.

But I have to say after try all different methods about networking people to people or word of mouth and Digital like a LinkedIn or newsletters and social media or even email marketing, whatever it is, the majority of the leads for me especially is still coming from networking in the water mouth.

Freddy D: 00:05:58

Okay. So one of the things that I have found in dealing with a lot of businesses is a lot of times people have a hard time letting go, doing the stuff.

And I think that, you know, you recognized it early on that you couldn't do everything yourself. And that's when you started getting VAs for your own business.

But I think when you're people are in the same boat, but not necessarily the same because a lot of times people know that they probably should let go and get somebody else to do it, but they refuse to do so because they have the mindset, well, they can't do it as good as me.

Joanna Zhang: 00:06:36

Yeah, oh yeah, that's so common. And somehow you say that because I'm not DIY style. A lot of things I'm not good at, you know, I recognize it. So I started to author.

Somehow it's quite easy. However, even though in my situation, my delegation journey, it's a layer by layer as well. It's not like a hundred percent.

Suddenly a leg of everything.

If something is within my comfort zone and I feel like I can do it, well, I have that kind of mindset too, you know, like I'll need to really give it to the others. How about I just do by myself?

But in saying that during my business growth journey, when I delegate my incompetence, let's say the things I'm not good at, I started to delegate my competence part and even the excellence part.

I find out it is our decision at the end of the day because there is a balancing act when we actually holding everything to our plate, we're gonna turn out for sure one day. And if we want to grow and we don't want to let go, we somehow just stuck over there and feeling frustrated and unhappy.

That was happening to me because when I started my own business, I was a project manager too. For project management for me is a competence part. I Can do it. I can do it well. But somehow there was some passion missing over there.

Some people did they just is their excellence or even genius. So at some stage I had to really decide to let go of their part.

Of course I need to allow some errors and mistakes and some unknown unexpected events happen. Maybe sometimes even affect our credibility. You know, like it does happen.

However, without that step I wouldn't be able to like today really focus on truly love to do like sharing the line messages out, focusing on helping team members to grow.

It is a decision at the end of the day whether we wanted to short short term pain and for the long term benefit or if we want to just feel like comfortable. But actually bearing long term pain is a decision at the end of the day.

Freddy D: 00:08:25

I think sure, you're absolutely correct. And the other part of it is that I learned is 80% as good as you, is a hundred percent you not doing it?

Joanna Zhang: 00:08:37

Yeah. Right.

Freddy D: 00:08:39

So that's the thing is okay, it's not as good as you, but you're not doing it. So you can be doing something else.

And I'm sharing this for our listeners because of the fact that you know sometimes it's not going to be as great as exactly like you want it because that person might have a little bit of a different look at it and different perspective of it. But the reality is it still got done. It's satisfying to the customer. Customer is happy which is what's important at the end of the day.

And more importantly, you didn't have to do it.

Joanna Zhang: 00:09:12

Yes, 100%. And we can do something else that really energizes us and even say by doing that we actually giving others opportunities.

I think on that it is on the foundation it is a trust issue. And I noticed from my personal life experience is that when I actually didn't trust others that much ultimately I don't really fully trust myself.

So I feel like it is ultimately is our own life lesson probably to see there's a couple of things. One is a trust.

If we don't trust others I found out from my personal experience is that because I didn't believe myself enough So I was lacking of the confidence because when I was lacking that I don't have enough I won't be able to pass on to others like fully trust. So another thing is that I found out is that I was controlling freak because I wanted to make things the way I wanted.

And I thought of my way as a highway. I actually didn't realize there are unlimited possibilities when I actually give Others a stage to really flourish.

They actually somehow surprise us with a different outcome.

Freddy D: 00:10:14

Yeah. And sometimes it's a better outcome than you would have had because they're looking at it from a different perspective.

So there's a book called Unreasonable Hospitality and it's a great book. I don't know if you've ever read it or not, but I would highly recommend it. And it's about Madison 11 something as a restaurant in New York.

And they took like different people. One person was just a waiter and they enjoyed craft beer.

And for them to kind of compete, instead of competing with wine, which they couldn't compete with some of the other type of restaurants, they got this person who never did this, but they empowered them to set up and manage a craft beer. And that was their uniqueness of the restaurant.

And that person all of a sudden just came to life because it was something that they really were passionate about. Didn't have the skill sets to do it, but they made it happen.

Joanna Zhang: 00:11:10

Yeah.

Freddy D: 00:11:11

So what you're doing is it's important for people to understand it. Sometimes that person that you may think probably can't handle the job may surprise you.

They may level up because of the fact that they're given an opportunity and that gives them the energy to go to a whole nother level.

Joanna Zhang: 00:11:28

Yeah, so true. Because when you're talking about the leadership, it's totally from management.

Either I personal experience that from a doer to supervisor to manager and to a leader. And there's totally different stages.

And as you mentioned, if we're just simply delegating something to the others and feel like they are fit or not fit, whatever it is, it's just on a supervisor or management level. But in saying that the true essence of leadership.

Actually my spiritual mentor mentioned to me, I was so inspired by the sentence is that the true essence of the leadership is to help everyone to become the best version of themselves. It's kind of like an empowerment. It is empowered them to grow and to unleash their potentials. So. But doing that actually like what you say, 100%.

Just give them the opportunity to find out some unlimited possibilities behind it.

Freddy D: 00:12:19

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Freddy D: 00:13:41

Sure. So let's dive in into a little bit more about your agency.

And you know, one is how do you find people to become part of your team and then what makes your agency and your team different than some of the other VA companies out there in the marketplace?

Joanna Zhang: 00:13:59

Right. To start with, I actually worked with agency for many years, actually found my talents from their agency to start with.

And I actually did all my trial errors with that agency actually during those years by doing that because I already have a talent pool. So people, if any clients need any talents outside of their scope, you know, we can certainly find it.

And another thing is that because all the VAs we are onboarding, they start to work with me first. Supporting my business to start with basically means that I've already tried out on them.

I know the capability, possibilities and potential, everything like that. So when client come into us, they don't need to really train or filter or fine tune whatever it is.

We just can customize the team as a mature foundation to support them and customize based on their needs.

But after that I worked with the agency I went through a stage of because I started to work with more and more clients and more people get to know about this. I started to work with multiple different agencies because every digital agencies had their own specialties and their strength.

I started to have a different, like what you're saying as ecosystem different service providers. So by doing that we started to have a multiple, different kind of diversity of the skill set and the type of talents as well.

But one of the agency I worked at the very beginning, unfortunately they actually changed their business model. They stopped working for the certain model for the va. So we actually stopped working with them by saying that I started to manage the team by myself.

Actually I tried out with different agencies but somehow I think Divine gave me an opportunity to really let me to experience like they gave me an opportunity, created some challenges somehow gave me opportunity to really have a confidence to manage the team myself.

And actually when I do, what I said also seems like very difficult things in our life is like if we have never done it well, maybe first we'll think oh, it's so hard. But actually when we overcome it, just do it. It was. Oh, is that it? Something like that, right. I think many people may have experienced that.

So for me it's the same.

I started to manage the team because many of the VAs when they're working with us, even though our workflow because we provide flexibility to others, a lot of them they don't have a steady workload. But they still actually be with our company for years. Because we have the same intention is to grow together.

So all this team member is still with me and we together still helping different clients.

And interestingly like in recent past two years, I think their talents started to approach us directly because they can see what we're doing in the market is quite unique in the industry. From a VA point of view. They can find any agency that they can actually provide their skills of work to the other clients.

But for the opportunity for them to really grow into someone to the best version, probably everybody is looking for the opportunities. So we find that those kind of talents who really have the minds they wanted to grow into the best version of themselves.

So we started to work together. So our team is getting big, not really huge bigger.

But the quality wise is enhancing and slightly bigger and bigger depends on the clients we started to service. You also asked about a difference. So first of all, I think our VAs they all train VAs.

They don't need to learn certain skills for different areas because they already specialists in the field. They just need to understand how different business operate. So like a plug and play quickly get into that, take the action with it.

Another thing we put it in as layer is that we have a project manager in the place. And also for quality assurance. Because that was my personal challenge when I was working with the VAs.

I wanted to pass on my task, come back with peace of mind, according to the deadline, with the quality. Because I don't want to spend time and energy to trace and to nudge on it. I wanted to focus on my genius.

So all those layers during the past years, whatever I experience as challenge, we plug in those layers to support business owner to really focus on the genius. Because we don't want to add more stress for the business Owner. That's the thing we don't want right As a business owner.

So capability, flexibility and quality.

Another thing is accountability because I found a lot of time if I work with a va, the company agency like hands off, you know, I work with the VAs, but a lot of time I found that business owners like probably learned a lot of things but there's no actions because they don't have accountability partner beside them to remind them hey that's your priority, that's what you plan to do. And then we up here now what is the outcome for this? Can you give us feedback? You know it's something like it on the side constantly keep us moving.

And sometimes we may forget during the business whatever it is, if there is accountability partner over there, we can always sure we on the track like according to our plan. I think there's a few things that we wanted to add as value.

That's why actually we got recognized last year by CV International Business Award as world first fraction of EA service and made us realize that we at least probably the only one or at least the very first one to start with this model.

Freddy D: 00:18:54

Oh, excellent. Congratulations.

Joanna Zhang: 00:18:55

Thank you.

Freddy D: 00:18:56

Yeah.

So can you share a story with us Joanna on how you brought in some VAs into an organization that in turn the VAs helps streamline that whole operation. And they became what I would call, you know, one of your biggest advocates. But I prefer using the term business superfan.

That was in turn promoting you to other colleagues that they know that in turn got you more business because of the work that your team did for their company.

Joanna Zhang: 00:19:24

Oh yeah, for sure. Before we actually help a lot of solopreneurs, a lot of them are consultants or coaches. We actually helping their individual business.

Look at their solopreneurs. They started to refer us to their clients because most of their clients are business owners too and they need a lot of operations support.

So we create a great partnership over there. They helping with the mind and we helping with the hands off work. So we're already a team by working together to help our mutual clients.

There's one group, the other group is another group we actually started to help we can add value.

Our B2P service providers, we found the majority of this kind of business they already have their existing team but often their own business, they forgot look after themselves right. Also sometimes if the client's work started come up, they don't have enough capacity. So our team of plug in to help them. I'll give you an example.

One of our clients, they are actually a fractional COO service, they providing the operation strategies to the tradies or constructions companies. And by saying that because they are the operation side by themselves, sometime their clients areas that we can help them.

And gradually for certain clients, they feel like they're ready to hire the VA ready and they connect us with that business directly and they structure their process and systems and we can stack in to really make those plan happen. So that's how we work together as well. Another strategist, we're working for their own business as well as helping their clients.

And by saying that it's like a super fence because all the clients we're helping, we are together as a good partners and we helping other partners together. And the client is word of mouth, starting from there.

Freddy D: 00:21:01

Yeah, because that word of mouth is the most powerful marketing that you can have. Because one thing is, you know, you can do a lot of ad spend on getting your message out.

But at the end of the day, social proof is the what really makes the difference. And my success when I was selling software back in the day was my customers were my sales team.

So I would get introductions into other businesses and then somebody.

I've shared the story many times, but one of my fastest sales was because somebody called me and said they were doing overflow work for someone who was already a customer of mine. And that customer said they needed to contact me to get the same system so they would have no data issue exchanges.

So the sale was how much and how fast can you get it to me? And that was it. There was no need to look at the software or any of that stuff because Jack said he needs to buy it.

And so that guy just called me up and said how much? How fast can you get it here?

So what you're really talking about, Joanna, is once you get that momentum going where you've got other people that are becoming your sales agent in a sense, or what I kind of coined as the business superfan.

You can't buy that kind of a PR because your whole sales cycle is completely collapsed because now that person's not going to go shop around to other different VA services. Their friend said. And that's the key thing. It's their friend said, you need to talk to my friend Joanna. And that's the verbiage that takes place.

Joanna Zhang: 00:22:42

Yeah, so true. Well, and we all need reliable partners in our life, isn't it?

And even for ourselves, I wouldn't really recommend someone if I really don't know and I haven't worked with and I'm not sure about and it's something that for us as a business, if we're dedicated to provide valuable, sustainable support, service and to really add value to the other business journey, I believe when they think about others, they will share that. Naturally, it's a very natural process. There's no forceful in it and there's no KPI or something driven. Those things is no longer needed.

From a logical side, maybe some people create a system or those sort of things, but naturally it's about connection and trust. Long term partnership. I believe so. Yeah.

Freddy D: 00:23:27

And it's getting the team to. You know, I use the example of a racing rowing team. So you think about a racing rowing team and everybody has one oar, not two oars.

They have one and you've got the coxswan as the person keeping the beat and leading the team. And there's seven other people that are rowing and you got to get them all in synchronization.

So they all got to be on the same mission, going in the same direction at the same time. Otherwise that boat's not going anyplace, it's not even going in a circle, it's just wobbling.

But once you get that boat rowing just like a business, you get everybody in that business ecosystem in line. And rowing, that boat just flies.

And that's really what's important is what you're doing is you're helping bring in person that can assimilate into that business very quickly because they bring in the skill sets and they're already a professional from that perspective. So they don't need to be told what to do. They know what they need to be doing. It's how it's applicable to that company.

And so you're tweaking it for that company. But they can hit the streets running.

Joanna Zhang: 00:24:39

That's so true. Wow. And I think the intention and direction is very important either for our clients and for the team members. Everyone. Yeah.

And because that's the foundation for us to. As you mentioned, it's like on the boat, we have the same directions.

Otherwise if someone just purely focusing on money but not growth, let's say, for example, we won't work for the long term. Yeah, yeah.

Freddy D: 00:25:04

Because everybody, at the end of the day, your VA that's stepping into a company is your front line. They don't see you in the company, they see the VA in their company. So that's your representation of your business.

So it's very important that you have the relationship with the team like you do. And that's one of the things you talked about.

I just want to reemphasize that because that team member, when they go into a company, whether it's physical or remote, that's the impression of your company. So I always tell people that's your most important asset because that's the front line.

People don't see you all the time, but they see your team and wherever they're at and whatever they're doing. And so that's where I think a lot of companies sometimes fall.

Whether it's working with contractors, vas or employees, the bottom line is you need to be treating those. And I had the best example from a guest on a show and I'm going to steal his verbiage. And he called them director of first impressions.

And that's the person that's really in charge of your first impressions.

Joanna Zhang: 00:26:17

That's true.

And it's by saying that because everyone if we all on the same boat and we all think the same directions, everybody representing as we is a team effect. Because there is no longer a personal effect.

Freddy D: 00:26:29

Bingo.

Joanna Zhang: 00:26:30

Yeah.

And is a team effect of working together, holding the respons, learn from the experience even if there's a mistake and learn from it and then to really try to improve and grow from there. I think that's about the meaning of the whole process of to get working together as part of the ecosystem. As a super fan.

Freddy D: 00:26:47

Sure. Because everybody's on mission and everybody's rowing together.

If someone is not in sync, the team will come together to help that person get in sync with everybody else. Because everybody's pulling everybody up now. So it's a whole different mental mind shift. Because now it's for the betterment of the team.

And once you've got that energy going that becomes contagious and that goes into. When your team goes into a customer, they're excited, they're happy of where they're working with, AKA your agency.

So they're reinforcing the customer's decision to make to pick your agency to provide the services. Because I worked with a service based company a couple of years ago and they work with a lot of contractors doing language interpretation services.

And the mindset before I took over was that the interpreters should be grateful that they're getting work.

And I'm going like no, you know, that's the person that's going to the hospital, that's the person that's going to the court, that's the person going to help translate the training program to non English proficient individuals. That's your most important asset. And so what you're doing is really is bringing that whole group to being in sync like a racing.

Like a championship racing team.

Joanna Zhang: 00:28:16

Yeah. But at the same time, we respect everyone's uniqueness and respect their own free view too.

Because a lot of time there can be disagreement at different directions. Everybody has different focus. I mean, not talking about the big ones, the individual focus.

So we've got to just respect them and then work on, based on their free will to help them whatever we can to add value to their own personal growth journey as well as we can add value to the clients growing together. Yeah. Because empower to grow is as part of our movement.

Freddy D: 00:28:47

Oh yeah.

Freddy D: 00:28:47

I mean, when I took over that company, there was a person that was dealing. I've shared this story before, but it's a great story to complement what you just mentioned is they were dealing with depression.

So there's days that they couldn't make it to the office. And you can't terminate somebody because now you got a discrimination kind of a situation going on.

And when I took over, she almost quit a couple times because of the way she felt she was treated and everything else. So when I took over, I did completely opposite. I gave her more responsibilities.

And by giving her more responsibilities and more encouragement and more empowerment, I was pulling her up. Because now, you know, you're in charge of this. This is, you know, you're putting. You're responsible for this.

And all of a sudden they started to feel like they had some value. And I'm just piggybacking what you just said.

And the more someone feels that they're contributing and they're part of the conversation and their opinion matters, whether you use it or not, they're heard, which is what you just said is that really transforms somebody to where now they start going above and beyond because now they're empowered, they feel recognized. And that person that I'm talking about took a department that was doing under $100,000 a year in document translation to $225,000.

So grew by $125,000 and change in one year.

Joanna Zhang: 00:30:21

Wow, that's amazing. I think by identifying individual team members status and their own feelings and own free will is so crucial.

And I think talking about the depression, we had one case that one of our team members, she's actually in the leadership team recently she encountered depression symptoms. And because of that, she, as a certain period of time, she couldn't really respond, you know, within the time frame. And she used to do.

But interestingly, what happened is before, because she worked around in the HR area. She couldn't understand why someone can't really just respond immediately, you know, like why she was having that kind of feeling towards others.

And after this experience where I actually had a discussion, I just really trying to encourage her to realize and to feel this experience, what made her feel and what she has learned from the experience. I believe everything happened in our life, there's a reason behind it.

And because of that experience she now understands some people in a certain emotion state, they do really have that state. They can't really react as normal like as usual.

So at least for her experience she started to have a empathy more understanding towards others because she personally experienced it. But at the same token. So that's compassion part.

But in the same token because she couldn't really act according to our company in a certain discipline or guidelines. We gave her some warning too because there's both acts. It's a balancing act because I transfer from title leader to servant leader.

Now practicing become spiritual leader state is to balance compassion and the boundary. So in this case I think whatever happens in our team members life, we trying to help them to understand what are the both sides of the consequences.

Understanding more but same time bearing the consequences.

So I think our approach well constantly I wanted to make some internal system enhanced so we can really help team members to grow from different aspect.

And by saying that it's because of that many of the team members stay with us for years even though they are not steady workloads because they realize the intention from our company, it is really to grow from love. Is nothing about the punishment or those sort of things. They just have to learn to bear certain consequences to grow. Yeah, that's about it.

Freddy D: 00:32:36

Yeah. It's basically in business you've got to punch through several different, you know, levels as you rise as a leader. As you just mentioned.

I mean, you know, there's. There's leaders that I would say are empowerment leaders and then those are leaders that our directive leaders.

And usually you'll see the ones that do have the empowerment mindset, their teams are thriving, energized, happy, fun, looking forward to going to the office. Because at the end of the day it's not work and home, it's called life. It's one place, AKA life.

And the ones where there's directive, oh man, I gotta go to the office, drive there.

Joanna Zhang: 00:33:26

Right.

Freddy D: 00:33:26

Because they're there to collect a paycheck.

Joanna Zhang: 00:33:28

Yeah, yeah. Because that plies to the kids education. I always feel like while I was young I didn't really love study.

But when I grew up, I actually studied the financial planning very hard. I realized that there's something in our heart we truly really value and have a passion. No one need to put anything on top of us.

You know, like we just in a drop to do it. And same as our kids. I feel like if they don't have a drive, no one can force them. But if they have a drive, no one can stop them.

Same as our team members. I think at the end of the day, it's about respect. Truly respect everyone's feeling.

And that's why our business called Operations Genius in saying that. Because we wanted to help our clients focus on the genius and help our team members to focus on the genius.

Because we believe energy management even more important than time management.

When we in that state, heart flow state, we've got it to be more energized and wanted to have more inner drive to contribute, to create, to collaborate, to really grow together. Yeah.

Freddy D: 00:34:28

Yeah. It goes back to the racing rowing team. Everybody's got the energy there.

Everybody's on the same mission, but they're energized and they feel appreciated.

One of the things I wrote in my book Creating Business Superfans, one of my quotes is people will crawl through broken glass for appreciation and recognition, but unfortunately, it's not given enough.

Joanna Zhang: 00:34:47

Yeah.

Freddy D: 00:34:48

And it's one thing I always say, hey, Joanna, thank you so much for the extra effort. I really appreciate the extra work that you did. You feel great. Okay. It's nice.

But it's another thing to say, hey, everybody, I want to take a moment to recognize Joanna for the extra effort that she did on this particular project. Because of her, our customers happy she helped them get through this particular project, etc. Completely different dynamic. You feel like a rock star.

The team is excited for you. And at the same time, the team was going to want to level up because they want to be that person that gets recognized in front of everybody else.

So everybody levels up. Yeah.

Joanna Zhang: 00:35:29

So true. We actually created a leadership board program within our business. And then everybody is actually based on different behaviors.

We have a checkers and every time we have overall team meeting, that's very exciting time that everybody see who is a genius of the month. What a leadership board everyone's on. There's not much like a price, whatever it is, but it's like everyone has a direction to go for.

And I think that's part of the either dry part to get better.

Freddy D: 00:35:54

Yeah, but you made it fun. That's the part of the other thing it needs to be fun.

And so when it's fun, people are excited about it, they look forward to it and that's how you pull people up and that's how your team is helping companies level up because of the fact of the resources that you're helping them take on, the things that allows them to free up and become more strategic about their business growth.

Joanna Zhang: 00:36:18

Yeah, yeah. That's our mission and passion too.

Because we don't just wanted to be a task doer, we wanted to become a long term partner on the side to help business grow, you know, navigate through different period difficulties or challenges whatsoever. We call it. No matter how much they needed us from different period, we're always there. That's the thing.

We wanted to have a peace of mind, provide a peace of mind to our clients.

Freddy D: 00:36:40

So Joanna has been a great conversation as we come to the end here. How can people find you?

Joanna Zhang: 00:36:45

I think the easiest way just find me on LinkedIn and just put Joanna Jiang over there. If there's a multiple of me, just put operations beside it. I believe the right me will show up.

Freddy D: 00:36:54

Thank you so much for your time. Great conversation. Definitely would love to have you on the show down the road again.

Joanna Zhang: 00:36:59

Thank you so much. See you.

Freddy D: 00:37:03

Today's conversation with Joanna was a powerful reminder that real business growth doesn't come from doing more. It comes from letting go of the right things. Joanna showed us that delegation isn't about losing control.

It's about creating space for leadership, alignment and trust. For service based business owners, this matters more than ever.

When you stop trying to be the bottleneck and start empowering the right people around you, your business shifts from survival mode into sustainable growth. That's how you build teams that don't just execute, but elevate your entire operation.

And that's exactly what we talk about here on Business Superfans building businesses that work with you, not because you're exhausted. If you enjoyed today's conversation, make sure to hit subscribe so you don't miss future episodes packed with insights like this.

Don't wait another minute. Join the Entrepreneur Prosperity Hub right now on School. Completely free to join and claim your free Service Provider Prosperity Playbook.

A hundred plus page guide designed to help you turn service into scalable, predictable prosperity.

Join us@schoolskoo.com eprosperityhub inside you'll get conversations, tools and weekly growth plays to help you shift from doing everything yourself to leading a business that works smoothly, predictably and profitably.

Freddy D: 00:38:26

Thanks for tuning in today. I'm grateful you're here.

Freddy D: 00:38:28

Part of the business superfans movement. Every listen, every action you take gets you one step closer to building your own superfan.

Intro: 00:38:38

We hope you took away some useful knowledge from today's episode of the Business Super Fans Podcast. Join us on the next episode as we continue guiding you on your journey to achieve flourishing success in business.