The Messy Middle Of Change - Part Two
Change is hard. Not changing will be harder.
- Kellie parks
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I recently told you about my messy middle of changing two of my workhorse apps.
Today I’m going to chat about the messy middle of changing up a system and automating it (or lack of ) to accommodate my new niche.
Let’s revisit a few pointers for change management to help you get through the messy middle, just a little less messily.
Framework for change management.
Why do you need/want the change?
What is your desired outcome of the change?
What will success feel like?
What is your plan to implement the change?
What steps, processes and technology need to be laid out?
Who are the stakeholders that need to be involved?
How are you going to communicate and engage them?
How will you measure your success?
ROEFs (return on effort), ROEMs (return on emotions), ROIs and KPIs…
Tips for change management.
The hardest part of going for a run is putting on your shoes.
Start small
Begin with the elements of a change that will cause the least disruption and build from there
Be patient with the messy middle - sometimes really, really patient…
Give yourself grace
Even the best-laid plans can (will) go awry, but your business won’t likely burn to the ground with change failures
Celebrate your change successes!
The messy middle of changing up my processes for my new niche.
Reason for change:
My niche is something I am passionate about - working with accounting firms to set owners free from the time & pressure of doing their firm’s books - accounting for accountants.
I thought I was pretty schmarmy when setting up my Discovery Form and File Review processes before I released my new website into the wild. It was critical to do them first, as I wanted the initial contact points to be seamless for accounting firm owners interested in my services. We all want our first contact to be great, but because I talk about this very topic to accounting professionals, I wanted it to be extra special - otherwise, I would feel like a hack-talking-head.
My onboarding process for SMBs worked well for many years, but I needed to change it up because accountants and bookkeepers had different needs from SMBs, so my questions and requests had to be revised in my Discovery Form. I reworked the form, tested it, had a few friendies test it, then added nice big buttons to my website so folks could access it seamlessly. I did the same with my File Review Request Form. Zapier tied the File Review one to a tight process in Financial Cents so everything would be automated and communicated cleanly.
Except it didn’t play out that way.
TL;DR - so you can go directly to the happy ending.
A tech feature update led to a cascade of broken automation.
Messy middle:
The process was solid, but I had a few automation fails all at once - and that once was when I was away on a trip in a very different time zone than my usual one.
Of course - because that’s when these fails happen, amirite!?
Typeform restructured their form submission features, and responses didn’t get emailed to me
Typeform changed “notifications” to “follow-ups” so that you had more options for following up - good news
But that broke the email notifications that should have come to me and the prospect - bad news
I never received email notifications, and those submission emails triggered Zaps* to a few other apps
There is a second layer of notification and Zapping for me
When you answer Qs on my Discovery form indicating we should get to know each other better, you wind up at an end screen with a booking link, and that booking notification gets emailed to me and dropped in my GCal
But a few people who made it to that ending didn’t book with me (I need to figure out my messaging on the end screen better, obviously), so I had no idea those folks had filled out my form
The File Review Form had the same issue
I wasn’t getting notified until I saw the payments drop into my account (it’s a paid-upfront gig)
I had a trigger from the File Review Form submission email* that kicked off a contact creation (if one didn’t already exist) in Financial Cents so they could access their secure portal
Again, without the submission notification email that Zap didn’t run
This meant someone who ordered the File Review couldn’t seamlessly access their FC portal because they had not been auto-Zap-added as a contact in FC - gah!
Change wins:
I was actually kind of pouty, thinking I wasn’t doing a great job of imparting my value when, in fact, the starting point of my automation was broken. I’m still honing my value statement, but it was a win that it was solid enough for peeps to start a discovery process with me :-}
Typeform is still one of my favourite apps despite the failures
The end-user experience is lovely - it flows, and the conditional logic (personalizes the form based on previous answers) and the logic jumps are awesome
The logic jumps (answer questions in certain ways, and you move to different questions, skip questions and go to different endings) enable me to ensure I am not using others’ or my precious time to meet when I can’t bring value to them
We only work in QBO files, so it is the first question we ask in our Discovery Form
If someone answers “no,” they move directly to an end screen that says, “Thank you for contacting us, but we are not a good fit for your firm. We don't feel we would bring value to your needs. We wish you a profitable and rewarding business journey!”
BTW - this would not be a good idea, having such a tight form, if you are looking to scale mightily - I am only looking to add a few perfect-fit clients
I often speak about systemization being more important than automation and exercise caution where an automation failure could outweigh the benefits
This is a good example of the system itself running well - I could apply the Financial Cents project template manually, and the rest of the process chugged along nicely - once I realized I needed it to start…
The automation failure was embarrassing, and I lost a few prospect opportunities, but it was not a critical failure
No misinformation or secure information was sent out
I could correct the automation process quickly
I will find new prospects, and they will have a better experience
I am still in the messy middle.
Of course, misery loves company, so some of you are nodding along at my messy middle experience and may feel a little better knowing I share your pain of change failures.
And this is all a little weird. I now have accounting and bookkeeping firms (you) as my bookkeeping niche, along with selling templates to them (you), doing tech and process consulting with them (you) and speaking at conferences to them (you) about tech and processes.
Clearly, I love partnering with y’all!
But, my tech and process failures leave me with my face hanging out, my dignity exposed, and opens the door for those who aren’t my biggest fans to yell, “Ha! I knew she was a hack!”. That’s okay, though - I believe in myself to correct my failures, learn from them, and help others learn from them!
I am big on change; I am always iterating on my business models, app stack, systems and processes - so, of course, that means there are trials along the way. But as I love to say (so much so that I have trademarked it);
“Change is hard. Not changing will be harder.”
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Just because it’s simple does not mean it’s easy!
It may seem obvious that you must implement or improve your processes and technology choices for the above workshops. Still, many of us haven’t because we need support and accountability to get them done. Fires are burning, and it is easier to deal with those if you haven’t committed to a group setting to get schtuff done.
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Simply yours, Kellie :-}
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*I wanted a trigger from the email submission, not from Typeform directly, because the logic jumps lead to different endings, and I only created a Financial Cents contact from one of the endings.
