Boss Your Business - The Podcast

Yvonne Heimann [00:00:01]:
Welcome back to another exciting episode of Boss Your Business Mindset! I'm your host, Yvonne Heimann, and today I have the pleasure of nerding out with Enoma Osakue, a fellow data and systems enthusiast whom I connected with through the Vetted Consultant Program over at ClickUp. Now don't worry, yes we are going nerdy, but we are also going normal people nerdy. We have a lot of information for you on how you really can build a data-driven business and make it easy.

Yvonne Heimann [00:00:33]:
In this engaging conversation, Enoma takes us through her journey from a childhood filled with coding and creativity to becoming the founder of her solo agency, Stackrie. Enoma shares her captivating anecdotes from her life, including a surprising visit to her high school friend's parents and the impactful role her tech-savvy brother played in shaping her career path. As we delve deeper, we discuss the evolution of software tools, the challenges of tech adoption in businesses, and the importance of understanding core business principles.

Yvonne Heimann [00:01:10]:
This episode is packed with valuable insights and practical advice to help you scale your operations and achieve your business goals. So, let's dive in and start bossing your business together!

Yvonne Heimann [00:01:29]:
I am so happy to have you today, Enoma. For everybody out there, we connected through the Reddit consultant program over at ClickUp. That's how we actually connected. We realized both of our love for data and systems and all the things. And here we are. I get to nerd out with you on my podcast. However, my audience already knows the first question I ask every of my guests. How did you get here? Did Little Enoma know she's going to be a data nerd?

Enoma Osakue [00:02:05]:
Oh, my goodness. So, funny enough, I went back home to visit my parents in Houston, Texas, last year, and I just decided to drop in on my friends from high school, their parents, because I was in the neighborhood, and I surprised them by knocking on the door. And her dad swings the door open and says, Enoma, oh, my goodness. I'm so shocked. How are you? Are you running your own business yet? I was shocked. I was floored. I thought, I was surprised at them, and I was like, what a unique question to ask. I haven't seen you in ten years.

Enoma Osakue [00:02:40]:
But, yes, why are you asking me this, of all things? And that kind of. I never thought of myself as being the person who was going to start my own business. Like, I didn't. I actually, it probably took me a long time to identify with the label or the term entrepreneur. I was at a conference once for entrepreneurs, and I was talking about entrepreneurship, but I didn't see myself as one. I'm just a really nerdy girl, is what I thought. And I really like, I like structure. I like systems.

Enoma Osakue [00:03:12]:
I like efficiency. And so, you know, when I was a kid, I think this really shaped the way that I think. My brother taught the three of us girls, his three younger siblings, how to code. I was four. My oldest sister at the time was eight. But he taught us basic, mostly so that he could. And you can make a great snake game in basic, okay. And I know that because I did it when I was a kid. So he wanted to play his Nintendo in peace, and he just needed to entertain us with something over the summer, and I continued, you know, my love of code coding website layouts and MySpace templates and layouts like that.

Enoma Osakue [00:03:55]:
Yeah. Yeah.

Yvonne Heimann [00:03:56]:
I feel like you're telling my story. Oh, my God. Yes.

Enoma Osakue [00:04:00]:
We were babies, and so was the Internet. The Internet was young back then, too. And so I've always been in that space of building or creating things online. But I really have a passion for business. And so I did, you know, I did a program in high school for digital media and marketing, and I went to business school, and I really didn't have much outlet for tech. Like I was doing my own DevOps, but I was mostly focused on doing business and rolled that into my first job outside of college, which was working with a branding and strategy agency here in New York City. And look, the struggle was so real. I was looking at, you know, different apps and different tools and platforms in the business context.

Enoma Osakue [00:04:46]:
And this was at a time when a lot of apps were pivoting from desktop to web applications either for the first time or it was kind of early feature sets were not very rich, or they were, tools were antiquated. And I just felt like there was a gap. There was so much that was possible in low or no code tools, and businesses were out here hand shackled behind them, often smaller, medium businesses or more nimble organizations. And I just remember feeling like everything is so inefficient. Something has to be done. We need to put a stop to this. So that's what kind of trickled me into. I know that software, web software in particular, can solve problems that businesses have, but also navigating what tool can do what and how best to do it, that's time consuming.

Enoma Osakue [00:05:35]:
And at the time, I hadn't considered how much my experience with code and working with databases, MySQL and things like that informed my understanding of tools, of applications like Airtable and ClickUp, until I started testing out recommendations or templates. And I said, this doesn't work. This doesn't make any sense. Some of this stuff is nonsense, in fact, right, where, you know, you could build a CRM this way and you can link things in this other way. And there was just, and there was a limit, right? There was obviously there are things you can do, but should you do? You know, not necessarily a popular approach to tools as they're selling them, but it is absolutely the problem businesses run into when you're using them. That's where I live. I'm not, you know, I love products, I love SaaS products, but I'm not in love with them for the sake of them. I want the result.

Enoma Osakue [00:06:34]:
I'm very results oriented. And that led me to actually having now my own solo person agency where I'm trying to get the best value and the best return for these small teams. Whether, you know, your small team in a big organization or your whole company is one small team, or maybe you have a small team of people who run other organizations. I do have a couple clients like that. And it really just is saying, please don't struggle the wrong way. There's always going to be a fight. But, like, choose your fight, you know, don't fight with both Slack and Teams. Choose.

Enoma Osakue [00:07:08]:
Choose your fight. I know, I know.

Yvonne Heimann [00:07:11]:
I feel like you're reading down my bio. This is why we get along so well, where it's like, yeah, can I use a tool like ClickUp as a CRM? Yeah, I do, because I work with a small amount of one on one clients. But we already got, we already running into the problem where now CRM has so many different meanings. Like, oh, I'm looking for a CRM. I'm like, hold, stop. What is your perception of the word CRM?

Enoma Osakue [00:07:42]:
Yes.

Yvonne Heimann [00:07:43]:
Let's talk about that first.

Enoma Osakue [00:07:46]:
Mm hmm. And, okay, let's talk about the fact that the landscape of SaaS apps has actually shifted so much even in. I first came across a YouTube channel in 2019, and I know, and, you know, we were looking at a different landscape and different functionality than we have available to us today. I think one of the areas where those of us who are kind of a little bit on the inside of tools and software like this, we fail to tell people that what you are trying to accomplish might look different in the different industry that you're in, at the different size that you're in, and that it is okay to pitch your tent where it serves you today and have to pick back up later. It is okay to choose a tool that fits your one person, three person, scrappy, nimble team. This will not take you to $100 million in revenue. That's okay. Wait till you get there.

Yvonne Heimann [00:08:37]:
Oh, and how often do we have the conversations? I'm like, yeah, I bounce always between the big picture goal and where are we right now? Right? And like, my brain constantly bounces between these two. And sometimes clients are like, wait, what? Like, don't worry about it. Let me just talk it out really quick. I'll give you the answer in five minutes. Once I made sense of everything that's happening in my brain, because literally my brain jumps between those big goals where they want to take their business and where are we right now if somebody doesn't work with them in that level? I've seen it so often where it's like, yeah, but I don't want to buy this right now, or I don't want to sign up for this right now because this is coming out. I'm like, it doesn't matter. There's always going to be something new. There's always going to be updates.

Yvonne Heimann [00:09:22]:
There's always going to be changes. You need to do now just do.

Enoma Osakue [00:09:28]:
What serves you now exactly.

Yvonne Heimann [00:09:30]:
And then you adjust, and that's where we're working with people like us. It's like we pay attention to the system and the tool is just what supports the system. You can take the system anywhere. Do I. Do I love ClickUp? Hell yeah. Can I run the same thing in Monday? Probably. Can I make it work in airtable? Maybe. Notion? Could be.

Yvonne Heimann [00:09:54]:
But it's. Again, what are you trying to accomplish? What's the goal? Is like, some of my clients joke when they see me post on LinkedIn. It's like, hey, which tool is the best? And they see me post, and then it's like, Yvi is gonna ask in a second, what's your goal? What's your purpose? What are you trying to accomplish? Because 95% of people just give you recommendation based on their liking. That doesn't mean it feeds in your goal or your personality or your team.

Enoma Osakue [00:10:25]:
I often, you know, I talk with my technical advisor and we talk about the fact that the system is not the tool, but often people will learn systems through a tool. There's. So for somebody who doesn't maybe see that relationship, you might think this is a chicken and the egg situation, but I don't even believe in that dilemma. It's not a dilemma, obviously, chickens lay eggs. So we need to know what the system is. And that system, the process, actually a to z, will give birth to the system itself. And the system can give you many, many eggs. But, you know, I think that small business often, or small teams, because you have innovative leadership, or you have people who take initiative, who are willing to see problems differently, we make the mistake of believing that business operations requires an innovative approach where it doesn't. Businesses, whether for profits or nonprofits.

Enoma Osakue [00:11:28]:
I'm a Peter Drucker fan, okay? And if, you know, somebody's watching and they're like, I don't know who Peter Drucker is, it's Jim Collins. But, you know, instead of it being for the New York Times, it was like written for business school. Businesses run on similar principles. It doesn't matter if you're for profit or nonprofit, startup or scale up enterprise or multi, you know, philanthropic offices. There are some good core principles. So that's what we mean when we talk about, what is this process that's going on? Do you sell a product? Do you sell a service? Do you sell to people? Do you sell to other businesses? We are trying to understand the process so that we can actually begin to identify what the system that serves you is and you is relative. I often, you know, coach with my clients. I can think of several tools that can do what you need to do.

Enoma Osakue [00:12:20]:
Often there are multiple, but the bigger question is, who needs to do it? If the team. I work with a lot of people that I might call tech allergic. There are platforms that I will not recommend to a company or an organization where you have a good portion of the people who do the work struggling to navigate a tool it's capable, but the interface or the you know, something here is going to mean no matter how much time, money and training you pour in, you won't get the results. And remember, I am a result oriented person. I don't care how cute the platform looks, I don't care how easy the onboarding process is, the flashy colors in the email, if it won't actually produce measurable results, good data. I mean, what are we doing here? I ask people all the time, do you know if you run a for profit or nonprofit? Most people think that that is a strategy decision. Your books, your P&L will answer that question for you.

Yvonne Heimann [00:13:24]:
Did I mention, guys, we know Enoma and I we're just on the same exact wavelength where it's like, if you don't know your processes and systems and that I've been preaching that for a while, it's like ClickUp is going to tell you really quick because ClickUp is not a box of project management system, you're not going to have a problem in Trello. Don't get me wrong, because it's more of a box. It's an easy to follow step by step guide. ClickUp is open. If you do not know what's happening in your systems and processes, you're going to get frustrated really quick because it's going to show you that you don't know what's happening in your business.

Enoma Osakue [00:14:00]:
Funny enough, I recommend the tool I never would use to people who don't know. Just try basecamp. Basecamp is designed to help you accomplish anything. I don't use it. I knew I ran into it and I was like, no, this isn't for me. But it'll help you if you don't know until you figure out what it is you need and you don't need.

Yvonne Heimann [00:14:28]:
Yep, that's where often enough, I'm like me in the digital space with a lot of content creators that I work with. I'm like, go start in Trello. It's a nice box. It is easy for you to comprehend. Go get your feet wet with project management. And then we export it and we import it in ClickUp. When you want to grow up. There are always ways. But that's where it comes back down again to the human aspect.

Yvonne Heimann [00:14:55]:
The best tool is the one that actually is being used. So it's like, I can build you all the things. And don't get me wrong. And even in my own business, I have backup processes, so I don't have to micromanage my team to make sure pieces are named the right way and all the things. There is a lot we can do. But you, you always need to think about the human in the process if you're going to be fighting your team for the next year to implement something, or you don't even know how to get team buy in to have them see the value. Because again, the moment you bring up automations and where we want to make their life easier, the team is going to be potentially right away, I'm like, you want to take my job? You just want to. You just want to automate my job away.

Yvonne Heimann [00:15:50]:
So I always love talking with people that like me, focus on that human aspect of all the nerdiness that we do. I'm like, that's. That's what, in the end, makes or breaks it, we can make magic happen. But if the human isn't involved in the process, and it made whole in the process, nothing is gonna work.

Enoma Osakue [00:16:13]:
Look, I love that language made whole. My current inspiration right now is actually drawing from more traditional customer service roles. And I'll give you two kind of examples. I've got a client, and they run a restaurant, and I had just come out of a very taxing project with an organization that was in the nonprofit sector, where there was a lot of friction in adoption. And a lot of it just came from a feeling that everything was getting away too quickly. Everything. A lot of the tools were new. How can we trust it? We've seen things before.

Enoma Osakue [00:16:45]:
Or my favorite complaint, I just don't like it. I feel like this should be somewhere else. So I had dealt with a lot of that kind of needing high touch to get people to tech adoption. And I was at this restaurant, and somebody spilled a glass of water. And what I saw next spoke to my heart, warmed my spirit, hugged my soul. I saw, like, no less than four people take action in that restaurant. There was, you know, there was a young man, and he was responsible for taking orders, and he rushed over, you know, and he had extra napkins, and he was helping to clean up just to spill on the table. Another individual ran and got a mop so that they could mop up the floor.

Enoma Osakue [00:17:30]:
The manager was seated at the table, and he kind of helped to aggregate some napkins from around, you know, the people sitting at the table. But what really got me was the kitchen. In the event that, you know, somebody had spilled some food on, spilled some water on the food, the kitchen was ready with an extra plate or some extra food. And that was a moment of just like, I think in our day to day of living in and out of software, we have forgotten what it actually means to be a team and accomplish work. One, the manager of a restaurant really doesn't have, doesn't have to contribute, especially with the team that's on it like that to a spill. But there was no hierarchy or rank of I'm not doing it, I'm not doing it that way. It's not, you know, that didn't exist. But secondly, it was the fact that it didn't take 18 slack messages, confirmations back and forth.

Enoma Osakue [00:18:20]:
Is this where the napkins go? And that was what spoke to me. I love customer service roles. When I worked in retail, I was thriving, living my best life. And it helps me to see that that's really what we're trying to recreate by purchasing tools and serving the people who serve our customers. And sometimes in me as my own solo agency, I had to remind myself I was doing a little too much work to make tools work. I need to serve myself so I can serve other people well. I need to serve my contractors so I can serve other people well. And then the second, of course, that was an inspiration to me, was just talking to my mom.

Enoma Osakue [00:19:00]:
My mom is a nurse and I asked her what it's been like for her in the nursing field over the last 30 years as new technology has completely and radically changed the industry. And I shared with her some of the pushbacks, some of the kind of conflict that arises in the workplace when you implement a new tool or you set a standard that everyone books a conference room, you know, we're going to use Outlook, we're going to use Google Suite to book the conference rooms. And my mom said when it comes down to in service, particularly within the hospital, you're usually given advance notice. They'll hire out so that people don't have to do your responsibilities and train at the same time. You're given a window of time to adapt, to learn the new tools and then that is it. For the record, our nurses, our healthcare practitioners, most of them are not given a period of grace where they don't feel like learning the new system and so they don't have to, they're expected to operate proficiently with a hard deadline. And I was just thriving hearing about that, the systems and process that goes into that and really thinking about how most of our jobs are not life and death, so we shouldn't treat them like they are in many ways. But when it comes to adaptability and learning on the job, I think that's one of the areas we should learn from life and death industries.

Enoma Osakue [00:20:22]:
What are we waiting for? Don't we want to do the job better? Don't we want to collaborate better? Don't we want to go home earlier?

Yvonne Heimann [00:20:30]:
And that's where hiring and firing comes in. Actually, where we, especially as small and medium sized businesses, we are attached to our business. We started it because of a passion that we have a personal connection to it that you might not have with corporations or other situations where we potentially get too attached. I was too attached to certain processes and people in my business and looking back where I'm like, there was no growth mindset. There was no, I want to do better. I wanna whatever it is, if that is being more efficient, if that is getting better results, whatever it is, just being better. And that growth mindset just wasn't there. And then suddenly when I realized that and I made the change and I brought somebody else on the team, and it was suddenly like, why did I do this? Why? Why? Where? It's like I literally, with one of my coaches where I was like, my new team member just asked me because it was her first month and she just asked me, do you have any feedback from me? Proactively asking me, do you have any feedback for me? Is there anything I can do better?

Enoma Osakue [00:21:58]:
Wow.

Yvonne Heimann [00:22:00]:
And within the first month, I'm like, I'm still just bringing you into the systems. You are still just learning my business and you, okay, we are now talking growth mindset. We are now talking self responsibility. We are talking about taking action on you. I'm like, that becomes a core value in my business. And it's like literally having those check boxes of, okay, what is at the core of my business? To be able to not make that mistake again. I've learned my lesson. I know what I need to look out for now.

Yvonne Heimann [00:22:36]:
So cool. Updating the core values of the company and really checking. I don't like checking on productivity because you know what? I can, I can throw out all kinds of stuff and it doesn't mean anything. We know the difference between productivity and efficiency. Just checking things off your list is not going to do anything. What's the actual result? And really starting to implement the people framework from EOS that I like because it asks, hey, how has the team member done with the company core values over the last week or over the last month? And I know that based on our core values, we gonna get the return of investment and we gonna get the growth that we are looking for.

Enoma Osakue [00:23:20]:
Right.

Yvonne Heimann [00:23:25]:
And now suddenly you evaluate your team members completely different, where it's like getting to the point of, yeah, they going to grow with us. They want to learn new things, they want to be better. And it's not going to be a constant fight of, I don't want to do this. I like it how it was. I'm like, cool, fine, then go to a company that's still running in the 1980s. Bye.

Enoma Osakue [00:23:49]:
Or even, and, you know, I want to dive into this topic of growth more, but right where we are, I think it's worth noting that if you come across a company product or service, and you like what it is and what it's about, but the company is pivoting, you can take that knowledge with you and go somewhere else. There was a volunteer opportunity. I've been doing a lot of work for a magazine, but the magazine hit an inflection point where they were changing their target audience. And I was very passionate about the old version of that magazine. I was not interested, and I knew it. Like, I just felt it in my spirit when I was informed about that change. This new vision is not really what I signed up for, and it's not what I'm interested in. That's okay.

Enoma Osakue [00:24:33]:
Still friends with that business leader, by the way. Not just an owner, but a leader. True leader. One of the best champions in my life. One, our relationship didn't end just because my contribution to a business or project changed or was eliminated. But two, that's actually, that's our mind, our body, the universe. That's communicating something about where we feel and find alignment. And that's a good thing.

Enoma Osakue [00:25:00]:
When we start to notice a lack of alignment, that's information we should take in. It's a form of data and make data driven insights about it. So that's where I was going to go with this growth thing. What if I'm a business leader and I say, I want to grow, I'm going to take this company to the sky, to the moon, and I want to see growth, and I just, you know, put it out there and walk away? Is that growth? How do I know what growth is?

Yvonne Heimann [00:25:25]:
Yeah. And that's. I love how you brought up that data focus. With me, having done my work with myself over the last years, for that matter. I'm constantly working on myself. Right. I've had a lot of conversations of when we work on ourselves, when we get those triggers, where I'm. I've been cautiously working with my coaches and people that I work with, not using the word trigger anymore, because, like you, I'm like, it's.

Yvonne Heimann [00:25:53]:
It's a data point. It's a data point we need to figure out when we have a reaction to something. Is that our intuition or is that our Gut? Is. Is it our Gut? Does that mean it's just uncomfortable? Meaning it's a fear reaction or is it something we really don't like? And it's. It's. I just love how you. How you said, I'm like, it's. It's just data.

Yvonne Heimann [00:26:17]:
It's just data. So now ask the question, what is that data telling you? And once you know what that data is telling you, does it align with you or not? And business, the same thing. Data is what's going to tell you if you are going in the right direction, if you are growing, if you're stagnant, or if you're going backwards.

Enoma Osakue [00:26:35]:
I love that. Like, I'm a religious person, and I think oftentimes we, those. If you're. If you have people who are listening, kind of thinking, like, how do I look at this and see it as data? You can take facts about yourself, your situation, your reality. You can check that. You can also. You can be a religious person, and you can read the room and then pray, center yourself, and make a decision about moving forward. I love doctors Cloud and Townsend.

Enoma Osakue [00:27:05]:
They have great books on this. We don't have to, you know, we don't have to sit resting on our laurels, feeling like everything that's happening around us is happening around us and we don't affect it. We can be empowered people. We could be empowered in life, and we ought to be if you are leading a company or if you happen to be a manager, because being a boss and being a leader is not the same. We're not going into it. We already know this is true. You are required to make empowered decisions. I love data driven insights for that reason, because, look, this year I thought that I was serving a type of customer.

Enoma Osakue [00:27:44]:
I took my data, put it into a new CRM, and got additional insights about the profiles of the companies I was serving. So when I started my business, I mostly pitched to solopreneurs, small businesses, micro businesses. My CRM told me that my ten most successful projects and the ten clients I've worked with, the most, returning customers were all multimillion dollar businesses. It gave me feedback that I did not already perceive. That said to me, actually my target customer or the person that I'm kind of oriented towards serving in a high quality way who wants me to come back is going to be small enterprises or small teams in size, but not small in revenue. That was a game changer for me, and I wouldn't have known it if I wasn't willing to look at the facts objectively and then see what they were telling me about myself, my past projects and determine if that's what I wanted to do moving forward.

Yvonne Heimann [00:28:44]:
We could go on forever on data, because again, it's like sisters from another mister. We both love data and tools way too much. Now tell my audience, anybody that's listening that is ready to really dive into data to really grow their business, to go work with you. Where can they find you?

Enoma Osakue [00:29:05]:
You can find me online at stackrie.co. You can also find me on LinkedIn, Enoma Osakue, that's my personal profile, but Stackrie's on LinkedIn too, and you can newly find Stackrie on YouTube. It's not a very robust channel in that sense. But what I do love to do is to try to educate again to meet the business owner or meet the operator of a business where you're at and continue to provide support in talking about tools and how they work. So those are three places you can find me.

Yvonne Heimann [00:29:34]:
And you guys know what's coming now. You will have all the links in the description, all easily clickable for you. Make sure you subscribe and follow because I have a whole bunch of more amazing guests and ladies coming on. You don't want to miss it out. Enoma, thanks so much for nerding out with me. Always fun to chat. Thanks so much for joining me today.

Enoma Osakue [00:29:58]:
Love you Yvi. Thank you for having me.