Intro: Broadcasting live from the Business RadioX studios in Atlanta, Georgia. It’s time for High Velocity Radio.

Lee Kantor: Lee Kantor here. Another episode of High Velocity Radio, and this is going to be a good one. Today on the show we have the founder and CEO of Behind the Screens, Tamara Munoz. Welcome.

Tamara Munoz: Thank you so much. I’m so excited to be here.

Lee Kantor: Well, tell us a little bit before we get too far into things about your practice. How are you serving folks?

Tamara Munoz: Absolutely. So we support small business owners with the back end operations of their business. So we’re an operational partner for CEOs who are ready to get out of the weeds. We come in, we build sustainable systems structure and the team support that small businesses need. So that way the CEO stops being the bottleneck. And we then handle the daily operation so that they can focus on delivery, marketing, sales and everything that’s needed to grow the business.

Lee Kantor: So what’s your backstory? How’d you get involved in kind of the operations side of business?

Tamara Munoz: Oh my goodness. So I have been in operations since I was a teenager back in the day. I was in corporate operations, so I went straight from high school to college to study business. And during that time, I got sucked into food and beverage operations, which then turned into management operations. And I spent about a decade in that role, and it was a incredible time in my career, and also a one way ticket to burnout. And while I was at the tail end of my career in the corporate space, I was running high volume stores, big teams, massive operations. And there was a lot of nonstop work. No work life balance. I was getting sick. Uh, there was a lot of tragedy that was going on at the time. Personally, I lost a family member. And bereavement policies aren’t very flexible. Uh, especially when you’re at a higher level role where there really isn’t too many options to replace you in the business so that the operation can keep going while you’re grieving. And things kept happening, and it felt like the universe was telling me that it was time to move on. There was a fire at one of the stores that I was managing on Christmas Day, so I had to leave Christmas Day with my family to go handle that. And it was around that time, as things kept happening where I realized that there had to be a better way. There was no reason for for me to keep running the way that I was running, running ragged, getting sick, missing out with my family.

Tamara Munoz: So I then turned into the online space, and I realized that there was a place for me here, because so many small businesses are doing incredible work, and their business owners are actually running ragged themselves because they’re doing all of the operations. And most of these business owners are not operators, they’re service people. So they’re excellent at what they do, their practices, their managers. They are speakers, consultants, teachers, educators, but they’re not true operators in creating the systems that can support their business. I am my background for over a decade was doing just that. So once I came into the online space, it was very easy for me to find a niche where I can support business owners in creating those sustainable systems and creating those processes so that they can remove themselves from the weeds of their operations from the trenches, and move into a role that allowed them to actually practice what they want to practice and serve their clients how they want to serve them, but also grow the business in a sustainable way and feel fully supported. And sometimes that growth looks monetary, and some other times that growth looked like they were able to just work a 6 to 8 hour day, 4 to 5 days a week instead of 14 plus hours, 6 to 7 days a week. So that is the transition from corporate to the online space. And it’s been a lot of fun.

Lee Kantor: So when you decided to make that change, were you thinking that your initial clients would be other corporates, or did you see the opportunity for small to midsize businesses as kind of the ideal prospect for you?

Tamara Munoz: It was small and medium sized businesses from the beginning. Those are the businesses that truly need this type of fractional support that we offer. Um, financially it makes the most sense, but also operationally, they don’t have the infrastructure at all to be able to scale, whereas, um, like corporate businesses already have a lot of this set. And of course, it’s it would be amazing to go in and be able to advise. And we have done that a lot of advising for higher level businesses and, um, corporations. However, my passion is truly in the small business, medium sized business, growing teams, leadership like growing, um, our CEOs and bringing them into a space of true leadership and visionary foresight for their business. So then that way, they’re able to enjoy the fruits of their labor and not necessarily end up on that hamster wheel where the resentment comes in. Once your business is stuck in a certain place for a little too long.

Lee Kantor: Now, when you’re working with those folks, I would imagine a lot of them, you know, might have hired a VA and said, that’s my chief operations officer. Now, um, because they’re doing all the admin stuff. Are you working? Kind of at a higher level. Like a more strategic level to really put the right people in the right seats. Because a CEO is not necessarily a VA.

Tamara Munoz: Right. So a virtual assistant is a tasker. And they are very necessary in businesses. They are the ones that keep the lights on and keep your inbox clear and your calendar managed. The work that we do is at a higher level where the strategic systems are put in place. A virtual assistant thrives when they are working within a system and when they have documented processes that are optimized. So then that way we get the most bang for our buck for the services that we’re paying for. So if a virtual assistant comes in and you don’t have processes in place and you just tell them, hey, so I need you to get X, Y, and Z done, that person’s going to do their best with the tasks that they have, but at the end of the day, they’re taskers, they’re not operational strategists and they don’t have the experience to create scalable processes. So they are just going to do what they can with what they know. Now, when you get a virtual assistant who is killer at getting things done, and you plug them into a system that is specifically designed for your business that is optimized. So that way it is efficient and consistent throughout. They’re going to kill it. They’re going to do such an incredible job, and they’re going to feel very supported in that role. Something that we see very often is when virtual assistants are put into a business and are expected to function at a higher level than they want to function. So at the strategist level, they get burned out. And there’s a lot of turnover there. And on the business side, there’s a lot of expenses that come with turnover. Having to replace them, having to do the work yourself while you’re finding a replacement. It gets very messy very quickly.

Lee Kantor: So let’s talk about the CEO of some of these organizations you’re approaching. Are they what’s kind of a pain they’re having. What’s a frustration they’re having where they should, uh, call your team to at least have an exploratory discovery call.

Tamara Munoz: Yeah, absolutely. So the biggest thing is they are still the linchpin in their business. So every single task that a team member has to do goes through them. Every single decision that has to be made in the business, regardless of how small it is, has to go through them. They are still the ones that are project managing everything, managing the timelines, managing the contractors. They are still the ones at the end of the day are still managing their inbox. They might have a VA in there, but their VA is still circling back. Hey, I don’t know how to respond to this. What do we do in this case? What happens here? They are the ones that on the weekend, if something breaks, they have to come in and step in and fix it. So they are very much involved in every single facet of the business. And there’s overwhelm. So if you find yourself stressed out, overwhelmed, being the only point of contact for the business, being the only one with answers, there comes this this feeling of frustration. And also you find yourself that you don’t have time for revenue driving activities because you are so stuck in the administrative piece of your business, so you can’t go out there and network. Go on podcasts, expand your, um, your worth because you can’t be having these sales conversations when you’re stuck in an inbox or, um, figuring out software or walking your team member through something. You’re missing that key operational partner that is the bridge between the ops and yourself.

Lee Kantor: So say I’m a CEO of an organization. I come to this realization. I have those frustrations. I call you up, I contact you. What does that onboarding. What are some of the questions you’re going to ask me to help better serve me and to give me the outcome I desire.

Tamara Munoz: So the first thing is, what are the things that you’re that you are personally handling in your business? And usually this is where business owners brain dump. And they let me know all of the things. I digest that for them and let them know exactly what their job description. As the owner and chief operating officer or chief executive officer of their business is supposed to be, and it’s supposed to look like from there. In terms of onboarding, we do a full audit of the business, so we go through every single pillar of the business, from offer suite to what you have going on administrative wise to marketing, sales, delivery, all of the things. So we know exactly what the operational gaps are in the business from where you are today to where you want to be. And then we create a plan of action. So we have a full plan of action. Anywhere from 3 to 6 months is usually what it takes to bridge most of those gaps. And then our team moves in and starts implementing the plan of action once it’s approved by the business owner. But there is a full audit that is done because every business is so individual and every CEO has their own strengths and weaknesses. So those are usually reflected in the business. If they are very strong at marketing and very strong at delivery, but not so strong at time management, project management, team management, we’re going to see that reflected in the business.

Lee Kantor: And then is this a done for you or done with you? Um how does that kind of arrangement work? Are you are you training my virtual assistants or my team members, or is your team actually kind of rolling up their sleeves and doing the work?

Tamara Munoz: Yeah. So this is all done for you. So we come in, we do the full audit, you give us the green light, and then my team comes in and handles all of the implementation if you do have team members. So for example, if you have a virtual assistant on the team as we are on the back end creating these systems. We are having meetings with your team members, getting their buy in, getting their experience in the business, and at the end, we are training them up on the processes, saying that if you don’t have a team member in your business, we can come in and run the operations for however long you’ll have us running things after we set everything up.

Lee Kantor: And are you kind of creating a standard operating procedures for each of the activities in the business as documentation? So if I wanted to franchise or replicate the business, I would have kind of a playbook to do that.

Tamara Munoz: Yep, absolutely. So we create the playbooks, we create the SOPs, and then we make sure that they are written, that there are videos involved so that whoever you plug into the business, we are meeting their needs in terms of, um, visual learners, audio learners, um, they’re able to just go through everything and process it, digest it and be able to execute. They know what it looks like for a job well done. So we have all of that as part of our handoff.

Lee Kantor: Now you mentioned online businesses. Is this kind of tailored to like e-commerce. Is that your kind of sweet spot now?

Tamara Munoz: So we handle a lot of our work is actually with online business owners. Um, who have we work with a lot of e-commerce. We work with coaches, consultants, agencies. We work with, um, practitioners. So doctors, dietitians, accountants, bookkeepers, um, basically anyone who has a online part of their business, we are equipped to support, um, operationally when it comes to the, the administrative stuff and the systems. We’re pretty agnostic. Most most systems are were able to plug them into most businesses. There are of course the outliers. And I am very I’m a very honest person. So if if your business is not a great fit, or if we’re not a great fit for your business, I will let you know and I will point you in the right direction.

Lee Kantor: Now, is there a certain revenue size or, um, it could work for solopreneurs? I would imagine that it doesn’t matter really how many employees they have, but is there a certain revenue size that’s the right fit for your firm?

Tamara Munoz: Yeah. Usually once, um, businesses are hitting that quarter million. So 250,000 is when we start seeing things fall apart. And it’s usually a great time to get us in, plug us into the business. So that way as you continue to scale, you’re able to scale quicker with more piece. But also there’s not a lot of cleanup that happens once your business is hitting that half million to $1 million mark.

Lee Kantor: So that’s where kind of bad habits form.

Tamara Munoz: Yeah, yeah. Bad habits. Um, and then it takes a lot more in terms of the cleanup of the business to get it to where you want it to be. Um, yeah, it takes a whole lot more once you’re getting closer to that million dollar mark. We’re happy to do it. We’re very well versed. We have many clients who come to us close to that million, if not beyond. Um, it’s just knowing that the sooner that you bring us in, the easier it’s going to be.

Lee Kantor: Now, is there a story you can share that maybe illustrates what this looks like in real life? Is there, you know, obviously don’t name the name of the organization, but maybe share what challenge they came to you with and how you were able to help them get to new levels.

Tamara Munoz: Yeah, absolutely. So we have this client, we’ll call her Alex for the for the purposes of the story right now. So she is a practitioner. She is incredible. And when she came to us, she was working anywhere from 14 to 16 hour days, 6 to 7 days a week. So she was working a lot and she was very tired. She and and she had a full team. So she had a virtual assistant. She had a podcast manager, she had, um, a social media manager. And she was still doing all of the work. So she was reworking everything that the team was doing. She found herself having to constantly be communicating the same things over and over and over again. So she came to us. She had been stuck at about half a million for going on two years, and not only that, she was burnt out. She was getting sick. She was very tired. So within 90 days of us being in there, we did the full business audit. We went ahead and created a 90 day roadmap to extract it from the business. So within three months we had extracted her from about 80% of the daily operations. Everything was living in her brain, so all the standard operating procedures were living in her brain, the systems that she had created.

Tamara Munoz: She’s not an operator. She’s a she’s a holistic practitioner. So all of those systems were things that she had patchworked together when she first started her business. And then she just plugged in a virtual assistant into what she had created with no optimization. So we went ahead and we gave everything a facelift, optimized everything that she had trained up her virtual assistant, and it got to the point where her business was scaling so quickly that we had to put one of our online business managers on retainer in her business, and we’ve been there for, at this point, three years just, um, supporting and running the day to day business for her. So now she’s working four days a week. She works anywhere from 4 to 6 hours a day. Her revenue has in the last three years, it has tripled from when we first started and she has now a podcast. She has a very robust email list and, um, she has no issues making money and bringing people in without necessarily adding more work to her plate, because we have a full team that is plugged into the systems that we’ve created.

Lee Kantor: I would imagine one of the benefits of working with you and your firm is that you’re kind of accumulating these best practices across a variety of, um, professional service operations so that you can kind of, you know, choose the right path for new folks based on what you’ve learned from previous folks?

Tamara Munoz: Yeah, absolutely. We have at this point worked with almost 300 different businesses. And when it comes to best practices with different software, um, it’s it’s a lot easier for us now to be able to match the business owner and their specific business to what exactly they need. Everyone is so different. So it’s not cookie cutter at all. I am of the belief that everything needs to be customized to the goals, right? Because like, um, one business owner is going to have completely different goals than the next one and their business is going to be completely different. So for us, it’s it’s been great. And as clients stay with us because a lot of clients stay with us after we set everything up and they we bring in our operators and they run the businesses for our clients. Um, as they stay with us, we evolve. So as we continue to find better, you know, best practices. Even this last year, everything has changed so much in the online space and also with buyer behavior and how the market is moving. We have been able to view trends across the businesses that we’re working in and make strategic shifts as we go and as we grow. And it has really benefited the clients that we have on board.

Lee Kantor: Now, any advice for the folks out there that might think they can do it themselves? Is there some low hanging fruit they can do to have tighter operations?

Tamara Munoz: Absolutely. So the first thing is document everything. And if you think it’s the smallest task in the world, document it. And you don’t have. It doesn’t have to be anything fancy. You can literally use a software like scribe and it will help you create an SOP. It might not be refined, it might not be optimized, but it is documented and out of your head. So it is easy to then it’s easier to delegate to a team member. That’s the first thing. The second thing is to do a time audit on yourself. So as a business owner, take the next two weeks and every single day use a free software like toggle. Toggle. It’s a timer and pop in every task that you do and time yourself. So if you’re in the inbox, just click Type down Inbox Management Start Timer and see how much time you’re actually spending on the operational tasks in your business. It is going to open your eyes to how much time you are spending on things that don’t necessarily move the needle. It’s also going to help you identify exactly who you might have to hire to get some of these things off your plate. So those are my the two lowest hanging fruit that make a big difference when you are first starting out in business, or when you are first starting to think about handling things yourself, document everything and track everything, and then you’ll have a really good idea of what you need to outsource and to who. And you have these documented processes ready to go.

Lee Kantor: Now, you mentioned who the ideal client for your firm is in professional services, uh, etc. but who is that referral source? Do you have referral partners that you collaborate with?

Tamara Munoz: We do. We do. So most of our business comes from referral partners. Great people know great people. So usually most of our clients have referred anywhere from 1 to 3 of their peers to us. And it has been, um, we’re really just very fortunate in that way.

Lee Kantor: So it’s your existing clients refer clients to you.

Tamara Munoz: But we also have, um, referral partners outside of this. So we work with complimentary services. So complimentary service providers, a lot of the times ads agencies, marketing agencies, we work with coaches, for example, who coach CEOs, um, either on marketing or sales or anything like that. They also send business our way. We work with incredible people, for example, like the, um, um, what’s it called? Public relations specialists? Um, mentors. Anyone who really has a large audience of business owners, we collaborate with them, and then they’ll send people our way, and then they do get a cut of the retainer.

Lee Kantor: Oh, so it’s a true partnership.

Tamara Munoz: It is a true partnership. Yeah. I am a big believer in in energetic exchanges and true partnership in business. It makes it a lot of fun too.

Lee Kantor: So what do you need more of? How can we help you?

Tamara Munoz: Um, so for us right now, we are growing. Our team has at this point doubled in the past year. And I would really, really appreciate to be part of a community of small business, small and medium sized businesses and business owners to just a connect connection is huge for me. I am a mother of three young children, so any human connection I can have with grown ups is incredible. But also, um, it would be great to be put in front of an audience that can benefit from our services, and that their lives can be changed by the work that we do. My team is so incredible. The work that they do is life changing, truly, and our biggest way to impact lives is to help our clients be able to impact more people. Because the, the, the clients that we have do such incredible work and really impact the lives of the people that they serve, whether it is through their services, whether it is through their products, their education. So any way that we can serve your audience, I am happy to do so.

Lee Kantor: If somebody wants to connect with you or somebody on the team, what’s the website? What’s the best way to connect?

Tamara Munoz: Yeah. So our website is behind the screens. And um, same on social media. Behind the screens.biz, we kept it very simple. They would just have to. We have a form on the website. They can go ahead and submit a form. They can get on a call with me directly, and I’m happy to lean in and support and, um, get them started. And if they want to have a chat back and forth. Happy to. Like I said, there’s a form on the website or they can just DM me directly on Instagram.

Lee Kantor: And that’s behind the screens. Biz biz.

Tamara Munoz: Yep.

Lee Kantor: Good stuff. Well, congratulations on all the momentum and all the success. You’re doing such important work and we appreciate you.

Tamara Munoz: Thank you so much I appreciate you.

Lee Kantor: All right. This is Lee Kantor. We’ll see you all next time on High Velocity Radio.