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 CEO with KLM Consulting, Marketing and Management, Kelly Lorenzen. Welcome.

Kelly Lorenzen: Thank you so much for having me.

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

Kelly Lorenzen: So we’re business owners duplicates. We call ourselves because we serve family owned businesses in industries that we have been in. So we duplicate them because we’ve been in their shoes. We’ve owned businesses for the last 24 years. So we help them with projects like revamping, you know, their brand or hiring an employee. Setting up their CRM system. All kinds of fun projects, events, and everything in between. And so the easiest way to describe us as a is as a duplicate of the business owner.

Lee Kantor: So what’s the backstory? How did you go from being an entrepreneur and your team of being a bunch of entrepreneurs to being people who help other people, other entrepreneurs kind of optimize what they’re working on?

Kelly Lorenzen: So in those other businesses over the last 24 years, what I couldn’t find is somebody who thought like a business owner who could actually implement on the strategy. So I would hire business consultants and we would come up with a great strategy, but then I would still have to implement on it, or we would hire marketing agencies and spend, you know, 10,000 a month. And I ended up having to keep taking it back because the it wasn’t done like we would do it. So I just couldn’t find another business out there that combined all those things. So I created something out of need that I wished I had and all those other businesses.

Lee Kantor: So how do you help your clients kind of do the things that you were frustrated with other consultants and not being able to do what makes your firm special in this way?

Kelly Lorenzen: So because we have been in their shoes, we know how to create the strategy and we have an implementation team that learns their brand, learns how they do things, and then implement on the strategy like they would for anything for, um, anything in business, except for we, I say we don’t touch numbers, so no finances, but we can become their duplicate because, you know, we’ve owned medical practices, we’ve owned construction electrical companies. And so those are the industries we, we kind of stick to e-commerce fulfillment. We owned a durable medical company. So we have, you know, because we’ve been in their shoes, we can figure out what the strategy is, what’s working, what’s not working, do an audit and then fulfill on anything they need to help grow their business or get out of the weeds or stop being overwhelmed.

Lee Kantor: So what is a sign that they have that they need help? Like a lot of times people are just thinking, this is how business is supposed to work. I’m supposed to solve problems like this myself. How do they, you know, what are some signals to that entrepreneur or business owner that, hey, maybe I should call Kelly and her team. Maybe that’s a better path for me moving forward.

Kelly Lorenzen: Yeah. So most of it is overwhelm. They get overwhelmed. They’re not sleeping. Uh, they think that they’re the only one, you know, they’re on an island and, and, uh, they’re, they don’t know who to turn to. And, and I burnt out twice. And I, so I have, I’m a big advocate for, you know, not burning out. That’s why I wrote the book I did. Um, and so when they start to feel that burnout or they start to feel overwhelmed, that’s a real good red flag that they need help. Uh, and there’s lots of companies out there that do fractional work. So find a project management company, find somebody like us who can take off, you know, stuff off their plate projects, big projects, and, and, uh, implement it so they don’t keep being in the overwhelm stage.

Lee Kantor: Do you think that the overwhelm stage is really because they’re not aligned with whatever their superpower is, that they’re getting bogged down with some of these other ancillary things that might be they’re just not good at. And so because of that, they’re either not doing it or they’re not doing it well.

Kelly Lorenzen: Yeah. A lot of entrepreneurs, me included, we think we can do everything and we do it better. And you know, the old, the old saying like, I’ll just take it. I’ll just take care of it because I can do it faster or better. Uh, and then they don’t are not good at giving stuff away. They think that, um, you know, or they keep taking it back. Maybe it’s control. Um, maybe it’s, they’re not, they don’t trust anybody. Um, and so they keep holding on to it too long and think that, oh, you know, oh, I don’t want to spend that money. But in fact, if you start to give away most of your tasks, the you will grow your business. Like we grew 200% the first employee I hired in this business. So I always tell people, I promise you, you’re gonna make more money if you keep delegating and keep outsourcing your stuff.

Lee Kantor: So let’s talk a minute about the book. Uh, do what you love and outsource everything else because I think it kind of coincides with what we’re talking about. Now. When you were writing this book, did you kind of take your own advice and delegate a bunch of this, or you just were the smart person that had all the answers? Like, uh, did you do that when you were building this book?

Kelly Lorenzen: No, I learned my lesson two burnout seasons. And then the third one, uh, was supposed to be probably a burnout season when I got breast cancer. And I, and I didn’t burn out because I had the I call it an insurance policy. Had the team in place, the processes in place, the mindset in place, uh, and figured out, you know, oh, wait a second, I don’t have to burn out. And I actually grew the business 25% that year, even with taking a bunch of time off, working part time and delegating everything. So I’m like, I have to put this in a book because other entrepreneurs, you know, I didn’t think there was another way to do it. Um, obviously, you know, 15, 20 years before that. And, uh, I figured out the better way. And so I thought every single business owner needs to know that they’re not the only ones that feel these things and, and that there’s a better way to do it.

Lee Kantor: So are there best practices when it comes to delegating? How do you decide what even to delegate first or second or third?

Kelly Lorenzen: I do, I run people through what I call the coda method. So KODA so k. Um, so I’ll say brain dump all the stuff you have, you know, that you work on in a day, a week, a month. It’s an exercise, right? It’s looking at your calendar, looking at your emails, looking at your project management software. What are you doing every single day, every week, every month. And I tell them, write it on a piece of paper, put it in a Google doc, and then once you’ve brain dumped all that, then put a K and, oh, a D or an A next to it. K stands for keep. So those are the only things that you can do like nobody else. Let’s say you’re a doctor. You, you have to, you know, provide care for patients until you hire enough doctors that you don’t even have to do that. So there’s certain things your expertise needs. And so that’s a K. The O is for outsource. There are tons of people that are way better at stuff than you like bookkeeping, marketing, right? These hiring, these other things that you shouldn’t be spending your time and energy on, especially if you’re not good at it. Uh, and then D is for delegate. There’s stuff you can have internally in your team that an assistant can help you with, right? Answering emails, follow up, um, calendar management, all those things can be delegated to a team member. And then because of all this fun AI stuff, there are a million ways to automate. And that’s the A. So pick the things that every week, pick something that you can either outsource, delegate, or automate. And eventually you will get rid of 80% of the things. So you can be the CEO of your business and be the creative and keep growing.

Lee Kantor: So now how do you help your clients decide what needs kind of a human touch nowadays versus what we can afford to automate, even though automation might make things easier and faster. But maybe that’s not the right thing that, uh, should, you know, be done by a robot that needs to be done by human.

Kelly Lorenzen: Yeah. So we put the human touch in everything. So, you know, you can run stuff through AI. You can, You can automate a follow up, but it needs to have your, your brand voice, your tone, um, your authentic authenticity. Um, there’s, you know, little tiny things like automatic resend of a, of a newsletter, you know, or, um, when somebody clicks on something, they get an automated message. It’s just a follow up, but it can still have the human touch in there with your voice and tone. And that’s why we are real particular about how we set things up for clients, um, to make sure it sounds like them. Uh, and even on, you know, social media, it can, it doesn’t have to be them particularly that are answering all the comments or, uh, engaging it can be one of their team members as long as they’re using their voice and tone. So it always needs a human touch.

Lee Kantor: Now, um, you mentioned project management. How, how important is kind of having systems built into your business. If you’re looking to at some point exit, like how, how do you help an entrepreneur build a business that they can sell, maybe at some future point versus one that they’re like, you mentioned the doctor, if I’m the doctor and I’m doing all the doctoring at the end of the road, I, I might have a hard time selling it because everybody just knows me as the doctor. So how do you help them build those standard operating procedures and build the systems it takes for a business to be sellable?

Kelly Lorenzen: Yeah. So systems are everything coming from a marketing person. That’s my brain is a marketing person. And I was like, systems are who cares, you know? But then when this, you know, could have come crashing down when I got breast cancer, I was like, wait a second. If we put if we do everything, we record video, record everything that we do, the, you know, the output, every task is recorded, and then that becomes a training library for anybody on your team to then implement like you would do it. Um, I got to take two full weeks off. No email, no nothing. So I say to clients, if you were to walk away for your business, from your business for two weeks, not touch anything, what would break? And then that’s where we start. What, you know, what system needs to be put in place. Is it a CRM? Um, you know, is it a calendar system? Like what thing in your business, uh, needs to be done first because that’s what would break first if you were to walk away for a couple weeks.

Lee Kantor: So when you help your clients do this is it’s just that by itself sounds overwhelming. How do you kind of help them handle this in bite sized pieces so that they can eventually get there? But it isn’t, you know, like, oh, there’s just too many moving parts. As soon as I open up, you know, one door, then five other things are popping out of me, and it just seems like it’s never going to end.

Kelly Lorenzen: It does. I know it feels like that when you’re trying, especially when you’re trying to do it by yourself, but we’re real careful about, uh, you know, not putting anything else on the owner’s plate. So we do an audit, um, we’ll have consulting meetings with them once a week. So we’re walking them slowly through it. But behind the scenes, we’re doing a lot of the actual implementation of the software or the system or the SOP. So they’re not overwhelmed. Like, wait a second, you’re going to give me the strategy and then you’re just going to tell me what to do and I gotta go do this. No, we’re working together on the audit and the strategy and the, you know, what we need to work on. And we’re consulting with them all the time about how it’s going, what needs to be tweaked and all that. But then we’re actually doing the work. So it’s a lot more manageable for them. And they don’t get overwhelmed because we can do it in a, you know, if they need it in a short amount of time, they’re like, I’m selling, you know, I want to sell by the end of this year. Then we need to shrink time and do it really fast. But let’s say they’re like 3 to 5 years from now. I maybe want to sell. Okay, then we can take it a month at a time and work on one project at a time, you know, and slowly get there. Um, but we’re handling the actual project implementation so they don’t have to get overwhelmed.

Lee Kantor: Now, you mentioned some of the areas you worked in. Can you go over them for the listener so they understand if they’re in this space, that this might be a good fit for them? If they are running into burnout and getting a little bit overwhelmed with their situation. Um, what are the kind of your verticals that you work in primarily?

Kelly Lorenzen: So the industries we work in are health, wellness, medical, uh, construction, e-commerce, fulfillment, stuff like that. Uh, because we have owned those things. So we stick to what we’ve owned, um, B2C sales, high ticket sales, uh, all of those companies are what we have owned. So that’s who we you know, who we help the best. And then we help with business consulting. Uh, we do the marketing, we do the projects and projects can be anything like we talked about, uh, hiring people. You need CRM, you need systems in place. You, you need an event done. Uh, so we do all of the projects and marketing and put the consulting on top of it.

Lee Kantor: So you do kind of one off triage situations that need help with, but also you, um, can be a, a resource, a fractional resource for somebody if they need that.

Kelly Lorenzen: Absolutely. Yeah. We like to start with a one off thing, you know, like, let’s solve one thing for you. So they don’t get overwhelmed and they can see how we work and they can see how efficient and fast and everything we are. And then we go, okay, now do you need more help? Here’s, you know, here’s some other things that we can help you with or you’re good to go for now. And then you come back, you know, in three months and then they’re like, okay, yes, fractional, I need you, you know, I need you as my CMO or I need you as our project management team. Uh, and then we’re, you know, longer term sometimes for people.

Lee Kantor: Now when it comes to the book, who was the book written for? Is it for those same people that you serve, or is this kind of for any entrepreneur or aspiring entrepreneur.

Kelly Lorenzen: It’s for aspiring entrepreneurs and brand new entrepreneurs. So they have already thought about, I want to start a business, but even the thought of it is overwhelming. Um, it’s a guide. It’s exactly how to start, grow and scale your companies without burning out. So how to set up your LLC, how to do a web, you know, what to put in a website, um, your social channels, how to build a network, all the personal and professional development. So we walk through each step and then there’s a workshop at the end of each chapter, so it moves them forward. So it’s like a workbook slash guide survival guide for entrepreneurs. Uh, so they can start and grow and not, you know, so many entrepreneurs don’t make it even past the first year, uh, or, and 50% don’t make it past year five. I want to change that statistic. So I wrote the book for those people.

Lee Kantor: Now, is there a story you can share, uh, that illustrates how this works, uh, for somebody or how it could work for someone? Is there a story that maybe is the most rewarding or the most surprising where, uh, somebody came to you with a challenge and you were able to help them solve it and get to a new level. Don’t name the name of the organization, but just the challenge they had and how you were able to help them.

Kelly Lorenzen: Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. I’m careful. I don’t talk about clients in particular at all. Um, but I have a lot of people come to me. They’ve been in business a year or 2 or 3, and they’re just kind of winging it, uh, you know, and they’re like, they jumped out of the airplane, right without the parachute. So I helped them build the parachute. So we go back and we say, okay, what’s working? What’s not working? What do you have already in place? What do you not have in place? Uh, and we’ve built everything from their whole we, you know, we branded or rebranded their whole, uh, company. And then we hired them an assistant. We trained the assistant. We, you know, did the SOPs, and then we became the CMO to oversee the team that was, you know, implementing on the marketing. Um, we helped sometimes with the marketing. Um, and then pretty soon they get to a point that they’re rocking and rolling on their own. Uh, and we, you know, bless and release. Here you go. Uh, you’re set. But my favorite is always when the overwhelmed entrepreneur says, I haven’t had a vacation. Uh, in, you know, five years or ten years or something. And by the time we’ve hired them an assistant and created systems for them in their business, they can take a vacation without worrying about checking their email. That’s a huge win for me.

Lee Kantor: And when you’re doing this kind of work, it must be really rewarding to see kind of that overwhelm disappear from your clients. Well, now they’re sleeping at night or taking that vacation, or they’re able to delegate more confidently and they’re not holding on to everything. I mean, that just must feel great from your standpoint. And it’s just a big relief to your clients.

Kelly Lorenzen: It sure is. It’s what keeps me going every day.

Lee Kantor: So now any advice for that person that knows in the back of their head, I got to do a better job of delegating, but I’m just afraid or I’m just, um, I’m just, you know, I’m not ready yet. Like what? Some kind of easy baby step things they could do to just get learn to get into the habit of delegating more efficiently and effectively.

Kelly Lorenzen: So that coda method we talked about is in the book, but just pick one task. Um, and you know, most of the time it’s because they don’t want to give it away, but I say split it up into three things, right? It’s three words instead of one giving somebody else a job, right? You’re giving somebody who’s smarter than you in that particular thing, like, let’s say bookkeeping, you’re giving them the opportunity to earn an income. It can be the one thing, the one task you’re not good at or you don’t love doing. Give that to them. And it doesn’t have to be far away. You can still oversee it, but so it feels better to entrepreneurs who are especially who are type A personalities, they’re like, I’m holding on to my baby, you know, with all I’ve got that if it’s just one thing at a time that you’re delegating or you’re outsourcing, it feels better. It feels more manageable.

Lee Kantor: So just pick that one thing and just see what happens. Yes, I like to look at things as experiments. Just do an experiment on one thing. Try it for a month, you know, and then reevaluate. If it didn’t work out, just take it back. It’s not, you know, it doesn’t have to be the end of the world here.

Kelly Lorenzen: Exactly. But know that you, you know, the best thing to do is hire an expert for that first or second thing that you are going to outsource. Because delegating, it seems like delegating is easier to like, oh, I’ll just get an assistant and I’ll just delegate some stuff to. But if you don’t know how to delegate and you don’t know how to train them, or you know, the steps and the processes aren’t in place, then you’ll then it will be a failure. So it’s easier to outsource it to an expert. Okay, okay. That’s working. Okay. Now I think I can, you know, maybe delegate to an internal team member because I feel more comfortable that somebody else can also do it, not just me.

Lee Kantor: So if somebody wants to learn more, get a hold of the book or get a hold of you or somebody on the team, what’s the website? What’s the best way to connect?

Kelly Lorenzen: Uh, our website’s duplicate myself.com and that has all of our contact information free consult on there. The book’s on there. Uh, or support your local bookstore and search Kelly Lorenzen, uh, on, you know, in your local bookstore and they can order the book there.

Lee Kantor: Well, Kelly, thank you so much for sharing your story today. You’re doing such important work and we appreciate you.

Kelly Lorenzen: Thank you so much for having me.

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