The Tools to Make Breakups Easier

Breakups are hard, and they can be even harder if you’ve left clothes in the closet, toiletries in the bathroom, and your favorite mug in the kitchen cabinet. In this episode of Leverage Your Spark, I’m talking about how to use technology, tools, and processes to make breakups easier so no one has to awkwardly ask for their favorite sweater back.

Listen to Season 2: Episode 24

Offboarding Is as Important as Onboarding

The beginning is just more fun to figure out, and we want to make a good first impression, so client onboarding is usually the first place an expert or external agency focuses on building out processes. Offboarding is the redheaded stepchild of systems and processes: It rarely gets any attention.

Not considering offboarding when onboarding is happening can set you up for having a mess to figure out when the end inevitably comes. As a client, you can help to get the most value out of your expert services by having processes and systems of your own and facilitating the use of those systems in the expert’s work.

A Management System Is Crucial to Make Breakups Easier

The point of engaging experts and external agencies is to create more value in your business, whether that’s through growth, improvement, or additional capacity. To retain that value after their work is over takes a little extra effort so that you make sure you have everything you need.

In our agency, we are currently using Google Workspace. Other agencies might use Microsoft Office 365, Zoho, or some other system. No matter what software you’re using, ensuring that you’re using it to its full potential is really the opportunity for making your life easier.

When we onboard a client, we create a Google Drive folder for them. We also begin their user guide, which is a Google Doc that will ultimately contain links to specific

• processes,
• documents,
• assets, and
• other things

so that our team has a single place to go when working with the client. Then, when the day comes that the client needs to part ways with us, we can give them one comprehensive document to make breakups easier. That enables them to either continue the work themselves or engage easily with another provider.

Having the user guide, which is essentially a table of contents with a repository, in our case a Google Drive folder, means that all the pieces are in one place with a guide to using the pieces. So if you’re using Office 365, you would use a OneDrive folder and Word doc. If you’re using Dropbox, maybe it’s a Dropbox Paper document and a Dropbox folder.

Regardless of the system, there should be a place where everything gets stored. Then a way to know what is stored there and links to other things that may not be stored, such as Canva templates, videos, analytics documents, reports, or other things that aren’t necessarily a file.

Beginning with the End in Mind Provides a Huge Payoff

The payoff from considering offboarding when starting and performing the work in an organized way is that all the efforts during the time that you’re working together are going toward creating a way that doesn’t have to be redefined when the relationship is over. For you, it means less time going back to the expert asking questions, asking for explanations, or losing the value that you’ve invested in. For the expert, it means fewer resources expended when it comes time to dissolve the relationship with the client.

Put it together, and you and your expert can make breakups easier when you start with the end in mind. It’s kind of like drafting a prenuptial agreement. While you may never need it, at least you know what to expect.

Until Next Season!

That wraps up season two of Leverage Your Spark. In the past 25 episodes, we’ve examined how to better find, engage with, and part ways with experts in a way that adds more value to your business. Stay tuned for what’s next with season 3 of the podcast as we continue to bring you insights and simple steps to take to improve the leverage available to you and do more (more effectively) with less.

Wondering how to put this information into action? I’d love to answer your questions about using experts, websites, smart business, and technology. I host a monthly roundtable conversation where you can personally connect with me for answers. All you have to do is show up. Get the next one on your calendar now!