Billion Dollar Vision
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Billion Dollar Vision
The Business Owner's Guide to Effective Team Management
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Click Below To Join us in Build Your 7 Figure Team Today! Class Starts Sept 2nd @ 11am!
Marissa Liesenfeld, operations expert and former COO for multi-figure businesses, shares her insights on building effective teams and creating systems that allow beauty business owners to step into true leadership roles.
• The biggest bottleneck in operations is often leadership not empowering team members to step into their unique abilities
• When improving operations, focus on clear KPIs, efficient processes, and strong communication channels
• Regular check-ins with team members (every two weeks) normalize feedback and prevent small issues from growing
• When handling toxic team members, document specific examples of problematic behavior before having direct conversations
• Employee handbooks serve as protective legal documents for both business owners and employees
• Building a team creates both business stability and emotional support for owners who might otherwise feel isolated
• Scaling with a team allows owners to decrease personal workload while increasing profitability
Join us in Build Your 7 Figure Team to learn directly from Marissa and other experts who will help you build sustainable systems for your beauty business.
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Introduction to Marissa Liesenfeld
Speaker 1All right , hi everyone . So my name is Rhea . If you don't know me , I am a business strategist at Bosses in Beauty and a co-owner , and I am here today with Marissa Liesenfeld . She is just an amazing human being and I will tell you a little bit about how we know Marissa and then I'll let her kind of jump into her own experience .
Speaker 1But , um , I was actually in a really high level mastermind a couple of years ago and Marissa was a guest speaker in that mastermind . And when I heard Marissa talk about operations , hr , everything to do with team , I was like , oh my gosh , we have to work with her . And so Trey , my husband , and I hired Marissa and she worked with us on the back end operations of Bosses in Beauty for about a year more so with Trey because I was super pregnant at the time . But she's just amazing . She's such a light , so beautiful , but also just so , so smart . So thank you so much , marissa , for being here today . I'm so excited to just talk to you and kind of extract a little bit of your knowledge .
Speaker 2Yeah , well , thank you . First of all , that intro really lit me up so I appreciate that a lot . And yeah , just a little bit about my background . So I have been in the back end of businesses for roughly 20 years now and I spent time in different industries tech , advertising , online , sort of entrepreneurship and things like that and so I've kind of woven my way around different , you know , aspects of business . But what stayed steady through that was the fact that I was running the backend operations team HR and really fundamentally , those pieces are quite similar industry to industry . So I've just spent my career really deepening my knowledge and abilities in those areas , having led teams as a COO , as a chief of staff , yeah , hr , so you name it anything operations it's definitely it's touching my background in some way .
Speaker 1Yeah , amazing , and can you tell us a little bit about when it comes to because , like I mean , you've run the operations for eight and nine figure businesses . When you first go into these positions , you know as either head of HR or COO in the company and you know , for anyone that doesn't know , HR is human resources and so COO is chief operations officer , and so what are like the biggest either bottlenecks or breakdowns that you see when it comes to operations or managing teams in these
Identifying Business Bottlenecks
Speaker 1big companies ?
Speaker 2In the larger companies . So process is super important really to any business . Definitely , as you grow , your team , process becomes more and more important . So the biggest thing that will actually bottleneck that process is if you have leadership whether it's a CEO or whether it's , you know , like a leadership layer of executives that aren't able to mentor the team and allow them to step into their unique abilities so that the whole engine can run and the process can run . So , yeah , it's actually people a lot of times which bottlenecks that , and it a lot of times it has to do with maybe not giving up control of something or not allowing you know , your employees and your team to actually , you know , run with the things they're experts in as well .
Speaker 1And do you think that's the same that goes for , like , smaller brick and mortar businesses ? Is that it's usually like the , maybe the leader that's not letting go , or isn't there's a process broken in the system ?
Speaker 2Yeah , actually it's quite similar and , yeah , the smaller scale it tends to be usually the business owner at that point .
Speaker 2Or , you know , maybe there's a CEO , CEO and leadership . But , yes , and what's really important to strike a balance of , in my opinion , for this is you want to empower your team to do the jobs they're there to do and not do their jobs right . You want to be the actual CEO and not another sort of like doer in your business . However , you do need to set them up for success for that as well . So I think there's sort of this like chicken and egg thing that happens at times where , you know , maybe the business owner CEO doesn't feel confident in their team's abilities and that's why they're taking over the work , but they're also not necessarily training them and breeding them to be the best they can be . So it's like , you know , you kind of need both sides of that . But , generally speaking , yes , Really elevating the business owner , the CEO , into the role that they should be playing is the key to well scaling and , you know , usually the success of the business overall .
Speaker 1And in terms of , like , when you come in and just fix everything and make everything better in HR , like what are the key either metrics you're looking for or key changes that you work on in terms of , like the leadership or the hiring . What are the big like top three or four changes that you tend to like consistently make in businesses ?
Key Changes for HR Improvement
Speaker 2Yeah . So usually what I first look at is , especially when there's a team , what is the team accountable for ? So what are the KPIs , or which stands for key performance indicators , or you know , how is this team being measured , how is their success being measured ? And sometimes the answer is , well , we're not really measuring , or I don't know , and I don't know what I should be measuring . Right , and that's okay . That's like those are common answers and usually when you're running a business from an entrepreneur angle , you're you're learning as you go . So that's the first thing I'll do is make sure , does everyone really understand what's expected of them ? And like how success is being measured here ? And if not , so I want to put in that layer and then it's okay . Now , is there , is there a process Like , is there , are there ways that people understand how to work with each other ? Is there technology that they need to use and they're understanding how to use it properly ? You know what is the process so that everyone can be really efficient , because the more efficient the team and the leader is , the you know , the more profitable usually the business will be . So that's the next layer . Is okay . So does the team get what they're doing ? Do they understand how they're being measured ? Is there a process that governs all this ? And then the next layer is a little bit more qualitative . I would say it's .
Speaker 2It's really about leadership and mentorship and it's , you know , our . Is the team being groomed to be the best they can be ? Is it an open environment where they can share their concerns ? You know it , there's good lines of communication . Maybe we could bucket it under . Communication is really the biggest thing . So do people understand if they're doing well or not doing well , you know ? Do they have somewhere to go if they have questions or they want to take on more and they want to learn more ? Are they being mentored so that they really are stepping into their most valuable selves in the company ? And that's going to benefit everybody , because they're going to feel a sense of belonging , they're going to feel like they want to contribute to the business , and then the business owner and CEO is going to feel like , you know , their team is really is working for them and the business is growing because of them . So those are really the most important pieces I look at .
Speaker 1Yeah , that's interesting that you said like at the end of the day , it's maybe falls under the bucket of communication . And I feel like with the businesses that we work , you know , with in the beauty industry especially , and women that are essentially artists , like , if you look at the E-Myth , the artists , the manager , leader and entrepreneur like at their core a lot of them are artists . So , like tough conversations come really hard and so I always say like try to kill the monster when it's little , but it's really hard when you're actually in the business and to like past that tough conversation . What do you feel like is the best way to handle some of those just hard conversations with team members in terms of like when you're the owner or leader of the company and you don't have like that layer of someone handling an HR , operations or anything like that , and like you're the one that needs to have the conversation .
Speaker 2Yeah , it's . I mean , this is really tricky for a lot of people , including , you know , bigger companies as well . This happens even at those layers of management and executives . So what I would say is having a built-in routine to have these conversations makes it easier , because then you're not necessarily only having to , you know , have these conversations when something's going wrong , which makes it feel more , there's more anxiety around it then when that's the case , but rather if you're always consistently checking in with each other and having these , these conversations , it becomes normalized that you're you're talking about what's working and what's not . So it's , it doesn't feel like , oh God , I have to have this conversation now and I don't want to have it , and it's like , oh , like , I know that feeling . I mean , I've had that feeling as well .
Speaker 2Um , so what I always recommend is have have a checkpoint with each team member . You can decide the cadence . You have to use discernment around that a bit , around what would be right for your company . But I would
Handling Difficult Team Conversations
Speaker 2prefer , like at least once every two weeks , to do a check-in . It doesn't have to be super long . But there's two questions I like to ask and I like for both parties , both the leader and the employee to answer these same questions , which is what's working and what's not , since you know , the last conversation and it , even though they're it's kind of like broad questions , they it actually brings up a lot of things . Uh , typically and I would start actually first with what's not working Um , because that's when you're going to get probably the best feedback from your employees and that's when you're opening the floor for them to be honest with you . And also I like to sort of you know kind of enter into those conversations by saying we're here so we can make sure that everything's , you know , good on both sides , like please be honest , like it helps me if you're honest and I really try to make it a safe place for them to speak and voice their concerns . But then you know they may give you information that you didn't have either about sometimes your clients or sometimes other employees , or sometimes how the business is running .
Speaker 2When you're asking these questions and you're actually getting more intel , and then , when they're able to ask the question , then you can say to them okay , well , let's talk about some things , because I would love to see you stepping into this role , or I would love to see you you know things , because I would love to see you stepping into this role , or I would love to see you .
Speaker 2You know , here's what's not working for me . I feel like you know whatever it is , whatever's happening at the time . But you know , it just becomes a more natural conversation versus okay , we're going to have to talk about something bad , no-transcript , able to follow that with like , okay , well , let's be grateful about some things , let's talk about what is working , and it sort of ended on a better note . Yeah , and I feel like just kind of I don't know , pulling the bandaid off in the beginning is better anyway , because it is kind of a . It's usually an anxious conversation if somebody has to bring something up that they don't want to bring up . So just let's just do it , get into it , and then we can talk about the good .
Speaker 1How do you know when it's like it's time to let someone go because they're just toxic to your culture , but they haven't really done anything specifically
Managing Toxic Team Members
Speaker 1wrong ? Or like maybe they're really great at hitting goals but like you can just it's almost like an energetic feeling that you know that they're toxic , because I feel like this happens in every business . It's like that one person that they may like be your A player in terms of hitting goals and doing what they need to do , but the attitude and the energy is just horrible and it affects your other team members .
Speaker 2Yeah , and honestly , I feel like attitude and energy can be the most impactful thing to a business's culture and then , because of that , the business's performance , even more so than , yeah , like hitting numbers sometimes . Um , that's , it is a tricky question . Um , I would try to find ways to make it tangible as much as possible . So if , if you feel like they're yeah , like maybe their attitude is off , like put some examples , like what are some examples of like how this is manifesting so you can have the conversation , I always suggest having a conversation with somebody first before you just go ahead and let them go to see if they can turn it around .
Speaker 2I've had some really good turnaround stories actually in my career by having this conversation , and usually I , you know , I'm turned to it by saying you know , I want to give you some examples of your behavior that has not been working culturally . It has not been working , you know , with the team . I give them those very clear examples . Here's what I would prefer to see otherwise , right , so it's either it's either they just need to stop doing what they're doing altogether , like I can't , we can't see this anymore , or here's how I'd prefer you handle something like that and give them an example of what good looks like . Give them a time period to work on it and see if they can turn it around , and then , if they can't turn it around , then you can say , listen , like I gave you some pretty clear measurables here about what I want to see different from you , behavior-wise or attitude-wise . We haven't .
Speaker 1I don't see the progress and Gotcha , yeah , because I feel like a lot of people .
Speaker 1It's like we have two people that sign up for our program .
Speaker 1It's like , on one side , it's the people that are ready to hire . They haven't done it yet and they want to do it the right way or , you know , learn . You know , of course , there's always going to be mistakes and learning lessons on the way , but at least a little bit of a shortcut to success and also protection in their business . And then on the other side , it's like those really struggling with their team and what I've seen is a lot of it's not just like who they hire or , sorry , not just the hiring process itself , but it's really like the people that they hire and then maintaining a really great culture . And the thing that I hear a lot is like loss of power , and not like power in a bad way , but they just like feel like they walk into their business and that their team has more power or control than they do . And I feel like a lot of that is like leadership and crafting and creating the right culture , but also even in my own experience , getting rid of those toxic people as quickly as possible .
Speaker 2But it's always disguised as like people that like make sales goals and , you know , do all the right things in that sense , yeah , well , and also that kind of goes with the last piece we were talking about of making sure you're have , like you have communication happening with your team and it's happening frequently and consistently , because then , at the very first sign of toxic behavior , you can bring that up as this is what's not working Right . The very first sign of toxic behavior , you can bring that up as this is what's not working right . So you're not like letting it happen for a few months and then it's like I'm like I can't do this anymore , I can't handle this employee anymore . Instead , you've been talking about it along the way and , yeah , you can move more swiftly because , I agree , having a toxic element in your business is really , really detrimental .
Speaker 1Yeah , and so in seven figure teams you are going to be one of our amazing guest speakers you know I'm not an expert in HR and you are , so we always want to make sure to bring in experts in their in their area and also you'll be working with our platinum clients on their employee handbooks . When I first started a business , I I one had no idea about HR at least I had no idea I needed HR in a beauty business and I just got very lucky that you know . God bless me during those years that I didn't get in trouble and and also I had no idea about employee handbooks when I first started hiring . Can you tell us the importance of like small businesses I mean specifically beauty , but any really small brick and mortar business having both like understanding HR in their business and also having employee handbooks
HR Protection for Business Owners
Speaker 1?
Speaker 2Yes , so HR is sort of like a broad term , because HR means you know how you are managing your employees and the things that we've just been talking about . But HR also has , you know , like a governing element to it as well . There's literally federal and state guidelines around HR and it's not unheard of for employees to maybe sue their employers and things like that . So there's actually a legal component to HR and it's meant to protect actually both parties . Hr is meant to protect actually both parties . Hr is meant to protect the employees against things like discrimination or harassment and things like that , like the laws around HR right , the labor laws . But it's also meant to protect the business owner as well , and your handbook is actually a legal document , but it's one of your most protective documents as a business owner in terms of your personnel and your team , because in that handbook you can state all your policies . You can state how you would take action and I suggest everyone does this .
Speaker 2It's in the template that we do in the program but how you would handle situations of , let's say , if an employee feels like there's been discrimination or something like that . It's all laid out in the handbook and the employee signs it . The employer stands behind it . So then if anything were to happen let's say they did decide to sue you or something that document's going to protect you in court because they've signed it and you've already laid out what you stand for as an employer and what the expectations are of your employees . So it kind of acts . In many ways it's communication tool to explain you know what , what sort of guidelines you have for people like even even things like how they need to present themselves at work , or you know , like in the beauty business people are hands-on with clients , right . So it's it's what are your expectations with how you're going to be in the room with clients and all that , right . So it covers quite a wide scope , but it's really a protective document for actually both parties .
Speaker 1Yeah , I mean , I really did get lucky , marissa . I didn't have any of that when I started . And you know , you live and you learn and , like now , a lot of what we teach is like the things I personally did right , but also what I've learned from experts like you and just by experience of what I did wrong , learned from experts like you and just by experience of what I did wrong . But I think , especially today , with people literally being so like , so happy , like you , literally have to be protected as a business owner and I feel like , although we've talked about a lot of like , almost like the scary side of it , what do you feel like is the best part and the importance of having a team in business today ?
Benefits of Building a Team
Speaker 2Well , for starters , just it's just speaking to a business owner , because I work with a lot of business owners and I work with actually some that do work solo and it can be really lonely for them .
Speaker 2So , you know , having a team and having people that you are , you know , energized to be around , when you do have the right team right and people that are in this sort of common goal with you , it's really energizing and uplifting .
Speaker 2So I think even just the emotional aspect of running a business , when you are not doing it alone and when you have a team , it can be so much more rewarding and there's so much more celebration and there's so much more support that you can have with that . It's just , yeah , I mean , making sure that you build the right team and that you're running the team correctly is going to definitely help with that culture . But there's a difference between showing up to work by yourself and doing something by yourself and showing up to a culture that's both supporting you and you're supporting them and you're winning together . So in many ways , I think it's actually the emotional side of business and how much more rewarding it can be to have a team . But , that being said , there's also another component to it which is , you know , more pragmatic , which is around the money . So you can , you know you can scale with a team , so you can be doing less work , making more money , because you have people underneath you that are generating that scale for you .
Speaker 1Yeah , absolutely , and I always say too in like our industry , where it's like so physical if you're the only one in the treatment room , if you pitch your life 10 , 20 years down the line .
Speaker 1It's like one if something happens , where you literally can lose your business overnight . And I've seen this in our industry so many times where it's like someone has a baby or a freak accident happens or even someone you know passes away unfortunately , and the business either stops completely or it pauses , and it's like what happens to your livelihood when that happens . And so I also think just building in this industry , specifically building like a one person show business , is a very risky way to like run a business . And if you do decide to grow a team , it's like there's risk to it . But if you learn how to do it the right way like in our program and also with Marissa , and having the right things in place , it's really becomes not that risky because you're protected . Yeah , yeah , yeah . But I'm so excited , I'm so excited and grateful that you'll be teaching again in our program and also working one-to-one with our Platinums and you know doing what you do best . What do you feel like is your biggest superpower in business ?
Speaker 2Oh , that's a good question . Honestly , for me , I think it's it's people , it's leading teams and building business through team . That really is my superpower , always had , I mean , mostly it always has been . I moved into management very early in my career and , yeah , I just am skilled at getting things done through people , but at the same time , not just like that sounds bad when you say it that way , but at the same time like giving them opportunities to grow and , you know , create a culture . I really love creating culture as well . So , yeah , that's people .
Speaker 1That's a huge superpower , because not many people have that either . That's good to hear , actually , so thank you . Thank you so much , marissa , for your time . I'm so excited you're going to be teaching in our program and if you guys have any questions for Marissa , we will see you . Inside of Seven Figure Teams Sounds good , I'm excited .
