4DX for Entrepreneurs Building Focus, Momentum and Collaboration | 015

Hello, it's Susan here from the Grand Connection podcast. If you are an entrepreneur, you probably know this feeling your business starts growing. More opportunities appear, more connections, collaborations, invitations and ideas start coming in, and suddenly you realize something important you cannot do everything yourself anymore, and that is exactly what we explored in the last two episodes with Jessica Koch. I just re listened to them, and when I was exercising today, and wow, she shared so much wisdom that can give us all some great ideas we can implement right away. I know I took away so many things. Jessica shared powerful insights about delegation, working with virtual assistants and building a collaborative team. And if you don't know Jessica yet, she's a grand connection member. She has her own VA agency, and is a marketing strategist and also the founder of the legacy gratitude community. Today I want to pause and reflect on some of the most valuable ideas from those two conversations, especially for entrepreneurs in our grand connection community. And also, as a heads up, I'll be dropping a bonus episode right after this on how to hire a VA. So in case this is the stage you're at, stay tuned for that. Many of us start our business doing everything ourselves, but as your visibility grows, as your partnerships grow and as your opportunities grow, something becomes very clear. Collaboration eventually needs to move inside your business, not just outside. And this is where our grand connection framework really comes to life. Connect, create and collaborate. Now let's walk through how these ideas show up when you begin building a team. The first part of the CCC framework is connect. We talk a lot about connection in our community, connecting with partners, connecting with audiences, connecting with collaborators, but connection also applies to the people inside your business. Jessica made a powerful point. Virtual Assistants

are not just people completing tasks. They are people with their own goals, families and dreams. When you take the time to understand what matters to them, something shifts. They begin to feel part of your mission. And when people feel connected to the mission, they care more about the outcome. That is where real collaboration begins. And once that connection exists. The next steps become much easier, because now you can begin creating systems that support the work you do together. The second part of the CCC framework is create this is where systems and clarity come in. Jessica shared a really practical way to delegate tasks that many entrepreneurs will appreciate when she completes a task herself, she records her screen and talks through the steps as she does it. But what I love is that the process doesn't stop there. The recording becomes the starting point for working together with the virtual assistant. First, the assistant watches the recording and creates a checklist of the steps. Then Jessica refused that chat checklist with them, so that they both know the process is clear. After that, they go through the task live together. Jessica performs the task once, while explaining the thinking behind it. Then the VA performs the task while Jessica watches and answers questions. That last step is really important because it allows the assistant to build confidence and ensures the process is fully understood before they take ownership of it. By the end of this process, the team has a training video, a written checklist, a shared clarity about the task and something else important begins to happen. Trust grows, not just trust between people, but trust in the process. When your team knows there is a system to follow, they don't feel like they are guessing. They know the steps, they know the expectations, and they know how success looks. That clarity builds confidence, and confidence is what allows collaboration to grow, and this is a beautiful example of the

CCC framework in action. When you create clarity through systems, it becomes easier to connect through trust and ultimately collaborate through shared ownership. Now what systems are in place, collaboration can deepen. Delegation. Is not just about handing someone a task, it is about creating shared ownership. Jessica shared several simple ways to do this, for example, pairing team members to review each other's work. That's a great one, having different team members lead weekly meetings and encouraging assistants to bring their own ideas to improve the process. When people are invited to contribute their thinking, they stop feeling like workers and start feeling like collaborators. And that is when a business really begins to grow as a team, and I love the idea of the team meeting, something I'm going to implement too. Jessica also mentioned a book that connects beautifully with this idea. It's called grow, how ideals power growth and profit at the world's greatest companies, written by Jim Stengel, former Global Marketing Officer at Procter and Gamble. The core message of the book is simple. The most successful companies do not grow simply by focusing on profit. They grow because they operate from clear ideals and values. These ideals shape how teams collaborate, how customers are treated and how decisions are made. When people understand the purpose behind the work, they become more engaged and more committed. And this applies just as much to small business. When your team understands what you stand for, what you are building, and why it matters, they naturally become more invested in helping you succeed. Systems create clarity. Ideals create commitment, and when those two come together, collaboration becomes much easier. Of course, having a vision and strong values is important, but businesses also need a way to actually execute those ideas. Jessica referenced another helpful book called The four disciplines of execution, often called 40x written

by Chris McChesney, Sean Covey, and Jim Huling, before diving deeper into the framework, here are the four disciplines summarized again, one focus on one wildly important goal. Two, act on lead measures that drive the result. Three, keep a visible scoreboard. Four, create a cadence of accountability. Jessica shared how she has taken these steps designed for larger corporations into her smaller business. It really helps to understand the challenge for DX was designed to solve. The authors describe the daily work of running a business as the whirlwind. And I know you've heard about me and nibbles and all that stuff, but there's a lot of stuff we're doing right? The Whirlwind is everything that keeps the business operating day to day, things like working with your clients, answering emails, preparing for events, supporting your community, selling, invoicing, managing finances, doing your bookkeeping, scheduling meetings, solving unexpected problems that seems to take up most of my day, and for many entrepreneurs, It also includes networking and following up with those connections. All of these things are important. They keep the business running and relationships growing. But the challenge is that the whirlwind can easily consume all of our time and energy, and when that happens, the projects that could move our business forward, the most often get pushed aside. This is where the idea of a wildly important goal or a wig becomes powerful. Instead of trying to do everything at once, you choose one major goal that deserves focused attention, and the key here is choosing something that will truly move the needle in your business. Maybe that goal is creating one really strong lead magnet and building a simple sales funnel that consistently bring you new leads. Maybe it's setting up your go high level system, or whatever automation system you have in place so that your marketing and follow ups are automated. Now we did that in 2025 and it was a big project,

and it took way longer, probably because I wasn't using this process.

So this would have been a good to know last year, or learning a new AI tool that could save you hours each week. For some people, it might be writing a book, or for me, one of the goals was getting this podcast done. It actually took me about three years to figure out how to make this happen with the podcast, and eventually I found the time blocks. I created the systems, I found a team to help make it happen. I got a great partner to work with, Michelle at amplify you. I gained clarity and confidence to record my first episodes and building the collaborations that would support the podcast. So this took a long time, but once I had those in place, I was able to make this happen. And because when you're in a business, and for me, a community like the Grand connection, the whirlwind never stops, but once the goal becomes clear, the next step was protecting the time. And creating the structure to make it real. And that is exactly what 40x frameworks helps teams do. It helps you keep the business running while still making progress on the goals that truly move your business forward. And you don't want to have too many goals, right? You want to pick that one wildly important goal that wig, and when you combine the kind of focus goal with the right connections and collaborations, progress happens much faster. And that's really what I had to make happen for getting my go high level going, getting my podcast launched. Right now, I'm working on a book, and I'm creating the collaborations around me that will make that turn into reality, because in the grand connection, growth rarely happens alone. It happens when we connect, create and collaborate with others who are moving towards similar goals. And as we have learned from our past two episodes, collaboration can happen within your business and within your in house team. Now, once you have identified your wildly important goal, the next step is asking a very practical question, what actions will actually move this

goal forward? This is where the concept of lead measures becomes important. Lead measures are the actions that influence the result, not every task, just the few activities that actually drive progress towards the goal. It also helps to understand the difference between lead measures and lag measures. A lag measure is the final result you're trying to achieve. For example, number of event registrations, number of new email subscribers, number of clients or sales. These results are important, but they are lagging indicators. They show you what already happened. A lead measure is different, and I loved when we talked about this concept. I think it's so valuable. I had some real ahas for myself, because leads are actions that can influence the result, something you can do consistently that increases the likelihood of achieving the goal. For example, the number of invitations you send for an event, the number of times your lead magnet is shared. The reason lead measures are powerful is because they are much easier to control. You cannot directly control how many people register for an event, but you can control how many people you invite. You cannot control how many people join your email list, but you can control how often your lead magnet is shared. A simple way to think about this is lag measures tell you if you won. Lead measures tell you what to do to win. Lag measures are the results. Lead measures are the actions that make the results possible, and when a team focuses on the lead measures together, so we're talking now back to the team, the lag measures often begin to improve naturally. Let's look at two examples many entrepreneurs can relate to. Example one, increasing registrations for your events. An example. Two is growing your email list through a lead magnet. In the first example, increasing Event registrations. Your lag measure is the number of registrations. Your lead measure could be many things, and you can actually

brainstorm with your team what it could be. But let's for now, say the number of invitations and follow up sent through tracking two thin things, sending the invitation and following up. Before the invitations go out, the team prepares everything together. One person becomes, let's say, the invitation boss. So I actually like to do this thing with my team, and when I'm assigning them responsibility to a task, we might say, Okay, you're in charge of this. You're the invitation boss. Make it fun. So the invitation boss is responsible for preparing the invitation message so the team can have something clear and consistent to send. Another person becomes the landing page chief. They make sure the event registration page is set up and everything works smoothly. The landing page chief, then I say, hey, you need to get somebody to help you test. So find somebody to be your buddy for testing. So we sometimes call this the chief button pusher. So that person becomes their buddy that they work with, who does the testing for them. Their job is simple, click every button, fill out the form and make sure everything works before the invitations go out and another team member becomes, let's say, the tracking link leader. This person creates all the tracking links, make sure it's all working, and sets up the scoreboard so the team can see where registrations are coming from. And they could also work with the the chief button pusher too, that makes sure that those tracking links are working right. So get, get a second person testing thing, because. It's really annoying. When you do this whole campaign, you find out a link isn't working and something hadn't been tested that could have been tested before. Always test your links. They're super important and easy, easy task to assign to somebody. Once everything's ready, the team can participate in sending invitations and following up. Everyone might commit to inviting 10 people each week. It can even

become a friendly contest to see who brings in the most registrations. And because the tracking is in place, everyone can see how their outreach contributes to the final results. The same idea works when growing an email list, your lag measure is the number of new subscribers. Your lead measure is how often the lead magnet is shared. The team prepares the system together. One person might finalize the guide or resource. Another becomes the landing page chief, making sure the sign up pages and form work properly. Again. They can get the chief button pusher to test everything. Another team member becomes the tracking link leader, so they set up the link so the team can see where the subscribers are coming from. Then the team commits to sharing the lead magnet consistently, for example, sharing it in three aligned communities each week, three groups that they belong to, including it in a collaboration or newsletters. So you can make a list together, brainstorm the list, divide it all up, and then get everybody to do each separately and track it right. And again, the lead measure is how often the lead magnet is shared. The lag measure is the number of new subscribers. The third discipline is keeping a clear scoreboard. We have our wig, our wildly important goal, we have some lead measures in place that we all came up with together, and we're ready to go. People perform better when they can see progress. When the numbers are visible, the work becomes more engaging. You want to contribute. You want to see the numbers move. You want to help the team succeed. Visible progress builds momentum. So let's go back to our first example, Event registrations. For the event example, the scoreboard might track the invitation sent, the follow ups completed, and then the registrations. Each team member can see how their outreach contributes to the goal and when registrations increase, the whole team can celebrate that progress together. The other example lead

magnet growth. For example, the email list, the scoreboard might track how many times the lead magnet was shared, how many downloads happened, how many new subscribers joined the list? Seeing those numbers grow reinforces the importance of the action the team is taking each week, or maybe it's each day. The fourth discipline is a cadence of accountability. You might see messages like three registrations just came in happy face. Great job. Invitation. Boss, landing page chief, everything is working well. Those little moments of connection allow the team to cheer each other on, add emojis and support each other quickly. Suddenly, the work doesn't feel like a list of tasks anymore. Feels like a shared effort, and it's fun. You're gamifying it, right? I love leaderboards. I really do. You're not trying to do everything yourself anymore. Everyone contributes their part, and that is exactly what we mean when we say connect, create, collaborate. You connect with your team. You create systems that make the work clear and repeatable, and then you collaborate so everyone helps move the goal forward.

So if you're thinking about delegation in your business, here's the takeaway, connect with your team as people create clarity through simple systems and collaborate through shared ownership. That is the heart of the Connect. Create collaborate framework we practice inside the grand connection. And when collaboration lives inside your business as well as outside of it, growth becomes sustainable and much more enjoyable. If you have not yet listened to the full interviews with Jessica, I highly recommend going back to episodes 13 and 14, Jessica shared many more practical examples and ideas on how to build a stronger and more collaborative team, along with some excellent strategies for lead generation, using your team that were really fun. And if you were looking for a community where this kind of collaboration happens every day, we invite you to experience the grand connection, you can grab a guest pass at Grand connection.ca, and simply look for the guest pass button in the bottom right corner of our website. That was tested by our button checker while you were there. Be sure to explore the grand growth bundle. You can find that at Grand connection.ca Forward slash gifts, this is a curated collection of tools and workbooks and some AI tools to support your growth through collaboration. Join us for a grand mixer, explore the bundle and meet entrepreneurs who are building their business through connection and collaboration. And as a bonus, I will be releasing a short episode following this on the seven steps to hiring a virtual assistant, that episode will be especially helpful if you're just getting started building your team, and if you already are in the thick of it all with your own team, feel free to jump ahead to the next episode. In episode 17, we will be returning to our neuroscience of connection series with neuro coach Ray McCauley. Ray will be answering some of the fascinating questions about what is happening in the brain when we drive,

play sports, we love, speak in public and run our own business. It's going to be a really interesting conversation. Thank you again for listening to the grand connection podcast, where we explore ideas that help entrepreneurs to connect, create and collaborate.