In this episode, host Josh interviews Aaron Hovivian, CEO of The Collab Team, about scaling operations for entrepreneurs and solopreneurs. Aaron shares his journey from retail and corporate project management to founding his own operations consultancy. The discussion covers the importance of identifying strengths, implementing operating systems like EOS, and documenting SOPs to streamline growth from seven to eight figures. Aaron offers practical advice for overcoming operational bottlenecks and introduces his Ops Experts Club resource hub. The episode provides actionable steps for business owners looking to delegate effectively and build scalable, efficient operations.

Chapters:

Introduction & Aaron’s Background (00:00:00)
Aaron shares his entrepreneurial roots, early jobs, and inspiration from his father’s business journey.

Discovering a Passion for Operations (00:00:49)
Aaron describes his natural inclination for improving systems and his transition from retail to project management.

First Entrepreneurial Leap & Founding The Collab Team (00:01:35)
Aaron recounts leaving a stable job to help a friend’s business, marking the start of The Collab Team.

Systems Thinking & Early Genius (00:02:54)
Discussion about always thinking in systems and the importance of operating in one’s zone of genius.

Complexity in Growth & The Value of Operations (00:03:31)
Aaron explains how business growth brings complexity and the need to streamline through operations.

The Power of Delegation & Operating Systems (00:03:48)
Aaron introduces the concept of “Delegate and Elevate” from EOS and the importance of SOPs.

Why Operations Matter for Scaling (00:04:37)
Aaron discusses why operations are crucial for entrepreneurs aiming to scale from seven to eight figures.

Visionaries vs. Operators: Identifying Strengths (00:05:02)
Aaron explains the difference between visionary entrepreneurs and those skilled in operations.

Common Pitfalls in Delegation & Team Structure (00:06:17)
Challenges entrepreneurs face when delegating without clear processes or team roles.

Intentionality & Backward Planning (00:07:06)
The importance of planning from the end goal backward to reduce daily frustrations.

Operations as a Business Pillar (00:07:33)
Josh compares operations to a three-legged stool, emphasizing its equal importance with sales and vision.

Implementing Operating Systems & Frameworks (00:08:02)
Josh shares his experience implementing operating systems and frameworks like EOS and Scalable.

Entrepreneurial Profiles & The Kolbe Assessment (00:08:56)
Discussion about the Kolbe assessment and how most entrepreneurs are high quick starts, not high follow-through.

Three Actionable Takeaways for Entrepreneurs (00:09:33)
Josh summarizes three steps: set your goal, do a time study/gap analysis, and document SOPs for delegation.

Aaron’s Additional Advice: Start with the Highest Burn (00:11:15)
Aaron advises tackling the most painful or draining tasks first to maximize relief and ROI.

Ops Experts Club Gift & Resources (00:12:27)
Aaron introduces the Ops Experts Club, offering free access and tools like the Gap Analyzer for listeners.

Closing Remarks & Gratitude (00:14:31)
Josh and Aaron wrap up, expressing appreciation and encouraging entrepreneurs to leverage operations for growth.

Links and Mentions:

Tools and Websites
Ops Experts Club on Facebook
Gap Analyzer

Books
Traction by Gino Wickman on Amazon

Assessments
Kolbe Assessment

Transcript:

Josh 00:00:00  Today I’m super excited to introduce you to Aaron Hovivian, the CEO and Project Lead at the Collaborative Team Management, or AKA the Collab Team. So welcome to the podcast, Aaron.

Aaron 00:00:11  Hey Josh, thanks for having me man. So good to be here.

Josh 00:00:13  Aaron, you’ve got a lot of experience. As we can see in operations, you’ve helped grow solopreneurs into multifaceted eight figure brands and helping scale people beyond that. Aaron, let’s back things up and tell me, like, how did you even get started in operations? Why is that your specialty?

Aaron 00:00:31  Yeah, I you know, so growing up, my dad was an entrepreneur. My dad was entrepreneurial, you know, and I saw him going out there starting his own business. For him, it was construction for him. He, you know, he had been working for some big guys doing construction in Southern California, you know, for his whole career. And at the age of 40, you know, he said, hey, I’m going to go out and do this on my own.

Aaron 00:00:49  He was able to build this empire for himself. You know, of 85 people doing, you know, high rise construction ceilings in LA in Orange County. And I think inspired by his journey, I think is what inspired me. But I noticed me all growing up, you know, from my earliest jobs. I started working in skateboard snowboard shops as a kid, you know, but even there I did a lot of retail just starting out. A lot of kids do, you know. But I noticed about me is that I’m always pulling apart systems. Like, I’m always wondering, how could we tweak that? How could we make that better? Rolling into businesses that don’t have training manuals and building train training manuals, you know, looking at their POS system to see how they’re dealing with point of sale, like wondering how the customer journey is going to be and just compliment to you, Josh, even just the sequencing of your automations, of sending the invite to this just to be on this podcast, I was like, that guy gets it.

Aaron 00:01:35  Like, let’s make the customer journey easy. Like, let’s take out of the way the encumbrances or the stumbling blocks. And so I think that’s been my journey all the way through. right before I started the Colab team, I was doing project management for a large credit union here in our area in southern Oregon. And I was doing a lot with construction, project management, but also project management within the organization and helping with new platforms, coming online and managing teams and I had my first entrepreneur knock on my door and say, hey, he had been a friend of mine for a lot of years. His name is Keith Yaki. He’s got a great brand out there. He did real estate for a lot of years, and now he’s leaning into something he calls the married game. But Keith Yaki knocked on my door and he said, hey, what would you think about leaving the credit union and coming out and doing this thing with me? I need somebody that just gets operations. You know, they were doing a big bus tours, fix and flip education brand, and he was like, I, I’ve got all the knowledge, I’ve got all the education.

Aaron 00:02:25  I’ve laid out the whole program. I know it’s going to work, but I’m super nervous about the details. What would you think about taking a step with me in this? And so that became my first client for the Colab team, and I left something super stable and kind of like my dad, you know, this, this corporate gig that, you know, had been around for 50 years. They’ll be around for 50 more. They loved me being there. I loved them as people. But I just saw that desire in my heart of, I want more than that. I want to be entrepreneurial. I want to get out there and get out onto my own brand, on my own two feet and take things to the next level. And so that’s kind of what started me down the journey.

Josh 00:02:54  I love that, I love that, you know, from an early age, you were always kind of like pulling things apart. Trying to figure out, all right, how do things work together.

Josh 00:03:02  And already like, systems and processes were already on your mind at an early age. And similarly to myself, you know, I was the kid with the candy stand on the corner of the street growing up. And so I think it’s fascinating for all of us. You know, I love when everybody in the world really when they step into their zone of genius. Right? Like doing what they were born to do, like using their God given talents and gifts. I love that. And it sounds like you’re doing exactly that. Would you agree?

Aaron 00:03:31  Yeah, I definitely enjoy what we do. I mean, obviously, you and I were talking right before we started, right. For you hit record, and we’re like, man, the craziness of life, right? I think that’s the thing that you never take into consideration is as you continue to grow complexities and and how do we minimize complexities and how do we beat back some of the noise and how do we streamline into. And I know this is my highest level of genius.

Aaron 00:03:48  I really do love that. About iOS iOS entrepreneurs operating system from the book Traction by Gino Wickman, which is just how you’re running people like, how does your operations running? And there’s a tool in there that he uses that’s called Delegate and Elevate. And I love the whole exercise of how do I elevate people up to their highest level of brilliance, and how do we delegate down things that have become so powerful. Right. Standard operating procedure. How can I just that doesn’t require your brilliance anymore. You don’t need to be doing that in the day to day anymore. That can be tasked down as long as you’ve lined it out. So I think for all of us trying to ascend up into what’s our highest level of brilliance, I think it’s so fulfilling. And I definitely enjoy what we do at the Colab team, for sure.

Josh 00:04:24  I love that. So, Aaron, you’ve got a lot of experience introducing and integrating operating systems into entrepreneurial businesses, helping them really get established, helping them scale to the next level.

Josh 00:04:37  I want to ask you this question with our audience being, you know, seven figure sellers that want to grow to eight figures and beyond, they they see a bright future for their business. But maybe they’ve got to this point with just a very small team. Maybe it’s them and a couple assistants, or maybe it’s just them and one other person. Or maybe it’s just themself. Why are operations so important? If you do want to scale a business.

Aaron 00:05:02  I would say first of all, I think you have to identify like, what kind of person are you? You know what I mean? Like, let’s just be honest. Most entrepreneurial people are visionaries. You know that. They’re not the ones that carry details. Well, you know, I mean, like, they’re the ones that are out there pushing the limits on the brand. They’re the ones that are out there taking new levels. They’re the ones making connections. They’re, you know, like all these different things knocking down business for the company.

Aaron 00:05:25  That’s that’s most typical, visionaries that I work with. But when it comes to operations, they suck. They’re like, please, dear God, somebody jump in and help me, you know, because they realize that that’s what they’re good at or they haven’t come to that realization yet, and they’re so dang frustrated with it because they’re literally they’re a screwdriver trying to hammer in nails. Right? Like, yeah, you can get that job done. But that’s not what the tool was designed for, right? So the nails frustrated. The job is frustrating. The tool is frustrated that that’s not your that’s not your elevated genius like we talked about, you know. So I think identifying first of all, what kind of person are you. Some entrepreneurs that out there maybe are very operationally minded. Like, Josh, I’ve been really impressed with you and Becca both. I feel like you’re super, like, operations minded. But that’s not the that’s not the majority of entrepreneurs out there. Most entrepreneurs out there are like a live fuse, right? They’re like, so full of passion, so full of vision, so full of direction.

Aaron 00:06:17  They know where they want the brand to go, but actually lining out how to get there, that can be a really frustrating process for them. So what I’ve seen is a lot of times people desperately grab on to people they know starts with their, you know, their friends and family first, right? And then raving fans like, who can I grab and pull into this seat? But then oftentimes they can entrust too much trust to that person right out of the gates, or like they just dump on that person and then it becomes a choking point, and then it actually becomes an even more frustrating experience because visionary already knows they’re not good at this. They brought in this person hoping they’re going to be the savior of the world for everything that felt too overwhelming for them. And now this person starts choking and there’s friction between the two of them. And and a lot of times it just comes down to team allocation and who’s doing what and what’s the standard operating procedure of lining things out, and what are the workflows and and what should belong within that person’s job description versus this person’s job description.

Aaron 00:07:06  And, and I think that just some intentionality of thinking from the end to the beginning, like, where do I want this thing to end up? And then how can I plot it backwards? Really does a lot for removing daily frustrations. None of us want to live frustrated every day. None of us want to live like overwhelmed. Yeah, but a lot of us don’t take in consideration. We get lost in the forest for the trees, for what can I take out of the mix that would remove that frustration on a systemic level? And I think operations can be a big answer to that.

Josh 00:07:33  Yeah, I agree 100% with that. I’m a big believer that operations are like the lifeblood of a company. Now, sales are important, obviously, and having an entrepreneurial vision for where the business is going is are definitely critical as well. But it’s kind of like a three legged stool, right? Where if you don’t have sales, you obviously don’t have a business, you don’t have a vision of where you’re going and what makes you unique and how you can continue to grow the business.

Josh 00:08:02  Then you’re going to fail as a business. But also that other third leg is operations. If you if you have a lot of ideas but then can’t get them implemented or can’t get them implemented implemented properly, then you still don’t have a business. You know, you mentioned, you know, back end. I have a have a decent, you know, understanding of operations. And we have spent a lot of time on our operations. That was actually one of our biggest goals for 2022, was implementing an operating system into our business. And we used a lot of the frameworks that we learned from iOS. We learned about scalable from Ryan Dice and Roland Frazier, and then also with Alex Chaffin. But what’s interesting, though, is to your point, most entrepreneurs don’t have the time or patience or love operations in the least bit. What’s funny is my Kolbe assessment, right? Are you familiar with the Kolbe?

Aaron 00:08:56  I use Kolbe all the time.

Josh 00:08:58  assessment. Yeah. Yes. So with the kolbe, I’m a high quick start.

Josh 00:09:03  Like, I’m a nine on the quick start, right? And then I’m a five with the follow through, which means, you know, I can handle some operations. I understand they’re important. I can go, you know, one way or the other. And then I’m really low on the data side. That’s like, no, I don’t I don’t want to get into the weeds with a bunch of Excel spreadsheets and whatnot, but I feel like it’s it’s more unique that way. There’s not many entrepreneurs that have a high follow through. If they have, they’re really high on quick start.

Aaron 00:09:32  No, I think that’s so.

Josh 00:09:33  Now, as we wrap things up here today, I love to leave the audience with three actionable takeaways from each episode. So here are the three takeaways that I noted. Aaron, let me know if I’m missing something. So number one, all every entrepreneur needs to first identify what their goal is. Do you genuinely want to scale to eight figures and beyond? Or are you content with the success that you’ve experienced thus far, and the team that you’ve built thus far and you’re you’re content where you’re at? So if you first identify your goal, then you can spend the time you’re like, hey, I do want to grow.

Josh 00:10:10  Then we can move on to step number two. Right. Action item number two would be to then do a time study slash gap analyzer that you mentioned. And you have a great tool that people are able to use to actually do this time. Study understand where are they spending most of their time, what type of projects are they working on? And then from there understanding, hey, imagine if I could, you know, remove this large load off my plate, then look at all the stuff I’d be able to do in my own zone of genius. And then step number three or action step number three. Here is then documented documenting some SOPs around those projects, or those tasks that you want to offload off your plate, and even just recording super simple loom videos, you don’t have to get into the weeds, but give people enough to get started. Then when you make that hire, you can have them document that SOP and you can refine that even further, and they can get into the nitty gritty details there for you.

Josh 00:11:10  Aaron, anything else you would add that I’ve missed here to those three actionable takeaways?

Aaron 00:11:15  I think anytime I start with clients, I always ask them, what’s the highest burn like? What do you feel the most burn the most heartburn? The team’s feeling burned. You’re close to burn out. Like, what’s the highest burn attack that first? Like, don’t make this more complex than this. You’re like, I’ve got all these things I’ve got to work on. That’s the. That’s the entrepreneur’s biggest Achilles hone in. Like, what’s the highest burn? What will you get the most ROI on? You know what? What if you invested your time into. We could really move the needle on this. And it would not be a future pain point. So if you’re overwhelmed today, if talking about scaling makes you overwhelmed because you’re like, Aaron, I’m just overwhelmed with what I’m lifting. I would encourage you with this deep breath. Maybe go take a walk, sit down someplace in the sunshine, and think through what would be the best relief that I could receive.

Aaron 00:11:57  What’s the thing that I hate the most? That’s literally draining the lifeblood out of my system every time I do it. Start with that. SOP it out. Get it off your plate and then move on to the next thing. That’s the best advice I can give you is identify the top thing. And then like by how do you eat an elephant? It’s one bite at a time. Like just identify what’s the first bite. Where are we going to go with this first?

Josh 00:12:16  I love that. Fantastic advice. 100% echo what you just said there. Aaron, I know you have a special gift for our audience. Why don’t you tell? Tell everybody a little bit more about that.

Aaron 00:12:27  Sure. So, Ops Experts Club is something that we’ve been building this past year, and it’s, essentially something that you can ask your operations people just to consume and go through. It’s just a resource for operations, is what it is. It’s 35 hours worth of content. and it’s built in a level one.

Aaron 00:12:45  Level two. Level three Ascension, where people can just go through the content. When it comes to all the things you talked about today your tech, your team, your time, all those different pieces, and it’s called the URL is Ops Experts club.com. but as a free gift for Josh and for those of you here on the E-comm breakthrough, we want to give you your first month free and a sneak peek into it. And this is probably more than I intended to give, but it’s great. I love I love free, and I love being generous. the Gap Analyzer is one of the free tools we give every, every, division of level climb. We give you a free tool, and the gap analyzer is actually tucked into it. So you get a twofer out of this deal. So I just told you gap analyzer.com, there’s 297 bucks. You’re actually going to free with this. So if you go to ops Experts club.com slash it’s going to give you a free access in. So all you have to do is opt in there.

Aaron 00:13:37  It’ll kick off membership area. You’ll see your 35 weeks of content. And then it’s not just content though. It’s also every week we’re interviewing top entrepreneurs in the space, the people that run their operations. So asking them like key things of insights, like, what are you doing now? What are like pitfalls? You’ve fallen into all the different pieces. And then we do some live question and answer. If you’ve got question and answer, we give you a private Facebook group where you can come in and ask, hey, I’m dealing with this, I’m dealing with this. And it’s just ops people just dealing with pain points for big companies out there like Ro Rev and Prime Corporate Services. And Pete Vargas has advanced to reach 100 X. All those guys are all in there. And it’s just nice to be able to crowdsource knowledge base. So I’d love to give that as a gift. Josh, I really, really appreciate you having me on today. Really love you and Becca a lot. I love what you guys are doing and so I’d love to give that.

Aaron 00:14:24  So Ops Experts Club gets you a month for free and you can just take advantage of the Gap analyzer. It’s in there on month one.

Josh 00:14:31  So awesome. Aaron, you’ve been very generous. You’ve dropped some knowledge bombs with all of us. I hope many of the entrepreneur entrepreneurs have had some good mindset shifts as well as to why, you know, operations are so important. And seeing it as though, hey, look how much you know, I could take off my plate. Look how freeing it would be if I could have somebody focusing on operations. So, Aaron, you’re the man when it comes to operations. So I appreciate this. And you’ve you’ve given us some fantastic links that Ops Experts Club I think is amazing. I think I’m going to have my ops guy that we just hired come join that, because what you’re doing and and sharing knowledge across across separate industries is invaluable in having an ops team be able to go in and learn those strategies, then come back and implement them in our business would be invaluable.

Josh 00:15:21  So thank you so much for your time, Aaron. I appreciate you coming on.

Aaron 00:15:26  Yeah man, thanks so much, Josh, I hope you have a great rest of the day. And I hope, man, just blessing on all you guys in E-com breakthrough man. Take take Josh’s advice. This is a guy that’s a quality dude. Good hearted guy that has experienced the success himself. And he’s giving you the insight to the kingdom. So man, thanks Josh. I hope you have a great rest of your day.

Josh 00:15:41  Thanks, Aaron.