S3, Ep. 3: Confessions of a Micromanager: Learning to Let Go and Trust the Team, feat. Amanda Bedell, The Business Chaos Sorter

Layci (00:00.974)
Hello listeners and welcome back to Confessions of a Terrible Leader. I'm your host and former terrible leader, Lacey Nelson. Today we have the Business Chaos Sorter, what a fantastic title, joining us, Amanda Bedell. Welcome to the show and thank you for making time for us today.

Amanda (00:25.136)
Thank you so much for having me.

Layci (00:28.942)
So to give our listeners a little bit of context, you own a consultancy, correct? And you are clearly helping people get their business sorted. And we're gonna dive into that a little bit more. But before we jump into how you do that, I'd love to have more of your story as to how did you arrive

because I know you didn't start here and I don't want to steal any of your thunder because you have an incredible story. Would you give us the spark note versions of how you arrived where you're at today?

Amanda (01:17.584)
Yes. So, yeah, I'm known as the business chaos order. But before I was a business chaos order, I was inundated with chaos myself up to my eyeballs with chaos because I ran a bakery business in Seattle, Washington. I started that bakery business as one farmers market in one farmers market and bootstrapped it to a brick and mortar with a wholesale manufacturing facility where we did 2 .2 million annually in sales.

I worked all the time and I didn't have, for the longest time, I didn't even have a GM. So that is a little bit of a teaser into what my confession will be later in the episode. So stay tuned for that. But when I think back to, I wrote a Facebook page message on, it was like a headline.

or a header on my Facebook page in August of 2018. And what I wrote on that post was in a quote, it says, in the review mirror of life, I will be able to look back on these times and see that these experiences helped me receive my heart's desire in grace and in perfect ways. That's Amanda speak for shit's hitting the fan because, oh, sorry.

Layci (02:37.622)
Mm -hmm. Help! No, you're fine. That's allowed.

Amanda (02:42.352)
Because four months after I wrote that post, my life changed forever. Through a series of decisions that I made over the course of six years, I had to sell my bakery business. I was out of money. To me, this was a huge public failure. So here I had all of this revenue in.

Layci (02:49.112)
Mmm.

Layci (02:58.336)
Mm -hmm.

Amanda (03:05.77)
I was actually four credit cards in debt, had an empty 401k, and was literally out of personal capital to continue to go. So the reason why I share that with people now is that I get to look in the review mirror, have a review mirror moment, and say to my reflection, you made it to the other side that you got there. Yeah.

Layci (03:26.744)
Wow. I can only imagine the amount of learning that has taken place and that you had the, the first of all, having that just on display publicly, had to, where were you at mentally, emotionally during that time of having to shut it down? what did that, first of all, how did you have one moment when you just knew like I'm done?

or was it a slow build over time? How did you arrive to that conclusion?

Amanda (03:57.699)
Mm -hmm.

Yeah, I actually one out of 10 business owners that successfully exit their businesses. So even though it was not successful to me, when you think about when you pour everything into your business, like you like I did, you are setting up your business to either have a successful sale where you get to live on a yacht. I don't know. You know, you're thinking like, oh, I'll be able to sell my business for millions of dollars.

or that you've got like, you know, this time freedom and I had neither of those. I was working 24 hours a day, seven days a week if I could, but I did have to sleep. So it wasn't 24 hours, it was more like 20, 18 to 20. So I would sleep four to six hours a night. I didn't have a general manager. I was inundated with staff problems and

Layci (04:51.115)
Ugh.

Amanda (04:58.07)
and low profits. so, you know, the biggest thing for me was I saw that I was going down a drain. I just wasn't sure how fast the water was running. So I, you know, I started to get really meticulous about my cash flow. It would be such a scary, every payroll was scary for me.

Layci (05:13.666)
Mm -hmm.

Mm -hmm.

Amanda (05:26.896)
I was just so razor thin on everything. And yeah, that was the piece that I was missing and why I do what I do now. So everything that I do, whether, you know, I'm looking at the business holistically, but it always goes back to the numbers. So when you're looking at your profit and loss statement or your balance sheet, all of those are decisions that you made in your company.

Layci (05:52.621)
Mm -hmm.

Amanda (05:53.274)
There are decisions that you made each and every day to make those numbers happen. And what I help people do is if you don't like those numbers, let's change them. And what are the strategies that are attached to each number so that we can make a difference in your life? So if you need more revenue, then what is that? Do you need a higher profit margin? What are the things that we can do to do that? So I fill in the gap of what I was missing back in my business and

look at all of the ways that we can get the end result that we want, but that we can do that just by small tweaks in different areas in a business. So it doesn't have to be a brand new marketing campaign. It's what do you do now that works, and how can we turn up the volume just a little bit so that it makes a difference? And that's just one thing, but let's look

pricing or your costs and all of the pieces of the puzzle.

Layci (06:53.71)
Yeah, yeah. Well, I had some time to look on your website and I loved seeing that you're, really speaking to, hey, women that are in male dominated industries. I'm especially talking to you. What, what makes your approach different or maybe

Speaking to like why pick that niche? Why is it that specific male dominated industry? that you wanted to connect with with the manufacturing with the with the Whole list we I also work in a predominantly male dominated industry. We do a lot of work with manufacturing and agriculture and I loved seeing that and I want to hear your perspective. Like what is it about that space that

those of us that are women navigating that space, what tools do we need? Are we missing that you're like, hey, this is why I'm talking to

Amanda (07:57.84)
Well, my heart really goes to the trades a little bit more. Manufacturing, I absolutely love my manufacturing companies that I work with, but the trades and construction is a lot of times it's a low barrier entry to business. So you can start a landscaping business or a painter business with a hundred bucks, 500 bucks. You can borrow.

Layci (08:22.338)
Right.

Amanda (08:24.304)
the tools that you need in order to make that business happen at the very beginning. It's also a lot of breadwinners, people that really need to support their families are in that type of business. So the reasons why I tend to go towards the trades is that they are owner -operators like I was in the bakery business. I am not interested in going back into food.

Layci (08:37.592)
Mm -hmm.

Amanda (08:50.924)
Food is really difficult and to be honest, it's a big lift and the whole industry needs to change in a way that makes it work. How that's gonna happen, I mean, that would be life's work. And I'm just not quite as passionate about that as I am like, let's make the livelihoods of these families who may be immigrants or women who need to make a really good living in doing trade.

Layci (08:52.769)
Yes.

Amanda (09:21.132)
We also need trades in our world. And even with an economic boom and AI and robots and all of that, we still need our landscapers and our painters and folks to help us with our houses and things like that. So there are ways to make that livable wage. Yeah. And that's a better way to make a livable wage, something that you can flourish on when you're doing it right. So I take the lessons

Layci (09:24.194)
Mm -hmm.

Layci (09:37.704)
absolutely.

Layci (09:48.824)
Yes.

Amanda (09:50.116)
you know, my pricing structure was off and a few things that I got from my bakery experience and all of the leadership and team building that I got from that. And I turn it over to folks that have lower barriers to entry when it comes to

Layci (10:08.342)
I love that. I love that. Yeah. It's so often that, I mean, it makes, makes me think the classic, I'm sure you've read it many times over the E -Myth of the technician that is so good at their skill, at their trade. And then they launch a business and it's a completely different skill set to run the business, to run, to understand the finances, to build teams, to lead those teams well. It's, it

not the reason people got into it. Usually it's because, I'm good at landscaping. I have more work than I can handle. I maybe want to bring on some more people or like yourself, your farmers market experience exploded and you're like, wow, there's so much demand here. But taking that next step is a completely new territory and isn't something that most of us, I would argue any of

Amanda (10:46.67)
Mm -hmm.

Layci (11:04.864)
actually just intrinsically know how to do. We have to seek it out, seek out that. So I see, I'm hearing you say like you're holding people accountable to themselves and also, and holding their hand and helping them to figure out how do you take this to the next level, make it successful and not lose yourself and get buried in bad debt and exhaustion and four hours of sleep being your norm.

which whoo yes so what a gift you are to so many and what a way to take i i'm inspired by how you took your experience and said i'm not going instead of you know walking away from it and maybe like having a shame response you're like no no no no that's not i'm gonna tell you like here's where the wheels fell off and i don't want that for you and i know there's a better way

So let me help you now to get

Amanda (12:07.508)
Yeah, and let me just take out a myth of like, I jumped right from one thing to the other. This is I'm now on year four of healing. So it really was a healing journey. And as I was saying, I was lucky enough to exit and have a buyer. And I did get out of my company with my debt paid, but barely enough to survive. Really, I

Layci (12:24.632)
Yeah.

Layci (12:31.33)
Yay.

Amanda (12:35.952)
think of the word failure and I would burst into tears. Like I could not, the bakery was my life. The people that I worked with were my people. Like I was cultivating them and just going towards that leadership conversation. What I was doing at the time, Seattle, Washington had a $15 minimum wage that was passed in 2016.

Layci (12:42.524)
Mmm.

Amanda (13:02.544)
That's great. My people, paid them more than that anyway. However, I paid them $17 an hour. However, when the bill passed, even though small business owners had the opportunity to have a runway that was multiple years long, our employment pool dried up. So even at $17 an hour, which was higher than the minimum wage for large businesses when this passed, my Craigslist ads and where I posted ads went

Yes, I was getting them before and no, I was not after. So I had no new folks coming in. The restaurant industry is higher turnover. And I'll tell you in a minute how I stretched the turnover so that it was less, it was longer than industry standard. But, you know, I get a lot of young folks and, you know, we were, you know, a typical

Layci (13:37.045)
Mmm.

Layci (13:50.805)
Mm.

Amanda (13:59.728)
So I turned on and looked at underutilized sources for employment. So I knew a colleague at Goodwill. I was the PR director of Goodwill back in the day. And one of my colleagues had moved to the prison systems and I talked to her about getting some folks that were in reentry.

So I worked on first chance and second chance opportunities for folks. So those that were exiting the correctional facilities could work at my store and that gives them a solid ground. Again, do I want them to work with me forever? No, I don't. I want them to be there, get stable and then move through. The same was that we created an apprenticeship program for youth that lived on the street. And that youth shelter was just down

Layci (14:35.469)
Mm -hmm.

Layci (14:39.35)
Yeah.

Amanda (14:54.892)
It was downtown, so they had to get up to where I was, which was a couple miles away. And we would just teach them how to work. Again, like stabilization. I watched people get like go from living in cars and under bridges to their first apartments, which was a huge game changer for me. like, as far as like, again, where the passion was, I had so much passion around this, the food too, because I'm celiac, it was all gluten free.

Layci (15:16.384)
Yes.

Amanda (15:21.84)
So I was not lacking in the passion department for this business. So when we talk about how I moved towards, you know, the passion that I have now, which is telling people how to actually make money doing their business so that they aren't in survival mode always as I was, it was not an easy road to get here. It's four years later. And at first I wouldn't be able to talk like this in some of the first interviews that I've done.

Layci (15:27.896)
Ha ha

Layci (15:37.026)
Yeah.

Layci (15:46.146)
Mm -hmm.

Amanda (15:51.12)
I even did get teary -eyed and people could hear the emotion. So it's not a fast switch over, but more of a gradual healing. There's a lot that went on there. owning up to the decisions I made too, that got me there. But yeah, so that's how the business chaos order was born.

Layci (15:58.542)
Right. Right.

Layci (16:10.403)
Right.

Layci (16:17.052)
my gosh, what a beautiful and honest and raw story. I see the consistency, though, in you're still doing the same thing that is your heart's passion. It's just the vehicle with which you're doing it through is different. Right. But that common thread of living out your your passion to help others, to give people that opportunity to get stable, to

get a second chance if they need it, to get a good start at their first chance. And that is continued in your life. Like that is such the, that's what I'm seeing, what I'm hearing reflecting back to you in this interview is that common thread. And that is something we owe it when we're working with our clients and we're asking them to identify their core values and their understanding of their sense

Amanda (17:02.288)
Thank

Layci (17:13.294)
personal purpose or personal, what is that thing that drives you? And we often encourage them, you know, look all the way back, like go back even to childhood and you're going to see some threads that carry all the way through. And this is just such a beautiful example of that thread. Like it looks like you're doing from the outside. It looks like you're doing something radically different. But if you look at the thread, like that common thread of

what you were able to, the impact you wanted to make. Like that's consistent over that. And that's still there. And so that, what a beautiful, beautiful thing. I, now that we have this backstory and we can, we understand like some of the hardships and the wins and the, tough decisions that had to be made. I'm sure you have a juicy confession for

Amanda (17:48.228)
Mm -hmm. Mm -hmm.

Layci (18:12.532)
So if you would be so kind as to launch in to your confession and let us know what is that one of those big mistakes that you are willing to talk about in your journey of understanding what it means to

Amanda (18:35.472)
Well, I was a really young leader. So even back when I was 16 years old and worked at the Dairy Queen in town, I was promoted into a leadership role. And throughout my career, I continued to do these leadership roles. I was thrown into managing at a really young age at a PR agency when I was 23, 24 years old.

So I have so many stories, but just to stay within the bakery realm, because I laugh at that one quite often, is this is, so as I teased earlier, was the, so there was a, I didn't have a GM for the longest time. And there was this point in my,

bakery career that I had left for a vacation for four days to see my sister in Philadelphia. And I could account for $24 ,000 that was missed in orders based on my absence at the bakery. And so that was a huge like ding, ding, ding moment. Like you are attached to this business, you have your hands in way too many things, you're doing too much.

Layci (19:54.327)
Mm -hmm.

Amanda (19:57.456)
It cannot survive without you. I already knew it was going to be kind of rocky without me anyway. But you know, I did see I was going down the drain personally. I wasn't sure how to fix this. I knew I had like a year and a half, maybe two years left of financing and I wasn't sure really what to do. So I did hire my first GM, general manager. And just a little side note for those of you that own businesses.

Layci (20:22.754)
Mm -hmm.

Amanda (20:26.287)
noticed that I found money to hire a GM, but for some reason I still didn't pay myself. So that's a whole nother thing to talk about. But with this general manager, she was awesome. I learned so much from having her because it is so different to go from being in a corporate setting or even nonprofit where I came from, agency land, whatever, running and leading people to actually having a team

Layci (20:35.118)
Ha

Amanda (20:55.952)
run your business, your baby that you've born from one farmer's market. So I was pretty, I didn't realize this, but I was very particular about how things got done. So one time I also with my staff, because I didn't have managers, I taught everyone courageous conversations. So I don't know if you've, I mean, it is something in the leadership world, but courageous conversations is where

Layci (21:07.509)
Mm -hmm.

Amanda (21:26.084)
We openly said that word to each other and said, hey, I need a courageous conversation with you. And we talked about the facts of how people either made us feel or if something happened. And we just wouldn't take it personally. Instead, we would listen to that person fully and then get some feedback and then try to rectify it. So the GM asked me for a courageous conversation. And we did these walking around the block. So these were walking meetings too.

Layci (21:32.191)
Mm -hmm.

Amanda (21:55.236)
So just like in an office setting, you don't have to do this in a boardroom. We did it in a restaurant, in this tiny bakery business, right? And we would just walk around the block. And so during that time, she's like, why every time you come in, you go behind the counter and you redo everything? And I said, I do? Like, I didn't even know I did it.

She's like, it's really undermining for the staff that's there. And by this time, like I, she had gotten me to the point where I wasn't there at open. So I was trusting that the opener would open the restaurant, but I would be there by like eight or nine before the, you know, got really busy so that I could, you know, make sure everything's good. She's like, it's really undermining to the half when you do that.

Layci (22:48.79)
Mm -hmm.

Amanda (22:52.492)
I had no idea. She actually said something that kind of hurt me and said it doesn't look any different. And I was like, what are you talking about? It looks totally different when I do it versus you know, when there's five cookies on a plate versus one cookie on a plate. Come on, that looks different. So what my confession is, is

I was micromanaging something that I said I never do, but I did just inherently do that, not even thinking about it. And what I've learned or what I had to learn in that moment was that the end result is what I had to, you know, my expectation, the end result that I wanted needed to be clear. And then I had to let go of the process of how they got there. No, that was my biggest lesson.

Layci (23:19.852)
Mm -hmm.

Layci (23:43.82)
Yes.

Layci (23:47.584)
wow. Yes. And such a common one, right? Like we're so passionate about our babies and it is so hard to let go. But yes, letting go of the process, but you don't have to let go of the outcome. You can let go of how it happens, but you don't have to let go of that it's going to happen or needs to happen or needs to have a certain result at the end. yeah, learning to relax about the specifics of how it gets there. Such an important skill.

Amanda (24:16.618)
And so hard, so hard to do. You know, I even remember back in my agency days, I'd be like, well, just do this, this, this, this. I'm a pretty process person. I'm like, I'm writing it out for you. And then somebody gets lost, like a new person gets lost in the process. I'm like, how do you get lost in the process? It's right there. But yeah, they need to find their own ways through it. So

Layci (24:43.234)
Yep, yes. Well, okay, my follow -up question to that great insight for all of us that have micromanagement tendencies, how has that shaped the way that you now lead today? What do you take from that learning and apply to your life, to your business now?

Amanda (25:08.068)
I'm sorry, will you ask that question again?

Layci (25:11.458)
Yes, what do you take away from that learning and apply today? How do you apply what you learned then to your life and to your business today?

Amanda (25:25.84)
I take so many lessons from my past and even from that one example in that that one in particular I bring to my business owners when I work with them. You know, we're putting together processes or you know, when I'm working with a manufacturer who wants things to be done faster, has, you know, timeframes and things like that. So I look at taking those lessons and turning them

on to them. And one of the biggest lessons too that I learned was in production was that, you know, there are people who are going to go within a timeframe. let's instead of saying we need this done in 15 minutes, maybe it's we need this done the fastest time, which would be me or somebody that, you know, we're under the gun, we feel it, our employees don't feel the time crunch like we do.

They just won't. As an owner, you're just bought in a lot more than anyone else will be. So your time will always be the fastest, but how can you give a grace period of eight, eight -ish minutes, six to eight minutes? It depends on the task, but I give a range now. So instead, when we're optimizing what's happening on the floor in a production facility or out on a job site,

Layci (26:41.836)
Right.

Amanda (26:50.83)
we're doing a range of time versus like this strict, like this has to be done at this time and precise. And so that they can also kind of like let that piece of worrying go. If there's a problem, someone is continuously moving, you know, past that the highest timeframe, then we can address that one person. But instead of having this

Layci (27:12.353)
Mm -hmm.

Amanda (27:15.758)
just general case of like, everything's so slow and people even walk slow, they talk slow and like, look at them taking a break and drinking their coffee. I mean, so rude. It's important. It's really important to be in north and you know, the other lesson is that we're as business owners, we are so bought in and again, like,

Layci (27:15.96)
Right.

Layci (27:20.299)
Mm -hmm.

Layci (27:26.602)
So rude.

Layci (27:32.622)
Yeah.

Amanda (27:44.196)
sometimes not to the healthiest extent. So we go overboard, right? Because we're just like, and then we might burn out or however you deal with your down cycles. You don't want that for your employees. You want them to be steady, especially people that are making stuff. We want them to be those folks that are not like us.

Layci (27:46.818)
Right.

Amanda (28:10.468)
So we can't necessarily identify with folks that can sit on a floor and make the same thing over and over again, but we need them. And we also need to take care of them and allow them to have their gossip time or whatever they're doing when they start talking to each other.

Layci (28:11.138)
Right?

Layci (28:17.731)
Right?

Mm -hmm.

Layci (28:26.284)
Right, right.

Right. I was talking to some people the other day about working on a packing floor, because it's cherry season here in Yakima, and working on a packing floor. And there was a rule that when they were on the line, they couldn't even talk to each other. And I was just flabbergasted that that was the solution. No, they didn't last.

Amanda (28:49.24)
Really?

Layci (28:59.116)
extremely high turnover. yes, absolutely. Like we set up these ridiculous, what seems normal to us or seems reasonable, which is completely unreasonable and not sustainable for people. And what a good reminder. If people need you, Amanda, as we're wrapping up, if they're like, my gosh, I need some chaos managed. I need some help. I need some sorting.

Amanda (29:08.406)
Yeah. No.

Layci (29:25.548)
How did they find you? Where did they go? And we will drop everything in the notes, all the links, generally, where can they find you

Amanda (29:34.072)
Yeah, so my favorite social media channel is my Instagram. So it's at Amanda Bedell. Or you can, you know, look at the links in this podcast show notes. I'm sure you'll have some links there. Or my email address. I love hearing from folks. Any kind of question that you have, I'm there to answer. It's Amanda at BCC business consulting

Layci (30:02.702)
Excellent. Well, thank you so much. Listeners, please. This woman is full of all the lessons I think we needed to learn at the beginning and learning to grow a business. So I encourage you reach out. Amanda, thank you for your time today. Thank you for this great, honest conversation. was so enlightening and fun and raw and just vulnerable. Thank you for all of those things.

Until next time, listeners, go manage like a leader.