Mastering Business Systems as a Busy Mom with Luvyna Mantle

SPEAKERS

Luvyna Mantle, Rita Suzanne

Rita Suzanne  00:01

Welcome to the Mom Owned and Operated Podcast, the podcast about moms and for moms, where we have candid conversations about running a business, raising a family, and remembering ourselves. I’m your host, Rita Suzanne, a single mom of four, digital strategist and provider of no nonsense business strategies and tactics. Hi, I’m Rita Suzanne.

Hi, this is Mom-Owned and Operated. I am Rita Suzanne, and today I have my guest Luvyna with me. I’m so excited to have you on and please tell everyone a little bit about you, your family and your business.

Luvyna Mantle: 0:44

Yeah, I’m a mama to boys. I have a four-year-old and an almost two-year-old. That’s a mom and has boys knows what that’s like. But I currently am running my business. It’s Mantle Co and we do CRM setups. So the back-end for business owners, All your websites and funnels and automations and memberships and all that jazz. We help with that. But I also co-own a family ranch too. It’s been really fun to combine all my different passions and kids and stuff that’s me when are you located? We’re in Kansas, right in the middle of the US.

Rita Suzanne: 1:25

Yeah, I drove through there when I was leaving Ohio to move to California. It was very desolate, obviously, but I’m sure there is some life.

Luvyna Mantle: 1:39

No, that’s like everything. Everybody’s like okay, what part of cancer. I’m like you drove by us Right? Everybody drives through nobody really stops Right.

Rita Suzanne: 1:49

Well, because 70 just goes straight across. I’m sure that that part is just not super populated. What made you get into CRMs? How did you do that?

Luvyna Mantle: 2:02

Yes, I started as a virtual assistant and very quickly moved into a more online business manager role with my two main companies that I was working for. They were using HubSpot Around the same time my own business. I needed something more. I love HubSpot. I love just the functionality and how robust it is and things like that. It’s built for companies that are I mean, these are multi-million dollar companies that had marketing and sales and operations teams and way bigger than you and me. I started playing around with some of the smaller systems. I tried out HoneyBook, DevStato. I wasn’t a huge fan, I think. Just coming from HubSpot and then not having being able to do all the things I’m used to doing. That’s when I found Go High Level. I just I loved it, Like it’s very similar capability wise to what HubSpot has, so I implemented it in my own business. I watched my own business grow and that was right.

Luvyna Mantle: 3:02

About the time that my second son was born, my husband transitioned out of the military, I had a baby and a toddler and I was like I can’t be on calls multiple times a day and weeks, Like life’s just not working as like an online business manager side of things, and even though I love like project management and managing teams and things like that, and I’m the oldest kid of four kids so I feel like it comes very natural to me. It wasn’t working for my family and that’s the whole reason I got into all this. So at that point I was fairly well versed in go high level. I used it in my own business for quite a while. I helped several of my friends and colleagues with it. So I felt confident enough to kind of switch over to only doing project based at that point and just doing the business systems.

Luvyna Mantle: 3:47

Like. It’s very flexible. I could rearrange things Like it wasn’t like I was in meetings and had super hard deadlines for most things so I could rearrange things around kids and livestock schedules If I needed to build something out with a kid on my lap like I can do that type of thing. So I switched over to doing that. It took that. It was kind of a big, scary leap, but we did that and it’s worked out great. I did just project based for almost the last two years and I finally accepted my first retainer client again in January. So I’m excited that my kids are like at the point where I can accept a retainer client Like we, confident in that.

Rita Suzanne: 4:27

That’s. I mean, that’s a lot, and I remember when I was doing projects like longterm projects, and they were the worst, and then I switched to like VIP days, and they opened up so much space for me. My kids were I had two sons as well when I started my business, and they were older than yours though, so I couldn’t even imagine having I think my youngest was maybe four when I started, so he was a little bit a handful right, but I couldn’t imagine having an infant or a toddler running around and trying to work with clients.

Rita Suzanne: 5:09

Plus, you have your other business as well. So it sounds like there’s a lot going on over there.

Luvyna Mantle: 5:16

I like to call it organized chaos there is, but I think we have a pretty good system Now, like my husband’s works from home right now, so that helps a lot, like could not do it without him, and we have a nanny that comes a couple hours a week too to just give us both a break, especially like both of us working from home being with kids 24 seven. We’re about two and a half hours from my family and even farther from his, so it’s nice to have a little like just a couple hours a week where we can be like, okay, we’re taking naps or we’re gonna like go run errands without kids, dedicated work time or whatever. So we have a pretty good system.

Rita Suzanne: 5:56

I always love to figure out, like how other people are able to run their businesses and stuff, and so I love to hear that you guys have kind of created a system around your life, or your business is really revolving around your life. First is the other way around. When I started I think it was probably the verse I was having my whole life revolve around my business and I think that that was like the biggest mistake that I made. So when you are making the CRM, tell everybody like what’s the benefit of actually having a CRM, because if you’re a smaller business, I think a lot of people feel like they don’t really need it.

Luvyna Mantle: 6:41

Yeah, one of the biggest things and even like I wish I would have done this when I very first was starting out is when we are first starting our business out and we’re in the weeds, like we are promoting ourselves so much, we’re making all these connections and doing everything and we’re losing all those contacts, like we’re not. I didn’t have an Excel sheet and I know, like a lot of people, they just they do all this work but they’re not keeping and nurturing those contacts. That’s one of the biggest benefits to CRM. A CRM is a customer relationship management tool. It is keeping that contact information so you can nurture them, you can go back and talk to them and you can make those connections and build those relationships and not lose track of who they are. It’s one of the biggest things. There’s so many people I talked to when I was probably the first six months of my business that I wish I would have kept their information because they would be amazing referral partners right now. But I don’t remember. Maybe I remember their first name, but nothing else. So that’s one of the biggest things especially as if you’re brand new to business is just having some sort of system, even if it’s an Excel sheet A lot of times.

Luvyna Mantle: 7:51

Brand new to business, you don’t need a full CRM. You probably don’t have an email list that you’re sending out newsletters and things like that. You probably don’t have a membership yet, but the benefits of having that once you are a little bit more established is that everything’s housed in place. So your websites in one place, your funnels are in one place, your contacts, your workflows and automations, your membership area, your blog and email marketing Everything’s in one place with go high level. So instead of you like switching back and forth and duct taping and using Zapier and trying to make everything work, it’s all in one place. So it saves you a lot of money and it saves you a lot of time.

Rita Suzanne: 8:30

Yeah, I remember when everybody was so excited about like Honey Book and the other ones, because they would do like the invoicing and the emails and all of that stuff straight inside of there, and I never really got into it, just because I didn’t find it to be necessary. Plus, I don’t know, I like having my website outside of that. But I love the idea of funnels and so you’re utilizing funnels in this case, right, and then on there, are there triggers that remind you to follow up with them, or is it based around automations, and how does that work?

Luvyna Mantle: 9:13

I mean, I have my business set up to be as automated as possible, just because I don’t want something to fall in the cracks. I mean, and yeah, I have two little kids and it is so easy to just forget. I mean, you have an appointment or something like that. So I have my business as automated as possible. So I have all my follow up automated, I have. It sends me reminders that, oh, it’s been three months since you connected with this person.

Rita Suzanne: 9:40

I love that part, so connect with them.

Luvyna Mantle: 9:43

I also have mine set up that based off of like interactions that I have with them, because it’s all connected to my socials too. So like I can respond to all my social media messages in one place, which is super nice, but interactions I have between like DMs and emails and then scheduling coffee chats or looking at links on my website, it actually tallies all those ups and gives me like a lead value from one to 10. So when I go back I get that reminder. In three months I can go back and actually look in their contact and it’s like, oh well, this has a lead value of seven. So then I know that’s a decently warm lead. Like we need to keep on that. So yeah, I have different things like that. I have all sorts of automation.

Rita Suzanne: 10:30

Triggers and everything else that goes up. I love the idea of following up with not necessarily someone who has contacted you as a prospective client, but someone who could potentially be, like you said, an affiliate or referral partner or somebody else is just like you want to stay friends with, because I see that happening all the time. Like people reach out and then you know, like you’ll talk for a few days or maybe even a few weeks, and then you’ll just lose contact with them because both of you have basically moved on and have started doing other things, and I think that that’s an important thing. And even if you have a spreadsheet, the bad thing about the spreadsheets is like they don’t remind you to go and follow up with that person. So I think that that’s awesome. Like putting all of that together just takes so much time, which is why what they hire you so that you can go and do it for them.

Luvyna Mantle: 11:27

Yeah, yeah. A lot of times is, yeah, people don’t. Workflows and automations seem very scary to a lot of people and they don’t have to be, but that’s where I come in.

Rita Suzanne: 11:38

I love it, so who is your ideal client then?

Luvyna Mantle: 11:44

Really any coaches or online entrepreneurs, Bye. I like to build relationships with people, so I try to. I mean I’ve attracted clients that we vibe well together.

Rita Suzanne: 11:57

Right.

Luvyna Mantle: 11:58

So I can work with pretty much anyone. I mean, we did a wedding venue last week, which was nothing that I ever thought I’d ever do, but it’s fun. I’ve worked with a lot of different people in a lot of different industries because of that, and I have some agency level accounts too where I work with all of their clients. So it’s given me a very broad experience and kind of it’s really fun, Like it keeps the interest there and I get to learn how to like personalize things for a lot of different industries, but primarily it’s coaches.

Rita Suzanne: 12:29

Yeah, I see it’s. You know, in our entrepreneurial space, everybody’s like you know you need to niche down, you need to target in on this one person, and I mean I believe that right. However, I think that oftentimes we’re like okay, I want to connect with moms, I want to connect with mom business owners, I want to connect with mom business owners who are coaches, I want you know, and so they’re very specific about it. Maybe being mom, you know coaches right. However, recently, I’ve kind of veered into the idea of maybe it’s not necessarily what they do, but it’s their problem that they have, and so this could be a mom or a non-mom coach. But the problem, ultimately, is I need a CRM right and I need it to help my business run smoothly, and so oftentimes, though, when you’re kind of broad like that, it makes it hard to kind of write your content right, Because it’s like hey anybody who needs my thing come and hire me.

Rita Suzanne: 13:38

But, like, honing in on who you’re serving and kind of what their pain points is, I think is super critical in connecting with other people who need your services. So, because you have all of this stuff in place, how are you able to like juggle everything outside of? Like, do you have like a schedule? Do you like a lot time in your calendar? Like, what is your secret to being able to run these two businesses and, you know, wrangle the boys and all of that stuff as well?

Luvyna Mantle: 14:12

Yeah, so we have calendars everywhere. My family during a very like busy season of business, like work stuff, at one point my family was, my parents and my husband were trying to schedule it, like figure things out, and I was like here’s my calendar link schedule it. If it’s not in my calendar it’s not happening. So now it’s an ongoing joke that they keep just like scheduling things in my calendar. But really I try to block off. So Wednesdays are when I do networking calls and I run my membership meetings. Tuesdays and Thursdays is when I take client calls and coffee chats and then I try to leave Mondays and Fridays open One, because if I don’t have work that needs to be done immediately and I have nothing scheduled I like to take, I like to just have flexibility.

Luvyna Mantle: 15:01

Like, for example, I’m taking tomorrow off because we are redoing our hardwood floors this weekend and I had nothing on my calendar and I’m caught up on client work and I was like you know what, let’s get a head start Like let’s not try to push everything into a day and a half, let’s have a little bit of flexibility. So I try to leave Mondays and Fridays just open for either client work or kids and family or whatever comes up. If I wanna take a four day weekend, I can, and then I kind of jam pack those other two days between like nine and four, and they’re normally even then like they’re not horrible, like I still have time to get things done in between.

Rita Suzanne: 15:43

So yeah, I think that that’s the key is like that’s one of the reasons why we do this right, Like we have our own businesses. I know I started my business so that I could be home with my sons more, but I feel, like most of us, what we’re striving for is time and financial freedom right, and so oftentimes, though, we get so busy and caught up in the Monday in place in order to kind of take some of that pressure off of us. So I love CRMs. I think a lot of people not enough people use them, I think, in our space.

Luvyna Mantle: 16:25

Yeah no.

Luvyna Mantle: 16:25

I totally agree and I think it is important to have just dedicated days to work Like. That was one of the biggest things I noticed in a difference in my business, and just how less stressed I was is when I had, even if it was just one day on my calendar where there was no calls booked. Just having one day of flexibility to knock things out was really nice. And one thing as a mom I realized I was on my phone working even in evenings and mornings and that was really hard for me, so I just had to put do not disturb on and learn to leave my phone in another room to charge. So just kind of creating different boundaries around myself and my business, which has been like it is not easy whatsoever. Like I’m typing in where if a client emails me or messages me, like I want to respond immediately, and it took a little bit to get comfortable with the fact that okay, they know there’s boundaries here, they know I’m not going to, they’re probably fine with it, they’re probably just messaging me so they don’t forget it.

Rita Suzanne: 17:30

But things like that I think, especially if you ever worked in corporate, I think that we’ve been kind of trained to keep our emails open and be as responsive as possible, like almost instantaneously. That’s the way it was when I worked in corporate, so I had to untrain myself as well, and so one thing that I well, two things that I did was I just removed email off of my phone altogether, and then I could only check when I was at home and actually sitting down to the computer. That saved me. Otherwise I would be so reactive oh my gosh, I need to get back, I need to get this client done and I would wake up with so much anxiety because of the list of stuff from my clients, you know, asking me to do oh I forgot about this and I forgot about that. And so once I I think once you start setting those boundaries and actually enforcing them I mean it took me. I mean it’s been nine years without email on my phone at all, and it’s heaven, like it’s amazing. And and then the second thing that I did was, although I have social on my phone right, who doesn’t? I just turned off all my notifications, so I never get notifications and only reply when I want to.

Rita Suzanne: 18:52

Sometimes that’s not great, especially like if someone is trying to tag you in something and they’re like, oh, you know, rita, over here, like Rita, rita, rita, rita, and I’m just like, you know, five hours later I’m replying and I’m like, oh, sorry, my bad, but I’ve had people actually like text me and be like I’m tagging you, go, go, go, do this. But I feel like I have to do that for my own sanity, otherwise I would just be in front of my phone all day, like I was in the beginning. That’s how. That’s how I was, because I had. I felt like I needed to prove to everybody that I could make this business work, and so it was like you know, I’m going to kill myself. You know, working too much, I mean, you know.

Rita Suzanne: 19:39

I’m going to kill myself working so much in order to prove to everyone that I can do this by continuously just, you know, doing all the things that I feel like I had to do, being pulled in all these different directions, and so it’s definitely not good, but I think that a lot of times, when we first start our businesses, we don’t set boundaries until we really really have to, yes, and it becomes a place of like, why didn’t I do this sooner?

Rita Suzanne: 20:10

I wish somebody would have told me to not, you know, to do these things, but I just thought that I had to do that. So one thing that I love to talk about and ask moms, you know, because I started this podcast out of almost a necessity to reconnect with other women and figure out, like, how are other moms doing the thing that I felt like I was failing at right, which was running a business and raising my family and but taking care of myself I wasn’t taking care of myself at all, and so I was like I have to know how they’re doing it. They all look like they’re doing it. Like I need to know, like, what is the big secret? So what is your secret? And, as far as like, what are you doing for yourself, like tell us so what do you do just for you?

Luvyna Mantle: 21:01

I get this question all the time and the answer is not nearly enough.

Rita Suzanne: 21:11

What is it right? Like you, that’s what it is, so you’re going to be moving forward in order to make improvements.

Luvyna Mantle: 21:18

Yeah, it was slowly getting there, like it used to be. I did nothing for myself and now it’s like I have quiet time in the morning and like generally I’ll start like my work day with like a meditation or just kind of sitting and relaxing and reading a little bit of a book or something like that. So I’m definitely improving and I’m getting better. I keep saying that I’m just going to like book a spa day and just escape and not worry about it, but that hasn’t happened yet.

Rita Suzanne: 21:48

I’ve been saying that too for 10 years.

Luvyna Mantle: 21:52

But no, I think it’s.

Luvyna Mantle: 21:55

For me it was more recognizing that I wasn’t, like I was so involved in my business and then trying to be a mom, but not even like being the fun mom, fun parts of being a mom, like just, okay, the house needs cleaned and we got to make dinner and we got to prep this and the grocery list needs done, and like all these different things that are involved with being a parent that I realized that I was missing out on.

Luvyna Mantle: 22:19

Okay, yes, the house is a disaster, but we can take an hour and we can go play outside together and we can take an hour and we can go make some cookies or like just those little things that are fun, like the fun parts of being a parent. And honestly, that’s been amazing, like just being okay with the fact that my house is a disaster and things are not where I normally want them, but it’s okay to take a second and do something fun that your kid wants to do and not your responsibilities for a second. So that’s been huge for me and just feeling better about myself and better as a parent.

Rita Suzanne: 22:59

I’ve said this before and I’ll say it again, that sometimes self care is literally as simple as just going into the bathroom by yourself and staying in there for just an extra few minutes so that you can catch your breath right and just like reevaluate and recenter yourself. And I think that oftentimes people may equate the self care to something elaborate like going to the spa or, you know, getting their nails done or things like that, and I think that those are great activities, but I don’t think that they’re necessarily indicative of self care, right? Whatever makes you feel like you’ve done something for yourself is all it takes. Like that I used to say taking a bath or taking a shower with my self care, or self care, you know.

Luvyna Mantle: 23:52

So like taking a shower that’s actually longer than five minutes right, right, like doing a whole wash of hair like exfoliate yeah.

Rita Suzanne: 24:04

No, I, you know, my kids are all teenagers now and so I, you know, have a lot more freedom of flexibility. So just know it’s coming. It’s going to take you a long time to get there, but it’s going to happen. And you know you’ll get it back slowly. But I do remember what it was like to have my kids so young and feel so overwhelmed by all the directions that I was being pulled in. So you know, just you’ll get there. Just you know, don’t worry. And just you know, if you recognize like those little things, I think that’ll help you get closer to the bigger things that you need in order to feel like you’re actually taking better care of self right.

Luvyna Mantle: 24:52

Yeah, and like we’ve taken, like I’ve it’s been amazing just recognizing like your health isn’t the best and like starting to take those small steps and Health is one of those things like it’s not an overnight thing. I think it takes time to get there and just seeing the difference, that looking back like three and six months and be like, okay, these little things I started doing six months ago like are making a difference, and yeah, I Know I wish I could lose weight as fast as I feel like I gained it, but it’s just happening.

Rita Suzanne: 25:26

But you know it’s one one day at a time. So you know I’m getting, I’m getting there, and so you know, I think just Appreciating the moment that we’re in and the space that we’re in is something very important and I think a lot of us forget that because we’re too busy looking to future. So when can Everyone find you like? Where are you online so that they can hire you and get that CRM set up and get themselves running more smoothly?

Luvyna Mantle: 25:56

Instagram’s gonna be your best bet. I’m on Instagram at me and Tolanko, or my website and email, which is just mantle and co, or info at mantle and co. But I can like hundred percent tell you you’re gonna get a response fairly quickly if it’s in DMs on Instagram versus email like I’m only gonna take a couple of days. If you saw my inbox you would understand why. But yeah, I’m. I’m on Instagram every day and posting videos of the kids doing dumb things and baby calves and Whatever else is happening in life.

Rita Suzanne: 26:27

So I Love that that is. That is so great. I love Meeting you and I think that you know I appreciate you coming and spending a little bit of time with me and letting everyone know you know how you’re able to do all of the things.

Luvyna Mantle: 26:43

Yeah, absolutely. I mean it’s not easy, but definitely like having a system and kind of schedule in place helps a lot.

Rita Suzanne: 26:50

So yes, so I just one last question that I I like to ask to. If a new, if a mom came to you and she wanted to start her own business, what would your advice be to her?

Luvyna Mantle: 27:05

A hundred percent. Do it like there was no reason that you can’t be a mom and run an amazing business at the same time. But definitely like tap into your support system and if that’s your family, amazing. Like I’ve an amazing support system with my own family, but a lot of people don’t have that. Pretty sure my parents thought I was batshit crazy when I started this whole thing, but they never once told me and they always encouraged me. But also like there’s an amazing community of entrepreneurs and even like mom entrepreneurs. I think every single one of us is rooting for you and is more willing to help you, because we’ve been there and we’ve seen the difference and just how we have grown as a mom and as a person since starting our own business, and it’s such a good Example to show our kids too. So tap into those resources, like there’s so many people out there that are willing to help you and want you to exceed.

Rita Suzanne: 28:01

Love that. Thank you so much again for being a guest. It’s been a pleasure chatting with you. Yeah, you too. Thank you.

And there you have it. I want to encourage you to remember that being a mom who runs her own business is not easy. We all struggle, but just keep moving forward. And don’t forget to make time for yourself. As moms we are usually the first thing to go to the bottom of the list. If your business is overwhelming you and you need real solutions, not just some sugar coated suggestions apply to work with me at ritasuzanne.com/apply