320. Staying curious when finding discrepancies, living in day tight compartments

Navigating the maze of business management while juggling life’s curveballs is no easy feat. Join me as I recount the early morning adventures of working shifts and the quest to maintain sanity amidst chaos. Discover how we unravel the complexities of membership billing, from deciphering the tangled web of member connections to ensuring each transaction is accounted for. Through relatable tales of couples sharing rooftops and the perks of swapping skilled services for gym memberships, we’ll explore the hidden intricacies of revenue management and the role of curiosity in auditing processes.

Beyond spreadsheets and schedules, this episode peels back the curtain on personal challenges, sharing a journey through stress, sleepless nights, and the delicate dance of aligning emotions with logic. As I battle invasive thoughts with a blend of rational strategies and soothing melodies, you’ll uncover practical tips for harnessing control over mental well-being. Finally, we chart the course for the day’s tasks, from reaching out to potential clients to maintaining the hustle of the day job, offering a candid look into the art of balancing professional duties with personal growth.

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:32

Hey, good morning. So here we are. We're at Thursday. I worked another morning shift. I've been taping it off slightly, though. So yesterday I think I came in at six, the day before I was in at five, and today I came in at like seven o'clock, yeah, 6.45 or so, partially to get back to a decent sense of normalcy and establish a more normal thing. I still want to be present and on site because the management team is still getting their feet under them on what activities are top of mind, what needs to happen first, how to investigate things that need to get ironed out, and just one example. And just one example.

Speaker 1: 1:12

It's nothing too crazy. So we have some members that live together. They's nothing too crazy. So we have, like, some members that they live together. They have different like last names, so on paper it's hard to tell, like if they're connected or related or something, and like one member pays zero but the other member pays double, and so trying to figure out, okay, like, is this valid? Is this what's supposed to be happening? Is this, you know, worst case? Is this someone like doing credit card fraud or something and they're charging somebody else's card so they can get a free membership, and so in this case it was an easy one. They're just boyfriend and girlfriend living together, super easy to figure out.

Speaker 1: 1:47

A couple other nuances like that, where it's just a little murky on how billing and memberships are, are figured out within the system so that the net revenue is correct. But it's just a little. It's not done properly and so it's difficult to audit and confirm, like retention rates, upsells, downsells, who to attribute revenue to. When they come into a class, does this person just different metrics that you can't track when stuff is out of touch with that? So that was helpful. I also found a handful of memberships or members that are paying something dramatically off of what we had anticipated they were paying. So now just figure out. Hey, we're going to be curious. We're not accusing, we're not assuming, we're just going to be curious. Some members do really great stuff for us and they get a discount. One of them replaces our shower heads and does like tile work. They yeah, they of course get a free membership. Tile work is not cheap. Other members like drive in the annual parade and do other like off the books benefits, and off the books they do like real life, tangible benefits and a thank you. We do as a free membership, and so those things like that need to just get confirmed, noted down so that when we can do an audit or something, that's not a flag of some sort.

Speaker 1: 3:06

Right now, heading back home, working the day job and still pulling away at life, still slowly de-stressing and working off the stress drug that I've been on for a while, last night I battled some sleep and trying to figure out like how to not let invasive thoughts invade my thoughts, and it's, it's tricky, it's not easy to control your thoughts in the middle of the night or at 2 am or 4 am when you're trying to get some more sleep. And so the tactic that I've been using is telling myself hey, if this is a memory and this actually happened, okay, I will take action on this item first thing in the morning, I'll note it down. If this is a fake thing and it's not real, then I don't need to worry about it, because it's just a lie that my subconscious is believing and so I don't need to give any weight or credibility to this thing because it's not real anyways. And then that's what my head tells me, and then, getting my emotions in alignment with my head, then listening to like soft, calm music, like piano music, just something like a lullaby. It sounds silly, but I need to work my way back down and to not stay high strong when I'm trying to rest my body, and that's been something I've been navigating, trying to figure out.

Speaker 1: 4:25

So all sorts of things, figuring out memberships and accounting. I need to call our leads today so that they can participate in our challenge. They got a text blast yesterday, so today they're going to be getting a phone call from me and still working the day job. I still have check-ins with interns, I have stakeholder meetings, I need to write code, I need to deliver new versions and product updates for the projects I'm working on. I also have a check-in for a marketing project I'm working on, and so just keeping track of the day-tight compartments is the best that I can do and keeping people on my side, staying engaged, with everyone at hand and acknowledging that there's a limit on my time limit, on my energy, I'm going to use it to the best of my ability on a day-by-day basis. So that's where we're at with the.

Speaker 1: 5:13

I don't want to say investigation On a day by day basis. So that's where we're at with the. I don't want to say investigation, but like the curiosity Exploration on making sure our members are getting the best service and that we're billing accordingly and making sure that the If we get audited, it's a clean audit, and right now it would be a messy audit On corporate asking us about our books. So that's where we're at. That's where we're going. Today's a great day. Today's an amazing day. I've got a great life, a great wife and great kids. That's where we're at. That's where we're going. Let's rock and roll.