Episode 183 - Interview with Alyssa Sharp

[Randy Bridges]

Growth can bring incredible opportunities, but without the right systems and strategies, it often feels like chaos is the one in charge. From misaligned teams to processes that just don't work, the challenges of scaling a business can leave even the most driven entrepreneurs feeling stuck. But what if there's a way to manage growth that not only keeps you in control, but helps your business thrive?

That's exactly what today's guest specializes in. We're going to be speaking with Alyssa Sharp. With over a decade of experience in team engagement and operations, she has mastered the art of turning messy overwhelming growth into clarity and direction.

We'll dive into her practical insights, favorite tools, and lessons on how to streamline your business while keeping your team energized and engaged. Welcome to the Budding Entrepreneur Podcast. Good day and welcome to the Budding Entrepreneur Podcast.

I'm your host, Randy Bridges. In each episode, we dive into practical business strategies that you can put to work in your business right away. We also focus on inspiring stories from leaders who are shaking and making things happen in their industry.

It's all about giving you the tools and insights to take you and your business to the next level. So get comfortable and let's jump right in. All right, all right.

We are on episode 183 of the podcast and today is Friday, January 24th, 2025. Today we're diving into a topic that every entrepreneur faces at some point, managing the chaos that comes with growth. And to help us tackle that topic, we're going to turn to Alyssa Sharp.

Alyssa is the founder of A-Sharp Consulting and a true expert in team engagement and streamlined operations. She spent over 12 years turning messy systems into smooth running machines. She specializes in what she calls a human-centered agile approach.

Essentially, she knows how to get teams, tools, and goals all working together without the chaos. Her background in psychology gives her a unique edge. Alyssa doesn't just focus on the numbers of the tasks.

She understands the people behind them. She's all about creating clarity and making work more enjoyable for everyone involved. Now when she's not coaching or consulting, Alyssa enjoys diving into philosophical ideas, which she credits for shaping her innovative mindset.

She's proof that blending strategy with empathy can create some truly amazing results. For our quote of the week, we're actually going to pull from our special guest. During our interview, Alyssa said, processes are an extension of your team.

When they're strong, they can save you time, reduce stress, and keep everything moving even before you bring on more people. That sums up what Alyssa is all about. Helping businesses align their people, tools, and processes so they can thrive without feeling overwhelmed.

Now this interview is a full version covering about an hour. So grab your favorite drink of choice, maybe even two, and let's get started. All right, everybody.

Today we have Alyssa Sharp with us. I've been affiliated with her indirectly for quite a while now, and it's been a lot of fun. We've had some good conversations, a lot of nice times back and forth.

We have a lot of shared background, which is kind of cool, project management, other things. So I'd just like to take this opportunity to pass it over to Alyssa and tell us a little bit about you and where you come from and where you're headed.

[Alyssa Sharp]

Hi, yeah, thanks. I'm so excited to be on here with you again. I agree, we've had a lot of great conversations.

I call myself an expert in team engagement and communication. I've had over 12 years in project management, program management, and I've really developed a way of leading with what I call a human-centered agile mindset, which to me means just being able to foster collaboration, streamline systems, and really drive results by helping companies and people and teams just have a deeper understanding of what everyone else needs and facilitating meaningful change through communication, because everything that we do really is just a way to communicate and move things forward.

[Randy Bridges]

Yeah, you know, something you said there I thought was really interesting. You kind of broke out companies, teams, and individuals. How are those different?

I mean, when you're kind of approaching this mindset?

[Alyssa Sharp]

Yeah, you kind of, those are kind of your three big stakeholders when you're changing anything or doing anything because the company is holistically going in a certain direction, but the company then is made up of teams that have their own, you know, goals and things that they need to achieve in conjunction with the company's goals, but then teams are made up of individuals and individuals have their own goals and what they want to achieve and making sure that all three of those are aligned is a lot of times the biggest challenge.

[Randy Bridges]

How do you, I mean, how do you kind of approach that?

[Alyssa Sharp]

Yeah, I would say, you know, a lot of times it'll come from, you know, the organization, the direction that they want to go or a change in direction, and then from there it just really has to be very clear communication, but also really involving the teams and individuals, and by involving I mean not just saying, hey, this is the change we're going to do, but talking to those individuals and I would say as early as possible, like as soon as you know you're going to change something, start talking to people. Ask them, like, what do they think about it? What do they think is going to go wrong?

You know, what do they think could possibly go right? And even if you don't agree with what they think is going to go wrong, now you know and you know a little bit more about them and what they need to actually accept the change or actually be involved and really engaged in the change.

[Randy Bridges]

Yeah, that engagement is key in many cases for a project to be successful. If you have a disengaged, I mean, I think we've all seen it, you get a disengaged team from the vision and you've got nothing but a headache. It's a problem trying to move it forward, so that must be very satisfying for you, you know, when you actually can make that difference.

[Alyssa Sharp]

Yeah, yeah. I mean, I don't know if there's any project manager out there who's never experienced that one team or that one team member who just will not go with the program, but once you can, you know, move that along, it is so much a relief and then you can go figure out all the other problems that are happening in your project.

[Randy Bridges]

Yeah, dig in, get to seeing the whole picture, you know, broader view of everything. So this is fascinating, your background for the project management. What did you do before project management?

[Alyssa Sharp]

Yeah, I was, I actually worked my very first job out of college. I was in a financial management firm and I thought that was so boring, like, I could do it, right, but I was just like, this is not exciting, these numbers are not exciting to me, and I wasn't really sure what I wanted to do, but I got a temporary job as a training coordinator and that's what led me into project management, and so I think just, I wanted to go back and be able to work with people and not just look at numbers all day, and I was really good at organizing, so that's kind of how I got into project management.

[Randy Bridges]

Interesting, interesting. So you came out of the, I guess, the, I ran into this myself, is this company-only mindset, you know, we're looking at this and that's as big as our square is, we're not going to look outside that, to now you've got a much wider view, bringing the humanness back into it, it sounds like, I think you've said that in your initial description.

[Alyssa Sharp]

Yeah, and I like how you say, like, that view, like, I don't think I ever had that, this is my view thing, I think I've always been like, okay, I know this is my job I'm doing right now, but like, why do I have to do it, or like, what is everyone else doing, and even when I was working in front-end retail as a store manager, I would annoy my associates all the time, because I would just be reorganizing how the drawers were, because I'm like, well, I decided it's actually easier to put this here, because we're always accessing it, and I put the, this book back over here, because we never access, like, and they're just like, okay, I just can't find anything, Alyssa. I was always just thinking, and even when I was, I think that's why I was noticed as a training coordinator, is we were rolling out, like, these, had a, like, a waterfall rollout of launches, and I had to coordinate, like, the materials, and I had this whole elaborate plan on how every material for each class was going to get, you know, coordinated, and so I just naturally am figuring out, like, okay, here's my constraints, and what I need to happen, and just be able to make it, make it work.

[Randy Bridges]

Did you have some times when things went a little sideways doing it that way?

[Alyssa Sharp]

I'm, like, do you mean, like, just the waterfall way, or?

[Randy Bridges]

You know, looking at your, your process of, you know, sorting it out, and kind of coming at it from that point of view.

[Alyssa Sharp]

Oh, yeah, so I would say at the, at that, and, you know, that specifically, in the beginning, like, I was really good at figuring out, and, and figuring out the perfect, most efficient way to do it, but what I was forgetting was, or what I didn't know yet was, like, okay, I forgot the people, all right, so I was really good at making perfect plans that made an absolute amazing logical sense to me, and then it would come up against people doing it, or really not doing it, and so that is really where I had to learn the finesse of you actually do have to work with people with creating the plan, as well as executing the plan, and, and that's, I think, I realized I had a natural agile mindset, meaning, like, I have a theory, I go and do it, and test it, and then I figure out if it's working, hence reorganizing the drawers all the time, but when you match that with people, you have to bring people along, and, and help them understand, like, they can do things differently if they're not achieving the result that they're expected, that they're expecting.

[Randy Bridges]

So you mentioned in conversation before, you were talking about psychology, and how that works, that must really work very nicely to help you make that transition, and working with a team, kind of understand how they're thinking, how they're working together.

[Alyssa Sharp]

Yeah, I would say, like, I graduated with my degree in psychology, but I did not know what I wanted to do with it, and so when I first, when I first went into the world of business, and I didn't have a business major, I thought that I was kind of lacking, so I was, like, insecure, but I quickly realized I was able to kind of make connections that people were maybe thinking differently than what we, what maybe the communication was, I could see, like, okay, this communication went out, and I can see why Terry did not, you know, read it the same way I did, you know, and I was able to then, and I just naturally was, like, I would be kind of a little cheerleader for change all the time, I'm thinking, like, okay, I know that I see why you're reading it that way, Terry, but really, I think what they're trying to do is we'll have XYZ, and I wasn't even a project manager, I was just, like, oh, I love this idea, and I would just get behind it, and then help people get behind it.

[Randy Bridges]

Yeah, good. You know, when I first got into business, I, I had that same kind of, I don't know, I was always looking around, I wasn't looking at necessarily what I was doing, and so I could see the things that were broken that weren't working right, and it was no end of frustration for my bosses, because I'm seeing all the things that are broken, and they're just, like, there's nothing broken with that, I'm, like, and I, and I really, really, really want to tell them, but it's, like, no, you can't really do that, so you have to kind of go around the corner and help them behind the scenes when they don't necessarily see it, you know.

So, so we talked a little bit about your background, a little bit about how you kind of got here. When you realized that this whole process of what you're going through wasn't working for you, how did that feel? How did you kind of address that in your own mind?

[Alyssa Sharp]

Um, and do you mean, like, just working as a project manager, or?

[Randy Bridges]

Yeah, any, any kind of, you know, you, you knew that a lot of this stuff wasn't really working for you, you know, and so, sorry, my question, bad here, but, you know, you, you knew that there were not things happening for you, so you started going down this path on your own, it sounds like.

[Alyssa Sharp]

Yeah, yeah, and I would say, for me, I, you know, I am a hard worker, and I'll go at something and try and make it work for the longest time, or maybe not the longest time, but I, I will, I try to stay, like, pretty consistent. I love to figure things out, and basically, once I've figured something out and made, like, made the processes better, the team better, then I'm usually like, okay, like, what's next? And so that, I've had a few different iterations of that, like, when I, when I was first a project manager in a retail company, I was like, okay, this is, I want to do something different, and I went, I was a project manager in events, because I wanted to work with clients, and then I, you know, then I was like, okay, I'm pretty much done with this.

I want to go back to the corporate office, and that's how I got into consulting for digital transformations, and so I think, for me, it's just, like, realizing when you're just ready for the next thing, and, and I will say, I wasn't necessarily ready. I never felt, like, 100% confident of, like, jumping to different industries. I just knew that I was no longer, like, being challenged or, like, driven to do the work that I was doing at those current companies.

[Randy Bridges]

Yeah, okay. How do you, this is a question I like to ask a lot of people. How do you define consulting?

Everybody has a different way of that.

[Alyssa Sharp]

Yeah, I know. I was thinking about this this morning, too, because, you know, also the difference between coaching and consulting. So, for me, consulting is just being able to come in and help a business, like, on a specific problem and move them forward, and I remember when I was just coming out of college, and I learned what consulting was.

I was like, well, that's what I want to do. I just love helping people, and, like, but I was like, but I don't know what I would consult on, you know, and then, obviously, I got into project management, but that's kind of how I define consulting, someone who can come in and just help unblock a business, a team, a process, and help have them move forward then without the consultant.

[Randy Bridges]

Yeah, you know, Alan Weiss, he's one of the most quote-unquote famous consultants out there, big ticket items, and he talks about a story of how he was coming in as a consultant for a company that was having a lot of problems, and what had happened is management had made a decision. They wanted to paint the walls a different color, so they used some leftover color, and he went in to look where it was, and he said, this color creates conflict in the people's mind. He goes, what color was it before, and they said that.

He goes, change it back, and all the problems went away. It's like, okay, simple enough, simple answer, you know, but yeah, it moved everybody back in the direction that they needed to be in, and I kept that in my mind that that is an interesting perspective that a consultant can bring is asking that question, what changed, you know, and so now, how long have you been in running your own business?

[Alyssa Sharp]

So, I would say I started my business kind of part-time in 2023, so I was working on the side as well as full-time, and then I went full-time last year in the spring.

[Randy Bridges]

How has that transition from part-time to full-time been for you?

[Alyssa Sharp]

So, the transition has been amazing. Like, I would never, I'm so glad that I made the decision. Obviously, it started out, like, really slow, but having the autonomy and what I've always liked about what I like about consulting is I could come in and help people on my specific zone of genius, so I didn't have anything else that I had to worry about.

Like, I can just say, like, this is where I get in the zone, and I can do it so fast and really help you, and then just kind of come in and out, so it's been great to be able to do that full-time instead of just kind of on the side as a little, like, refresher from the regular nine to five.

[Randy Bridges]

Yeah. How was, I guess, was there a lot of mental, for me, mentally going into consulting and burning the bridge, you know, getting rid of the part-time job, getting rid of all of that, setting that aside? That was kind of scary, you know, when I initially decided to go do this, and I was like, it's, there's a lot of demons that creep up, especially for me.

I was like, where do I start? What do I do? You know, and, like, the zone of genius, figuring out what that was.

Were you able to find that zone of genius in yourself easily?

[Alyssa Sharp]

So, I have always known that I was just really good at, like, figuring out the processes and building up teams, but as far as, like, how that would translate to consulting, no, I was extremely scared when I decided, and I think I had just reached a point where I was burnt out on my other job because I was just working so much. I probably had forgotten exactly, like, what I really liked to do, and I, so yeah, for me, not only when I first, like, quit my other jobs and went full-time, not only was I working on, like, okay, what am I going to offer? I did work a lot on my mindset.

I got into spaces where people were doing the same thing, or had, or were successful in this, and I have, I learned so much, and I've changed a lot of just my beliefs around, like, how, like, even just beliefs about money, like, that I do deserve to, like, get paid. It seems weird to be, like, thinking you don't, but, like, when you dig into that, you're just like, oh yeah, I do feel like maybe I don't deserve this for some reason, like, someone else could be, you know, making this money. I don't need it, or, which is silly, but getting over those little things are not necessarily little, but they're not things that people talk about often when you become an entrepreneur or a business owner, is that even when you are successful, you might still think, okay, well, I don't actually deserve this, even though obviously you've done the work, you're doing great work, your clients are happy, getting over that is a big thing, and it's something that I still practice every day, but when I look back to even eight months ago, like, I've come a long way.

[Randy Bridges]

Yeah. Where do you think you've seen the greatest improvement in yourself?

[Alyssa Sharp]

Oh, I think, it's kind of funny, because I tell my friends, I'm like, I'm in my delusional era, but I think now I just believe that everything's going to be great. Instead of worrying about all the things that could possibly go wrong, I've really practiced, you know, I still think those bad thoughts sometimes, but now I know, like, okay, I'm thinking those thoughts that everything's going to, like, be horrible, and now I'm going to think about what are all the possibilities, and so that really keeps me going, and just continuously looking at, like, my vision, and the things that I want to achieve, and who and how I want to help people really keep me motivated.

[Randy Bridges]

Yeah. We talked on vision in the podcast in the past. How did you get started on building your own vision?

I'm always curious to hear about this, because everybody's very different on this.

[Alyssa Sharp]

Yeah, so I've actually, I don't know if it's because I'm just naturally a planner, like, I've always had some kind of version of a purpose or a vision, but as I did this last year, you know, I, like I said, I got into those groups and the, you know, communities of people who are, you know, building their own consulting, and I created my vision and my goals for what I wanted my consulting and coaching business to look like, and what's funny is, I think last month, you were doing this with me too, I think the 10x challenge, where you do create, like, these big, you know, quantum leap goals, and I remembered, oh, I think I wrote some goals like this in the past, and I found a notebook from 10 years ago where I went through the success principles by Jack Canfield, and I went through, and I was like, okay, my purpose and vision is actually very similar, but now I just have bigger goals, I don't have as many constraints, like, I was obviously right out of college at that point, so I was like, oh, yeah, I would love to just make, you know, $100,000 at a corporate job, and now I have so much bigger, bigger goals. The amazing thing, though, was when I looked back at that notebook and the 30 things that I wanted to do and achieve and be, like, I had checked off a lot of them in just 10 years, and it wasn't like I was going back and, like, looking at those every day, so I feel so excited to have kind of, like, a vision and goals now that if I'm actually paying attention to them, I probably will, you know, achieve them an exponential rate than I did the last 10 years.

[Randy Bridges]

Sure, yeah. You know, one of the things that was interesting for me when I, because we're both in the wealthy consultant, for those of you listening in, and that whole community is, you know, just phenomenal for breaking you out of your shell and actually making you think bigger than you are, and something that I realized a few years ago is that I made a quarter of a million dollars in one year working part-time.

It's possible. And I went, okay, if that's just working a few hours a day, what am I capable of making long-term, you know, if I really put myself into it? And that was something that I would never have thought of is that whole perspective, the 10x quantum thinking.

How would you describe quantum thinking? I know everybody kind of talks about that too in the program.

[Alyssa Sharp]

Yeah, I know. It's a newer thing for me, so I'm literally just learning about it. I've heard of quantum physics.

I never really, and, you know, my education comes from Dr. Strange, probably, just watching Marvel. But from what we, you know, I've been reading in the 10x, like, to me, it is really just, I actually was reading something else that helped me understand it. This analogy of a fly who's stuck at the window, like, pushing so, so hard, working so hard to get through that window, when all they have to do is turn 180 degrees and go out the open door.

I mean, we've all had that fly in our house, like, just go out the door. Yeah, please. And another thing that I think that I've read, I can't remember what book came from, but it's just like, the term pathways thinking, which is, you have a goal, and when you get, you have a path, but then you get blocked on that path is actually, what are the other paths I can take to get to that goal, you know?

So I think it's really, I could be completely wrong if that has nothing to do with quantum thinking, or quantum leaps. But to me, it's just really being innovative in how you're going to get to your goal, your vision, and it might not actually necessarily require a lot of like, hard work, necessarily. I think the hard work comes from the resilience and the grit, but not necessarily like, working 10 hour days constantly or something like that.

[Randy Bridges]

Yeah. You know, I, somebody asked me one time what I thought quantum was, and, and it's, to me, it's, you know where you are, you, you have an idea of where you want to go. And it's, for lack of a better, it's frequency.

If you have a frequency here, and you want to get to here, start adjusting your frequency, it'll drag you there. It'll move you on its own, without you having to put forward all of that effort to, you know, just allow things to naturally drag you places. And for me, that's what quantum really helps me out in, is what frequency, right?

What, what mindset almost do I have to be in, in order to achieve that? Okay, what do I need to do today, to take one step closer to that, and then do that every day? And that shortens that length of time, that it takes to make those major changes, and moves me at the same time, without having to do all this tremendous amount of effort.

You know, and it's like, it's, that's much easier, you know, and so I think, in looking at some of the ways that Mike Walker and Taylor talks about, you know, that same concept is basically, change yourself a little at a time, and you'll move that way faster, you know. So I, I too may be very wrong, but that seems like that's something that I've heard them kind of iterate to. So let's, let's take a kind of a right turn here, and talk about your business today.

You know, some of the challenges that you may be facing when you're taking on new clients. What kind of, what kind of challenges do you really like to grab a hold of, besides, you know, the project management style? What kind of projects do you really like to take on, and make your own, and just enjoy?

[Alyssa Sharp]

Yeah, I love just like kind of jumping into a business that's in like a growth phase, and they're, you know, feeling overwhelmed, and just figuring out, you know, I call it project management operations, and I don't, I don't really think that's like a term anywhere, but for the companies that are like agencies, where your operations are your projects, you're delivering projects for your clients, you know, when you, you don't necessarily can go out and find a chief operating officer who is a Lean Six Sigma, Black Belt, or whatever, like you really need to figure out how you're delivering all, all your custom, you know, unique services to your clients, and I just love digging in, and a lot of people actually don't even realize that they're just, they're just doing work, and they don't realize they're actually doing stuff as part of a process, and when you can break open that, like, clarity for them that this piece of work actually leads, or comes from this other one, and it makes so much more sense holistically for them, then, and then you can operationalize that within the right tool, and make it easy for them to actually do the work. That is what I love to do, so, I mean, I think, I used to call myself lazy, because I was like, I don't, I just like to make things efficient, because I don't want to do more work than necessary, so, but I would be doing all this work to make it efficient, and then that's, again, when I would get bored and be like, okay, I'm gonna go do something else now.

[Randy Bridges]

So, I've been, I've been accused of being the same way. I'm real good in the very beginning, and at the end, I'm like, yeah, okay, whatever, yeah, move on, you know. So, I'll hand it off to somebody else, and let them take care of it, so.

So, let's say you are working with a, well, first of all, do you have a niche, niche, niche?

[Alyssa Sharp]

Yeah, yeah, so, I do, like, I, you know, creative service agencies, like, like, I think I call them, like, you know, doers and creators, and that could be anywhere from, you know, a marketing agency, or, you know, an architecture, or anything that's, like, building, and, or even event, like rentals, anywhere where you're really, kind of, just helping a customer get their vision achieved, as with your own specialty, kind of, niche. So, I love working with that, because it is not a simple answer.

It's not simply, like, here, download this template, and you're off to the races, like, everyone's a little bit unique, and, and then I just love helping them, you know, make their client journey, you know, not only their client journey, like, high end, but also that their team is, like, working better together, like, that is, for me, what I love.

[Randy Bridges]

Good, well, that, that kind of harkens back to your very, you know, your very essential part of what you're talking about in the very beginning of this, of this, you know, interview is, you know, how you pull that forward as a team, you know, working with the individuals, the team, and the company all together. Do you get anybody that ever says, I have no idea where to start?

[Alyssa Sharp]

Oh, yeah, I mean, mostly everyone. Or they're like, I've tried this, and this, and this, and this, and this, and I can see, like, they're grasping, like, and mostly, it's like, I've tried Asana, and then I've tried Motion, and then there's that, there's that thing that tracks my time, and then I have this CRM, and then they're just like, and I've tried to do it all at once. So, yeah, yeah.

[Randy Bridges]

Now, you, you've, I've, in some of our conversations, and, you know, indirectly, you're, you're heavily, it seems, into ClickUp. I don't quite understand that one yet. Maybe you could give me a good kind of a primer on what that one's for, and how that, how that helps.

[Alyssa Sharp]

Yeah, I love ClickUp. I've actually been on ClickUp for maybe five or six years. I found it on my own, and, like, as a project manager, and especially as someone who's been in a lot of different industries, and in consulting, I've used every, almost every, I mean, I can't say every, because now they're just coming out of the woodwork, but I've used a lot of the major project management systems, and I immediately, even, even when it first came out, loved ClickUp, and they've, you know, expanded their features even more, and it's because literally everything can be in one system, and it can be really organized, and for me, as the, as the admin of it, I love the hierarchy, but the people who are using it, if you set it up correctly, they don't have to know any of that complicated where to find stuff things, it just serves them up exactly what they need, like they can see their tasks, how they want to see it, they can have executive dashboards, or you can have someone who has, like, all the details, and, and it has the documents, it now has chat, so it can even replace Slack, so one, one more or less, like, software, so for me, it just, it's hard to explain, you know, if you haven't been in all the other project management systems, because I'm not saying that Asana or Monday are not good, like, they're very similar to ClickUp, but I think ClickUp has just, like, one more level of hierarchy that actually allows you to expand the organization of your programs and, and portfolio level, which is really important when you have a lot of different projects or clients, or just initiatives going on, so Asana, Monday, and I'm sure they're all going to come up, come at me, but they all have a portfolio management, like, solution, but I just think ClickUp has the most innovative, unique way of doing it.

[Randy Bridges]

Yeah, and I presume that you help people get that all set up and dropped in, and if they, if they have something different, you know, that you can help them move to that kind of a, like you say, the next level up, you know, a little bit more.

[Alyssa Sharp]

Yeah, definitely, and the way that I like to do it, I actually just put out a program, a self-guided course to help people do this if they don't have, you know, the capacity to have me on, on their team, is actually teaching their team members how to go through that thought process of how you want to actually configure and set up your space, how do you transfer from all of your other tools into ClickUp, and do it in a way that is going to be sustainable, so I like to, one, have immediate wins, so your team can immediately become productive, but then they, they have that, they can get over that learning curve of the new tool and actually maintain that productivity over a long term, because another issue that you can run into with having all these tools is then your team doesn't know what they're, what they should be using, what, what, which one has the right information, or like you try something and then you're like, never mind, we're not doing that, and so that they, then your team is probably like, I don't, I don't believe that we're actually going to use this, I'm not going to use it, and, and then your adoption just goes like downhill.

[Randy Bridges]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, I, I know for me, every time I get a new system and, and my technology background is going to, is, you know, I've been doing so much stuff for so many years that one of the first things I do is, okay, how do I have to think about this, what, what is it, you know, and so I can go from CRM to CRM to CRM to CRM, and I'm like, okay, I just changed this one little thing, or I changed this click, okay, this has got, you know, you don't have to build your automations in keep, but you do if you're over in go high level and, you know, and it's like, all right, so what is my, what's my path to get from here to there, and how do I need to think about it? Okay, and then it makes the process so much easier, but people have to learn that, they have to learn how to, how to get that mindset straight, you know.

[Alyssa Sharp]

Yeah, yeah, that it is something that you definitely have to learn, and that is why I also decided to just go all in on ClickUp, not that I don't work with other systems, right, like one of my other projects I actually helped, like one that I just did consulting one-on-one, I helped them install JIRA for their processes, you know, that's fine, like that's the tool that they decided to go with, but if you don't have one central place yet, and you're just like looking, like I would then just recommend ClickUp, and then I help people figure out how to build it to support their processes, and help them, and one of the things I do like is actually help them think about it, because they're not gonna have me forever, so their team member, who's the admin in ClickUp, needs to understand why and how I put in a certain automation, or a template, so that if they decide in the future that it needs to be assigned to someone else, like they know how to go in and change that, and they're not like stuck with having to come back to me for all these changes.

[Randy Bridges]

Yeah, yeah, that's one of the things that when I was doing a lot of hardcore system consulting, is I had to build it so that it was easy to train somebody, because the person I had no control of, who they would choose to bring in after I left, and so I would have to have everything dialed in, and then say these are your parameters you can make changes in, if you want to go outside of that, now you need to come back to me, it's just the way that it is, you know, and it wasn't to build, it was because in the very beginning, a lot of people would destroy my work not understanding it, and destroy it bad, you know, and then the company looks at me, and they're like, what'd you do to me, and it's like, I didn't do anything man, you know, but that's the learning curve, that's the learning curve, it's one of the challenges that, you know, as a consultant, you have to, you have to give answers, you have to own them, and keep them, you know, so we've, the elephant in the room, resistance to change, oh yes, how does, how does that work for you, I mean, we've, we've kind of talked around a little bit, and mentioned it, but yeah, what, what is that like for you as a consultant, or as a coach coming into that,

[Alyssa Sharp]

I mean, it is just a fact of life as a consultant, and a coach, right, but I think being prepared for, because I, you know, everyone says like, the only constant in life is change, and then I add on and say, and then there's also the resistance to change, we always want to stay where we are, doing what we're doing, even if you know, like, the new way is going to be better, just because of that momentum of like, okay, I know, I wake up every day, and I have to copy and paste things from Notion to ClickUp, or whatever, your, whatever systems you're doing, and you know, you're like, well, if I have to now do it in ClickUp, like, what happens to all my other stuff, and, and then you start going down that rabbit hole of all the possible things that can go wrong, right, so really, resistance is just helping people not take that, like, you know, tornado twist of doom, and remind them of, okay, where they're going, and it might be like, a little bit of a rocky transition on, you know, you're gonna have to relearn and have new, like, habits, but in the end, it's going to be like, a positive change, and you have to relate that change to something they care about, you can't just say, okay, we're gonna move to ClickUp and eliminate all of our other tools, and so we're going to save money, like, your, you know, you know, project manager, or admin, or developer doesn't care about that, they just care about being able to get their work done, so what do they care about, and how can you relate that to why you're changing, and even if it's not just your software, but anything, like, if you decide that you're going to have a new service, you know, and now you have to tell your team, like, we're going to do this new service, like, what, you know, what's their role going to be in the service, like, how is it helping them, and that's an interesting exercise to do, because a lot of times, as leaders and owners, we're not always thinking about, you know, what is the team going to think about it, because, you know, you think, oh, I've hired this team to help me do stuff, but really, you're, you're, yes, you hired the team to get your work done, but you're all still working towards the same vision, and you have to make sure everyone's aligned to that, and they're, they're humans, and you're now leading them, and they're looking to you, and honestly, if you don't guide them, and they feel frustrated, like, they're not, because then they become apathetic, and they no longer care about you, so it is, I think it's a two-way street, both, definitely, so it's, it definitely does take a different mindset as someone who's an owner, and really helping their team change, because you're originally thinking, well, I hired them, I'm paying them, but if they're not on board with you, they, they don't care, even if they don't say they don't care, like, it, it's just, you reach a, as an employee, you reach a certain point of frustration, where you're like, okay, I can't do anything, and you're just trying to do the minimum.

[Randy Bridges]

Yeah, you know, one of the things that's interesting is that I deal with a lot of product-based businesses. I don't really focus on that, but one of the biggest kind of ahas that, when I, when I say it to people, is I say, yes, you are a product-based business, that's wonderful, do you realize how many services outnumber your products? Every logistic service, you know, their, your customer service, financial service, all these other services, and each one of them has to be effective, or it doesn't matter how good your product is, and you see a lot of people kind of go, uh, because they never considered that, you know, so, um, I'm going to read this question verbatim, because my questions are getting a little wild here, but what's been the hardest part of balancing client needs, running your own business, and staying true to your vision for what you want to build?

[Alyssa Sharp]

Yeah, so I, I, when I read this question, I know, because he sent me them, a few of them ahead of time, and I was like, okay, well, I feel a little bit weird saying I haven't actually run into that yet, so, I mean, I, and, and I, I try to think about, okay, so what was, why haven't I really, you know, run into that, and I think that when I decided to just go full-time, it was because I decided, like, this is how I want my life to be, this is how I want to serve the clients, and I was very clear of, you know, when my coaching hours were, what I was doing, doing when I was consulting, and I stayed true to that, and I'm not saying, like, I didn't, haven't had any, like, difficult times, you know, and I've been working hard, but I never felt like, oh, I'm not balancing it all, and I think it really was because I started out with that vision, and I've continued to refine it, you know, throughout the last year, but, you know, I was like, this is how I want to work, and I'm going to make it work that way, and I was just kind of dedicated to that.

[Randy Bridges]

Yeah, I, see, I, I had the opposite experience. For over 10 years, I ran a cloud hosting business, and you are working 24-7, 365. Whether you acknowledge it or not, your clients expect you to be on the ball, even when there are, you know, other teams working, you know, because we followed the sun.

We had a follow the sun support system, and so a lot of people would either be in, we had some that were in Germany, some that were India, some that were Australia, and then I had to manage everything west coast to east coast, which makes a very long day as it is, and, you know, clients want certain things, and they want it a certain way at a certain time, and if you are doing something that you know you need to do, and you have to do it when they don't want you to, it can, it can cause some, you know, some real, I've lost clients over that because we have to do it, you know, and it's like I can't afford the impact down the road of not doing this, because trust me, it'll, it'll go sideways when you don't want it to, you know, and certainly when I do.

[Alyssa Sharp]

Yeah, fortunately, I'm not in providing those kind of services that someone will need me at midnight. I know I've definitely been in working that way, like in events, like if there's a, I think one time we had an event that was in, like, Germany, or maybe it was in Greece, and, you know, you're getting the call like 1 a.m., and I'm like, I, I don't know where the carpet is. I'm, I'm in, I'm in Ohio, but they're calling you as a project manager, right, so.

[Randy Bridges]

As you're, as if you're supposed to know exactly where everything is, yes.

[Alyssa Sharp]

I know, so now I'm like, okay, who do I call to figure out where the carpet is, okay. Yeah, um.

[Randy Bridges]

Oh, man, so good, you know, I had some other questions, but I kind of want to maybe lean ahead a little bit, look, look ahead for Alyssa, and, you know, your business, what you're, you know, you're now doing the independent consulting. What excites you the most about this, doing this on a regular basis?

[Alyssa Sharp]

Yeah, what excites me the most, I would say, I think I mentioned earlier, is just being able to come in and help people, like, in the area that I am, like, like what I call my zone of genius, is that where I can get into flow so fast, and, and, like I said, I also, like, I'm building that core so that I can help more, and more people do that, where, you know, I have a certain capacity to be able to do projects personally, but I'm adding in the courses and coaching so that I can help more people do that, because I would say, like, my main mission is to help people have more fun at work by having streamlined, you know, processes and teams, because it, to me, like, when I was a team member and employee, there was nothing more frustrating than having to do something that seemed really dumb, or was holding me back from able to do the work that put me in the deep work. And so I really want that for as many companies as possible, so that, you know, I, I've done it for a few, and it just makes life better, because you're at work 40 hours a week, right? So you might as well make it more fun.

[Randy Bridges]

Or in our case, 60 to 80.

[Alyssa Sharp]

So that is really what I'm looking forward to.

[Randy Bridges]

Yeah, yeah. So what's coming in the next year or two that you can see is going to impact your, your type of business? Is there anything that you can see that's going to maybe side, side rail it, cause any challenges?

[Alyssa Sharp]

I mean, anything can cause a challenge. And for me, like, I think, obviously, I think AI is going to introduce a lot. And I've already started talking, like, I still have a few project manager coaching clients as well, because I also was coaching just project managers.

And I've been talking more and more about AI and, and it's going to replace a lot of the admin work of project managers, right? So what do project managers do when AI can create the project plan for you? And that is really where, how, how you build up your team, your emotional intelligence to know, like, okay, why is Terry taking this communication so wrong?

What should we do to change it? The change management of projects. And I think the tools, like I, like I said, I'm all in on ClickUp.

They're, they release features all the time. You're keeping up on that. What if something else comes out better?

And I think just being on top of what the industry needs. But I think it also just comes down to being agile, which is taking in the information and seeing, are you still on the right path to where you're going? And if you're not, like, you know, what, what should you do instead?

So I would say the biggest thing is just how, how AI is going to impact, because it's going to impact every single industry as a business. And it's also going to impact how employees are, you know, I'm sure some companies already have, like, already have SOPs on how to prompt AI. And that's going to be probably a standard SOP that every company has pretty soon.

And so how do we incorporate that into, you know, what we're doing in here? So, yeah.

[Randy Bridges]

Yeah. I, I know that for me, I use AI all the time for all kinds of things. And, you know, it, it helps me as long as I keep one thing in mind, I have to be the arbiter of it, regardless of what it suggests, regardless of what it says, I'm the one that owns the decision of what happens with it.

And, and I know that a lot of people I see and talk with, they don't quite understand the danger in not doing that. And it's like, you know, they'll, they'll come up with a new program of, and AI will design it for them. Oh, well, it's this.

And it's like, okay, you have to take a step back and do, as you were talking about the human side of it. Okay. That's the business side.

How do you deal with the human side? And then now you need to shape it and mold it. It's, it's not something you can just say, make it.

And there it is. And, you know, for a lot of people that are, you know, I, I won't say a lot, I guess it's not really a lot. It's some of the people that are making more of the strides in using it are missing that it's, you still need to be you.

And even if it's not, even if it's not comfortable, and even if it's not convenient, it's like any other tool, you know, you, you have to respect the tool or you will get hurt. I worked in oil fields for years and there's a lot of tools that are out there that come in a lot of shapes and sizes and weigh a lot of, you know, there's a lot of weight in them. And if you do not respect the weight of what you're dealing with, you're going to get hurt, you know?

[Alyssa Sharp]

Yeah. Or you can hurt someone else.

[Randy Bridges]

Yeah. Well, you know. So, so since part of this, this is in this podcast is about new businesses.

What advice would you give to someone who's looking to start their own business or they've already started it and they're getting to that point where they're starting to grow and things are having to change? What kind of advice would you give them in that case?

[Alyssa Sharp]

Yeah, I think it's a little bit different because if you're just starting, I would be just like where I struggled because I've been in so many industries and have so much diverse experience. I was like, I can help a lot of different companies doing a lot of different things, right? Like I've worked on websites, I've worked in events, you know, and I really had to hone in and be like, no, I'm going to help people build out their project management processes, right?

And even though I can help them build a website and I can help them do all this stuff. So I think niching down was my biggest challenge and what I would then, you know, advise, like, just, you know, figure out the one thing that you really, really want to do. But then if you get to that growth stage where you're just like, now you're successful, you have clients coming in, I would say like, yeah, you do need to work on your processes because as a, as you're first starting, you're scrappy and you're figuring it out and you're doing it.

And then once you start hiring people and you're like, okay, I don't know how to train them. I don't know how to get the information out of them and to them. Like I then look at processes as an extension of your team and really like shoring it up.

It's something you can invest in before you invest in another team member. Cause you might feel, oh, I'm at capacity. I need to hire someone else.

I'm not sure who, not sure what, maybe that's probably time to actually figure out, okay, do we actually have everything? Do we know what we're actually doing? Figure that out, get your team really strong and really efficient and then see, you might not need another team member.

You might actually then be able to continue growing with the same amount of people and doing, not doing as much work. So I would advise.

[Randy Bridges]

Yeah, that's, that's, that's really good because I think a lot of people miss that point. They, they just hire, they just go, oh, I need another person. And they haven't clearly defined let alone what that person is going to do, how that person is going to actually be trained, how that person is going to, you know, what is it they're going to be able to achieve that's going to make the difference in the business.

And when that occurs, they're sitting there going, um, gee, I, I really don't know. So they're almost throwing a dart at the wall and hoping they hit the balloon. And it's like, yeah, there are a lot of, you know, there's a lot of people that are out there that that may not work for.

So, um, so turn this a little bit lighter. Okay. Um, if you could give one piece of advice to your younger self, what would that be?

[Alyssa Sharp]

I would say could not put as much pressure on myself to be perfect and make all the right decisions. I felt like I just had to not make any mistakes and I had to like be successful as fast as possible. So, you know, don't put a, don't be so pressured to make all the right decisions and that there's plenty of time to figure things out.

[Randy Bridges]

Yeah. Good. Yeah.

That's, that's something that, because we're all in a hurry, right? Yeah. We have so many things that we have to get done.

We, and when we're starting, especially, you know, growing into something, we have to be patient with ourselves. We're learning. And as long as we're making mistakes, we're growing, but growing doesn't always feel like the right thing, you know?

So, um, and so two more questions if I may. Okay. Yeah.

What's one thing you do regularly to keep yourself inspired?

[Alyssa Sharp]

Um, regularly, like I, I do.

[Randy Bridges]

It could be personally, professionally, either one, both.

[Alyssa Sharp]

Yeah. I think regularly I, um, I think I do make an effort to look back at where I've been and how far that I've come. And that is also something that I've learned in the last, last year, or maybe got reiterated a lot is, um, it's, you know, we all have goals and things we want to hit and we might not always hit them, but you can always look back to where you were and you can see that you've made progress.

So I think it's just continuously looking back at how much progress I have made. And that continues to give me confidence that I can keep moving forward.

[Randy Bridges]

Good. And favorite question. What's something unique or unexpected about you that most people might not know?

[Alyssa Sharp]

I would say most people don't know. I minored in philosophy and I just really love existentialism and phenomenology, which I don't know if anyone knows what those terms are, but, um, but I think it also, it maybe is what gave me my agile mindset. Cause it's all about like the perspective you're taking, like, and you can decide what that means for you.

So you can, you can decide the meaning of your life. Um, and you know, things can happen to you and you can determine, okay, I believe that, like you said, if you're making mistakes, you can decide that, okay, you're a failure or you can decide that you're learning, right? So you kind of have ownership of your other life and how you want to move it forward.

Um, but that's not something like, you know, I don't have a blog or anything on philosophy, but it's something I do keep up with. And I think, um, probably paints a lot of my decisions and mindset.

[Randy Bridges]

So good, good. So kind of wrap it up a little bit here, um, for the listeners that are intrigued about your story, your background, everything about you, and they want to actually get in contact with you. How, how's, what's the best way to do that?

[Alyssa Sharp]

Yeah. So, I mean, there's three main ways like LinkedIn, you can message me. Um, I have open messaging, so you don't necessarily have to be connected.

Um, my Instagram, I'm always in my DMs. Um, or you can just email info at a sharp coach.com.

[Randy Bridges]

Good, good. And, um, you know, a lot of, I really appreciate all the time you've spent. Um, so any other words of wisdom that you might want to share with our audience that, that Alyssa Sharp.

[Alyssa Sharp]

Um, I don't know if there's any, anything necessary. We went over a lot of, a lot of stuff. Um, but I think that, you know, what we got at the beginning, and we're talking about agile is it is all about like incremental changes towards a larger quantum leap.

So I think the main thing I think anyone should take away is like, you should have a big vision, um, but you should be agile in how you're going to get to it. You know, the plan can change, but the vision should change, stay the same.

[Randy Bridges]

Yeah. Flexibility is, is interesting because there's, there's a degree of flexibility that if you're inflexible, it tends to break you, you know, and that's not certainly not something that a lot of people want to do. I know, um, I'm, I'm reading a book.

That's, that's my way of, of staying focused on the personal is that music, right? I do a tremendous amount of reading and, um, you know, there's a book that I'm going through. Strangely enough, it's called Japanese yoga and it's combination of mind and body together, being able to blend them and do certain basic exercises.

But the there's, there's some exercises that they do that are like, you know, you have your arm in a certain way, or you have your, your fingers like this and somebody else tries to pull them apart. And if you can picture like a solid ring around the top, it's not going to go anywhere, but normally it would just pop right open, you know? And so I'm like, that's kind of interesting, you know, is, is the flexibility factor of what you picture can make the difference in how solid you are and how organized you can be and put all the pieces together.

So excellent. Well, Alyssa, I thank you very much for the time today. Um, it's always fun to have a great conversation with you, you know?

[Alyssa Sharp]

Yeah.

[Randy Bridges]

This one went a little deeper than, than I figured it would. So that was, that was fun, you know?

[Alyssa Sharp]

That's awesome. Yeah. I mean, it's always great when you can get, um, deeper in conversation naturally.

[Randy Bridges]

Yeah. And not go crazy about it at the same time. So, all right.

So we'll go ahead and, uh, thank you very much. And we'll go ahead and, you know, head out of this. I'll go right into my outro here, but for now, thank you again, ladies and gentlemen, everybody, this is Alyssa Sharpe with A Sharpe Coaching and, you know, go ahead and contact her.

If you have any questions, need any help, please. Definitely. All right.

We'll see y'all later. 

That's it for this episode. I hope you picked up some valuable insights and maybe even sparked a few new ideas.

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I wish you the best in your health, your wealth, your business, your family, everything about you take care. And we'll see you back here next.