A Team That Costs You Time: Doing the work you paid others to do.

You finally made the leap. You hired a team to help you escape the grind and focus on growing your business. But now, instead of leading, you’re micromanaging. Instead of scaling, you’re stuck cleaning up messes, putting out fires, and wondering if hiring help was a mistake.

Here’s the hard truth: A boundary is just a suggestion… unless you enforce it.

The Flamingo Spotlight

Meet Nancy, a strategic powerhouse. She’d grown her business steadily and knew the next step was getting out of day-to-day operations and focusing on strategic growth. She did all the “right” things—hired a team, set clear business rules, and trained her people to take ownership.

But 90 days in, her dream team was anything but. Deadlines were missed and clients were upset, and Nancy was firefighting nonstop client issues. Miscommunication, missed deadlines, and low-quality deliverables were piling up. Her team ignored business rules, and she let penalties slide because she wanted to “help” her employees succeed or she felt guilty, overwhelmed, or desired to avoid confrontation.

But what she thought was helping her team ended up hurting her and her business. She worked overtime to fix her team’s mistakes. Nancy was drowning in the very work she’d hired her team to handle. Strategic growth fell by the wayside unless she worked late into the night.

Nancy’s overwhelm and frustration boiled over. Her peace of mind was gone, and her business felt anything but scalable.

• Should she fire her team?

• Was she failing as a leader?

• How could she escape this cycle of being stuck in the weeds of operations?

Sound familiar?

The Flamingo Fix

Here’s how Nancy reclaimed her time and rebuilt trust in her team:

🦩 Step 1: Map Out the 3D Client Journey

Clarity is key. The first step to enforcing boundaries is understanding exactly what needs to happen and who owns that step. Nancy took a step back to document every step in her client journey and assigned clear roles and responsibilities for her team, herself, and her clients.

Here’s how to do it:

• Critical Steps: Outline the key actions that must happen to deliver results—on time and at the quality you promise.

• Roles & Ownership: Clarify who (you, your team, your client) is responsible for each step in the client journey.

• Accountability and Adjusting Your Role: With the hand over of activities, you shifted from the doing role to leading. Ask yourself "how do I maintain leadership as I step back from execution?" Focus on leadership tasks like monitoring progress, supporting your team, and enforcing standards.

💡 Pro Tip: Use visuals like flowcharts or project management tools to make responsibilities clear. When we work with clients, we map it all out on a whiteboard!

🦩 Step 2: Set Boundaries for Each Step

Nancy then reinforced her business rules by pairing each step with deadlines and explaining why they mattered. Activities without context and boundaries without context can feel arbitrary. For every step, define:

1. The Deadline: When it must be completed.

2. The Why: What’s at stake if it’s missed (for you, your team, or your client).

💡 Example 1 (Client Responsibility):

• Step: Submit brand assets within one week of onboarding.

• Deadline: One week after onboarding.

• Why: Missing this delays the design phase, which pushes back the entire project—including your client’s launch.

💡 Example 2 (Team Responsibility):

• Step: Prepare a brand assessment report within one week of receiving client assets.

• Deadline: One week after receiving the assets.

• Why: Delays here mean designers can’t start, which impacts the project timeline and client satisfaction.

When everyone involved understands why each step and its deadline matters, the step stops feeling like unnecessary and start feeling like shared priority.

🦩Step 3: Create a Risk Management Strategy

Be proactive, not reactive. Nancy got proactive about managing risks and built a risk management strategy and plan for keeping deadlines on track and addressing issues that may come up. Instead of waiting for deadlines to slip, she planned for both success and failure.

Here’s how to do it:

• Risk-Proof Your 3D Client Journey: Think about things that can affect your client and team's ability to meet the deadlines and outcome. Update the client journey or your ideal client profile to include or communicate those things.

• Reward Compliance: Decide how to celebrate when deadlines are met to reinforce positive behavior.

• Address Non-Compliance: Establish clear penalties for missed deadlines—fair, progressive, and enforceable.

💡 Example 1 (Clients):

• Risk-Proof Action Plan:

  1. Include requirements for success and deadlines in contracts and reiterate during onboarding.

  2. Send reminders highlighting the deadline and its impact.

  3. Pause the project if the client doesn’t fulfill their responsibilities.

• Reward: Send a congratulatory email when the deadline is met, highlighting progress.

💡 Example 2 (Employees):

• Risk-Proof Action Plan:

  1. Use templates or project management tools to assign deadlines.

  2. Review progress regularly in client or team status meetings.

  3. Escalate penalties for repeat issues (e.g., conversations → salary impact → termination).

• Reward: Celebrate wins in team meetings or offer small incentives.

The key? Make sure the system feels fair—if it doesn’t, you won’t enforce it.

🦩Step 4: Enforce Those Boundaries

This is where the rubber meets the road. Boundaries mean nothing if you’re unwilling to follow through. Nancy had to overcome her people-pleasing tendencies and take a firm stance. It felt easier when Nancy followed her fair action plan and to used her client and team performance KPIs to monitor progress and proactively handle risks before they become issues.

🦩The Ripple Effect

With clear expectations, defined roles, and enforced boundaries, Nancy’s business turned around. Her team became more reliable, deadlines were met, her clients were happier, and she finally had the freedom to focus on strategic growth. Most importantly, she felt like a leader again—calm, confident, and in control.

When you stop fixing what shouldn’t be broken, your business—and your sanity—can thrive.

The Flamingo Touch

Flamingos thrive because they know how to balance .Flamingos don’t compromise on their balance—and neither should you. Your business works the same way. Strong boundaries aren’t just rules—they’re the foundation for sustainable growth.

When you stand tall and enforce what matters, you protect your time, your team, and your vision. You create a business that runs like a dream—without losing your sanity in the process.

💡 Need a Fix?

Are you ready to enforce your boundaries and build a business that runs without you babysitting every detail? Let’s fix that.

OPTION 1: If you are stuck at 250-500K and ready for 1:1 services to streamline your client fulfilment process so your business grows without burning you out, book a 30 minute strategy call.

OPTION 2: Fly into the "CEO Like A CEO" Roundtable in the Pink Flamingo Club to start your end-to-end client fulfilment transformation and learn how to track and leverage standard business operations KPIs that make fulfillment and business growth 10x easier.

OPTION 3: Subscribe to Flamingo Fix: Your Weekly Guide to Scaling Smarter, Leading Better, and Living Freer! Get quick, actionable advice (like this post) to streamline operations, elevate client experiences, and scale your business—without the burnout. As a bonus, the first issue shares our proven client onboarding process, complete with the tools to create a red-carpet onboarding experience that wow your clients without utter chaos or losing your sanity.

Here’s to building a business that lights you up while scaling sustainably and reclaiming your time. 💕

Be amazing,

Danielle & Chanel