Are you neurodivergent, and wondering how to use this to your advantage in your business?
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Today, we are talking about leveraging neurodiversity as an operator, specifically in an agency, which is what our guest Latrice Prater is known for.
Meet Latrice
Latrice Prater is a Neurodivergent CEO of The Digital Solutions Team, a virtual agency providing operations solutions to female business owners. Latrice is a wife and mother of 3, who currently resides in the Austin Texas area. She is a Strategic Thought Partner that is fiercely passionate about people, personal and professional development, and harnessing her authenticity to attract her tribe. Latrice loves to provide training and guidance to women who are service providers and identify as neurodivergent. As a woman in business with ADHD, Generalized Anxiety Disorder, Bipolar II Disorder, and Insomnia, she knows firsthand the challenges one faces to run and sustain a profitable business. She started her journey as a business owner in February 2020 as a solopreneur. She now leads a small agency and continues to scale her six-figure business.
As a neurodivergent CEO, how does that intersect with becoming an operator?
- She started her business as a virtual assistant, but didn’t put a lot of parameters on her offers, so she was able to learn very quickly the things that she loved vs. the things that she couldn’t fathom doing on a regular basis
- The things that she happened to love fell under operations
- She took all of the knowledge she gained working with clients and realized she loved systems and she adjusted her agency and offerings accordingly
- [Natalie] Operators are innately creative problem solvers
Why are systems attractive to neurodivergent individuals?
- Latrice loves the backend technical part of systems, and setting them up
- Having ADHD, she enjoys it because it is kind of like a puzzle
- The ADHD allows her to hyperfocus on the things she enjoys
- With systems she is able to automate things as much as possible so she doesn’t forget
What types of work did you find out that you did not enjoy and why?
- She felt that admin work was too mundane (scheduling, spreadsheets, email management, etc.)
- Naturally she is a creative problem solver, so she loves getting into the tech and figuring things out, which is much more fun than the tedious admin work
“It is always the tedious mundane things that take me forever to do” – Latrice Prater
At what point did you know you were neurodivergent?
- She didn’t find out until she started her business in 2020
- She was a successful student but had a hard time studying because she got distracted easily
- ADHD became a hyperfocus for her once she was diagnosed
How has ADHD impacted the way you navigate your business?
- She went on a journey of learning about ADHD, and how it impacts her
- She looked at her own patterns and how/when she should work
- She identified the most productive times she could take meetings etc. and arranged her schedule accordingly
- If she has too many things going on at once, it may cause her to shut down
- She set boundaries with clients up front
- She is very transparent in her communication
- She has to work at her pace
“I learned that I had to limit access to myself to prevent burnout and overwhelm.” – Latrice Prater
How do you screen who you should work with?
- She screens the lead capture form and looks at the language they use
- She can tell if it’s going to be a good fit or not by how they describe what type of support they need
- She asks about expectations, and lets her own expectations be known up front
“I had to really get tight on boundaries.” – Latrice Prater
What is attractive about the entrepreneurship route?
- Initially she did not like the manager/employee relationship
- She always knew she wanted to create something for herself so she wouldn’t be constrained
- She wanted to control how she spent her time
- She would not have realized half of the things she can do had she not chosen entrepreneurship
“I didn’t want to have to try to be anyone else’s definition of what professionalism is supposed to be… I wanted to be me authentically.” – Latrice Prater
How does your agency work, and how is it helpful to you?
- She did not plan on having an agency
- She got six clients in the first month, and realized that she could get more if she had support
- Having support is what frees her up to be creative, and not have to work on the tedious stuff
- It is rewarding to have a team of amazing women who love what they do
- She crafts certain offers around her team members skill sets
- She always tells them “you don’t work for me, you work with me.”
- [Natalie] Creating relationships and having conversations are her skills, and she is able to attract team members who enjoy working for her
Share some of the things that make you successful in this workspace as a neurodivergent CEO.
- Neurodivergent can mean a lot of things
- With ADHD, she sees pro’s:
- They tend to be are more empathetic
- They tend to be more resilient
- They tend to be more intuitive
- With ADHD, you are often impulsive
- She uses this to her advantage to make quick decisions
- You have to create workarounds, and make sure to set up a schedule that fits with your productivity
- It’s okay if you need to take a day
- She has started to analyze where the dopamine takes her and looks at it as a different kind of productivity
“How can we create businesses that don’t make us feel like we need to oblige to a really firm rigid space.” – Natalie Gingrich
Shout Out
- Latrice was having a hard time with an assignment as she went through the DOO certification program
- She reached out to The Ops Authority and her accountability person and they came through in a major way to make sure she fully understood the assignment
- It reassured her that she was in the right place
Connect with Latrice
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For those who are neurodivergent, what is a tip on how you create a successful space for yourself? Make sure to share it with us in the Facebook group!
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