Welcome to Smooth Operator
with
Adam Liette
Online Business Operations Expert
Owning a business shouldn't require that it control every aspect of your life. You can easily build the systems and structure to keep the day-to-day operations running smoothly.
I'm Adam Liette
My journey began in the mountains of Afghanistan as a paratrooper in the famed 82nd Airborne Division. While serving my first combat tour, I was recruited into a US Army Special Operations unit where I would learn advanced skills of persuasion, influence, special tactics, and operational design/execution.
During my 8 years of service in Special Operations, I deployed an additional 5 times to combat and non-combat zones all across the world. This experience allowed me to start honing my skills in managing remote operations and lead disparate and diverse groups of operators all working together towards a common mission.
In 2017 I started transitioning from active duty and began my next career working for Musical U, an online music education company based in the UK. As the 4th hire on the team, I was in a unique position to help grow the organization and develop many of the systems that would enable us to collaborate. During my time on the team, I advanced to become the first Director of Operations, increased the team size to nearly 20 people and saw revenue increase well into the millions of dollars per year.
A large part of this was because of the creation of an operating system that enabled the CEO and myself to move away from the day-to-day operations of the company. This was the origin of the Smooth Operations System.
Best of all, I was able to seamlessly transition from the team without them missing a beat. The Smooth Operations System allowed for the new Director to simply step into the role and continue the work that I had been doing.
As the founder and director of Smooth Operations, I help online business owners move away from the day-to-day operations of the company and into their place of leadership. Installing systems and frameworks that set your team up for success and enable rapid growth while maintaining the culture and unique voice of your company.
Business owners running with the Smooth Operations system are empowered to dedicate their time to the creative and revenue-producing activities that will fuel the growth of the company.
It wasn't a straightforward journey
I thought I did everything right…
When deciding to go all in on working in online business, I did all the things that we’re “supposed” to do.
Read all the “right” books
Slogged my way through grad school to earn a Masters in Business Administration
Attended various seminars and workshops to help become a better leader
Listened to the leading podcasts on these subject.
And yet, it wasn’t until I was actually faced with managing a real company, full of real people that I knew there was something drastic missing from my knowledge and ability to apply all the lessons that had accumulated.
Opportunity Knocks
In 2020, we saw a unique opportunity in front us during the initial days of lockdown policies all around the world. While many companies appeared to be slow to react and implement new marketing initiatives, we were quick to jump into action and make sure that our brand was in place to help serve people during this time.
As the marketing campaigns took shape, we saw a quick and enduring surge to the number of new customers we were welcoming in every week.
While this was outstanding from the business perspective, it completely turned our team upside down and we found that we didn’t have the structures in place to serve this many new customers as well as we would like.
This revelation forced me to think quickly and go back to the drawing board in how we were going to manage our team and their ongoing obligations. After seeing the success that these new frameworks gave us, we began looking at everywhere else in the company to continue leveraging our operational excellence across the company.
This allowed me to combine everything that I learned through a lifetime of military service, years in business operations, and the skills I was adding in a very dynamic way.
My passion is in education.
From my early days as a high school band director to being a Special Operations instructor and finally managing an online education company, I’ve always had a passion for learning and teaching.
So while the Smooth Marketing System can work for any business, I’m specialized in e-learning and information product companies.
Having this system is particularly empowering for not only the entrepreneur, but everyone on a team. Educators are particularly passionate about their specialty and work well within this system.
Why does this work?
What was it that made the industrial revolution so transformational to the world?
It was that, for the first time, highly repetitive tasks were removed from human beings and placed into the hands of machines that were built for the sole purpose of doing those tasks.
The computer or device you’re reading this on is constantly performing difficult and complex computations to bring the words from my head into this page and then back out into your head.
Our cars cycle thousands of times per minute to increase the power of the engine and therefore, make the vehicle go faster down the road.
In both these examples there is a motor of operating system that just handles the repetition. It’s not up to you as the driver of the vehicle to tell the engine to spray gas into the cylinder or trigger the spark plug to ignite the gas.
The engine is reacting to the inputs that we’re placing into it.
That’s exactly what can happen when you create and install an operating system, or engine, into your business.
Trigger the right input, and trust that the engine will do the rest.
I help companies create the engine that will propel your company forward. To build the systems and automated responses that will react to the inputs that you are maneuvering.
To get you out of having to manage every response and put you into the driver’s seat with full control.
I've Worked With:
Christopher Sutton
Musical U
"Once Adam was heading up operations, he gradually introduced a number of systems and processes that bit by bit transformed how our business ran to the point where we were able to take on vastly more ambitious projects with a lot less stress in the team. For me as the business owner, it was like everything just started to run like clockwork, while keeping all of the energy and creativity that the team thrived on, we were able to stay agile and move fast."
Gregg Goodhart
The Learning Coach
"One thing I can tell you is, no matter what was going on, no matter what crisis may have come up, I was always happy to see him. Because I knew stuff would get solved. We'd figure it out. He'd do what he needed to do, or I do what he told me I needed to do. And things always worked out regarding his advice that just kind of evolved as I got to know him over that three year period."
John Conroy
Freelance Copywriter
"So one thing I'll say about with the operations, Musical U is a company that is like run more smoothly than anyone I've ever really experienced. And as a freelance copywriter, especially at the start, like going from job to job, like you work with a lot of different companies. And then over the years, I've worked with a lot of seven and eight figure companies then as well. And none of them were really comparable to Musical U in terms of just how efficiently everything run was run. "
"You've changed my life. I mean, you know, literally in terms of what you've done, and it's like, always in progress, learning and sharing and learning and sharing and making it in some way that's going to help and it's going to serve and make things better for people."
ANDREW BISHKO, MI
"I am seeing how much of what you did was invisible, how much work you just made happen, magically, when none of us even realize it existed. You managed to get that balance of making everything seamless, and just keeping it ticking over. While still finding time to make sure that you checked in with everyone. You have been that emotional support for everyone. And I think I will always be in awe of the fact that you managed to create that balance."
HANNAH CAIN, UK
"Adam is a true professional and completely mission focused. When working with Adam, there was never a question or doubt about project, client, and product quality and satisfaction. From start to finish, the results yielded opened new doors and increased our team's productivity."