The Four-Stage Systems Blueprint That Keeps Your Business Running—Without Relying on Key Individuals | Ep 241

Dr Steve Day: Welcome to Systemize Your Success. Today I\'m going to be talking about the process that we go through for ourselves and our clients. To help you to protect your business from when people leave. But also to capture the best practices and the management of your complex processes. Doing this means that you aren\'t involved in the day to day running of the main bulk of your business systems. And also means that when people do leave, you\'re not dragged back in to have to pick up the slack.

This technique or these techniques I\'m going to talk through today are what we work through with our more advanced clients. Our as in clients who have established teams and they\'ve been working for some time. So they have systems in their business, but they need a way to formalize it. To document and to standardize it so no matter who is involved, the same standard will be reached. And you\'re not reliant on key individuals. So you can continue delivering high service to your clients regardless of what\'s happening in your business on the back end. That is what systems can do for you.

And today I want to talk through the process that we use and our clients use to make this a reality. And do stick around to the end because I\'ll be talking about how to get your existing team on board. So you don\'t alienate them, push them away or make them fearful of their jobs when you talk about this process. And you actually get them on board to make this run more smoothly. And please do hit subscribe so you don\'t miss out on future episodes. Where I share top tricks, tips and techniques to free yourself from your business. So you can have more time to do what you love to do each day.

Okay, so the inspiration from today\'s episode has come from many conversations I\'ve had with my private clients over the years. My private clients are typically more established businesses, meaning they\'ve been going for a number of years. They\'ve got clients, they\'ve got revenue, and they\'ve often got a team in place. That team may be a virtual team, an in-house team, or a combination of the two. The main difference here between the businesses which are established and maybe for a solopreneur. And you\'re just sort of figuring stuff out now, you\'re delegating sort of individual tasks to people. You\'re getting that person to help you with admin and stuff.

The difference between that and what we\'re talking about today. That was the subject of last week\'s episode, if you\'re interested. How to actually offload admin tasks to an assistant. But today we want to talk about the processes, the systems behind how you actually run your business. Your marketing systems, your sales systems, your operational systems. How you serve your clients, how you hire your staff, how you onboard those staff, how you onboard your clients. All of these big systems, your financial systems, for example, your operational. All these big systems like how your business actually functions. When you get a team in place, you\'ll have to be giving this work to people. They\'ll be figuring stuff out over the years. And these will get more and more complex as you go.

What most businesses fail to do is to fully document these in such a way. That if that key individual was to leave, then the process can continue on without them. And actually have very little impact on the actual operational side of the business. That is what we want to talk about today. How we get from that state of being absolutely beholden to the people in your business. Being fearful of what would happen if someone went off on maternity or paternity leave. Or basically didn\'t turn up for work for some reason or wants to go on an extended vacation. You know, how can we have that happen if they\'re the only one in your business who actually knows how that part of the business works?

We\'d have to just put it on pause. Or you as a business owner have to step back in. Or you\'d have to have some sort of process of training somebody up and it gets a bit messy. Especially if it\'s something unexpected. So how do we avoid all that? How we do it is what I want to talk about today. Okay, so this process is broken down into four main stages.

The first stage is the planning stage. So identifying the systems that need your attention first, and then put those into some sort of order of priority. To make sure that you\'re getting the biggest bang for your buck as quickly as possible. The second part is the capacity and knowledge identification stage. So have you got the skills you need already within your team to be able to go through this? Do you need to get those skills? Do you need to hire new staff, or can you use your existing team to do it?

Once you\'ve got your plan and you\'ve got the capacity within your team, then we actually kick off. And go into the implementation stage, where we\'re actually building out the systems and actually starting to establish your processes. Your best practices within those systems and getting them documented. And finally, and really importantly, is the launch stage. To make sure that your entire team who are involved in the process that you\'ve been documenting is on board. And actually understands their role in this new formalized documented system. How they interact with it and make sure they are on board 100% and don\'t feel in any which way threatened by this. And see it as an advantage to have and see the benefits behind it. Rather than just seeing it as something that could potentially replace them in their role.

So by going through this four step process with planning, with capacity, with systemization and then launch, you can avoid most of those mistakes. The mistakes that people make when they go into systemization. Let\'s jump in and get started with planning. Planning is one of those things that I hate to do. I hate to sit down and actually just formalize stuff before I get started.

I\'m one of those kind of people that just wants to jump in. But failing to plan it in this example is planning to fail. If you focus on systemizing the wrong parts of your business, you will lose interest way before you start seeing the value of it. You can put hours or weeks even of time and effort into creating something that\'s absolutely wonderful. But it doesn\'t actually return any true value to you in terms of increasing revenue. Or freeing your time or just making you sleep better at night. And those are the key things we\'re trying to do. We need early wins, we need quick wins, we need wins that actually feel good to you in the beginning of this process.

Because when you\'re learning how to do all this, it\'s going to be a struggle. It\'s going to be a challenge. This isn\'t something that is just a click your fingers and bang, we\'re off. It\'s going to something that takes time to get right.

So we\'ve got to pick something that A, you\'re passionate about. B, that you actually see it\'s going to be of value. And D, that it\'s actually something that you can really see that you are able to do it with some help. And techniques along the way, which is what obviously we\'re talking about today. Okay, so in the planning stage we use a couple of techniques. The first one is the core revenue flow. This is when we are looking and focusing entirely on the parts of your business that actually generate revenue.

That is how you market, how you sell, how you serve, and then how you get repeat business. Without those four things in place, you don\'t have a business. So you can have all the fancy operational stuff and finance things and all the rest of it you want around in the periphery. But if you haven\'t got those four things, it\'s all for nothing because your business will fail.

So we want to focus on those bits first, regardless of how messy everything else is, because we can wing it. As business owners, we\'re good at just making stuff up. So we\'ll figure out a way to get stuff done while we actually get these systems nailed. Because then you can put all of your focus on that other stuff. Yeah, it\'s super important, but it\'s not as important as actually finding clients, serving those clients, and actually getting repeat business.

So let\'s focus on that first. And that is what the core revenue flow is all about. Now, this is something that I talked at length in episode 153, if you want to go and check it out in detail.

But really it\'s just doing what I just described. It\'s about going through those four main areas, the marketing, the sales, the serving, and then the repeat business. And identifying the absolute core things that your business needs to function. There\'s probably a load of stuff you do in each of those categories, especially in something like marketing. You may have a presence on lots of different social media channels. Maybe you\'ve got a podcast or YouTube channel, maybe you\'ve got a website and a blog. Like loads of different ways you\'re getting stuff. You do pr, for example. You write on other people\'s blogs, you appear on other people\'s podcasts.

Whatever it is you\'re doing isn\'t going to change. But what we want to do is say, look, if we had to only do one thing. What is the one thing that brings in the most amount of business? That should be the core revenue part of marketing. We do the same thing for sales. You may have different ways that you sell lots of different products that you sell. You may have different ways you get people into your business. But what is the one that works the best, that works the most consistently?

The one that if we could just formalize that systemize it and scale it, you would have even more revenue. And the one that, conversely, if you lost that out of your business, if the person that did that right now was not able to do it anymore, which would have the biggest impact negatively impacting your business. So we\'re looking at the one part of each of these four segments that actually is the most important. That\'s what the core revenue flow is all about.

So once you\'ve identified those core systems, we now want to prioritize what we\'re going to focus on first. So having a look at the systems in your core revenue flow, you\'re going to decide which ones would have the biggest impact. If the person who\'s currently doing them left the business. If you\'ve already got quite a lot of process and system documented SOPs etc for any particular area, then maybe that isn\'t the one to focus on first. Even though it might be the most attractive because it might seem like the easy option.

However, if a real key part of your core revenue flow is totally in somebody\'s head and you haven\'t really got anything down, I\'d say that would be a great place to start. Also, make sure you have the knowledge and capacity to be able to actually systemize it. So if this is a part of your business that you currently outsource to an agency. For example, so say if you used a marketing agency to do some part of your marketing that was your core revenue marketing element. Or you have a agency that does your podcast production and therefore it\'s not knowledge that\'s in your business. It\'s going to be really hard to systemize that. So the fact that you have actually got an expert doing it, that is actually sort of, you\'ve outsourced that.

So that\'s something I would tend to leave until later. And then when you bring it in house, you can then create the formalized systems around it. So once you rank these in terms of priority, you\'ve got your systems implementation plan. This is your guide for you and your team to be able to know which things should be systemized and in which order. To make sure you don\'t get distracted and start getting involved in stuff that isn\'t in your core revenue flow. But also in the order in which you\'ve identified that is the most important for your business.

It\'s super easy to do, should take you no more than half an hour or an hour at most. As I said, check out episode 153 if you want to go into this core revenue flow process in more detail. And there that will walk you through those processes in more detail. So now we\'ve got a plan.

We know which areas that we\'re going to be systemizing first and we can then think, okay, do we have the capacity in our existing team to actually do this? To map this out, to create a project plan for this, to put this into some sort of task management app to actually follow it through. To actually create the management behind this and then document every step of the process? If you rely on the people who are doing the work to do all these things for you, you\'re probably going to get disappointed.

That is one of the things I see quite often when this fails. People hire or appoint a, what I call a systems implementer. The person who is going to actually take the ownership of learning how to systemize the entire system. To do all the different stages and then to see it through. Because if the person is involved in the day to day running your business. If they\'re the one who is the marketeer, the salesperson, or they\'re in charge of customer service, for example. If you then take them away from doing what they\'re currently doing, they\'re going to probably not have the capacity. To actually spend the time needed to get this done in a relatively or an acceptable timeframe.

You want to actually get on with this and see the results before people lose interest and lose motivation, including yourself. So making sure you\'ve got the capacity in your team is essential if you do want to use an existing team member. So maybe you have somebody who\'s passionate about systems and apps and automation and AI. And you think this would be an ideal thing for them to get involved with. Then make sure you free up their time first.

In the previous episode of last week, I talked through our Free Your Time process. Where we identified things that you are doing right now. And talk about a formal method of actually getting them off your back onto somebody else\'s.

So if it is someone in your existing team, you want to do this. Then go through that process I talked about last week and free up as much of their time as possible. And make sure that they have huge amounts of time blanked on their diary. So at least half of their time, so 20 hours a week, for example. To be able to focus on this full time and for them to have this as their role going forward. Formalize that role. Give them KPIs, they understand the importance of this.

Otherwise what I\'ve seen happen so often is it gets pushed aside. Because it\'s like, oh, I\'ve just got to get on with my other work. This is something that can wait and that is the way that you will drag this out. To a point where it will fail and you\'ll just think it\'s not working. Or it\'s not going to work in my business. Or I\'ve got the wrong person doing it. It\'s often just about having the time and the focus and keeping that momentum going in the early stages especially.

And to do that we need to do what I\'ve just said and free up the capacity. To make sure that we have that in our team. If you don\'t have that person in your team then I recommend you hiring somebody.

We typically hire people from the Philippines using our recruit right hiring system. You can check out previous episodes where I talked about that. But here we are looking specifically for somebody who has got a passion for systems. We want that to be like the forefront of the job title in the job description. We want them to have IT experience in creating SOPs, in creating checklists, in hopefully understanding about process mapping as well.

And if they can do automation, that is a really good indicator they\'re going to be good at systems. Because somebody who has got this logical brain that allows them to map out automations in their head. Then create them in automation software. That\'s exactly what we need that skill set to be able to do. Whether it\'s people doing it or it\'s software doing it is the same skill. So if you can find someone who\'s got great automation history or skills and they\'ve got a passion for systems, that\'s a good indicator they\'d be a good person for this role.

So now we\'ve hopefully covered the capacity part of this process. We\'ve done the planning and the capacity. We\'ve got the right person with the capacity and the motivation to be able to actually start this process. Now we\'re going to jump into step three, which is the actual systemization part.

This technique is something that I\'ve spent many, many years developing within our own business. I covered it in detail in episode 154. It\'s called the Perfect Process pipelines technique. The same technique is used for pretty much any system within the business where it\'s a recurring process. And this is what we\'re talking about here.

We talk about your core revenue flow. So this is something that\'s going to happen hopefully many, many times in your business. Because then you\'re going to make more and more money. So these are the recurring high frequency processes in your business. And that is what the perfect process pipelines technique is all about. Go and check out episode 154 if you want to go to more detail on this.

This is a process of mapping out what it is people are doing, when they\'re doing it, who is doing it or what is doing it, if it\'s an app for example. And creating a visual representation of this so that everybody involved can see exactly what is happening from end to end. It allows you to identify problems, bottlenecks, and also really importantly as you go through this mapping process. This is the process mapping as it\'s called. When you go through this process, you\'ll see all the things you\'ve never thought about. You just leapt to chance, things you have never formalized.

So when should we chase this person up? At what time should this be sent? Like, what is the process here? How does this person even know what they\'re doing at this point? That is when we actually identify all the holes in your existing system. And enable you to then start making something far more standardized and actually capturing the best practice of what people are actually doing right now.

Because if people are already doing this work in your business, there\'s a good chance they\'ve already thought this stuff through. And maybe it\'s actually not in line with the way you want the business run. That can be identified here. Or maybe it\'s better than you thought that you actually thought it was being done. So that could be identified here too. But what we want to do is agree on what should be done going forward.

This is not to say, and this is important, this is not to say that this is now, it forever. That this is the process that will happen. It\'s never going to change, far from it. We are just putting down what is happening right now.

That means that we\'ve got a baseline to work from. That we can then measure our improvement on going forward. So this is how we start our process improvement journey. It doesn\'t start with thinking about how to optimize the, you know, what we\'re doing. It starts actually knowing what we are doing right now. And then we can look at the area specifically to optimize this.

That optimization process should come after you\'ve completed all of the systems within your core revenue flow. Because then you\'ve got the baseline for everything, a system for each of the core parts of your income generation. And then you can go back and spend time on optimizing them to make them better and better. And because you formalize it, because you\'ve documented it, because you have a standard way of doing it, you can then monitor the effect of changes and improvements that you make. Because you know how it\'s being done as a baseline.

So once you\'ve done your process mapping, we really want to create the management of this process. Maps are great for you. Making plans is the plan for your system, if you like. Even if something\'s already existing, you\'re just getting out of people\'s heads. But now we want something that\'s really practical, something that actually affects the management and the implementation of the work every single day.

And that\'s when we bring this process map into a tool like Asana or ClickUp, another task management app. This allows you to create tasks and workflows. It allows you to monitor tasks going through a pipeline where there\'s multiple steps and multiple tasks that need to be done. Multiple checklists to make sure that every single time a task is done, whether it\'s onboarding a client or setting up a podcast on your blog. Whatever it is, there\'s going to be multiple steps that need to happen. We want to make sure they are done every time regardless of who\'s doing it.

So creating all of these projects, typically a process pipeline would have one or more projects for itself in your task manager app. So you end up with quite a lot of projects managing all the core systems in your business.

But what that means is as the business owner, you have total visibility about where all of these things are up to. If, for example, you have an invoice chasing pipeline, you can see what invoices are outstanding. You can see who\'s been chased up, when, which ones are overdue. You can see if there are bottlenecks in any part of your process.

For example, if you have onboarding of clients and there\'s a bottleneck there, that could be bad for client relations. Identifying that early and seeing where we need to put more resource to fix that problem is incredibly valuable. It also means as a business owner, you can sleep far better because now you can see what is being done. It\'s not left you hoping your staff are doing stuff. You actually can see in real time.

As processes and tasks go through the stages of going from the first stage to the second stage, the third stage, for example. That is what the process pipelines technique gives you. That total visibility of where everything is up to. So you can then sleep better without having to chase people up and say, oh, what happened to sending that proposal to our client? Now you don\'t need to do that anymore because it\'s mapped out within your task management software. You can see exactly where it\'s up to.

So that\'s why creating projects within a task management app is a powerful way to convert a documented process map into something valuable in your business. That\'s also where we put all the documentation. You now have somewhere to start putting all of your SOPs. And if you go back to last week\'s episode where I talked about capturing processes using the red method, that is to record yourself doing the task using a technique called didact. You\'ve now got somewhere to put that.

So when you\'ve recorded a video, for example, if you\'re doing a task or one of your staff does, they can pop it into their process pipeline. And now you\'re starting to build up this formal documentation of every single step in the process as they\'re doing it in real time. That is how we turn a conceptual idea of what is happening in our business into something visual. Something everyone can participate in, understand and see.

And then bringing that into a task management app gives you somewhere to track how things are happening. It also records how things are done. That is the true power of creating systems using this technique.

And finally, we\'ve got the launch stage. So once you\'ve mapped things out, you\'ve put it into task management app, you\'ve created the first draft of this. We now need to start the process of getting your team members who are doing the work involved. They need to start using this in their work day by day, as this is something new and in addition to their existing work.

There\'s a good chance you\'re going to get pushback here. So we need to sell it to them. We need to explain the benefits of them using this new tool to manage their work. For example, by them doing this, they will have a better way of representing the work they are doing. They will have somewhere to keep track of everything so they don\'t miss any tasks. This will reflect better on them going forward. It is somewhere that you can actually record their performance.

Good members of staff will love this because now they can be recognized for the hard work they\'re doing. It\'s also somewhere for them to document how they do their work. Exactly what we talked about a second ago. That means if they want to go on holiday or need to take off, it\'s not suddenly become stressful. If how they do their work is documented, it allows them to hand over things in a much more organized way.

Things don\'t mount up while they were away. They can often delegate a lot of the admin stuff they don\'t particularly like doing. They can get that off their plate. Because part of the process of documenting, using process mapping, is to identify who the person is or the role that should be doing each of the steps. Right now you may have a single podcast manager doing everything. Whereas actually you could get a podcast assistant to do some stuff. You could get someone who\'s good at copywriting to help you.

By breaking up into different roles, you\'re able to start delegating work into the right person\'s basket. They can focus on the stuff they love doing and are good at. You as the business owner get more value from it. The person doing it is having more fun and enjoyment in their work. Rather than them having to do all the admin stuff that they hate doing. Or tasks that aren\'t really in their zone of genius.

This whole process can be sold in a positive way that supports them in their role. It gives them a chance to improve in a specific area of interest. To get rid of stuff they hate. To actually allow them to take genuine time off and not come back to a complete disaster. These are some of the things you can use to sell this process. You show them it will take effort to start doing this, but there are real benefits to being on board.

And especially the stick element of this. That\'s the carrot, so to speak. The stick element is, look, I want to systemize business because I don\'t want to not sleep at night. I want to know what\'s going on. I want to see visually what is happening on a daily basis. So if you\'re not on board with this, then we\'re going to find someone who is.

That\'s the stick. But you don\'t really want to use that. That\'s what you may think in the back of your head. But if we can get people on board with systemization, using systems from a position of benefits rather than fear, it\'s a better way of doing it.

So that\'s it. We\'ve talked about how to plan your systemization, how to make sure you\'ve got the capacity in your team to go through the systemization process and then to launch your systems live without getting pushback. The last step, step five, is repeat. Once you\'ve done this for the first part of your core revenue flow, you then repeat this process for the next part and the next part. That is how we get all the stuff out of people\'s heads in a systemized, formalized way.

When you\'ve got an established team, when you\'ve got systems in your business that you haven\'t yet documented, this is the process we take people through. This is what we use in our business every day. It\'s something that really works and has huge amounts of positive impact for you. Less stress for you, more visibility, ability to scale, and protecting your business when people inevitably leave.

I hope you\'ve enjoyed today\'s episode. If you want to find more about how we can help you to implement these systems and many more in your business, do check out join.sys.academy. And other than that, I just want to thank you very much indeed for taking the time to listen to today\'s episode. Please do hit subscribe and I look forward to seeing you next time. Thank you very much.

The Four-Stage Systems Blueprint That Keeps Your Business Running—Without Relying on Key Individuals | Ep 241

🎙 In this episode…

KEY TAKEAWAYS: Building Strong Business Systems for Continuity

BEST MOMENTS: Real-Life Lessons on Business Systems

TIMESTAMPED OVERVIEW

Episode Transcript

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ABOUT THE HOST

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