Systems. Definitely not sexy and I haven’t come across many business owners who absolutely love writing them up. But if you’ve read The E Myth Revisited or Traction you’ll know why using systems to scale your business is a no brainer.
A Business Without Systems Is A Job
If you don’t have the freedom to step away from your business because it couldn’t operate without you, you have a job.
If you can’t scale because all your systems are in your head and you can’t duplicate that level of quality, you have a job.
If you struggle to retain or find the ‘right’ team members because you need to show them what to do, and don’t have time, you have a job.
Systems give you freedom to:
- easily train new team members
- step away from your business
- be consistent across your business
- improve your operations
- scale your business 💥
- and take time away to recharge without worrying you’ll come back to chaos!
Convinced You Need Systems?
Deciding to documenting your systems is the biggest step. Well, not really. You’ve got a way to go! But below are some ways we’ve worked with clients to create systems, that might help you.
Because just imagine having time to concentrate on scaling your business, knowing you’ve got the foundations in place to support that growth.
Option 1:
One client knew exactly what processes he wanted to document and delegate. As he performed each task he videoed it using Loom (you could also use Zoom – share the screen and hit record) and shared it in Slack. Our VA then carried out the task and documented it as a procedure in an Asana template (their project management tool).
Option 2:
Another client preferred to sit down themselves and prepare full procedures in a template we shared. For this client, the act of documenting helped them look at the processes and make some changes to improve before they handed it over.
Again we took these procedures and linked to the tasks from their project management system (they use Trello boards).
Option 3:
Another option we’ve seen and love is the use of Process Street. Like option 2, in this case the client created the procedures himself though we’ve also taken written SOPs and created the processes in tools like Process Street. The benefit in using a tool like this is you have features to help ensure your systems are ‘followed by all’. For example you can’t move onto the next action before you’ve ticked the preceding one.
Option 4:
Most popular is the done for you approach where we take email instructions, perform the task and document the procedure as we go. The client then approves the procedure and it goes into their project management tool as a recurring task template and/or is filed and added to a master list.
The benefit in creating a template in your project management tool helps ensure the procedure is easy to access thus followed by all (no matter who carries out the task).
There you have it! Creating full systems for all your operations is an investment of time and resources. But having them in place is priceless. For you … and your business.
![How to systemise and automate your business [free download]](https://yourva.co.nz/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/7.png)
