Systems are what enable you to work on your business while you’re working in your business and on yourself. Systems are how you reduce waste in your business so that it can grow.

A Misplaced Tool that you look for more than 8 minutes a day costs You $5,200 (My rate $18,200) Per Year

How much time do you waste? How do you even know? Maybe you are the most efficient person on the planet and never waste one minute. In that case, you can skip this and read something else.

For the rest of us, let’s start with a simple calculation. How much time do you spend looking for an item you put somewhere…where is it when you need it? It hasn’t quite made it into your address book yet. The business card is just here, or there, underneath this paper-weight, or that one. (And when I say, “paper-weight,” I mean the piles of crap on your desk.)

And how about passwords that are so secret even you don’t know what they are, except that it’s your password and you need it to get into a web site and you can’t remember the clever spot where you hid it.

Then there’s the I-just-know-it’s-here-somewhere moments when you are looking for that old proposal, because it’s so juicily similar to the one you have to write today and it would save you so much time if you could just put your hands on it. If only . . . but you can’t.

Big deal, you might be thinking. I don’t spend that much time looking for things like that.

No? If you spend just one hour a week looking for hard-to-find information or things, at your going rate of $100 ($350) an hour, you’re losing $5,200 ($18,200) a year. Holy cow! (If you’re thinking, Gee, I don’t make that much an your, so I guess it doesn’t matter if I waste time, then you are in even deeper trouble because you will have a lot of difficulty making the leap to a higher hourly rate if you can’t get more efficient.)

And that’s not all. Not only are you wasting time; you may be missing opportunities. Some people assume that if they take the time to create and maintain systems, then they are wasting precious time they might better spend finding new business opportunities.

Not so. Opportunistic thinking is not the opposite of systems thinking, it’s the same thing. If you have the right systems in place, you’ll be free to be opportunistic. So, not only could you be losing $5,200 ($18,200) a year without systems (at a very minimum); you could be missing opportunities for additional revenue sources.

The Definition of a System

The term system can be ambiguous. It’s used in different forms and contexts. Fundamentally, a system is an organized or established procedure or a manner of classifying, symbolizing or schematizing.

It is simply a solution that uses the least amount of effort to accomplish the best possible result.

You can also think about it as “how you do the work of your business”: how you plan, how you work with your clients, how you follow up with new prospective clients.

It’s the specific steps that support what you’re doing. It’s what you’re doing minute by minute, hour by hour, day by day, month by month, year by year in your business.

Interestingly enough, you have already created many systems in your business, either intentionally or just by the act of working in your business. The only thing is—the systems you have set up may not be the most productive or effective. They may not allow you to grow and may only exist in your head, which means you are the only one who can execute the system.

Think Systematically

You need to learn how to think in systems:
•How do I want the phone answered?
•How do I want customers to be treated when they walk in the door?
•How do I want customer invoices handled?
•How do I want changes made to the web site?
•What fonts do I want used on all external administrative and marketing documents?
•How am I going to manage all the usernames and passwords for all the online accounts?

It’s a way of thinking: Here’s what we’re going to do. Now, how are we going to do it every time we do it?

When you start a one-person product or service-based business, you need to create awareness of what you’re selling in order to get clients. Seventy-five percent of your time is likely spent on marketing. The other 25 percent of your time is spent on working in your business—serving your clients or customers and dealing with the administrative details that accompany that work.

The reason that most people don’t start thinking about systems or processes in the early stages is because they can get away with not thinking about it or doing anything about it.

It’s natural that we place our attention on what is most pressing, most urgent. And when you don’t have enough clients to pay the bills, then, of course, your most pressing issue is getting clients.

Your Profits Are In Your Systems

However, your profits are in your systems – not in your marketing. Is that blasphemy coming from a marketer? Not at all. Creating apparent, documented systems is essential for you to:
•Stay competitive
•Improve productivity
•Cut costs
•Improve customer service
•Improve quality
•Reduce time to market
•Reduce inventories
•Better manage cash flow
•Plan and allocate resources
•Respond to customers changing needs

Systems can help you build something bigger that you still run but don’t have to work so hard in any more. At a minimum, systems will help you stop doing the stuff you don’t like and get back just to serving clients, doing the work you love.

The Best Time To Build Systems In Your Business

When is the best time to build a system?

Now—of course. Just because you are a small business owner does not mean your business is too young for systems. The earlier you put your systems in place the better.

In fact, one problem faced by many small-business owners is that they have created systems (of a sort) for their activities, but the systems are executed by the small business owner and known only to them.

That’s not a system that will help you grow or even sustain your business. You can’t take your eyes off the business for a moment if you’re the only one who knows what’s going on.

How to Create Systems for Your Business

Simple.
•Document what you’re currently doing in your business.
•When you have your standard procedures documented, set a desired outcome for each business procedure.
•Improve on those processes.

Not so complicated, is it? Let’s keep moving. We’ve got the momentum.

Start by focusing on what’s happening in your business. What’s happening on a daily, weekly, monthly, yearly basis?
•Are you writing copy?
•Are you following up with clients?
•Are you going to events?
•Are you networking?
•Are you answering e-mail?
•Are you answering sales calls?
•Are you processing new clients?
•Are you fulfilling products?
•Are you sending invoices?
•Are you collecting payments from declined credit cards?
•Are you creating holiday greeting cards?
What are you doing? And, most importantly, how are you doing all of this?

Keep a small pad of paper and a pen on your desk or with you every moment for a week. Record everything (really everything!) you do during the day and how long it took.
•Looked at my calendar.
•Looked for someone’s phone number (how?— piece of paper, address book, online yellow pages).
•Made a call (how long?)
•Wrote a letter.
•Reviewed financials.
•Looked at pet tricks on YouTube.
•Cleaned bike wheels.
•Discussed operating issues with assistant.
•And so on.

Once you have this record, divide the information up into the different categories of your business and create standardized worksheets of how things get done:
1.Financial systems
2.Administrative systems
3.Communication systems
4.Sales systems
5.Marketing systems
6.Client support systems

Inherent in the word standard (as in standard process) should be a level of quality. Your standard process map should represent the current best workflow. Then improve it by working toward the ideal to which you’ve been striving but have perhaps not quite achieved—yet.

In this way, quality is built into the standard, and you have already begun the cycle of improvement. You will be constantly striving to improve your standard processes, to raise the bar and to improve quality. There is no “end.”

MIND MAP & CHECKLIST TEMPLATES: My Personal Online Automated Sales Process Plus Webinar Set Up, Promotion, and Delivery System Worksheets.

To get you started, here are two major process templates that you can use for improving your systems.

The first is a mind map along with comprehensive worksheets for setting up, promoting, and delivering a webinar.

CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD TEMPLATE WORKSHEETS FOR MY PERSONAL WEBINAR PROCESS

The second is a major mind map of a sales funnel in Infusionsoft (affiliate link that includes bonuses and discounts), an online shopping cart, CRM, and intelligent email system. What you’ll see in this mind map is not a simple process; it may be something that you grow into. If it’s more sophisticated than you need right now, use it as a framework to start your own sales cycle process.

CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD TEMPLATE WORKSHEETS FOR MY PERSONAL SALES CYCLE

I’ll be teaching a systems based approach to business growth by walking you step-by-step through a sales cycle, included in the link above, on Wednesday, May 30, 2016. You can sign up for this free masterclass here. (It says that I’ll be teaching projects on the 30th but I switched it to systems.) If you are reading this post after the class has taken place, you can watch the recorded webinar here by setting up a free account in my online learning system.

* These process maps, checklists, and worksheets are included in Michael Port’s Business in a Box which all members of The Alliance with Michael Mentoring Program receive.

In conclusion: remember that these systems are not just for you—they’re also for your clients. Well-defined processes helps you make and fulfill your obligations to customers.