What are SYSTEMS and how important are they to your business, your sanity & wellbeing ?  Well, let’s take a look…

 

Systems Save You Serious Time, Energy, Money & Stress.

Let me give you just three ways in which you can start putting systems in place in your business right now.

Firstly, let’s talk about why putting systems in place is so important.

Oftentimes business owners will tell me it’s been so many years or so many months since they had a holiday from their business.  Why is this the case ?

Well, it’s usually because :

  • they can’t afford to leave the business running on its own without them OR
  • they can’t leave their staff to deliver the service in the same way in which they would deliver it. Why ?
  • Because everything is in their head.  And so….We go on ‘holiday’ with our family, with our laptops and mobiles just in case our team or customers need to get hold of us.  This is usually the case for most business owners.

So, we are going to talk about how you can stop that being the case.

Ask yourself :

  • Would you prefer to go on holiday and not have to take your laptop or mobile phone with you ?
  • Would you like to go on holiday without having to find out, before you’ve booked the hotel, if it has Wi-Fi?

With the right systems in place, you can do all of this and have a business that works well without you.

You see, systems are actually the most important and most exciting part of setting up your business, honestly!

Now, for all you naysayers out there who are saying “How can writing down processes and procedures on how to run my business be anything but boring and a waste of my time ?”  Well, actually it isn’t and it is going to save you serious time.

In fact, let me focus you on the things that will lose you time & money.  Take the top two words “SAVE”  “YOURSELF”

They mean save yourself  from :

  • All the stress, and all the weight of your business on your shoulders
  • Being asked the same questions over and over  by your Team
  • Fixing problems/issues created by your team, with each other or your customers
  • Working 60, 70 hours p/w. 20 or 30 of those probably spent fixing things which should have been done right in the first place because they weren’t done by you.

Now, think about it,  how many hours a day are you spending answering questions from your team ?  Are you the hub and spoke of your business ?  You know, some business owners take pride in knowing that if you want to get the answer you need to come and speak to them.  Is that really the way in which you should be running your business ? Do you really want everybody looking to you for every single thing in the business ?

If that’s the case, let me show you what will happen……

  • Your team is going to happily finish work at 5pm, and forget about the business
  • They’re going to happily book their holiday and go away and have a great time and not think about the business at all.
  • You’re going to be stuck in  your business after 5pm and before 7am  every day
  • You’ll never get that ‘holiday’ because you’ll be too stressed hunting around  for that Wi-Fi signal and using your phone all the time.

So, you see, this is about Saving Yourself because systemising your business will save you time, energy and money.

Systems save you money because your customers are happy receiving a consistent service which keeps them coming back.

Look at McDonald’s.  It’s a restaurant but it’s not the finest, and yet people keep going back in their billions. Is it the fantastic food ?…. Think again!

It’s because customers know exactly what they are going to get, what it will taste like, what the service will be like and how much it will cost.

This is a consistent customer journey experience

We simply want consistency of service so, what we’re talking about here is saving ourselves money because if we don’t have consistency of service, you can bet your life our customers won’t come back.

I’ll give you another simple example of losing customers and money.  My wife and I were driving to Scotland one weekend with a friend.  We stopped off at our favorite restaurant which we have been going to for many years because the standard of service has always been brilliant.  But, I’ve noticed over the last couple of years their standard of service has slipped.

On this particular visit the food and service were poor.  We watched as the staff stood about disinterested and paying little attention to the customers.  We watched them chucking down cutlery with a ‘can’t-be-bothered’ attitude.  No surprise that the restaurant wasn’t as full as it would be usually.

None of us said anything because we didn’t want to spoil the meal, but on the way back we all agreed that the service wasn’t that great. As a result of this customer experience we would think twice about going there again.

So you see, this is what happens when our service is inconsistent, when we are not training our team in the right way.

If we don’t systemise our business, we’re going to cost ourselves energy and time spent in the business.  This will lead to less money coming into the business and more stress put on the business. i.e. you the business owner.

At the risk of repeating myself, Systems are really important.

“Products will make you money, but systems will make you a fortune.”

Allan dib

Systems calm things down.  They allow you to leave your business knowing with absolute confidence that the people in the business will deliver the same service that you would deliver to your customers, every single time.

Here’s what you need to do……

Document exactly how your business should run,  put processes and procedures in place for every aspect of your business.  This is the foundation on which you will generate happy & loyal customers.

Listen carefully, if you don’t document precisely how your processes should run, how your services should be delivered to your customers and exactly how your customers should feel, well, if you don’t write this down and make it clear to everybody in your team, guess what will happen…..Your Team will ‘make it up’!

Ask yourself this….

Does everyone in your team, have exactly the same standards and values as you ?  If you have recruited them correctly then you would hope so.  But, we are all different as individuals.  My standards will probably differ from your standards.  The same can be said of your team and how they each work within the various segments of the business.

So your team will ‘make up’ a version of what they believe is really good. They will try and deliver this to the customer. Herein lies the rub.  It might not be what you think is really good..  It might be better, which is great if that were the case, but it might not be quite as good as you want it to be.

  • It’s really important that you put clear and defined systems in place
  • Spell out exactly what it is that you need your team to deliver.

Remember,  if you don’t put SYSTEMS in place your Team will, and if it’s different each time for the customer, guess what ? In the examples given earlier, they won’t come back because customers expect the same thing every single time.

So let’s make our lives easier by systemising our business, saving ourselves time, serious time, energy, money and stress.

We don’t want to find ourselves repeating over and over again to our team exactly what it is that we want them to do.

We don’t want to find ourselves over and over again fixing the problems that our team have created within our business.  Maybe they just don’t know how to do it because we haven’t told them, because we haven’t systemised.

We don’t want our customers to start walking away from our business because we are giving them an inconsistent service.

So, systems are really important, but where do you start.  Well I’m going to give you three areas in which to start to write Systems in your business today.

# 1

Look at areas in your business where you are repeatedly having to train people over and over again. Perhaps a member of staff has left and their replacement now needs to be trained.  How much easier would it be if you have this written down.

Maybe your business is growing, you are taking on new staff and you’re having to keep showing them how you want it done.  Or perhaps it’s just errors repeating themselves because there is no process to follow.

# 2

Look at areas where we are losing money and respect from our customers.  Maybe particular products or services that people are no longer buying from us.

Perhaps customers are not coming in at a particular time.  This could be an area where we find we are starting to lose money, either in terms of sales or profits.

# 3

Look at where inefficiencies are occurring in your business. Certain jobs that are perhaps poorly executed and not done as well as when you do them.

So, here are the three areas to look at to get you started :

  1. If you are repeatedly having to train people. Perhaps you’re taking on new team members as your business grows, or errors are being repeated in a particular area.
  2. If you are losing money and respect from your customers, and you are not getting the repeat business.  If customers are unhappy.
  3. Inefficiencies that lead to loss of revenue.  This is a deeper subject for another day, on understanding the gross profit in our business
 How do you go about systemising your business ? 

Start by writing a bullet point check list for each process.

Break it down into exactly what the member of staff needs to do. It could be as simple as taking a customer order. There could be at least three ways to do this : In person, over the phone, online.

Write down the steps for each scenario.  Put it into a check-list that your team members will fill in each time they take a new customer order.  It can even be scripted.

So, you see, your team members will now be delivering a seamless customer experience.

Businesses that delight, that keep you coming back, tend to be profitable businesses and that is the purpose of systems…..

  • Make your business profitable
  • Generate more cash flow
  • Make your Team happier in the business BUT MOST IMPORTANT :
  • SAVE YOU SERIOUS TIME, ENERGY, MONEY AND STRESS and generate more cash in your business.

Here’s the key thing for you as a business owner to generate more time in your business.  Or, should I say to generate less time spent in your business.  Systemising your business means finding great people to run your systems.

“The difference between response and reaction generally boils down to deliberate preparation, prior planning and intentional action”

If you would like to read more on this subject. Simply click HERE to download the article.

If you would like to know how to grow your business so that it works profitably and runs without you, simply click HERE to watch the video on how you can get there.

Remember, if you have to work in your business, in reality you have a Job and not a business.

If you would like to find out more about how to systemise your business, simply get in touch with Jeff Williams, Business Coach and BOOK your complimentary call HERE.