How to Create Systems in Your Business

I want to talk to you today about systems. Systems are crucial if you want to multiply your business and get to the next level. Whether you are just starting out, ramping up or you’re in a place where you’re needing some serious leverage, I want you to think about how things get done in your business. Most likely right now you have a self-generated business, whereby if YOU don’t start something yourself, or generate it, it doesn’t get done.

Now, that’s great in the beginning when you have to do most everything yourself, but when it comes to really wanting to multiply your business and not work crazy hours and into the evenings and weekends, you need to create some systems.

People always ask me, “How do you create systems?” Well, the way to create systems is to actually dissect your business and look at all the different little parts. There are so many different parts to your business. For example, there’s the client acquisition/attraction process, there’s invoicing and payment, there’s the delivery of the goods and services or products, there’s the process of saying goodbye to a client and there’s even administrative scheduling.

There is actually a system that can be implemented for every single one of these parts. If I look at my business, there is not one aspect of it that isn’t systematized in one way or another.

Now, why is it important to create systems? If you’re self-generating everything in your business right now, you are probably exhausted. You are focusing your time and energy on non-money generating activities.

All those little things that you have to self-generate take all of your time and all of your energy, which means you can’t attract more clients and make more money because you’re using your time on stuff that simply doesn’t have to be done by you.

Let’s look at scheduling, for example. Scheduling can be done many, many different ways.

In the beginning of my business, it was just me talking to a client on the phone and scheduling on my own. Now, that doesn’t sound like it takes a long time, but when you take into consideration cancellations, rescheduling, phone calls back and forth, checking messages, etc it can become a huge time drain for you. If you have one or two clients, it’s not bad but when you have 20, 30, 100 clients to schedule, it can really become difficult then.

Here’s where you want to create some systems. Look at what works. When I was doing all that scheduling many years ago I actually mapped it out so that each client had their own time slot. One client would “own” Tuesdays at 2:00 PM in my calendar. That was their time slot and a system that I created around that was to ask the client to try not to reschedule because they might lose that spot, since every half hour of my day was assigned to someone.

You can also create systems around what to put in your client welcome packet about scheduling, detailing how it’s done. Perhaps it’s done online. Perhaps it’s delegated to somebody else. There is a way for you to do everything more systematically in your business. Scheduling is just one example of it.

Your Client Attraction Assignment

Look at those different aspects of your business and see what’s working well. Then, also see what’s falling through the cracks. Consider what needs to happen for all of these things to be generated without you or to be taken care of without you. Who would it be delegated to? How would it be automated with technology? How could it be systemized so that everything happens the same way each time? Those are the questions I want you to ask of yourself. You want to create your business to be a problem-free zone. No more stuff falling through the cracks.

Then, create a procedure. It could be your operations manual or just a series of checklists. I even have a system, believe it or not, for packing for business trips. When we used to take all of our kids and the au pair on a business trip across the country for seven days, I had a checklist for that—what to bring, what to make sure I packed, how I packed it, every single thing, how many shoes to bring, how many scarves to bring—you get the picture.

When you do it once, you don’t have to self-generate it again and again. You just pull out your system and follow that. You can have these systems all over your business. If there’s a way that you launch a program or a product, map it out. Systematize it. Whatever it is, maybe it’s your closing of the sale, maybe it’s ordering supplies. Whatever it is, systematize it.