All Systems (+ Processes) Go
If there’s one thing that really, really gets my engines revving, it’s systems. I do know how tremendously nerdy that makes me, but I own it. This shit is my bread + butter.
Think about any area of your business that is horribly inefficient. How much time is wasted doing that one thing? How frustrating is it every time it comes up? How much easier would your life be with a reliable system for how it’s done, a simple repeatable process to follow, and maybe even certain steps being automated rather than manual? Imagine that feeling, and you’ll understand why I love this part.
Reasons you need systems + processes:
your business will run 10,000% more efficiently, meaning you’ll be more profitable
hiring + onboarding a new employee or contractor will be easy because there will be processes to follow
if you want to go on vacation (or get sick/injured and are forced to take an extended break from work), someone else can jump in and know how to run things
if you’re ready to scale and open a new location, it will be easy to replicate the original
if you ever want to sell your company, it will be infinitely more valuable with full systems + processes ready to hand over to the new owner
“Process makes perfect.”
Let’s talk about what exactly a system is vs. a process. Consider a system as the way a department runs, like Finance. The Finance system could include multiple people, multiple actions, and multiple technology platforms, like invoicing software, a payment processing tool, bank accounts, payroll software, and bookkeeping software. You might have a bookkeeper, a tax accountant, and maybe a CFO or Controller all owning a part of the whole system. It is big and complex, relatively speaking, with a whole series of processes.
A processes, on the other hand, is a repeatable, multi-step piece of that system. In this Finance system, you could have a bookkeeping process that looks something like this:
All receipts for the month get collected in one single location, and they get sent to the bookkeeper by the 1st of the month.
By the 5th of the month, the bookkeeper categorizes all expenses for the prior month in Quickbooks.
You file all receipts in your filing cabinet the second week of the month.
You pay your sales tax on the 10th.
You update your annual budget with prior month financials on the 15th.
See how this is simple and repeatable? It’s broken down into easy to remember and follow steps that anyone could take over if needed. You even could make a real checklist for the process and get a little hit of dopamine every time you checked off a step. And you know what? Your business is FULL of these types of processes, waiting to be identified and documented.
Simply put, systemizing your business will change your life more than you can imagine. And I so, so want this for you. This is where the magic happens.