Do you ever sit down and wonder how as a business owner you can get all the things done? Well, I will tell you right now, it isn’t always about the newest shiniest system, process or gadget. The important thing is to remember to stick to a system.
You cannot run a business without having a system in place. Argue all you want but if you want to grow, scale, take time off, etc you NEED systems in place to tell you how to do things, when to do things, and to show you the numbers and metrics.
If you are spending way too much time on doing repetitive tasks, manually doing things you don’t enjoy, not leaving enough time or energy for the parts of your business you truly enjoy, it is time to switch things up.
Let’s talk to a few tips to help you manage and setup systems in your business.
Audit Your Current Systems
This is so important because you need to know the best ways to run and automate your business. Think of it like your daily routine. You may need to sit down and look at what you’re doing and identify what’s not working or what’s missing.
This will allow you to see if you have a missing piece or need to hire someone to help with a tool or task. That way your business can run like a well oiled machine.
Take McDonalds as an example. They are one of the most efficient and best examples of a system. They can run an entire business with pretty minimal staff and people with no expierence can jump in and catch on instantly, or transfer to another store in a different state even, and very little with change.
This is because every store has the same systems and ways to do things so that they are as efficient as possible.
Automate, automate, automate
Is there something you tend to do a lot of over and over? You NEED automation in your life if at all possible. Imagine spending just a little more time on it but then you only have to touch that task if it needs to be updated?
Email marketing is one of the best examples of this. If you have a list and people sign up for that list, you wouldn’t manually send them a welcome email everytime, right? No you wouldn’t. You schedule an automation so that everytime they go through the list you can send them through that sequence.
So, sit down and track all the tasks you perform in your business everyday, for a week. Take this list and rank the tasks in order of time spent, from the smallest to the biggest. That way you know where you are spending most of your time and can weed out what is important for you to do, what needs to be automated, and what can be delegated.
You also will need to identify what tools are best suited for these tasks, for your business and them slowly start using them to automate your tasks. Note, this also isn’t going to be an overnight fix, but it shouldn’t take long for you to see the rewards here.
Delegation is KEY
Most of us start as solopreneurs, and then realize we can get a lot done with a little help from our friends (see what I did there?). DO NOT BE AFRAID TO ASK FOR HELP. You will not be good or enjoy doing every part of your business. It’s nonsense to think otherwise.
You need to spend your time on the tasks that give you the highest return on your time investment. Which would give you the ability to make shifts into moving the needle, either for profit or creativity. However you want to structure that for your business.
The best example here is social media and staying visible. You need a place for people to learn about you, who you are and how you do things. But you also can’t spend 5 hours a day creating content and sharing it, everyday.
The best course of action here would be to choose a platform and go all in, and once you master that platform, move on to the next.
Delegate the tasks you can easily hand off. Social media creation/scheduling is a very valid option. General tasks such as emails, blog writing, accounting, things of that nature are great to hand off so as the business owner you can focus on marketing and the things that generate income for your business.
Create workflows for bigger tasks
If there is something you do every week and it is a bigger task, then think about breaking it down into smaller manageable tasks, and convert the entire process into a workflow.
This way you have a list of everything that goes into it and you don’t miss a beat. SOP’s or Standard Operating Procedures are essential to your business. Especially if you have or plan on hiring a team at anypoint.
Also pay attention to how long a task takes you. This way you know how to plan your week or putting things into order for your business.
So now that you know how important systems are and that you need to delegate. Tell me what is the number one thing you need a system for in your business?
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