Freedom to do as you choose is a powerful pull of being in business for yourself. However, as most entrepreneurs who are in business in the startup phase, they soon find that they lose freedom because their business is running them. Sound familiar?
How can you create freedom in your business when there’s so much that you need to do?
Melissa Crownhurst shares in this systemHUB workshop some tips to help you get started.
Keen to learn more about how you can create freedom through systems? Melissa Crownhurst shares a case study example of business processes and how they were approached in this systemHUB workshop. Click here to sign up for your free systemHUB trial here.
Video transcript:
I’ve been talking about all of these systems. Let me show you what it looks like. Firstly systems comprise two things. I’m sure you have heard about, if you’re not already working with a project management software. There is Asana, Podio, all those different things, that is the execution spot, that is where things get done.
Then you’ve got SystemHUB. That is the hub that actually stores all of your systems. That’s where all the documentation is and the project management software is where it gets implemented. In SystemHUB, this isn’t just bits of paper. I remember talking to somebody about putting systems into place. She scoffed at me and said, oh, it’s just a bunch of manuals.
systemHUB
Yes, you could look at it like that.
Remember when I was showing you the Planet 13 manual, it’s more than that. It’s not just a bunch of manuals. It’s your freedom, it’s your business value that goes up, your freedom that grows when you put systems into place. SystemHUB is not just a bunch of words, there are videos, there are email templates, there are supporting documents, there are tags. There are lots of things that happen, there are comments in there. This is how we continuously improve the systems that we execute in our project management software.
Let me give you the real system that we use on our most popular service at the moment. It’s called the SEO Starter Pack. I’ll take you through how it typically works, and Dave, feel free to chime in at any time.
When we have a Starter Pack order that comes in, if you have a service that comes in, it comes in through the sales team. The sales team know in this system, number one, I need to go and copy and paste an email template that’s called a sales handover email, ccing my accounts person who happens to be Sally over at the back. Then Sally goes to her step in the system, which is step two. This is an email template. Sally copies and pastes that in, updates the information accordingly of course. She sends that off to the client.
She also attaches things like links to questionnaires, supporting documents, information, things like that. Then it is up to us to wait. So we wait for the client to complete all the details to make their payment. While that’s happening, the system tells Sally to go into Asana and set up the project itself in the project management software.
It’s templated, so the systems we created form the skeleton of the project management software. So there is not a whole lot of thinking that has to happen here. It’s called click and duplicate. Sally goes in there and says, yes, click, duplicate. She goes there and pastes her communication. We’re really full on about documenting communication. It’s really handy down the track if you ever have someone who is not quite an A grade client. She pops that in there.
Once the client responds, Sally tells the project manager who is Grace, it’s been paid, it’s time to get going. This is the SEO Starter Pack template. I think Troy had mentioned about templates in Asana. This particular template is already pre populated with everything. There is a link to our overall system in SystemHUB for the SEO Starter Pack.
This comprises all of the steps in SystemHUB. It is so super clear for any staff member to be able to go in and get this done. Grace gets going. Grace starts off the first task, assigns it to someone, gives it a due date. Within this particular keyword research in Asana, you can see here we’ve got a link to the system. We’ve got some more information for the person to complete their work. How clear are the instructions? They just go one, two, three. It’s got a due date. They communicate with each other and it’s done. This system works so well.
At any point in time, we can hop into the project management software and see where that client is. That means Dave could be anywhere in the world, hop in and say, this client is here. That client has just been on boarded, that client has just been off boarded. Look, they’ve been followed up with a sales up sell. He can see where everything is.
You know what that does? That’s freedom. That’s why you started your business, isn’t it? You wanted freedom. You wanted cash flow coming in, you wanted business value going up and you wanted freedom. All of a sudden it is there.
Once the Starter Pack is done, Grace notifies the client care team. They know they have to go into SystemHUB. They follow their step, copy and paste an email template. This is in SystemHUB and they off board the client. We off board every client because we want to know, what did you think? How could we have improved? Did you know we also do these things?
Client Offboarding
So there is a bit of an up sell and sales process that goes in with that. We narrow down the missed opportunities and that is just copy, pasting and tweaking a little bit. It’s quite easy.
This works like clockwork, one after the other. Once you start that first domino, you tick that first one, all the rest goes into place. That’s how a system works. This is a real life system. It’s not just a manual, it’s not just a bunch of pages, it’s not a bunch of hoo ha that seems to cost a lot of money or a lot of your time. It’s not, it’s your freedom. It’s your business freedom, it’s your business value. That’s what a system is. That’s what a system does.
Ready to implement and make some changes to help you move towards a business continuity plan where you have your systems in place? Get started with your systemHUB free trial here.
