“Systems permit ordinary people to achieve extraordinary results predictably.”- Michael Gerber
Successful businesses are built on well thought out systems. Great business systems are built with principles, procedures and methods that lead to repeatable results.
A business system could be as simple as a checklist that you go through each time you receive a new lead, or it could be a complex computer program that handles your bookkeeping automatically. These systems ensure that you don’t have to continue to solve the same problems over and over again. This frees energy that can be put to better use in your business.
Why spend time setting up systems for your business?
Systems make your business replicable/scalable
Once you have defined a business process, employees can be trained to repeat this process. This creates repeatable business. Instead of just one win, you will get regular wins.
This means that your business will not be limited by your time or a key employee’s availability. Your company will now have the ability to scale and meet the demands of the market.
Any business that hopes to reach a certain level of success will need to be able to scale to meet the opportunities that are available. Success needs to be repeatable and scalable for your business to sustain itself.
Systems make your business predictable
When you have a reliable system in place, you can be confident that X action will lead to Y result. This way, you know what people and resources you need to get the result you are looking for.
Having this type of business system in place makes your business manageable because you can predict what is required to get the results you are looking for. You will be able to budget and make decisions on when to deploy your systems based on how profitable you predict the system can be.
Systems make your business easier to fine-tune
When you have a clearly defined system in place, you will be able to tell how well the system performs if you capture metrics like number of sales or employee retention. You will also be able to tweak your system.
Imagine that you have a procedure that listed the actions you might take each time you make an initial contact with a lead. You know that this process is crucial to the success of your business. You would like to increase the number of clients who want to do business with you.
When you have a reliable system that works, you can make small tweaks to your process and then measure the results. If you do better with the new procedure you keep it. You can continue to tweak this process and improve your system. Having a system in place means that you can feel confident that the adjustment caused the improvement.
Systems make your business automated
An automated system takes business systems to the next level of efficiency. When you have a business system that is repeatable and very stable with a procedure that is very well spelled out, you may be able to automate this completely and remove yourself or your employee from the equation completely.
This has an obvious benefit to your bottom line because you will not have to pay an employee to manage an automated system. There will be an initial investment and some systems may require a software developer. However, some processes could be automated by buying an off the shelf solution or subscribing to an online provider.
Sending mass marketing emails is a good example of a system that can be automated easily. In the beginning of your business when you have a handful of clients you can get by with just managing your email with your business account. As you grow, your procedure may become more involved with weekly email campaigns and carefully created content. Once your process has matured, you have some options. You could hand this off to an employee or you could create a system that sends out your email campaign automatically.
Whether you want to create a business built on automation or whether you simply want to get a handle on how to generate consistent results, setting up reliable business systems is an investment well worth making.
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