Latest / The Delegation Download Podcast / Why "Systems" Isn't a Dirty Word

Transcript

Why "Systems" Isn't a Dirty Word · The Delegation Download Podcast

• 0:01
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome to the Delegation Download Podcast, where business owners, CEOs, and leaders learn to work smarter, not harder.
• 0:07
  SPEAKER_01: We're your hosts, Nicole Hughes and Ashley Carlson, here to share real stories, expert tips, and simple strategies to help you delegate with confidence and grow your business with support.
• 0:16
  SPEAKER_01: Because you can do anything, but not everything.
• 0:19
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome back to the Delegation Download.
• 0:22
  SPEAKER_00: This one's called Processes That Power Growth.
• 0:24
  SPEAKER_00: And it's the series we've been so excited to make.
• 0:27
  SPEAKER_00: Series one was all about deciding to let go, making peace with the fact that you can't do everything yourself.
• 0:33
  SPEAKER_00: This series is the how, the systems, the tools, and the processes that actually hold things together once you do let go.
• 0:39
  SPEAKER_00: So it doesn't all collapse back onto you three months later.
• 0:43
  SPEAKER_00: Whether you're building your first process from scratch or auditing the ones you already have, we want you to walk away from this series running a business on more than just what's in your head.
• 0:52
  SPEAKER_00: Let's build it out.
• 0:53
  SPEAKER_00: All right.
• 0:54
  SPEAKER_00: So I want to start with the word that makes half of our clients tense up the second we say it, and that is systems.
• 1:02
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and it's true because like people hear systems, and the first thing, at least the first thing that comes to my mind is that huge white binder that's like three inches thick that nobody has opened since 2019, and you're handed it their first day on the job, and you're like, okay, I'll read all of this.
• 1:18
  SPEAKER_00: It's fine.
• 1:18
  SPEAKER_00: It's actually funny that you say that because that's exactly how when I describe to clients having their digital systems of written processes, I paint the picture of that exact binder that we all used to have because I think everyone can picture it and know what we're talking about.
• 1:34
  SPEAKER_00: So I think it's it's really interesting to hear or to see when people hear the word process and they think that we're about to make the business feel like a call center, something really rigid and maybe not fun.
• 1:46
  SPEAKER_00: But I think that something that I've realized is that a system isn't red tape.
• 1:51
  SPEAKER_00: It's not what makes it more difficult.
• 1:53
  SPEAKER_00: It actually is what makes you stop thinking about the same decision over and over and the micro decisions, they're small decisions that take up space.
• 2:01
  SPEAKER_01: And I think you need to talk more on that because I think that's where it gets missed.
• 2:05
  SPEAKER_01: And a lot of people miss that part, not because they're not good at running their business, but because they have a hard time not thinking that it's red tape.
• 2:14
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 2:14
  SPEAKER_00: Every time you don't have a system, you're just paying for that for that decision over and over again every single time.
• 2:20
  SPEAKER_00: And it definitely adds up to way more mental load than writing it down one time ever would.
• 2:26
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, because chaos may feel flexible in the moment, but it actually becomes more expensive because you're having to do it over and over again.
• 2:35
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 2:36
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 2:36
  SPEAKER_00: It a good system will give you that decision-making ability back for other things.
• 2:41
  SPEAKER_00: So make that decision once, write it down, and now it's gonna run without you.
• 2:47
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, exactly.
• 2:47
  SPEAKER_01: No, I think that we hear this a lot that it takes a lot to create the system.
• 2:52
  SPEAKER_01: So, but on the flip side, systems always, always save so much energy.
• 3:00
  SPEAKER_01: What, in your opinion, based on the conversations that you've had with clients and peers and other networks or other people in our network, why are we seeing so much resistance to building them out?
• 3:12
  SPEAKER_00: I think that what I see most commonly is the thought underneath is no one can do it like me.
• 3:18
  SPEAKER_00: And that does feel true.
• 3:20
  SPEAKER_00: And it might be true right now, but that's because maybe you just haven't ever given someone else a chance.
• 3:25
  SPEAKER_00: So right now, no one else can do it like you, but that's because you've never written it down and you've never asked someone to give it a try.
• 3:32
  SPEAKER_00: So I think it's it's that um I'm gonna sit in this comfort of knowing I'm gonna do it the same way every time.
• 3:38
  SPEAKER_00: And that feels more comforting right now than the potential of handing it off to someone else.
• 3:43
  SPEAKER_01: I also think a lot of times business owners will feel like if they create some type of system for something that they've been doing for so long, it makes it feel impersonable.
• 3:53
  SPEAKER_01: Like they're it's not, it doesn't have a piece of them in it anymore.
• 3:57
  SPEAKER_01: And you're just, you're just documenting it, and then it's just a thing that you're doing in your office, but it doesn't have that human touch, which is completely incorrect because it still has a piece of you in it.
• 4:08
  SPEAKER_01: You're just delegating it to somebody else to do it.
• 4:11
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 4:12
  SPEAKER_00: I think there's a fear that writing it down turns your business, especially for those that we're talking to that have small businesses.
• 4:18
  SPEAKER_00: It just feels so corporate.
• 4:20
  SPEAKER_00: Like going back to what we said, those big binders that we had, it just makes it feel so much more rigid and corporate feeling, which we're all a lot of us are trying to get out of that corporate feel.
• 4:29
  SPEAKER_00: So I think, but what I've seen that once it's gone into place, it actually is quite the opposite.
• 4:34
  SPEAKER_00: The businesses that feel the most human, which we all want more of, feel the most personable, are usually the ones that have solid systems underneath.
• 4:44
  SPEAKER_00: They have that strong foundation and everything can actually operate smoothly and predictably.
• 4:50
  SPEAKER_00: There's always like it just it frees up your team and you to know that things are going to happen in a certain way so that maybe those customer service touches that you want to have, those can there's more space for those to happen because we're not just trying to figure everything out every time.
• 5:06
  SPEAKER_00: So I think that it just actually frees up the space for the business owner or whomever it is to be more present with the people, whether that's with your team or with your customers.
• 5:17
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 5:18
  SPEAKER_01: And the system holds the structure, but it doesn't take away the personality.
• 5:22
  SPEAKER_01: So just because there is a system in place or an email template, for example, if you have an email template that you want everybody on your team to use on a regular basis, it does not mean that it has to be word for word.
• 5:33
  SPEAKER_01: You can add in whatever your personality is to that email template, whether it's your signature, whether it's how you greet the person that you're emailing, you can still keep that human aspect in it, but you have a resource and a system that you follow to ensure that it gets done.
• 5:49
  SPEAKER_00: Absolutely.
• 5:50
  SPEAKER_00: I actually, as soon as you said that, it made me think of one of our team members, Emily, is really great at that.
• 5:55
  SPEAKER_00: She will take our templates because we have them, again, we say it on our templates.
• 6:00
  SPEAKER_00: This is a resource, this is a guide.
• 6:02
  SPEAKER_00: Please make it sound like you.
• 6:04
  SPEAKER_00: We don't want it to be copy-paste, but we're giving you maybe so you don't feel nervous about leaving something out that you should have had in there or whatever.
• 6:11
  SPEAKER_00: So there's it's a guide, it's a framework, but please make it sound like you.
• 6:15
  SPEAKER_00: And Emily has the best way of turning those templates into her complete personality.
• 6:21
  SPEAKER_00: You know that she has covered what we've at what we've asked her to cover and what we want, make make sure she feels good about what's in those emails, but it's still 100% authentically her.
• 6:30
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, 100%.
• 6:32
  SPEAKER_01: And I think her clients feel it too because they know that she took the time and the effort to get the information, the important information to them.
• 6:40
  SPEAKER_01: And then it's like her email signature will be just something fun or sassy.
• 6:43
  SPEAKER_01: And you're like, yes, that email is coming from Emily.
• 6:46
  SPEAKER_01: I know exactly who that email comes from before I even read who the sender is.
• 6:50
  SPEAKER_01: Exactly.
• 6:51
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 6:52
  SPEAKER_00: And I think some of the other resistance that I see from people is they, again, they imagine that this system has to look like a massive 40-page manual.
• 7:01
  SPEAKER_00: Again, super rigid, maybe way more detailed than they want it to be.
• 7:05
  SPEAKER_00: It just feels daunting.
• 7:07
  SPEAKER_00: It feels heavy, right?
• 7:08
  SPEAKER_01: Well, and I think that for small businesses in particular, whether you have five people or 20 people on your team, it should never be a daunting task.
• 7:16
  SPEAKER_01: It should never feel like it is something that is going to cause more issues than it does help.
• 7:23
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 7:24
  SPEAKER_00: I think that people are a reminder that I think that word system, a system is really just could just be a simple decision of, okay, this happens or this has happened, now what?
• 7:37
  SPEAKER_00: And it's just that quick little roadmap of it goes here, it goes left, it goes right, it goes to Bob or Jane.
• 7:43
  SPEAKER_00: And or it could be here's the steps, this happens, and now here's the steps to execute it, or who owns it.
• 7:49
  SPEAKER_00: That's it.
• 7:50
  SPEAKER_00: That's a system.
• 7:51
  SPEAKER_00: It doesn't have to be super complicated or heavy.
• 7:55
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 7:55
  SPEAKER_01: Well, and what I'm hearing from you is that the system, like you were saying, doesn't have to be complicated, doesn't have to be heavy.
• 8:01
  SPEAKER_01: It could be a checklist, simple as a checklist, and it's clarity on what you need to do and how you need to do to get there.
• 8:09
  SPEAKER_01: So I think that that's that's a huge part of the resistance is thinking that it needs to be something more than it actually is.
• 8:15
  SPEAKER_01: Absolutely.
• 8:15
  SPEAKER_01: So Ashley, for the person that's listening that has feels like they have nothing written down, or maybe they just don't have anything written down, where would you suggest they start?
• 8:25
  SPEAKER_00: So I think that if you can think about something that you redo the most in any given week or even a day, something that you could really just do in your sleep at this point, start there.
• 8:36
  SPEAKER_00: Start with that task, start with that process.
• 8:38
  SPEAKER_00: And what comes to mind for me is I can't tell you how many times I've heard people feel like they spend so much time in their own inbox responding to people and they feel like they write the same email every time.
• 8:50
  SPEAKER_00: And and we're talking starting from scratch, including dropping links and whatever it might be.
• 8:55
  SPEAKER_00: And so that is a great place to create a template for you, even for yourself.
• 8:59
  SPEAKER_00: Even if we're not even talking delegating, create a system for yourself that saves you a few minutes here and there.
• 9:05
  SPEAKER_00: It could be running payroll.
• 9:06
  SPEAKER_00: It could be like a lot of business owners are like, gosh, I spend so much time doing that.
• 9:11
  SPEAKER_00: There's there's ways that maybe you're the one who puts the final stamp of approval on that payroll, but gathering all the information, all the reports and things that you need to do for that, that can be put into a system and handled by someone else.
• 9:24
  SPEAKER_00: And you still have a piece in that.
• 9:26
  SPEAKER_00: So there's a lot of things that take up time that you repeatedly do that just needs a system in place.
• 9:33
  SPEAKER_00: It doesn't, it it feels scary, but it doesn't have to be.
• 9:37
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, absolutely.
• 9:38
  SPEAKER_01: It's you're looking for the thing that is costing you the most energy and the most time, even if it feels easy for you to do, but you do it on a regular repetitive basis.
• 9:48
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 9:49
  SPEAKER_00: And I think it's a lot of the times it's those five minute things that really add up.
• 9:53
  SPEAKER_00: A lot of, I think I see a lot of resistance to, well, it only takes me five minutes.
• 9:57
  SPEAKER_00: And okay, but how many times of those five minutes?
• 10:00
  SPEAKER_00: Because that adds up fast.
• 10:01
  SPEAKER_00: And I also think that the hesitation that I see is, but it won't be this pretty version.
• 10:08
  SPEAKER_00: It won't be, I don't have time to sit here and format it correctly and all those things and have it be something that maybe you would like put on your website.
• 10:15
  SPEAKER_00: Like I think people think of this like pretty polished version of a of an SOP or something.
• 10:20
  SPEAKER_00: And it doesn't have to be.
• 10:22
  SPEAKER_00: It can be a quick voice memo of just verbally out out loud saying, here's here's steps one through 10, or maybe it's a screen recording of you doing this process that you do every week, and you just want to record yourself doing it as you do it.
• 10:36
  SPEAKER_00: So that way it's now a resource, it's a system that can be rinsed and repeated by whomever.
• 10:42
  SPEAKER_00: It could be a bullet list of just boom, boom, boom, here are the things.
• 10:45
  SPEAKER_00: Whatever's fastest for you, just to get it down out of your brain.
• 10:50
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 10:51
  SPEAKER_01: Well, and then question.
• 10:53
  SPEAKER_01: So once you make this checklist and you delegate it to somebody to do, what happens then?
• 10:57
  SPEAKER_01: They just keep that checklist forever and that's what they run off of?
• 11:00
  SPEAKER_01: Or would you suggest that they update it or categorize it?
• 11:05
  SPEAKER_01: Like what would be the next step with that checklist?
• 11:07
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I think that refining it is always going to happen.
• 11:10
  SPEAKER_00: I don't, I think that that's actually a good point.
• 11:12
  SPEAKER_00: I think that people might think that it's a it's the final version and it has to be perfect.
• 11:18
  SPEAKER_00: And I, we gotta let go of that.
• 11:19
  SPEAKER_00: We have to know that a lot of the times these processes are going to be a work in progress.
• 11:23
  SPEAKER_00: So you're going to refine it the second time.
• 11:25
  SPEAKER_00: You're going to refine it when you do hand it off to someone, they're going to refine it.
• 11:30
  SPEAKER_00: They might add some more bullet points or steps along the way that they realized that you didn't say the first time you showed them because honestly, we don't realize half the places we click in these processes.
• 11:40
  SPEAKER_00: So they're going to add that.
• 11:42
  SPEAKER_00: They're going to add in screenshots, maybe things like that.
• 11:44
  SPEAKER_00: So it doesn't have to be perfect before you hand it off to someone.
• 11:48
  SPEAKER_00: It just needs to have enough information that you know that it's clear to them what is expected of them, what the end looks like, and also that you've left some room for, hey, let me know if you see something that can be done better, or if you have questions or feedback along the way.
• 12:03
  SPEAKER_00: So that's all part of the refining process.
• 12:06
  SPEAKER_00: And it will probably always be a refining process.
• 12:09
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, absolutely.
• 12:09
  SPEAKER_01: Especially, I mean, we've talked about it so many times.
• 12:12
  SPEAKER_01: Like things pivot, things change, and we have to change with them.
• 12:14
  SPEAKER_01: It's like roll with the punches type of situation.
• 12:16
  SPEAKER_01: Like you have to just make adjustments as they come up because nothing is ever set in stone.
• 12:21
  SPEAKER_01: So I think for our listeners, what we want you to sit on this week is this question.
• 12:26
  SPEAKER_01: What's the task you did this week that you've done several times, either this week, today, or you did it last week the exact same way and never wrote it down?
• 12:34
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 12:35
  SPEAKER_01: So sit with that one for a second because that's usually the exact place you should start.
• 12:40
  SPEAKER_01: Thanks for joining us for this episode of The Processes That Power Growth.
• 12:43
  SPEAKER_01: If something in this conversation is sitting with you, we built a workbook to help take you to that first step.
• 12:47
  SPEAKER_01: It's not a full operations manual, but it's a way to look at one process at a time and actually see what's working and what's not.
• 12:53
  SPEAKER_01: You can grab it in the link in the show notes.
• 12:55
  SPEAKER_01: And if you're ready to go further to actually build out the system so your business can run without you standing in every corner of it, book a clarity call.
• 13:02
  SPEAKER_01: We'll help you figure out where to start.
• 13:03
  SPEAKER_01: And remember, you've got this.
• 13:06
  SPEAKER_00: Thanks for listening to the Delegation Download Podcast.
• 13:09
  SPEAKER_00: Don't forget to subscribe, leave a review, and follow us at ElevateVV Solutions for more tips to help you lead smarter and live better.