7 Must have systems to grow any business

Do you ever feel frustrated trying to manage all the different moving parts of your business?

 

Trying to keep tabs on everything is tough unless you put the systems and procedures in place to allow it.

 

The sort of systems and procedures that would allow you to manage your entire business through your iPhone if you wish!

 

Impossible you might think, not for me.

There is a reason Mcdonalds is the most famous franchise in the world.

They understand that in order to be successful they must look at their business as a system and NOT a business.

 

There is a BIG difference.

 

This is where most business owners fail.

They become a victim to their own business because they do not realize the IMPORTANCE of having the right systems in place.

 

Systems that would allow them to step away from their business and for it to still produce a consistent profit and grow without them.

You need to start looking at your business like a cash machine with a troop of monkeys running it.

In order for that cash machine to thrive without you, what would you put in place so even a monkey can run and maintain it for you?

I am lucky enough to have found some amazing staff over the years.

However, I have found that in order for the business owner to put the right systems in place, you need to believe it’s going to be ran by monkeys.

When you have this mentality, you will go above and beyond in your systems to make them monkey proof.

For the last number of years, I have spent countless hours making my businesses monkey proof.

I have documented EVERYTHING so when one employee leaves another one can easily be trained in.

When I am on holidays, all my employees know exactly what has to be done and when.

My monkey systems and dashboards are there to make running a successful, profitable company inevitable!

So me, “chief monkey” can work on other, more important things in business and life.

So how is it possible to make your business monkey proof in order for you to do what you want when you want?

I have dedicated a lot of my time in this area.

I’ve read hundreds of books and constantly refined a system that revolutionizes any business once these 7 steps are fully implemented.

The 7 Systems I use & Teach Other Businesses To Use:

 

I use a project management software called Asana. Through this software, I run and maintain my entire company.

You do not have to use this, but its what works for me. The business name is the project name.

I then make the following subtasks under that company name.

1. Business Operations

2. Accountancy Systems

3. Sales systems

4. Lead generation

5. Fulfillment

6. Weekly meetings

7. Projects

These tasks are all then broken down further into more subtasks.

We connect the project management software in google docs for anything that requires a description and also use google spreadsheets where required.

1. Business Operations

Everything got to do with running the company. HR, culture, hiring/firing, business dashboard, time management, etc.
Each section is laid out so it is easy to understand and navigate.

2. Accountancy Systems

Most business owners do not realise how much money they are leaving on the table by not having good accountancy systems in place.

A business that is turning over 200k in revenue always has a number of opportunities to increase profits and cash flow through a few tweaks inside their accounts.

Areas you need to consider for your accountancy systems are, Forecasts, P&L, Cashflow analysis, Bank recon, Profit maximisers (Driving labour efficiency, driving profit by driving expenses monthly etc) and of course budgets.

3. Sales systems

Your business will not survive without having a very structured process in place in order to get sales and tomaximize them throughout the customer life cycle.

Through your sales systems you should have the necessary training to allow your employees make the sale.

Sales scripts, Sales upsells/ maximisers, cross-sells, down-sells. Each one designed in order to get the sale and maximize the profit for the company.

4. Lead generation

Lead generation is the life blood of every business. We generate leads in every possible way.

It’s broken down into “lead acquisition” and “conversion“.

We are always looking to improve and tweak both.

However, one thing to note is we only focus on certain channels at one each time, we don’t spread our focus too thin across many and get no results.

5. Fulfilment

Delivering the product the way the owner wants it delivered without any problems. This system is designed so each employee knows exactly what a happy fulfilled customer should look like.

We also describe of how NOT to deliver our product, anything that would be substandard to our end result. By doing this, an employee has no excuses for poor delivery.

6. Weekly meetings

One of the biggest problems with companies is the lack of execution and communication.

We plan this into asana, so that everyone knows where they stand and who is doing what.

This is broken down into Quarterly, monthly and weekly meetings. All meetings are aligned with our yearly goals so we are constantly working towards our year end target.

7. Projects

Every company always has small and big projects ongoing. We break these down in this section. We can see who is doing what and how each project is coming along.

What’s really good about using a project management software is you can assign a person to each of these 7 areas.

That’s crucial in business, someone having clear accountabilities for each area of the business.

Each of the 7 points are broken down further into sub-systems (or sub-tasks) each subtask is either a reactive or proactive task/system.

What I mean by proactive and reactive tasks.

A proactive task/system is put in place to achieve the desired output, ie your goals.

A reactive task/system is put in place as a result of an unforeseen challenge that has happened in the business, you put this in place to overcome this challenge and ensure it does not happen again.

Conclusion

These 7 systems took me years of trial and error to figure out. Each one still evolves to this day as our companies continue to grow.

As a business owner, you have worked pretty hard to get to where you are. Long working hours, stress and daily frustrations. You owe it to yourself to implement the above so the business is less dependent on you. This will allow you to focus on either growing your business in a new direction or working less in your company.

Dean Gammell, Voted Irelands No.1 Entrepreneur in 2014 is a 29 year old businessman from Westmeath. He employs 35 staff across a broad range of businesses. He started his first business when he was 22 and has since received numerous awards for entrepreneurship and Innovation. Dean speaks nationally on Entrepreneurship and Innovation. You can ad Dean on Facebook here.. (Feel Free to message me on Facebook