David Jenyns of Systemology

Well, greetings folks, and welcome back. Or welcome to if it's your first time, the small business show. Yeah, that's here. We are Small business owners. That's what we are. The show by, for and about small business owners. And yeah, yeah, we've got a great interview today. We love systems here. That will come as no surprise to anyone that's even heard just one episode. I'm looking forward to this one.

Shannon. Systems all the time. We really, you know, we embrace them, we talk about them and it's great because we've got kind of been had a series of shows where we've talked a lot about systems and we have another perspective on it today from a guest that is, has developed a system for systemizing your business, which I love that tagline.

The same.

Yeah, it's great. This, this guest, I think is, I really connected with him. He's very transparent, shares a lot of great information without, you know, I mean, he's all about adding value first to, to build trust, which we've talked about on the show over and over again, adding value to credibility to yourself and to introduce yourself to new people. So I'm excited about it.

Yeah, same. Yeah, he, I, you're right, he doesn't. He certainly represents his business well. But, but he is really here to help first. And he, and he knows he's smart. If he helps, and Maybe he helps 50 people, you know, 10 of those are going to be interested in taking it to the next level and perhaps contracting with his business to do that. And, and that' and if, and if three of those succeed, well, that's a, you know, that's not a bad little funnel right there.

So very, very powerful.

Yep, yep. Speaking of power, I want to talk about our sponsor for this episode, Shannon, which is linode@linode.com SBS, which is where you can go to get a $20 credit on a server for your business. Right now we're all stuck at home figuring things out, but if you're like me, you're coming up with all kinds of changes you can make, things you can do. And for a lot of those things, I know I'm not hosting them here. I'm hosting them somewhere where I don't have to rely on my local connection. And that's where Linode comes in. Because@linode.com SBS you can go and set up a server for your business right away. It's not going to take you any time at all. If you know how to use the command line. Great. You can do that at Linode, they are geeks. Of course they're geeks. They manage your servers. But if you're not a geek, that's okay too. You've got their cloud manager that lets you set things up without ever even knowing that there's a command line there. And of course, everything's featuring native SSD storage, a 40 gigabit network. You can pick from any of their 10 worldwide data centers to find exactly the right place to be. And again, there's that $20 credit because their lowest cost server, if you run it full time, costs five bucks a month. So a $20 credit goes a long way. Check it out@linode.com SBS and of course our thanks to Linode for sponsoring this episode. Shannon, you have anything more before we start?

I'm ready to go, man.

Well, he is Shannon Gene. I'm Dave Hamilton and this is episode 275 of the Small Business Show.

Firstly, that you're going to need to create hundreds of systems. When you don't. I just showed you the 10 to 15, another one that the business owner, they need to be the one that creates the systems. You don't oftentimes a lot of your team members already have that knowledge. The other myth is that it'll take a long time to actually create those systems and processes. But this is another really key lesson I found is if you make systems a two person job, it makes it infinitely easier. So you have one person who has the knowledge, but then you get another person. We call them the systems champion and you have them work alongside that knowledgeable worker. So we record them doing the task. Maybe it's a screen capture, maybe it's recording it on your iPhone. Whatever it is, maybe it's just recording the audio as a Dictaphone app on your phone, but you get it recorded happening live in the field and then you let your systems champion have first go at the documentation.

Hey Dave, you know, we've been focusing on the power of systems on recent episodes of the Small Business Show. We just, we love the whole concept and we know how it works because we use it ourselves. And I'm really happy to bring another perspective to the conversation with our guest today. We love systems because they are what allow your small business to adapt and to succeed. They also allow you to expand your business beyond your capabilities and create long term wealth. And as we continue our series of systems discussions, we're thrilled to have David Jennings of Systemology with us today to get his take on the power of systems. Thanks so much for joining us today.

David, my pleasure. Looking forward to the interview.

Yeah, I'm stoked to have you on. I mean, if you haven't heard the show before, we talk about systems constantly. And you know, as small business owners, if you embrace that system methodology, it allows you to be, you know, for me, it's allowed me to appear like a much bigger business and to grow beyond, you know, what I ever would have been. So tell us about Systemology and how you came to start the business. I'm curious if your goal was always kind of, you know, you grasped the system thing, you know, decades before I ever did and started the business to do it, or did you realize some other way that systems were the critical component that small businesses were missing and that they needed help with?

I definitely feel like it came baked in with me and that might have been to do with some of the previous businesses and entrepreneurial endeavors that I was involved in. So things like I used to. When I first finished school, I got really interested in trading the stock market and you had to design trading plans, which was effectively a system. You would do all the thinking up front. You'd decide when you were going to get into the stock market, when you were going to get out, and how many shares you would buy. And you do all of this thinking up front. So that way your decisions were already made. So when the money went in the market, you didn't get emotional and start making up decisions and things like that. But that early program of having a pre written checklist effectively already, I followed every time that I traded, that early programming was there. And then like any good entrepreneur, I had too many ideas and done too many different types of businesses. And another one I was involved in a business was we started a rock and roll clothing music store. And that business, the plan was to franchise it. So from day one we had systems manuals and documentation and franchisor manual and we ended up franchising that first store. But it wasn't until the last business that I was involved in that for some reason I thought, systems won't work in this business. They worked for me before. But I owned a digital agency called Melbourne SEO Services that I worked in for 10. And I had all of this baggage that I was still holding to onto with systems. I thought, oh, this is a creative agency. I don't want to have systems in place because it'll remove that creativity. And even if I had systems in place that they'd very quickly get out of date because the online landscape changes so frequently. And I thought, oh, my team's just not going to follow the systems here. It was a little bit different because we were all working virtually from home and I had all of this baggage that meant for better part of 10 years or something. I worked in the business even though I had all that previous experience with systems. But I just had this mental block and yeah, it kind of took quite a bit to kind of shake me out of that mental block. But I feel like the programming was there, but I kind of had to relearn it as well.

That's interesting. So I mean, so after learning that, I mean, are you a proponent that, you know, systems should be embraced by any type of business, not just specific business models?

100%. Every business really is just a collection of systems. I like to think of your business as a larger system in itself. And then underneath that you have different departments. So you have sales and marketing and HR and finance and management. And then underneath each of those departments there's a handful of systems that drive the way that that department works. So all businesses are the same. All businesses need to get new leads, they need to make sales, they need to sell their core product or service and deliver it. They need to get the customers to come back, they need to pay wages. There's a range of repeatable tasks that are happening in every single business. And I'm finding the more that I work with different businesses, I'm finding the primary variation from business to business is the operations like the, the delivery, the way that you make your widget or you do your thing, that, that is the primary difference. But all of the other departments have incredibly similar systems and processes.

That's fascinating. You know, I spent some time up on your website@systemology.com doing some research here and one of the things that really struck me that was different about your business and your site, the information is you really share a lot of valuable information up front. Without that, give me your email address or you know, sign up for this or sign up for that. So I, I really was able to, I think get a grasp of your, your process and I'd love for you to share that here with our listeners. You know, is, is. So how do you implement Systemology, like when you go out to, to new clients?

Well, the idea that a lot of small businesses know how to systemize is so far from the truth. I feel like it's, it's one of the most under addressed areas in all business now. There's a handful of work that is done in the business systemization space. It's usually for it's things like Lean and Six Sigma and they're all really pitched for larger companies. You'll see them for 100 person plus staff. You know, they're in manufacturing, they've got these big plants and, and it's just very different. They're doing these fancy flow charts and it just feels way overkill for small business. And small business, I think everybody intuitively knows that you need systems and processes. I don't think I've ever had a discussion with a business owner and had them go, oh, systems and processes, I don't need those. They don't work. Like we always, with a little bit of discussion come to the conclusion that they're important. They just never urgent. So they never get done by the business owner. They're on the to do list that you know, they never get to the bottom of. And I think part of the reason is like there was some of that baggage that I had earlier. But there are other misconceptions that seem to pop up as to what you need to do when, where do you get started? You know, you read books like the E Myth and Scaling Up, Built to Sell, there's a lot of books already that kind of again underscore and stress the importance of systems. But nowhere is there a way really to say, well, where do I get started? How do I do it? And that's how systemology got born. It's a seven step process. It's the system to systemize a business. It's targeted specifically for the small business owner who wants to move from zero systems to having at least the minimum viable product. It's, it's like finding the 80, 20. Like there's probably 100 things you could systemize in your business, but about 20% of those are going to deliver 80% of the impact. So it's a seven stage process where that first step we go through is to identify what are the 10 to 15 systems you should start with first and then once you've identified, you move to step number two, which is, well, think about in your team where this knowledge resides. Because this is another roadblock you need to get over. As a small business owner, you think you're the one that needs to create all the systems and the processes. But the chances are there are team members and contractors and people that you're already working with who have some knowledge, who we can extract it out of their brain.

Yeah, no, that's that. Yeah, you're totally right. This 8020 concept of picking which systems to focus on, I think that's a Huge hurdle. That gets people over a huge hurdle. I know it would get me over a huge hurdle because I can look at my business and say, oh, well, gosh, where do I start? Right? And that helps to answer that question. Don't worry about the 80%. Find the 20.

And the 20 is actually really easy with a tool that we created called the ccf, the critical client flow. And we can even like, talk through it now. And if someone does this, then I think they'll get that aha moment that they've been looking for when it's like, where do I start? So the critical client flow is all about uncovering the journey that your customer goes through, plus the journey of the business to deliver that product or service. So you get an A4 bit of paper. Starting at the top of the paper, you write down how your business generates leads and interest in what it is that you do. So start off by listing that. Always focus on what it is that you're doing, not what it is that you would like to be doing. And then you start working down the page. The next thing you think about is, well, if we get a lead, how do we then respond to that lead? If it comes through the phone or if it's a web inquiry, Then we move down the page and we think, well, what does our sales process look like? Is there some sort of script or something that we talk about? And you keep moving down the page. Then how do you onboard a new customer? When they say, I do want to get started, at that point you invoice them. Do you get them to pay up front or do you do 50, 50? Then you move down the page and then you think, how do I then do my work? The core product or service, how is that delivered? And then the final step is, you know, how do you hand it over and how do you get them to come back? If you visually map that out on an A4 bit of paper, keep it very high level, just have, you know, one or two words per box. That's a way to show how the business can make money. Now, if you can systemize just the critical client flow and you get the documents down, you can get to the point where the business can make money, where it's not dependent on the business owner. So I always say start with the critical client flow first. Then once you've got that almost consider that the boundary and you want to operate within that first. And then think about where you're having problems in the business. You might go, I don't have enough leads. And then you'll go, okay, well, that means I have some problems with my lead generation system. Hey, I'm having trouble, you know, my clients are coming to me and they're asking all of these different questions. Okay, well, maybe you have some problems with the way that you're onboarding your clients to help set the expectations for them so they know how everything's going to work. Or maybe you just think about the problems that you're having in your business, seeing where it falls inside that critical question, client flow, and you can really narrow into that. But just that process alone will identify sort of 10 to 15 systems on where you can start.

Yeah, that's huge. And again, I really want to point this out because you can't put too fine a point on it. There's lots of folks talking about systems and coaching and everything else, but this kind of data that you share, that you're sharing with our listeners and that you share a lot of it up on your website, it's really valuable and it's great that you don't have it behind a walled garden. And I think it really helps to build, I would say, a better relationship with the potential customer that they can see all that stuff. It's really transparent. That's awesome.

I appreciate you saying that. And it's definitely something that I've always done in all the businesses that I've owned. I think leading with a huge amount of value is just a great way to start a relationship. Some people get a tremendous amount of help and get all they need just from that info. Then there's going to be a handful of people who want to go deeper. And I mean, the world is a huge marketplace. There's tons of people. I, I think people will find what it is that they need at their level. Just depends on where.

Yeah, totally, totally.

Yeah, that's really great. So. Yeah, yeah. And you talked about, you know, barriers to getting small businesses to adopt this kind of systems approach. You know, is there a kind of a typical barrier you run up against? Is it that the owner thinking they have to do everything to put these systems together or is, is there, is it, does it vary?

Look, there's probably about seven core myths, but then there's a range of other baggage. So the myths to run through those really quick, firstly that you're going to need to create hundreds of systems when you don't. I just showed you the 10 to 15. Another one is that the business owner, they need to be the one that creates the systems. You don't oftentimes a lot of your team members already have that knowledge. The other myth is that it'll take a long time to actually create those systems and processes. But this is another really key lesson I found is if you make systems a two person job, it makes it infinitely easier. So you have one person who has the knowledge, but then you get another person. We call them the systems champion and you have them work alongside that knowledgeable worker. So we record them doing the task. Maybe it's a screen capture, maybe it's recording it on your iPhone, whatever it is, maybe it's just recording the audio as a dictaphone app on your phone, but you get it recorded happening live in the field and then you let your systems champion have first go at the documentation because you'll find oftentimes a lot of team members, your best team members, they're just as busy as you are. So if you tell them, hey, I want you to document your systems and your processes and you've got just as much chance of them doing it as.

If there was ever an opportunity for an intern to come into your business. When you couldn't figure out where an intern would fit, this systems champion would be a perfect, like, you know, business school student, MBA candidate, whatever that is. What a great internship opportunity that creates and then opens up the door for the next one. Because now you've built a system that detaches you from the process.

So that is such a good idea. There's, there's a company we worked with called Portavac and they clean roofing gutters. And we had, they got really interested in the work that we were doing for Systemology. And we found a guy called Kane in their head office who is exactly what you're talking about. Started off as an intern, moved into a junior, worked in the office, wasn't really a tradie guy, so he never really got on the tools and out in the van in the field. But he was quite cluey and curious. And when they came across this idea, they said, oh, this is perfect for Kane. So over the course of. It was three months, Kane kind of worked alongside me for a little while. But it got to the point where he knew how this was done. He went out into the field. He even had a GoPro camera stuck to the the front of his chest. And he followed one of the, the people out in the trucks when they went to meet with a client, what they said, how they set up the truck, how they got up onto the roof and took the photos. He recorded the whole thing, took all of the footage Brought it back, followed the systemology process and then got that all documented. So then they created this induction system for whenever they had new team members come on board. And it was all done through just like you're saying, like an apprentice who came through because he, it was a great chance for him to learn. And then he created that system that got passed on.

Awesome. Yeah, it's awesome.

Yeah, that's really cool. It's powerful. All of this is really, really powerful. So do you sign find like our small business customers, do they come to you kind of at this certain juncture in their business, you know, as their business develops to a certain point, are the folks coming to you kind of pulling their hair out, don't know how to grow, or just going nuts and working, you know, 80 hours a week? How does it usually happen?

Usually it's someone who's got a little bit more of a more established business. So it's not brand new startup if you're still trying to figure out who your target audience is, the products that you sell or the services you sell to solve their problems. You know, we haven't yet got that product market fit. You're not selling enough yet. You haven't got great feedback from your customers. If you haven't yet got a little bit of that traction and maybe even a couple of team members around you. If it's just you and you're a solo operator, chances are you're too early to be systemizing because you'll systemize things that will probably need to be heavily re engineered because you haven't quite found your groove. So you need to get a little bit of traction before you start thinking about systems. If you haven't yet got those things in place, you get that in place first. And then what systemology aims to do is capture what it is that you're already doing and what it is that's working again. This is another big way that people go sort of down the wrong path and get it wrong when it comes to systemization. They think I've got to systemize like McDonald's. I've got to have these systems just perfect and they want to get them just right. So they keep on over engineering them and it ends up causing problems because you know, they haven't yet figured out the basics, let alone trying to get it perfect. So you want something getting a little bit of traction and then you'll have someone who reads a book like the E. Myth and they, they go, I get the idea of systems, but I don't know where to Start and usually that's where I get them.

Them.

They've already realized that they need systems because, you know, they're that business owner working the 80 hour workweek. They've had a good amount of success, but they've reached this glass ceiling. And, and I know that glass ceiling incredibly well because I butted up against that glass ceiling for probably seven or eight years too long. And now that I've kind of broken through that, I look back and it, it's, it's almost like immediately obvious to me now how systems bridge that gap. But it's only now that I'm on the other side of that gap. But at the time, yeah, I didn't realize how important the systems are, but they're absolutely critical.

Yeah. So I want to go back to where you talked about butting your head up against that glass ceiling and systems and then finally realizing, wait, I did it with my other companies, why aren't I doing it now? Can you give us an example of a system you put in place in your own business and maybe more? So how did you break through that glass ceiling?

Yeah, the systems we started with, we started with the critical client flow and then it kind of bleeds out into some of the other departments. So we start to think about the finance department and creating some systems and processes there. So how do we invoice clients, how do we pay wages, how do I meet my monthly tax obligations? Now some of those things, depending on the department, some people go, I've just got, I outsource that, I've got my bookkeeper, they just do all that sort of thing. If you're in that place, it's still a good idea to get the high level systems down, even if they're just overview type systems. Just so you start to recognize that your business is a collection of systems. And some of them you'll go into more detail than others. And so then the other one that's really key is the way that you're recruiting staff and the way that you're onboarding them. Because the, the most important thing with systems, for it to work, you've got to build a systems culture in your organization or your company. This is where a lot of people go wrong because they start off with systems, they get bitten by the systems bug, they write a few documents, they drop it in a Dropbox folder, and then they tell their entire team, great, now I just want you to follow the process. And they get incredibly frustrated when two weeks later everybody's gone back to doing it the old way. And There's a few things that happen there that stop that change in the culture. Firstly, the most amount of resistance you're going to have when you're introducing these new ideas of, you know, this is where a systemized business now you're going to have staff member who go, oh, this is how I've always done things. Why do I have to change? Or team members that have built a black box around them that no one really knows what it is that they're doing and that creates job security. And this resistance, the biggest resistance comes from your existing staff. So it's always the hardest to change culture at the start, but it only gets easier because once you have good systems for the way that you're recruiting and onboarding staff, all new staff, your systemized approach is the only approach that they know all they know. Yeah, yeah, it only gets easier. So again, that's another real key one that you want to bake systems thinking into your recruitment and your onboarding process. Oh yeah, Did I answer the question?

Yeah, you answered part of it. But the other, the other, the one thing I'm just curious about because it is hard. You know, we talk about, about folks that make the jump from employee to employer all the time and how difficult that can be and how that stops so many people. But, but I'm also curious, you know, what was it that you recognized that finally got you to realize, you know, we have to embrace these systems? What, what you were, you, you know, you mentioned a couple times you hit your head up on this glass ceiling and what was it that your, your aha moment that said, okay, I've got to power through this, that would eventually cause you to create a whole company around it, that there's a, there's got to be a powerful lesson there.

Yeah. So a couple of things, insights. Again, it always seems to happen with 2020. The first one was how or what was the impetus for change that happened when we found out we were pregnant with our first child. And I thought the way that my business is running at the moment at that time was broken. I was working the 70 hour work weeks. I was doing the evenings, the mornings, the weekends. I was keeping all of my team busy. I wasn't getting much work done during the week because I was busy getting the rest of the team to do everything. And you know, it wasn't until the evenings and the weekends when I'd catch up and I do my own work. And I thought, I don't want to be that dad that's always too busy. And you Know, while I might be there, because we've built a, a studio out the back of our house and I'm, I'm home, but I wasn't mentally present, like, and I just thought, I don't want to be that guy. And then I thought, I know that people can build businesses that work without them. I've seen it before. I've done it before in some of these other. We did it in the planet 13, the rock and roll clothing music store. And I came to that conclusion where I just said, if the business doesn't work without me, it's broken. And I thought, right, I know that this can be done. And then it was really just a timeline with a forced due date of nine months that I needed to get the bulk of this done.

Yeah, that's great. That's exactly what I was looking for. I knew there was something and you know, having a baby, usually that'll do it.

Yeah, I just, it's funny, I'm working, I've just finished writing a book called Systemology and I write step number one in the systemology process.

Get pregnant, whatever. It's a motivation and it's dropped. There's a firm timeline there.

Right, exactly right. Exactly right. So I think once that happened and I had that insight that a few key things needed to happen after that. The first thing that I realized was if I am the go to guy and I trained all of my staff, whenever you have a problem, you come to Dave, Dave solves your problem. So I had trained all of my staff to come to me to solve things. And it became a really bad habit and a vicious cycle that was hard to break. But I had a lady that worked in the business who was very detail orientated, more of a systems person, because I think I see myself more like a traditional business owner or a founder. And we're often big picture thinkers. We don't always immediately recognize and identify with. I am a systems person, and for that reason that creates a bunch of other problems. You think, well, if I'm not a systems guy, other people mustn't be systems people. Therefore my staff won't follow systems because maybe they're not systems people. And it might just be that you are wired differently. There are some people that are more wired to systems than others. And I had a systems lady in the organization. So I worked with her, kind of elevated her up and she became my replacement. And the more I looked into it, this is a common relationship you'll find in the business when the business owner starts to step out you have a leader role and you have the manager role. The leader role is the person who kind of thinks about the future and the direction and the strategy. That's oftentimes the founder. But then you've got the manager role who is the process driven, details orientated person. And if you can find that yin to your Yang in your business, or maybe if you go recruit for it, that becomes a key part in stepping out. Because when you step out, you're going to need someone to still be overlooking it. It's not like you can systemize it to the point where it just works on its own and just deposits large amounts of money into your bank account with little or no work and no oversight.

Wait, wait a minute, Wait.

I thought.

So.

Finding that person is really, really key. And then working with them, I groomed that person from within the business and together we started to relinquish control. And even when I went through that process, there were challenges. It was hard for me to let go because. A great example, right? So I've reached some decisions with Melissa, where we had a real bad habit of me going to staff members and wherever I thought I was working on a project that was immediately the most important thing in the business. And I'd go to a staff member and I'd say, I've got to get this graphics done. I've got to get it done by tomorrow because I've got to meet this due deadline. The staff would just go, okay, yeah, well, it's the boss. He's asked that request. I'm going to elevate that to the top. But what I didn't recognize is that would throw out deadlines for clients and other things that we were working on. So Melissa said, all right, Dave, we need to come up with a new way to do this. Every time you've got something, you need to route it through me, or we need to run it through Asana, which is our project management platform. And we agreed, okay, this is the way to do things. And then, I don't know, three weeks later, I've forgot and I've assigned an urgent task that must be done tomorrow. And Melissa saw that happen and she did something pretty guttural. She. She wrote on the bulletin board just about using all caps, and tagged our entire team on it and said, if Dave ever comes to you with an urgent request to get work done and gives you a short deadline and he's not following the processes, don't do the work. And that, that kind of put me in my place. And she said, look, if you're going to come in and work with the team, you have to follow the rules. I don't care how. Whether or not you follow the rules or not over in your own little world or when you're working on different projects that are outside of the business, because I often go off and work on these crazy ideas. But she said, when you come into the business, I need you to follow process. And we use this idea of the analogy. It was like I was walking into the house and I was wearing these muddy boots that I didn't take off at the door, and I was being loud and obnoxious and knocking things over and creating a mess. And she said, no, when you come into the house, you take your shoes off, you be respectful, and you follow the rules.

And that she's your systems champion right there.

Yeah.

Yes.

It doesn't matter if you own the house, you still need to follow the rules that everybody else follows.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's good. So one of the things I found also looking up on your site and everything is this System Hub. And I'm curious how that works with systemology. Are they used together? Is it a different function? Give us some background on that.

System Hub is actually where it all started for me. So I had the digital agency and then I came up with this great little idea, which was the side project of we don't have anywhere to store these systems and processes. We kind of put them in a Dropbox folder. They very quickly got unorganized and using Word documents that were formatted differently and it was hard for people to find things. And team members, some team members, everybody had access to the same Dropbox folder, but some team members should be able to see some systems and not other systems. And we kept on butting up against a range of different problems. Then we tried to move to Google Sites and I found that Google Sites was an issue because not everybody was technically savvy, so not everybody could do the updating. And I wanted to change the culture and I wanted to get everybody involved. I just thought, right, there's no good solution or great solution for where you store your systems and your processes and have it in the cloud and have version control and the ability to control who can see what, and consistent formatting, all that sort of thing. And so I thought, right, well, I'm just going to build it. So we ended up working on that platform and it's called systemhub.com did that for a good number of years and then realized where the people that had the challenges the businesses that I worked with, once they started using the platform, I knew that they'd have the win, they'd stick with the platform. But the ones that dropped off were the ones that never used it. And the more I dug into it, I said, well, why aren't you using it? Because I know this solves a problem for you. All small business owners have this problem. And then that's when I came to this idea. Idea that people just didn't know how to systemize, didn't know where to start. And that's what kind of birthed Systemology. I was like, hang on. And this is so much more than System Hub now. It's kind of evolved. Regardless of whether or not you use System Hub or not, like, it doesn't matter. Systemology is, it's the system for systemizing a business so that, that works regardless of what technology use. And the way that I teach Systemology is I tell you the important pieces and if you've already got something in place, then just use that. You don't have to use System Hub. Or if you don't have something in place, then okay, well, System Hub is our default recommendation. But for example, we'll say you need, you know, to look at some sort of project management software. You need a way to be able to assign tasks to a team member, have due dates, so it's very clear who is doing what by when. And all of our clients, like, they use tons of different platforms. People use TRECTO and teamwork, PM and Monday and Asana. And it doesn't matter what the tool is, as long as you understand the function that you're looking to get something for, then go with that. And that's what we're. System Hub is a great solution. If a business owner doesn't have something we call systems management software.

Yeah, totally makes sense. So one of the questions we ask of every guest that's on the show is all about mistakes. You know, we're big fans of mistakes. We just wrote a small business pocket guide all about mistakes because we think it's really the foundation of your business. And, you know, you learn so much from them. Looking back on, you know, your varied businesses and things going on, is there one thing that you would say was your best? And I have quote mark, you know, making the quote marks in the air here. The best mistake, the one that stuck with you and taught you a really a valuable lesson that you've built into your business.

The, the biggest mistake is every business that I got stuck in or that didn't Grow quicker than. In hindsight, I think it should have were ones where I could do the work. Like, I was the technician. I had a couple other businesses I was involved in, so the rock and roll clothing music store. I. I didn't know much about the music scene. I had a business partner, and he was deep into that. So he, he was deep into understanding and guiding that part of the business. And the work that we were doing in the stores, you know, that was retail assistant stuff. There's no magic there. Then I had a video production business, and I didn't know how to turn on the camera, which meant right from day one, I needed to build this business without me working in it. The biggest trap. And Michael Gerber spotted this. It's the classic technician who has. What does he call it? An entrepreneurial seizure. And they think, oh, I can do the thing, therefore I can run a business that does the thing. But running the business is very different from just doing the thing. There's so much more involved to actually running a business. And I think it's a trap because it's always very. It lures you in to start a business where you can do the thing. And you think, oh, that's important, that I need to be able to do the thing. But it's nine times out of ten, unless you've got some previous experience, it is the thing that then traps you in the business and becomes your biggest Achilles heel. So actually, not knowing how to do the thing, I've realized is so much infinitely more valuable. If you learn the business of doing business, that changes the game. Otherwise, it's too easy. I found it.

If you start a business not knowing how to do the thing, that's helpful. But be careful because eventually you will learn how to do the thing. And be aware of that moment. Yeah, for sure.

That's great.

Yeah. So that was probably the biggest mistake, particularly in the digital agency. I got stuck in it for too long. I've owned that company for 15 years, and I worked in it for 10. And I just think I was saying to me over and over, like, it shouldn't take me 10 years to figure out our critical client flow and get that documented so someone else can deliver it like that.

Right.

I must be slow if it takes me 10 years.

Yeah, that's fascinating. So one of the things. One of the questions I had for you too, before we start to wrap up was, you know, asking you if there was one aspect of systemization that our listeners could implement. But I think you might have explained it already. But I just want to be sure. Would you say that that critical client flow is the piece that they could start with and look at and lay it out right now and kind of identify some systems and get some buy in on it?

Yeah. And then once you've put it out on a one pager, go talk to someone who kind of knows what you do, but they don't really know, or maybe a family member who's got no clues on what you do and show them and try and explain just on that one bit of paper, nothing more, nothing less. Here's the way that my business works and operates. If they get it, then you know, you've got it simple enough and with enough detail that it can be explained without over complicating. That's kind of like the final test to make sure that someone else gets it.

Yeah, no, that's really great. So you also mentioned that you just finished a book, Systemology. Has it gone to publication yet? Is there a place we can send our listeners to find it?

Yeah, definitely. Depending on when someone's listening to this. And we can chat about perhaps when to drop it. The book comes out August 2020 and it'll be available through Amazon, but if you want to keep an eye on it, it's systemology.com book. So systemology.com forward slash book. I'll be having a bit of a product launch, I suppose, or a book launch as we lead up to it. You know, sharing some videos and chapter previews and interviews. I'd love to actually take this interview and then share that with my audience as well, just to kind of let people go.

Yeah, please do.

Yeah, yeah, it's great. It's a. Yeah, for sure. It's a fascinating process and the more you talk about it, and I think you have a really unique way of being able to kind of boil it down into steps that aren't too intimidating. And as I mentioned before, sharing all that, you know, a lot of that upfront is great. Can people also connect with you on LinkedIn if they're up there as well?

Yep. So on systemology.com, you'll find the links to me on LinkedIn and Twitter and Facebook and however you want to connect, if you've got questions, I think you're already kind of getting the feeling that we like to do whatever we can help. So we'll point you in the right directions. Please feel free to reach out and I'll just do my best. Like this is my passion. Our business's dream is to free all business Owners worldwide from the day to day operations of running their business. We want to get business owners out of working in their business so they can work a bit more on it. And the biggest thing I find is systems are quite funny what they actually do. They, there are some misconceptions that they remove creativity and they stiffen the business up because it becomes more rigid. But systems actually do the reverse of what you think they will do when you put them into place. Systems just take care of all of the basic minutiae that happens day in and day out in your business. That needs to happen. You shouldn't have to think about that every single time. If, if you get that basic down and you get those basic systems down, that then creates space for team members and business owners. And with that space, that's when they can do their best work. They're most creative. That's when they spot opportunities. Like there's probably 50 million opportunities that exist right now in your business and you don't even notice them. Or if you do notice them, you can't take advantage of them because you're too stuck in the day to day. And what systems will do is break you free of that and give you the space to take advantage of the opportunities.

Yeah, that's great. Yeah. And the system for systemizing a business, that's really powerful. David, thank you so much for coming on the show, being so forthcoming with, with your information how the process works. I can tell you're excited about it. We're excited to share your story with our listeners and again, we really appreciate your time today.

That's a pleasure. Thanks for having me.

Man, what a blast. Gosh, I did listen to that guy talk for a long time and not just because of his accent. Like he had. No, no, that was nice.

That was cool too. Yeah, but, but yeah, you know, again, I go back to his willingness to really help and to add value. And I think I sent it to you in the notes. I'm all, you know, he's really transparent. Use this and try this and do these things. And so many of these consultants and folks out there doing stuff, you know, they really gatekeep heavy, you know, because they have their quote, proprietary systems. But you know, I think it's more powerful to share like David does with Systemology up. And you definitely should go up to systemology.com just to get what they've got up there right now and you know, maybe get some help. But systems, man, they are the key to, they're your key to freedom as a, as a Small business owner.

They are the key to the charmed life, man. We talk about it all the time, but that like having a system in place. You know, as an entrepreneur, you don't always know what to do next. A system at least tells you what to do next. To keep your business running the way it already is, you still need to take a break and think about what to really do next. But by having these systems in place, you actually get to do that. So, yeah, it's a good thing.

Yeah, it's really great. And, you know, it's really what I think. It works great. And it also allows the people on your team, everybody knows what to do next and not. David talked about how, you know, he became the hub of information. Everybody came to him. I've totally been in that place before. And even though for a little while it feels powerful, it quickly becomes miserable. So. So that's great. And, you know, I really loved having him on the show. Yeah. Awesome. Great.

That was great.

And thank you for. Thanks for listening. I do want to mention, you know, the soft cover version version of the Small Business Pocket Guide, our first one all about mistakes. And if you've listened to this show, you know how important we think they are and why we believe they're the foundation of your small business. So you can learn more at BusinessShow Co Guides. And we appreciate your support.

That'll do it. We'll see you next week. Thanks, Shannon.

Thank you, Dave.