How to Systemize Your Business With 42 Systems

The answer to life, the universe and everything. It's 42. And funny enough, the answer to finally getting your business Systemized is also 42. Most business owners, they imagine that they're going to need hundreds of systems and processes and SOPs and checklists. They think this is going to be some massive documentation project. The good news is you don't need hundreds of systems to get your business systemized. And at most, you only need 42. Just a handful of systems in each of the key business departments. Marketing, Sales, Operations, Finance, HR Management. Now, if you get this right, you're going to hit a point where systemization starts to gain momentum and from there things get a whole lot easier. Hi, I'm David Jennings and if we haven't met, I am the best selling author of a couple of books, Systemology and Systems Champion. And I help business owners get off the tools out of operations and build businesses that give them real freedom. I've had the good fortune of doing that with thousands of businesses around the world. And if you've been following along on your systemology journey, you may already be familiar with the first step in the process, which is called the Critical Client flow, or the CCF for short. The CCF is about mapping the linear journey that the prospect and client and business goes through to deliver the core product or service. So we start off by identifying, well, how do you attract these people into your world, how do we handle that incoming inquiry, how do we convert them and sell them into your product and service, how do we deliver and then how do we get your client to come back? Now, in that process, oftentimes there's 10 or 12 steps. Each one of those steps ends up becoming a documented process. So as you go through the critical client flow, this exercise alone will help you get your first 10 to 12 systems documented. This will end up becoming the foundation of your business. It's how your business makes money. And the goal is to get to the point where you can deliver your core product or service without key person dependency. But here's the thing. The CCF is only one of the milestones in your journey towards systemization and true freedom. The real transformation happens when you reach what I call minimum viable systems or MVs. For short term, this is where systems and processes touch all departments and all team members inside your organization. It's also where the rule of 42 comes into place. So here's how it works. There are six core departments in every business. Marketing, Sales, Operations, Finance, HR and Management. Now, you might use those names or they might be Slightly different or you've combined some together or you've added some extra, that's okay, but, but essentially every business has these core six departments. Each one of those departments has a responsibility to the business. So marketing's responsibility is to generate leads. Sales responsibility is to convert those leads. Operations job is to deliver your core products and services. Finance is to handle the money in and out of your business. HR helps with the recruitment, onboarding and managing of your staff. The management that focuses on the leadership, the direction, the goals and really looking after the business as a whole. So each one of those departments has a responsibility. Now, as part of reaching minimum viable systems, we're going to identify seven essential, repeatable, delegatable systems in each one of these departments. So when you add them up, you get the magic number. You've got six departments and there are seven systems in each department which equals 42. When you reach that, that's the tipping point. Once you get those systems documented, that's when the culture in your business starts to shift. The team starts to step up, processes become part of this is how we do things here. And that means it becomes easier to manage your work and systemization starts to take on a life of its own. Now a lot of business owners, when they get started systemization, they get caught up in the busy work and focusing in on low value tasks that has little or no impact on the business. The minimum viable systems allows you to apply the Pareto principle. We look to identify the 20% of the systems that deliver the 80% of the result. That's really the secret here, focusing your attention on only the most important systems. Okay, now let me show you how to identify these 42 systems. First off, you can download the minimum viable systems worksheet. You'll just find it underneath this video and when you open it up, you'll notice it's got those six departments that I mentioned. Now this is a bit of a brainstorming exercise. So I want you to think about each department and whatever comes to your mind, I want you to list as many essential, repeatable, delegatable tasks that come to mind. Now, depending on the size of your company, if you've got a department head that looks after these different functions, you might want to do the exercise with them. Just get it out of your brain to start. And then I want you to identify just seven systems in each department that are the most essential. The tasks that if they weren't complete and then that department wouldn't be delivering on what it needs to for the business. Think of it like this. Each department is like a vital organ and they've got that responsibility. So we want to make sure that we get clear on what it is that that department needs to do and what are the systems that will help them achieve that. Now, as you go through the exercise, do your best, but if you get stuck, you, you can just log into System Hub and I've put together a cheat sheet that lists out all of the most common ones. The ones that you'll see appear again and again in different businesses. I'll tell you where to get a copy of that in a moment, but for now you've got enough to get started. Let's take your sales department as an example. Your seven systems in the sales department might be handling the incoming inquiry, running the actual sales call, generating a proposal, following up those leads to make sure that they close, entering all of the details into your CRM, closing off and handing off a new sale across to Operations. Those seven systems keep your sales department alive. Now I just want you to do that same exercise in each of the other departments. Marketing, Operations, Finance, HR and Management. Once you do that, you'll have a full list of 42. Now it's not going to be exactly right or perfect, and that's okay. You just want to get something down so that you've got your minimum viable systems and it's a place for you to start. Because once you've identified them, that becomes your work plan. Transfer them into System Hub and and then get your systems champion to work through the list one by one. You just want them to capture these systems using simple recordings and then you let the AI turn them into beautifully documented processes. With the right tools and the right focus, you can reach minimum viable systems in less than 90 days. And once that's done, you're not going to know yourself. You're not going to believe the impact this is going to have. Things are going to be clearer, your team's going to be more confident, you're going to be able to get off the tools and your business is going to become so much easier to run. So here are your next steps. Download the Minimum viable systems worksheet. Just do the brainstorming. Get everything out of your head and then identify seven of the most important systems in each department. That'll give you your 42. Then load that list into System Hub. Now, if you get stuck inside System Hub, that's where you'll find the cheat sheet. All of the most common best practice systems are identified here. It's easy to get started with system hub. There's a free trial that you can get up and running, and you get instant access to this and a whole bunch of other tools as well. And once You've identified your 42 systems, I want you to come back here and just put a comment down below. Say the answer is 42, just so I know that you're taking action. All right, I'll catch you in the next video.