S3:E12 How To Become A Profitable Tradie with Tony Fraser-Jones

Do I have a treat for you. I've got a fantastic interview with Tony Fraser-Jones from Profitable Tradie. Well, it's an interview where he's interviewing me about my systems thinking and my brand new book, Systems Champion. It's published over on his podcast, but it was such a great episode and it is perfect for all tradies, builders, anyone in that space to understand the systems message and how a systems champion can impact you. So he's kindly agreed to let us dual post it. So let's go in and jump into the episode now. Sometimes you don't even notice you're doing it. You might be subconsciously pushing away work because you already feel like you're so busy, your proposals aren't as good as they could be, you're not selling as hard as you could be, and you end up leaving a lot of money on the table.

I've always been intrigued about how some businesses grow smoothly and consistently while others stay stuck in chaos, constantly fighting fires, unable to take holidays or vacations, and seeing the business owner become overwhelmed and burnt out.

They get into business for freedom, yet a lot of them, they have the complete opposite of that because if they're not working, their business isn't working.

Tune into today's episode where I sit down with systems expert and author David Jenyns. David is the author of Systemology and a powerful new book titled Systems Champion that shows how to simplify processes and power your team and create a business that runs without your constant oversight.

There's a lot of work out there that builds the case for systems, but not necessarily how to do it. Where do I start? What are the first few systems? How do I get the team on board?

Hi, I'm your host Tony Fraser-Jones, and today we're mixing things up a little bit. I've given my good mate and co-host Phil Smith the day off because we've got a special guest on the podcast. My guest is David Jenyns, and David, it's awesome to have you here, mate.

An absolute pleasure, looking forward to diving in.

Yeah, yeah, it's going to be a lot of fun. Systems are very, very important And look, David is the author and founder of Systemology and also the author of a new book called Systems Champion, which is coming out soon, which is a guide for business owners who want to get out of the day-to-day rat race and build a business that runs smoothly without them having to do everything. Now, he's also the host of the Business Systems Simplified podcast and a leading voice when it comes to systems, scaling, and simplifying operations. So, David, Just to kick off, where are you based today?

I am in Melbourne, Australia, so right down the bottom in the middle of winter.

Happy days. Yeah, it's, uh, it's a little fresh, uh, in New Zealand today as well. Nice frost this morning. And for those of you listening in the US and Canada, it is actually wintertime here, so you guys are probably having a better time than us. But I'm really excited about the new book, uh, which is Systems Champion. But before we sort of get into that, I want to just dig into systems in general. So Dave, just to kick off, in the context of a tradie or a contracting business, what is a system?

I just lump a lot of terms together like SOPs, standard operating procedures, processes, and just put it all under that one heading of systems. And I think of it in terms of it is a series of steps that when you follow them, they produce a consistent outcome. That works at a really small level. That might be issuing out an invoice, and it can be working at a higher level where it's the whole process for delivering the product or service for a client.

And what happens when businesses don't have robust systems?

Generally, at some point, the wheels start to fall off. The business is very key person dependent. That creates a lot of stress. There's oftentimes mistakes. Things don't always get complete if certain team members aren't there to do those particular tasks because everything's— it's almost like transferred via tribal knowledge. So they run very inefficiently and they're not good for clients, they're not good for staff, they're not good for business owners and their bottom line.

And you talked about the stress for the business owner. How does that sort of practically play out on a day-to-day basis? You know, if there's someone listening, what are they going to be experiencing in their business if they don't have strong systems right now?

Oftentimes they're working incredibly long hours because they feel like they're the only ones that can do certain things, and they also end up papering over the cracks when it comes to areas of weakness in their business. They think, oh, I can just put more time in to solve these problems. And it kind of masks the true problem, which is the system that sits underneath it. Oftentimes, dropping a lot of balls is another thing, whether it's not following up with leads, or sometimes you don't even notice you're doing it. You might be subconsciously pushing away work because you already feel like you're so busy, and if you took on another project, oh, that would just be so much pain. So you start to push back and your proposals aren't as good as they could be. You're not selling as hard as you could be, and you end up leaving a lot of money on the table.

That's a very interesting observation, isn't it? Because nobody really grows into what they perceive as subconscious pain, and that does hamstring a lot of business owners, or it just takes them too long to get stuff done, uh, put new proposals out or quotes or bids or whatever, and they kind of don't get work because they've been a bit tardy. So yeah, it's, it's quite, um, almost insidious, the results without systems. Uh, what I'd love to know though, do you think a business can actually effectively grow, uh, without good systems?

Definitely it can grow to a certain point, and it only grows off the back of a great tradesperson. So I mean, this is classic Michael Gerber, author of the E-Myth stuff, where you might be very technically proficient in doing the work, and that's how you win work and you deliver to a great standard because it's always you, but everything's grown off your back. And at some point in time, you'll hit capacity limits, and it's that scaling bit. I also think a lot of business owners, they get into business for freedom, yet a lot of them, they have the complete opposite of that because if they're not working their business isn't working and they're not getting any money in the door. So for a business to actually work, which gives you the freedom to work in it, out of it, on it, wherever you choose— like, just having that choice is what I believe business owners should have—

you need systems and processes and great team to be able to execute on those, because they're kind of like the blueprint of your business, but it's out of your head. I guess what we see with a lot of our members is if you've got to explain stuff to other people all the time, it's probably a good indicator that you don't have systems. And if you've got to do that, you can't grow eventually because you just can't keep across everything. And those systems almost like the leverage point for scaling, aren't they?

Yes. Systems bring a lot of what is invisible and makes it visible. I'd like to think of systems as just documented habits. The things that you do in your business and you do them a particular way and you like them done to a certain standard, well, we capture that, we document it, that makes it visible for everybody. And oftentimes at the start, when you're learning something new, you can follow that step-by-step process. At some point, those team members will internalize those processes and they will just become part of their habits. So we're, we're talking about retraining habits.

Yes. So, uh, your first book, Systemology, is a good book. All that light's a bit bright, but it's, it's there and it's, it's a very powerful book. Can you talk us through your process for how a business owner should systemize their business as you've outlined it in Systemology? Because I think that's a really, it's a very powerful process.

Yeah, so Systemology's 7 steps, and I tried to write the book that I wish I had when I was getting started when I think about systemizing, because I feel like there's a lot of work out there that builds the case for systems, but not necessarily how to do it. Where do I start? What are the first few systems? How do I get the team on board? And even with a lot of the traditional process improvement stuff that has come before Systemology, that's all about improving process. But a lot of tradespeople, when they first get started, they haven't even got a process in place to improve. So that's one of the big premises of Systemology. We capture what you're currently doing and look to make it repeatable. And step number one is we go, well, where do we start? We identify 10 to 15 systems. We use a tool called the Critical Client Flow, and it's just about identifying what is the journey that the prospect and the client goes through to deliver a core product or service. That ends up being a great starting point. And then step number 2, we just ask who on the team— and maybe it's you if you've got a small team— but who knows how to do that task pretty well or to a great standard that you would just like to set as the new benchmark, bring everybody up to that standard. Step number 3, we then extract that information out of their brain. We just record them doing the task. It could be on your iPhone. If they're on a computer, it could be a Zoom or a Loom, or there's plenty of different ways. You just record yourself doing it in the moment. Don't try and make it perfect. Don't try and talk through every variation. Just say what happens most of the time and let's record that. And then step number 4 is we start to organize that knowledge. We just want to then start to have all of that knowledge in a central location. So the team always knows if they've got a question, well, they go to this single location first. We— you don't want to have it sitting as a Post-it note stuck to someone's computer, on a clipboard, in the back of the truck, or some notes printed out next to someone's computer. Like, you want to have it all in one location. Then we talk about step number 5 is integrate. That's all about getting the team on board. You just wanna build up a culture of, hey, this is how we do things here. And systems and processes will help make your job easier. That's a big thing about selling it to your existing team members is letting them know that this is actually here to make their job easier. Then step number 6 is scale. That's all about beyond what we identified in step number 1, which is the first, 10 to 15 systems we start with, what other systems might you need to scale your business? There's probably some finance systems and management systems and recruiting and onboarding systems. And then the last step is optimize. And again, this is probably what makes Systemology a little bit unique. We first focus on repeatability and what works, because tremendous wins can be gained just by making repeatable what's already happening in your business. You don't even need to be world-class, and McDonald's is a great example of that. They don't make the world's best hamburger, they just make the most consistent hamburger. So we wanna make sure that you deliver consistency. That's what your clients crave. Once you get that consistency in place, then the last step is that optimize step. That's where we can start to introduce where can AI help? How do we make things more efficient? How do we cherry-pick some of the best processes from Profitable Tradie and the work that you guys do and install that and replace existing systems that you've got?

It's a really thorough process, and I know some people are listening like, oh my goodness, it sounds like a lot of work. I think term you might have used is sort of minimum—

minimum viable system.

Yeah, because I think that, that's massive, because in a business, probably 80% of your problems are coming from 20% of the systems, right?

Yes. Like, the way that I like to think about that is what is the minimum number of systems that you can identify? Generally, it's about anywhere from 5 to 10 systems per department. So 10 in marketing, 10 in sales, 10 in delivery, 10 in finance, but all of the different departments. If you said, what are the most important systems that if they weren't done and they weren't done to a particular standard, that department wouldn't be able to deliver what that department is there to deliver to the rest of the business. So marketing's job is to deliver leads, sales' job is to convert those leads. So what needs to be in place for that department to be able to deliver on those promises? If you can identify that and work towards those, we're talking 40, 50 systems inside the business, that can be a complete game changer.

Yeah, and we notice with our members and the people we help, even 5 or 6 systems across the business, like a job handover process or a pricing system is incredibly powerful so that you standardize pricing and you have the same, the right target margins, and you can actually give that to someone else to do. With some solid templates is powerful. An AR process to make sure you get paid, strong invoicing processes, quality assurance checklist, you know, for checking the jobs out in the field before you hand them over. Just doing even 4 or 5 like that just has an incredibly powerful impact on the result of your business and the stress levels, and it boosts the profitability right up. So it's very powerful. But the thing that really is a challenge, I guess, is many business owners struggle to actually systemize their business. Why is that?

Oftentimes the business owner sees systems as important, they're just never urgent. So the business owner has so many things on their plate that they've got to do, and they never get to everything. And generally they're focusing in on important and urgent, you know, it's the client that's calling them up saying, why isn't my job done? Where's that material? They're going to attend to that stuff first. And systems, because it's never urgent, just remains on the to-do list and they just don't find the space and the time. Oftentimes as well, even with small teams, your best team members are most busy and they don't have the capacity to work on it. So that's probably one of the biggest reasons people don't get it done.

So that sort of systems in general, What actually prompted you to write the new book, Systems Champion?

So the first book really has had some great success to connect with business owners, and that's who I wrote it for, because I wanted that book that I would read and I'd go, you know what, I'm not really a systems person, but I could see that systems is possible in my business. That's what I wanted the reader to have, the business owner to go, you know what, maybe I can give this a little bit of a go. What's happened since writing it, um, you know, we're about 6 years in now, I've started to identify what are the biggest leverage points in the difference between those that make this work versus those that don't. And the biggest leverage point, the biggest impact, the biggest idea and secret has been this idea of the systems champion. And it's the person who helps the business owner roll this out because the business owner is oftentimes not a great systems person. They know they want them, they know they're important, but they're not the people to do it. And the systems champion is that right-hand man or woman. And I really wanted to write the manual for them. Like the first quarter of the book, Fifth of the book is written to the business owner to say, this is what a systems champion is, this is why you need them, this is a position description, this is the qualities. And then the rest of the book is for the systems champion to say, great, now here's what the business owner wants you to do. You're being entrusted to take on this very special, important project, and you will become one of the most valuable team members in the organization. And I'm going to show you step by step the work that you need to do to make it happen.

So whilst it's written for the systems champion, it's still really a book for business owners because they're the ones who are going to benefit the most from it, which is great. And I think helping them implement is massive because my experience is often business owners, they actually understand the case for systems, but one, they don't have time, like you said, or two, they're like, oh, well, I need to do it all. Myself before I employ people to run the systems. And I've basically never seen that work.

Yeah.

Because you're so busy running the business already that it's not really feasible to get more than a couple of systems done and then you just lose energy and it goes on the good idea but never done pile. That's definitely something that we've seen. So what is the role of the systems champion?

So Their role is to be the first supporter because the business owner does need to lead this. They need to go to the team and say, this is what we're doing, this is important, we're going to put time, money, and resources behind this. And I'm entrusting the systems champion who's going to help the team members get on board to make this easy, to get the right software stack, to meet with team members to extract this IP out of their head and get it centrally located and draft up the process and help to keep systems front and center, mentioning it on team meetings, making sure that we announce and celebrate system wins. They do all of these things over a long period of time, which it's easy for the business owner to get caught up and move on to the next project and forget that we need to keep this front and center until we break those old bad habits. Because all of the benefit of systemization actually comes a little bit further down the road. You have to persist with it long enough to get over the hump to get the result. And the systems champion is the person there that carries the torch all the way through.

I really like the way that the book is, is built around the 3 key pillars. Can you tell us what those 3 key pillars are in relation to being a systems champion?

Yeah, so the first book took you through 7 steps to systemize, which we did a little bit earlier, but a lot of business owners know that building a systemized business or a business really is not always a linear path. And sometimes you have to jump around and your business will need different things. So for the next book, I really focused on these three pillars, which is about strengthening these three areas that will help to build up this systems culture. And the three areas are, it's documentation, Tools and Culture. And it's all about removing excuses for why team members don't follow process. So all of the different excuses I've heard over the years can generally be grouped into 3 excuses. Team members will say, "I didn't know how," as in it wasn't clear to me how to do this particular task. Or they'll say, "I didn't know what was expected of me." So, "I didn't know that you wanted me to do this job by this time." Or the last one is, "I didn't want to." Those three areas, if we reinforce the idea of documentation, tools, and culture, we start to remove those excuses. Because if you have a documented process and you've created a little QR code and you've stuck it to the equipment in the truck, and it shows them how to set something up, and all they have to do is scan it on their phone and jump straight to the SOP, they can't say, "Oh, but I didn't know how," because you say, "Well, it's right there. Like, I've shown you how to do it, and next time follow the process." And then if they say, "I didn't know it was expected of me," if you get some sort of jobs management system in place where you're assigning out tasks and they know who is doing what by when. That then starts to remove the "I didn't know it was expected of me." And then we just get to the last piece, which is the culture piece, which is "I didn't want to." Now this one, generally speaking, the "I didn't want to" usually comes from your existing staff. If you're changing culture, then they're used to doing things a certain way, and now you're trying to change things. "Oh, well, the old way worked just fine. Why should I follow this new process?" And there's ways to address that, and we want to make sure that they get on board, and we give them every opportunity to jump on board as we build this new culture. But there's a few things we want to put into place. The good thing is this gets easier over time because once you build a recruitment and an onboarding system, all new team members that come on board, this is all they know, your way of doing things. There is no resistance. We address those 3 areas and give 3 strongest tools underneath each one of those areas that I've seen really have the biggest impact to strengthen those. But in reality, there are loads of different ways to strengthen each one of these pillars. The focus of the Systems Champion is to strengthen the pillars. It's not that the Systems Champion becomes the enforcer. They're not the person who says, "You must follow systems." What they're doing is they're empowering the supervisor and the business owner with the right foundations so that there are no excuses. And when the business owner or supervisor needs to enforce, they've got plenty of things to stand on. There's a process. It's clear it was your job. This is how we do things here.

Yeah, clarity. It's funny you say clarity because we, we have a model that we teach our members when they're having challenges with team performance. And it's basically 4 boxes and they're all about clarity, clear expectations, you know, clear process and understanding, clear accountability and feedback, and clear coaching and training. And so I think the accountability piece too is very important with systems, isn't it? Because if you've got them in place, there does need to be a process for checking that they're being followed because that really helps build the culture as well. And if you set and then forget, you'll find that the adherence and the advantage of the system probably falls away.

Yes, once you get those first two handled, then you really sort of lean into performance management. And you're right, you want to build a culture of transparency and accountability, and that way everybody's on the same page, everybody knows who's working on what, everything's happening visibly, there's no black boxes. Like, black boxes are dangerous inside business. Once you've got that foundation, it's much easier to then start to lean into performance management. And in the book, I talk about even having a system for unfollowed systems. What do you do when someone doesn't follow a process? A lot of business owners, when they're rolling some of these ideas out or their systems champions, they might get some resistance and then they'll forever give their best team members one more chance. Oh, it's, you know, it's John. He's been with me for ages. Look, he's having trouble following the process. I've told him 6 times before, but, you know, he's going to get it on the next one. And it just keeps going on and on and on and on. And the reality is the team members that got you to where you are today may or may not be the same team members that will get you to that next level. Unless they grow and evolve, just like you as a business owner. To scale, like we talked about right at the start, you need a process-driven business and you need the whole team on board with this. And you need to draw a line in the sand. You need to give them every opportunity, handhold them, help them, get them on track. But at some point, if someone isn't fitting into this culture, then you will need to cut that out because it sends the wrong, wrong signal.

What you tolerate never changes. Yeah, is, is very powerful. And if you do tolerate stuff, the, the culture breaks down. I love the fact that you bring culture into this because for me, I think Keith Cunningham said culture eats strategy for breakfast. Yeah, and it's so true. I mean, uh, and that, that goes to hiring as well. And you'll, uh, you'll find that some people don't like systems and they're probably not the people you want to hire either.

So, um, that whole idea up front. Like, if you stack the deck and you look for people who will follow process as part of your recruitment process, just makes everything so much easier. You, in your position descriptions, you link to different processes and say, hey, this is the type of thing that you're going to be doing, and it starts to repel those that won't fit into your culture and attract those that will.

That's a brilliant point. And the market— I talk about the market for talent is the most important sort of market or marketing you'll do, the people you hire. And if you can show and demonstrate in your recruitment processes and even in your job ads that you are a well-systemized business, that tells people that you're well organized, that you've thought this thing through, and you will attract much better people. I can just tell people, if you're listening, that this is just a thing. The cream rises to the top and it wants to find the best place. So I think that's a massive benefit. I just wanted to touch on some of the measurement stuff because I know a lot of our members find this a bit tricky. They've got systems and they find the thought process of, I have to check it all the time. For instance, job cards or timesheets is a system in the job management process. And sometimes team members are a bit, how do we say, loose and fast with doing their stuff. But if you don't check it, it's not going to stay on track. And there are ways to do it which mean you don't have to have you know, look at everything all of the time. And I think AI can be one way, but one strategy I've found really helpful is actually intermittent checking. It's like you check, but they don't know when you're checking.

Yes.

And so, you know, maybe you're checking a couple of days a week, the time cards, but they don't know when that is. And, but they know you're checking. So that can really help internalize that, that discipline of following the systems as well. Is there any other little tricks you've got for how to, uh, to measure in a way that doesn't destroy your will to live?

I think a big part of it is making things visible, almost like it was saying checking it intermittently. And just when you ask little questions that kind of give away that you are looking and there is an eye on it, and you want to train your supervisors to do the same. If someone feels like something is being inspected or will be looked at, it's just going to raise them up to that next level. So Building this culture of transparent accountability also helps with that. Like, you want that to be part of the team culture. As far as like other little techniques, I think if you've got tools and everything is visible, I'm actually finding exporting a lot of the data out and then loading it into ChatGPT and asking it questions works really well. So let's say timesheets, for example, and you've got some time tracking software, you can copy and paste out someone's timesheets over the past 3 months and paste it straight in and say, hey, I'm just reviewing this timesheet. Is there any inconsistencies here or anything that I might need to check out on? And you can do that with anything. I'm just finding the more that I can extract out data, as long as it's visible, and then you use AI as a way just to give you those quick questions that then let the person know, hey, I'm looking at this.

It's funny, when you put a spotlight on something, the behavior changes, which is kind of what we're talking about. That AI thing is a big deal now, obviously, and I think you describe AI as an amplifier for systemization. So what are some other practical ways you find that your trades and contractors and other business owners can use AI to systemize and streamline their operations today?

Yeah, I think the systems champion and identifying who that person is, that straight away is a huge win. The idea of documentation previously took a lot of time. It's now never been easier, never been faster. We can record things getting done, take the transcripts, feed it into ChatGPT, and very quickly get a drafted process. So that ends up being a great starting point. Specifically though, for tradies, once a process is actually the first step to leveraging AI better, because you get very clear on what are the key tasks going on in your business, and then it's much easier to ask the question, how can AI help me do that faster, cheaper, and better? So you take processes and you can even feed those back into ChatGPT and then ask it Hey, how would you make this more efficient? What steps could I remove and combine? What AI tools could I use that might be able to take and automate chunks of this? And then you can start to identify the low-hanging fruit and where are you dropping the ball. Maybe you're not getting back to people that quickly when they do their inquiry. Okay, so you might investigate some sort of AI voice service can handle some incoming calls and then book them onto your calendar. Or maybe it's quoting. Like, there's actually hundreds of opportunities inside the trades-based business once you start looking. And the reason I say check and ask ChatGPT first is because that's something that I think anybody listening to this right now could do.

Yeah, I think that's the key thing about ChatGPT and a lot of AI. It's got all the answers in there for you if you know how to ask. And so the skill becomes asking, and even you can ask ChatGPT how you should ask, which is kind of mad, right? But I think that is huge. So AI is going to make a big impact, but for me, something that I've noticed, I'd love your take on it, is the thinking of the business owner is very important with systems. So how do you think the business owner's thinking and mindset needs to change to really effectively utilize systems in their business?

I think getting out of the day-to-day and stopping repeating yourself and answering the same questions will give you the space. I mean, this is classic work on it rather than in it. That's really your first step. Capture what you're doing, making it repeatable, delegate down to less skilled, lower-cost team members, sometimes delegate down to robots also. That'll then free you up to have that extra level of thinking, which is really where you should be doing your best, most important work, which is identifying and understanding, well, your business is one big system and there are all of these subsystems and you understand how little tweaks and things interact all together and you understand what some of the big problems you've got right now are. Oh, I don't have enough leads. I've got too many leads. I've I have trouble onboarding, I have trouble delivering my products and service. As a business owner, you want to be able to identify the biggest problems and go to work on those. Most business owners, when they get to a certain size and they're a very small team and they haven't yet got process, they're just solving little problems and they're solving them again and again and again. They're answering the same question that they've answered 100 times before. So I actually think Yeah, that first step is getting out. And then I actually think business owners working on systems is a good idea because they're great problem solvers and they can be very strategic. You just want to make sure the right infrastructure is around them, that systems champion, which makes it easy because some of this stuff also doesn't naturally come to the business owner.

Yeah, and it's, it's all about understanding that if you've got to do something or solve a problem 2 or 3 times or answer the same question 2 or 3 times or more, that's a pretty good indication that there's a systems answer there. And it's also when you have consistent team issues, performance issues, it's really, uh, it's a good mindset to get into to look at your system and try and solve that problem. Uh, and then if you've got a good system and obviously the problem continues, then you've got a performance issue. And I find, I'm not sure if you see it, but sometimes a lot of owners, particularly tradespeople and contractors, are so good at doing the actual technical work or even the pricing work, which is technical work really, struggle to see how anyone else could do it as well as them. And there's a control issue.

Yeah.

And I think that's a big challenge as well.

I keep coming back to Michael Gerber. He wrote a book called The E-Myth. It's the classic book on business systems, and I talk about it in the Systemology book. I had the good fortune of working with him, so a lot of his teachings kind of really transferred through to me. But he talks about this idea of the technician having an entrepreneurial seizure, and they think, 'Oh, because I'm the plumber who knows how to fix the toilets and the drains, well, I can then run a business that sells those services.' And they think, 'Why am I working for this crazy guy over here? I'm going to go out and I might as well do it for myself and then keep all the cash.' That's how they get started. And they very quickly learn that there's a difference between knowing how to do the technical work and then running a business that does the technical work, and there's all of the other pieces that need to happen to make sure that the business generates leads, sells, delivers the work, manages the finances, and all those other pieces. And they're generally very strong at one or two things. Like you said, maybe it's pricing, maybe it's going out doing the work, maybe it's selling. Like, they're usually very strong at that one thing. And that's the thing that they find hardest to let go because they think nobody can do it as well as I can. I understand this, you know, to great detail. And it's a bit hard because all of that bad behavior or that them solving it and them doing it actually resulted in the business being successful and it's grown it up to a certain size. So they, they— that's all reinforced, which then makes it hard to let go of, which is actually what you need to do to grow through to that next level. And sometimes, like, just having a skilled systems champion sit alongside you, record you do that same thing that you think you do magically well, get them to record it 5 or 6 times, transcribe it, throw it into ChatGPT, ask for that draft, and you'll be surprised 'Oh wow, I didn't even realize, but there is a process in the way that I'm doing things. I'm subconsciously following these steps.' It's a— this habit. And as I said, all we're doing is— process is about documenting habits and making what's invisible visible.

Yeah, that's a great explanation, because once they see it out there in front of them on paper, they're like, 'Oh, well, actually, I can see how Bob or Joe or Mary could actually probably do quite a bit of this. Yeah. And we might do a bit of training here or there, but man, if I free that up, even if they're 90% good, this is going to be a game changer. So it's gold. Now, David, The Systems Champion, it's a practical book. It's very clever and it's got a bunch of great tools in it to actually help the systems champion and the business owner act on it. It feels a bit to me like you've actually created a system for the reader to create their systems champion. Is that kind of what it was about.

That's 100%. I can't help but see everything as a system. Whenever I look at any problem in business, I always go, it's a systems problem, for better or for worse. I can't help myself. So this is an area that I know has tremendous impact. So I thought, what is the system to do this consistently and at scale? And then I wrote the book to really speak to that.

Yeah, it's very practical. When's it going to be released? Because it's not out quite yet, but very soon.

Yes, so it will come out late July, early August. We're just waiting for Audible. I know some people prefer the audio version of a book, and I read it, and now I'm— it's with the editor, and we're just waiting for that, and then it has to go through Audible.

Yeah, so, so that's cool. So it's coming. I'd love to know if the readers, other listeners, want to reach out and find out a little bit more about what you do and, and how to get hold of the and your work, what's the best way for them to do that?

They can just go to systemology.com. There's plenty of links to extra resources, my original book, YouTube channel, lots of things to help you get started.

Definitely check that out because systems are absolutely critical. They're how you leverage your business, how you get your— the stuff out of your head, get it on paper, and other people— and technology— other people can do it, which is amazing. Mate, this has been fun. Really appreciate your sharing with us today. and, uh, there's so much gold in this episode. It's going to be very, very useful for, for everyone listening. So appreciate you, man.

An absolute pleasure. Thank you.

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