Systems & AI Champion Case Study

So AI has allowed us to set up checklists within our systems and refine them so well that we've been able to hire a marketer from offshore. So it's been a massive win.

I love chatting with systems champions. I think they hold one of the most important roles in business. They help the business owner make their business more repeatable and less dependent on any specific person. They extract, organize and optimise best practice and help to build a culture around systems and getting the team on board. So today I'm joined by Kimberly Sims. She's the systems champion at Lux Life Homes, and I thought it'd be fun to dive into a little bit of her journey, tell a little bit about what it's like being a systems champion. So maybe first things first. Welcome to the call, Kimberly.

Thanks so much. Dave. Thanks for having me.

Maybe to start, can you tell us a little bit about Lux Life Homes, what you guys do, who you do it for, and maybe a little bit about the size of the team?

Yeah, sure. So Luxury Lifestyle Homes is a custom home building business. We cover design and construction for Southeast Queensland up to the Sunshine coast, from the border of Queensland, New South Wales. We've been around since about 2020. Jay, who's the director of the business, he has worked in different facets of building over the years, from carpentry himself through to businesses. But the inception of Luxury Lifestyle homes was in 2020, when Jay wanted to really focus on custom building, meeting clients needs and being able to do that with quality, great service. So initially it was just him and I. We created the business. We had contractors that would do the work to build. And then the team has grown now. So we have three other office team members. We've got a supervisor on site, Jay and myself.

Yeah, awesome. And how did the idea of becoming a systems champion and systemizing the business come up? Is it a thread that's been around for a while or what kind of prompted it?

Yeah, look, when the business was growing, we used good old OneDrive to sort of keep things organized as best we could. And as we brought a new team member into the administrative side of business, we started to see that that was getting a little bit confusing. It wasn't as organized as we'd like. And Jay had approached me, he come across Systemology itself and approached me and said, hey, I think you might be the person. So from there I got myself a copy of the book and Jay had got us into the software of System Hub and we just hit the ground running.

Yeah. Do you see yourself as a Systems person. Is it something that came naturally to you? Is that why Jay came to you and said you're our girl?

Yeah, I think so, yeah. It's very natural for me to have things systemized, whether it's in my family life or in the workplace. And I'd come from large operations businesses before, so having things regimented, organized systems to refer back to with lots of people involved. It's something that I've always liked and gravitated towards.

Yeah. Did it sounds like your role evolved? So I'm wondering was this a shared responsibility with you as far as you had other things that you were managing or. And has it evolved since then? Is it kind of like that's your full time role or how does it kind of fit in with the work that you do?

I would absolutely love to say that it's my full time role. I think it would be a perfect world if it was. I still do other things and we're still, we're still using the refinement of our systems to, to move me into a more defined role too. So it continues to evolve, but initially it was Jay and I together as we started to build out sort of the pre construction and construction side of things.

Yeah.

And now I'm, I'm the sole systems champion. So now I make my way through the business to all the other departments to extract the information from them to improve our systems.

Are there any particular qualities that you have that you think make a good systems champion? Like if another business owner was watching this and think right, I want to get a systems champion, what is it that they should be looking for?

Curiosity probably is the first one. The ability to sort of be open minded as you approach perhaps the personal department that you're wanting to extract information from. Someone who likes to ask questions, maybe understand the why. Part natural organization and.

A want to be organized and systemized always helps. But I think that curiosity is the big one. Someone who's willing to ask people questions and dive a bit deeper to find out the why we do things.

As you've gone through this and over the time, have there been any particular wins or anything where you're just like, oh, when we put this systems in place, I noticed something change in the business or this happened or that happened. I don't know if there are any stories or any impact that you can either quantifiably measure or even just anecdotally like a story where you're like, oh, this changed the way we do things.

It gave us the ability to hire more people.

Yeah.

Yeah, so it was just myself. We'd hired one administrative contractor, contracts administrator, and we needed more people in the office. And so as we built the systems out, particularly from the admin side of things, we're able to build this profile and systems folders to be able to induct a new team member. And so we did.

Yeah.

Yeah.

It's interesting to hear that Jay approached it so early because some business owners, they really have trouble justifying the investment in time and money of a team member to build out process. And they go, oh, we're too small for that. Like, what's the point of putting a process in place? I'm the only one doing it. I'm curious if there are any particular mindsets or thoughts because you guys did it very earlier in the piece and it's helping out now. But obviously there was an investment up front and you don't see the return straight away. So. Yeah, I'm curious to know if that's all Jay or if you have any insights.

I think it mostly came from Jay's drive for the growth. Yeah, you know, the building industry can be slow going, so you might have one house on the go to start with, but you've got to start looking at the next and then the next one for the year after that. So we knew it was inevitable we were going to grow, but we needed the systems to be in place for it to be successful. So I believe that's where the foundation of J's drive for wanting to get in early because he could see what was coming.

Oh, hey, I know you're tuned in right now, so I'll keep this super quick, but you like awesome YouTube videos, don't you? Well, there's not really that many YouTube channels that create great content about how to systemize your small business. So I want to make sure that you catch every video that I publish. So if you haven't already, firstly give this video the thumbs up and subscribe and then go ahead and subscribe to my channel. You can even hit the bell notification to make sure that you're the first to know when I publish anything. So go ahead, do it right now, I'll wait a sec and then I'll transfer you back to the video.

Yeah, and a lot of business owners don't naturally sell, like, see themselves as systems people like you at the start, you're like, yep, I'm a systems person. Whereas I'm curious to know if, like, how does Jay go with the systems? Is he good with following them? Is it the systems for Other people, not for him. Like, how does that work?

Yeah, I mean, I think from. It has been.

It has been full of change and full of challenge. And I think that because Jay is the business owner himself and at one point did everything, had all the hats on, I would say that systems for Jay probably don't come naturally in his areas that aren't his expertise when it comes to building the house and the construction side of things. Absolutely. Systems are his thing. It's the other things. And so that's been the change and challenge is that perhaps it was more reactive when he had to do it himself. But now we've got more of a team and we can work through what's. Which way works best. That's the sort of challenge. Part of what I guess is for him to let go and allow the rest of the team to do it the way it's been systemized.

And that sounds like that'd be a big lesson for Jay. And also, I mean, all business owners go through that. It's that letting go. Have there been any particular big lessons for you in the journey or aha. Moments as you've been learning and applying systemology? I know you went through and you did some work with James Brown, one of our systemologists. So I don't know whether or not it was the work that you did with James, but yeah, just curious to know what you've discovered about this role along the way.

Yeah, mine has been mostly with the team, the cultural side of things. So investing the time in making sure that the team are on board with systemizing. I've spent a lot more time with the team of late just sitting down and extracting all the information from them, asking the questions. That's probably been my. My most valuable time doing the systems work. And then second to that would be the integration with our task management. So now we're really starting to see that it's not just sitting over here for the sake of it. We can now integrate it with our daily tasks. We can set it up for induction programs. Just seeing the wider scope of why we're doing this, after all, has been what I've enjoyed most. Yeah, the biggest wins for me.

And how are you going with the changes we're seeing with AI? Is that something that excites you or scares you or something?

I love it, Jay, and I love it. I really love it. So with the systems that I built, I sort of focused myself initially on the systems that I could.

Put towards the business, the things that I was working on. And it's now allowed us to set up checklists within our. So AI has allowed us to set up checklists within our systems and refine them so well that we've been able to hire a marketer from offshore. So it's been a massive win because that gives me more time to work on the systems and the strategizing part of the business. So we. Yeah, we've been able to sort of offload that. That workflow and task to someone else.

Yeah. So good. As far as, like, in the tail end, if you were chatting with an earlier, younger version of yourself or, you know, someone thinking about becoming a systems champion, is there any advice that you might be able to give them about how to succeed in the role or really anything that comes to mind that might be helpful for them as they start?

Oh, for me, it still comes back to the curiosity thing, just making sure that we're asking lots of questions and sitting next to people and involving them in the process. I think if systems come naturally to you, you'll want to understand those whys, but ask all the questions and document it down, test and trial things.

And then record.

Yeah, yeah. And how about maybe one final one for any business owner who's thinking about sort of going down the systemology journey? How have you found that and is there any advice that you might be able to give them if they're still in that deciding mode?

I would read the book.

Yeah.

I found I sort of jumped ahead when Jay first suggested it to me, I just grabbed a copy of the book and read it. I think that foundation of understanding what it actually is about. So once you selected your systems champion, I would recommend that straight away put the book in front of them and read. I got a lot from that. From a business owner perspective, I would. I would say be open to that change and the challenge, if your systems champion is there, to sort of push a little bit, if there's. If there's gaps in the information, they're there to find them and fill them. So be really open to that. Feeling challenged and maybe a bit uncomfortable through the process.

Yes. And you made me think, have you had a chance to read the new one yet?

Of course I have.

All right. All right. How do you think. Yeah, that compares or. Yeah. Compared to the first book. I'm curious if you've got any insight, seeing the two together and anything where you're just like, oh, that changed the way you think.

Yeah, there's a lot of. There's a lot of familiarity because I'd read and I lived through the course as. As well.

The selection to the systems champion. I even sort of feel now that because there is a portion there in the book that's directed to business owners, a bit of an aha moment for me was perhaps I wasn't the right person to be chosen after all.

Yes.

But that's really exciting to me because as we move the business further and we grow more, it could be time for me to pass the reins on to someone else. So that's probably what I got most out of it, to be honest.

Yeah. Yeah. No. Awesome. Well, I love hearing about your journey and I know working closely with James has had a huge impact. I probably need to have a part two at some point with Jay. Like, I'd love to hear the ripple effects because I think the seeds that you've planted now also will be yielding fruit in the next five, 10 years. Like, the businesses directional have completely changed its course as a result of installing this stuff early. And yeah, just love hearing your journey and sharing it with some others. So thank you so much for your time.

Thanks, Dave.