Where To Start Systemizing Your Business

The good thing about the critical client flow and as you hand out some of the sheets, is that it's good to keep coming back to because it will focus your attention on the 10 to 15 systems that are essential to deliver your core product or service. Now, I often say that it's really important to focus now. That's what I often say. Ah, good. Okay. And I say, listen in right now as I give you some further instructions because it will help you. So for the critical client flow, even if you've done it before, you want to continually work this. It's a great way actually to train your staff to think about where do people come into the business, how do we handle that inquiry? How do we sell them, how do we start delivering the core product or service, how do we get them to come back? Because your new team members will then start to go, and where do I fit into in this equation? I'm the receptionist at the front who handles those incoming inquiries. I now see why it's important for me to correctly populate the CRM, because that information is then used by the sales team to then have the best shot at connecting with the prospect and moving them down the line and creating a proposal. And the team member, when they understand this, they then can start to see where they fit into your business and how they contribute value to what's going on in your business. So the critical client flow answers the question, where do I start? What are the first 10 to 15 systems? So in the top left hand corner, you'll start off by thinking about, what is your target client? Now, the target client is the dream client. Who is the client who pays your advertised prices, who's a pleasure to deal with, who refers friends and family, who you would love 100, 200, 1000 more clients just like that focus, get that person clear in your head that becomes your target client or someone you want to work for. Ideally, it's easiest to start with, great question, an existing client. Because if you have already worked with them and you know that they're a pleasure to deal with, articulate what it is about them. You might go, it's a residential client that's, you know, a family with two adults, two kids, and in X price bracket or something, because then that helps you kind of really focus. And the reason we, we need that focus is to help us to populate these, the rest of the boxes. And anytime you get stuck on any box, you come back and you say, what would be the next step for that target client? I just want to capture one instance Here, then the next thing that we do is we identify the primary product or service that we sell to that person. So what was the first thing, if you think about that dream client, what was the first product or service that they took you up on? Was it an emergency call out for some electrical work and then they moved on and we built the relationship and then they went somewhere else? Is it that your target client was going for big tenders and it's a large organization that puts out a tender, but what is the first thing that you would sell to them? All we're doing, again, we come back to this idea of just because we don't document it doesn't mean it's going to magically stop happening in your business. I just want you to get very clear on who is the dream client that you want more of and what is the first thing that you would sell to them. Then the next step after that is we then just map the linear journey that they go through. Now, there's a couple of rules here. The rule is only capture what you're currently doing, not what you would like to be doing. Because it's really easy as business owners to go, I would love to be using this new HubSpot CRM thing. We don't quite do it. Now. I don't want to document the way that I'm currently handling those incoming inquiries on a spreadsheet because it seems a bit silly. We're going to have to do that and then I'm going to have to rewrite it anyway because going to be rolling out HubSpot soon. Okay, well, let's just write HubSpot and then we start going to where the future is, not where you are right now. And then that gets in the way of getting it done. If you capture what you're currently doing and making it repeatable, that then gives you the space to start optimizing. Optimizing happens later. So as you do this, just think about what you are currently doing. If you are entering those names into a spreadsheet, that's effectively what we're going to be thinking about, because that's what you're currently doing. How do you currently grab the attention of your target audience? Are you using social media? Is it word of mouth? Like, how do you currently get your leads when the inquiry comes in? How does the inquiry usually come in? Is it through your website? Is it an email? Does someone pick up the phone and call? Then what does your sales process look like? Do you first have a qualifying call with them? Do you determine if they're a good fit, then what happens? Okay, well we go out on site and we look at what the job is and then what happens after that? We go back and we create the proposal. Okay, well that then becomes a step. Now, these boxes, by design, they're only little. I did that deliberately. So you can only write two or three words in there. The details and everything will come later. For now, we just want a high level understanding and understand that each one of these potentially will turn into a system or a process. These boxes might just be the high level identification on what those first few systems are that you're going to capture. Then we move down and okay, money. Do you collect money up front? I know some trades don't. They do the job and then they collect money on the other side. What happens in your business? There we go. It's good if you can take the money up front, that's for sure. So where do you collect the money? Do you issue out an invoice? And then how are you onboarding clients? Like getting them into your system? And then there's the delivery, which is the doing of the work. Now I know some of these, you could probably write a whole page on how you do the work or a whole page on how you onboard clients. I get it. The detail comes later. For now, all we're doing is we're capturing high level. We have some form of onboarding process so we know that that's a system that will need to be captured. And then we move down the delivery. And then is there any sort of handover at the end? Like once the job is done, do we try and say, hey, here it's done. We walk them through what the work is and then we try and win more work and then hopefully they become a lifelong client. So it's really that linear journey that I want to capture. And if there are gaps in here, fantastic like that, that shows you it's just a point to note. Oh, you know what, I only have word of mouth in the way that I get people's attention. There's a good chance maybe that you don't have a really consistent lead flow and that will be a warning or a signal for you at some point. If every problem in business is a say the word systems problem. Thank you. They say the word, say it, then we know that. Okay, well, we need to go to work on our lead generation system.