MBA990 Guest Teacher: Dan Martell- How To Build a Scalable Systems Playbook

Hey there, it's Nicole here, producer of the $100 MBA show and co founder of the Hundred Dollar MBA, a complete business training and community online over at 100 MBA Net. Welcome to today's episode. Now, before you panic, I don't want you to worry. Omar hasn't disappeared. He's just taking a very short break and will be back soon. I'm taking his seat at the mic temporarily so this show doesn't skip a beat, but more importantly so your business can keep running and thriving with our daily doses of business wisdom. Today's episode is a guest teacher lesson. Yep, I'm switching things up for the week and inviting today's guest to teach you a lesson from his area of expertise. I'm sure you're gonna love this one. We've got Dan Martell today teaching us how to build a scalable systems playbook. Dan has built and sold three technology companies and now dedicates his time to coaching high performance SaaS entrepreneurs on how to scale their businesses in a predictable way. This is a pertinent lesson for Omer and me. You know we have a SaaS company, webinar ninja, and I've gotten some great takeaways from Dan's lesson today and I'll be applying those to our business. I'll share those with you at the end. But for now, let's get right into it today and let's get down to business. Today's episode is brought to you by Intercom. We we use Intercom for our company, Webinar Ninja and we love it. We actually made the switch last year and we haven't looked back. Intercom is the business messaging platform that does the manual work for you automatically qualifying leads and scheduling demos. Their chatbot and messenger free you up to focus on the prospects most likely to convert. You can leave your pipeline to chance or you could use Intercom Start for free@intercom.com growth. That's intercom.com Dan is a serial entrepreneur, speaker, investor and former founder of Clarity. Actually, Omar and I met Dan at a conference in Vegas a few years ago and you know, we really hit it off. He's a really nice guy and he's got a lot of business experience and knowledge and we really enjoyed chatting to him about it. So it was a no brainer to bring him onto the show and get his key insights into keeping a business running smoothly and successfully by having systems in place. I know that we wouldn't function keeping both the $100 MBA and webinar ninja running without solid Systems in place. So I'm going to now hand over the mic to our guest and let him give you his best tips. All right, take it away, Dan.

Hi, everyone. I'm Dan Martell, founder of SaaS Academy. Thank you for joining me today. I'm super excited to be here. Today I'll be teaching you how to build a scalable systems playbook. So let's get down to business. Now, you may be a freelancer or an entrepreneur, and you need to hire somebody new because you're growing really quick, but you don't have the time to train them. Maybe you're feeling that way or you had a key hire quit on you and you've got literally nothing documented from their work they've done so far. Or you might be feeling the pain of your team making constant, inconstant mistakes because there's no repeatable system for them to follow. I want to share with you guys today a framework that's going to allow you to work yourself free from the stuff you hate doing doing, to build an operating system for your business to essentially make it sellable and create systems that makes it easy for you to hire and train new employees. Now, I've been building and scaling software companies now for over 20 years. I've been fortunate enough to have built and sold three companies. I've sold over $30 million online. I've hired more than 500 people in my career. And one of the most powerful things that I do from day one is, is build a playbook that my team uses to execute against so that I can deliver consistent results for my customers across all the different business units. So what I wanna share with you guys today are some hot principles that you can use and get results in your business today. And then at the end, I'm also gonna share with you a way to get the templates that I use to bootstrap your playbook and get things kicked off right away. So the first hot principle I wanna share with you is to start with the low value, high frequency. When you think about documenting your operating system or your playbook, the last thing you want to do is schedule three days off site, sit down in front of a Google Docs document, and just sit there and document the whole business. For one reason that never works. What happens is the document usually gets stale within a couple weeks because nobody updates it. And it really doesn't deliver value immediately to you and your business and what you need the most. So what I would suggest is making a list of things that you do on a frequent Basis every day and ask yourself, what's low value? What out of all these items or tasks that I gotta work on, what can I ask somebody else to do for a quarter of your income? That's the really easiest way to think about it. If you're charging $50 an hour or your hours worth $100 an hour, just take a quarter of that and say, who can I hire to do some of these tasks? And I know for a fact that many of you guys have administrative tasks, email processing, customer support, invoices, receivables, operational reporting, whatever it is in your business that other people can do for a fraction of the cost to free up your time. So start with low value, high frequency tasks. That's number one. Two is record, don't document. Most people make the mistakes of sitting down and trying to document everything they're doing. What I recommend is just record your screen. You can use Screenflow, which is a paid application. You can use QuickTime Player on your, on your computer and just record the screen and your audio. And as you're going through the motions of doing the work, I call it the camcorder method. You record your screen and the activities in the flow of getting something done. Save that in a folder that you can share with an assistant or somebody else to actually extract and create the first version of the process document to complete that task. So that's number two. Three is build a program document. A program document is essentially an overview of a key function in your business. So for example, if one of the areas you want to break free from immediately is administrative and financial task, all you do is create an admin and finance document and Google Docs or whatever note tool you want to use, and then just start writing down all of the specific chunks of activity. So it might be creating an invoice, it might be calling on receivables, it may be getting the, you know, the P and L, the profit and loss document for my accountant. It may be paying the bills, it might be updating. I don't know if you've ever had this pain. You know, your credit card either gets stolen or it expires. You got to go update the thousand different SaaS, products or software tools that you use to run your business. So those are all systems that you can just create at a high level in this document. Because even if you don't complete the full process for doing that activity, you're creating the checklist. And what the checklist allows you to do is start documenting. Even if you can't afford to Hire somebody right now to do the work to build that training document, that systems overview, so that if you did bring somebody on part time to help you out with this stuff, you'd have a audited list of activities that you need to get done. So build a program document, don't try to be super granular and build all these little teeny itsy bitsy activity processes. Build the big picture stuff and just leave it in one document so you know where everything is for that function of the business. Number four, always have the process open when you're doing the work. This is a critical culture change and something that I mandate across all my team members. As you're doing the work, you need to document and have the document open that you're actually working against. That way if something changes in the workflow, if the interface of the tool changes, if there's a label that doesn't make sense anymore, or maybe you guys started using a new tool or a different workflow you can update in real time. The last thing you want to have happen is your process documents your playbook getting old and stale. So as a rule, anybody in my company on my teams have to have the process open when they're executing the activity so that that they have the opportunity to tweak it. We also encourage and give permission to anybody else in the team, even if it's not their document they created, to use the suggestions features in the Google Doc to actually suggest changes if they feel there's an easier or better or simpler way to communicate the activity. So always have it open. Number five is shared logins. The thing that you're going to run up against immediately as you start doing this, as soon as you start building your team, as soon as you start asking for other people to support you in building your dreams and goals, is that you have systems that need to be accessed by other people. It could be a freelancer, it could be a part time contractor, it could be your full time staff. And the best way to do this is using a product that allows you to share logins. So there are tools out there like OneLogin, 1Password. I really enjoy using 1Password. I think it's got the best interface, it's simplest to use, but you're gonna want to start migrating every one of your logins for all the different tools that you use to run your business inside of this tool so that you can then create groups for different areas in your business. Maybe you have a marketing folder or group where all the marketing tools that use in the logins Are there so that if you hire somebody to help you with some, you know, marketing automation or some copywriting, etcetera, you can just give them access to that folder. Now, for some of you control freaks listening to this, it's gonna be tough. I'm gonna encourage you to please be open to it. I think we always think about the worst case scenario that somebody's gonna come in there, delete everything I've created, screw something up, embarrass me in front customers. I've been building companies now for 20 years and I can tell you it's never happened to me. Now obviously that requires you to hire great people, but the truth is, is your worst fears are never as bad. And to me, when you make a mistake in front of your customer's eyes, that's your opportunity to step up and show them how great you are anyway. So I love when things go wrong in my business because that's when the real entrepreneur steps up and gets the opportunity to make it right. So I want you to think about the structure of this playbook. The way I suggest people do it is create a spreadsheet in Google Docs Google Sheet and have three tabs on the bottom of this spreadsheet. One tab for systems, the other one for references, and the third one for templates. Systems is where you create kind of the checklist. This is your program overview, documents, or any other kind of system you want to create in your business. That's all there in a spreadsheet and numbered by each row and then it links to a Google document. That way you have one place, I call it the Playbook that all my other Google Docs are referenceable. And what's cool about Google if you use that structure is that you can give permission to one system to one contractor, and you can give them full access to the playbook. But when they want to go click through to that document, they have to request access. So from a security management point of view, it's actually really efficient because Google provides you an incredible suite of tools to install on your mobile device. So you can do it from your mobile phone, you can access those systems. I even have a process for packing my bags as a busy CEO. That way I don't have to stress about it. I have a checklist. I open it up the night before. It takes me an hour to pack and I never forget anything. I don't end up somewhere without my toothbrush. So, three tabs, systems, templates and references. So just a quick recap to talk about some of the key Points and lessons that I want you to take away. Number one, use Google Docs and keep it simple. You know, the spreadsheet is the overall playbook that's references those three tabs, those link to the individual systems or programs that you use. Two, you want to start with a program. So don't sit there and try to be, you know, minute about like I'm going to create something for sending out our broadcast email to our customers every week. You could start there or you could just create a marketing program. And within there, within that exact same document, you would have that specific activity that you do. And then third is use a checklist overview. Don't get super crazy accuracy and like, oh, you know, like I've seen some people go overboard with like the detail. Just keep it high level. Think about it this way. And this is the primary benefit that I've gotten from building these systems. I've sold my last three companies. And the reason why is we had a very structured way that we got in front of customers. We brought those customers in our world, got them involved in our product and delivered the value that we promised in our marketing. And that to me at the end of the day is what your business is about. So if you can document that and really provide a framework for new employees to follow to be productive as fast as possible. This is the benefit outside of all the stuff I've shared with you is if I hire somebody and I have a program overview, my training for them is go do this stuff, read about it, and then you can ask them to complete a test, 13 questions around that topic. And those 13 questions are designed to really test the depth understanding that person has on that program or that process or that system. So it's really neat because it allows you to scale up really quick. You can give somebody the system, have them consume it, read it, you can have everything around your HR policies, et cetera. And then you have a test to know that they actually read it and understand it. And if they fail the test, it means they didn't read it. And if they did, they're good to go. Give them access and they get to pretty productive. So. All right guys, this was Dan Martell. If you want to continue learning about scaling your company and learn more about Playbooks, you can visit dan martell2lmartel.com playbook to download my exact templates, my playbook with all my different reference documents and systems for you to copy, tweak, play with to get you going as fast as possible. Thanks again for joining me today.

Today's episode is brought to you by Indiegogo. As an entrepreneur, you're always putting in 110%. From late nights to weekends, you're willing to work hard to bring your idea to life. No one understands this better than the Experts@Indiegogo. What's Indiegogo? Pioneering the crowdfunding platform Indiegogo has been helping entrepreneurs go from idea to market since 2008, offering exclusive partnerships with top manufacturing, shipping and retail companies, as well as live 24. 7 support and innovative tools. They are with you at every step. Plus, with a global backer network that's millions strong and innovative pre and post campaign tools such as pre launch pages and in demand, you'll be empowered to launch big and keep the momentum going all the way to market. So are you ready to turn your product or idea into the next big thing? Whether you're in need of a pre launch strategy or looking for manufacturing and shipping support, Indiegogo's experts will be there 24. 7 ready to guide you at every stage of your entrepreneurial journey. To get started, download Indiegogo's free crowdfunding field guide at www.google indiegogo.com 100mba that's www.indiegogo.com 100mba thank you so much Dan for that lesson. It's been a few years now that we've had more structured systems in our business, but I still got a lot out of Dan's lesson. As he said, you need to be on top of revising and updating your procedures all the time. I mean, especially today, apps and tools are changing so fast new ones are being added. You need to be on top of making sure your are up to date and are still being used. I mean, you've spent all that time writing them up. You want to be able to have your team use them right? So I love the idea of having your teammates constantly referring to the procedure as they do their work. If you're still getting started or your team is not that big yet, you can still start now. And I think one of Dan's biggest takeaways was to keep it simple. The simple checklist of tasks that he mentioned is the best way to begin and then you can begin to nut out the finer details of each procedure. I remember the early days of this podcast, which is now four years ago and it was just Oma and me working on it. We didn't have all the procedures outlined as, you know, we knew what each one was responsible for and so we didn't bother writing it Down. Now that's obviously not good practice and as they say, necessity is the mother of invention. So as soon as we added more teammates like we got a full time sound engineer Carl and we got a content creative on board Connor. We had to write everything down and have a clear system in place. Otherwise there's just no way we would have gotten to episode 990 if this whole production wasn't highly systematized. We use Basecamp now for our project team management. So we've created very detailed to do lists for every single episode. And that works great because as soon as someone completes a task, everyone on the project gets notified and they're queued to complete their task. This of course saves a lot of time chasing people up and following up on every to do like sending an email, hey, have you completed that task? When are you going to do it? And that just would not work and it's a huge waste of time. But with a solid system in place, you can be freed up to do all the other things that you need to do in your business. So Basecamp works really well for us. But you can just stick to Google apps, using the spreadsheets, using the Google Docs, using Google Calendar to set reminders. You know, there's other ways you can go around it before you actually start paying for a software like Basecamp. Do what's best for your business and only start to invest in others tools and software when the time is right. Well, I hope you've enjoyed that lesson. Dan has been kind enough to offer you his business Playbook templates. It's a free download of his core system templates to create your own business Playbook. These are a collection of procedures and reference documents to run your business on autopilot. I love this. Thank you so much Dan. And guys, these are free for you if you pop in your name and email over at Dan Martell with two L's danmartel.com playbook again that's danmartel.com playbook thank you again for listening today. It's been my pleasure to fill in for Omar and as always, if you enjoy the show, leave us a rating and review. You can do it straight from your device and we'll send you showers of love and good vibes for you and your business. That's it for today. Tomorrow I have another guest lesson for you. I'm bringing on Carrie Olson to teach you how to get better results with your sales page using three principles from acting. Curious about that? You should be. It's a great one. I'll catch you tomorrow. Take care.