One of the great things about making the choice to start your own business is the constant learning curve.
There’s always something more you can learn that will improve what you do in some way, even more so in the environment we’re in now where change is coming at us so rapidly.
Or as Marshall Goldsmith put it…
“What got you here won’t get you there”
One framework I rely on to help me diagnose what we may need to focus on next in your business is The Journey to Leverage click here.
Think of it as a map of the six stages an advice business or practice goes through en route to the ultimate end game of a stand-alone business that can continue to grow and endure without the input of the founder(s).
Problem is that bang in the way between profitable and efficient lies a space no one wants to get stuck in
The dangerous middle.
The middle is like quicksand. The longer you stay in there, struggling to get out through sheer strength of effort alone, the more it sucks you down.
The antidote? Systemisation
The video I wanted to share is the five-minute summary of a session I ran all about how to get through this, but it’s not just about trotting out the same old “Work on Your Business” line.
I get that it’s a bit more challenging than that for a few key reasons.
There are few of us as business owners who wouldn’t want more time to work on their business. What stops us from doing it is lack of time, split focus, having to do other things.
Here’s the paradox.
How do you solve the time problem? By having systems that allow you to hand things off and do things more easily.
How do you create the systems? By investing time to build them.
Not easy, right?
Most of us I can’t afford to take the McDonald’s route and hut the restaurant for six months to sit down and build them all, yet the longer we leave it, the more clients come on board, the more staff we need, the more technology we use…
…you get it.
Thankfully I’ve been working on this one a lot recently.
In fact, I’ve never seen as much demand across businesses I work with for systemisation as I think is happening right now.
My solution works like this.
1. Start at the right place
The process you need most is the one that will most free up your time.
It’s those recurring tasks that chew up most of your time, the ones that present themselves when you ask
“What is the stuff that if I could find somebody else to do, had a resource or had the time, or the money, I would hand off?”
Usually, they’re also not what you may think they are.
Often the mistake is in thinking handing over the advice-related tasks is the no-brainer when, if we go by the book, the order of handover is usually administrative tasks, followed by the advice related stuff, then sales & marketing and then finally handing over the process of improving the processes.
2. Accelerate Process Mapping
Have a system whereby, or more specifically you and your team, can get the systems documented much, much faster.
I’m talking not “I’ll get as much done as I can in twenty minutes”, rather than a system where it’s done in 20 minutes because, well, it needs to be.
Do it faster. It’s the only way, otherwise, you’ll never have the time.
3. Create a Blueprint
If you do steps 1 & 2 right, you’ll now have the time and headspace to approach this properly, which we all know means having a plan.
That means really stepping back and looking at it from a big picture perspective and asking big questions like…
“What does the complete picture look like when my business is finished?”
“Which processes will I have effectively put in place when my business is there?”
“What would I need to create to 3x everything and still be able to manage it?
And that right there is, at a very high level, the system that leads to systemisation at speed.
PS. If this and all of what I’ve shared in 2021 interests you and you’re thinking you might like to explore whether working with someone like me, my team and the peer group of advice professionals that make up the Leveraged community, then now may be the time to talk about how you’d like to start 2022 (ie. really, really well).
Enrolments for both our Leveraged Advice Firm & Leveraged Online programs close on 8 December (as do our 2021 membership plans), so feel free to drop me a line at help@audere.com.au to chat or check out details of the programs here.
