How Successful Business Systems Give You Freedom
We all know a business owner who is a slave to their business. You know the type, they work, and they work, and they never seem to get ahead. Heck, you might have even been living this life. Or you might know someone who did and now seems free of such a grind.
We all also know a business owner who is always posting travel photos, seems to thrive and to enjoy life while their business runs without them. And we often wonder, how do they do it? How did they break free of the day-to-day busy work of their business and yet keep their business not just successful, but growing to further their lifestyle?
Well, the truth is, it isn’t that hard. The key is building the systems as soon as you can in all parts of your business.
I recently started a new business from scratch. Literally from zero dollars! I knew that I needed to do two things:
1). Make it profitable immediately.
2). Build the systems so I didn’t have to do all the work and could continue to travel and enjoy my life.
My first step was in building a business plan that projected how I was going to get from zero to my goal and the steps I would need to take to get there. I then established who could help me get there. I relied heavily for the first 90 days on a virtual team, so I didn’t have to worry about direct staff expense. The third thing I did, was develop a marketing plan to let people know what I was doing so I could sign up clients.
That’s not enough though …
A key to being able to work with a virtual team is to build up a system that sets repeatable deliverables, defines my expectations, and implements my policies. The systems allow the team its freedom to operate and achieve my business goals.
Today, the majority of my marketing and administrative work is handled by others who do a fantastic job! A job that gets done the way I want, while allowing them to leverage their skills, expertise, and giving them opportunities to provide me with excellent feedback and advice as well. This all happened by establishing clear guidelines on what I wanted and setting clear expectations on deadlines and end results. In other words, a complete functional system that the virtual team could use 24/7.
For instance, I wanted to publish a weekly blog and newsletter reliably. I worked with my team, and we agreed on a clear strategy with deadlines. Each week, or well in advance, all content is compiled by a Tuesday deadline so that on Wednesday the team can finalize all the content for a Thursday/ Friday publish date. So long as everyone does their job, everything works perfectly. I’m happy to report that for the last several months we haven’t had a problem.
Another instance was in setting up social media posts weeks in advance using Meet Edgar. My team and I set up a system so that they could take my marketing plan ideas and goals for the month and compile photos, quotes, national day celebrations and other promotions for our upcoming campaigns. They then prep all the posts so I could approve them in advance. From there, the posts are entered into Meet Edgar and scheduled for posting. Voila, the nightmare of social media posting solved so I can enjoy my life – all made possible by a straightforward system being put in place which we all follow.
Systems are the culmination of clear policies, why are we doing this, coupled with clear procedures, templates, and checklists that ensure that the project gets done correctly from start to finish. Systems take work to define and establish – after all, they are ultimately what implement your business’ goals. Like all systems, mine are far from perfect: they evolve with your business and improve as they are used. That said, even from their imperfect beginnings, the systems I have used are what have helped me previously build a 7-figure business while giving me freedom. Now systems are enabling me to create yet another successful business.
Systems are vital to building a thriving, profitable company. I have been fortunate to have them work for me and even more fortunate to have helped hundreds of business owners build systems to get them closer to their freedom. If you spend the time, I know they will work well for you in your business.
Next time you see a successful business owner enjoying their life, look deeper, and you will likely find a reliable infrastructure with systems!
So, start building your business systems and find your freedom!