This week at the number one business coaching programs in America I learned about systems in business. Systems are the framework of success. Successful companies across the globe use them, from Chick-fil-A to Quiktrip to Wal-Mart. Every part of these companies involve a system; hiring, training, managing, selling, answering the phone, even the cleaning has a system in place to ensure quality work is complete.
Creativity begins when there is balance and organization.
A system is for the 0.09 percent who will grow a successful company. You have worked hard to create a product or service that people want to pay you for and you do it so well you’ve got repeat business! Now the repeat business is growing and you need an extra set of hands. Time to hire an employee! Fantastic! Double the hands, double the work that gets done. Right? No, in a perfect world this would be accurate but in our world, it is rarely the case when someone is willing to bring equal or greater. It is time to take the business coaching programs knowledge out of your head and put it into a checklist. everything that needs to be done to ensure the business is running smoothly should be in a checklist. Next, scripts, all conversations with customers and potential customers should follow a script. Without scripts in front of the many people panic or lose their train of thought and begin to say anything to get off the phone. (No matter the cost to you!).
Scripts and checklist are just two of the many systems that I have seen firsthand that keep a company going EVEN during moving or selling times. Systems are highly scoffed at for a myriad of reasons. Most of the complaints stem from the “lack of individuality” and the “stifling of creativity” that systems produce. I disagree with each air quotation. Creativity begins when there is balance and organization. When there is no plan, chaos ensues, and there is no individuality in chaos, the chaos just causes panic.
The number one thing I have learned this week at the business coaching programs is that having systems in place gives you freedom. Time and financial freedom to do the things you want to do but didn’t have the finances or time to do in the past: now you can spend the afternoon with your family at a water park or go on a week-long hiking trip.
Remember, a business exists to serve its owner. It is extremely difficult to serve the owner if the business crumbles the moment the owner takes a hand off the steering wheel. In most small businesses as soon as the owner leaves chaos ensues, little work gets done or no work gets done. Put our systems in place to ensure that your business can bring you the same quality of work without your constant presence.
