The Importance Of Systems & Processes In Business [Why Every Business Needs Them]

The Importance Of Systems & Processes In Business

As a business owner, your goal is to make everyone's lives in the organization easier.

The easier it is to work at your organization, the faster you can achieve breakthrough success as a business.

When everyone knows exactly what they're aiming for, they're a lot more likely to achieve it.

When everyone has systems to follow in order to achieve what it is they're aiming for, their chances of success are 100x higher.

However, there's a big problem with how the majority approach business today.

They're stuck in the notion that running a business is challenging and takes a lot of hard work.

This then bleeds through into their business, and so everything from the start to the end is flawed.

Not only does this make it hard to grow your business, but it also makes everyone's lives more challenging when they're struggling to understand what they're supposed to do.

That's where business systems and processes come into play.

Business systems and processes are the key to business success at any scale.

No matter how big or small your business is, systems and processes can help you get bigger, faster.

In this article, we're learning about the importance of systems & processes in business.

What is the difference between systems and processes?

Every business is a massive system made up of many more systems.

A system is something that helps run your business more efficiently.

You may have systems for the following things:

Marketing,
Sales,
Communication,
Product development,
Customer support,
Content creation.

Depending on your business, you'll have slightly different systems and processes.

On the other hand, the processes are what help your systems run smoothly.

For example, if we're looking at marketing, our process might look something like this:

Go on Facebook ads manager
Create new campaign
Choose conversion
Choose [audience]
Use ad creative
Write the ad copy
Launch the ad

There might be a few more steps to make it as detailed as possible, however, that's the gist of it.

If you're looking to learn about Facebook Ads, I urge you to read my article on setting up and running your first Facebook Ad campaign.

Now that we understand the difference between systems and processes, let's talk about why they're so important and why every business needs them.

Simplicity is key

When I used to run my marketing agency, there was one big problem that I faced.

I didn't have any systems and processes in place.

This, in turn, made it 100x harder to run the business - and it eventually led to failure.

When it comes to a marketing agency, it's very simple to systemize.

You need systems for finding clients.

You need systems for reaching out to them and booking a call.

You need systems to close the clients.

Then you need systems to deliver great results and keep them for a long time.

When you're able to fully systemize these 4 parts of the business, you're able to scale very quickly and increase your client base rapidly.

The systems I just mentioned that work for a marketing agency can also be applied to most businesses.

You need to find customers, get customers to buy, then get repeating business.

Once again, your goal as a business owner is to make everyone's lives easier.

When everyone has systems and processes in place that they can follow, it's a lot easier to get the work done.

The simplest businesses are always the ones that are able to scale further, faster.

At your business, you need one way to find clients or customers.

There are likely hundreds of ways to acquire customers - make it your goal to choose one that works for you, and do it.

Build systems and processes around it, and make sure everyone understands them.

When my partner and I hired a VA, we realised that social prospecting was working really well for us.

We hired our VA through a VA agency, and so we didn't need to do a lot of the training ourselves.

When we started to introduce things like email prospecting, we started to lose momentum because we started to lose simplicity.

This applies across the board with all the other fundamental steps in your business.

There's likely a ton of ways to do every part of your business.

Find a single system that works well, and stick to it.

Continuous improvement

When you have a simple and repeatable process in place to run your business, it becomes a lot easier to keep growing and improving.

Let's say that you spend £100 per day on Facebook ads, and you generate £250 back.

You're easily able to quantify the success of this campaign and improvise to make sure that you're slowly improving.

Or let's use a simpler example.

If we're reaching out to 100 businesses per day for our marketing agency, we might be getting 5 replies per day.

We are then able to split test different scripts, different approaches, different software, and so on, to see what yields better results.

One day, you might implement a completely new messaging sequence.

This may result in 2 replies out of 100.

Is this just an anomaly, or is it because of the script itself?

You're able to figure this out by looking at the historical trend in your data.

Over the past few weeks, you've been averaging 5 booked calls, however, there are sudden dips where this might be between 0-3.

Therefore, you give the script a few more days, and you realise that this script helps you book 7/100 calls instead of 5/100.

Now you've made a pretty big improvement in your conversion rate.

When you have quantifiable data to work off, it's a lot easier to make improvements because you're able to look at the numbers.

After launching Hawk Prospecting, I decided to do outbound prospecting to find my users.

I specifically reached out to 50 people per day, and I was able to see how many replies I got, how many new sign-ups, etc.

To begin with, I would send a very spammy message asking people to sign up, since I thought that no harm can be done since it's a free service.

However, after a few days, I realised that I was having no success with this approach, and so I changed up my systems and processes.

Instead of sending a 1-message sequence, I split it up into 3-5 messages (depending on the replies I received).

This drastically boosted my reply rate, and I was able to build real relationships with the people I was reaching out to, getting them to try out the software.

Work clarity & consistency

A while ago, I was reading a book called 'The E-Myth Revisited,' when the author mentioned the Mcdonald's story.

Ray Kroc, the man who later bought Mcdonald's, stumbled across this small fast-food restaurant and was immediately taken away by it.

The McDonald's brothers had everything under control, they had amazingly precise and accurate systems and processes to make each and every bite the exact same.

No matter how many different burgers you buy, your experience will always be the same.

Time after time, Ray Kroc was unable to find any flaws in their system - the burgers came out the same every time.

One day, Ray approached the brothers and asked to invest in their company - the start of what we all now know as one of the most successful businesses in the world.

The reason there are almost 40,000 McDonald's restaurants open around the world is because of the amazingly simple and replicable systems and processes they have.

To start a franchise, there's a very simple system to follow.

To make the burgers, the drinks, the chicken, the salad, and the fries we all love, there's a simple and specific system to follow for each.

Michael Gerber, the author of The E-Myth Revisited, said that with systems and processes this simple, you can put almost anyone in control of the job.

If you want to know whether your systems and processes are powerful and effective enough, put a child in charge of them and see what happens.

If the child fails to follow the systems you've created, then they're too complicated.

However, if the child succeeds, you've created systems and processes that can be replicated.

Whenever you have systems and processes that can be easily replicated, it allows for consistency in your results.

You're able to estimate, and even understand what the end result will look like before it ever happens.

When you send 100 messages a day to 100 prospects, you're going to expect to get those 5 replies from the work you put in.

On top of this, everyone at your organization is going to understand exactly what it is they need to do to succeed in their roles.

They're going to be crystal clear on what their job entails, and understand what it is they need to do to get it done.

That is the power of systems and processes.

Easy hiring process

Hiring is one of the most important skills you need to have as a business owner.

It's part of your job to find the right people who fit your organization and put them in charge of things they'll excel at.

When you're able to hire the right people, you're able to supercharge your business' growth.

There's a reason why McDonald's isn't the highest paying job in the world - and I don't mean this in a rude way, but a logical way.

They have spent dozens of years working on and perfecting their systems, making them as simple and replicable as possible.

They do this to make sure customers get the best experience possible while driving their costs down because they don't need to rely on people's skills which cost more.

Therefore, McDonald's doesn't hire people for their skills, but more so to oversea the operations of the restaurants.

To make a burger, you simply take one of the perfectly cut patties and put it on the grill for an exact amount of time.

Whilst that's happening, you take out a bun, and put it in the toaster for 30 seconds.

You take them out, put them together, put a circle of sauce, a handful of lettuce, a slice of cheese, and the burger is ready.

Although the systems need humans to run, it's almost automatic how the process works.

When you hire new people, you're able to show them documentation of everything they need to do to be successful in their role.

They don't need to spend a long time warming up to the new job, they can simply follow the SOPs (standard operating procedures) outlined.

Whenever they're stuck, they can simply refer to the documentation.

These give new hires a very easy onboarding journey - they can clearly see what is expected of them, and how their role affects the organization as a whole.

Instead of having to go through a long and tedious onboarding and training journey, these systems and processes can make it much faster and more efficient.

This doesn't mean you should go and hire anyone - you will still need to make sure that people have the necessary skills for the job, and are the right culture fit.

However, the purpose of these systems is to greatly reduce the work needed to onboard new employees.

Unlock scalability

We've finally reached the point I've been dying to talk all about.

The most important part of systems and processes is the fact that it enables you to grow your business at breakneck speeds.

In order to scale your business, you're going to need to make sure that you've got the capacity to scale.

When you systemize your business, you're reducing the costs of operating, which in turn allows you to spend more money on growing your business.

However, this is not the main enabler for growth and scale.

Everything we've spoken about until now has been a piece of the puzzle in allowing your business to grow.

To scale your business, you first need a rock-solid foundation that allows you to grow.

Think of your business as a table, for a second - a table with 4 legs.

Each leg represents one system - marketing, sales, product development, hiring, etc.

These legs can be anything your business needs to operate successfully - each business will have slightly different legs.

Now lets imagine that you don't have your sales process systemized, one of the legs are now broken.

Will the table be able to stand up without a fourth leg? It would most likely fall over due to the imbalances caused.

That's the same with your business - you're unable to grow when all the cogs in your business are not in harmony.

Next, you need to ensure that you've got the capacity to scale.

Let's say you're a small agency owner with 2 clients - this is your limit until you decide to systemize your business.

You build the right systems and processes, you hire the right people, and all of a sudden, you're able to handle 5 clients or more at a single time.

This allows you to open the flood gates and take on more and more clients.

As you take on more clients, your business has the necessary infrastructure to handle a larger number of clients - you've also got the systems to keep on growing as your business grows to take on even more clients.

The growth you're able to achieve when you've got the systems and processes in place is almost unlimited.

If you're running an online business, or a service based business, this is truly where you start to se exponential growth.

As an eCommerce business owner, however, there might be times where you have to slow down, make some major changes, then keep growing.

Now you understand the importance of business systems and processes.

Start to think about how your business can take advantage of systems and processes.

Find me on social media if you need help with thinking through the right systems for your business.

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Till next time,

Mohamad

Mohamad Alasadi

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