Most of the time, if you’re the owner of a business and you are very hands-on, you’ll end up wearing many hats. Sometimes all in the same day!
If you don’t have a systematic way to deal with daily activities, or you don’t understand how to create a system around your daily activities, you’ll end up in chaos.
That’s why I like to look at running a business within the 8-Profit Activator framework, which is broken down into the before unit, the during unit, and the after unit.
The first thing to do is look at what needs to be optimized in each of the three units because that gives you a target to systematize.
So in the before unit, you can ask yourself, “Do I need more clients coming in the door?”, “Do I need to spend less on getting new customers in the door?”, or “Do I need to do a better job of nurturing the people who aren’t ready yet?”.
If you look at your during unit, you might ask questions like, “Did I offer everything to my customer that they requested?”, “Where could I add more value to their time while they work with me?”, or “Did I continue to deliver a great service, even after I’ve been paid?”.
And finally in your after unit, “How can I continue our relationship?”, “Did I give them the opportunity to remember me if they hear conversations I can help with?”, or “What proactive steps can I take to know when they are likely to need me again?”.
I recommend you operationalize the units one at a time. Look to see how you can make each unit more efficient and effective by putting in systems that answer these questions.
Look to see how you can make each unit more efficient and effective by putting in systems that answer these questions.
What can you do to solve the problem, where the system doesn’t rely on you remembering to put that hat on & do the work yourself?
Now you have a system and moved from chaos to clarity.