Episode 3-47: Wealth In Business Comes From Systems

Hey guys, it is Alex here. I am podcasting from beautiful Florida. For those of you that are watching on IG TV you can see the beautiful bay behind me. I want to talk about how this week I was able to really see all the systems that I’ve put in place. I can see them working. My business continues to grow and I want to talk about how I was able to do that.

So, the first part about creating a business that is going to be profitable for the long term and a business that you can exit from, in other words that you can sell or that you can give someone to manage while you do other thing, and the business continues to bring you profit is systems. You must have systems in place. So, what does that look like to you? So, as I’m sitting here right now I am overlooking the bay and you can hear the waterfall behind me. That’s the waterfall from the pool at the vacation house we’re staying at. And my business is running without me.

And that’s the first thing you need to think about with your business and creating true wealth is what are the things that I can do right now and remove myself from it. And it needs to be a process where you slowly but surely remove yourself from all aspects of the business. And for me, the last step in that has been the sales side. I started to change my business and create systems around it with the operation side, in other words with actually fulfilling the orders that I was selling. And then, I moved into fulfilling some of the content, in other words the growth tasks around my business. I looked at basically building up my own marketing team around me. And then, after I built up my own marketing team then I realized that my team, the ones that were fulfilling the orders and the ones that were creating the content, I saw that there were some that they needed some help.

And so, I started automating tasks. I moved into automation which has been amazing. Automation, when you can automate a process it eliminates human error and it eliminates wasted labor hours. And so, as I moved to continue to automate more aspects of my business I noticed a couple things. One, my profit margins went up and two we were able to accomplish more in an eight hour period.

Now, what were the things that we were focusing on during this time? First I started by simply trying to automate, delegate, and systemize the business that I had at the time. Then I looked at where I wanted to grow, what I wanted to do with my business, and the next phase. And as I started to once, because I knew I had a good team, so as I started to map everything out I looked at what roles, what additional tasks the people on my team could help with and who else I needed to add to my team so that we could continue to grow and not overwhelm the people that I currently have. Because if I overwhelm them, then the things that they’re currently doing well will start to suffer. And the things that they’re doing well now may get pushed aside for new stuff because they’ll simply run out of time.

So, I needed to make sure that I had number one some people in place to do things, and number two that I had a plan in place to bring more people on. And so, for us lately that meant bringing on a video guy. He only does videos on our team. The more videos we produce the more money that we’re able to generate with leads and sales for some of our more passive revenue streams. And to build a business that you can exit from and that can run without you one of the other things that I think every business needs is a passive income stream, in other words money that’s coming in without you having to work for it. Passive income is not easy to generate but it is possible and it is something you should strive to do.

For us, some of that passive income is affiliate revenue, for some of that it is coaching revenue, and for some of that our passive revenue is being able to sell information products. Because once people buy an information product from us there’s no labor hours required to actually deliver the service since they get access to it immediately. So those passive revenue streams provide a cushion for us if our core business, the agency side starts to suffer a little bit.

But what does it look like for you? Well, a passive revenue stream or one that is scalable and growable without more labor hours could be group coaching, it could be providing maintenance and warranties which could increase your revenue, it could be affiliate. I believe almost every business could use an affiliate. It could be creating a referral program. It could be creating informational products that your current customers may want to buy from you. There’s a lot of different ways that you can generate passive revenue for your business. I believe, like I said, that every business could have passive income. I don’t believe it’s easy. I do believe it’s possible.

As you start to grow in this and as you start to delegate and automate something’s going to happen to you as the business owner because you started your business as a solopreneur. You were the one person in your business doing everything. And as you start to delegate and automate and other people start doing the things that run the business on the day to day level you’re going to start to feel a little bit less important and that’s okay. That’s a part of the growing process. It stinks but it’s a part of the growing process.

And so, what you need to look at as you’re analyzing what you’re doing is what are you going to do so that you’re able to feel fulfilled on a regular basis. For me, what I’m working on doing myself as I delegate and automate literally every part of my business right now is I look at what am I doing to provide career fulfillment that is not me doing the operations and isn’t even me performing sales anymore? Because I’m bringing on a sales person. What does it look like? And so for me, what that looks like is being able to identify new opportunities so that I can encourage my team to go after them. It looks like identifying new information products for us to create. And it looks like continuing to provide support to my team as they carry out the tasks.

It doesn’t mean that I force myself to work eight to 10 hours a day. It doesn’t mean that the things that I used to do I hop in and and do even though they’ve been assigned to my team. Because that’s, if you delegate something and then take it back you’re creating confusion and chaos and a system and a process that’s been perfectly executed up to this point.

And so, for you as a business owner as you delegate and automate you’re going to notice a couple of things. One, you’re going to notice your revenue will take a dip on the first as you start to initiate these things because your costs are going to go up as you bring on more labor and you bring on more tools. But once you have set a new norm for the amount that you’re able to do then you’re going to notice that your productivity and your revenue goes up, and you’re going to see an increase, and it’s going to establish a new baseline for your business.

When it was just me the absolute most money that I could make in a given month was around $15,000 a month doing what I do. Now, our baseline is almost double that. That’s just a standard month now. And why is that? Because of the delegation and automation that we have in place. If it wasn’t for those things then we would not be able to grow as much revenue on a regular basis, and we would not be able to grow, and our revenue would all be dictated by trading time for dollars. But because we have passive revenue and additional revenue streams we have many more ways to make money.

So for you, as you’re building this out and looking at how to systemize your business and create something that you can exit whether it’s like what I’m doing which is working on looking at other opportunities or identifying new patterns where my team can jump in and take advantage of shifts in the market. Or, you’re maybe looking to exit, sell the company, do something different, then you need to systemize your business. And systems look like having people in place that know exactly what to do so that they can execute it at the same level of excellence that you were able to and automating the processes that you have.

Automation is so important. And it will take some investment of time but it’s going to be worth it in the long run. Documenting your process, doing it, and literally videotaping you doing the thing is a great way to show your team exactly how that task needs to get done. And as you see these systems start to go you’re going to feel a little bit less important to your day to day operations and that’s okay because you created something powerful that will last, that you can build on, you can grow, and you can leverage as you look at other opportunities for yourself with the resources and talents you have. I hope this podcast inspired you. I’m excited to hear the results as you look to delegate and systemize your business. I’ll talk to you guys later.

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