For a book about systems, it has a funny definition!

So you want to know what the definition of a system it's like what is a system.

And when you think systems, if you've been in business for any length of time, then when you think systems, you will think one book Emeth.

Like it's the Bible, it's the one that brought it out into the awareness and the consciousness of business owners.

And this is my second read through.

So I actually lost my first copy, no idea where it went.

And I bought the E Myth revisited.

So this was a variation on it came out in 1995.

And in chapter 18, the Bible on systems finally gives its definition Michael comes out.

And He says, throughout this book, I have talked about systems without really defining what a system is.

So let me do that here.

So here's our definition, a system is a set of things, actions, ideas, and information that interact with each other.

And in doing so, alter other systems.

Let me read that, again.

This is the definition from the Bible, of business systems.

A system is a set of things, actions, ideas, and information that interact with each other, and in doing so alter other systems.

Now, what does that mean? When I first read that I'm like, man, I've been I've been really digging the book, there's a lot of insights, there's a lot of wisdom.

There are a lot of things that I'm like, Yep, got it.

totally see that.

And then I came to that definition.

I'm like, Dude, what am I meant to do with that? Like, how does that help me understand what a system is? Okay.

It's a bunch of things that alter a bunch of other things.

Am I wow, that is like a giant, a Morpheus.

Mix, that doesn't really help me work out how to build a system, how to run my business on systems, like, well, kind of taken aback.

Bit awkward bit of an awkward moment.

Like, alright, well, okay, well, if this is a problem with this, isn't that useful, then? Well, Tom, you better have something better? I might well, okay, look, if I was going to throw out a new definition of what a system is, then, look, this is what I came up with.

What is the system, it's the execution of documented processes to create a consistent result, the execution of documented processes to create a consistent result, or in short, systems create results.

Now that result may be more than one thing.

By running through a system, there may be more than one document or webpage or whatever the system is meant to generate.

But the overall idea is that there is a consistent result done by the system.

Now that result may go ahead and influence other systems, which is totally fine.

That gets back to Michael's definition, totally cool.

But now at least you've got some idea about what a system actually is.

Let's break down and have a look at these pieces.

What is execution, the execution means to run, to do some work, to take a process and do it now?

Most of you will have businesses where this stuff is just done with undocumented processes, which is fine, but you get the idea that something has to be done.

Now, do systems just do this by themselves? Look, we live in a tech age.

And so sometimes yes, if you go on Zapier, or if you go on If This Then That, or if you're using advanced marketing systems, like Infusionsoft, then yes, some stuff can happen.

So it can be done by computers.

But more typically, it's going to be done by human beings.

Yes, your team, your people, they are going to be the ones executing it.

It's not just the documentation.

It's not just the structure, someone's actually got to do the damn work.

So the execution gets done either by automation or by people.

And something gets done.

Now, what do they do? Well, they do documented processes.

Now, why is documented in there? Well, it's really easy to do work.

It's undocumented.

This is what the vast majority of people are doing.

They're just doing the work and I kind of know what I want.

I'm going to go for that I do my best, but there's no documentation.

Now, does this have to be super detailed? No.

It definitely does not.

It can be done in stages.

It may just be the name of a process.

And that's where it is.

Like this is typically how I'll build out my system like alright, well what are the names of the processes? This nice? Okay, great.

And then I go and execute and I learned something, which is often there are a bunch more steps that I forgot about, and then I'm judging and making up for out for decision about Is that a processor is that a part of another process.

And that's a whole different conversation.

But the idea is that at minimum, there's a name of a process.

And as you go through, you can build this out, it's got to be able to handle people who've never done that system for people who've done it a fair bit and see people who are expert like, that's what you that's what your final target is.

But to get there, you can just start with the document name in the process.

Totally cool.

And then as you go along, you can build in more steps, like sometimes I'll just chuck in the name of the template that I'm using, or I'll link to the main part of whatever that process does.

And then next time, we'll come to add a bit more detail, add a bit more detail, add a bit more detail.

So this is an evolving experience.

And this also allows you to improve your processes if things change.

For instance, today I was using otter.ai.

If you're not using otters.ai, I would highly recommend an awesome automated translation service, its accuracy is excellent like we're talking 95 to 98%.

Really good.

Now, traditionally, what I thought you had to do is download the PDF or download the Word document and then upload it back and then copy it across, and I found today they've got a copy to clipboard.

So just copy the clipboard and dump it straight into the template for the email, or whatever it is, this reduces the number of steps, this takes something that was taking the one-minute kind of annoying, into a five-second process, I love otter.ai, go get it, go get it awesome, awesome, awesome, highly useful.

You want to do a transcription of meetings, you're going to do a transcription of if the businesses that you're getting training from too lazy or too, you know, they don't know about auto, you can check their videos into auto and it will make the transcript and then you can just go through and pull out critical information, extremely useful service.

Alright, so let's come back to our definition, we've got execution, we've covered that documented processes, we've covered that to create consistent results, consistent results.

Now, if you execute our documented processes, you will get consistent results.

Like all other things being the same.

Like, let's say that you take the same input and you execute the same processes in a required timeframe, perhaps there are some timeframes on some processes.

But let's say that you meet those, then there will be the same results.

Why is this important? Well, guess what this means is that people can have trust in your business, that they show up, and they get the same experience.

In this book, He speaks of hairdressers or barbers and He goes the first time and it's great, but the next time it's different, and it was a bit off.

And then the next time it's changed again.

And next time he's like I'm not coming back.

Why? Because there are no consistent results.

And this consistency is demonstrated in your marketing, demonstrating your sales process demonstrating your fulfillment.

You can probably get away with less demonstration than I can run a systems business as you like Well, dude, can we see some evidence of your system skills I might make, go check out my Facebook page have a look.

So there should be vast majority of days I didn't miss one day, but there will be a live documented document video like this one.

And then from there, there will be two to three quote carts that get generated that you can see.

And then there is a reposted video from two or three weeks ago, that's been edited.

So you get two videos a day and two to three quote cards, rolling through the feed, rolling through the feed this, this is evidence of a system that consistent result that I'm talking about the demonstration that behind this business, my business is an understanding and the ability to execute a series of documented processes to create a consistent result.

This builds trust.

Because if that's going on in the marketing, then guess what's highly likely to be going on in sales.

Again, a consistent experience and then through to fulfillment, a consistent experience.

Now, this is useful for you.

As a business owner, this is what you want.

You want to be able to demonstrate consistency so that people can trust you.

Unlike the barber with three different experiences, if you show up at the same time, then and you get the same experience.

It's like okay, great.

I know what I like if it is something that you want.

If it is something that you like then great, you should continue with that.

It's frustrating to go to the supermarket and they don't have the stuff it's very it's like ma'am, where are the raspberries? Where is the chocolate? Oh, we ran out we had a trucking style whatever it is annoying because the experience so far up until that point has been that there will be a consistent availability of the product that supermarkets generally demonstrate that they are able to logistically provide a consistent opportunity for you to buy.

This is a good thing this builds trust.

So have a look, have a thing in your business right now? How are you demonstrating consistent results? Are you? Or are you not? It's a good question.

If you're not, then you need to look at the systems that are failing, you have failing systems.

It's not that you can't do it, it's not that you don't know what to do.

It's just that you don't know how to apply what needs to be done into a systematic structure.

I would even go so far as to say that the critical thing of any system, the first thing that you should do is to define what is the result that system exists for? This took me a while to learn, took me a while to work out how to even build these damn things.

But then I got it.

And I'm like, okay, cool.

And now, the number one question is, well, what's the result that I want? Why does this system exist? How will I know whether it's working? You see, that is the real test of any system, does it produce the result that you want? If you want to know how to do systems, if you would like to skip out on the learning experience, you can go through read a myth, but you will end up with that definition that is not that useful.

At a minimum, you can take my definition, okay, what's the system? Here it is an execution of a document a series of documented processes to create consistent results.

If you want help with this, head over to systemio.dev.

Go put a name, go put an email address, go through the training there.

Love to help you out with the documentation of your system so that you can run your business on systems and your people go into those systems to do the work.

This is an extremely effective way to make more money, to save money to save time to reduce the amount of frustration and headaches that you have to go through all of these things.

On the other side of you mastering systems, head over to systemio.dev.

Thanks so much for tuning in today.

I hope you got a lot of value out of today's episode.

I look forward to seeing you on tomorrow's as we continue to explore the power of systems to create results.

See you then.