I don't think this is going to work! There are no instructions, just a process name.... 😬

Coming to you live from the rather dark and mysterious interior of my car.

Just wanted to pop out of the house and get a little bit of peace and quiet we are coming to the end of lockdown finally, looks like New South Wales kind of given up on trying to control COVID which in my opinion is probably a pretty good thing like the release of people back into some kind of semblance of their normal lives.

Yes, mass still, yes.

Some kind of QR Cody things.

Yes, all that.

But overall, I think they like you know what we've got so many cases, there's not a lot of points He and lockdown have not worked, which is going to be interesting to see how it plays out.

Because it could spike really badly.

It's like, whoa, okay, now we've got hundreds and hundreds and 1000s more cases, but a lot of populations vaccinated.

So perhaps this is exactly the right move.

There was a new story where the New South Wales premier has decided to call it quits on daily updates now like hallelujah, hallelujah.

You know, I like there are other things in government besides COVID.

And so they have a lot of work ahead of them have a lot of work.

And perhaps He kind of opened up the other file like everything else other than COVID is like, Oh, my goodness, we got a lot of work to do.

I might Yeah, yes, you do.

Yes, you do.

So exciting day here tomorrow.

No more lockdown.

And this is a good thing.

I want to share with you an interesting experience, though, that I had.

One of my VAs came to me and said, Tom, hey, we got this process.

I don't think it's going to work.

Like Oh, yeah.

What's that he's like, there is nothing written in it.

It's just the name of my art.

Okay, cool.

Yeah, right.

I gotcha.

It's okay.

It's like, ah, but how do you know how am I meant to know what to do? I might, it's alright, relax.

This is how I build systems.

We're just at the very beginning of a system just defining the processes.

Big picture, super big picture is like, where did the big chunks of the system fit together? There is no point.

In my opinion.

Now, this is just my opinion of spending a lot of time going through and documenting all of the details.

Particularly if you don't know that system works.

First of all, if you are documenting in detail a system that you're not sure that it works, what is the point, you're going to have to redo it or at least get the system working.

And then you can go to the detail.

This is important.

This is like if the system doesn't create the results that you want, like, why are you documenting stuff? You're documenting the wrong things? It's got to be changed, got to be worked out? How do we get that desired result? And so you can He said like this just the process now moment? Yeah, that's cool.

That's cool.

Let's work it out.

We know what the result is.

We know what the steps have been before this.

And now we've got this next little ladder to climb up this next process.

What are the little steps in that step, step step step that is going to take us from where we are in the system through to where we want to be to make sure that we get those results?

This is very helpful.

This flexibility in order to make sure that we are actually getting the right thing, once we got the right thing, it's all good.

Now, if you're good at making systems, then you can probably just estimate with reasonable to very good accuracy about what's going to happen and grab a screen record and just play around and get that process document on video.

Then VA can go through edit it up, and that they're typically very good.

Like I've had this as a specific task and like here, take this instruction and document it out.

Even if it's a bit of a mess.

Like I can give that instruction in the process.

Oh, hang on this didn't work.

Go back through a cutout of everything else.

Let's do it this way because that's going to create a mess.

I've done training videos for my team before where I go through and edit a nonworking system with big chunks that are in the wrong place, move them around, edit the whole thing and I'm like, okay, great.

Now we've got this in working order.

And the next critical step is to always test you do not know that the changes that you have made to a system are still going to require are still going to produce the same result that you want it.

Remember the standard by which you should judge all systems is whether they give you the desired results.

If they do great It's a working system.

And then you can go to the detail, you can add in the headings, and you can add in the detail in text.

And you can add in short little videos where you can watch them for 30 seconds or a minute, try and avoid like 15 minutes standard operating procedure videos, man seriously difficult to use, like, have some compassion for your team.

Because yet you could document and go through, hey, one minute 32, it does this and two minutes 57 It does this and four minutes 32 Then it's this and I get it, I get it like it's a good thing to do.

But I use that type of video for the initial creation.

Let's use that video to document out all the steps.

And then once we've got those, then we can just like make little micro-videos that are consumable, that a useful, I might only need to go through it once or I might need to go through it again, if I haven't been through that system in like three months, I just want to check or look at ease and efficiency.

Well just lost the lights, people just lost the lights, there is an efficiency that comes from being able to go through and review that video, see what it is, are there it is, I'm reminded some systems might only be triggered once every two months, once every four months, once every 12 months, even.

So it's very unlikely that you will have all of those fine details on lockdown.

When you're only doing a system every three months, versus your daily ones or weekly ones.

Things that get done every week.

Easy, easy, easy, easy, you have a different danger there.

Your different danger in those systems is that things change and they don't get documented.

And so these rules about how to use the systems are critical for your people.

systems by themselves are not that useful.

But people using systems now.

Now you were talking about something effective, something very powerful.

So you got to train your team on how to use systems like how do systems? How do you as the business owner use systems? Are you even using them? Because if you don't, you can't really expect your team to this that law of karma or law of I don't know what it is some kind of law where if you are unwilling to do something, you will be called on it.

I get told to mock it every day make videos like this every day by people who do this every day, then theoretically No.

To say that yeah, be the right idea.

If you go and make a video every day, they actually do it.

And I can take comfort in that I'm like well I can see what results you're getting.

And you're telling me that the path to get there was to make a video every day.

So I'm going to go ahead and execute that system over and over and over and over and get better at making the videos getting better at expressing myself.

My brother watched one of these videos like man, you're good like where did you learn to speak like this?

I did 400 episodes of a podcast in a row daily, daily for 400 days episode, it's like after a while there, it became a skill set.

There is a power in the ability to speak off the cuff to remember what I'm thinking about to come back to the frameworks and present effectively.

And that only comes by doing the work.

And it's the same with your systems.

Your systems will only work when your people do the work that is documented in your systems.

They are not by themselves systems by themselves are not a magic bullet that just makes everything happen.

Even your automations yes Zapier is amazing.

If This Then That amazing.

But how do you know where your automations are? Like, are you tracking all of them? Do you track your automations? Because if you don't, it's very easy to suddenly start having problems.

It's like why did that happen? Why did that happen? For quite some years I used Infusionsoft and Infusionsoft is like Zapier on steroids.

Like that thing is a beast, but you better be systematic in how you approach usage.

It can do many amazing things.

But if things go wrong, or and you're not documenting, or you're about to experience a world of pain, you'd be far better off just getting someone who knows Infusionsoft like the back of their hand and say, Look, I want you to do this, this and this and they're like, Well, you know what? That's actually a pretty good idea, I think we can do that.

Or they're like, No, do it, that's not going to work, you should do something else entirely.

Alright, well, covered a lot of ground tonight, cover a lot of ground, let's come back to that basic principle that when you are first building your systems, it's okay just to have the big picture building blocks, the big process names and nothing else.

And it makes sense.

Because you don't know that system is going to produce the results.

You can then video document your experience, or you may have to run it a couple of times to work out what does get you the results.

And by doing that, then your system begins to build out the documentation begins to build out and heads towards a steady state.

And in that time, you can make small little videos in addition to the text.

And suddenly you have an asset in your business that allows you to do far more with far less.

You're talking about being able to run multiple businesses, leverage your time, leverage your team, you are stepping into the power of businesses and businesses that are powerful that are successful that are profitable run on systems.

Right.

That's all I got for you tonight.

I hope you enjoyed tonight's episode.

I certainly enjoyed making this one for you.

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

See you then.