subject: Systemize Your Business Starting With The Things That Frustrate You [print this page] When we set out to create business systems, it seems many of us never really have a very good plan in place for how we going to attack such a monstrous task, but one of the most important and fundamental places to start systemizing your business is to look at the things that you know need to get done for your business to keep functioning, but that you are constantly frustrated by.
These are the processes and activities in your business that you can do but maybe you put off, or they take longer to do than necessary because you don't really enjoy them, or it could be that you don't have the skills to really do something as effectively as it could be done. For example copyrighting, updating your website, writing autoresponders. Whatever it is, these sources of frustration are the very best place to hone in on first.
You see more often than not, these areas of frustration, continually frustrate us because generally they are "core" activities of our business - they are essential for our business to run and generate income, so the longer it takes to create a consistent, and efficient method for accomplishing them, the more it will costs us in the long run. Here's a process that I use for honing in on my frustrations and reframing them into a system solution that I need to create:
Step 1: I Identify the top three activities that cause me the greatest frustration
Step 2: Next I identify what the outcomes are that I am wanting to achieve with each particular activity that is causing me pain and frustration and I make sure I'm really clear on the outcomes I am wanting to achieve before I go into problem solving mode
Step 3: I ask myself "What is the root cause of this frustration" and I keep asking myself this question until I come up with an answer that is not based on the person (me), or my VA, but rather on the process. So, the answer as to what is causing the frustration should be that there isn't a consistent, set way for doing it each and every time, and that you need to create a standard for performing the activity
Step 4: Next I think in terms of what type of system would achieve each of the outcomes that I am wanting and I take one at a time and mindmap it out with the steps needed in order to achieve that outcome.
I know from experience when I was getting my business off the ground, it was really challenging trying to do everything myself and I was constantly frustrated by things that were new to me, that I wasn't good at, that I didn't enjoy, so thinking big picture, and logically about why something wasn't working, and what was causing it not to work as I wanted, has allowed me to create processes around key activities that make up both my marketing system, my customer follow up system, and my product creation system.
The key is to do things intentionally, and feeling frustrated with something that's not working as good as you know it should, or struggling against doing something because you think you have to, is a sure sign that these are the areas in your business that you need to hone in on.
Getting to the root cause to identify what the real issue is separate from the person performing the activity is essential, so you can develop a plan of how to transition out of it being an annoyance and a drag into something that is working for you, and that has a greater potential.
by: Kim N. Morris
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