[30] Learn How to Systematize Like The Big Boys
Hello, Bootstrappers. Welcome to Bootstrapped Web episode 30. It's the show for business owners who believe that to get to where we're going, we have to learn by doing. I'm Brian Castle, and I do this podcast to share real world case studies from the trenches of a bootstrap startup. You can access the archives for this show along with my articles and videos over on my site, cashjam.com.
Speaker 1:This episode and show notes are available at castjam.com/thirty. Today, I've got my friend Kyle Brown on the show. We're gonna be talking all about systems, systematization. Wow. How did I pronounce that there?
Speaker 1:System systemizing, systematization. I I never know which one to use, but I guess systematization is the right one. Okay. Moving on. You know, systems are have been really exciting to me for a couple of years now.
Speaker 1:And what's kind of interesting is that I I find that there's a lot of excitement around startups and bootstrapping and designing products and user experience and coding and and all this stuff. But systems kind of they always play a backseat. They don't get much they don't get talked about much. You'll never see anything about systems and procedures and documentation. You don't see that stuff on, like, Hacker News or or TechCrunchy.
Speaker 1:I mean, you know, like, people aren't thinking about that. And someone like me, I mean, I I never went to business school. I'd never even really worked in the corporate world. So the whole idea of systems and writing procedures and flowcharts, I mean, this stuff is totally new to me, and I'm just learning as as I go. Just, you know, learn learn by doing.
Speaker 1:But, you know, ever since I read the book, The E Myth Revisited by Michael Gerber, it really excited me about the idea of system systematization systemizing my business, you know, like, making it building it into a machine that runs itself. That's what really excites me about this. You know, I'm currently twenty fourteen. I'm kind of in this process of putting together all these systems in my in my restaurant engine business so that ultimately I can kind of step out and and remove myself from that and then, you know, maybe work on the next thing. I'd say I'm probably like 50% or so to that point.
Speaker 1:We have something like 40 or 50 procedures in our business now and just, you know, learning a ton as as as I go along. So so Kyle is kind of an expert, and and what I'm excited about why I'm excited about today's interview with Kyle, know, our discussion was that Kyle comes from working in the corporate world. He he managed, you know, large teams, and he he kind of was in charge of building out those systems and operations and procedures. And and he talked a little bit about what that was like in the corporate setting, and then how does that actually relate to his work today where he works with small business owners and and his own small business kind of working on those procedures. And he's actually writing a book that's coming out pretty soon, sometime this summer called system called Systematize.
Speaker 1:And you can check that out. System systematizebook.com. You'll definitely wanna check that out because it's it's really you know, this guy really knows his stuff when it comes to, you know, just making your your business flow efficiently and and it helps you grow. So we talked in-depth about that. We'll get to that in just a minute.
Speaker 1:Let's see. In other news, I I'm really excited to tell you, and this is kinda related to systems, but I'm really excited to tell you that I just released a new video course on my site. This one's called content marketing automation. So if you're using content marketing or or you wanna get into it to grow your traffic and sustain that traffic over time, but you as the founder, you you also wanna remove yourself from that process of creating and promoting all the content, then you'll definitely wanna check out this course. I shot over forty minutes of video footage where I'm teaching exactly how how I built a content marketing system that actually runs without me in my business for Restaurant Engine.
Speaker 1:And I can tell you that, I mean, over 90% of our of our traffic comes organically from Google and from word-of-mouth and and these kind of organic sources. And that's also our primary source of leads and and customers and and and that's that's our strategies. It's it's content marketing, but I'm not the one creating all that content. I'm not the one out there promoting it. It's all thanks to these systems and the people and and and the procedures that we've put in place so that we've actually automated this whole thing.
Speaker 1:So the course is called content marketing automation. By the way, it it is totally free so you can you can start watching those video lessons today. You can get those by going to cashjam.com/course. And tell me what you think. If you have any questions at all, this summer I'll be holding some free live q and a sessions about this kind of stuff, content marketing, automation, outsourcing, systematization.
Speaker 1:So definitely give me your feedback and join me on on some of those some of those q and a sessions. I'll tell you more about those when they come up. But yeah. You know, I'm I'm really excited about this stuff and I know that it can help a lot of your businesses out there, help you grow your business and and just kinda take it to the next level. I know that that's been the case for me for sure.
Speaker 1:What else? I hope I'm sounding a little bit better this episode and in future episodes. Picked up a new microphone. The last one was just grabbing too much of my room, you know, kind of echoing here. I think this one still is.
Speaker 1:But, anyway, I'm I'm now using mic called the Rode Podcaster Mic. It's a USB. It's a dynamic microphone. I also got a shock mount and a boom here. So getting a little getting professional here, you know, taking this thing up a notch.
Speaker 1:The same same deal with the video. I you know, this year, I'm learning I got a new DSLR. I'm doing some some kinda high end video stuff. I mean, I'm trying to make it look high end at least, you know, just totally learning with this stuff. But but yeah.
Speaker 1:You know, I'm I'm I'm just kinda really getting into upping the the quality level, both audio and video and writing for that matter on the blog. So I I hope you enjoy it and please give me your feedback. Tell me what's working, what what's not sounding right, what's, you know, just hungry for that feedback. So, anyway, let's move right into the main event today. We're talking systems with Kyle Brown.
Speaker 1:Enjoy. Alright. So I'm here with Kyle Brown. Kyle, thanks for taking the time today.
Speaker 2:Thanks for having me, Brian.
Speaker 1:So so you and I met at MicroComp Vegas this year, and and, you know, I understand you you, you know, you're kinda getting into the market for putting out, you know, your own products. And what you really specialize in, what kind of your background is in is kind of building systems and operations. So that's really kind of the theme for today, and that's what we'll be talking about. We have a list of a of a few points that that you and I will kinda discuss. But, you know, before we get into all that, like building systems, procedures, and all that fun stuff for building a business.
Speaker 1:What's your background? Tell us a little bit about what you do where you know.
Speaker 2:Sure. So I am Kyle Brown. I I guess I'm a Developer at heart. I like to say that I don't do a lot of Development these days. I did a lot of Development early on sort of as a hobby nights and weekends kind of thing And then I got, introduced to a role as a, what's known as a business analyst, in the world, inside of the company.
Speaker 2:We had some boring title. But the job took me from being an individual contributor as a development person and put me in a role where I was liaisoning between different branches of the company and responsible for creating these processes that would govern how we ran the operations of our portion of of the business.
Speaker 1:So and that that was like a large corporation. Right?
Speaker 2:Yes. That's a yeah. That's a very large corporation. The Verizon, one of the either the second or the first, depending on the quarter of the largest telecommunications company in The US.
Speaker 1:Gotcha. You know, it's interesting to me because so many of us out here, like, on our own. I mean, I'm basically like a solo founder. I've got a small team, you know, three or four people. I think that's pretty similar to to most of us out here doing our own thing.
Speaker 1:You coming from the corporate culture, I mean, and processes and teams and, you know, the way all these people work together and make the the whole machine run, that's kind of business as usual out there. But I I think for us, it's pretty challenging to start to understand that in order to really grow the business, we have to build all these systems. You know? So, I mean, like, what does that look like in in the corporate setting? Like, what what was that like for you as you, you know, dealing like, what kind of tools are you guys using?
Speaker 1:What are the processes for putting systems in place at at that level?
Speaker 2:Yeah. It's a good question. That's kind of, that's a good question. It's interesting because, you know, I left the corporate life behind me now. I've been solo.
Speaker 2:I'm a solo founder myself. I have been for, a few years now. So it's given me some interesting comparisons to make, right? I have experience as a solo founder and then I have experience as a more of a person in a larger corporation. But to answer your question, it's really not that much different, believe it or not, Brian.
Speaker 2:It's, everything is bigger, obviously budgets, problems are bigger. Everything is bigger, but that's sort of why you know process is really essential because it helps you control I'll just call it a beast. Helps you maintain processes help you maintain over you know, these large groups of people and getting them all on the same page and getting them to produce the same thing at the end of the conveyor belt over and over and over again. So it's the same you go through the same steps and the same methods and the same motions. It's just that everything is just magnified and everything is logical.
Speaker 1:Yeah. You know, it's interesting to use that kind of metaphor, like the beast. I I always think of this business as especially lately, like, things are, like, growing and moving so fast and customers are coming in and out, and and it's like so many times it feels like it's like getting out of control. But I always come back to procedures, you know, just writing down systems and what is each person gonna be doing, what is their role, and that kind of helps us kind of like pull things back and and like tame the beast, you know, and like make sure things are working in order.
Speaker 2:Yes. That's that's essential because if you don't have that, you you ultimately end up in some level of chaos. Right? I mean, you may still make it through your day, but what's your day going to look like? I mean, it's probably not going to be all that efficient.
Speaker 2:But the processes allow you to do just what your experiences have been. Right? They allow you to rein things back in and kinda keep things from getting out of hand because you have these this structure around you that your entire team can can can always fall back on.
Speaker 1:Yeah. So I mean, this kinda gets into our first point about, like, the why behind systems and processes. But you know quickly before we get into that, I understand you're in the process of writing a book and a package of information about systems. Can you kind of tell us about that?
Speaker 2:Sure. Sure. So the book I am working on a book. Started on it late last year. I came up with the idea to do it late last year.
Speaker 2:It is called Systematize and that's at systematizebook.com. And the book is basically, it's sort of a it's something that you can use to get started if you don't know anything about processes or systematizing or you know you just maybe heard a lot about it but you want more detail. It's sort of a book that will take you from A to Z to get you started, to touch on everything that I believe you need to know to at least at a minimum get started and to start to see some value, and to save something, to collect some of your time back and to become more efficient, which should lead to scalability and profitability.
Speaker 1:Very cool. So that's at systematizebook.com. I like how you use systematize. I I tend to probably use the incorrect term systemize all the time. You know, I always, like, mix up the two.
Speaker 2:You know, at the end of the day, Brian, they all mean the same thing. And I'll let you in on a little secret. I used to use business process, but I found that a lot of people had no idea what I was talking about when I used that term. And to be quite honest with you, in solopreneurial world, if you will, I found that more people get what I mean. You know, when I say systematize or systemize, people, it clicks with people.
Speaker 2:People understand this. It's really just, it depends on who I'm talking to at the time.
Speaker 1:Yeah. Yeah. You know, I I've been getting really excited about all this because, like, again, you you as someone coming from kind of a a corporate culture where systems and processes are normal day to day, it's part of business as usual. Someone like me, I've never really been in that kind of world. Even the company I used to work for was only, like, 12 people.
Speaker 1:Didn't even think about doing pros they probably should have done processes. But, you know so, like, I wasn't even turned on to the whole idea until I read e Myth revisited and and also just listened to a few interviews on Mixergy where, you know, Andrew Warner started focusing a series of those interviews around systems and bringing people in talking about that kind of thing. And that's when I started really getting excited about, like, okay, this is actually the path to grow the company and and grow beyond just myself. This is how it works when you start to hire. So let's get into our our kind of topics for today.
Speaker 1:You know, one by one, we have a series of of points that we're gonna talk through, and I really like the first one that you that that you threw out me today, and that's just, you know, why should you systemize? Why is this so important? So can you talk a little bit about that?
Speaker 2:Yeah. So, you know, I think there's several reasons, but I think the biggest two, that the biggest two would be, in my opinion, would be you can save yourself a tremendous amount of time. And time, as we both know, is money. Time and money really are probably the two cornerstones of any business, right? So those are the primary two reasons that I would say anyone who's not doing it should at least consider it.
Speaker 2:Especially in the solopreneurial world where time is a huge, huge asset, right? I mean, it's limited when you're one individual. But if you follow some of these processes and take some of these steps and use some of these techniques, can really expand or multiply your mind share and hand it off to people who may not have your specific skill set, but if you give them the guidance via process, they'd actually be able to take it and run with it while you focus on, you know, strategy and marketing and things like that that you need to do to grow the business. So time that you're going to save because you're not trying to do everything yourself. You're documenting things and packaging them up and presenting them to people who can do them in your place.
Speaker 2:And then, obviously, if you save time, then so some more money.
Speaker 1:Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it's it's also just more efficient because as you're as you're documenting your your systems and processes, you're you're able to kinda step back and look at it at the sequence of of how you do things. Even if it's something that you do every single day or every week, you know, without a system in place or, you know, without a procedure documented, you might do things a little bit differently next time, you might forget a step, you might be doing things that are just not as efficient or as fast as they could be. It allows you to kind of analyze what you're working on and how, even if you're just solo.
Speaker 2:Yeah. No, I completely agree. The efficiency, you know, that's another very important, you know, element because when you're doing it yourself, you may think you're being efficient at it, right? But when you can step back as a third party and look in with an unbiased view, which will happen anytime you need to document something and hand it to someone else, you're going to look at it differently. That's another big benefit of writing things down and looking at them because you will take a different view than you would had it just been you running through the process every day.
Speaker 2:Not only that, you'll start to see things immediately that could be done better. You know, you'll see things that you, when it's you doing it, you take a lot of it for granted because you've been doing it for a while and you know whatever it is you're doing, you know it in and out already. But when you're documenting it to hand it off to someone else, you know that certain things you just can't assume, you can't take for granted and you have to get into a little more detail. And that's when you start to identify, you know, hidden gems or hidden opportunities to maybe do things a little bit differently, to make the process more efficient. You know, it's just like a factory.
Speaker 2:You know, you crank out, you know, let's just say iPads. You crank out 10 iPads in the first production and the second you'll find things in there that you could have done better once you get those 10 iPads in your hand. And you come back and you refine it and you crank out another 10. And you just keep doing that until you get the process refined so well that, let's say you had 90%, 95% of what it would be if you had done it yourself. I mean, that's really all that you can really ask for.
Speaker 2:But yes, definitely very efficient.
Speaker 1:Yeah, absolutely. And you know, one thing that I've been learning over, especially over the last year or two, is that my job and this is our our second point here is that I mean, my job has really changed. You know, as the founder of this company, we start to grow and and bring on people and this even started before we we started hiring. You know, I'm no longer a programmer. I'm and and I I like to design and and things, but most of the time, I'm actually not doing much design work anymore either.
Speaker 1:Like, most of my time is spent writing procedures, updating our procedures, making sure our team is working efficiently and and having them access the procedures in in the right order and all that. That's, like, that's my role now. It it used to be getting into the weeds in WordPress and writing code and, you know, putting together wireframes. I mean, I still like to do that stuff from time to time, but, it's just interesting how the role of the founder changes.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it does. And, you know, so again, on my background, when I took the job, I went into the job in all honesty and I thought it was going to be much more technical than it was. You know, I have a theory that the person that hired me knew I would figure that out, but he knew I would figure it out later on. And I went through this, the same transformation. I mean, I didn't own my own company.
Speaker 2:I was working for someone else. And, but the process, the transformation was the same. I was no longer in the weeds. I was no longer the technician on the front line. I was in the background and I had to look at the whole picture every day.
Speaker 2:I didn't have the luxury of only focusing in on one thing. And, you know, long and short of it is it just really made me, much better at my job because I didn't know what to do as a technician. So I had a much broader view than a lot of my peers had because a lot of them had never done the specialist job or the technical aspect of the job. Right? So just like yourself, when you've done it all, you can
Speaker 1:Oh, Kyle, are you there? Yes. Okay. It kinda cut out there for the last last, like, ten seconds there. But but, you know, what like, what you were saying, I I think it is interesting how and that kinda leads into another point that we have here to start creating those procedures before you start hiring.
Speaker 1:So when you, as the founder, when you're doing everything yourself, and I started doing this before I hired the first person, every time I did something, like, whether it's like sending out an email newsletter blast or or setting up a new website on WordPress or something like that, I would start documenting the the procedure even though I'm the one doing that work. And I would start writing that procedure, write another procedure, refine it over time, and then I know that I'm actually ready to hire someone to put into that to that role so that once somebody is in, they're ready to go on day one. They have the training that's all there and ready for them.
Speaker 2:Yes. When you're writing that procedure, you are essentially writing a job description. I mean, the procedure can be, once it's written once, can be used for multiple things. You're going to find that you can use it for training. You're going to find that it serves as a good job description when you need to write that to hire somebody.
Speaker 2:All of those things justify why you should do the process first. And I know processes can seem like a time suck up front. And to be quite honest with you, they are time suck up front most of the time. And the reason for that is because you're being forced to think through from A to Z whatever a lot about your business. And that's a good thing because once you've done it and documented it, someone else can benefit from it.
Speaker 2:So the part that's often overlooked is the payoff for the time. Is it a time stuff up front? Yes. But is the return going to be huge and timeless? Yes.
Speaker 1:You know, I'm I'm really glad that you brought that up because that was something that I I definitely was not aware of. Even as I started to learn about systems, like reading the E Myth and hearing those interviews on Mixergy, I was learning about all, you know, the benefits of of Systemize and, like, how the business can become like a machine. It just runs itself, and it's so exciting. But then I started doing it, and I was like, man, this this is tedious, you know, just writing document after doc. I mean, some of our even a single procedure can can be up to, like, four or five, six pages long of just, you know, text and images and doing screenshots and notating them and even doing some videos and and that kind of stuff.
Speaker 1:So, yeah, it takes a long time even and I started realizing, like, I know how to put together a newsletter really quickly, but when I start documenting it, that could take me two hours because I wanna make sure that every detail of every step is included. And and it's it is important to spend that time upfront. But and now I actually kind of enjoy the the process of writing procedures because I know that, like, even though I'm spending a whole day on on even one procedure, I this means that I'm removing myself. That within a week or two, somebody else is going to be taking over this, and then I'm going be free to work on something else.
Speaker 2:Yes. And that's the return. That's the goal. That's the payoff. That's, you're ringing the cash register.
Speaker 2:You're putting in those hours once and you can hand this thing to 10 people. I mean, I think that's the part that gets overlooked a lot. You put the time in early but the payoff is never ending. You know, your process may change over time. It may require tweaks, etcetera.
Speaker 2:That's, it's going to grow as your business grows. But the huge point here is that someone else now is doing what you, prepared for them while you are off doing something else. And you just keep multiplying that and you can quickly see how, you can really scale a company if you just get free some of these some of these methods.
Speaker 1:Yeah. Absolutely. And, you know, refining it over time, I mean so there are, like, two points here that I'd like to cover. I mean, one is to start small and, you know, just something simple. Just a quick list of steps, like a quick bullet list.
Speaker 1:You know? And you can always add details to it later. You could expand it later. And over time, you can refine it. I think it's important because as we're talking about, like, how much time it takes to start documenting and for developers and designers, it's not the most exciting thing in the world to say, like, alright.
Speaker 1:Now you have to spend most of your days, you know, writing out these detailed documents. That doesn't sound very fun. But, again, you know, you get that return of on investment and, you know, return of your time back. But if you just start small, you know, just start with something like, you know, five five quick steps, one sentence each, how do you do this procedure? And then tomorrow, you can add a a little bit more detail.
Speaker 1:And then even that might be enough to hand it off to your first employee or or a virtual assistant or something. And then over time, as they start to do it, they're gonna learn how to do it, and they're gonna have their own little kind of hang ups and bumps in the road because they come at it from a different perspective than you did. And that's where you start to really understand, okay, this part needs more explanation. This part, maybe we need to add a screenshot or, you know, some kind of video or something. And that and that's how it improves over time.
Speaker 2:Absolutely. I mean, starting small, I can't, you know, agree with you enough on that. You know, if you especially if you've never done anything like this before, you know, you should I guess one of the things I would really say to someone who was starting this for the first time is definitely keep something that is very small, very, second nature ish to you, that you would like to hand off to someone else by putting it in the form of a process. And as soon as you get it done, and it doesn't matter how small it is, you know, mindset's huge here, so don't think about it being a task, some monumental task that you have to start off with before you can really reap benefits. It can be something small.
Speaker 2:Just get it documented and get it in front of someone else as quickly as you can. It's almost like the MVP theory with, you know, doing startups and building SaaS products. Get it in front of somebody, your customers, your potential customers, as quickly as possible because they want to see things because they're looking at it from a different perspective than you are, that you would never see no matter how many times you've done it and no matter how well you know it. And instantly, you know, that's feedback that you can take and start refining the process right away. And, you know, once it's ready for prime time, you're gonna have a lot easier time getting people to to follow it, people on your team to follow it if they've been included in the in the process.
Speaker 2:But definitely you want to start small.
Speaker 1:Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. And, know, it's as the founder, as the as the person who maybe created the product in the first place, a lot of things are are second nature to you. You know, it's it's a lot of things might come easy for you, but they might not come so easy to someone who's brand new to the team, brand new to the product and the business. And then even each team member comes at it a little bit differently.
Speaker 1:Like, I just recently hired our second customer support person, so it's kind of interesting how we've had one one guy going through these procedures, and now we're having a second person going through those very same procedures. And, you know, the how how those procedures transfer from one person to the next, it it is kind of interesting and how they've changed since he started and then since our new person started. You know, different questions kind of come up and and, yeah, you just hear different feedback and and and different kind of friction as they go through the process. So you do wanna go in there and make sure everything is up to date.
Speaker 2:Yeah. And that's good thing, you know. It might be perceived as bad, but you're not going to hit a home run when you document it. You're documenting what's in your head and your view. It's a good thing.
Speaker 2:The more people that look at it and can help you tweak it, the easier it's going to be for the next person to look at it as your business continues to grow. And that's exactly what you want.
Speaker 1:Yeah, absolutely. And now, I mean, the things that I try to systemize and the things that I put into procedures, I generally look for things that are repeatable, that I find that I'm doing week after week, or as I'm thinking about a new role for the team, you know, what can that person do that can fill up their time on a weekly basis, things that they can do over and over again, not like one time tasks. But there there is a lot of other work that, and this is a point that you brought up, you know, that you can't force a process on everything. Not not everything has to be system systematized. So, yeah.
Speaker 1:I mean, can you talk a little bit about that?
Speaker 2:Sure. So, you know, I've been to a few events, where solopreneurs are, meetups, conferences, stuff like that. And in talking to a lot of solopreneurs, you know, there seems to be a perception that, you know, there's a time, so we already talked through that. But there also is this perception, you know, that everything has to be processed. You know, everything has to be put into these guidelines.
Speaker 2:A lot of guys will tell me, Well, you know, I left the corporate world so I wouldn't have to deal with all of that. And I, you know, you're preaching to the choir on that. Like, I get it. Even though that was my job to create those things, I also clearly identified times where I thought they were a bit excessive. But I guess what I would like to say to that is, you know, as a smaller business owner, you really have control over what you process and what you don't.
Speaker 2:You really should think hard about what needs to be put into this process and what doesn't. You know, there's a quote out there, I can't remember who said it, and it goes like this:
Speaker 1:Oh, Kyle, did I lose you again? Alright. So so Skype kinda cut out us on on us there, but but I think you were you were starting to give us a quote. Can can you start with that?
Speaker 2:Yeah, the quote was something along these lines. I'm sure I'm not going get it 100% right, but anything that can be done more than once and is repeatable should be placed into a process. And, you know, like I was saying earlier, the perception is you need to put everything in process when in fact you don't. There are some things that just, don't fit as a process. One good example would be, I had a client that had a bookkeeper, I mean, that was really good at, they had a bookkeeping process that he would do all the time.
Speaker 2:He he processed that out, he tried to anyway, and he handed it off to someone else and they would just never get it right. And on top of that, he ended up having to share some, you know, pretty private information which just turned out badly for him. So that would just be one one example of, you know, something that you don't necessarily want to put into a process just because it just doesn't belong there. Some things are just better handled by you.
Speaker 1:Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 2:You know, know we're talking about removing yourself from the business, but you know, I think at at some point, you know, you can't completely remove yourself from Right. From the business as much as you'd like to.
Speaker 1:Yeah. And you know, I I think in my experience, a lot of a lot of what we do is kind of just a creative work, you know, whether it's designing a site or even even development can be, you know, pretty creative as well. Writing, you know, we do a lot of content marketing and and blogging and and whatnot. So we have writers. One of my recent posts actually shared the procedures that we give to our to our writers.
Speaker 1:They're really like guidelines that I give them to how to how to kind of format and create a blog post. And in that procedure, I'm giving them kind of I guess someone would call them, like, strict guidelines in terms of the formatting, like how how we wanna, you know, set it up in WordPress and how to use the sub headlines and and and, like, how many links and whatnot to include in images. But, like, the the creative part of of doing the research and and writing out an article and and get putting together a course and and things like that, I'm not telling them how to do that job, like that's their job to be creative and that's where they have that flexibility. It doesn't necessarily have to fall into a system or process.
Speaker 2:Yeah, absolutely. It's sort of like the again, I use the example of the MVP SaaS model. You know, you you wanna test an experiment. If you're not sure, you're not gonna break anything. You you test what you think is the right amount of access to give a team member, and you see what happens.
Speaker 2:If you find that it's too much or it's too overwhelming, then you pull back and maybe you limit the process. But then on the other hand if you find out that there's something that, where the person's hungry for more and you see opportunity there to give them more responsibility in that area, then, you know, then you make that decision. But this is not a thing where it's it's not an algorithm per se where you can type out a function and get an exact output or return in the end. Right? You have to kind of sit and learn what that is for your business.
Speaker 2:And it's gonna vary by team and and company and product and everything else. But as long as you continue to work at it and refine it, it it I have no doubt that it will it will pay off in the end.
Speaker 1:Yep. So when it comes to kinda building a team, you know, once you start really hiring one, two, three, or more employees, you gotta get the team to start working together and everybody's gotta be on the same page when it comes to doing these processes and procedures. Do you have any kind of tips or ideas of, like, how to to start really, like, managing the team when it comes to systems? Like, how do you get them to to work together and and, you know, hand off one system to the next and that that sort of thing?
Speaker 2:Yeah. So, you know, I wish I could tell you that was easy. I really wish I could tell you that. But it's not the easiest thing in the world to do. It can be, with some time and patience, but there's no silver bullet.
Speaker 2:One thing that I would say is you want to be engaged, you want the entire team engaged with each other on some frequent, with some level of frequency, right. I'm not necessarily talking about weekly meetings, but then again, weekly meetings might not be a bad thing depending on your group. They don't have to be face to face. They can be via Skype. They can be chat sessions online.
Speaker 2:You know, I think getting together, getting everyone together and everyone involved whenever a new process is created, for example, if you want to put out a new process that only affects one individual in your company, share that process with the entire organization or, in this case, your entire team, right? Some people may not have any input at all, but at least they are all aware of what's coming and they can provide feedback. Some people are in other groups that the process is not even written for who have other responsibilities. They're going to see things that you may not see and that the person who the process who's going to be following the process may not see. Just because you're all in the same company working on the same objectives, you know, isn't going to always come directly to one person.
Speaker 2:It's it really is team thing. I mean, takes a team to run a company, so therefore, the team should be involved with the the creation of the process. I think that's one thing that you could do, at least at a minimum, share the draft version Yep. Everyone before you publish it.
Speaker 1:I mean, that that's a great point. What we do here is we have all of our procedures in in Google Docs. And, basically, I've shared the so we have one folder called procedures, and that's where they're all they're all in inside there, and we've got, like, subfolders for customer support, administration, sales, and marketing, you know, all these different procedures. But, basically, everyone on the team has access to to all those folders. And and anyone can kinda, you know, access any procedure.
Speaker 1:We we also have one spreadsheet where where we kind of list out all of our procedures. But, you know, like, thinking back to when I used to work for a small small agency full time, and I was I started as an intern there, and then I grew into kind of one of the the lower level full time employees. I remember just being frustrated when I'd be working on something, and I and it wasn't clear to me or or or nobody explained to me why this thing is important. You know, how how is what I'm working on here, how is this gonna actually impact the bigger picture or impact, like, what's coming up next? And I think that's where systems and and and pulling in the team and keeping everyone aware of of what's going on.
Speaker 1:Like, even if it doesn't directly affect me as the intern or as the as, you know, one step in the in the master process, I'd like to know, like, where is this thing headed after I finish working on it. You know? And I I think it gives everyone kind of an incentive to do even better work when they're aware of how the whole system works together.
Speaker 2:Yes. Completely agree. I mean, I I can think of countless examples where I was tasked to do, and I think I spent considerable amount of time explaining to them what to do. But as soon as I gave them objectives and goals, everything else just made sense to them. It drastically reduces the amount of time that you spend on a how to.
Speaker 2:I think, you know, engineer minded people, solopreneurs, we get so caught up in the how to's and ABC and left to right thinking that we overlook something as simple as something as simple as an objective. Just telling somebody where you're trying to go and where you're trying to get to, it really helps drive home to them why you're giving them this process and why this process has these particular things in it.
Speaker 1:Yeah. Absolutely. And so let's let's talk now about kind of, you know, a couple of tools that are out there that we can use to document procedures. And, actually, just speaking on on that last point, though, that objective or the end goal, I always try to include that right at the very top of every procedure. So I have, like, the title of the pre procedure, and then I have a section called called overview.
Speaker 1:And that's just, you know, a one sentence to maybe, like, one paragraph about why is this procedure important, when when would you need to follow it, and and how does that fit in, and then I'll get into the steps. I don't just start with, like, step one.
Speaker 2:Yes. That's I mean, that's that's a good way to do it.
Speaker 1:Cool. So so let's talk about a few tools. I mean, I mentioned that that what I'm using is basically Google Docs, Google Drive. I like that because it kinda gives everybody it's easy to kinda give everyone access to to the procedures. We could share everything.
Speaker 1:It's also easy to to share with, like, a a temporary contractor. So I can just give someone, like, one procedure if I needed to, and they can just kinda step in for a week and then step out. So, I mean, beyond that, are are there tools that you're using?
Speaker 2:Sure. So I mean Google Docs is right up there at the top of the list. I sometimes like to make comparisons to, the corporate world, you know, I don't think that the, by far like I'm, you know, I'm all for solopreneurs. Like, I think that's the future of small business in this country anyway, and you can see it happening every day. Examples such as, you know, the success story of your company, I mean, this is this is the way of the future, right?
Speaker 2:So, when when I do call out when I do reflect back on the corporate world, it's because, you know, I've seen it at such a big scale and that really helps see where a lot of the companies are going. Right? They may not see it, but a lot of these things that the big companies do that the smaller companies may not necessarily like, they're actually heading in that direction. You you pointed out earlier when you talked about how you're shedding your you might be getting a little rusty on your your technical skills, but your business skills are actually becoming sharper and sharper. And it's just natural if you're scaling a business that that's that's actually that's gonna happen to you.
Speaker 2:But Google Docs is one I really in I really, really like because Google Docs gives you, three things that you really I believe you really need to have in any tool in the modern this modern modern era that we're living in today. Right? Whatever you're using, it needs to be decentralized, So anything that's in the cloud pretty much takes care of that. You wanna have some permissions controls in place where you can set different permission levels based on profile, etcetera, because every process isn't going to be for every person. And you like you said, you're gonna have people who come for, maybe a few weeks and they're gone.
Speaker 2:And then you may have some longer term people. So you wanna have commissions that allow you to close all things and open up things. And probably one of the most important is collaboration. You know, you want to be able to share documents, your processes quickly with, you know, whomever needs to have those documents with them at the time. Yep.
Speaker 2:Google Docs does all of those things. You know, to get into a little bit of detail with Google Docs, one of the things I really like about Google Docs is the suite of tools. There's Google Drawing, which is really helpful for creating workflows.
Speaker 1:And then just recently started kinda playing around with that, just diagramming different like, I I've actually used it to diagram our, our sales funnel and and our, email automation sequence. So it's it's pretty cool.
Speaker 2:It is. It is. I mean, it it it's it's it's gotten a little better than it was in the beginning. But, you know, that's just the natural progression of software. Right?
Speaker 2:It's gotten a lot better. But, you know, you can go there and you can create the workflows, which is one of the first things you wanna do, or diagramming, as you said, while you're creating a process. And then when you get to the point where you're actually ready to start putting things down in black and white, you have the, the Google Doc itself. And then, you know, if you need to do some things that maybe look better in a presentation format, you have Google Presentation. So that's really a great, sort of bootstraps product that anyone can use at no cost that will give them everything that they need.
Speaker 2:Another tool that I like is Balsamiq Mockups. There's a flow chart component to it.
Speaker 1:I I use Balsamiq for wireframes. I actually didn't even know about the the flow chart thing.
Speaker 2:Yes. Yes. You can there there's there's a tool. There's a component in in Balsamiq mockups that will allow you to create and workflows. When I say workflows, I'm basically talking about, you know, the decision triangles and starting starting points for processes where you just visually lay everything out from a to b.
Speaker 1:Very cool.
Speaker 2:Nice document it. Pencil is another one that's an open source flowchart style of program.
Speaker 1:Yeah. And I, you know, I gotta throw out there, Sweet Process as well. That's a it I mean, I helped design that. I was one of the cofounders, but that, you know, sweetprocess.com is designed to to create standard operating procedures, and I think that works pretty well as well.
Speaker 2:Yeah. No. No. I I tested I I I tried out sweet process, but I really like and this was a little while back, but I really like the direction that they were going.
Speaker 1:So, I mean, what what are the tools that are again, like, I'm not in this corporate world at all. Like, what are the big tools that typically a a big company would would be using for this kind of thing?
Speaker 2:Yeah. So that that part so the answer to that question, you know, it might be a little surprising, maybe it's not. We we build everything from scratch. So we we Oh, wow. And we designed a infrastructure for housing these documents and working with these documents.
Speaker 2:It it's all built, you know, in ASP and and HTML. So they really it's it's anything specific that we were using. It was all custom developed. Wow. And, you know, that that the reason kinda part of the reason for that is because, well, I'll take that back.
Speaker 2:There was a program called Microsoft SharePoint, that was at our disposal, but it just didn't do what we needed it to do, so it never really got used. So, what we the custom application was ultimately what we had to build because there really wasn't there really wasn't anything out there that delivered, what we actually needed to have delivered.
Speaker 1:Interesting. You know, I I think that that gives us a pretty good at least a good overview of of getting into systems if you're if you're bootstrapping a new start up or even just working in a consultancy or growing an agency. I mean, this stuff is super important, and it it took me a little while to start really getting into it. But once I did, that's that's when things really started to grow and my mindset really started to change. You know?
Speaker 1:And once again, our every time I do the podcast, we've got sirens. We've got motorcycles. So sorry about that. You know, great book on this subject would be well, a few great books. I mean, e Myth revisited.
Speaker 1:That one really kinda changed my whole mindset. Another popular one, pretty good is Work the System. Yes. And I'm I'm terrible with author names. I'm I'm gonna link all these up in the in the show notes.
Speaker 1:Then, of course, you gotta check out Systematized by, by Kyle who's here today.
Speaker 2:Yes. Yes. Absolutely. Check out Systematized.
Speaker 1:By the way, when is that, gonna be available?
Speaker 2:Sometime in the summer. You know, I don't want to disappoint anyone or by not delivering, but, definitely sometime before the summer ends. I've, been working hard at it. I've picked up a couple of things. By the way, both of those books, The E Myth and Work the System by Sam Carpenter, I actually did not read those books until after I stopped doing this as a, you know, in my day job.
Speaker 2:Found them both to be very, very interesting and valuable. Yep. But sometime in the summer, before the summer's up, I'll have the book out. Those those are our plans right now.
Speaker 1:Awesome. Well, yeah, I mean, you know, we're getting close to that here. You know, this will be out in in probably next week. And so you you'll definitely wanna check out systemat systematizedbook.com. And where else can people kinda find you, Kyle, and and connect with you?
Speaker 2:Sure. I'm at kylembrown.com. That's where I spend most of my time blogging and sharing ideas about the systems processes and various other technical things. And at Twitter, I am @kylbrownatkylbrown.
Speaker 1:Very cool. Well, Kyle, thanks so much for for taking the time today, and and yeah.
Speaker 2:Thanks for having me, Brian.
Speaker 1:Alright. Alright. Talk soon. Alright. Hope you enjoyed that that conversation with Kyle Brown today.
Speaker 1:Talking all about systems, man. They they are so important, you know, to really start documenting and procedureizing your business. Remember, just start small. Start with something. Just a quick bullet list of step by steps, you know, that you're doing in a repeatable process, something that you're doing every week that you want to delegate and hand off pretty soon.
Speaker 1:Just start documenting those procedures. Step one, step two. Anyway, you can get the show notes for this episode by going to castjam.com/thirty. By the way, I've got my newsletter, that's where I send out. I actually don't send out about this podcast.
Speaker 1:My newsletter is where I'll send out a new article, something, you know, something helpful, a lesson or that I'm that I'm teaching, something that I learned in my business. It's it's actually a a whole separate set of content there between the podcast and the article. So you can check that out. Cashjohn.com. My my newsletter is there.
Speaker 1:And thank you so much for listening. If you're enjoying this podcast, please head head over to iTunes, leave a five star review. I'd really appreciate it. Help other people discover this show. And thanks.
Speaker 1:See you next week.
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