If you own a service business…
And if you want to make more money…a lot of it…
Then make sure you read this blog post all the way through because it will reveal the little-known source of MASSIVE AMOUNTS OF MONEY in your service business.
… You don’t need to sell anything different
… You don’t need to hire anyone different (in fact, your team will become MORE effective)
… You don’t need to do any more marketing
… In most cases, you don’t even need to spend money to implement this either!
I’m talking about SYSTEMS.
Systems are the way to make more money in your business.
A lot of service business owners think they need to do this, that, or the other to make more money… so they invest in new software or go on hiring sprees to find more people.
But in reality what they need are systems. (Don’t confuse systems and software; people often confuse the two… a system can include software but it doesn’t have to include software.)
Rather, a system is a step-by-step method that people follow in the same way every time they execute.
A system is way to perform a series of tasks in the same way (with predictable steps and predictable results) over and over and over again without reinventing the wheel each time.
If this is new to you then you’ll quickly understand what I’m talking about with this non-business example, and then I’ll explain how it works in your business…
The Systems In Our Lives That We Create Automatically
What do you do between the time you leave your house in the morning to head to the office and the time that you get to the office? For most people, that’s a system that they build unconsciously in their lives.
When you leave for work in the morning, you probably do the following (sure, yours might look slightly different but let’s use this as an example)…
- Grab your car keys and wallet
- Walk to the car and get in
- Turn the car on and put your seatbelt on
- Back out of the driveway
- Drive to work—probably using the same route every single day
That is a system. You do it exactly the same every single day…
- The steps are predictable: you do them in exactly the same way each day
- The results are predictable: you get to the office
- You can pretty much do the whole thing on autopilot, which maybe allows you to think about the day ahead
- What’s more, if something changes—such as if you can’t find your keys, or if the car doesn’t start, or if there is construction that detours you to a route you didn’t recognize—then you definitely notice the situation and it can create stress or cause inefficiencies!
That is a very simple system that most people understand because they do it automatically.
Some systems are created unconsciously. In my book The Secrets Of Business Mastery I use the example of showing up to the office and you have an unconscious system of unlocking the door, turning on the lights, disabling the alarm, making coffee, starting up your computer, etc.
We create these systems in our lives from the moment we wake up in the morning to the moment we go to bed at night just to make our lives easier. We don’t want to have to think about these things because they can take up our mental “bandwidth”.
Although we create them in our lives, we often don’t create them in our business. Yet, that’s where we can really benefit from them and systems can help to make your business really profitable.
Systems make tasks predictable, and they make outcomes predictable, which makes it easier for your employees to perform their work and anticipate results; they don’t have to re-create the wheel each time.
A system can include:
- Steps—clearly laid out
- A checklist
- A flow-chart (which works like a checklist but also allows for multiple pathways)
- Scripts
- Copy-and-paste templates
Sure, there are other things you can include in your systems but if you start with these, they’re easy to make and you can build systems fast in your business.
And the big question: why are systems so powerful and profitable? Because your employees don’t need to come to you for guidance, and you also eliminate errors and mistakes when you keep them from trying to reinvent the wheel. Instead of letting them figure it out on their own each time, just have them following the checklist. They’ll complete the work faster (that’s higher productivity, which helps you company make more money) with fewer errors.
Where To Put Systems In Your Business
Service:
One of the first places you should put a system is in your service—in how you serve your customer. Create a step-by-step checklist of the steps that your techs need to go through whenever they go to a customer’s home.
The system should include everything: from picking up the work order to checking that their van is tidy and fueled to making sure that they look clean and professional. Leave nothing to chance.
Money-handling:
Have you ever had to send employees back to a customer’s house because the date on a check was wrong? Build a money-handling system—a flowchart and checklist that your employee needs to review whenever they receive money (no matter how they receive it—check, credit card, cash, whatever).
You’ll eliminate a lot of the mistakes and frustrations that happen around money and there will always be a clear “chain of command” when it comes to money.
Opening and closing procedures:
Create a simple checklist of everything that needs to happen first thing in the morning when opening up your office, and last thing at night when closing your office down.
This keeps things consistent and, when you do this, you no longer have to be the first one at the office or the last one to leave.
Outbound calling system:
Create a system to get your outbound phone team to call your previous customers and see if you can help them. Build the system “end-to-end” meaning that you list out the reason when they would call (What would trigger them to start calling? When should the stop calling?), where to find the numbers, and the scripts to say.
This outbound calling system will become a “push button profit center” that you can simply say, “Let’s implement the outbound calling system now” whenever you want more business.
Summary And Action Steps
Systems are a powerful way to grow your business. They make your life less stressful and they can make your business more money.
If you want to start implementing systems in your business, here are 3 action steps to do right now:
- Identify one or two areas in your business where you could benefit from a system.
- Create a simple system (even if it’s just a checklist) to empower your team to take action by following the checklist.
- Sign up for my next Service Business Edge event at ServiceBusinessEdge.com and I’ll share with you some of my systems and give you some powerful ideas to create even more systems in your business.
