Now is the time

Congratulations, you made it to the end! We’ve covered an enormous amount of ground here so it’s a good idea to stop, take a step back and look at the seven stages from a high level.

Most books in this genre use their closing chapter to remind their readers of all the benefits of what they’ve just read and why they should act on it right away.

But in this instance, that feels redundant. In my experience, the vast majority of people that come to me to learn SYSTEMology do so not because they want to be convinced of the benefits of systemising their business, but because they’re already sold on the idea and they need a plan to make it all happen.

I’m the first to admit that business systemisation is not an original idea. It’s been around for decades. You may have even tried to systemise in the past but failed.

What you needed was a system for making it happen, and this is the gap that SYSTEMology fills. Every small business owner deserves to have a business with complete business reliability! This is the reason, I assume, why most people will pick up this book. And if you’ve read all the way through to this final chapter, you’re likely already convinced of its merits. The argument for systemisation is strong and when you walk through the process, it’s almost impossible to deny. No, a desire to act is not your biggest obstacle to getting started …

The obstacle is WHEN. When will systemisation become your business’ top priority?

What we know for sure is that, as time passes, your future reality will happen automatically. The question is, what reality will you have?

The fact is, doing nothing costs you more than still being in the same place at some point in the future. The pathway to the future is never a straight line. It’s a curve and it accelerates as time passes.

Do nothing and you will automatically drift further down. Moving up and riding that curve upwards takes clear, decisive action.

So, what options do you have?

If you lower the priority of systemisation for too long, jumping from survival to saleable is, at minimum, riskier, harder and more costly. And the reality is that, no matter how far away that upward curve feels right now, at this point in time it’s as close as it’s ever going to be.

Now is the time to make the jump!

Perhaps one of the best ways to move people from ‘should’ to ‘must’ is to focus purely on the bottom line. So, let’s do that now.

How much is not systemising currently costing you?¶

While this is a tricky question to quantify exactly since the effects of systemisation are so far-reaching, don’t worry – there’s a calculator for that at www.SYSTEMology.com/resources.

The link above will take you to a financial calculator that provides a basic formula for calculating profit. This allows you to observe the effect small improvements in multiple areas can have on your business.

Small gains, when multiplied out, equal big wins on the bottom line.

Now I don’t want to get too caught up in the maths, but I do want you to understand the numbers we’ll be working with…

• Attention – how many people become aware of your business
• Enquiry – the percentage of people who become interested prospects
• Sales – the percentage of people who go on to make a purchase
• Money – the average price of the products or services you sell
• Repeat – the number of times a client comes back
• Margin – the profit you make after expenses

If these numbers look familiar, it’s because they are derived from your CCF and CCF Dashboard. They’re the key metrics from within your business and they’re the numbers we’re looking to improve as we install systems.

The question is, what size improvement do you think we can make by improving your systems? Do you think with some new marketing systems you could increase the number of people who learn and enquire about your business?

Do you think you could improve the number of sales your business makes by documenting what your best salesperson says and getting other team members to follow suit? Could you add a step to ensure your team always looks for other ways to help your client and upsell where it makes sense?

Do you think having a consistent way of onboarding clients and delivering work could reduce errors and increase efficiency?

Would all of these changes lead to your clients having a better experience that will, in turn, increase the likelihood they’ll come back and refer new clients?

Do you think with a focus on your systems, capturing best practices, getting everyone following these new processes (and in some areas completely re-engineering your systems), would it be possible to get even just a 10 per cent improvement in each of these metrics?

Absolutely, and of course it’s possible. I’ve seen the introduction of systems skyrocket performance across the board far in excess of 10 per cent wins. But even with a conservative outlook, 10 per cent wins are well and truly achievable by installing good systems.

Now, here’s the kicker. What do you think the impact would be to your business if you saw a 10 per cent gain in each of these numbers?

I’ll give you a hint. It’s not 10 per cent … When you dig into the numbers, you’ll discover that those 10 per cent wins compound each other and improve bottom-line profits by almost 80 per cent!

Let’s look at an example …

• Attention – Imagine you get your advertising message in front of 100,000 people.

• Enquiries – 20 per cent of those convert from browser to enquirer (20,000 people).

• Sales – 25 per cent of those make a purchase (5000 sales).

• Money – Your average product price is $200.

• Repeat – Your clients purchase, on average, once per year.

• Margin – You make 25 per cent profit margin on your total sales.

To work out your profits, you multiply the sales, by money, by repeat, and by margin. In this example, that puts our bottom-line profit at $250,000.

Sales (5000) x Money ($200) x Repeat (1) = Revenue ($1,000,000)

Revenue x Margin (25%) = Profit ($250,000)

Now let’s see what happens if you make a simple 10 per cent improvement in each metric across the board …

• Attention – You get your advertising message in front of 110,000 people.

• Enquiries – 22 per cent of those convert from browser to enquirer (24,200 people).

• Sales – 27.5 per cent of those people make a purchase (6,655 sales).

• Money – Your average product price has increased to $220.

• Repeat – Your clients now purchase, on average, 1.1 times per year – in other words, 1 in 10 clients makes a second purchase.

• Margin – You now make 27.5 per cent profit margin on your total sales.

Sales (6655) x Money ($220) x Repeat (1.1) = Revenue ($1,610,510)

Revenue x Margin (27.5%) = Profit ($442,890.25)

Can you see the power in this? Simple, 10 per cent improvements in each metric, gained through deploying systems, increases the net profit from $250,000 to almost half a million! That’s an extra $190,000 in profit, from just a handful of 10 per cent wins.

And don’t forget, these are conservative numbers. Get more than 10 per cent in just one or two areas, and the bottom-line profit soars. These are rough numbers and you’ll no doubt have to make some guesstimates, but play around with the calculator and see what the impact could be to your business.

The point is to show the REAL cost of not installing systems. In this example, it is costing the business $190,000 not to take action. And that’s just on the bottom line.

SYSTEMology delivers many unintended and welcome benefits, but if you want to get down to just the numbers, it’s well worth finding out how much it’s costing you not to systemise!

Be prepared for opportunities¶

I’ll leave you with one final story. The story of how I wound up on a TEDxYouth stage in the Netherlands, giving a talk about – you guessed it – systems-thinking.

I wish I could give you a formula, like seek out speaking gigs on a specific subject, build a speaking portfolio, connect with a particular influential person and then you’ll score a spot. The sad news is, I don’t have such a system.

The seed of the opportunity started early in my career when I was working in the stock market education field. I used to help people design trading systems. When I was starting out, I did a few speaking events and uploaded some of these to YouTube before moving onto other things. Cut to fifteen years later and a young guy on the board of TEDxYouth tells his father they’re looking for an international speaker and asks him if he knows anyone who might be a good fit.

For reasons unknown, this guy’s father remembers watching me on YouTube over a decade ago and suggests to his son that he reach out to me and see if I’d be interested.

Crazy, right? I get an email out of the blue asking me if I’d like to be a TEDx speaker – which, for me, was one of the easier questions to answer – and six months later I’m on stage.

But here’s the real reason I’m sharing this story … For the right person, speaking on a TEDx stage is a huge opportunity. It’s instant recognition and it can do amazing things for your brand. But what most people don’t realise is that there’s a little more to it than just jumping on stage and talking for eighteen minutes.

The really tough part comes before the presentation. Firstly, every TEDx talk has to be strictly non-commercial in nature. You can’t pitch anything and there’s no fee for appearing, so there’s no direct benefit to your business.

You also have to cover your own travel expenses and accommodation, so there’s a real cost for the privilege of speaking. And that’s before we talk about the hundreds of hours you’re going to spend preparing and practising the talk.

It’s a pretty big commitment for no immediate commercial gain. But does that mean it isn’t an opportunity worth pursuing? Of course not! Sometimes the best opportunities are those that most people are unwilling, or unable, to pursue.

Now, whether or not this sort of opportunity would make sense for you is irrelevant. The point is that opportunities present themselves all the time. Some you might decide not to pursue due to time or money deficiencies, while others you might miss because you don’t have the headspace to see them.

Maybe there is a system for becoming a TEDx speaker, but if there is, I don’t know it. My TEDx talk came about through yet another non-linear sequence of events that I couldn’t replicate if I wanted to. Getting the opportunity was not something I had control over …

But being prepared to take the opportunity when it presented itself was absolutely within my power.

The truth is, being ready to take advantage of opportunities as they present themselves will always get you the biggest wins. I suppose that’s obvious by definition. Opportunity is ‘a time or set of circumstances that makes it possible to do something’. Whether it’s doing a TEDx talk in the Netherlands, working with Michael E. Gerber to launch his book or selling the MCG, Australia’s most beloved sporting ground (you’ll learn about the last one when you watch my TEDx talk) – you must be ready when the time comes.

Accordingly, if I were to wish anything for you, it’s to have space in your own life to be able to take advantage of these non-linear opportunities when they present themselves.

I know if you’re good at what you do, if you take the time to connect with others doing good work and you build a reputable business that genuinely solves your client’s problems, opportunities are going to present themselves.

Sometimes when you least expect it. I won’t repeat my TEDx talk now (google it if you’re curious), but a lot has happened since then and I have thought much about what I would say if I had the opportunity to share my thoughts on systems-thinking again. If I had a do-over, I would discuss how creating systems is hard work and how you have to have the discipline to stick with it. It’s mostly simple and straightforward, but it’s far from easy.

I sometimes think that, in my talk, I made it all sound easier than it actually is.

But by now I think you know what’s required. Now is the time to get started. Make this happen. Not just for you, but for your team, for your family and for your community.

Stick to the path and you’ll create results beyond your imagination.

Watch David’s TEDx talk¶