The first step in creating systems in your business is investing in capture tools so you can start building your online training university for the people you are ultimately going to hire. Do this as soon as possible, before you even think you need to hire someone. I use Zoom for this. They have a free version if you keep your recordings under 45 minutes.
Recording my screen with Zoom allows you to capture screenshots, and a voice recording, so you can create a module for each of your tasks. This documents your processes and sets up procedures so when you are ready to hire someone, you can quickly train them and get them up and running.
Get off Email
Email is probably the biggest time suck that you are going to encounter every week as a business owner. When you get to the point that you can afford $10 an hour, hire a virtual assistant and have them call you up twice a day and read you your email. You will tell them how to respond. This is great to do while you are driving to an appointment.
After about two weeks of doing this, you are going to have email entirely off your plate. Your VA will be able to screen your email, reply to basic questions, and handle all the little things before they even get you on the phone. This practice saves me about 15 hours a week.
Train Your Employees
Once you hire a resource and hand them a module, you still need to train them. If you don’t onboard your help, properly it is going to come back to you with lots of questions, misunderstandings, mistakes, and you will eventually revert to doing it yourself again. Don’t let this happen.
You are hiring someone to do it right, to do it better than you were doing it. You want your employees to succeed. Before you give them that module, you need to make sure they have the skillset to be successful with the tasks they are given. Then you want to sit down and explain everything to them and have them watch the module.
When they are done watching the module ask them if they have any questions, if they understand what is expected of them, and ask them if they know what success in their job looks like. Make sure they are very clear on those three things before you turn them loose.
While you are training your employee make sure they understand that you want them to learn. It is okay for them to make mistakes because you want them to learn why they happened and how to avoid them. Also, give them permission to make improvements to the process so they can make it better than what you were doing.
Then give them some time to figure it out. At this point, they own the task, and it does not come back to you. Let them go and make mistakes and figure it out. Don’t ever take this task back. Let them stumble and fall and make mistakes but give them 100% ownership of that task. Now it is off your plate, and you are free to go and do more of what you want to do.
Test your Systems
As your business grows, you are going to want to test where your business is at. Make sure you have the right systems in place. As you outsource, delegate, and automate you are going to get your business the point where it can run by itself. The ultimate goal here is to be able to disappear for four straight weeks, and things will continue on, business as usual.
That is how you want to structure your business, and it all starts with you capturing everything you do so you can create training modules and set up your employees up for success. If you have any questions about the importance of building training modules as you are starting your business let me know.
