Ep 30. Running A Thriving Business Without Systems: A Mini Case Study
What happens when you attempt to run a growing business without systems? In this episode, host, Phylicia shares a mini case study of a past client who went through this. She shares the challenges they faced during this season, along with the solution that eliminated most of those challenges.
About Phylicia
Phylicia Pough, MBA is a wife, mom of 1 daughter and an entrepreneur. For over 10 years, Phylicia has been behind the scenes of businesses and ministries, keeping things organized. Her journey started in Administration and developed into Systems & Automation Consulting/Strategy.
Her latest venture is The Mom CEO Suite which is a community for the modern day mom in business that curates experiences and safe spaces for mompreneurs. The Mom CEO Suite also automates business and podcasting processes for mompreneur service providers.
Connect with Phylicia
Facebook: Phylicia Pough
Instagram: @PhyliciaPough
LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/phyliciapough/
Connect with The Mom CEO Suite
Website: themomceosuite.com
Instagram: @themomceosuite
Join The Mom CEO Suite Facebook Group
Join The Mom CEO Suite Email Community
Links & Mentions
This podcast uses the following third-party services for analysis:
Chartable - https://chartable.com/privacy
Transcript
You are now tuned in to the Mom c e O Suite
Speaker:Podcast. I'm your host, Felicia wife,
Speaker:mom, and entrepreneur. In this podcast, I'll be sharing my
Speaker:mompreneur journey along with strategies that will help you build your
Speaker:online business operations in a sustainable way.
Speaker:The goal is to help you build a business that fits into your lifestyle as
Speaker:a mom who values putting family first. We will also hear the
Speaker:experiences and expertise of other moms with
Speaker:service-based businesses. You'll get a peek into our journeys, so
Speaker:you'll know that you are alone. Motherhood gets hard,
Speaker:entrepreneurship gets hard, but together we can
Speaker:do hard things. Welcome to this.
Speaker:hey, Frank, thank you for being here in today's episode,
Speaker:I'm going to be sharing a mini case study.
Speaker:Talking about running a thriving business without systems.
Speaker:It's very possible to do. You can have. Great revenue in your
Speaker:business. You can have a team, you can have all the things
Speaker:and you can be doing this without systems, but if you do, there are some
Speaker:challenges that come up and I'm going to share what those are
Speaker:through this mini case study from a past client that I
Speaker:worked with, you all already know if you've listened to the past
Speaker:episodes. I identify or I define
Speaker:systems. As your process, plus your tools, plus
Speaker:your people. And episode 28 and
Speaker:episodes 29. I introduced the idea
Speaker:of SLPs. And I talked more about your processes and
Speaker:I shared a little bit about the benefits. And now today,
Speaker:through this case study, I'm going to share some of the challenges
Speaker:that arise when you don't have those processes or those SLPs
Speaker:in. Police. this'll be really quick. Let's get into it.
Speaker:So the client. Client was actually a male. But he was a
Speaker:service provider. He had been in business for at least 10 years.
Speaker:He had a dedicated office space. He had a support team.
Speaker:Of at least five people in his business was thriving. Lots
Speaker:of clients doing lots of work, continuously getting new
Speaker:clients. And so on the outside, it looked like
Speaker:everything was going well with the business.
Speaker:But some of the challenges that. Uh, roles because
Speaker:he did not have great systems in place.
Speaker:Was that he was always working, always ripping and
Speaker:running, handling things in the business, handling things with the
Speaker:team. He was always being pulled into putting
Speaker:out fires. So if there was an issue that came up.
Speaker:A lot of times the team members couldn't handle it. Because again, there were
Speaker:no. documented processes in place or no real systems
Speaker:in place. So he had to be pulled into a lot of
Speaker:situations. To put out these fires. He
Speaker:was limited in his capacity to grow the business even
Speaker:more in other ways like speaking or attending
Speaker:conferences or things like that. Because he was so involved
Speaker:in the day-to-day work of the business. It was
Speaker:also missing out on money. because there
Speaker:weren't clear processes in place for a lot of things.
Speaker:Including invoicing and accounts receivables.
Speaker:There were thousands of dollars of outstanding
Speaker:invoices. Of money that had not been
Speaker:collected. So he was missing out on some money because
Speaker:he didn't have systems in place. There was also
Speaker:a lack of boundaries between the owner
Speaker:and his clients. Because the
Speaker:clients would call him directly like one his cell phone.
Speaker:If they had questions or if issues uh, rules.
Speaker:And there was no established process for.
Speaker:The client experience or for client communication.
Speaker:And so he was pretty much always on call. With
Speaker:the clients. Which meant. That he was working long
Speaker:hours. And that led to issues
Speaker:and being able to remain consistent. And
Speaker:things in his personal life, like his health.
Speaker:He was so attached to the business. Yeah, he really didn't
Speaker:have time to focus on other important
Speaker:business ventures We're passion projects. So
Speaker:those were just some of the challenges that. Uh, roles because
Speaker:there were no. Systems in place. Meaning there were
Speaker:no processes that were documented. And there
Speaker:was little. if any automation being
Speaker:utilized. Okay. Now, our work
Speaker:together, what did it look like? We first had to look at his
Speaker:existing processes. He had to see what he was
Speaker:doing and why he was doing it. And then we had to fill in the
Speaker:gaps. Filling the gaps, or sometimes we just had to start from
Speaker:scratch. And develop a strong process. And
Speaker:documented. And those became the
Speaker:standard operating procedures where the SLPs.
Speaker:Now, most of the challenges that I mentioned before, We're
Speaker:prevalent because all of the business processes were not
Speaker:documented. They were all in the owner's head. But once
Speaker:we were able to document. a lot of those challenges were
Speaker:eliminated the staff. They were able to have a clear direction
Speaker:for how to handle. X Y and Z, those
Speaker:fires. Uh, and the owner could step
Speaker:away. From the business day to day. The SLPs
Speaker:became the blueprint for the business. Instead of the
Speaker:owner's brain. Being the blueprint for the
Speaker:business. Okay. So we did a lot of work with the
Speaker:processes. I also helped them do some work with cleaning up his
Speaker:CRM. And, doing some hiring.
Speaker:But the hiring became easier because we had a
Speaker:clear idea of what this new hire would actually be doing. It
Speaker:would have been challenging to bring somebody on. If things on the
Speaker:back end, we're still so chaotic. And so
Speaker:I just wanted to share this to let you know. I know there is always
Speaker:a debate about when you should. Start developing your
Speaker:SLPs. And to be quite honest, you can do it whenever it
Speaker:makes sense for you and your business. But I don't want you to
Speaker:get to the point where you are thriving.
Speaker:And you don't have systems in place. Because it is going
Speaker:to stunt your growth. And it is going to come.
Speaker:Along with some challenges. That may be a little heavy
Speaker:for you to handle. Now it's not enough for
Speaker:you to create the process, or create the SLPs.
Speaker:You can create it and document it, but you also have to live them out.
Speaker:You have to create space and you have to create a system for
Speaker:the implementation of these processes. And for.
Speaker:Your team. Or anybody else that's going to be
Speaker:involved. To be trained in your
Speaker:processes. This is a topic that I will talk about more
Speaker:during the two day SOP sprint. I'll be talking about the
Speaker:SOP life cycle. But if you are ready,
Speaker:To actually have processes in your business. If you're
Speaker:ready to begin. Developing them and documenting
Speaker:them. And a smart way. And
Speaker:you're ready to stop. Working so much in your
Speaker:business so that you can work on your business. If you are
Speaker:ready to hire. Without it being
Speaker:chaotic. If you are ready to have the freedom to step away
Speaker:from your business. Without. The business suffering
Speaker:Then I would love to have you a part of the two
Speaker:day SOP sprint, where we will be focusing
Speaker:specifically on. The processes and the
Speaker:SLPs, which is the foundation. Of building a great
Speaker:system. If you have questions, let me know, shoot me a
Speaker:message. To get more information about the two day
Speaker:SOP sprint. Click the link in the show description,
Speaker:and I'll see you in the next episode. Thank you for listening to the
Speaker:Mom C e O Suite Podcast. If you enjoyed this
Speaker:episode, can you do us a favor? Leave a review on iTunes
Speaker:and share with other moms in business like you. Help us spread our
Speaker:message and empower others who are at this intersection of