Why you shouldn’t wait to systemise your business

As a business owner, you’ve probably dreamt about building a successful business, that is highly profitable, and can run on its own without being reliant on you. You’re not alone. One of the main reasons people start a business is to have more freedom and flexibility.

Yet many business owners quickly become consumed by the business and find themselves dragged into the daily operations of their business. While your employees generally have set working hours, as the business owner you can be found working in your business at all hours of the day and night. This isn’t why you went into business for yourself and is the exact reason why you should systemise your business. To give yourself more freedom and flexibility.

What is a systemised business?

A systemised business is one that has set systems and processes in place, to improve efficiencies, provide consistency and allow for a more streamlined workflow that benefits both employees and customers or clients.

Being a business owner shouldn't mean that you have to sacrifice everything to create a business you love and build a life that you enjoy. Any business owner can quickly lose their passion and forget the reason they started their business in the first place. If this is exactly how you’re feeling, then it’s time to stop, refocus and learn how systemising your business can help you to regain the freedom and flexibility you’ve been dreaming of. 

Systemising your business can provide numerous benefits, not only for you but also for your employees. It helps to reduce business waste due to inefficiencies, gets your team clear on how things need to be done, creates consistency of delivery, and takes reliance away from you as the owner.

3 reasons why you should systemise your business sooner than later

1) Reduces the risk of losing critical knowledge

As business coaches, one of our biggest frustrations is when we see key personnel, who have been working for the business for some time leave and unfortunately take all of the knowledge in their heads with them. The implication of this is the need to rebuild all that knowledge and understanding if that key employee leaves. There are often gaps that may be hard to fill, as this key employee that exited the business had a profound knowledge of how things were done. For many business owners, this may be a key blockage that has the potential to hold the business back from scaling. 

This is a major challenge for businesses, and by documenting the information and creating a clear process, this harnesses the knowledge of employees and allows the business to become systemised, one process at a time. 

By systemising your business, you significantly reduce the risk of losing critical information while being able to build a business blueprint so your team can consistently get the job done. As systems create a clear and consistent way to do things in business, other team members can step in and help when needed, and you can rest assured that if an employee leaves or goes on holiday, it is possible for someone else to step in and fill their shoes temporarily. 

2) More time for you to do the things you enjoy doing

Surprisingly, the above challenge often includes the business owner carrying all the knowledge in their head and could be the reason for the overwhelm in your business. As you continue to hold critical knowledge on how to run your operations, your employees tend to rely heavily on you and get you involved in every single decision. The consequence? Your employees lose the autonomy in performing their roles, and you lose your freedom to do the things you actually enjoy doing.

Having a systemised business will enable you to have the freedom and flexibility that you had hoped for when you first started your business. You will be able to go on leave or spend time with your loved ones, not worrying whether your business is still running efficiently or the constant interruptions of work calls.

3) Facilitating training and onboarding

Another reason to systemise your business is to facilitate the training and onboarding of new employees. We understand that instructing and engaging with new team members in the first few weeks can be time-consuming and demanding if you don’t have a proper process in place. Managers and team members can feel under pressure to teach and guide new hires across every single step, most likely resulting in a drop in output and productivity.

Not following a set of directives and processes when a new employee comes on board can also make them feel flustered. From personal experience, you may remember the feeling of starting a new role, and how overwhelming it can be. By providing a clear structure and a proper onboarding plan to your new hires, you will give them the guidance and assurance needed to ​​autonomously perform their roles.

Ultimately, implementing training and onboarding systems will help you to address new hires’ needs and concerns, increase retention and employee performance while releasing the burden on existing team members.

When is the right time to systemise your business?

Once you understand the importance of systemising your business to free up time to perform other important tasks or be able to step out of the business, it’s time to consider when you should systemise your business.

Knowing when is the right time to systemise your business can begin by simply reflecting on whether you think your business could perform better than it currently is. Every business suffers from some form of inefficiency and only those who are successful in minimising it become long-term profitable ventures.

Take a closer look and try asking yourself:

• Are you constantly seeing errors and rework by employees or yourself?
• Are your business goals being achieved?
• Is it taking too long to perform certain tasks?
• Are you feeling a sense of overwhelm and that your business is out of control?
• Does your business rely too heavily on you being there for it to run effectively?

If you answered yes to one or more of these questions, now might be the time to chat to our experienced Systemologists and business coaches, who can help you create systems and processes in your business. 

Every day that you wait is costing you time and money. One of the best ways to maximise productivity and reduce business waste (due to inefficiencies) is by fine-tuning the business systems and processes that keep it running. Whether you are in the early stages of business or have been in business for a long time, it’s never too late to systemise your business.

Want to know more about systemising your business? We’ve got all your questions and answers covered here. If you’re ready to take action (and we love action takers), then get in touch with our certified Systemologist Greg Gunther, or contact us today to find out more information on getting started.

The YBM Systemology team looks forward to hearing from you!