Systems Strategy for Small Businesses

Tech and SystemsOnline Business Management

Mar 3

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Everywhere you look it seems like someone’s talking about systems, right?

What are your systems?
Are they working?
Are they scalable?

If you’re thinking to yourself:

What even are systems?
Do I have them?
Do I need them?

Then you’ve made it to the right place. Today we’re going to chat all about what systems are and why you need them so you can start creating the systems your business needs and stop spending so much time working on back-office tasks.

Let’s get into it.

This is for you if…

You know you need systems in your business but you’re not sure where to start
You’ve got a few systems but you need to streamline them
You’re not sure exactly what to include in your documentation

Systems strategies are designed to improve efficiency, productivity, and profitability for small business owners. They're also essential to growing a successful company.

But what kind do you actually need, what tools should you use, and how do you set them up?

We’ll get to that but let’s start with the basics.

Understand the Importance of Systems.

A system is an organized set of procedures that helps people accomplish tasks more efficiently. It's not just something that happens when you hire a new employee; it's a process that needs to be implemented throughout the organization.

Every repeatable task in your business should have a system and it should be documented so that someone who’s never completed that task before can do it without asking how.

An example of this could be publishing a blog. Let’s say you’ve finally hired that virtual assistant you’ve been needing for months. You want them to publish a new blog post for you. Simple enough. And yes, in a perfect world, you’ll be able to walk them through what to do, not just throw them into the fire. But, let’s say you’re on a call and they want to get it done.

So they go to your SOP database (we’ll talk about that one later 😉), find your SOP on how to publish a blog post and voilá! They’ve published a blog post for you without you having to give them any additional information.

I do want to add here that SOPs, systems, and documents do not take the place of supporting your team members. They are in place to support the efficiency of the business and the team as a whole.

The idea here is that while yes, they will still need training, there is also a documented system in place for every process so that every time they work on something new, they don’t need to come to you for the steps. Everything is already laid out for them.

Now, how do you decide what tasks get documented systems?

The short answer is all of them do. But don’t get overwhelmed, there’s a process for that. 😉

Identify Key Processes.

To develop a systems strategy, first identify what processes need to happen within your business. This will help you determine where to focus your efforts.

You don’t need to worry about writing everything down for each process right now. Just start with a list. List every task and process in your business that needs to be done by you or by someone else.

This could look like:
Blog posting
Customer service
Checking emails
Checking in with clients
Running payroll
Scheduling social media posts
Updating spreadsheet data

… the list can go on and on.

Once you've identified key processes, think about how each process works together to support the company's goals.

Start there and make your list. Then prioritize it by importance. What are the systems your new virtual assistant needs to know how to do? Who is doing that now? Does that person need to create the SOP for this particular process?

Implement a Plan.

Now it’s time to start documenting these systems.

A systems strategy helps small businesses stay focused on achieving their goals by implementing a plan that includes the following steps. You’ll want to go through each of these steps for each process you want to break down and document.

Identify the processes needed to achieve success. These are the process you listed above that need documentation.
Determine how each process supports the company's goals. (For example, does the sales team sell more products?)
Develop an implementation plan that addresses each process.
Monitor progress and make adjustments as necessary.

So for blog posting, this could look like:

Key Process: Weekly blog post
How does this support the company’s goals: Weekly blog posts are a key part of the marketing plan and help new potential customers find the company.
Implementation plan can also be known as an SOP or standard operating procedure:

Duplicate blog template in Squarespace.
Copy Blog title in ClickUp and paste in Title, Title in the content, and SEO title.
Copy URL slug from ClickUp and add to Squarespace.
Copy all of the blog content from Google Doc and paste to Blog Content in Squarespace. Check spacing, bold text, and links.
Check that PS is the same as the template or update as needed.
Check for signature.
Add thumbnail and Pinterest image using Pinterest SOP
Check tags and categories for the blog.
Schedule blog for the appropriate date at 7am.

Monitor progress: track the stats for the blog posts such as traffic to it and lead generation from it.

💡Pro tip: For your documentation, make a video using something like Loom to walk through the process. This is.a great addition to the listed out steps for your team members who are more visual learners.

You’ll want to repeat those steps for each process you want to document for your team. Ultimately you want to document everything. But don’t overwhelm yourself with that at the beginning. Start with the tasks that someone else will be taking over for you.

Recap

Documenting your systems and coming up with processes is a very important step in business, especially as you start bringing on team members to help you. But it doesn’t have to be a complicated ordeal. It’s really just two simple steps.

→ Start by listing out the tasks you want to hand off to your team member.
→ List out detailed instructions on how to complete those tasks. Bonus points if you make a quick how-to video to go with it!

xx,
Delana

PS: If you’re not sure where you need to start with your business systems, I’ve got a quiz to help you out. It’s 10 questions, super quick and easy. It’ll tell you which system you need to set up first, and you’ll get a tool to help you take action right now, today. Because why waste another minute? Take the quiz →