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

Transcript
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You are now tuned in to the Mom c e O Suite

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Podcast. I'm your host, Felicia wife,

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mom, and entrepreneur. In this podcast, I'll be sharing my

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mompreneur journey along with strategies that will help you build your

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online business operations in a sustainable way.

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The goal is to help you build a business that fits into your lifestyle as

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a mom who values putting family first. We will also hear the

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experiences and expertise of other moms with

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service-based businesses. You'll get a peek into our journeys, so

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you'll know that you are alone. Motherhood gets hard,

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entrepreneurship gets hard, but together we can

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do hard things. Welcome to this.

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hey, Frank, thank you for being here in today's episode,

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I'm going to be sharing a mini case study.

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Talking about running a thriving business without systems.

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It's very possible to do. You can have. Great revenue in your

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business. You can have a team, you can have all the things

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and you can be doing this without systems, but if you do, there are some

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challenges that come up and I'm going to share what those are

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through this mini case study from a past client that I

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worked with, you all already know if you've listened to the past

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episodes. I identify or I define

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systems. As your process, plus your tools, plus

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your people. And episode 28 and

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episodes 29. I introduced the idea

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of SLPs. And I talked more about your processes and

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I shared a little bit about the benefits. And now today,

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through this case study, I'm going to share some of the challenges

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that arise when you don't have those processes or those SLPs

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in. Police. this'll be really quick. Let's get into it.

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So the client. Client was actually a male. But he was a

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service provider. He had been in business for at least 10 years.

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He had a dedicated office space. He had a support team.

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Of at least five people in his business was thriving. Lots

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of clients doing lots of work, continuously getting new

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clients. And so on the outside, it looked like

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everything was going well with the business.

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But some of the challenges that. Uh, roles because

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he did not have great systems in place.

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Was that he was always working, always ripping and

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running, handling things in the business, handling things with the

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team. He was always being pulled into putting

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out fires. So if there was an issue that came up.

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A lot of times the team members couldn't handle it. Because again, there were

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no. documented processes in place or no real systems

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in place. So he had to be pulled into a lot of

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situations. To put out these fires. He

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was limited in his capacity to grow the business even

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more in other ways like speaking or attending

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conferences or things like that. Because he was so involved

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in the day-to-day work of the business. It was

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also missing out on money. because there

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weren't clear processes in place for a lot of things.

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Including invoicing and accounts receivables.

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There were thousands of dollars of outstanding

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invoices. Of money that had not been

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collected. So he was missing out on some money because

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he didn't have systems in place. There was also

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a lack of boundaries between the owner

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and his clients. Because the

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clients would call him directly like one his cell phone.

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If they had questions or if issues uh, rules.

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And there was no established process for.

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The client experience or for client communication.

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And so he was pretty much always on call. With

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the clients. Which meant. That he was working long

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hours. And that led to issues

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and being able to remain consistent. And

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things in his personal life, like his health.

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He was so attached to the business. Yeah, he really didn't

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have time to focus on other important

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business ventures We're passion projects. So

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those were just some of the challenges that. Uh, roles because

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there were no. Systems in place. Meaning there were

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no processes that were documented. And there

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was little. if any automation being

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utilized. Okay. Now, our work

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together, what did it look like? We first had to look at his

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existing processes. He had to see what he was

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doing and why he was doing it. And then we had to fill in the

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gaps. Filling the gaps, or sometimes we just had to start from

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scratch. And develop a strong process. And

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documented. And those became the

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standard operating procedures where the SLPs.

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Now, most of the challenges that I mentioned before, We're

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prevalent because all of the business processes were not

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documented. They were all in the owner's head. But once

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we were able to document. a lot of those challenges were

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eliminated the staff. They were able to have a clear direction

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for how to handle. X Y and Z, those

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fires. Uh, and the owner could step

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away. From the business day to day. The SLPs

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became the blueprint for the business. Instead of the

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owner's brain. Being the blueprint for the

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business. Okay. So we did a lot of work with the

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processes. I also helped them do some work with cleaning up his

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CRM. And, doing some hiring.

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But the hiring became easier because we had a

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clear idea of what this new hire would actually be doing. It

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would have been challenging to bring somebody on. If things on the

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back end, we're still so chaotic. And so

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I just wanted to share this to let you know. I know there is always

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a debate about when you should. Start developing your

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SLPs. And to be quite honest, you can do it whenever it

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makes sense for you and your business. But I don't want you to

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get to the point where you are thriving.

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And you don't have systems in place. Because it is going

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to stunt your growth. And it is going to come.

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Along with some challenges. That may be a little heavy

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for you to handle. Now it's not enough for

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you to create the process, or create the SLPs.

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You can create it and document it, but you also have to live them out.

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You have to create space and you have to create a system for

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the implementation of these processes. And for.

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Your team. Or anybody else that's going to be

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involved. To be trained in your

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processes. This is a topic that I will talk about more

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during the two day SOP sprint. I'll be talking about the

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SOP life cycle. But if you are ready,

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To actually have processes in your business. If you're

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ready to begin. Developing them and documenting

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them. And a smart way. And

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you're ready to stop. Working so much in your

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business so that you can work on your business. If you are

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ready to hire. Without it being

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chaotic. If you are ready to have the freedom to step away

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from your business. Without. The business suffering

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Then I would love to have you a part of the two

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day SOP sprint, where we will be focusing

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specifically on. The processes and the

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SLPs, which is the foundation. Of building a great

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system. If you have questions, let me know, shoot me a

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message. To get more information about the two day

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SOP sprint. Click the link in the show description,

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and I'll see you in the next episode. Thank you for listening to the

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Mom C e O Suite Podcast. If you enjoyed this

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episode, can you do us a favor? Leave a review on iTunes

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and share with other moms in business like you. Help us spread our

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message and empower others who are at this intersection of

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