Systems Your Business Needs
Running a business is exciting but can be demanding. To build a business that will grow, and last, there are some essential systems that must be put in place.
Strategic Plan
A strategic plan or business plan helps you to lay out your goals and objectives for your business. A business plan describes your business strategy and goals and what you desire your business to be in the future. Every business should have a business plan.
You can break down your business plan into parts to enable you to achieve your business goals. One way to do this is to have a 90-day plan. A 90-day plan should keep your vision at the forefront and should include your financial goals for the period.
I have created a 90 Day Planner on Trello to help business owners plan and track their goals. Download it FREE here
Project Management System
A project management system helps you to manage your workflow and projects. This ensures that all the activities in your business are carried out in a timely and systematic way to completion.
A project management system will, when utilised effectively, help you daily to achieve your business goals, manage your team and keep track of your business.
There are a number of different project management systems available online now including, Trello, Asana, ClickUp, Notion, and Monday.
Financial Systems
There are 2 types of systems you need to set up in your business. You need to set up your payments system as this will be the system that your customers will use to pay you. You also need to set up your accounting system for recording your income and expenses.
It is essential that you are able to keep track of your incoming money and outgoings and also ensure you keep records for tax purposes. It is also important to keep a budget.
Payment and Invoicing systems include, Paypal, Stripe, Square, Bank account, SumUp.
Accounting systems include Xero, Quickbooks or you could use a spreadsheet.
Your business needs to have a recruitment and HR system in place. Be sure of what you need in a team member and your expectations from them once they commence work with you.
Having a clear list or preferably a detailed Job Description for your team will help you be clear about what you require and will also help your team know what is expected of them in their new role.
Another important element is to have an onboarding process for your team so they are aware of your values and feel welcome in their new role.
A marketing system allows a business to market its products and services. Once you are clear on your marketing strategy and plan, you will need to find and design a system that will ensure you meet and achieve your goals.
While it is important that you design your marketing system, you must consistently evaluate your system to ensure it delivers your expectations or achieves your plan.
There are a number of different elements that form your marketing system which includes your funnel, your digital marketing tools and your processes.
For funnels you can use Kartra (my favourite), Kajabi, Funnel Gorgeous, Click Funnels, LeadPages.
For your email marketing; you can use an all in one system like Kartra or Kajabi or other tools such as Active Campaign, MailerLite, MailChimp and Constant Contact.
Another tool you will need is a scheduling tool for social media. Examples include Planable, Planoly, Hootsuite and Buffer.
Customer Relationship Management System
Your sales, onboarding and customer relationships could break or make your business. Have a system to manage and track your customers.
For your CRM as a new business, you can start with a spreadsheet. Ensure you enter every detail of your interactions with prospective clients and clients. There are a number of online tools that you can use as well. On Trello there is a template called CRUMBLE which I have found quite useful. Other tools include Dubsado, Bonsai, 17 Hats and Hubspot.
A document management system helps you to make finding and storing documents faster, easier and more efficient. A good document management system will store a variety of documents including images and PDFs. It is preferable to use a cloud document management system so that you can access it easily and share documents with your team.
There are a number of document management systems, such as Google Drive, OneDrive and DropBox. It is important to also have a process of managing your system to avoid loss of documents and spending too much time looking for a document.
I have created a set of Trello boards called Trello Business Suite which contains 10 boards your business needs to manage your team, your workflows and your projects. You also get 10 short videos showing you how to use the boards maximally. It's available now for only £47. Get it here
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