_This is a transcript of episode 86 of the [Let’s Get Data-Driven Podcast](http://omgrowth.com/listen)_
This week’s episode is about why you cry in the shower in February and what you can do about it… I mean, besides moving your sob-fest to the car in attempt to keep things fresh. Aww muffin – help is on the way, and it’s in the form of a podcast today.
I consider myself to be a systems person first. In fact, I got my start in the online world talking about systems and I had all the workflows and processes and frameworks to show for it.
I may not be packaging onboarding systems anymore, but the way we map out and track your marketing campaigns within the Membership To Get Data-Driven is still very much a system.
In fact, anything you’re doing – any series of steps or procedures you’re doing in your business IS a system.
Whether or not it’s automated, documented, outsourced, repeated, any set of actions you take in your business consists of a system.
The more organized and streamlined you are about your systems, the smoother your operations will be.
And why do we want to make like Sade and be a smooth operator? Because the smoother your day-to-day is, the more time, space and energy you have to dedicate to literally ANYTHING else that isn’t maintenance towards your business. You can try that new promotion, you create that new content, you can build those relationships… and every time you do one of those things and integrate it into your business processes, you’re creating a new system in your business.
If you ever feel like you’re overwhelmed by #allthethings you have going on in your business, it’s typically systems-related; either you created too many systems that you now have to maintain or you have systems that aren’t working as hard for you as you are for them.
I’m going to let you in on the not-so-secret secret that you can come to terms with that will make your overwhelm and business life easier, and for this, we will turn to a Fight Club quote: you are not a beautiful and unique snowflake and you are made of the same decaying matter as everything else.
Admittedly, that’s a bit of a harsh way to put things but hopefully it gets the point across that any chaos or overwhelm that has you crying in the shower is something that someone else has also had to apologize to an significant other who got torn a new one for no fault of their own, other than being with someone whose systems failed them.
Someone else already been there. Someone has already done that. Which is why I always encourage you to copy someone else’s test paper when it comes to creating, updating or even researching any type of business system.
This is one of the main reasons why I agreed to collaborate on the Systems and Workflow Bundle going on now – link to that is in the shownotes – but reinventing the wheel when it comes to getting streamlined and organized is a waste of time when you can use frameworks and trainings and templates and processes and workflows and toolkits that you can look at and apply to how YOU want to operate without starting from scratch.
So that’s my first tip when it comes to putting business systems in place: find out what’s already being done and how.
So how do you find out what’s already being done and how if you don’t have it packaged the way this Systems and Workflow Bundle is?
– Ask your biz besties how they do things or what resources they recommend. Word of mouth and person-to-person feedback is still – _and I believe will always be_ – your most valuable source of information;
– Search YouTube and Pinterest. Yeah, Google can also be helpful, but I’m going to bet you’re more of a visual boss who gets way more out of show-and-tell than just the “tell” part so use search options that will actually deliver that visual component. Heck, try Instagram, TikTok and YouTube Shorts, too – sometimes those bite-sized lessons or tutorials can point you in the direction you ultimately would best benefit from;
– If the problem is that you don’t know how to talk about your problem, look at sites like AppSumo to browse through software they sell but pay special attention to how they speak about the problems those tools and software help address. Sometimes it helps to hear and see how others frame a problem to better understand and put into words what we find ourselves struggling with.
– And when all else fails – _heck, even when all else works well _- I will always always always recommend you start by grabbing a cocktail napkin or getting a journal and mapping out what you’re struggling with and working through solutions by drawing them out with a point A to point B to point C and so forth. The bossiest thing you can do is to step away from the screen and put a process – even the idea or skeleton of a framework of a process – to paper.
Now, just because you make the decision about putting a business system in place doesn’t mean you’re the one who has to maintain it forever-ever.
In fact, I would argue that BECAUSE you’re the one who made the decision and understand the value of this system is the reason WHY you should NOT be maintaining it. After all, we’ve established that end results of having to maintain too many things is why we cry in the shower.
Here’s how you wear the bossy pants when in comes to business systems: you determine a need, you decide how this is going to be addressed, and you understand how it works for you and why. Once you have determined, decided and understand how and why a system works for you, it’s time to make a decision about how you’re going to take your hands off this wheel and either OUTSOURCE or AUTOMATE the processes as much as possible.
Let’s use “publishing short form video” as an example because heaven knows there are plenty of tears shed in the shower over that one, including from yours truly, and it’s a great example to illustrate your accountability amid your ability to outsource AND automate.
So in this example, we’ve determined that we need to improve our short-form video production. I’m not about re-inventing the wheel, I decided to watch one of the trainings from the Systems and Workflow Bundle called “Watch me Film 20 Reels in 1 Hour” because that sounds about right for what I want to achieve. I can dedicate one hour to generate what I would think of as a month’s worth of content, right? So that’s a commitment I’m willing to make and as I watched this training offered by Stephanie Kase and I kept that commitment in mind, I was able to watch the video with my bossy pants on and thinking ahead.
This way, when Stephanie drops knowledge bombs throughout her training about creating drafts that you can create overlays for later, I’m already thinking ahead to how that may be something I can outsource so that I don’t have to do it and then once that part is done, the final version of the Reel can be scheduled via automation – nice!
Because I’m going into this new system keeping my eye on the prize and that prize is NOT about creating more work for myself.
Beyond the protips and knowledge bombs is the fact that when you watch someone else – an expert or at least someone with experience – and you see how they’re doing something, you can learn so much more about strategy and tech by watching that person just do how they do rather than just toying with the tech from scratch. When I’m talking about not starting from scratch, it’s not just about the strategy but it’s also about how that strategy works with the tech and the tools, and watch Stephanie do 20 Reels in 1 Hour was kind of a masterclass to me for how to make better use of the timer features and the \_\_\_\_ options and what to look out for based on past mistakes she’s made.
I believe that watching someone with experience do what they do can generate a kind of second-hand experience for you.
I have a course called Airtable Like A Boss that I designed with exactly this thought in mind: I feel you learn more by watching something in action than learning about features and options in a silo, and instead of starting with tech tutorials, I started with templates and walk students through how this works and how that works and why they’re connected and how you can personalize it.
Anything that shortens your learning curve? Take it.
Anything that can take what you know or what you can do and put it on auto-pilot? Do it.
Anything that will take up more of your time, energy or brain space than you’re willing to dedicate and cannot be automated? Look into finding the resource who can either do it for you, find ways to automate it for you or shorten the level of commitment you have to dedicate to it.
But try to keep in mind that the kind of crying in the shower overwhelm you sometimes feel has more in common with a sore throat than anything else; it is not a personal reflection of you, your role as the boss or your capacity or intellect but rather, it’s just a symptom pointing you towards something that’s wrong that you’ll need to invest a little time and energy to remedy.
If you’re interested in shortening your learning curve in a bunch of areas including the reels training I mentioned as well as Zapier training to help you improve your automations, quizzes, sales pages, onboarding, offboarding, just a ton of systems and frameworks and workflows and templates, grab my link in the bio to check out the Systems and Workflow Bundle.
And hey! this is peak overwhelm time, just in case you’re feeling some type of way. Why is that? It’s because we come into the new year with all these aspirational plans but we didn’t have the time to put the systems in place that will support it all – gah! Cut yourself some slack, boss – you’re doing the hard stuff and I’m proud of you and even if you don’t always feel like it, the bossy pants look great on you!