Dan Martell - March 11, 2019


How To Automate And Streamline Your Startup's Growth


Episode Stats


Length

10 minutes

Words per minute

204.75618

Word count

2,098

Sentence count

110

Harmful content

Misogyny

1

sentences flagged

Toxicity

1

sentences flagged


Summary

Summaries generated with gmurro/bart-large-finetuned-filtered-spotify-podcast-summ .

In this episode, Dan Martell talks about how to automate your business and get leverage back in your time. He talks about the benefits of outsource and automating your systems and how you can leverage your time to grow your business.

Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
Misogyny classifications generated with MilaNLProc/bert-base-uncased-ear-misogyny .
Toxicity classifications generated with s-nlp/roberta_toxicity_classifier .
00:00:00.000 Hey, I'm Dan Martell, serial entrepreneur, investor,
00:00:01.960 and creator of SaaS Academy.
00:00:03.320 And in this video, I'm going to share with you
00:00:05.000 how to automate your systems to create business growth easily.
00:00:09.600 This is probably the most, literally, I'm not even joking,
00:00:12.360 most powerful training of getting leverage back in your time.
00:00:15.000 And be sure to stay to the end where
00:00:16.520 I tell you how to get access to my business playbook templates
00:00:19.680 that you can just copy and install in your business today.
00:00:30.000 So if you're new to my material, you probably don't know this,
00:00:37.960 but I am a systems nerd.
00:00:39.500 From starting my first company, I've
00:00:41.880 been building operating procedures
00:00:43.920 and trying to figure out how to outsource and automate
00:00:46.320 things from day one.
00:00:47.800 Why?
00:00:48.300 I'm kind of lazy.
00:00:49.960 I don't like doing things twice.
00:00:51.260 Maybe it's my software programming background.
00:00:54.040 But just recently, I had my good friend Nick reach out
00:00:57.060 because he was trying to figure out
00:00:58.800 a way to automate their proposal feedback process.
00:01:03.240 He has a sign company.
00:01:04.080 It's not tech, I know, but it's really neat
00:01:06.200 because he has people that go on site
00:01:07.740 and kind of review and do estimates and proposals.
00:01:10.480 And they needed a way to communicate back
00:01:12.480 with the production people.
00:01:13.720 So I just said, well, why doesn't your salesperson
00:01:16.040 take a recording and have that uploaded to Dropbox
00:01:18.920 into like the client folder area?
00:01:20.720 And he's like, well, how does that work?
00:01:21.880 And I was like, well, I emailed my good buddy Ari Mizell
00:01:24.700 because he is the automation king.
00:01:26.460 And he told me about this software called UploadCam
00:01:28.920 that lets you upload to Dropbox any video you take
00:01:32.400 in the background because that's the key when you're doing this.
00:01:34.840 You just want to like take it and forget it.
00:01:37.080 And we set it up and it was amazing.
00:01:39.000 All of a sudden now his team had access to not only the
00:01:42.780 information but the site visit and they even built the
00:01:45.480 questions that their salespeople should be asking when
00:01:48.680 they're doing an initial site review to make sure they had
00:01:51.680 all the information for the production people.
00:01:53.720 That's just one example of how you can automate your
00:01:56.260 business.
00:01:56.760 What I want to share with you today is the steps involved
00:01:59.800 to make this happen in your business.
00:02:02.460 Number one, audit your time.
00:02:04.540 Now most entrepreneurs struggle with this
00:02:06.460 because A, they don't even know what they would outsource.
00:02:09.360 So the first thing I'm going to encourage you to do
00:02:11.020 is for the next week, I want you to take a timer
00:02:13.740 and set it for every 15 minutes.
00:02:15.440 You can do this on your phone.
00:02:16.600 You can do it on your laptop.
00:02:17.560 You can do it with an old school timer on your desk.
00:02:20.140 But every 15 minutes, I want you to log what
00:02:22.940 you did in the previous 15 minutes.
00:02:24.860 Just write down the activities or the task
00:02:27.000 and do that for five days in a row.
00:02:29.860 Because what you're going to identify in doing that audit
00:02:33.060 is there are things 95% of the work you do could,
00:02:37.740 if you could afford, and we'll talk about how that works,
00:02:39.980 you could afford to give somebody else to do it,
00:02:42.280 or you could even automate it so you're not doing it anymore.
00:02:45.540 Now some of you may not have the knowledge or experience,
00:02:47.680 but that's irrelevant for this step right now.
00:02:50.020 First thing I want you to do is audit your time every 15
00:02:53.480 minutes, write it down so we at least get a list that we can
00:02:56.820 then process.
00:02:58.120 Number two, group process tasks.
00:03:00.860 One of the most powerful things you can learn is that there are
00:03:04.920 tasks that you're working on that are process driven,
00:03:07.300 meaning that it's very simple logic.
00:03:09.720 If this happens, do that.
00:03:11.100 There's not like complicated creative input required.
00:03:14.500 It is a decision tree of actions and activities.
00:03:18.400 So what I want you to do is group some of these and
00:03:21.500 specifically focus on the things that are more administrative,
00:03:24.200 usually the things that don't touch the customers,
00:03:26.440 things like invoicing, administration, research,
00:03:30.240 et cetera.
00:03:30.740 I want you to grab all of the activities
00:03:32.900 that you audited in your time in the past week
00:03:35.500 and put them together into process tasks that ideally,
00:03:39.900 and I believe this because you can hire people for $3
00:03:42.260 an hour in the Philippines to help you do this work.
00:03:44.600 But we're not even going to talk about that right now.
00:03:46.600 I just want you to at least make a list of process tasks
00:03:50.180 that you do, that you hate, that take up a bunch of your time,
00:03:53.180 that you're probably not even good at,
00:03:55.160 that would be somebody else's skill.
00:03:58.280 I believe that there are people that play at the things
00:04:00.800 that you work at.
00:04:01.940 And first thing is, we need to take all the stuff
00:04:03.800 that we work at and make a list and group them together.
00:04:06.500 Number three, record the work.
00:04:08.560 So now that you know where you're spending your time
00:04:10.940 inefficiently or things that could be outsourced or processed,
00:04:14.720 I want you to start recording that work.
00:04:16.820 And what I mean by that is literally
00:04:18.500 recording your screen or recording the situation.
00:04:21.640 So as I mentioned with my friend Nick,
00:04:23.340 he recorded the proposal process with his iPhone.
00:04:26.640 I've had other friends of mine in their shops,
00:04:29.320 their manufacturing shops, set up cameras
00:04:31.620 to record everything from troubleshooting systems, etc.
00:04:35.660 because it just creates a library of information
00:04:39.020 to teach other people how you think about a problem,
00:04:41.660 how you do something, how you get something done, okay?
00:04:44.560 So I want you to start recording that.
00:04:45.960 The easiest is there's a bunch of tools you can use.
00:04:48.260 You can use QuickTime on a Mac, that's free.
00:04:50.360 You can use Loom, you could use Go Video,
00:04:53.000 you can use GetApp or CloudApp.
00:04:55.500 You can use a ton of different tools
00:04:57.060 just to record your screen.
00:04:58.140 But next time you do any of these process tasks,
00:05:00.780 I want you to record your screen and talk out loud
00:05:04.000 as you're doing it, what's the logic, what's the steps,
00:05:06.980 and just write it down.
00:05:08.040 If you want, you can start off by doing a quick outline
00:05:10.340 and then following that when you do the recording.
00:05:12.320 But honestly, just do a couple recordings
00:05:14.320 for the next few weeks of that work that needs to get done.
00:05:17.260 Number four, outsource the draft system.
00:05:20.680 This is where you're going to get massive leverage.
00:05:22.960 Most people make the mistake of then
00:05:24.880 having to schedule time, block time in their calendar,
00:05:27.500 and tappity tap, tap, tap.
00:05:29.300 Some crazy standard operating procedure that honestly
00:05:32.060 goes stale after it's built, and you don't want
00:05:34.180 to do in the first place, and it's energy sucking,
00:05:36.480 and you literally would rather do anything other than create
00:05:39.920 procedures and systems, et cetera.
00:05:41.460 So what I would recommend is you've got these recordings.
00:05:44.680 Find somebody else to go through them
00:05:46.360 and create a first draft of your process,
00:05:49.380 of your standard operating procedure, of what
00:05:51.280 I call a playbook, so that you don't have to do it.
00:05:54.380 I don't know about you, but I'm way happier when
00:05:57.420 I get to edit something that somebody else put together
00:05:59.540 than when I have to create it from scratch.
00:06:01.140 It just seems way more tedious and more creative for me
00:06:03.880 to edit than create.
00:06:05.180 So outsource that to somebody else
00:06:06.640 to create the first draft of your process.
00:06:08.940 Number five, delegate the activity.
00:06:11.360 So this is cool.
00:06:12.520 Now you've got a recording.
00:06:14.160 Check this out.
00:06:14.700 This becomes training.
00:06:15.600 So in your systems document, you can have a training section.
00:06:18.400 You can actually link up the recordings of you doing the work.
00:06:22.580 So then you've got training.
00:06:24.380 Then you find somebody else to follow the checklist
00:06:27.280 that you got somebody else to create,
00:06:28.980 and you make sure that it was accurate, and have them do it.
00:06:32.620 If you don't learn to start buying back your time,
00:06:35.280 to me, it's all about delegating to get leverage,
00:06:37.680 to buy back your time.
00:06:38.860 It doesn't matter where you're starting off.
00:06:40.220 If you're a solo entrepreneur, you're wearing 15 hats,
00:06:42.720 or you're running a 100-person company,
00:06:44.800 You need to figure out how to buy.
00:06:46.300 Look at your calendar, where you're
00:06:47.500 spending most of your time, and figure out
00:06:49.000 how to buy back your time and delegate to somebody else.
00:06:51.800 That is the biggest challenge that founders
00:06:54.820 and entrepreneurs need to overcome to really scale.
00:06:57.400 It's why most entrepreneurs hit the top ceiling 0.88
00:07:00.220 of about $300K per year in revenue, from $0 to $300K,
00:07:04.000 because they never learn how to delegate.
00:07:05.720 They never learn how to build a team.
00:07:07.360 So it might be themselves as a really high-producing expert,
00:07:12.460 but they never learn how to build and schedule and manage
00:07:15.740 and report and lead and communicate with other people
00:07:18.700 so they stop at the 300K.
00:07:20.940 So I want you to start outsourcing and delegating
00:07:23.580 those processes.
00:07:24.940 Number six, monitor for quality.
00:07:27.440 Outsourcing does not mean you can abdicate responsibility
00:07:30.620 to make sure something is done right.
00:07:32.120 So for example, I haven't sent an invoice in over 20 years.
00:07:36.260 I haven't done the bookkeeping or any kind of financial stuff.
00:07:40.120 That being said, every two weeks I have a reoccurring calendar
00:07:44.360 entry in my calendar and I review a checklist of all the
00:07:48.800 different financial systems that I'm involved in across all of
00:07:51.640 my companies because at the end of the day what I've learned is
00:07:54.400 it doesn't matter what my accountant does or my bookkeeper
00:07:56.840 or my controller or anybody else or my CFO, I'm accountable to
00:08:00.440 make sure the freaking numbers work and I want to make sure
00:08:02.940 that there's nothing shady going on and I want to let the team 0.81
00:08:06.180 know that I'm reviewing the reports.
00:08:08.080 So even though you have other people do things for you,
00:08:11.260 you need to monitor the quality of the work.
00:08:13.760 And if you want, you can set that cadence initially,
00:08:16.520 add a weekly cadence, then you can go to two weeks,
00:08:18.920 you can go to monthly, quarterly, and if you want,
00:08:21.060 you can even go to annually.
00:08:22.320 But honestly, if something's that important to your business,
00:08:25.160 you probably want to monitor at a decent enough frequency
00:08:28.060 to make sure things don't go off track for too long
00:08:31.400 before you finally identify and get it back on track.
00:08:34.340 So that's, to me, the rule is the systems will go stale
00:08:37.480 If you don't monitor, you don't review it,
00:08:39.260 people will stop following them, which
00:08:41.200 voids the whole point of creating the checklist.
00:08:43.600 But if you check it with them and you make sure
00:08:45.540 the work's being done, you'll be surprised
00:08:47.080 how your team will step up to the occasion
00:08:49.300 because they know they're being monitored.
00:08:51.020 So quick review, how to create business systems that
00:08:53.120 will automate and streamline your business growth?
00:08:54.960 Number one, audit your time to find
00:08:57.000 those low-hanging, low-value tasks.
00:08:59.200 Two, group your process tasks together
00:09:01.360 so you can build a hit list of things
00:09:03.040 that you can systematize.
00:09:04.360 Number three, record the work as you're doing it
00:09:07.640 so you have something to show how to do it properly.
00:09:11.320 Number four, outsource the draft system
00:09:14.260 so that you don't have to create it yourself.
00:09:16.280 Five, delegate the activities to anybody else.
00:09:19.520 You can use upwork.com to find a virtual assistant.
00:09:22.520 You can find somebody locally in your hometown.
00:09:24.720 You can find a contractor or freelancer.
00:09:26.940 And number six, monitor for quality
00:09:28.980 because just because somebody else is responsible for something
00:09:31.480 now doesn't mean that you're not accountable.
00:09:34.520 As I mentioned, beginning this video,
00:09:35.740 I want to share with you an incredible resource
00:09:37.520 called the Business Playbook Templates.
00:09:39.480 These are my systems that I created
00:09:41.880 and the structure that I use in a Google Doc.
00:09:44.100 You can literally make a full copy of all these baseline
00:09:47.900 systems and templates and procedures,
00:09:49.920 including the system on how to create systems.
00:09:52.360 Yes, I know it's super meta, but that's available for you.
00:09:55.060 Just click the link below and download your copy.
00:09:57.380 And if you like this video, I want
00:09:58.800 to encourage you to smash that like button,
00:10:01.700 hit the subscribe button and if there's anybody else
00:10:03.640 you think this video could serve,
00:10:04.780 feel free to share with them directly.
00:10:06.340 As per usual, I want to challenge you to live a bigger life
00:10:08.640 and a bigger business and I'll see you next Monday.
00:10:13.020 Number five, delegate the activities.