6 KEY BENEFITS OF BUILDING SYSTEMS by Dave Lavinsky of the Growthink Blog with additional thoughts by  Daniel O'Hara added in italics. Used under the Fair Use Rules of the U.S. Copyright Law. Written by Dave Lavinsky on Thursday, February 10, 2011 ***Please read Mr. Lavinsky's full article using the link at the end of this positing. This was an excellent article on the benefits of building systems. Mr. Lavinsky, of the Growthink blog, used the illustration of building a system for what may seem to be the most mundane of tasks, "how to handle inbound phone calls." Lavinsky showed the benefits of systems, even for answering the phone with these 6 benefits: 1) Creating the system forces you to think through the  process and improve it. The "simple" phone answering system addresses key questions, some of the questions he noted included: * What customer information should you collect when they call (e.g., name, email address, etc.)? * Where should this information be inputted (e.g.., CRM,  database, forms)? * What other questions should be asked of the customer? * Under what circumstances should the customer be transferred to someone else? To whom should the caller be transferred under various situations? * How many times should the phone ring before it goes to voice mail? * What should the voice mail message(s) say? * What message should the listener hear when waiting for either a live person or voice mail? A concentration of effort in one area, causes brainstorming about issues that need to be considered. As you can see, when you focus on this one activity, you are forced to really think through the issue and make the best decisions. Interesting...it's important to note that if one company felt it was worthwhile to to invest the time and resources to have a  "phone answering system", it drives the point home even  more about the necessity of having a solid accounting  or marketing system in place, in a business.  2. Having the system in place allows for improved and  consistent performance.  One of the results of the system development process is creating flowcharts that show each piece of the system. These flowcharts are given to all the relevant employees and posted on their walls. This allows all the employees to follow the proper procedures, giving your company consistent, high-quality performance on the relevant tasks. Michael Gerber makes the same point in his book, "The E-Myth" about developing business systems. Additionally, training is made more consistent, veteran employees continually need to "stay on their toes" and not rest on years of experience, and new employees have an  approved "cookbook", a guide to follow rather than relying on the hearsay of others.  3. Having the system in place allows you to quickly integrate new hires into your business. Likewise, the system and flowcharts make it very easy for new hires to see their place and roles within the organization and hit the ground running. Putting a dollar value on this benefit of systems is, in and of itself, a powerful benefit of making the investment! 4. Having the system in place allows you to easily come  up with and implement new ideas. Once you have the system flowchart, it's very easy to come up with new ideas. Ideas like "What if we bypass this activity and go straight to this other action?" become common. And implementing these ideas is simple since you can easily pinpoint which elements in the flowchart are affected. 5. Having the system allows you the entrepreneur/ manager/owner/etc. to a) take more time off, and/or b)  spend more time on higher value-added activities. Creating systems is classic "working on" versus "working in" your business, another reference to Michael Gerber's book, "The E-Myth." Once the systems are created and in place, the activities are performed nearly on auto-pilot. You don't have to waste time and energy in performing and/or actively managing them. I have to respectfully disagree with Mr. Lavinsky here. Systems are great but it is highly possible for a manager to  ignore or circumvert them! They don't run on auto-pilot! Years ago, working at a franchise restaurant, the  dishwashing and food storage procedures omitted proscribed corporate steps.When the corporate inspector  arrived, things got tricky!  6. Having systems dramatically increases the equity  value of your business. Once your company has lots of systems in place, it instantly becomes much more valuable to an acquirer. That's because the acquirer knows your business will run smoothly after acquisition. If you have a small business this is an excellent point!  Sometimes selling the benefits of systems to a buyer may be necessary.  A business buyer also knows that new hires can quickly be added into the system so they can expand your business quickly. Furthermore, the systems you developed could help the acquirer expand their own business. So, you need to start thinking about every key aspect of your business as a system. For example, do you have a system for your internet marketing? Do you have landing pages designed to maximize conversions? Do you have a system to test these pages frequently? Do you have follow-up email campaigns in place based on actions customers take online? Etc. Etc. And do you have sales systems? Do you have an established process to handle new leads? To build rapport? Etc. And what about HR systems, and production systems, etc. While building systems takes time and often does not immediately put cash in your pocket, the six key benefits noted above will pay for themselves over and over again and are definitely worth doing. So start systematizing your business today.

Source:
Article by Dave Lavinsky at
www.growthink.com/content/6-key-benefits-building-systems