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Systems & Brainstorm w/ Donna

would you guys think about that last section? Do you think you have the ability now to bring on rock star employees or contractors? Yeah, good, because you totally dio you totally dio Well, you also have ability to do one more thing and have your business run on automatic. Have the business really start working for you. And if there's no anyone better at doing, this is probably it's not me, it's Donna. She's getting our own consulting company running on automatic. So So start the section out and I'll come back up to wrap it up. Okay, off you go. So here we are at the final stretch of the two days and I actually can't believe it personally. It's gone so quickly, and I really, really enjoyed hearing about your businesses here and also, you know, some of the people online who have written in about their businesses. So here we are. We're going to talk about systems, So that's really that's the third ring in the sweet spot that we talked about yesterday morning. How many of you are super ex...

cited to talk about systems? Wait, did our job. That's awesome, because I'm guessing if I asked you that question two days ago, you might not have been raising your hands, because the truth is, for a lot of entrepreneurs actually sitting down and dealing with systems and creating systems, it's kind of tedious and boring. That's the inoculation method right there It is, though. It's hard work. It's not something that you can whip off in 15 minutes, and it's not something that you can finish in a day. It's really something that's ongoing in your business. The reason why it's really exciting, though, is because it will allow. As Mike said, it will allow your business to start to run on automatic. And because your business can run, automatic things will be running more smoothly. You have a lot of systems in your head. Once you get them out of your head, you may see areas where you can even improve upon them. As you have systems running your business, you will spend less time putting out fires because things will be done the same way every time. And when you make an improvement, you change the system and it becomes a permanent improvement, not a Wait a minute. I know I did that a little differently. Last time it worked better. What did I do? It's kind of like the way I cook. I don't tend to follow a recipe. I just because I like to play around with things and I throw things in. And but then the problem is when something comes out really great, I'm like, Well, I don't remember exactly what I did. I'll have to try to repeat that the next time, because I'm not writing it down as I go along now, knowing what I know, that's a process. That's that's a habit that I'm trying to form because I know the truth that start with the system that you have, and as you improve it, change it. It's really exciting because those systems are going to free up your time to do what your genius work, the work that you want to do and love to Dio and not the I gotta go fix that mistake and this didn't work right. The systems allow your business to run more smoothly. So what do I mean when I say systems, I mean that that's a really broad term. It can be in a lot of things, so One thing about systems is you don't have to create them all from scratch. There are tons of systems out there that are designed to help your business run on automatic, their software and cloud based products. I'm sure some of you used them. I would love to hear some of the great online systems and software systems that people use, and they really depend on some of the ones that we use. We use an email marketing provider, so we're not sitting there sending individual emails to people. And you can set up in automatic sequence in an email marketing program so that every time somebody signs up for your list, they automatically got emails from you. If I'm not in my office this week, I can still set up e mails to go out while I'm not there. Great tool their contact relationship management systems or they're called CR EMS, which help you keep track of your prospects and help you keep track of what stage you're in with. With each prospect. I'm sure I'm sure there are some that you guys use online accounting. QuickBooks Online is another great one. Does anyone have any others they'd like to share systems need systems. I need systems for my sister on, and that's very true. You do need systems or weeper. It's a W. E. B, however, with a Weber is an email. Marketing mentioned that on Google calendars come up a swell who go calendar is great because you can share it so Mike and I can view each other's calendars online. So that's also another great one for free. If you're a small business accounting and an employee, time sheets, terrific freshness and and Did you have one? Right? Which get gathers all the information from my eBay and PayPal numbers and Amazon and Tax Jar, which will then take all the amount of California sales tax I have and give me an amount and I compare the two and then I just go online and some of the money. That's fabulous. I didn't know about that. So is that specifically a product for E Day? No tax stores for all small sellers. So anybody who sells like through a shopping cart, which is another Yeah, yeah and Catholic. All right thing. It's kind of like mint. If you've heard of Mint like for your book, it's pro business, though, and I just started using it because last year a tax time, I everything was super weight messed up, and I needed something that would give it all together fast in it. Put in all your accounts and it tells you how much money you made or how much you lost every week. You'll get an email lost this much this week. Um, yeah, it's great. We use Stitch labs to It's a company based here in Temperance is go for him. It's good for, like, product based businesses. Um, well, not even necessarily. I think they have a lot of customers that air services to you, but it's hopeful online, and it's fabulous when things just happen automatically, like you set it up once, even with our bank are I get a notice every Friday with my bank balance, and we also get a notice. We've set it up, so any time a transaction happens over a certain number over a certain amount, we get a notification. So if something odd is happening in our bank account, we immediately know about I get a text notification so these airways to keep track of things without you having to remember. Oh, I have to look at this. It comes to you any other. Any other suggestions? I think my favorite email would be a real chip. Milton and Nelson is free. Correct? It's free. And I think you have 10,000 subscribers. Send out 20,000 emails a month. I mean, it's ridiculous. Exactly. I'm thinking, actually, more and more male chimp out there. I think maybe early on it was free and maybe not as developed. But now I think more very was very dragon dropped and simple to use. You have to pay for auto responders. Oh, I see. So just basic email is free and you have to pay for auto response. Yeah. Yes, Mel chips come up in lots online. A shoebox. Just another mentioned shoebox. Is that accounting programs, e receipts, business cards? Mail your receipts in a shoebox and they'll put him away for you. But you, if you want that they have different up to 50 think is free, and then you can add more beautiful things, even IPhone app. You can actually snap a picture of it. Don't log everything for yes, Apsara. Another system that can make your life easier. I don't remember if we talked about this already. Evernote is one that a lot of people use, and it also cuts down on clutter. So I used Teoh. I have villians of business cards, right? We you're constantly exchanging business cards with people, and I was always trying to figure out how I organize these cards. So I find the one I need when I need it. But with ever note, it's It's an app that goes on your phone and on your computer. You take a picture of the card, you quickly put in some keywords and you file it. You can file it in a folder. And so now if somebody says to me, um, you know, I need an online Google hang out producer and I say, I know just person for you, and I can look you right up on my phone and I have a picture of your card with all your information. So that's that's another way Teoh automate your business. So there are a lot of tools that are already out there that the Onley effort it takes from you is to learn how to use them, and if they're well designed on. A lot of them are. And if they have decent support, it actually doesn't take a long as you think. And I know I'm someone who I think started out with a little bit of a fear of technology. And some of you may have that same idea that this is gonna be really hard. It's going to take me days to learn it. And then I'm always surprised when it only takes 1/ an hour or 20 minutes to really pick it up. So don't be afraid to try some of these tools because even if it takes a little time up front toe, learn it, it really, really saves you time on the back end. OK, so that's one kind of system. The other kind of system is just how you've set up your business to operate. Mike showed you earlier the you know, the whole structure of what do you got? The husband spoke where a lot of small businesses start out where the business owner is in the middle and everybody's communicating to you. But as you grow, you may want to set up. You will want to set up a different communication structure, and it sounded kind of funny to say, Well, I'm gonna call myself and tell myself this, But if you understand up front what those lines of communication are, that it's much easier to drop other people into those jobs and say, OK, you're in charge of this and you report to this person, and if these different situations come up, here's who you talk to And so that's a system to and it should be written down so that you understand how to communicate and on the topic of communication, how many of us use email primarily to communicate with other people within our business and maybe externally. Okay, most of us, a lot of it. Maybe not everyone but a lot of us use email. Here's the challenge with email. Has this ever happened to you? Somebody send you a really important email with maybe some attachments that you really need those documents and you're running out the door and you see the email and you say I'm going to download those later and put them somewhere where I'm gonna be able to find them and you run out the door and you get busy and you forget about it, and a week later, you need that document like Shoot. Where is it? I never downloaded it, and now it's buried somewhere in my email. Or maybe you miss an email. You just You didn't see it in their, um, and something doesn't get done. It's really difficult. It can be really difficult to keep track of emails. So one solution to that within your company is to use a project management tool, which is another type of online tool, and there are a lot of different ones out there. But basically they all have similar features in that. Let's say you're organizing a Google hang out for a company, ABC. Okay, you could have a folder that says company ABC January Google hangouts and everybody that is involved with Doc Google hangouts goes there. You can assign tasks to people and deadlines, and it could remind you when your deadline is coming up. But the other great thing is all the information congregates on that page. So if somebody has a photograph and an attachment and a list that that they need to share or just that's part of that project, it lives there they put it there so that you, as the owner of the business or the project manager, can always go in and see what's there. You confined your documents and you can communicate with each other within that framework. It really helps to keep things organized. And it saves you time. I can tell you I personally and I'm hoping I'm not the only one have spent a lot of wasted time searching through my email for something that I never end up finding. And then I have to email the person and say, Can you send me that again? Because I can't find it and And I feel all, you know, discombobulated and and it's and it's a waste of time that a particular one. Well, there are a few out there. There's a free one called cello, which we've been using, but I think we're going to move. We're going to upgrade to something a little more robust. Trela was great. One thing it doesn't do that I would like to be able to do is it doesn't you can put a deadline in, but it doesn't actually notify you of the deadline. And so I would like some reminders coming to me. And there are a few other things. Boot camp is another one. Um, and there's another one that I that we're looking at that I can't remember the name of now. But if you give me your card and I'll take a picture of it, I will be happy to email you the name of that as well. Um, any other questions? Okay. And the other thing is, a lot of these project management sites will also they'll interact with some of your other software systems. So, for example, they might interact with your CRM automatically and with your calendar as well. So you can just set it up to connect with those those other software pieces. And then everything is in one place. Okay, so that's another kind of system. And the last kind of system that we're going to talk about is really the processes that you do every day. It's the processes in your business. It's how you get from point A to point B on any project on anything that you do repeatedly. As I said, probably several times, most of them are probably in your head. We're going to show you how to really effectively get it out of your head in a way that somebody else can follow and then actually use the same tool to evaluate that system and find ways to improve it. Um, but first, I want to ask you guys a question. Is there anyone here who thinks and maybe someone online to who thinks their business cannot be systematized? Because what they do is to specialize that Onley they can do what they dio. Only you can do what you dio anybody. Travis. OK, I am going to tell you a story that blew my mind, and I'm hoping it's going to do the same for you. So, uh, little over a year ago, my husband and I were in London and we were touring around and we went out to Hampton Court, which was most famous for being the preferred castle for Henry the eighth. But there were several other kings and queens that lived there over over several 100 years. So as we're touring through Hampton Court and I'm doing the audio tour, you know, you put the headphones on, it does the audio tour, and we get in there different apartments for the different monarchs, and we're going through the apartments of Charles the Second and Charles. The second was King in, like the mid 16 hundreds. And if we have any historians who know more specifically than that, but you can tell me but it somewhere, like early to mid 16 hundreds and he had a court portrait painter named Peter Lelli, and Peter Lelli was the most prolific English portrait painter. He actually wasn't born in England, by the way, he was like German or or Dutch or something. But he moved to England. But he was the most prolific artist that England has ever had because he figured out a way to systematize his portrait. I was like what this was like hundreds of years ago, and this is an artist like who would ever think that an artist could have a system? Well, what he figured out was, and he was a little scandalous because he would have the women at the court pose in these sort of suggestive poses, like up until then, they would be very prim and proper, but he had them kind of law lounging, lounging down and looking a little, maybe a little provocative. But what he figured out Waas that there were certain poses that were very flattering. So he actually had a set of, I don't know the exact number, but maybe five or six poses that he did and that was it. And he numbered them. Pose number one, post number two, Post number three etcetera. And what he would do is he would hire apprentices. He would hire other painters, and he would paint the the woman's face right so he would paint her face. And then he would hand over the painting to his apprentice and say, Give her body number two and they would in a blue dress or whatever, and they would paint the rest of the picture. And he was actually really, really sought after hugely successful in what he was like the wealthiest artist ever. Up until that point in England, like he was extremely wealthy, he was knighted. He was huge and he was known for there was a series of paintings called the Windsor Beauties, which were all kind of don't want to paint by numbers, but kind of that kind of work paint by numbers. So he took something that was highly specialized. He took the piece, the one piece that he felt had to be him. The face that was the highly specialized area. And the rest He taught his apprentices how to dio, and he turned it into a system. There weren't 25 different poses. There were five. So I'm just wondering, does that change your perspective on systematize ing a business? Okay, so I was kind of thinking if you're up for a Travis, that we would do another brainstorm And if you would like to come up and we'll do the blind brainstorm again and have people brainstorm ways that you could systematize your business, Okay, Come on. And by the way, when I was telling my husband this story, I was like, I can't believe this. I can't believe that he was looking at me like I was insane. Like, why is it so literally? As soon as I got off the plane, I called it Mike. I'm like, you're not gonna believe this, and he was as excited as I was. So that's the life of an entrepreneur, Onley. Certain people get Okay, So what, we're going to do Travis's? You've got your notebook you're going to turn around so you cannot see the audience. And you can't show them by your facial expressions whether or not you like their ideas and just take notes. And then we're going to ask you at the end what? You know, if anything really, really struck you so for you in the audience here and the audience online, we'd love to hear some ideas about how Travis can take his. You know, we've been talking about your rock stacking. So I'm thinking the rock stacking business and turn that into a business that he can scale and grow beyond What, What? He can just do himself. Okay. All right, turn around. Okay. So just raise your hand and let me know what you're thinking. Videos of rocks that methods each other people that he didn't do. It is just people watch those videos and get trained on rocks and pay for the videos of pay for the videos. Exactly. Kind of like he could do a creative live video for rock sacking. Thank you, Mike. Anybody else? I think, um, it could be really helpful for him to document in some sort of way, every installment that he does and then send it to someone Similar sense and photographs to someone similar. A similar client. Oh, in other words, here's something I did for you. Okay, Someone I did for someone else. Someone else you might like this to exactly. But I could also, you know, he could paint his rock formations, all right? I mean, because he loves to pay. And he likes his rock formations. What if he painted his rock formations and then he could sell those two or a photograph him? He said he likes to dio photography and print. Well, you know, and so he could take the one rock information. And so if he didn't photograph, So what I what I hear about the photographs is because we're thinking, How can he systematize this? So other people can also do what he does? If he took photographs, you can reproduce a photograph, right? So that that's that's a terrific idea. Yeah, sketching them and have other people build them. We could come up with the idea for the client, and then somebody else would go out and actually do the right. And now what about you guys? Remember when he gets you one second. Do you guys here? I promise your nuts. When he was talking about how sometimes they they're not permanent, they fall apart. Do we have any ideas on how you can address that? OK, E promised. It actually follows up with the pictures and everything else. What if it was a kind of like paint by numbers? There was a rock fight number so you could fabricate rocks to an extent. And you know, this is rock 1234 And there's a natural guide that steps you through how to stack. Like maybe there would be five different models, right? So maybe he's the original piece, but then we breaking apart Say this is how it goes back together. Here's your instruction manual when it falls apart of your prop building on the idea. I'm looking at what we did the reverse instead of taking pictures of us of his rocks what? He took pictures and then created out of rocks. So he maybe had cityscape me and Rhonda. But then he makes the competition where he says, Here's the picture we're emulating. You know, every city in this world I want one rock stacker to make up a cityscape and we're gonna judge. It's what other people are doing activities. Okay, And how does he make money from that? I forgot. The winner gets they rock. You might be able to buy some pet rocks really cheap somewhere right now that are sometimes of pieces will be dismantled. We're taking What what if he does, a piece of artwork gets filmed and then he can sell off the pieces. There's no additional work. He's not selling off the right people Good money for, you know, like Hair E something I think that I remember seeing yesterday as well from one of our other guests is saying, just needs to look at other artists who used a factory method like Andy Warhol. He needs to make it his thing without his hands doing all of the work. Great. Yes, yes. So I was thinking with the non permanence of HMAS. Well, if he's doing, like individual for individual homes or people that he could take a really nice photograph or painting of it afterwards, and that's ah Mawr special package. So we know that this is not gonna be permanent. We're doing it for a special event like a wedding at your home or something like that. And then we're also going to give you this nice frame, permanent photograph of the event up the rock staff from right Great. Any other, any other. Come on, guys dio you definitely rudimentary sense you could. You could hire people that guessing earlier carry the rocks. A lot of this activity. I think it's but searching for rocks. He get outsourced that he could actually have volunteers. You could say We're doing a rock search. That's how it starts campaigning with the show. And they seek out rocks and ever and has something significant he couldn't at the local high school colleges. You pie the bricks and get your name emblazoned on what people all contributed their rock. You pay money and you have a rock from your yard, and now you're contributing his art and he assembles stuff. Jessica just brought up something really interesting online, she said. Make molds of some rock stacks and produce them as cast sculptures and cement for outdoors or ice for weddings. Beautiful, Beautiful. Yeah, like thinking. I like that thinking outside the box from purpose. Catalyst, who say, Well, the initial rock formation by it might fall apart. Life stages do to teach people the skill to reform. It is a spiritual experience of rebuilding their new life stages, right, So build that spirituality into it. Build the spirituality into that. This is not permanent. But you can rebuild it. Yeah, and it's It's one person. Travis might build it the first time, but the owner gets to experience building it the next time Tory does that. If you treat the rock building at an event, sell photos as momentum right and videos to I think photos, videos and a few other ideas of Vanessa is saying, Create photo products like calendars, journals, etcetera. You do last time thing, Rosa. You take this lapse photos and your information a massive one where he has to use cranes and stuff to move stuff. Let me take him six months to do it, but the laps thing, it could be we've gotta have it because he said, it is the funniest thing I've seen all day. Bill says, think outside the box. I love it, and I actually think that the perfect ending for this brainstorm. Thank you. Thank you. So much for that one. That's gonna be my new motto. Think outside the way. Travis, what was that like for you? First of all, just to have your back to the audience and just absorb everything is great because I'm not gonna go like and it is more of just like a collaborative effort that it builds kind of off. So did anything in particular strike you as something that you might want to pursue or work with you? The whole spiritual experience Teaching is really cool. Like selling the photo after the event. Like genius? Yeah, like making a book about the process. Or, you know, I actually had a great idea to start traveling the world and stack different stones of the world and put that into a book and sell that coffee table book of all the different rocket Coffee table book. And, you know, I just have to say it's a little off topic, but that is just the kind of human interest story that the media loves to like. Travis is traveling the world building these spiritual rock foundations and changing people's lives because they're finding the spirituality in getting back to the Earth and the rocks or whatever. I mean, that's a great story. It's a great story. Yes, you know, And it goes back to getting your story out there and having a story behind what you do it makes it so much more interesting to people, and it allows them to connect with it and your true audience to connect with it. So thank you, Travis. Thank you so much. I just want to say to you, I have been using sticks lately, too, so I haven't been outside. That is great. Okay, so thank you all for your input on that. I'm really excited to hear Travis. Like what happens Going forward. I definitely want to follow your progression in your rocks and sticks and and everything else.