Transcribed by Descript
Erin Marcus: Oh, right. Welcome. Welcome to this episode of the Ready Yet podcast. My guest today, Adi Clevitt. We have been having fun. We have been chatting and keeping in touch lately. I love, it's just so fun, right? When you meet someone you connect with. And this is why to me, I laugh about years of my connection because you focus on the thing that I spent decades hating.
Erin Marcus: And had stories around how much I didn't like that thing. And then, and then, I had an absolute reawakening around me. Amen! Okay. For the reawakening of the awareness of how, I even did a show, my just a personal show called my, The Love Letter I Never Thought I'd Write, to processes and procedures.
Erin Marcus: That's right. Everything you're trying to grow in your business is on the other side getting that together. That's exactly right. Thank you for doing what you do for those of us who aren't good at doing it. But before we get into all that, tell everybody a little bit more about what you do and why you do it and all the things.
Adi Klevit: Sure. Well, Aaron, first of all, great to be, to talk to you again. You were a wonderful guest on my podcast. I admire everything that you do and your approach and the different stages of business and how you make things simple. I really appreciate your, how you take something complex and make
Erin Marcus: it simple. As long as I don't have to turn it into a repeatable process and we can just talk about it, I'm yours.
Erin Marcus: That's right.
Adi Klevit: Exactly.
Erin Marcus: That's exactly
Adi Klevit: right. Well, about me, I'm a process consultant. That's what I do. You know, my background is industrial engineering. I've been doing it for over 30 years. It's my passion to bring order and organization into businesses and help them grow and scale. And we do it by Basically creating their, creating, documenting, optimizing, and implementing processes and procedures.
Erin Marcus: It
Adi Klevit: sounds so simple when you say it like that. It is. It's a done for you service. And you know, I'll tell you a story. Okay. So I was working as a, you know, throughout my career, that's what I did is process improvement. And 12 years ago when I started my own business, I mean, this, this business I basically saw the need.
Adi Klevit: How did I see the need? Because I was helping businesses as a general business consultant, right? It can be also high level process improvement or business plans, et cetera. And then I would tell my clients, you need to document your processes because it's so important. You cannot not document, you know, how would you know how to improve?
Adi Klevit: You know, we have to have everything documented, et cetera. And that would be the, Conversation week after week after week and nothing gets done and I go, well, how about if I do it for you? Yes, like all right Exactly and they go yes, please do and we started doing that and I saw the difference now I got the processes done for that particular client.
Erin Marcus: It was because here's the thing like this is a really good Lesson for coaches, consultants. If your client was able to do the thing, they would have already done it. Very true. That's very, very true. Great way to put it. It's that simple. Like if they all, if they knew how to do the thing, that's why in this, in this realm of coaching and consulting, to me, it's so important to break down, either have that implementation piece or be able to break it down and help your client implement it.
Erin Marcus: Because if they already were able to do it, they already would have.
Adi Klevit: Absolutely. I couldn't agree more. And that's what I saw the need and it just expanded from there. It's kind of like, you know, I go to cloud, you need a concierge service there, you know, from like done it for you, because, you know, in any business you can have the do it yourself, like, you know, teaching others how to do it.
Adi Klevit: Can I put a YouTube video? You can have a short course, which is great. And it has. A certain public that will go after it. Absolutely. 100%. Absolutely. You can have more of a consultative, right? I mean, I can teach you. I can show you. I can guide you. And then there is the done it for you. And there will always be a need for a done it for you because people don't have the time or the expertise.
Adi Klevit: Or the resources on how to do it. So it's kind of like, you know, so then you become as an external arm as if though you had a process documentation team. And you get it, you make it happen.
Erin Marcus: And I, I think that is a there's a really good point in there because You need to decide with your business where, what sandbox do you want to play in?
Erin Marcus: Yes, you can play in more than one, but one of the things that I watch happen is people, like, they choose either the wrong bucket for them or they behave as if they want to do bucket A, but they really are marketing the bucket C. Like, it has to have alignment to it. That's right. That's correct. So what do you see?
Erin Marcus: This is one of the things that I don't know why it shocked me, but it shocks me as I work with bigger and bigger, bigger, bigger, meaning more money, more complicated businesses that they don't have, they're still in reaction mode.
Erin Marcus: What do you see as the leading cause for that?
Adi Klevit: Honestly, it is like the leading cause that, you know, if you think, I mean, each one of our listeners can think about their business. I mean, why? Because production will always take priority. I mean, who stops. And goes and organizes probably not a lot of people.
Adi Klevit: I mean, successful businesses do do that, but the majority of us will just be reacting just like you said, where it's the next customer or it's the, you know, the next order or disorder didn't go out. Well, I have to go handle that. If it doesn't go out, then what will happen? So I can handle that. Or. This customer called me all annoyed because the crew didn't show up on time.
Adi Klevit: Okay, well, where's the crew? Or I'm going to promote and now I've got so many leads and I have to handle this and I have to handle that and all of that. I mean, why do I have to document processes? I know how to do it. I'm too busy. Too
Erin Marcus: busy. No time. And it's the whole what do you call it? The Eisenhower matrix.
Erin Marcus: Prioritizing what's urgent over what's actually important. Correct. And you have to build it in. If you don't put, I learned that too. If you don't schedule it, it won't happen.
Adi Klevit: Exactly. That's exactly right. I mean, you know, like I can tell you like the transformation that happened to me with my own business is when I started to schedule time to work on the business and I know that it might sound like a cliche, yeah, work on the business, in the business, but.
Adi Klevit: I actually hired a coach, you know, because we all need coaches. And, you know, she looked at it and she goes, you know, your calendar is super full, but when do you work on the business? And I go like, yes, it's like that thing that I, yeah, sometimes, sometimes I would get to it. Sometimes I would get to it, but.
Adi Klevit: Or you try to do it in between appointments. Right. And, and, and, and I'm not in the right mindset, you know, because when I'm in the marketing mindset, I'm in the marketing mindset. When I'm in talking to clients, I'm in the talking to clients mindset, but I do need to have that. sit down, look at, strategize, write it down, you know, create that plan, just like you document processes and procedures.
Adi Klevit: You also have to document what are you going to do in the next quarter in your business, communicate it to your staff so they hold you accountable. So now it came out of your mouth and you have to deliver so you don't seem like a liar, you know, all of those things. It's a whole hat. That is missing, you know, and that's actually, I mean, I had a conversation with one of my clients, the same thing happened to her in terms of like, we look at all the functions she was doing.
Adi Klevit: It's like, wow, you're doing a lot. Yeah. We didn't do document all of that, but where's the visionary hat. Right. Where's the CEO hat? Oh my
Erin Marcus: gosh. That's so true. If you're in the weeds, there's no way to be the vision caster. If you're, if you're can't see out of the weeds. You can.
Adi Klevit: And the business, you can steer the business, you know, it's, it's, as you said, it's just going to react, it just reacts to the environment, react, react, react.
Erin Marcus: Yeah, absolutely. So where does, like, one of the things we learned to do that helped me immensely, and I'm sure you can take this even further, is rather than, like, in the beginning we set time aside to document things, but when we were doing something new and testing, we were documenting while. we were doing it.
Erin Marcus: Yes. Super smart. And we didn't feel so Well, number one, especially if it's new, you can't document it in advance because you just don't have enough information. You're wasting your time. You don't actually know how it's actually going to work.
Adi Klevit: But Erin, to your point, I think it's super important what you did because some people, what I hear, They tell me is let's, let's improve the process and then document.
Adi Klevit: Well, that doesn't work because how, how do you know, you don't remember what you did. Exactly. So I think your approach is, is super smart. This is exactly the right approach. I mean, before you are, you embark on the actions, you want to write what the action should be, or at least what you think they are.
Adi Klevit: And then you write them, exactly what they are, then you test them, you see what works and what doesn't work, you use metrics in order to measure your, you know, the process, and then you change, like, specific things in the process, because really, The, the problem is, is that too much, you can introduce too much
Erin Marcus: change.
Erin Marcus: I was just going to say the same thing. If we, when we don't have things documented to compare our results to, humans tend to go all or nothing with their brains. Right? And so you'll throw the baby out with the bathwater when you really just needed a little tweak. Right. Cause your feelings will lie to you.
Erin Marcus: Right? About none of this worked. Well, yeah, but like 80 percent of it worked. It was just this little thing. And if you don't have that thing to compare it to, how are you going to know? Right. You're absolutely correct. Absolutely correct. So where does someone start? Say they're listening to this and they're not quite ready to have you come in there and do it all for you.
Erin Marcus: Where does someone start? Okay, so the first
Adi Klevit: thing that I would tell people to do is to do this exercise that you take a piece of paper and you actually list why do you want to document your processes and procedures. That is, you have to set your mindset and you have to have a goal and you have to follow that goal.
Adi Klevit: So you have to know why are you documenting your processes and procedures. And that is a key, key, key component. Because if you don't do that, Then it's not going to happen. No. Cause then it just feels like tasks and more work. But you have to be really honest with yourself. And that's what I tell my clients.
Adi Klevit: Like when we start working together, why, and if I hear, well, you know, my coach told me, or it's part of a system that I'm using that needs processes. Well, why, what will happen in your company if you had well documented processes and procedures? Just take a look at it and be honest with yourself. What will happen?
Adi Klevit: And write it down. Are you going to be able to onboard employees better? Probably. Yeah, I mean, sure. But why is it important for you? Oh, because I want to triple my business and I need to hire, you know, 100 more employees. Good. I want to open another location. Okay, so why do you need processes? Well, because They need to know what to do.
Adi Klevit: Great. That's your why. So you really have to identify. That's the first thing that I would do. And I always do that exercise. The next thing that you do is you basically map your processes. Okay, just high level, high level. Like what areas in the companies do you have that you need processes and procedures?
Adi Klevit: Sales, HR, business development, production, right? Accounting. When we,
Erin Marcus: when we did this, I literally started with, oh, there's probably only three or four things. And then you get to the point where as soon as I, I say something. I'm like, Oh, we need a process. I've gone. I've gone way the other direction. Oh, we need a process around that.
Erin Marcus: It's so
Adi Klevit: funny because I tell my class, this is addictive. This is what's going to basically start happening. And it's great. It's a great, it's a great sign. It's a great sign. It's a sign that you're in the right direction. So anyway, map your processes, do it on sticky notes, just write finance, HR, business development, and just put it, you know, I, I like to use Miro.
Adi Klevit: You know, whatever software you want to use, I mean electronic whiteboard, do it on a real whiteboard, put the sticky notes on your wall, whatever, whatever works for you, right? If you're virtual, definitely use a virtual software so everybody can, you know, you share it with a team. Then look at that, And decide where you want to start.
Adi Klevit: Let's say you have a big event coming up. So your sales team need to be prepared and you want to basically document it so they are totally prepared and then do like a feedback look after that to make sure that it all worked out. Great! So let's, let's start with that, right? So decide where you want to start.
Adi Klevit: Make a commitment, okay? Take that area and break it down into the main procedures you need for that process. Okay.
Erin Marcus: And I think in that, in that piece, what I see, cause it, you know, it's basic project management, but until you start getting into it, you're gonna skip steps. Like I find, I tell people like break it down, then break it, take a look at all those steps, break it down again.
Erin Marcus: Like you, the bite sized steps become very important. Very, very,
Adi Klevit: but you know, it's kind of like, okay, let's say we're talking about a sales process. Great. Thank you. You know, what is your sales process? Where does it start? Where does it end? Oh, well, it starts with a lead intake. And it ends with a signed contract or onboarding the new client.
Adi Klevit: Good. What happens in between? How do we talk to each other? Yeah. You know, the lead intake. Great. What comes after that big, big, don't tell me about, you know, you answer the phone and then you schedule. No, no, no. I want, I want a big buckets, look at it as buckets. So we have intake. And after that we have.
Adi Klevit: Qualifying the lead, scheduling the appointment, the estimate, whatever you call it, you know, the free consultation, the diagnosis. Conducting that meeting. Great. Writing the proposal, presenting the proposal, closing the proposal, following up on a proposal, onboarding the new client. Great. Right here, you have a chain of the main buckets.
Adi Klevit: Now commit to write whatever, whatever the pace is, just start somewhere. Don't try to take it on all at once. So if you would like good, so now lead intake. So by next Friday, let's have our lead intake documented. Start recording a video on how you do it, you know, do whatever you get started, right? I mean, don't make it perfect.
Adi Klevit: It's okay, but get started.
Erin Marcus: And one of the things, you know, you were talking about sales, but you'd mentioned earlier about onboarding. I think right now with as difficult it is with hiring and keeping, and, you know, HR is a very difficult situation right now, if you want to attract and keep the best people, they need to have, they need to know what to expect.
Erin Marcus: The frustration, you know, people quit jobs for two main reasons. They quit their manager and they quit out of frustration. That's right. Right. And if you're creating chaos for people because they don't know what to expect, it's going to be very hard to create the stable workforce you need.
Adi Klevit: Absolutely. You know, they, they, I agree with you.
Adi Klevit: It's never the money. It's always the manager. It's the frustration, but I also found something else that they quit because it's the lost opportunity. Okay. Because if they actually see somewhere else that is more alluring because, Oh, like, look, you know, you are going to get trained. Oh, I'm actually not getting trained here.
Adi Klevit: You know, I would love that. Right. So it's kind of like they will quit because there was a
Erin Marcus: better. Well, right. It's the hierarchy of needs. Self actualization is the top of the hierarchy of needs. And if you see that you can get that elsewhere, you'll go there. Exactly. So what are some of the, aside from the obvious pitfall of not doing it, what are some of the mistakes people make when they try to put all this together?
Adi Klevit: You know, it's an excellent question. Some of the mistakes are that they're going into too many details. Yes. Some of the mistakes are that they are not going enough into details. Another mistake is that they use a different, the wrong voice in writing it, meaning they're not really writing it to the voice of their organization.
Adi Klevit: Let's say you are building this culture of, you know, like a hip company or. A company that is open communication and that has several, you know, different core values, but you are documenting it like you are like corporate America. Well, that's a problem. It's not going to fly and people are never going to read it.
Adi Klevit: Right. So that is like, you have to, to document in the right voice and in a consistent voice. So that's one thing. The second thing is, I mean, once I already said several, so I don't, you know, is not using. All the methods of learning. Okay, people have different methods of learning. Some of us are visual, you know, I want to see a screenshot.
Adi Klevit: Show me. Some of us want to also hear. So you need to have a video so they can actually hear from somebody else. Some of us just like to read and write instructions, you know? Read, read, yeah, like read instructions.
Erin Marcus: I honestly can't, I have to have written instructions. I know. I mean, like to try to follow a video to then go do something, I, you know, I end up with two screens because I have to be able to pause, pause, pause, pause.
Erin Marcus: Exactly, that's exactly right.
Adi Klevit: So, But, you know, if you look at the recipe, right, so, you know, we all looked at recipes online. I think I think it will resonate. Okay. So what happens when you look at the recipe? First of all, it became a blog post. So somebody wrote like a whole story about how to create. You know, pot roast.
Adi Klevit: But then it gives you also the option to scroll directly to the point, to the instructions. And there was also a video, you know, I personally will always look at the instructions and go do it. Sometimes if I don't understand the instructions, so if it's like a technique that I don't get, or I want to see how they do it, then I will look at the video, some people will go directly to the video.
Adi Klevit: Some people will be interested in reading the entire story to see this whole background, which is great, but you have to accommodate to different needs and also not just different methods of learning, but also different needs. You know, if I wanted to know the history of how to make this dish and where it's being served, and I wanted to have a conversation about it, I will read the blog post.
Adi Klevit: If I just want to cook it right now, I will go to the recipe, the written instructions. There is a time for each one, for any of them, but, you know, let's say I repeated the recipe again, but I forgot how long do I have to actually Turn the Instant Pot on, because I love hooking something to
Erin Marcus: the Instant Pot.
Erin Marcus: And they go, oh, okay,
Adi Klevit: this is 30 minutes, no problem, I can do it, yes. But I can go to the specific instruction, right? And that is how you want to write your instructions, so people can easily find them. So another mistake that people make is that they don't make it uniform, and they, and they save it in different random ways.
Adi Klevit: Oh, I've
Erin Marcus: seen that, where it's just all over the place. I see it all the time. One of the things that I've seen is companies that Put their, so they put their operating procedures, they'll write 'em out, but then it's a word doc like they miss using all these amazing tools that we have now, rather than just have this, a book that no one's ever gonna refer to.
Erin Marcus: There's so many tools that now turn those procedures into workflows. Right, right. So much more helpful.
Adi Klevit: Absolutely. Absolutely.
Erin Marcus: Yeah. And half of those tools are free. Those tools are free. You can just turn everything, so it's almost foolproof. Exactly. You're absolutely right. Yeah. It takes so much less energy.
Adi Klevit: I
Erin Marcus: agree. I mean, and you know, and it sounds, it sounds like a lot of work for people who aren't normally acclimated to doing those things. Right. But marketing sounds like a lot of work to people who aren't acclimated to marketing. Right. But it really is. It's one of those. Yeah. It really is one of those things that, If you're going to do what you want to do, you kind of have to start when the thing that I agree to people is treat your business like a business.
Erin Marcus: That's right. That's exactly right. Right. This is not something you're just trying to do. Treat your business like a business. I agree. I agree 100%. You're absolutely right. And you would never see, you know, you use the big names, you would never see Coca Cola not have this. Absolutely. Absolutely. So if people want to continue this conversation and learn more about how you do this and how you help them and how you can put ducks in a row instead of squirrels at a, at a rave, what is the best way for them to get a hold of you?
Erin Marcus: How do they find you?
Adi Klevit: Alright, so they can find me on LinkedIn, so it's Adi Klevit, so it's A D I And there is a link there to make an appointment with me. I would love to talk to anyone. And of course our website is bizsuccesscg. com. So it's B I Z, success spelled out, and CG for consulting group dot com.
Adi Klevit: And we will put all the
Erin Marcus: links in the show notes so that you're just a click away from everybody. That's part of our process. Thank you, Aaron. I know you have a fantastic process. Yes, I'm very proud of our processes now. Thank you for sharing your insights and some tools for people who can just jump right in and get some quick things done.
Erin Marcus: And it really does make so much of a difference. Yeah, absolutely. You're very, very welcome.
Adi Klevit: And thank you for having me on
Erin Marcus: the show.