More Than A Side Hustle
More Than A Side Hustle
Don't Make This Huge Mistake This Year
This episode came from our last coaching call with our students. It emphasizes the importance of creating systems instead of setting conventional goals as we enter 2025. We discuss transitioning from goal-oriented thinking to building efficient processes that promote consistency and sustainable success.
• Focus on systems over goals for true success
• Break down tasks into manageable categories for efficiency
• Create repeatable processes to achieve desired outcomes
• Establish measurable systems that lead to consistent habits
• Regularly audit and improve system effectiveness
• Engage listeners in identifying and enhancing personal business systems
• Encourage commitment to continuous system improvement for greater performance
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I wanted to wish you guys an amazing 2025. I hope everyone's 2024 was amazing, but I hope this year is much more prosperous for you guys. Let me know in the chat how many of us said our new year goals already. How many of you guys dropped your? Have your new year goals like ready to go? Your resolutions, your goals? You're excited about 2025. I'm going to give you guys another mindset. I'm going to give you guys something different to think about this year. It says I plan to.
Speaker 1:I don't want to set goals anymore. I do not want us setting goals in 2025. I don't want us to set resolutions. I don't want us to set goals. We have been lied to our whole life. The new year comes and we sit down and we decide all right, what's going to be the goals for this year, what's going to be the resolutions for this year? The only thing that changed was the clock. So whatever we were doing in 2024, we should continue to plan to do that in 2025. It shouldn't be something that is brand new to us. It shouldn't be something that we decided that we're not going to do anymore. Because if it took us a whole new year to decide if we're going to do it then. That means that it probably wasn't that important and it also probably means that it won't be that important in 2025 either. So we said we need a whole new year in order to set to lose weight or to make more money. Why wasn't it as important to do it in 2024? I don't want us to set goals in 2025. I want us to set systems. Right, I want to set systems, and the reason I'm saying that is because I prepared a presentation for this call, because I wanted to be very intentional about the conversation, right. So we all have set goals. I want to lose weight, I want to do this, I want to do that. And reality goals are about the results you want to achieve. So, for example, I want to lose 10 pounds, I want to lose 15 pounds. That's a goal. A goal is a one-time action for the most part. So in 2024, I wanted to run a half marathon. That was a goal and I did it and that was it. I didn't run again after the half marathon. I felt accomplished after that half marathon, but I never did it again.
Speaker 1:Systems are about the processes, or processes that lead to that result. So I see Jay with the baby. What's going on? So, instead of me saying I want to run a half marathon, I should have said that I want to put the systems in place that I could run a half marathon at the job of a dime, whether it's in next month, next two weeks, or the system would have been I want to stay in half marathon shape year round. But my problem was and like most of our problems was that we set these goals and they're usually one-time results that we want to achieve.
Speaker 1:But in 2025, I want us to think about the systems that we're going to be achieving right, because the systems are about the process of procedures that lead to those results over and over again. So we're not going to be setting goals. If you have a goal, that's fine. We're going to talk about how to set the systems around those goals. Systems are greater than goals. Let me know if you guys are following.
Speaker 1:So, in order to set those systems, I want us to be able to break down our time and our business. And how are we spending it? We're going to break it down in three categories Breaking down our time and our business. How are we spending it? Things you're good at, things you enjoy doing and things that add the highest value, which is usually monetary. We're going to hire to buy back our time, which will then lead us and allow us to grow our businesses. So I don't want us to think about a goal. I want to get five team members, right, I want to get five contractors, but the goal in our business is to buy back our time, which would then allow us to grow our businesses.
Speaker 1:So, systems over goals, systems over goals in 2025. So we already went over how many people here set their New Year's goals and resolutions. But I want to ask you guys another question how many of your goals look like this, like a number, a monetary goal or a numeric goal to make a five, to make 10K, to make 100K, to lose 10 pounds? How many of us have set numeric goals or monetary goals? How many of our goals might? We might have 10 goals and one of them looks like this and it has a number attached to it. Let me know, because, lord and likely, when we set our goals, this is what we're trained to do.
Speaker 1:So we'll say the goal is to make an extra 5K or to make 100K, or to lose 10 pounds, or to go on 10 trips. Right. We usually set numeric goals. So here's what our goals look like. Right? So we go from zero to 10K, or we go from zero to five trips in a year. But in reality, in order to hit those goals, we need them to look like this. They need to have systems.
Speaker 1:So instead of saying we want to go from zero to 10K or whatever that numeric goal is or monetary goal, there are steps that lead up into us getting to those goals, and those steps are the actual system that's repeatable over and over again. For example, to go from zero to 10K, we need leads, we need phone calls, we need people to be able to pick up those phone calls and close those leads. We need a follow-up system. We need to make sure they are recurring on our schedule. When they're recurring, we need to make sure we're able to upsell them, and then after that, we need to be retargeting those clients. So we know that most of our goals look like this zero to 10K but when we have those systems, it not only becomes a one-time process. Now we have a repeatable outcome over and over again Needs, calls, closes, follow-up, recurring, upsell, retargeting and these can be mixed around. The order could change, but this is what our systems need to look like, and we'll dive into the actual systems of that as well in a little bit.
Speaker 1:Systems create consistent habits and workflows making our goals easier to achieve Again, consistent habits, workflows making our goals easier to achieve Again, consistent habits, workflows making our goals easier to achieve. So, going back to that goal of me being able to run a half marathon, if I said I want to be able to run half marathons every two weeks, every month, every quarter, whatever it was, I would have been able to put a system around that, versus saying I want to achieve this goal one time. So now we create consistent habits and workflows in order to achieve that goal. Let's identify key business goals. So drop one or two business goals or even personal goals that you want to achieve this year. Stop procrastinating. Lose some weight. Oh, pay off SL student loans, corey said another five or six figure commercial contract. Oh, payoff SL Student loans. Corey said another five or six figure commercial contract. Oh, let's go Another location. Make a lot of sales Right Now.
Speaker 1:The question is what systems do you currently have in place to support those goals? Because looking at the goals that we have right here, it looks like this Right, so you could take your goals that we have right here. It looks like this right, so you could take your goals that you have on inside the chat and just put them right on this target sheet, because what we're doing now is just throwing darts at these targets. That's what a goal looks like. That's what a goal looks like. So what systems do you currently have in place to support your goal? So I want you guys to think about that as well. So, increased revenue, more leads, closing deals, hiring, more money, more time, obviously, streamlined processes right, a lot of your goals came around. These things we talked about here. A lot of these things talked about what you guys had named as your goal. But essentially, we're taking a dart and we're just throwing it, hoping it hits, especially when we don't have the right systems in place to support our goals.
Speaker 1:So every goal requires a system that supports measurable, repeatable action. Now let's talk about what makes a good system, because that's the question we get all the time what's the system that you guys use, right? What's the system? But I want you guys to think about it like this here's the three things that we need to think about when we're talking about systems consistency. So, like sasha said, having an automated website that generally leads to marketing, have other dude work.
Speaker 1:For me, right consistency systems should focus on repeatable processes. Simplicity Overly complex systems fail over time. Simplicity Overly complex systems fail over time. Now, what exactly does that mean? We know what consistency means. Simplicity means that if we don't understand how it works, it can't grow with our business, and flexibility means the system should be able to evolve with your business as you grow, as you learn more, as you understand more. Here's what your systems may look like.
Speaker 1:So, for example, this was our very first hiring process. Guys, I'm going to highlight that. I'm going to bold that Starbucks every Saturday for interviews. Consistency, simple and flexible. We knew that every Saturday, we would go to Starbucks to conduct our interviews. That's what we did 2017. That's what we did. And as we learned more and as we grew more, we said you know what? These same questions we're asking them in person. We could do it with a phone. That was stage two. We're having to learn more. We did more, we grew more. And then, obviously, as you guys understand, stage three we turned it to 100% virtual online processes. Again, consistency, simplicity and flexibility that's what makes a good system.
Speaker 1:So our system that we use today or our processes that we use today may not be where you are. I want to make that very clear. You have to do what works for you. We're giving you the outline, we're giving you the tools, we're giving you the walkthrough, but some of that may be overwhelming for you and you got to be okay with knowing that. So another example lead gen right, stage one for us and for a lot of you, you might get a lead to a call.
Speaker 1:Stage two you might get a lead to a call and then maybe you'll text them back. And then stage three, lead to call and text to a 365-day automation sequence that keeps leads going through your marketing campaigns over and over again. But again, this goes back to you understanding where you are in a business. So drop a one. If you're at the Starbucks phase right, drop a two. If you're at the on the phone phase, drop a three. If you're 100% virtual the phone phase, drop a three. If you're 100 virtual online, let me know in the chat, because you may be doing one of these three or you may be doing a combination of each, but you have to know where you are. Like I said, we were in stage one, going to starbucks every saturday and it may not be you physically going to starbucks, but you have to understand where you are in your business. So, again, when you're talking about your systems simple, flexible, consistent Things that you could do over and over again.
Speaker 1:So let's talk about lead gen for a minute. Let's talk about lead gen for a minute. So this is an example of stage three. Right, again, stage one was a lead to a call. Stage two was maybe a lead to a call, maybe a text, and then stage three. So you got Google, yelp, facebook, thumbtack, organic, etc. You might be doing Facebook, you might be doing Instagram. That falls under Facebook, right? So Google? You got GLS or GLA, google Local Services, google Local Ads, but each one of these lead to the same exact thing.
Speaker 1:These are all leads going to the same place and even if you aren't at stage three, you could be documenting your leads in one place. If you don't even have a CRM, let's say you just document your leads and I'll go through this later but you might want to document them in an Excel sheet. I talked to a lot of business owners who've been doing this 10, 15 years and I asked them hey, can you pull up all your leads from last year, all your clients from last year? Yeah, I don't have that system anymore, which is understandable. People change systems all the time. But if you started with the basics, you can now evolve as you go, going back to this again stage one, two and three.
Speaker 1:Stage one, two and three right, so all the leads go to the same place. For some of you guys it may be Book and Koala. For some of you guys it may be Thumbtack. Some of you guys it may be Mars 27. Some of you guys it may be Thumbtack. Some of you guys it may be Mars 27. Some of you guys may be Zed Maids. Some of you guys may be Jobber.
Speaker 1:I don't care, but we do know the leads need to go to a central source of information where we need to access them. Right, so all the leads go to the same place. After we get the lead, there's a call. This is what our team does every single time we don't get them, there's a text message. If we don't get them, there's an email. After that, there's an automation which we have TinyTran do right.
Speaker 1:So now you can do all these things. You can get your leads in. You can call them from your phone, you can text them from your phone, you can email them from MailChimp. Right, that's stage two. Stage three they go from email. Then they might go to a nurture sequence. Now in your mind you say you don't know what a nurture sequence is. You're not on stage three just yet, and that's totally fine. Again, it's those that you know and understanding where you are. So a three-day cheat sequence and then they go to seven days and then they get hit up again 14 days later and they're 21. And then they get hit up every single month for the remainder of the year until they get back on their schedule.
Speaker 1:So again, choosing what system goes back to what stage you are in your business or what stage you can manage. So I see some of you guys put some twos and two and a half, some threes, mixture of both, and some of that may come down to how much time you have to dedicate to your business or how much money, because I say in business you always going to be spending one or the other. Going back to this again, stage one was Starbucks. We're spending our time because we didn't know any better. Right, you're going to be spending time. You're going to be spending money. You may not have the time to do these things, or you have the time but you don't have the money. So that's what kind of figuring out what makes a good system that you're going to use for your business.
Speaker 1:So I'm going to break down a few systems quickly on this one. So let's look at the different areas of your business and let's find where systems can make an impact. So, lead generation and marketing. Let me know if you guys are following so far, let me know in the chat. So breaking down business systems. So lead generation and marketing. Let me know if you guys are following so far, let me know in the chat.
Speaker 1:So, breaking down business systems. So lead generation and marketing. People think about lead generation and marketing as this is my way to get clients. Now, part of that is true, but the question is how do you consistently bring in either I'll say potential customers for this one, because lead generation and marketing is about generating eyeballs. That's how I go to generate eyeballs.
Speaker 1:Does that make sense, guys? Because if nobody sees you, nobody knows you, nobody even understands your business. No matter how good you are, you could be the best person in the world at your business. If nobody how good you are, you could be the best person in the world at your business. If nobody knows who you are, it doesn't matter. I'll repeat that If you could be the best person in the world at whatever it is that you do and in this instance we're talking about the cleaning business you might be out cleaning all of your stuff. You're like I am the best person in the world that could do this. And we hear it all the time from cleaners who've been operating their businesses. No one could do it like me. I know you said this before I'm the best. No one could do it like me. I don't trust anybody going to handle my clients, but if no one knows who you are and how good you are, you're not going to generate any customers.
Speaker 1:So, having the right systems in place for your lead generation and marketing your sales process so what are you doing for your sales process? What systems do you use to close leads efficiently? Do you have a sales script? Inside the community, we give you guys our sales script. We've closed hundreds of thousands of dollars with that basic script and you guys should go in there, use it. Tweak it to your business what makes sense, use it. Don't try to guesstimate when people call you, because what happens is when you hire someone, which is the next part, what's the system that they're going to follow? What is your VA goal to follow? So hiring, what system do you use to bring on cleaning teams quickly? Are you taking a week to bring people on? Are you taking two weeks to bring people on? Is it taking you a month?
Speaker 1:Client fulfillment how do you ensure a consistent, high-quality customer service? What does Chick-fil-A say at the end of every interaction? My pleasure, my pleasure. Now, why is that? How can every single Chick-fil-A have the same exact interaction at the very end, the same exact statement at the very end of the interaction? It's their process, their system, that's a system. At the end of every interaction, you say this Repeatable actions over and over again.
Speaker 1:So for us, especially if we're running our business online or remote, we may not be able to go to every client, or any clients, depending on how you run your business. What, what's that? After process, what happens when your team leaves their home? That's the part that you can control. So, number one, making sure somebody gets there You're hiring, the vetting process. But number two, or three, after they leave. What's that process? That's the part you can control as the business owner. So people ask us all the time is oh, how do you ensure that person's going to be a quality team member? How do you ensure that your hiring process helps with that? You can't 100% ensure anything in business, because if you did, if you could, you'd be a billionaire or a trillionaire at this point. But having the right system can help you get closer to ensuring that satisfaction. So, for example, at the end of every cleaning, you as the owner, you as the manager, all your team members, your VAs or your in-person people they're calling the clients and having that same script over and over again can help you ensure that client satisfaction, that client fulfillment. So that could be your version of my pleasure. You can call that client and say my pleasure, you could do that. Actually, this is your business, right, so you can do that in your business.
Speaker 1:And time management what systems help you manage your day-to-day tasks effectively? So I put this here because I couldn't draw this. Most of these are drawings by me, right? But what you're looking at is this is a conveyor belt from like Amazon or something like that, and. But what you're looking at is this is a conveyor belt from Amazon or something like that and each person is doing a task and overall, this is the business. But each person is doing a task. In the business, each person is an individual, but as a group, this is the system. So in your business you're Now this is my version of a conveyor belt. So in your business you might have lead gen After lead gen, you might have lead gen After lead gen, you might go to the sales process.
Speaker 1:After the sales process it might be client fulfillment, after client fulfillment it might be follow-up, and then you might go back to lead generation again. But all of these things combined are the systems in your business. So let's look at one process hiring. Hiring was a challenge for some people last year. All the time hiring is a challenge. But let's look at the systems we have for our hiring process, and this is just an example.
Speaker 1:So job ad has the description of your job, the qualifications, who you're looking for, what you want them to have, what you want them to possess. If you've ever had a traditional nine to 5, you know exactly what a job ad is, because you applied to a job right. That's the application. So you saw the job ad, you looked at it and said this is something I might want to do or something I don't want to do. But you made the decision, what you thought the job ad. From there, you apply to the role, right, you say, okay, job, I look good, I meet the qualifications, let me apply.
Speaker 1:From there, you might have your full screen, especially in your cleaning business. You might have a full screen where you're talking to the candidate, you're deciding they're a good fit for you, you're a good fit for them, and then at that point you make that decision Am I going to work with them or am I not? Or do I want to go through this process again for another fall screen? Whatever you decide, well, from there you might do your onboarding documents. So you might send them the hiring form, you might send them the, or they might send you their insurance. You might upload them to Launch 27. You might give them a walkthrough with that, or you might send them to their first job or test job. First job might be your house or a friend's house, or a test job might be a client, depending on how you run your business.
Speaker 1:But again, this is a system for our hiring. So I want you guys to ask yourself in your business, how long should this process take to decide if the client, if the person, is a good fit for you or if you should move on? And, more importantly, how do you make it more efficient? I was doing a coaching call with someone and I think they had seven candidates and I was like, okay, that's amazing, what are we doing with those candidates? It's been a couple of days now that when you started to call them back, they're like, oh, I'm going to give it a couple of days. We shouldn't be giving things a couple days unless that's our system. So we're saying the hiring process should be a week, from a person applies or see the job ad, to the day they get their first job. Then make it a week or make it two weeks. But again, create that systems that when you got seven applicants, they aren't just sitting and we have to dive into that conversation more. So again, that's breaking down your business system, right? What does that process look like? And decide how long should it take.
Speaker 1:So I want to give you guys one or two minutes and I want you to think about what's one part of your business you feel needs a better system right now and drop it in the chat and think about it when you try to figure out what that task is. Think about what tasks make you feel overwhelmed or inconsistent in your business. So let's say you might hire sometimes or you might not, right what are parts of your business that lack automation and can't use delegation? I know Brad said he's going to hire a VA, for example. Right, are there repetitive tasks that you could streamline or outsource? So think about that. Order your business, think about it right now and what part of your business you feel needs a better system, needs a better system right now. But we need to identify these system gaps. So I'm going to give you guys another example of identifying system gaps.
Speaker 1:So a lot of people talk about generating leads because they want more clients, which obviously leads to more money if you close the clients. But one of the things we did was on some of our coaching, some of our coaching calls was we actually doped and I'm going to actually show you a a slide of this as well. We may think that's the system gap that we have in our business, but then the question becomes if you got 10 leads today, how many of those leads are you closing? But then have we ever went back and looked at the data of our closing percentage? Because you may have the leads you need but you might not be closing them. So, hiring a follow-up at least after the email campaign and it goes to the nurture sequence instead of, after the four or five attempts, ask someone cold call my leads.
Speaker 1:Getting more reviews from happy clients man, we just hit over 500. I didn't even know until our team had played it out. Think about it. We've been in business for seven years now. We got over 500 reviews. That doesn't come with just thinking about it as a back thought. That comes with having the right system in place and also making sure it's repeatable and being able to do it over and over again. But that's a big one because that becomes a snowball for you organically closing people, because that becomes part of your sales process. So we go back here. We think about the lead gen and sales process. Now we can use our reviews as part of our sales process when we get objections. So again, make sure you guys are going back to that sales script because that could be part of the objections that you guys see over and over.
Speaker 1:Oh, your pricing. Why is your pricing so high? We have 500 reviews. It's not to be arrogant, but that's why prices are higher, because then you can now command a little bit more. So again, just audit your business, think about those systems gaps and think about what's part of your business right now that could use a better system.
Speaker 1:So I'm just going to go over like some internal things we use for our team, because I don't want to over sexy this, I don't want to over complicate this, but this is like some of the day-to-day tools we use outside of the one that you guys already know, that are inside the course and inside the resources. But these are some things that I just can't live without. So, google Drive If I showed you my Google Drive, it took someone to actually clean my Google Drive up, right. So we got our cleaning business, university, we got our actual cleaning business. We separate them, but all of our documents, sops, are in our Google job, because you guys know Chanel. She's in our business, right, she needs to find documents. Obviously, janoka's in our business, right, she needs to be able to find documents and edit them, but we know anybody that comes to the business. Here's where you can find all the documents, slack.
Speaker 1:All of our businesses are in Slack. Every single business, every single partner, every single contractor that we work with, they're in Slack. If you guys don't know what Slack is, it's just a communication app, kind of like WhatsApp, but for businesses, right. But we use Slack for our communication. All of our BAs are in Slack. You don't want to use Slack. You get to a certain point and you have to pay for it. But you can use WhatsApp. So I am huge on itself. I am a huge lover of itself.
Speaker 1:So tracking data, tweaking things based on data, basecamp is a project management tool. When we had our VA business, we had all of our docs in here. We had all of our communication in here. It was all in Basecamp. The problem was with Basecamp is that once you leave again the data has to be transferred back over to you, which kind of takes some time. We still use Basecamp, absolutely. I love Basecamp. You can manage this in there. You can manage this. You can manage your communications, your data, everything at Basecamp. Email you can use MailChimp. Activecampaign Text message you can use Grab. You guys know these things right, but these are things that we use in our business day in and day out.
Speaker 1:I could get into Zapier. You could use Zapier to pretty much send and receive tasks back and forth through various channels. But that's getting. We don't need Zapier today. We don't even need. You don't need Zapier today. We use the thing. It's hundreds of dollars. It becomes very expensive. So this goes back to knowing where you are.
Speaker 1:Stage one, two or three we can use Zaps for a few things, but the way we use that it becomes very expensive. But you could send Zapier tasks from Excel, google Docs, slack, basecamp. Zapier is pretty much a component that will send and receive tasks to all these Google Earth applications, launch 27, booking, koala, et cetera. But again, stage one, two or three know who you are, your business. Again, stage one, two or three know where you are in your business. So again, your lead magnet you go to your CRM. From your CRM go to your email automation, from your email automation go to your sales dashboard and then you can have all your systems connected via Zapier. As an example of that right. And then obviously you guys will know what TidyTrack is. It handles all of that for our business. So all our stuff, our Google Drive, our communication, our sales, our emails, our text messages. Our zaps are all in TinyTrap, if you guys don't know.
Speaker 1:We talked about the tools and systems, but let's talk about the actual systems and utilizing it based on the information and data we have. Because it's not just about having the right systems in place, it's about actually utilizing the information we have. Because it's not just about having the right systems in place, it's about actually utilizing the information we have in those systems. For example, this is someone's real life hiring funnel and if they're on the call, they know what we're talking about. We went over this actually in one of our coaching calls. But there's a big red flag here, here's a flag on the plane. But we wouldn't have known this without having and seeing the systems. More importantly, the data. Don't just have the systems without utilizing the data.
Speaker 1:So I'm going to bring this down for you guys. Let me zoom in a little bit. My handwriting is atrocious. So they came to us and the problem was hiring. So we talked about let me slow scroll up a little bit System gaps. I can't hire anyone as a system gap Leads is a system gap, right? This was a system gap we're going to go over.
Speaker 1:So we went over the hiring process. They had the job ad. They had the website, the job ad, to the job form, to the interview, to the in-person, to the first job. I'll repeat that you went from job ad to the website, to the job form, to the interview, to the in-person, to the first job, or whatever it was. I said, okay, cool, we went through the numbers. So, for example, we went through the hiring funnel. That's exactly what this is a funnel. So let's give you an example of 10 leads go through this funnel.
Speaker 1:So, out of these 10 leads that we are going to potentially hire, let's go through from the beginning stage to the end stage. So a hundred percent of the people are going to the website because that's what you're sending them to. So 10 out of 10 people are going to the website. Out of those 10 people, only eight of them not only eight eight of them are completing the job form. That's, 85% of them are completing the job form, which is amazing are actually going to the job form page, excuse me. So 10 leads, 85% of them are going to the next page, which is the job form. Here is where the red flag was and that bottleneck was Only 10% of people completed the actual job form. So out of 10, we went to eight and now we're down to one. Why is that so, out of 10 people, only one person completed it.
Speaker 1:And then we went through and I'll give you guys some examples. So what's the reason why someone wouldn't complete your job application? I don't have insurance Okay, that's a good one. What else? Errors on a job form application that's another good one. They didn't require insurance on a job ad, on the application, so I'll just remove that one, and I only know that because we went through it. Errors we're getting closer. What else you guys got? That's a good one. Nixon, too many steps. Renee nailed it. No, renee nailed it, guys.
Speaker 1:Two we went through the job application together on the live call and it was eight pages of information and we're not talking about a quick one or two questions. It was eight pages of your background, your high school diploma, what was the name of your middle school teacher, your social security number, your mom's maiden name. Give me the social security number and blood type of your last employer. We went and we would do this, and I stopped right there. I said this is way too long. So we went from 10 people down to one completed application. So that makes sense that no one's going through the interview, no one's going in person, no one's getting that first job Because the actual job form was way too long. Unshorten job requirements that's another good one, but again too many steps.
Speaker 1:So we're talking about data. Don't just say, oh, I'm at the systems in place. Actually go through and audit your data periodically, because you will find what that system gap is if you go through it. And it took me five seconds to find it. Five minutes after we went through it and I said let's cut down this actual job form down to a few questions. Do we need their social security number on a job application? Probably not, because we don't. Do we need to know if they completed high school? No, we don't. Do we need to know if they went to college? Probably not. No, we don't. What things do we need to get them through this first process? So that's identifying the gaps in your business.
Speaker 1:So another example of this was lead generation. So we went through someone's lead generation system. Now they were doing things right, right, but I asked them what their close rate was on their calls. They said I didn't know. I said, okay, how do we go and find that out? So let's go back to the last couple. What do you think it is? Oh, I closed everybody that call or emailed or text. I said, okay, what's the number? 85, 90%. I said, okay, cool. 85%, 90%. I said, okay, cool. So let's go back the last two months. Let's go through all the phone calls you got and let's go through every single person you close, and that will give us our job, that will give us our close rate. And then we actually found that the close rate was 33%, which is not bad at all. But that was the actual gap. I said how can we raise that close rate? Because now we know what the ceiling is or the requirements are for our VA. So we went through that process. We said, oh, you're telling the VA they got to close 90% of leads, but you're only closing 30. That's the gap in a business system that we didn't understand. So actually go through that data, guys. So we saw what the issue was and why that issue was, why that issue was happening.
Speaker 1:What's one system that you cannot live without? And more than likely, you check your phone. Give me something within that phone, emma. Give me something within that phone. What's an application or a process or a procedure, something you do in your personal life, business life, whatever it is, fitness life that you cannot live without. Chat GBT at this point, nixon nailed it, that's a good one. What else you guys got? Google Drive, that's a good one. So one that I want you guys, if you haven't been using it already notes on iPhone, that's a really good one. Chat GBT, that's a good one. Iphone, that's a really good one. Catgpt, that's a good one.
Speaker 1:One that I have been using a lot, probably in the last three months, is Loom and, as we're talking about systems, this is one that I've been using a lot lately, and Loom allows you to pretty much document everything that you're doing on your screen, just like this that I'm showing you guys, that we could send to our team, that we could send to our spouses, that we could send to a family, that we could send their friends, that they can see everything so that we don't have to re-explain it over and over again, and it makes transcriptions. So, as you guys are thinking about creating documentation and systems for your business in 2025, this would be one that I've been using heavily. I've been using it more recently, a lot more, but this is something I would definitely recommend you add, but those are all the made automatic charges. So the reason I'm asking you guys this is because, number one, I just want you to share with each other. But then, number two, the reason that you can't live without these things is because it makes your life easier, and these are all systems. These are all systems. Google Drive is a document that allows us to store documents. Notes on. Ifull allows you to store your notes for your systems. Chatgpt helps you create systems automatically using AI. Your CRM is a system in itself and Google Docs is the same thing.
Speaker 1:Right, I want us to actually do some implementation and some accountability. So earlier I said, I want you to document one thing that you aren't, that one system in your business that you can improve, and I want everyone to do this activity. I want you to commit to changing or creating or improving one system this week and then monitor it for the month. Monitor it for the month. This is not just about oh, I want to hire more people, I want more leads. Commit to changing that system and monitor it for the month. Now, what is monitoring it? Look like that might be daily, that might be weekly, that might be every two weeks, but I want you to monitor it for the month. That's one of the homework assignments that I want you guys to have for 2025.
Speaker 1:On what's that one system that you are looking to improve and you are monitoring it every day, every week, every couple of days, so that you can see if it's getting better or if it's getting worse. Can we commit to that so we don't have to wait until the month 12 to say I want to make a 100K? If we create the systems now and monitor it and make it better week by week, it will automatically be approved on its own by us just monitoring it. Higher rate systems for us. Can we commit to that?
Speaker 1:If you can't commit to that in 2025, that's an issue, because systems are what allows you to run your business. Over and over again. If you don't have the right systems, you won't have a business. But I wanted you guys to have actionable game plan going into 2025 and not just goals. Remember, we said goals are dead. We are creating systems in 2025. And I'm doing the same for myself. I am not having, I don't have any goals. We are doing systems. So if the goal is to make more money, what's the system around that goal?