Stop Doing It All Yourself: SYSTEMS! Melissa Compton

Imagine opening your calendar and seeing space to think, sell, and build instead of chasing follow-ups and formatting proposals. That’s the shift we unpack with systems strategist Melissa Compton, who has spent 16 years turning service businesses into smooth, scalable operations. We explore why so many owners mistake a “people problem” for a process problem, how to define a true system, and where automation creates the fastest lift in revenue and peace of mind.

We start by breaking the habit loop that keeps leaders stuck in manual work. Melissa explains what a system is—clear steps, smart tooling, and crisp handoffs—and why hiring without that foundation leads to confusion and waste. From SOPs and short screen recordings to simple checklists, we talk through how to document once and delegate repeatedly, so you can work on the business instead of getting lost inside it.

Then we zero in on the highest-leverage win: client onboarding. Melissa maps a clean journey from discovery call to paid engagement using centralized tools. HighLevel handles scheduling, reminders, proposals, contracts, invoices, and post-sale welcome steps, while Fathom records discovery calls and produces notes that sharpen proposals. The result is faster decisions, fewer dropped balls, and a more professional buyer experience that boosts conversions almost immediately. We also touch on course operations—weekly cohorts, recordings, homework, and feedback—and how to systemize delivery so the creator shows up for the moments that matter while the back end runs itself.

You’ll hear a candid look at the mindset hurdles that keep owners from letting go, along with a simple cadence for keeping systems current as offers evolve. If tasks can be trained, they can be delegated; your irreplaceable value lives in judgment, relationships, and vision. Ready to trade busywork for growth? Follow along, borrow the playbook, and start with onboarding. If this helped you think differently about scale, subscribe, share it with a friend who needs it, and leave a quick review to tell us your next system to build.

Transcript

Habits And The Cost Of Manual Work

SPEAKER_02 0:00

As a business owner, you have your daily routines. You're used to doing things a certain way. It's hard to break those routines, even when you've invested in a system. Sometimes our mind just wants to do that manual operation that we've done over and over again for the past four years.

SPEAKER_00 0:24

Welcome again to the Commission Code Podcast. We appreciate you taking the time to listen and join us here today. We're here to help you increase your business revenue and have time to enjoy it. I'm your host, Morris Sims, and I've been consulting and training business people for, well, let's just say over 40 years. We're focused on increasing revenue and having time to enjoy it. After years as a professional salesperson, I spent 32 years in the corporate world. I retired as vice president and chief learning officer of the sales department of a large insurance company where we designed and built and delivered training for over 12,000 professional salespeople. Now I get to consult one-on-one helping people grow their business and organize themselves to make the most of the time they have. We also build online courses to support business owners in their work as they strive to build the business that they've always wanted. Our objective is really very simple. It's this.

Guest Intro And Systems Focus

SPEAKER_02 1:59

Absolutely, Morris.

SPEAKER_00 2:00

So tell us a little bit about you and how you got involved in what you do and how you help your prospective uh clients.

SPEAKER_02 2:08

Yeah, absolutely. So I've worked in service-based businesses virtually for over 16 years now. I kind of actually just fell into it by chance. Um I was actually doing content writing to start and kept getting asked to do more and more for the clients I was working for and found my sweet spot in systems. Um I really love the puzzle piecing things together to make operations work really efficiently. Um and I've scaled to the point where now I'm working with six and seven-figure business owners who have big operations, but those operations are really bogging the owner down because they don't have the systems in place for the scale that they have done within the business. Um, and so I come in and I help them optimize their processes so that the owner can be hands-off and really focus on their zone of genius.

People Problems Versus Process Problems

SPEAKER_00 3:10

Well, that makes perfect sense. And it's such a big need right now, I think, for most all business owners. We tend to, you know, get involved, we do what we do, and then never stop to think, hey, if I have somebody else do this, I can spend my time doing that. And, you know, or worse yet, you think, gee, if I could just have what, but I can't afford it. So, you know, not gonna happen. Still, it comes back to even if I don't have a team, having a system that's gonna save me time and energy. Is that right?

SPEAKER_02 3:46

Yeah, exactly. And and going back to your team comment, it's funny because a lot of the people who come to me think they have a people problem or a capacity problem within their team, and they want to just hire a virtual assistant or hire multiple virtual assistants and think that's gonna fix the issue. But what I find time and time again is that that process doesn't work because you bring in these additional people, but you still don't have systems. And so these people are kind of just floundering. You're creating work for them, but you haven't fixed the core issue that your business had, which was we don't have an efficient process in place. Um, and a lot of times when they go that route, what ends up happening is the business just becomes more inefficient because again, they're making work for these virtual assistants without anyone really knowing how to fix the actual problem.

What A System Really Means

SPEAKER_00 4:45

Oh man, that's that yeah, sounds familiar. That's what it sounds like. It sounds, it sounds flipping familiar. Uh and it it absolutely goes that way. Let's make sure we're all on the same page here. Myself, define a system for us.

SPEAKER_02 5:01

Yeah. So putting it simply, a system is just one of the core workflows in your business. It involves tech tools to automate things as much as possible so that you can be hands-off in those core processes.

SPEAKER_00 5:15

So it's it's really, as you say, a process. It's a step-by-step process for how we do something. And we're we're trying to do that so that we can be consistent, accurate, and efficient. Would that sound right?

SPEAKER_02 5:31

Yep.

Letting Go And Owner Mindset

SPEAKER_00 5:32

So the fact is, most of the small business owners I've ever worked with, and I small is not a good word. I gotta find a better word for that. But you know, the businesses that are are not teams of 20 or 30 people and not doing seven or eight figures a year, a lot of times it it seems to boil down to the fact that we don't really have any systems. Don't even have any systems to begin with. We just do what we've always do. And usually if I have a client like that, that says it's the way we've always done it, Mars seems to we're work just fine. Why should we change? Why should we do anything different? And then we get into the discussion about your time and efficiency and effectiveness, because it's when I'm running the business, it's easy for me to do things because I have always done them and I like to do them. And I've I've had clients tell me, you know, okay, great, that would work, but I don't want to do that because I enjoy doing this. And then you run into those kind of hurdles. How do you how do you get past that stuff, Melissa?

SPEAKER_02 6:42

Yeah, so it really comes down to just showing a business owner that stepping away from those day-to-day processes that don't actually require them, even if they like doing them, really opens them up, not only creatively, but you know, marketing-wise, like you you open all of these avenues for yourself to actually grow your business rather than just be in your business in the day-to-day, which is really important if you're trying to scale.

SPEAKER_00 7:15

You know, Michael Gerber tried to teach us that in the e-myth book series that he wrote, that you've got to spend time working on your business as well as working in your business. And I think that that is a challenge for a lot of business owners out there, don't you?

Revenue Lift From Automation

SPEAKER_02 7:32

Yeah, it is. And it's it's a hard transition for a lot of people to make. And oftentimes what unfortunately happens is those business owners that are resistant resist until they get to the point that they absolutely have to do something because they're dropping balls, they're missing deadlines, they're disappointing clients. And at that point, there's this rush to put the systems in place that you've known you needed all this time, but you resisted because there's no other option at that point. You literally cannot manually do it all.

SPEAKER_00 8:09

And you're running, you're you're you're not making any more money. I mean, it's it's it begins to limit the ability for the business to bring in revenue, right?

SPEAKER_02 8:18

Yeah, exactly. And it's funny how quickly a lot of the companies that I work for see revenue increases once these systems are in place, just from those little bits of time that they were able to relieve themselves from.

SPEAKER_00 8:33

I can remember uh running a division in New York, and I had 20 people working for me in New York City and 200 around the world. And we started doing uh virtual classroom stuff, and I had plenty of people that could host that. They did it. We had a system, it was working good, everything was humming. I would not relinquish that host chair to save my life. But I should have. You would have given me hours that I could have spent doing so many other things to the betterment of the company, but nobody can do it as good as Morris can. Oh, yeah. That was wrong.

SOPs And Documented Handovers

SPEAKER_02 9:12

But yeah, it's a tough mindset to break. I mean, you really do think that you are the only one who can do these things. But when it comes to like the core systems of your business at least, most of those things are something that anyone can do as long as they've been trained adequately to do them. The things that someone can't do for you are the things that are the reason you have your business, your true zone of genius, your creative touch on things. You can't replace that. You can replace these manual workflows that you're doing every day.

SPEAKER_00 9:48

Yeah, I mean, there are things, like as you say, there are things that as the business owner, you've got to do decisions you've got to make. Yeah, those kinds of things, definitely, but there's so much that really and truly I could teach somebody else how to do this part of my business, but it's so much easier if I have a system I can hand them, isn't it? I mean, isn't that one of the benefits of the whole thing?

SPEAKER_02 10:12

Exactly. And you know, it it's not even just having that system in place, it's having it well documented through SOPs, or, you know, there's tons of automated tools now that you can use to record your screen or record you going through something. It's so important to build that system, document that process. And then the handoff after that is the easiest thing you could do in your business. It's it's just a matter of handing over the SOP and the logins at that point.

Case Study: Automating Client Onboarding

SPEAKER_00 10:44

The best system I ever created, and I've told this before on the show, so y'all forgive me, I'm repeating myself, but uh I traveled a lot out of New York. And by George, that's a pain in the neck. Luckily, Stephanie, my wonderful, wonderful assistant, did everything. And we had it down to a system. It was was real clear. She knew exactly what airline I wanted to fly on, exactly how to make sure I got all my reward points, exactly when I wanted to go, when at what times I wanted to travel, and how I wanted, where I wanted it. She knew it all, and she would put it all in a multi-section folder for me because we were back in the paper years. And by Georgia, it had everything I ever wanted to know about that trip and all the confirmation numbers and everything else I needed, all right there. And I didn't even have to worry about it. All I said was, Stephanie, I gotta go to Dallas next week. Get me out of here on Tuesday. I want to be back home Friday before three o'clock. Um made happen. And it was a folder on my desk by the end of the day that had everything about my trip. It was amazing. Yeah, systems work if you work the system.

SPEAKER_02 11:59

Exactly. Exactly. And that's the important part is actually working the system after it's in place.

SPEAKER_00 12:06

I just created a new a new thing here. Systems work when you work the system. I mean, okay, I'm gonna use that somewhere now.

SPEAKER_01 12:13

I love it. I may steal it.

SPEAKER_00 12:17

It's it's my biggest, my biggest problem. I create systems easy, not a problem. Here's the procedure, this is how it works, document it. And then I don't do it.

SPEAKER_02 12:27

Yeah, and that is the the pitfall that a lot of business owners fall into because you know, that manual operation that we've done over and over again for the past four years.

Tools: HighLevel And Fathom AI

SPEAKER_00 12:38

Well, it feels good. It feels like I'm accomplishing something. It feels, you know, uh there, there are all sorts of positive dopamine things in my brain to go because I can check it off, say I did that.

SPEAKER_02 12:50

Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 12:51

Wouldn't it be better if I could say, gee, Melissa did that and I didn't have to?

SPEAKER_02 12:55

Well, and that's what it really takes for a lot of business owners is to just hit that point where you say, Okay, I'm just gonna try this and relinquish the control. And for almost everyone I've worked with who's been in that situation, who's really resisted, after that first week, it's an oh my gosh, light bulb moment of I got so much stuff done. I've got this mile-long to-do list that I thought I was never gonna finish, and I got half of it done today. Like they just don't know what they don't know until they put the right systems and support in place.

SPEAKER_00 13:34

Oh, absolutely. I would I would agree wholeheartedly. And then it easy it becomes easier to do it next time when I realize I don't have to do this. I can teach someone else how to do this, and it's well documented. Makes makes all the difference in the world. Listen, can you give us a uh a story? Tell us a story about a system that you or one of your clients created that helped them move from A to B. What's what sort of systems have you built or your client built that you found very interesting, very helpful, that you like to be involved in?

Build Versus Buy: Hire The Expert

SPEAKER_02 14:07

Yeah, absolutely. So my specialty is really the lead and take to client onboard part of the business and systemizing that. So many people come to me when they're doing that entire process manually. And a lot of times the person has some sort of a system or a flow that they follow. They've got pieces that they do every time to get someone onboarded, um, but they haven't optimized it to the point that it actually helps their conversion rate. So what I'm there are a lot of people.

SPEAKER_00 14:44

Melissa, excuse me. I'm I'm sorry I hate to interrupt you, but I'm I want to make sure we're clear. When you say onboarding, you're talking about onboarding a new employee or yeah, onboarding a new client. A new client.

SPEAKER_02 14:57

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 14:57

So a new customer. Somebody's gonna pay me. So I'm onboarding a new customer and getting them involved so that they can take advantage of what I do. Now I understand. Thank you.

Systems For Course Creators

SPEAKER_02 15:08

Yeah, absolutely. So, what I do for for all of the clients that I work for is I come in and I assess the manual process that they currently have taking place. And I go in and I use a variety of tech tools to automate that manual process that they've been doing as much as possible. My goal obviously being 100% automated for a lot of businesses, that's not entirely possible, but I automate as much as I humanly can down to you know, booking that discovery call and having an automated booking system, which is so important for your conversion, having the contract go out automatically, having your proposal automated, having the invoice automated, and then having something that goes out after all of those things happen that automates onboarding them actually to your company by sending a client welcome kit or a link to a page that explains how to work together. And it's funny because once you put that kind of professional automated process in place, your conversion rates skyrocket.

SPEAKER_00 16:23

Hmm. Well, that's interesting. Because I mean, we would all like to see more of that. Yeah, it's easy to get a name and maybe even have an initial conversation, but getting them to actually become a paying client is another whole uh another whole step in the process there. So that makes perfect sense to me. What sort of things are included in a process like that? From an AI standpoint, you mentioned tools, I assume it's AI kind of stuff.

SPEAKER_02 16:53

Yeah, so I use a little bit of AI, but what I rely on really heavily is actually high level, which has blown up over the last year. And if you're a service-based business, which is really my specialty, you can automate the entire lead intake and onboarding process for your business within that one tool, which is something that in the 16 years I've done this, I haven't ever been able to do on one platform alone before. It's always taken a mishmash of different tech tools. Um, but high level is really, really covering everything for a lot of the businesses that I'm working for lately. The only time I actually bring AI into this process is I really suggest that all of my clients use Fathom AI, which is an automated meeting recorder. Um, so they would use that during the discovery call process. And then at the end of that, you not only have a recording of your discovery call, which is super helpful, but you have an agent dedicated to that discovery call that you can go and communicate back and forth with to ask questions and remember anything that you might have forgotten when you're writing up the proposal. So I've really built with high-level and fathom this very robust system that handles all of the client onboarding process in a really, really professional way.

SPEAKER_00 18:26

Well, that makes a lot of sense, especially if you've got a lot of that kind of thing going on. That really makes sense. And that the there's somebody out there that just wrote down high-level and said, Oh, I can do that. Well, no, you can't. You can do that effectively and efficiently. It takes a long time to learn a new software package like that. And it takes a long time to become effective with it. I mean, you can learn how to navigate it pretty fast, but then you got to learn how to really apply it to your business. That's where Melissa comes in because she can do all that stuff. She's already done it, has the experience and the time and the ability to do it. Makes perfect sense to hire somebody in this case to come in and do this stuff rather than do it yourself. At least it makes sense to me. I bet it makes sense to you since that's your business.

SPEAKER_02 19:14

Yeah, it does. And it, you know, it's not just because I run the business. It's like you have to let people support you in their areas of expertise and not sink time into things that don't actually benefit your bottom line in the sense that that's your specialty in the business. And I think learning a tool like high level, sure, you can do it. You can take the time. It's gonna take you a full week to fully understand the ins and outs of the system. You're gonna run into troubles. It just makes sense for a lot of the businesses that I work with to completely hand that process off and know that at the end of it, you'll know enough about high level from the training that I provide you to actually use the system, but you don't have to go learn how to build out automations yourself.

SPEAKER_00 20:09

Oh, that makes perfect sense to me. It really does. Absolutely makes all sorts of sense. Tell me, onboarding a client, got that. What other workflows or things do you see regularly that require a system? And you're sitting there going, oh wow, why are y'all doing this? You let's create a system to make this easier. What sorts of things give folks some ideas of things they could create a system around that would help them?

SPEAKER_02 20:36

Yeah, so uh, you know, the course creator market is huge right now, and I work with a lot of course creators. You can systemize anything involved in course creation, course delivery, course maintenance, be it, you know, maybe you have a weekly cohort for a course where you do a live training and then you upload a recording. There's homework involved, you're responding to comments about that lesson. All of that can be systemized in the sense that you create the initial process and you make sure it's efficient, and then you document that process. And then at that point, again, it's able to be handed off to a team members. So you're not doing that, you're just showing up for that cohort.

SPEAKER_00 21:27

Oh, I like it. I like that a lot. Yeah, makes good sense. It really does.

unknown 21:31

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 21:32

Melissa, where can we find you?

Where To Find Melissa And Closing

SPEAKER_02 21:34

Yeah, absolutely. You can find me at www.godelegate.com.

SPEAKER_00 21:40

Go delegate. I love it. That's cool. GoDelegate.com. Melissa Compton systems, systems to make you effective and efficient. And when you're effective and efficient, what happens? Your revenue goes up, folks. Have a great week, everybody. Melissa, thank you so much for being here.

SPEAKER_02 21:59

Thank you.

SPEAKER_00 22:05

Well, that does it for this episode of the Commission Code Podcast. This is the place where we want to help you find the Commission Code to success in your business. Remember, go to Morrissims.com for more information. And in the meantime, hey, have a great week. Get out there and meet somebody new, and we'll see you again next time right here on the Commission Code. Best wishes, I'm Morris Sims.