EP 204: Building Your Business Operating System: The 5 Systems Every Service Business Needs

Systems aren't about restriction; they're about freedom. 

In this episode, I'm highlighting the five core systems every service-based business needs to run smoothly without requiring you to be in the weeds every single day. If things fall apart when you step away, you don't have a people problem; you have a systems problem.

Learn how to build the infrastructure that allows your business to operate with consistency, clarity and predictability, even when you're not there. 

💡 In This Episode, You'll Learn How To: 

• Identify which of the 5 core systems is causing you the most pain (and costing you the most time)
• Build a Client Acquisition System that makes sales consistent instead of sporadic
• Create a Client Onboarding System that sets the right tone and prevents downstream confusion
• Document your Service Delivery System so quality stays consistent across all clients and team members
• Implement a Client Communication System that builds trust and reduces "where are we?" questions
• Set up a Financial Management System that turns cash flow chaos into predictable revenue
• Start simple without over-engineering systems before you even have a foundation
• Leverage automation to remove mental fog and free up your capacity for strategic work
• Rate your current systems honestly (1-10) to identify the highest-impact starting point

🔗 Resources & Links:

• Access your free Business Alignment Audit based on my RISE Framework today!

Connect with Leandra

Apply for my 90-Day CEO Empowerment Intensive if you're a profitable female business owner that's ready to step into strategic CEO-level leadership with clarity, calm and an action plan that actually fits you, your business and your lifestyle.
 
Have a question you'd like me to answer on the show? I'd love to hear from you! Send me a DM on Instagram @leandracreates with your question. I'm reading every single one and answering them in upcoming episodes.

Transcript

[00:00:00] I am Leandra Nisbet, founder and owner of a six figure revenue generating award-winning business. As a business advisor and growth strategists, I, I've helped hundreds of aspiring entrepreneurs and small business owners navigate from the idea phase into creating fully fledged profitable businesses that allow them to support their lifestyles, goals and communities.

As a small business owner myself, I know firsthand how tough it can be navigating the ever-changing business landscape while juggling all the hats and managing to still have personal time. Now, over a decade into my business, I continue on my mission to empower fellow small businesses with the tools, knowledge and resources they need to break free from being overwhelmed and overworked so they can reclaim their time and focus on what really matters most.

I created the Enlightened Entrepreneur. A podcast to provide you with practical, approachable strategies you can start incorporating today so you can save time, [00:01:00] reduce stress, and save money while growing the business you desire. If you're ready to launch, grow, or steal your business, you're in the right place.

Welcome to the Enlightened Entrepreneur.

I know that so many of us as small business owners are incredibly passionate about the work that we're doing. We are hyper-focused on being able to show up, serve, support our customers and clients, and be able to really do what we feel that we do best. But unfortunately, sometimes it feels like we actually get in our own way.

When we are attempting to show up best for others, and it comes at the expense of how we show up and serve ourselves and our businesses. And so what I wanna challenge you to think about is that by having structure and systems processes within your business, it's not creating restriction, it's actually building and helping you create more freedom.

And so today I want to share five core systems that will allow you to [00:02:00] create a business that runs smoothly without requiring you to be constantly involved and tied to it day in and day out. I want you to consider your business doesn't have a people problem. It most likely has a system problem. If things tend to fall apart, when you step away, when you're trying to just take a break, disconnect, go on vacation, have a long weekend.

It's not necessarily that you have an unreliable team. You probably have unclear processes. So let's jump into these five core systems that every service business needs to run without you in the weeds. So system number one is a way to acquire clients, your client acquisition system. And what this does is it will cover and look at how your.

And what this does is covers how new leads are coming into you, how you are making sure that they are aligned and qualified for the offers that you're providing. And from there, [00:03:00] how you actually close those opportunities and secure those clients within your business. So really some of the key considerations and components of this system are making sure that you have a way to.

Track your leads, you, it's important to understand where they're coming from because this can help you as you are analyzing data in the future, to be able to say what's really working well? What's actually converting for me? What's actually bringing in the best sources of traffic, best sources of aligned traffic.

You also wanna think about how are you able to create a template or. Contact form to allow people to easily reach out to you and gather the pertinent information that you actually need to be able to move forward with. Whether that is scheduling an initial consultation uh, scheduling a initial appointment, et cetera, making sure that you have gathered the information to make sure that they are aligned, that they are a right fit, and that you know how [00:04:00] to actually move forward into the next step and stage.

And also thinking about what is the actual sales process that you have within your business. So if you're a service provider, most likely you are providing, you know, maybe you are doing a consultation or a discovery call, whatever you label that within your business. It could also be that from there you are.

Providing a written proposal or pricing estimate maybe you need to get people set up into your CRM, having a consistent way to follow up with people, et cetera. So understanding what is that full process from somebody inquiring or becoming a lead in your world to actually being able to secure them as a client.

What is that entire process? Um, and making sure that you have a structure and a framework around that. Because this is really important. This is really important because it will help remove any of the guesswork, and it will help ensure that your sales are consistent instead of sporadic. [00:05:00] You have a consistent way to secure those leads.

And then also ensuring how the, how you're able to connect and engage with them to actually bring them on as clients. So an example of this could be every inquiry that you receive gets the same initial response, whether this is personal or automated within 24 hours, and then they enter a three step qualification process.

So that is a simple way to say each and every person that enters our world is getting the same level of service. It is consistent, it is streamlined, it is structured, and we know what is going to happen. And whether it's my yourself or a member of your team, someone that you're teaching, and delegating these tasks and responsibilities to, there is consistent framework for them to follow.

A quick win here and an opportunity really would be for you to sit down and to document what is your sales process, all the way from an initial inquiry being [00:06:00] received or a new lead coming into your world until you receive a signed engagement or contract or onboard them as a client. Which brings us to, to.

The second system is a client onboarding system, and this is what happens next. So you have that signed contract now what? Now? The important part is to make sure that you have a clear process for moving from that contract is signed until this engagement is getting kicked off. So for this, it could look like things like a welcome sequence, making sure that you are handling all of the paperwork side of things.

So do you require a deposit? Are you. Do you know when that is being sent? Is that consistently being sent? Do you have a kickoff meeting with the client or even internally with your team to make sure that everyone is up to speed and on the same page and knows what is coming? And do you have anything like setting up a project for this client in your project management [00:07:00] platform, getting them into your CRM or changing the status of that contact in your CRM, et cetera?

So this is incredibly important because what it does is it, it helps set the tone for the engagement. And the first impressions are really so crucial. And if your onboarding creates confusion, it can unfortunately lead to. Future problems and lack of clarity, um, misalignment. Maybe the scope is off, maybe internal communication is off with your team, so it's not clear who's doing what and when and what tasks are contingent upon others, et cetera.

So really how you can implement this in your business is thinking about. Creating a checklist for everything that needs to happen between that contract signing and when you actually start the project or engagement. And so you might wanna think about things like, you know, day one we are sending out a welcome email and [00:08:00] an official.

Service agreement or contract to the client. Um, day two, the payment deposit link is sent out and our new client intake form and questionnaire. And then day four, we are making sure that the kickoff call has been scheduled and is confirmed within the following seven days, et cetera. So this could vary depending on your business, how it operates, but these types of steps, processes, and procedures.

Can certainly be applicable and can align with how you are operating your business. So we've gotten through the initial portions of acquiring the client and making sure that they're onboarded. So now it's important to think about system number three, which is your service delivery system. And this is what actually allows you to make sure that you are doing your work consistently.

So here we're looking at things like project templates. Do you have anything that is a consistent kind of rinse and repeat [00:09:00] tool that you can use within your business to help ensure that everything is cohesive, that each and every client is getting the same results from you or other members of your team, um, as you grow and offboard some of these things to other members of your team?

And what I mean by templates are. The structure, not the information. Certainly that is going to be. Nuance, and that is going to be unique to each respective client project engagement that you have. But the framework may certainly be able to be consistent, and that also helps you as well as other members of your team ensure that you're gathering, collecting the same information each and every time to be able to provide the same solid deliverables each and every time.

You could also be thinking about any quality standards. Are there workflows or processes? Maybe you have one member of your team that is working on the project and then once they reach a certain point in the project or a stage, it transitions to another member of the team or you [00:10:00] to review, to sign off on before it goes to your client.

Any other types of review processes or approval stages that you might want to have built into an engagement. Maybe a client needs to sign off on a draft of work before you launch into the next stage of a process, making sure that that is part of your process. Also, if you have any expectations around communication with clients during an engagement, whether it's for yourself or other members of your team, those types of things can be documented as well.

And this is where most businesses live, but also tend to have the least amount of documentation. And generally that's because as the owners, as the founders, these are things that we started doing from day one. We've been serving and supporting our clients before we even had other team members, contractors, et cetera, that were helping us within these.

Roles and responsibilities. So that said, unfortunately a lot of this is either just lives in our heads. We just go through it on [00:11:00] autopilot because we know what we're doing. We also wanna think about it from the other perspectives. One, if you have team members, they also need to know, especially if these are things that you're holding them accountable to, and that you want to have consistency for your clients around.

So it's a disservice to them if there is nothing documented or for them to be able to reference, refer back to and ensure that they are meeting the standards and expectations that you have. And also thinking about it from your client's perspective, because they also deserve that. Same level of consistency, engagement, support, et cetera.

And so being able to say that you have these things set in place as a consistent process and workflow, even if it is just for you, it helps remove some of that mental fog and friction because you know each and every time you might have this checklist in your project management platform so that you are keeping up to speed with all of the things that you want to do and how you want to show up and deliver to your clients.

And so something like this is [00:12:00] making sure that you have that core deliverable process documented as well. Think about it as if you were going to be training someone else on this, even if that's not on the radar for you right now. Um, because it will help you make sure that you're getting all of the nuances and the little parts and pieces that might just be on autopilot for you to easily skip over.

But if you're documenting it like you are training someone else to do it, you're more likely to think about those little nuances. So system number four is a client communication system, and this will help ensure when and how you're communicating with clients throughout the entirety of their relationship.

And so this could be looking at things like, are there scheduled check-ins that you want to have? Do you have templates that you might have to provide updates along? Throughout the entirety of a project, are there processes for when questions arise or if something escalates or, um, the scope of a project changes along the way?

Being able to provide any nuances and details that are pertinent to [00:13:00] help with maintaining and fostering that relationship, and strengthening the level of communication along the way. So this is important because it can help reduce some of those. Pings that you might receive otherwise, whether it's from other members of your team or from the client directly reaching out with like, Hey, where are we at on this?

Um, and it can really help by building trust, through having that consistency. And so something like this could look like every Friday afternoon, every client gets a project update email, even if it's really just to say everything is still on track. It doesn't need to be huge in grandiose or OSes. It might just be having that consistency so that the client starts to understand that cadence, or that's even something that you're communicating to them upfront as your engagements kick off about your process and what you they can expect from you along the way.

And so an easy low hanging fruit opportunity here is for you to set up a recurring calendar reminder with these [00:14:00] client touchpoints. And so as you kick off new engagements, it's something that you could either just be adding to your calendar, to your planner, to your project management platform, wherever you're keeping your information centralized, so that it is top of mind and ideally maybe even gives you a reminder or notification in advance so that it doesn't fall off your radar.

And this brings us to system number five, our financial management system. As we know, I love numbers. I love data, and I think that information is power. And so by being able to understand how money is flowing through your business, it will really help you be proactive when it comes to making decisions.

Um, being able to think through opportunities and where there may be some gaps within your business so that you can proactively address them. So this system will allow you to think about and how you manage things like your invoicing. What is the schedule for that? When do clients get invoiced? What are the payment terms for [00:15:00] those invoices?

How are you actually collecting those payments? How do you track your spending and expenses in your business? How do you forecast and see a clear pipeline for when revenue is coming into your business? And this is incredibly important and essential because cashflow problems can also potentially be system problems just in disguise.

So here, think about something like all of our invoices go out the day that projects are completed. We don't need to wait for an arbitrary date, like the first or the 15th because it can delay our cash flow. So thinking about making sure that when projects are completed, your clients are getting invoiced for them.

Also having a clear plan around any open and outstanding invoices that you're waiting to collect payments on, and ideally, you're leveraging technology to help support you in this. So, for example, outstanding invoices. Get a follow up on day seven and day 14 if payment has still not yet been received.

You could also look into your bookkeeping platform to see about automating those reminders. So [00:16:00] it's even one less administrative burden that you need to have. And so an opportunity here is to think about how you can become more consistent in your invoicing as service providers. It is. It's so common that we are just so focused on the projects, the deliverables, the what's next, the what do I need to do now that we do the work, and then we just move on to the next project.

And the invoicing just kind of falls by the wayside sometime. Unfortunately, if we don't have that cashflow, if we don't have the money, then we just have a very expensive hobby and sometimes one that we're actually paying to run. And so think about how you can have that consistency within your processes so that those aren't things that fall, um, to the wayside.

So for me, I love having automations within my business because it helps remove some of that mental fog around what do I need to be doing? What do I need to follow up on? I'm allowing systems and tools to help support me in those those ways. [00:17:00] So it is things like having automated. Follow up on open invoices.

It's things like having notifications and reminders within my project management platform for tasks, deadlines, deliverables, ensuring that things are staying on track, and it's reminding me in advance of the deadlines not on the deadline so that I can make sure that I'm staying up to speed with those things.

And this really helps free up mental space and time and provide so much added clarity within the work that I'm doing on a day-to-day basis. So for today's action accelerator, I want you to take the time to rate yourself one to 10, no judgment on these five systems, and be honest about what some of those gaps are because that will help present some of those growth opportunities.

And from there, pick the system that's causing you the most pain or taking up the most of your time and energy. Take a step back and find time to actually [00:18:00] document what you're currently doing in that area, even if it's messy, because that is still a start and a foundation that you can build upon. And then from there you can identify the three most important components of that system that you can standardize first.

So that might be doing something like actually just documenting what the process is, creating a checklist, building out a template. Putting reminders in the calendar or whatever tool or system you're using to support you in this area. And then really start to test and leverage that system because that's where you'll be able to continue to build it out, tweak it, and refine it to ensure that it really is aligned with how you operate and how you ultimately want to show up and operate.

So as always, I wanna also share some potential challenges that might come up in this. So number one is trying to over-engineer the system before you even have any system at all. So, like I said, start simple and start small. You can always build from there. [00:19:00] Number two is trying to build out the system in your head instead of actually documenting it in any way, shape, or form.

This doesn't need to be pretty, and this can be something that you can continue to. Define and refine as you go, but having it actually written out, or if you're more of an auditory person. That you can voice, document, or even capture as you go. So maybe you use something like Loom or Zoom to record the process as you do it because it will help you capture those little parts and pieces that you may overlook otherwise.

And then number three is creating systems that you won't actually follow. So don't create a system because of what you think should be done. Create a system that is realistic to you, your business. Your needs, how you want to show up and serve. Otherwise, it's really just going to come become clunky and quote one more thing, not something that you're actually leveraging in your business.

So [00:20:00] with that, I just wanna remind you that systems are the infrastructure that can help hold your business together even when you are not there. So I want you to think about which of these five systems needs the most work in your business, and then be sure to find me on Instagram and DM me at Leandro Creates.

I love talking systems. I love talking about process improvement and ways to strengthen and improve our businesses. So I'd love to hear what resonated with you and where you're jumping off and starting this. Process within your business. And so next time we're going to be tackling delegation, a great next step from what we're building on here, and I'll be sharing a three step framework for letting go without losing control.

So be sure to join me again because you won't wanna miss it. See you then. 

Thanks for joining me on The Enlightened Entrepreneur, where we discuss all things business so you can be empowered with the actionable tips, strategies, and mindset shifts you need to help you launch and grow your business with ease. Be sure to subscribe wherever you listen to your podcast to make sure you don't miss a [00:21:00] thing and to learn more.

Be sure to connect with me on Instagram and on my website. Take a look at the show notes for any suggested resources and links to connect with me directly.