NEW YEAR, OLD SYSTEMS

As someone who really loves technology and very much dislikes paper, I’m always amazed at how many people I lady asian clipboard 42574234._ copyspeak to on a regular basis who say “oh yeah, I think I have that SOFTWARE/TECHNOLOGY/SYSTEMS but I just don’t use it. I guess I should since I’m paying for it.” Often times individuals and/or businesses come to me to help them streamline and automate their systems. When I consult with someone, I address four basic areas:

 

Email: What platform they use (Outlook, Gmail, other web-based), how often they check email, how they archive email, their process of responses/delegation of emails.

To Do Lists: What platform they use (paper, Asana, One Place Home), how things get added, how things get checked off as done, how they delegate, how they monitor delegated to do’s.

Information/Notes: What platform they use (paper, One Note, Evernote), how often they refer back to things, do they have to share these with other people.

Follow up: What platform they use (Mailchimp, Get Response, Infusionsoft, Ontraport), is their process documented based on prospect, customer or vendor, is there a multi-modal (email, phone, snail mail) follow up system in place.

Most people have heard of the next best thing that’s going to get them totally productive and efficient with their time. And that’s what they want to move to, except they haven’t even given their existing systems for a chance to work, even though they have been paying for them. Most systems we try to implement in our businesses fail because we haven’t emotionally bought into it yet even though we may have put out the cold hard cash for it, which really is the easiest part.

This is even more an issue in the New Year when we set resolutions or goals to get organized, be more productive or more efficient. I encourage all of you this year to really ask if you gave that system your full emotional attention and not throw it out now that 2015 is over.

Go back, revisit, relearn and give it a real chance to work for you and your business before moving on.