What
businesses can be systemised?
Any business can be improved by systemisation; we have
done it on a property management, construction and a
property sourcing company so it can be done. Obviously
it will vary from business to business, but essentially
what you are doing is writing the best practice way
of operation and running your business, so as long as
you have a business it can be systemised and improved.
When
should I systemise
From day one! Bit blunt I know, but after being involved
in business in the past that have not been systemised
compared to now, I can honestly say that systemising
the my business’s is one of the most important
things I have ever done and is a major reason, apart
from my staff, as to why we have been successful to
date.
It
makes life so much easier straight away, and as mentioned
before, if productivity increases then you will have
to be systemised to cope with the increased work load.
It’s like a viscous circle.
You’re
never too small to start, when I had my portfolio and
only I was looking after it, I was running around trying
to collect rent, carry out repairs, deal with councils
and loads of other stuff that seemed to get on top of
me, I also had another 2 jobs to contend with. I then
decided to try and simplify things; I hadn’t read
the E-myth yet, so didn’t know that I was unofficially
systemising the business. I made sure I only did viewings
on certain days, went to visit the council every other
day, graded the repairs into urgent and non urgent and
by tweaking a few things, made life a lot easier.
It
wasn’t until I read the E-Myth by Michael Gerber
that I had the light bulb moment. Things just clicked
and I wrote the manual in a couple of months. At that
time, Castledene was still quite small, I think we managed
around 200 properties, the construction company only
had a few extensions and investment side had only sold
20 odd houses. I still feel to this day that I should
have done it earlier but was glad when I eventually
got round to it.
It’s
too complicated
You should always try and improve
your business from the start, always evolving and changing
for the better. It doesn’t have to be a complicated
manual with charts and diagrams, just a few pages of
do’s and don’ts that you must follow religiously
to get the best effect for your business. Once your
business grows you can increase the complexity of the
manual, and if you employ staff its imperative that
roles are clearly defined and your staff know implicitly
what is expected of them. No stone should be left unturned
when you employ staff. The more information you have
the less chance there is of staff making mistakes or
blaming each other.
If
any one has had a franchise before they will know all
about systemising a business and the operations manual.
It’s the bible and the life blood of running the
business. It can be made as complicated or simple as
you want. The purpose of it is too making life easier
for you.
Is
it worth the hassle?
Let me put it this way, is it
worth the hassle NOT to systemise your business. I can
only speak from personal experience when I say it’s
definitely worth it. The way we have systemised Castledene,
I don’t get involved in the day to day running
of the offices, I have employed managers for that. This
allows me to get involved in other parts of the business
such as acquisitions, we have now bought a third letting
agent and are in talks with another 2, something which
I certainly couldn’t have done if I was working
in the business rather than on it. I do like to keep
an eye on what is going on and have regular meeting
with the managers but because we are systemised and
employ great staff I don’t have to worry about
anything, but they do know I’m only on the end
of a phone if needed.
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