EP # 183 - Essential Systems for Scaling a Service Business

Want to scale your service business without working 24/7? 
In this value-packed episode, discover the three core systems that will transform your service business from overwhelming to streamlined!

What you'll learn: 

• The 3 essential systems every scalable service business needs 
• Real success stories from businesses that got it right 
• A step-by-step implementation strategy you can start using today 
• Common pitfalls to avoid (and how to overcome them)

🔑 Key Highlights:

• Why your client acquisition system needs to be predictable and consistent
• How to maintain service quality as your team grows from 2 to 200
• The secret to effective team management during scaling
• Simple strategies to document processes (even if they're "all in your head")

Featured client success stories include a medical practitioner who transformed his practice from overworked to optimized, and how an interior design business revolutionized their sales process.

💡 Perfect for service business owners who:

• Feel overwhelmed by the current workload
• Want to scale without sacrificing quality
• Need better systems for team management
• Are ready to transform their business operations

Ready to scale your business the smart way? Don't miss this episode packed with actionable insights and proven strategies!

Need help scaling your business into a sellable asset?
Book your discovery call with Maggie to learn how she can help you - https://stairwaytoleadership.com/

Transcript

EP 183 - Essential Systems for Scaling a Service Business

Audio Only - All Participants: [00:00:00] Hello, my dear listeners of Diamond Effect Podcast. Welcome to episode 183. Today we'll talk about building systems with which you can scale your business. Because, let's be real, there's no scaling any business without building some core systems. To grow sustainably and systems that will help you support your business your team and your customers as you scale. That comes from my T.O.P CEO Formula, especially the part of Continuous Success and continuous growth.

So today we'll focus on some core systems that you need to set up in order to scale. I will also walk you through the implementation strategy and some common pitfalls that you want to avoid when building them. I will share that structure with some examples from [00:01:00] my clients as I help them build those systems for their businesses. 

Let's start with three core systems that every service business needs, and those are client acquisition, your service delivery, and also team management, especially as you scale of course, you end up having team members. With client acquisition, the strategy. and acquiring new clients and retaining them and growing and scaling will be different to each client.

And therefore the systems you build will be different. So for example, one of my client was a medical practitioner and there are certain rules for medical professionals, the way they can attract patients. There's, certain things they cannot do that a regular non medical business can do.

With my client, Andrew, when we were growing and scaling his practice, we had to adapt to that, right? For example, a big part of his [00:02:00] client acquisition or patient acquisition, for that matter, was referrals from other practitioners and family doctors where the patients of family doctors would be directed to him as a specialist.

So building the relationships with the family doctors, with other practitioners, maintaining that relationship was critical to his patient acquisition. Doing that through Digital marketing, newsletters, and he was able to systemize it, so it wasn't taking all his time. Because very often if you don't have Proper systems in your business you end up working way too long and way too much in order to even sustain the growth. 

And that was what was happening to my client, Andrew, and we started working together. He was working way beyond, what, he should have, at night doing administration work, [00:03:00] trying to grow the practice; because during the day he was treating his patients. That's not sustainable.

If you feel like you're overworking, despite the fact that you have a team, then that is really a sign that your systems are not working, they're not optimized, you're not doing what they're supposed to be doing. With my client Andrew, the main client acquisition systems became digital marketing, newsletters, social media presence .

As opposed to, for example, another client of mine who is supporting interior designers and into manufacturing, their client acquisition is sales team and client relationships. And there for her what wasn't working in her system is that The sales team was really focused on administrative tasks as opposed to selling. Because the systems weren't set up. They weren't [00:04:00] streamlined and that's where we started to remove the roadblock of sales team being stuck on administrations. And once we introduced for them what was common inbox and certain strategy around it, that removed a lot of administration from her team.

Also, she was able to see what sales team had on their plate, whether they were delayed in the responses for client inquiries or not, how fast it helped to improve the responsiveness of the team. to client inquiries and quoting and through that now they're able to proactively focus on sales, which this is what sales teams are supposed to be doing.

Your client acquisition systems need to be doing a few things for you. A, predictably and consistently bringing in new leads and converting them into paying clients. But also [00:05:00] maintaining that relationship so the clients are able to come back, which you want to avoid and get rid of by implementing systems is any roadblocks, any overwork, any administration, and additional excessive hours that maybe right now you're working on your team is working due to lack of those systems.

The second core process and systems you need is service delivery. It is easy to control the quality of your services if you're the only one delivering them or if it's you and maybe two employees that you've had for a long time and they're really trained. But once you start scaling, you may be growing your team from two to 10, from 10 to 20, from 20 to 100.

How are you going to ensure that the service quality doesn't suffer and ideally still keeps growing and your clients are happier and [00:06:00] happier, even though you are not the only one delivering that service. And that is through documentation of your processes. Proper hiring and proper training. I remember when I was a corporate leader and we were scaling from 80 technicians that provided service to the buildings of our clients, to then 150, to then 300, to then 450.

Having proper technology to guide the technician through certain standards, but also proper training, and not only training once when there were maybe new clients or new processes were starting, but also retraining was critical, right? So depending on where your business is, you might only need the documentation of the process.

Training your team on it, ensuring that every new member is trained, but also even more senior members are retrained and, [00:07:00] re coached on certain things. But, as your business grows, you might also need technology that supports it. For example, our technicians had in their system, That was available on their phones, 

they weren't able to be in front of the computer all the time because they were field technicians. They delivered service in the field to the customers. But on their phone, at their work order level and the level of, okay, I have this service that I need to deliver to this client.

And let's say it's a preventative maintenance. I'm going to this building to this piece of equipment at that detailed level of a building and piece of equipment. The technician had key points of what they had to do. So no matter who went there as long as they were qualified and had the proper licensing, which they did, they knew exactly what to do.

Not only what was, a standard procedure for that piece of equipment for the [00:08:00] trade that they were in or for the law that was there, but also what was committed to the client. Because very often client's contractual obligations were above the minimal standard required by law or just by, good maintenance of an equipment.

So that's how we ensured that Service delivery levels were the same and were growing as our clients requirements were growing: through training, proper hiring, but also systems that supported the employees when they were out there in the field delivering. Now, of course, it will be different for different businesses.

One of my clients was an interior designer. And they worked at the project level rather than the ongoing type of service when you're coming back to the client over and over. The client comes to you, let's say if you're a hair salon or spa. And when you work at the project level, [00:09:00] then your project management system and the checklist to make sure that everything is included in the project is key and that's what you want to have set up.

So it differs based on your business type, but when I work with my clients, we always adapt to that. The third court system is all about team management, and again, it's very different if your team consists of one or two members, and it's easy for you to communicate with them on ad hoc phone calls or chats or, occasional meetings.

As your business grows, you need more structure, and that's what happened to my client. Stephanie, who has grown her team from two team members to eight and ten. Now what she's implementing is monthly team meetings. It's also structured training for her organizers to ensure that everybody follows the same process so the clients also [00:10:00] get consistent, Home organizing, services delivery, that is aligned with Stephanie's vision, the way of doing things, and so on.

And also, once you have team members, you want to track their performance. You want to be able to ensure that their performance stays at the highest level, that you can also recognize your team members for it, but also address issues if they arise. 

You're probably thinking, okay, Maggie, even though there's only three systems that I need to address, it's still a lot of work given where my business is. So how do I do it? How do I address it? Address it and implement it without getting overwhelmed.

Here is the implementation strategy that I usually go through with my clients, that I guide them through. You can do it alone, but hey, if you need help, I'm always there available to help you. 

At first you want to document [00:11:00] your current process. What are you doing right now? And you might have pieces of it noted on a sticky note or in a notebook. But if it's in your brain, you get to extract it from your brain.

And it's possible, I promise you. Even if you think, Oh my God, it comes to me naturally. I don't even think about it. You can still pause and walk yourself through the steps you're taking. That's what we're right now doing with this. My client Jennifer. That's also what I've done when I started my coaching business and I realized that I have this natural way of setting and accomplishing goals.

I turned it into my coaching model Dream Plan Do. I paused and started thinking about how do I set and achieve goals? What are the patterns? And that's how I extracted that process and the model from my brain. You can do it too. There are steps to what you do. Even if it feels like [00:12:00] it's natural, and even if, you're not realizing, there are steps right now, I promise you there are, and you can extract them.

Once you document what's happening right now, then the second part is to identify any roadblocks, any challenges with the current ways of. doing it, especially when you think about it, then let's say 10 other people need to be doing it the same way, right? So if you were to train 10 new employees on that process, what challenges they would face?

come across? Or what would be roadblocks for them to deliver the same service? I always say whatever we do as human beings is never perfect because as human beings we're not perfect. There's always opportunities for improvement. So when you document the process, this is a perfect time to figure out [00:13:00] where I can improve.

What doesn't need to be there? What do I need to add? What do I need to change? So from there, depending on how many improvements you have, you might want to prioritize of, okay, what am I going to implement? right now? What kind of change and improvement I'm going to implement right now? Because I can't do it all at once.

Some of them are easy and simple, and that's where you want to start, but some of them might require some investment of other resources, of money, of technology, and so on, and you might not be ready for it just yet. So once you identify that, then you want to document the process as you want to start it.

Implementing it and like testing. So you want to document the current new version of the process, but just with the improvements that you're actually going to implement and set the other ideas aside. 

And then once you have [00:14:00] that, now we're implementing the process and practice. If you have already team members, you've got to train them. You've got to provide proper training so they know that the process has changed. And of course, any new team members, as you add them, they're going to be trained. More experienced team members might need a retraining down the line because, when we learn something new and we start implementing, we can forget certain steps.

So retraining of a new process at some point is always helpful. And as that new version of the process is being worked through and lived through by your team members, by your clients, now what you're going to do is monitor and collect feedback. Collect feedback from your employees who are using the process, collect feedback from the clients who might be front facing that process, and then on a regular basis, pause, think through, and keep [00:15:00] improving. Continuous improvement is a key to maintaining effective systems in your business. It's never once and done for all.

You will need to improve it and you will need to change as your technology changes or maybe the way you structure your team changes and so on.

The most common challenges or pitfalls that Service business owners face when implementing systems or this. resistance to change from yourself as the CEO and very often your team members, which is a natural human thing. So what you want to do, first of all, you need to be sold on any improvement, any change in your business first.

As a CEO, you need to know exactly how that improvement aligns with your vision. You want to be excited about it. [00:16:00] You want to be a realistic that there might be challenges, but be decided to the point when you're not going to change your mind just because there's a small challenge. Because what happens often, if you start implementing something and then backing up, your team will get confused. Your clients will get confused. That will create more issues in your business than ever. 

So you need to be sold on that first, and then you want to sell your team. on the new system, on the improvement. You want to include them in implementation and maybe brainstorming ideas for improvements depending on, what it is.

Then you get the buy in from your team. The second challenge is sometimes overcomplication. That's why I always say you got to keep it simple. You need to start with simple improvements, documenting the process in a way that it's obvious to anyone who is reading it what they need to do step [00:17:00] by step and making the implementation simple, whether it's through proper training, introduction of some technology, automation of certain things.

It all depends on what type of system you're creating and where is your business at, what technology you're already using. And then the last part is that inconsistent implementation, right? It's one thing to roll something new out, but it's a whole other level of business acumen to keep it come in consistently implement, because as I said, people will resist to change and you as a leader, you need to lead and follow through to ensure that everybody consistently implements it to the point where that new thing becomes, this is what we do.

That's all I had for you today. I hope this was helpful. And if you're looking [00:18:00] at scaling your business sustainably, by properly by building proper foundations and systems and doing it right. And you feel like you need some help. I can help with my T.O.P. CEO continuous improvement formula. We will do it faster, easier, simpler, without overwhelm.

And definitely you will get some fantastic results at the profit level. And the clients will be happier as well as your team. All you need to do is to talk to me through a discovery call. I always leave the link to my calendar in the show notes. You can schedule it from there. Happy Friday and see you next week.