Strategic Business Systems – Sam Carpenter
SUMMARY
On this episode, Sam Carpenter, who is an author, entrepreneur, and a CEO , talks about how important systems are and how they can help you get the results you want.
In business and in life, understanding how to see the systems at work and how to adjust, delegate, or delete them can give you a huge advantage.
KEY TAKEAWAYS
Our lives are collections of systems that interact with each other to either foul you up or make your life what you want it to be.Once you understand that your life is a collection of systems, you will automatically look at fixing those little systems one at a time.
Every time a problem comes up, tweak the system or create a system so that fire never happens again.
Break problems down into the smallest pieces that you can adjust.
Everything has systems, and you have to work your way through them one at a time.
When you see the separate pieces, you will realize that 99.9% of everything works just great.
TRANSCRIPTION: STRATEGIC BUSINESS SYSTEMS – SAM CARPENTER
Kamala Chambers
On this episode, we’re going to be talking about how you can work less and earn more by creating strategic business systems.
Today, we’re here with Sam Carpenter. He’s an author, an entrepreneur, and a CEO. He is also a founder of a non-profit that aids surviving school children of Northern Pakistan.
We’re excited to have him here on our show talking about strategic business systems.
Luis Congdon
All right, Thriving Launchers, are you ready to learn how to create strategic business systems and why that’s important?
Without further ado, let’s bring on Sam. Sam, are you ready to launch?
Sam Carpenter
I am ready to go!
Luis Congdon
Awesome!
I recently looped back to your work but I found your work couple of y. Ogo. One of the things you got me rolling on and finally, we’ve implemented a lot of the stuff you teach, is the importance of creating strategic business systems, operations, guides, and processes that make it so you don’t have to spend all your time managing a team.
I’m curious from you, how has creating strategic business systems changed your life and that of the people you work with?
Sam Carpenter
That’s a broad question, but I love answering it.
A Collection Of Strategic Business Systems
Sam Carpenter
First of all, the strategic business systems are there already. All of our lives are a collection of different systems.
As I stood here in my house here, I look at the sink over there with the ,faucet, and I could go right over there, and I know water will come out. I could turn the TV on over here. I just turned the music down here for our interview. Not of those systems have anything to do with each other and neither does your kidney have anything to do with your heart or your copy machine in your office have anything to do with your hiring process.
Sam Carpenter
A car’s air conditioning system has nothing to do with the brakes. I get that the systems are connected but what we’re dealing with here is not creating some new way of making sense of things. The sense of things is already there. It’s very mechanical.
Strategic Business Systems Already Exist
Sam Carpenter
If you can go a layer deeper and face your life as a collection of systems that interact with each other to either foul you up or make your life what you wanted to be, is just a matter of seeing those systems that are already there.
I had an insight in a middle of the night 19 years ago, and it changed my life. I have everything in my life. I have more money than I need. I’ve got all the time to do whatever I want to do and “it doesn’t make you happy” necessary to have all those things, but it sure goes a long way.
Strategic Business Systems Changes Lives And Creates Freedom
Sam Carpenter
So what I like our listeners to know is that the systems are already there and they’re working. What we’re going to talk about today is how to see them first, and then how to manage them to make sure that we get the results we want.
Kamala Chambers
This is the music to my ears. I love talking about processes and strategic business systems because it makes all this freedom. It frees up all this energy when you have a system down.
I’m like the strategic business systems manager of our company. I manage the whole team and what I find is if you can break things down into smaller processes from the big picture, then you can pretty much hire anyone to fulfill that process.
Strategic Business Systems – Break Things Down
Kamala Chambers
You could break it down small enough, anyone can do it and if you know how to write out the steps right.
I’m excited to hear some of the tips or techniques you love to implement.
Sam Carpenter
Sure!
That is the key. It’s to break things down whatever you’re doing.
You look at the medical profession. You have an orthopedic doctor, a brain surgeon, and a skin doctor. They all have broken down this massively complex thing called the human body into little pieces that they can work and focus on.
What we do in our businesses and what you would you do, I think you said you had nine people, Kamala.
Kamala Chambers
Yeah.
Sam Carpenter
You would break your strategic business systems down into little pieces and perfect each one of them with documentations. You’ve got to have everybody on the same page. You fix one, make it optimal, move to the next one and the next one. It is that simple.
Implementing Strategic Business Systems Based On Your Priority
Sam Carpenter
As far as a priority list for somebody who wants to implement the system strategy in their lives or their business, you would start with the most dysfunctional one first because that’s going to add to the bottom line and get you the most time back.
Then, you go to the second worse one and then the third worse, and that’s it. That’s the secret. There’s more to it than that of course, but the basics are what you said.
You break things down. You separate down into the smallest pieces that you can do something with, and you can adjust.
Seeing Complex Things As A Symphony With Strategic Business Systems
Sam Carpenter
Most people go through life. Ninety-nine percent of people go through life. They think life is a massively complex swirling mass of sights, sounds, and events, and it’s not that at all when you break it down. It’s a beautiful thing.
Life is a symphony just the way it is but you got to break it down to each one of those separate instruments, master each of those subsystems, and add them up, and you get just what you want.
I went from 100 hours/week for a decade and a half. I worked maybe an hour. I just got off the phone, and I’m in Kentucky now. I got off with my CEO, Andi, back in Bend and we talked about a few things for 20 minutes. That’s probably it for the week.
Using Strategic Business Systems To Kill The Fire
Sam Carpenter
I only have 50 people, and the company generates an awful lot of money, but that’s because everybody in the business is working on systems all the time. They’re not fire killing. There are not many fires to kill.
Sam Carpenter
That’s how they get through the day, in fact.
Kamala Chambers
I like to make this very clear and practical for people, and I just want to give an example of what you’re talking about.
Strategic Business Systems – Offload Tasks That Consume Most Of Your Time
Kamala Chambers
One of our consulting clients, I sat down with her. I said, “Where are you spending the most time in your business right now?” She doesn’t have any team. It’s just her, and she said, “Well, I spend 10 hours/week creating graphics for my social media.” And so, we took that thing.
As you said, you find that stuff that’s going to catch up someone the most. We took that thing. We wrote out the whole process of everything she ends up doing and then, we went out, and we hired someone for that position. That took all of that time off of her plate.
What are some other examples that you would give?
Strategic Business Systems In Copywriting
Sam Carpenter
Here’s a good one. How about copywriting?
I had a partner in the business some time ago. He’s from England, and Mike was a copywriter. He said, “This is a creative thing.” No, it’s not, and I convinced him of that, so he went back, and he wrote up 18 steps between meeting the client for the first time and producing the final copy whether ad copy for whatever they were usually selling online, but not always.
Strategic Business Systems – Delegate Tasks To The Right Person
Sam Carpenter
He found out that 17 of the 18 steps could be offloaded to an assistant who knows how to go on and talk to the client about the right questions and get the right information. He took a 40-hour copywriting job and turned it into four hours.
I think that’s the ultimate epitome of an example because, who would ever think that copywriting, being a creative writer would have so much mechanical stuff in it, and it did.
Luis Congdon
As somebody who’s more of a creative, it’s interesting to talk to both of you because my mind is turning about some of the things I’m unwilling to let go of in our business.
Kamala consistently comes to me and says, “Luis, we can create a process.” And I consistently have these questions “Can they do it as well as I do? Will they have the forethought? Will they have the considerations? What if this goes wrong and that goes wrong? I start thinking of all these things.
Strategic Business Systems – Let Go Certain Things
Luis Congdon
I’d love to ask both of you. How do you get somebody like myself who’s more of a creative or very proud owner of certain things I do, get my head out of the hole, and realize that some of the stuff can be given to other people? That it can be done?
I guess I just have this fear that I can’t put it into a process that it will get done well and I just have this fear of letting it go.
Sam Carpenter
Oh, yeah.
You’re the only one in the whole world who ever had that fear.
Luis Congdon
It’s good to be alone sometimes.
Sam Carpenter
No, I’m telling you, it’s everybody. Kamala, I’ll go ahead and give my version of the answer to this.
Getting The Strategic Business Systems’ Mindset
Sam Carpenter
It starts with meditation. Now, my book, part one of this three part book talks about what I called getting the system’s mindset, and we go back to the beginning of our little conversation here.
You have to see the systems of your life so what you do is, while you’re driving a car or you’re out in the yard, or you’re sitting here in the house, you look around and see the separate systems.
If you’re driving down the road, you see the fire hydrant, the road, and the trees. Every tree has a different system from every other tree. You see the police go by. You see the cars go by. There’s a separate system driving each of those different systems that is a car.
Understand That Everything Has Strategic Business Systems
Sam Carpenter
Once you can walk down the street or sit in your house and know that your life is a collection of systems, you will automatically look at fixing those little systems one at a time like the garbage disposal or the dog. The dog has a problem. You need to go the vet. It doesn’t matter what it is.
Strategic Business Systems – Do Things By Yourself Piece By Piece
Sam Carpenter
The hand of God is not going to come down and help you. You’re not going to win the lottery. I guarantee you. You got to do it yourself piece by piece.
As Kamala said, you have to break it down, and you have to see the little pieces, and all you do all day long is perfect the small pieces. And it’ll be one piece after another piece after another piece.
Truthfully, you won’t be able to go back to the swirling mass concept of life because you realized it’s not that way, and you go from looking at politics or the big picture in the world as “What a mess! What a nightmare we live in.” No.
99.9% Of Everything Works Great With Strategic Business Systems
Sam Carpenter
There are a few dysfunctions that cause horrible problems. I don’t deny that, but most of our lives are pretty much a miracle as we go through the day starting with these complex bodies we have.
In summary, you just need to see the strategic business systems and get a grasp of that in your head like a psychedelic experience, and once you get that, you’ll start letting go of things Luis. You’ll be an animal for automating, delegating, and deleting the systems in your life.
Kamala Chambers
Luis, you just need to drop some asset, have a psychedelic experience, and have a deeper understanding of the processes of everything or we can look at where we’re spending the most amount of time.
Strategic Business Systems – Write Down What You Want To Happen
Kamala Chambers
It’s funny that Luis brought that up because this very morning, we had a discussion. I saw he was creating a slide deck on his computer, and I said, “Why are you doing that? We have a team that can do that.” He said, “Well, I know what needs to be done. I’m the one who needs to do it.”
This is why if Luis were a client and not my partner who I don’t want to have any arguments with, I would probably say, “Okay, let’s write down what you want on the slides, what needs to happen on each of the slides, and then we just send that off. We just give that to someone else.”
Using Strategic Business Systems Lets You Use Your Gift To More Productive Things
Kamala Chambers
It’s because when Luis is working on a slide deck, he’s not doing what his gift is in our business, which is networking with people, making connections, and making sales. That hurts our business.
I think it’s important for us all to be focusing on what our gifts are, and what the things we’re passionate about so we can offload all those other things. What do you say about that?
Sam Carpenter
Wow! Eloquent. I can’t add to that. That’s a beautiful synopsis.
Strategic Business Systems – Don’t Get Caught Up With The Little Things
Sam Carpenter
And Luis, you need to pay attention to what you do best and what drove you to your success now, and yet, do more of that.
Don’t get caught up with the little stuff. It’s hard to do, but when you see the systems in your life, you’ll be excited to do it.
Luis Congdon
You know what Thriving Launchers? These two have me convinced.
There’s one thing I spend a fair amount of time in, and I have strategic business systems. There’s isn’t a huge amount of thought that goes into it. I’ve also spent a lot of time thinking about it so now, I’ve already front loaded the whole experience, so there isn’t a whole lot of thought I need to go through.
Strategic Business Systems To Get Guests On The Show
Luis Congdon
One of those strategic business systems or things I do is I go out and get interviews.
I read Sam’s book, I picked it up, I signed up to his emails, I check out, and he’s got some quality stuff. I’ve vetted him for a little while, then I invite him on the show, and I have a whole process that I do that.
Kamala said, “Well, why don’t we just have our assistants do that? I mean, there’s a whole system and whole thing that you do.” I said, “Well, yeah.”
Be Committed To Implement Strategic Business Systems
Luis Congdon
But you know what Thriving Launchers? I’m going to a commit right here to you guys. We got some projects. I want to be diligent about the commitment I’m making, but between this week and next week guys, I’m going to be giving that job away and have someone else do that for me.
Why? It’s because it is something I honestly can hand off and will allow me to spend my time in other ways like having these conversations with Sam, being able to read Sam’s book, being able to talk to people, make sales, and do some of the things that make me shine.
With Strategic Business Systems, You Can Be An Automation Outsourcing Machine
Luis Congdon
You two have me convinced, and Sam, I think you may have the last word on here. I may become an automation outsourcing machine.
Sam Carpenter
Okay.
Kamala, I want you to report back to me in two weeks and let me know he did what he said he’s going to do. Okay?
Kamala Chambers
We’ll leave him out of the conversation. All right, I’m looking forward to it.
Sam Carpenter
The last thing I could say is if you want more information on this, go to workthesystem.com.
Books On Strategic Business Systems
Sam Carpenter
You can download the book for free, the entire unabridged book in any text you want, any digital format and audio for free.
My newest book is The System’s Mindset: Managing The Machinery of Your Life. That’s for people who don’t run businesses; everybody else, students, people who have jobs, or retired. There are two books. One for the business people, which is Work The System: The Simple Mechanics Of Making More And Working Less, and the System’s Mindset is for everybody else. Download the book for free.
We do some coaching and consulting, but most everything is free there. If you want to get the System’s Mindset, take a look at the synopsis, at the FAQs and go through the website. It’s all free.
Kamala Chambers
Sam Carpenter, it’s been fantastic sitting down with you talking about looking at the systems of our entire life, and finding ways to make our lives easier, better, be able to make more money, spend more time on the things we’re passionate about and less time on the grueling tasks.
Zero To-Do List With Strategic Business Systems
Kamala Chambers
With what you’re talking about, we could take our to-do list down to zero. Honestly, life seems to be driven by overwhelmed and to-do list sometimes, and if we can just find ways to offload some of those things, we can have these work weeks like you’re talking about.
You’re running this big company, and you’re barely there. You don’t have to be because of the strategic business systems. I’m finding the same experience. When we’re not in a launch process, we’re living the four-hour work week because we’re offloading these systems.
Thank you so much for coming here today, and listening and tuning in.
I just encourage you to look at one thing today, Thriving Launchers, which is taking up the most time and the most energy in your life. Look at what is the system behind it, and how you can break it down, and outsource it. Have someone else do it.
Thank you so much everyone, and keep thriving.
