Recently I had the opportunity to talk with Katie Bambrick on her podcast, High Impact. This blog post comes from our conversation where we chatted all about creating systems in the backend of your business so you can scale. Listen to the full episode here. 

From ‘Messy Action’ to Systems that Scale

Whether you’ve just started your business or if you’ve been running your business for a while, chances are, at some point, you’ve been in this boat…

You’ve been ‘flying by the seat of your pants’ when it comes to getting organized in your biz, and have taken the ‘messy action’ needed in order to get started. Sound familiar? 

In this blog post, you’ll learn all about ditching the ‘winging it attitude’, getting systems in place, and advice for making your first hire. This is for you whether you are at the very early stages of your business and you don’t currently have any systems in place or if you’re further along and want to expand, get more organized, and attract more clients. 

Though we’ve all been there, and it’s all a part of the journey of getting started as an online business owner– there comes a moment when you realize that it’s time to get your systems in order, if you truly want to grow. Accepting payments through Venmo, and keeping track of tasks manually, without any clear process, is not sustainable for the long term. 

Before we dive into it, I’ll share a little bit about my journey to entrepreneurship.

My Journey to Entrepreneurship

Everyone has a story of how they got started in their business. While some people know that this path is for them early on, for some of us, it happens almost accidentally, or just as a natural result of our unique life and career progression.

When I look back, while I was definitely in this ‘accidental’ category, during my childhood, I was definitely kind of a hustler, like I was always working, wanting to make money. I always had different kinds of jobs, but I never really considered entrepreneurship as something that would be for me, because I just wasn’t represented like in my family.

I’m from Oklahoma, and that was not something represented in Oklahoma very much either. So, I went to college because I thought it was just what I was supposed to do; I majored in Biochemistry and my plan was to go to medical school or go to Physician Assistant school or something like that. When I graduated, I just decided I need to just take a year to figure out what I actually wanted.

During that year, I moved to Barcelona. I was working online teaching English. That was my first experience working online. I ended up going down the Google rabbit hole one day and found a course to become a virtual assistant to make more money.

At this time, I was broke, so I was willing to try almost anything to start earning more income. So, I took the course, and I was working for free for about six months just to gain experience, just learning as much as possible about online business and marketing.

When the pandemic hit, I made a decision to go all in on my business: to start getting clients to keep learning and keep refining my skills. Now over 3 years later, here I am with an online business. I live in Amsterdam, and I work completely remotely. I never expected myself to be here, but I am also very happy.

Creating the Lifestyle You Envision as a Business Owner

Growing up, I felt l like the odd person out, I never really bought into the Oklahoma lifestyle; I always knew, even when I was a kid, that I didn’t want to continue to live there when I got older. I knew I wanted to travel. I wanted to go experience new things, places, and cultures. It really wasn’t until I was in university in Budapest Hungary (that was the first time I’d ever left the country! I left for 6 months and studied abroad there) that I just realized there is a whole world out there that I am missing out on, living back home in the states.

Once I was able to step out of my comfort zone and experience new things, it was easy for me to just lean into that and continue doing that after college.

From Virtual Assistant to Six-Figure CEO

When I transitioned from teaching English online, I worked as a virtual assistant for about 2 years; I think that was mainly because I was learning so much, and I basically tried everything under the sun- like any task that was handed to me, I was going to figure it out. I was really into copyrighting and content writing for a while as well. That was probably my favorite thing I did as a virtual assistant. 

Then I was really craving more of a managerial role, taking more of a lead on the team. I think that’s a really natural progression; when you are a virtual assistant for a long time,  you learn more, and you want to take more of a partnership role with the CEO.

So, I took training to become a digital business manager, and I started working with one of my main clients now when I was a newbie digital business manager. It’s been great, and it’s allowed me to grow a lot in the role, and we have really grown together. It’s given me a lot of freedom to try lots of new things while I’m still learning my own trade and refining skills. Now I really focus on systems and automation. I help online business owners organize and automate their businesses so they can focus on growth.

The main thing I do is help business owners grow to their first six figures because I know that journey can just be crazy.

My own journey to my first six figures was definitely crazy. So, I help CEOs get the systems in place so that they can sustainably grow to their first six figures; then, once they’re past that, it’s more about refining their processes and getting things automated, so they can really start to scale towards those higher ticket months.

Taking Imperfect Action as a Business Owner

When you first start out as an entrepreneur, you’re just taking a lot of messy action, which I think is super important to know that it’s totally normal in the early stages. I’m glad I took messy action for the first two years before I hit my first six figures because it allowed me to try so many things and learn what I liked; but then, when I did hit my first six figures, I felt so overwhelmed with everything, because I didn’t have those foundational systems in place to support me.

I was really on the brink of burning out, and I had that thought “this is how I am when I’m making an 8K month, or a 10K month, how am I ever going to scale past this?” And that’s not how you want to feel when you hit your first six figures–because it is such a big accomplishment.

So, that’s why I love to like help people get systems in place in their business, so that even when they do hit those first six figures, they feel like it is sustainable and that they can handle it, and continue to grow.

While it’s possible to get started and achieve a certain level of success through messy action,  there does come a point where you need to have that organization, you need those systems in place, because you can’t even run your business like that sustainably. You need systems to support you. Often, people come to me and say that they have a goal of what they want to scale to, but when you look at their systems, it’s a hot mess. They don’t have an onboarding tool, they don’t have automation, or a content system.

Creating Systems to Scale

More often than not, in online business, the attention is around ‘money-making action’, so creating content, bringing on clients, building a community, and when it comes to systems, we’re spending the most time doing these things, but there are no systems around content creation, onboarding clients, or building a community.

I think that’s where I see the most disconnect. For example, if someone wants to start batching content and get two weeks ahead on it, it’s likely because they feel overwhelmed whenever they’re creating content, since they’re doing it from scratch every day. Generally, they don’t have a process lined out where they break down what they’re doing to create that content and batch it in a way that is making the most use of their time. 

If you’re wondering how batching actually works, you can create a content system.

For example, if you take 1 hour today to brainstorm ideas and write captions and then another hour tomorrow, or you plan to record videos or create graphics… create a system that allows you to split up different types of tasks, so you can actually get into a flow state. 

Creating a content system will allow you to create content so much faster in a more sustainable way. When you implement this practice, you’re able to create five pieces of content in 2 hours instead of every day feeling like you need to figure out what to post for that day, but not being able to get ahead.

Client Onboarding System

It’s kind of the same for client onboarding. I work with a lot of people because I’m a coach in a

Mastermind as well, and members will sometimes say ‘oh I got my first client. What do I do?  Do I have them Venmo me?’  And it’s important to think about this stuff before you get to that point. So, I’ll walk them through the process, that they need a way for people to pay them, a contract to protect themselves and the client legally. There should also be a welcome email for your new clients- or some sort of expectation package where they can know what to expect. 

If you spend like 30 minutes to an hour outlining the process of what you want to happen when you get a client, it will save you so much stress and time in the future.

When someone pays to work with you, you don’t want them to be asking ‘What’s the next step?’ You want them to feel taken care of, with a seamless process in place to support both them, as the customer, and you as the business owner.

How Do I Get Started with Systems?

 When it comes to mapping out the customer journey and getting systems in place to support your biz, it’s a lot easier to create the big picture and work backward rather than create all the steps to build up to the big picture that just lives in your mind. I love using a tool called Whimsical, but you can use any whiteboard tool or even use a piece of paper and just write out the steps.

For example, when I onboard a new client, I may want to:

 A) Send a client a proposal 

B) Take them straight to check out 

C) After they pay, I want them to fill out a questionnaire.

Or, maybe they need to get on an onboarding call– you also want to ensure that clients have enough time to get you the information you need to get started and to also be mindful that it may take them a few days, so once have that map created, you can connect the dots and usually, you can do this through a CRM tool. 

CRM stands for client relationship management or customer relationship management. I love using Dubsado or Honeybook as a CRM tool. These types of tools are different because they contract sending, invoices with integrated payment processing, email templates, and questionnaires. It streamlines the process for all of the pieces of the onboarding process.

Systems Free up the Mental Space it Takes to Scale

 When we don’t have organized systems and processes in our business, it shows. One example is when we go into sales calls: we might not even have the mental space if we’re super scattered and we’re thinking that we’ve forgotten to send an invoice, or whatever the case. When we’re on a client call, or on a sales call, that shows if you’re not fully present.

Establishing a Flow State in Your Business 

Another key element to being able to scale in your business is being able to intentionally create a flow state in your business. One way to think about this flow state is that we’re doing a lot of the same type of task for an extended amount of time. This helps us to be more productive, and to keep our brains from having to jump between different types of tasks too quickly.

Creating content is a great example of this because we’re brainstorming ideas, writing captions, recording, editing, and creating graphics on Canva. Those are all very different types of tasks and they use different parts of our brains.

It’s a lot easier for us to create five captions at one time and then five reels at one time, because we’re doing the same type of tasks, instead of moving from writing, to recording, to editing and jumping around from task to task.

Whenever we can break down our content process, or like with the client onboarding, just outlining the process and grouping similar tasks together can create the flow. For example, on Fridays, I’m reviewing all my content and then I’m scheduling it for the next week. 

Whenever we can break up the tasks like that, it allows us to get into the Flow State.

Another thing I like to do on top of this is to create themed days in my business. So, for example, on Tuesdays, I’m just more creative. On Wednesdays, I feel ‘hump day’ hard, so Tuesdays are my creative day, and I try to stack all of my writing and creative tasks on that day, so I can stay in that flow state for as long as possible. 

Then on Wednesdays, I push all my admin tasks and all the tasks that I don’t have to use a lot of brainpower to do, more of like the technical tasks that are easy for my brain to comprehend. If you can start looking at your days and thinking, ‘What am I really in the vibe of?’ each day of the week because typically, we do have a routine. You will find out your ups and downs are more common than you think. 

The main goal is to make your processes as easy as possible for yourself. Business is already hard enough, you don’t need to force yourself to be doing tasks that you don’t want to do. When you’re running a business, If you’re a solopreneur, or even if you have a few team members, you’re doing so many things by yourself, and that’s already hard enough, and you’re probably already doing things that you don’t want to do, like bookkeeping for example. You just have to either handle those tasks or hire someone to do it. Again, the goal is to make it as easy as possible for yourself to complete tasks without dreading them.

Email Marketing

Once you’ve got your onboarding process and content system in place, the other main tool you need is an email marketing tool. This is key because, in any business, it is essential to have a community platform off social media. I work with a lot of entrepreneurs, that there’s this intimidation around having an email list, of people who don’t feel ready.

This was 100% me –I didn’t have an email list until two and a half years into my business because I had this imposter syndrome around ‘who’s going to want to listen?’

Trust me, you will wish you started on day one of your business, and I wish the same– even if I wouldn’t have been sending out emails, just creating a freebie to give someone value, starting to grow my list, and starting to send out emails. That’s something I’m focusing on in my business right now is getting super consistent with email marketing. 

Even if you don’t feel ready, it’s a good idea to at least set up an opt-in for your newsletter for those people that are interested, so you can start building that community and getting the lead generation off it. It can be simple things that you’re doing now; don’t overthink it. It’s an opportunity to connect in a long-form way with your subscribers. The people who are into it will become your most loyal customers.

Scaling to multiple six figures

If you’re someone some systems in place and you want to scale from making 10k or 20k months, you might be wondering: ‘What now?’ or Where do I go from here?

I always recommend starting by evaluating how you’re making money. If you’re taking on 1:1 clients– obviously, it’s going to be very hard for you to scale 1:1 clients to 100K months, that’s just how it is.

So, turning that one-on-one program into a group program and looking at your offers and asking: are my offers scalable? Can I help more people? And then, once you have those available offers, whether it’s a group program or course… Past six figures, you’re really starting to create a lot of things. 

You want to make sure that you are creating products and services that are aligned with where your customer is at on that customer journey. You want to make it easy for them to take the next step. Then consider how you are going to support these people on the backend. 

Automating your Group Program Onboarding

One of my clients, when I started working with her, she was hitting around 20k months, and she just hit her first 100k month– and we did that all through group programs. We are helping over 50 people in these group programs, but that’s a lot of work on the backend, and that’s a lot of space you have to hold–supporting coaches. 

We have a killer onboarding system that I designed, that’s it’s completely automated, and it’s amazing. It makes our lives so much easier because we know we can sell a spot into these programs and that the process we’ve created makes it easy for us to bring people in, especially through those first stages of onboarding, from Slack group access to questionnaires, and course access is automated. 

Then, once they get into the course, we have systems set up, including a client success coordinator who welcomes students to the program and is there to offer support. So, you need the systems but also the team to back it up. But, I always say, start with the systems.

When you have centralized systems, it’s much easier to bring on someone else and show them the process of how things work. Clients ask a lot of questions, so you need to be able to support that amount of people. A course may look a little bit different because that’s a bit more automated in the sense that people just sign up and then they get access to the course. Maybe they get access to a Facebook group or something, but you have people in there supporting the Facebook group, and with a course, you might need a bit more long-form content, lead generation, YouTube, and blog. 

Consider what content you’re putting out to attract all these people. You need the systems around that and the support around that as well because you just can’t do everything by yourself. You have to bring in other people to help you, and bringing in other people is a lot easier when you have the systems.

It’s also important to note that we reached that 100k month organically. Inevitably, investing in ads will often be a step in the process to scale. But, the first step was making sure we have that organic onboarding process completely ready for us to be able to support that. So, then when we did put ads behind it, we’re not scrambling on our end with the number of people coming in. 

Making Your First Hire

Hiring is not easy. And a lot of people do hire prematurely. Often, business owners may hire a virtual assistant before having any system in place. Again, I always say to focus on systems first. Your team is supposed to take direction from you, and you’re the CEO, so you need to get clear on what you’re doing in your business every day. What is your business? What is the goal? Then consider: what do you hate doing? Let’s start there. 

For me, it was social media. I don’t love social media. Creating content is not my forte.

So, my first hire, lo and behold, was a social media manager. It makes my life so much easier– best money I spend in my business. It’s something that you know is so worth it.

So, finding that keyhole in your business, where you’re thinking ‘I need help in this area’, even if that’s just sending emails and following up with clients or getting your Dubsado set up and running your Dubsado if you don’t want to use Dubsado yourself that’s fine, you can hire someone to send out the contracts and invoices for you. 

Or another example, with content creation, maybe you don’t like creating graphics. For me, I don’t like graphic design, so I have a virtual assistant who all she does is make slide presentations for me because I have to make a few each month. 

Customer Journey for a Freebie

By now, if you’re in the online business world, you’ve probably heard that you need a ‘freebie’ to give people an incentive to join your email list. If you’re feeling stuck about what your freebie should be, I think the biggest thing people should know is that they should solve one problem. 

People tend to want to give everything in like a 40-page ebook. Which, number one, no one is going to read– you want it to be easy to digest, and two, that’s so overwhelming for you to fit everything you know into a 40-page ebook.

So, instead of thinking about the customer journey from A to Z that will be a six-month process, what is something that will get them from A to B? What will get them to that next level without being overwhelming? 

For example, they don’t need to go from $50,000 in debt to a millionaire, maybe they need to go from $50,000 in debt to $10,000 in debt. It needs to be something the client can actually visualize happening for themselves. If I’m $50,000 in debt, I can’t think about being a millionaire; all I can think about is getting out of debt.

So, really honing in on that one problem and solving that one thing and just giving enough information to get that client to the next step, because that’s all they really need at this point. That’s honestly all they really want because otherwise, they’re just going to be overwhelmed. You want to focus on making that freebie into a format that is the best way that your client will be able to easily understand it and then setting that up in an email marketing tool.

Choosing an Email Marketing Tool

For email marketing, I love using Flodesk, especially for newer business owners, or Convertkit or Active Campaign.

You can start with some sort of welcome sequence and a nurture sequence after that, and then the end is usually some sort of offer, either a free Discovery Call or some sort of low ticket offer, like a service or product for example, around $97 that goes along with your freebie, then you can definitely sell that because that’s it that’s like the next step.

For example, maybe your customer journey has your free resource as moving from Point A to Point B, and then the course is B to like C and D.

So when that person’s interested, then give them the opportunity to continue working with you at that low risk; it’s going to take a little bit of time to get them to invest in your higher ticket offers. You need to focus on building that relationship and that trust. But when you have high-quality, low-ticket offers, they get a feel for working with you and how you teach, and they’re more likely to continue working with you and go to the next step.

Most of the time, our customer journey is teaching people what they don’t know. When you start working with a client, they think they know what their problem is, but eventually, they realize in addition to whatever system or tool, what they also need is accountability and coaching to resolve the problem. When you can get them to that point, then you’re ready to actually sell them into service because they can see the value of your service. Sure, giving them what they think they need, but also in this process, I’m going to give you what you actually need.  It’s a never-ending process!

Let’s Work Together!

If you’re ready to scale your business, I’m here to help. A great place to start is my free mini master class that goes over the three key systems you need before you hire.

If you’re wondering where to start, take my free Systems Quiz to nail down what systems you need in your business.

If you are a beginner entrepreneur, I have a Systems Starter Store that goes right along with that, that has mini-trainings on how to set up those tools.

If you’re thinking: ‘I don’t want to do the setup myself’, then I have a done-for-you 30-day Systems Sprint, where I will set up these systems for you.