Are you carrying out tasks on a manual basis, over and over again!!
This was me before I met Rosie. Not any more!! I am now streamlined and automated with everything and have more time to spend time on making a bigger impact and growing my business. More time to spend with my family and I’m making more money than I ever did before.
Listen to this interview with the super talented Rosie Anipare and find out how and why you should automate your processes and systems.
Transcript
Dylis: Hi there, this is Dylis Guyan from DylisGuyan.com and I’ve got a really great guest once again for you today and this is Rosie Anipare.
Rosie is a business automation strategist who helps entrepreneurs to run a thriving business, save time and serve more clients. And of course, who doesn’t want that. This really is such an important topic because by streamlining and automating your business you can grow, you can make a bigger impact and have time to spend with your family, with your friends, carry out your hobbies, have more holidays whatever it is you want to do. And Rosie just absolutely loves to strategise with the best possible system to scale her clients businesses by automating the appropriate tasks and creating an easy to follow blue print. And she knows exactly what it felt like to be overwhelmed and ungrounded even though she’s a techie which I am not, and so I absolutely love Rosie. She was too overwhelmed when she started her business. There was just so much to do and not enough time and I’m sure many of you listening will resonate with that.And then she took time to set up systems and leveraged automation to free up her valuable time and she spent months researching and testing various tools that would help grow her business. So she’s a real expert in this area of automation and being a techie as well she is the go to person for business automation and talking about strategy and what’s the best fit for your business.So let’s say hello to Rosie. Hi Rose, welcome to today’s call.
Rosie: Hi Dylis, thank you so much for having me I’m really happy to be here.
Dylis: It’s an absolute pleasure. So let’s just start off by explaining what we mean by streamline systems and automation.Rosie: Sure, so systems that have been carried out in the business on a daily basis, or weekly, or monthly even and these are the things that repeat.
I mean if you look at real life things like getting up and brushing your teeth that’s also a system. Everything there is, is a system.
So it’s the same in business and it’s important to have them streamlined and automated because we do not want to do those things on a daily basis.
They take up a lot of time that we could be using to do other things for instance, talking to our clients and providing value to our clients.
Soa system is like a checklist, to let you know what to do step by step and it can be just a system and it also can be automated so that it actually happens by itself so that we don’t have to do anything or we can just press one button and then the system gets done.
Not all of them can be automated but a lot of them can and that really saves us a lot of time. Obviously as entrepreneurs there’s so much to do that we do not really want to be focusing on the back end of our business because that’s not what we started the business in the first place. And so systems are here to support us and to help us to scale and grow our business as well. Without a system we can’t grow the business.
Dylis: And I was in exactly that place where I was manually doing everything right down to, for example, if someone booked a 30 minute strategy session with me via my website. I would manually send them an email then manually we would be back and forward with dates for them to book a date for it. Then I would manually send them a questionnaire for them to send back to me. And now having an automated system that’s done when I’m asleep.
Rosie: Yes, absolutely.
Dylis: So it’s brilliant! So what are the problems if people don’t do this, if they don’t put systems in place?
Rosie: I think that the main reason is actually that they don’t believe that they are important. A lot of people seem to think systems are boring. Even if you go to work for somebody and you get this operations manual you probably hardly read it because it’s not really interesting.
So everyone thinks it’s quite a boring thing when actually it’s the main thing because it’s a foundation for the business. And sooner or later we realise that we do need systems. Some people realise sooner, some people later but it’s something that every business needs if they want to grow. It’s really, really important.
Dylis: And that’s interesting you mention a process manual. If you go to a bigger company there’s always that process manual. And in your own business as an entrepreneur or a smaller business would you recommend that people write this all down and have it to refer to. So when they have new people, as the business grows and they have new people coming in, they’ve got this manual of the systems and the processes, there, ready for people to just be able to look at, they can take them through it, they can show them. It’s much easier isn’t it?
Rosie: Absolutely, and I think it’s very necessary because that also promotes consistency. Because if you are ready to outsource to a VA or any other assistant or designer you don’t have to spend time to teach them or tell them how it’s done in your business. You hand out the process, they read it and then they are supposed to follow it with no mistakes on the way. And every client is treated in exactly the same way. So that’s really useful to have those.
Even for yourself because my brain capacity is very large but at the same time sometimes I just don’t remember what’s the next step. So rather than having to remember all of it, it can be on paper so you can always refer to it.
Dylis: That’s another great point because again, from my own experience I’ve had a couple of VA’s all excellent. One left to have a baby and then one took on a major client and wasn’t able to service my work any longer and the same with the first one. Now between the first and the second I didn’t have anything written down. So I had to start explaining everything from the beginning again. Then I realised, then the penny dropped and I thought for goodness sake, get this written down. So I created my own process manual.
And if I go back to my corporate days when I was Regional Director in Barclays Financial Services, we had processes for everything and it was written down. And yet there are so many small businesses and entrepreneurs who just go from day to day, task to task and manually doing things and not having it structured and written, to be able to refer to for the reasons that we’ve just said.
Rosie: Yes, absolutely. I think it comes to a time where they realise like I said before it’s either sooner or later where they realise that systems are necessary. And I think also the other reason they don’t do it is because it’s seems quite overwhelming and I think they’re just a little bit scared of not knowing where to start. But step by step it can be done. If it’s impossible to outsource to somebody it can be done by yourself but it takes time and perseverance.
Dylis: But also we don’t know what we don’t know. So we need someone like you who can say, right, tell me about your business. Now let’s look at the steps. And also, I’ve said this too many times in the past Rosie, technology and I are not best friends we’re just sort of distance acquaintances. So having someone like you who understands and you know what’s available in terms of some of the applications that you can use, some of the resources that you can use that I wouldn’t have even known about if I hadn’t been able to speak to you about it. So it’s not just that you can give the process but it’s that the resources along the way to help you do that.
Rosie: Yeah, absolutely. Because the process is not a cookie cutter for everyone. So one tool may be right for one business but may not be the right one for another business. So what I do is I brainstorm and strategise and troubleshoot things so that we come up with the best tools, the best automation and how to put those tools to work together. Not all of them work together well so that’s why I come in. I have some knowledge about different tools, I don’t know them all because there are always new ones coming out but there are a lot out there and I more or less know what we can incorporate into the business.
Dylis: Yes, and that’s the important thing. It’s knowing the ones that work and have worked and are reliable. Have you got a client that you could talk to us about, someone who worked with you. Where they were at the beginning and then the outcome at the end after working with you?
Rosie: Absolutely. I just recently had a wonderful lady. She’s a life coach who works with high-profile position people, as in ministers and governors.
So these are people who are meant to be strong, they always have to be strong and they have nobody to talk to and she’s the one that they come to, to breakdown, if you like in confidence.
So she was seeing people but she also realised that she was missing out on many sales because she didn’t have a system for invoicing and client intake etc. And she actually lost a couple of deals because these high executives who have approached her and wanted to work with her but because she didn’t appear professional they didn’t go ahead although she obviously could have helped them.
And that’s another reason why you should have a system because you will appear more professional and people will see that there will be treated nicely and will be more likely to work with you.
So she found me, she actually said she looked for me for over a year so she came to the point where she realised that she was at a standstill, she couldn’t move forward because there was too much to do and that’s when she realised that she needed some sort of system. But being a creative she is not friends with technology at all, you know very far from it. So that’s why she hired me to help her because I always make people aware that technology is here to help us, it’s not here to frustrate us. It can do that sometimes but in most cases it’s really, I mean I think it’s a fantastic thing because 20 years ago we didn’t have all those things.
Dylis: That’s right.
Rosie: Invoices were being written manually and it just takes so much time. So what we did is we sat down. I first got to know her as a person because I needed to know how much action she will take.
I also need to know how can I work with the person, how much helps she needs. She actually needed a lot of hand-holding which is fine but we started on creating an automated system for invoicing.
We made everything flow seamlessly, the branding…so it made her look and appear professional. And now because she also has a very busy personal life she’s a grandmother to 4 and she looks after everybody. She’s like the pillar of the family she wasn’t able to remember all the things that she needed to do so I documented it for her.
Then we moved on to her client intake which is the most important part and it took some juggling because she also does classes offline so we needed to cover both. But I could already see after a few meetings she was getting more relaxed and she was actually getting convinced that yes, technology is here to help her
And at some point she actually said that she felt like a million dollars because she felt that the projection that she was giving out to people was a very polished, professional look. Whereas before it wasn’t that.
So we went through all the systems then moved on to the marketing systems and did list building, setting this all up. And she’s just so grateful.
I know it comes easily to me but for her it’s a huge thing. She feels so much more peaceful now and she has all the systems documented so even if she has forgotten something she can go back to the document and she can see what steps to take next.
It just freed up a lot of head space for her. She feels much more relaxed, she feels at peace knowing that somebody, for example who contacts her in the middle of the night where normally it would take her a day to respond it’s now all automated.
She has templates and it’s just making her life so much easier. And now I know she’s actually said that she’s raising her prices because she can because she’s more confident to charge more.
Dylis: That’s brilliant, you know many of my clients are in that position where they haven’t got systems automated and of course when we’re not expert at it then it takes so much longer and everything that you’ve talked about there.
So for someone who may be listening now and thinking, right, I really need to get a system in place what would you say are the steps they should take. And I know that you’ve created a wonderful programme around this but could you just take us through that, the steps that you’ve got in there.
Rosie: Yes, absolutely. My course covers the essential for the foundation of the business and what I actually do is I create a step-by-step video.
So I choose the best tools, again this is questionable because it may not be right for everyone but this is like a general thing to help people set up because I see that a lot of people get told by their coaches automate this and do this but they are not shown how to do it so they are still stuck.
So in the course I actually start with organisation because that is very important. So the first module covers how to organize the files, how to organise your emails.
As we know, we probably have thousands of emails in our inbox, how to keep that clean because it can be overwhelming. so that’s the organisation/administration.
Then we move on to creating a system for invoicing. So with the branding and I show two different tools that they can use, they can follow one or the other.
I actually go for the cheaper option and the more expensive option depending on the budget that they choose. After the invoicing is set up we then move on to the client intake which is really the main thing I keep saying of the business and how to automate it.
So there are some CRMs that you can use to automate and create workflows but…
Dylis: So we’re talking about Customer Relations Management systems here for CRM.
Rosie: That’s right, yes. So we can automate some workflows from the point that somebody joins you as a client all the way through to signing an agreement, intake form and anything else that needed to be added there all the way through to follow-up afterwards and to getting a testimonial review.
All this can be automated and done without us having to do much.
And then we move on to creating a marketing system or something that helps us build a list online to creating landing pages. Again, a lot of people have a lot of problems with that and it’s so important and creating options and connecting it all together to email that we can automatically send emails to people when they sign up for our freebie or anything that we offer.
There are a few tips for marketing on Facebook because I mainly get my clients on Facebook so I share what I know and also other social media like Periscope. But I would say because it seems a lot I would cover the 4 main systems in that course.
But for someone who was to do it by themselves I would say not to get overwhelmed, just to take it step-by-step. So focus on one system first and then move on to the other and by creating that system all we need to do is write down the things that we do on a daily basis, a weekly basis.
First, we jot down everything so it’s like a mind map. Take it all from our thoughts and put it onto paper. I like the method of using yellow sticky notes because then you can move them around and put them in order.
And once that’s done we can put that on paper and after it’s on paper we can look at how we can make it smoother, how we can automate it, how we can use a tool so that we don’t have to do it.
Yes it takes a little bit of research and what I’ve found is that a lot of people, it’s like the shiny object syndrome. I get that too because there’s a new tool and I want to try it out but that’s where the vicious cycle starts.
I say don’t fix something that is not broken. So if something works for you stick with that tool and if there is something new we’re trying out maybe
choose 2.
Most times you can sign up for a free trial maybe 7 days, most tools offer that. So choose maybe 2, try them out and see whether they are fitting to your business whether they do what you want them to do and then maybe after a couple of days decide on one. It has to be quite a strict timeline otherwise you end up trying out tools for weeks on end because it’s difficult to decide. So these are the steps to take to start automating, to start systemizing.
Dylis: And I love that idea of using the yellow sticky notes and just writing down everything that you do and in fact it’s not exactly the same but it’s similar when I’m working with my clients with the time management. It’s just making note of everything. And of course the same thing applies with your automation because when you’ve got a documented track of exactly what you’re doing, and also it’s a real eye-opener, because when you go through this exercise you think gosh, what a lot of time I’m wasting. So it’s great in terms of managing your time but also being able to look and see where can I put processes in place that will also impact on my time management.
Rosie: Yes, absolutely.
Dylis: Which is brilliant. Rosie, this has been so insightful, thank you so much. So if anyone wants to get in touch with you either to have just an initial chat with you or to talk about how they might access your programme how can they get in touch with you?
Rosie: Okay, I have a website and it’s Rosieanipare.com and my email is hello@rosieanipare.com so I’m quite happy to receive an email and I’m also on Facebook under Rose Anipare. So I can be found on social media and if you reach my website there are a couple of freebies that you can sign up for and we can take it from there.
Dylis: What are the freebies on your website?
Rosie: One of them is a business toolkit. So these are the tools that can be used to systemise and automate the business. And another one is actually a 5 day challenge on how to build and automate your coaching business. I say coaches because I work with coaches mostly but this can really apply to anybody who has an online service-based business.
Dylis: Perfect! So if nothing else people should be downloading those and then from there they can get in touch with you and have a conversation with you if they want to work with you further.
Rosie: Yes.
Dylis: Excellent, excellent. Rosie, thank you so much. It’s been an absolute pleasure talking to you and I’ll speak to you again very soon.
Rosie: Thank you very much for having me Dylis.
Dylis: You’re welcome. Bye for now.
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