Show notes
We'll basically help you to look at where you are now and where you're looking to be in terms of getting something from ideas to actions and systems. Because without those three levels and without prioritizing it correctly, you can spend a lot of time, invest a lot of effort, and not get to the results you're looking for.
David: Hi, and welcome back. In today's episode, co-host Kevin Rosenquist and I discuss the topic of ideas, actions, and systems. Welcome back, Kevin.
Kevin: Good to see you, David. Let's dig right in. Why do so many businesses get stuck at the idea stage and fail to even move into action?
David: It's a great question. I think ideas in a lot of ways are kind of the easy part. We have a brainstorm, we're like, this is brilliant, let's do this. And then we have another one has this, brilliant, let's do this. And here's another one. This is brilliant. Let's do this. And then the question becomes, okay, what are we actually going to do?
I know this has happened to me over the years in my own business. It's happened with a number of people that I've worked with over the years. You have a lot of ideas. And then the question becomes, what are we going to take action on? And then, which of the things that we take action on, will we systemize? Get into place so that we can take those actions consistently?
So that's really the purpose of our discussion today.
Kevin: Yeah. how do you personally decide, which ideas are worth pursuing and which to ignore? Because I can find myself to be an idea guy a lot of times too. I'm like this, I got this, I got this. But sometimes it's hard to prioritize what is actually a good plan. Then put it into action versus maybe we just skip that one.
David: Yeah, it's helpful if we start out with essentially a data dump of all the different things that we're considering. Just write them all down. Then have internal conversations initially about which ones of these are going to be our priorities.
What are we definitely going to lock in? Which ones will we save until later? And which ones are just kind of out there? We don't really have to look at those at the moment.
Kevin: It seemed like a good idea last night...
David: I find that by,
Kevin: before I was falling asleep. Not so good the next day. Yeah, .
David: That happens a lot, doesn't it?
Kevin: Yep, it sure does.
David: I have a digital recorder. I take it with me wherever I go and keep it next to the bed. When I get one of those brilliant ideas at night, I record it on there. Then you listen to it the next day and you're like, that was horrible, what was I thinking?
Kevin: What a terrible idea. I can't even understand what I was saying.
David: Yeah, exactly. But, I think it starts with that. It's about gathering all those ideas, because some of them are going to be great. Some of 'em are going to be brilliant, some of 'em are gonna be terrible, but we don't know it.
Now, a lot of times, it's a good idea to sort of evaluate them yourselves before you start sharing them with everyone else, so that you're only talking to your people about the things that you've already kind of thought through and believe are the best ways to go, and ideally to prioritize those.
And then do another round with your people and go through it and ask for their opinion on which things should be prioritized and which things should be deprioritized as it were, so that you can sort of work your way through and have everybody be on the same page as far as what we should be working on sooner rather than later.
Kevin: I feel like a lot of times ideas can get just stuck in sort of a neutral. Do you have to put a sense of urgency into turning ideas into action?
David: Well, I think you definitely have to prioritize it. So to say that, we give it a sense of urgency, I would say yes for the things that are most important.
But again, there's this discernment process that needs to happen on the ideas to determine do they need to be prioritized? Do they need to be implemented at all?
And then once you've done that, I think it really helps for everybody to be on the same page so everyone knows what we're doing and which one we're doing first, and which one we're doing second, and which one we're doing third and so on.
Kevin: How can a small business owner build systems to help their business without adding like an overwhelming complexity? I think that's a hard balance, right?
David: Well, complexity in my experience, comes about as a result of not doing these things. When you actually think it through, when you start with an idea and you decide, okay, this idea is going to be something that we're going to work on. And then you think through the idea and you say, where are we going with it next?
is this going to be something that we're going to build in? Are we going to take action on this idea? And if the answer is yes, then you can sort of brainstorm a list of what are the actions we could potentially take here?
Y ou can come up with a lot of different things that you could take action on. But then you also have to further refine it and say, okay, which of these actions make the most sense for the immediate future and for down the line?
So, in my view, it's a constant process of sort of refining these ideas, testing them, determining what the most sense right now, and what makes the most sense for the foreseeable future.
Once you've determined that, that's the stuff that you attempt to systematize. And I think sometimes this gets out of whack, in the sense that people come up with an idea and start building processes into their business to get it implemented.
That's putting the cart before the horse in a lot of cases.
Kevin: Yeah, that's a good point. But it can be intimidating, right? To try to put new systems into place.
David: It can be, sure, if you are unclear on what those systems need to be.
But a lot of times, I think when you do sort of think things through and you start with the idea and then refine and refine and refine that to get it down to the actions that make the most sense.
Then once you've identified those actions, systemizing those actions can actually be relatively simple. Because there are only so many different ways to perform a particular action.
I mean, in sales, things like whatever, dialing the phone, right? There are only a couple ways to do that, and that's a very primitive example. But even as far as targeting is concerned, if you have ideas about who you'd like to target, for example, and then you have actions in place in terms of how am I going to do that?
Exactly how am I going to identify the people that I want to go after? And then that becomes part of your action. And then you say, okay, now in order to create a system around that, I want to make sure that I'm selecting the right quality, the right caliber of prospect to begin with, so that each time I go back to do this a second time or a third time or a fourth time, I've got that system in place, so I don't have to reinvent the wheel each time.
Because a lot of people waste a lot of time by doing that. They get involved in taking action and each time they have to do something, they sort of forget that they had a process for it. And then they're reinventing the wheel all the time.
Kevin: Yeah, they just keep trying to redo something that's already kind of working or already there.
you share an example of a business that put a new system in place and thrived because of it?
David: I think a lot of what we do with our clients in our Total Market Domination system, it's all about that. It's about identifying these key points of influence where people are having trouble, where people are struggling, and then getting systems put in place to be able to do that.
So for example, as I said, starting with the targeting, who am I going to go after?
There are a lot of businesses who just wing it day to day and they bring in anybody who can fog a mirror, anyone with a pulse, and that sort of approach is not usually helpful long term.
Whereas if you have a procedure in place for your targeting and you say, I'm, going to identify this particular type of business in these particular markets of this particular size,
I'm going to start with that and then I'm going to hone it down from there and say, alright, since I can't reach every business in this particular niche or in this particular market, then how can I narrow it down to get to a smaller group of manageable prospects?
We refer to it as our largest, manageable submarket. And then from there, down to the initial contacts that you want to test it out with and the ones that you want to reach out to.
And each of those steps requires different systems, but you have that in place and that gets it down to the people that you want to initiate contact with.
Then from there, it's like, okay, what are we going to say to those people? And then that becomes about the messaging.
How do we create the messaging that we want to communicate to our prospects and clients about our business? Again, a lot of times people just sort of wing it, or they say basic stuff about what they do and how they're able to help, as opposed to having a bullet pointed list of the things that they want to make sure are communicated to each new prospect, every step of the way.
And then another example going on from there would be, how are we initiating our initial contact with them? Is it a cold call? A meeting at a networking function? Is it a post on social media? Lots of different ways to initiate your first contact, and then what's the follow up going to be?
And with each of those steps, there are responsibilities that come with it. The responsibility of doing this consistently.
Because if you're doing different things with different prospects, and sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't,