Look, there's only two possible outcomes for your business today. Either you're going to build something that has real value and you're able to sell it or you're going to run your business and ultimately one day it's going to close down. And the truth is most people leave it too late and they will not know what they've done wrong.
I know this personally because I've built my business Gymreapers to go from zero to a hundred million dollars in revenue and every single year we have grown because of the systems that I have installed. And look, the truth is I know exactly how you feel because in the early years I was the bottleneck. In the early years I was not good at delegating.
In the early years I didn't know which systems I had to have in place. So in this video I'm going to break down the four key systems that every business must have based on my own learning of scaling my own business which I think if you install today you're going to end up building a business that can scale without you having to do every single thing and ultimately build something of value which you can exit one day. The very first system that you need to install is all about operations and this is where you need to become a McDonald's.
So let me explain. Every single McDonald's you go to in the world they know exactly how to make a Big Mac. A Big Mac will be made in the exact same process and more or less taste the same no matter where you have it in the world.
One of the biggest things that I realized few years into my business is that I am a McDonald's. We must document exactly the way something is meant to be done. We must create a standing operating procedure.
So let's say you're a design agency today, there has to be a way that is dictated to be like this is how we design, this is what good looks like and this is then how we communicate with the client. Similarly for this exact YouTube video there is a process. There has been research done on how we're going to do this video, titles and thumbnails have been decided and researched, then I'm sitting and filming, then from here it's going to go into A cut then a B cut and essentially it'll be uploaded and put out.
That is what you call a process, a systematized broken down process just like McDonald's. Where you won't be able to scale is that every time you go to do something you're coming up with it in that moment. And look, if you're a slightly larger business today and you already have processes, this is the most important thing.
You need to make sure the person that owns the process is actually someone with an operational background. The biggest mistake that I personally made and hundreds of founders that I work with they think if you have a guy in your company today that's the best at doing something that means they should be the one running that process, owning that process. For example, if you do have a design agency and you the best designer in the business should not be the one who's creating the process and keeping it up to date.
The reason is it's a different skill. People that are good at making processes are very operationally driven and they can break down things into systematic small points. People are normally good at something in my experience they're really good at doing the thing but they're terrible at managing the operations to do with it.
So in my experience what I did was I brought in people who had operational background and they set up the processes, the SOPs like McDonald's. So at Gymreapers today if we're going to do something we have the playbook of how are we going to do it. That is kept up to date.
There's V1, V2, V3. We need to make sure we keep evolving this process and keep adding to it and get everybody to add to it. So it becomes the way of doing something.
So someone cannot whilst they're making their burger decide to pour two spoons of ketchup if it's only one spoon. And that is where you'll be able to control the quality in your business and actually be able to have a system in place to make sure things happen to a certain standard that you are happy with. Because yes, as you scale, as you're busy, you cannot be worrying about is the work going to get done to the highest quality possible that you want as the founder CEO.
The other problem related to that is that when you hire new people as you scale, someone's going to come in and they're going to be like no, no, no, I know what to do, I have experience, I'm just going to do it my way. And the answer is no. So at Gymreapers today we use Asana for task tracking.
Every day when someone new joins us I want to use Notion, the answer is no. Not good enough. You have to follow the way.
Why? Because we're McDonald's. We're going to make the stuff the way it's meant to be made and that is it.
And that is how you lead from the front when it comes to systematizing the business. The second one that you must install in your business is a system for growth which is all about OKRs, objectives and key results. In order for everybody to be moving towards the same goal as a business, the same North Star, it has to be obvious to everybody in the business that that is what it is.
So if the goal is a certain revenue number, certain amount of clients, certain amount of products sold, certain amount of social media followers, it has to be known. So on this channel my objective is to become an authority online in the business space. The key result to measure that would be a hundred thousand subscribers.
So that is an objective with the key result. Then you would break that down further and give it to different people. So the objective for someone who's editing videos would be to make sure the retention is 30% plus so people don't drop off.
So the point is that even without you having to be there physically and remind people, people already know what is the objective of their role, what is the objective of the business and it has to be transparent. You can use any OKR tool on the market to do this exercise with your team. If you want to know more about OKRs I would recommend a book called Measure What Matters by John Doerr.
Essentially he invented this philosophy and it's how he scaled Google and many other businesses. It's one of the greatest systems to install in your business for growth. The third system we need to put in place is all about numbers and metrics.
Look, the truth is people lie and numbers don't. So this is very, very critical for the success of your business and for you to build a business which will have equity value one day. In the world of AI and in the world of automations it is very easy to automate reports.
The downside of that is that people don't actually look at those numbers. So what I'm a big believer of is creating a manual dashboard of KPIs that you are looking at for your business which has to be calculated and updated every single day. So I'll give you an example.
For one of my businesses Neurotonic which is behind me, which is this amazing brand all about helping your brain work better, and we have a daily dashboard. And ultimately every single day someone has to manually pull all the data which basically means the following. They need to go and look at how much traffic came, how much we sold, what products actually sold, what were the conversion rates, what were the affiliate sales, what was the product mix, how many customer service tickets, how many returns, how much this, how much that.
A lot of that data could get pulled automatically for sure but somebody has to look at that data, they have to create a report with some insight and then they share that report in Slack 12 p. m. every single day, 365 days a year.
Yes, this clarity allows me and my team and the whole Neurotonic team in a second to know exactly how the business is performing. So I may be busy, I have many businesses now, I have a team of 150 people but all I got to do is click on that Slack channel and in two seconds I can see exactly how the business is performing and I can see if it what the percentages are, is it increasing week on week, what are the metrics, is it going down and I can step in if I need to. That's also applicable for everybody that's involved in the business cuz one of the biggest reasons you cannot build a business which scaled is lack of data.
They actually don't know what's going on and people conceal information instead of building a system which allows everybody to have centralized information, daily information that they can move forward with. I know what you're thinking, hey Sean, why would I do that? If you need the data just go and get it yourself, right?
Just log into Shopify and people can just find the data. They won't and that is the point. You got to build a system which brings the data to people but not just data cuz no one looks at it.
It's got to be with insight. So someone has to look at it and be like yesterday was a bad day and here's the problems that I can see because people will tell you things are going great. You look at the numbers and they're like well, the conversion rate is down 2% on mobile.
Let's do something about it, right? So very, very important, get your numbers together, build a system so your business can scale. The last system is all about the founder system.
Essentially what is your role when it comes to scaling your business today? I like to follow a rule which is the 10 80 10 rule. And the way it works is every single major thing in your business you need to do the first 10%.
Then you're going to get your team to do the 80%. And in the final 10% you're going to step in to make sure it's done correctly. And that is the system that has allowed me to scale to a hundred million dollars plus.
The reason is the following. So in the first 10% what are we focusing on? You want to be the one that sets the direction of the thing we're about to do.
So for example, I'm currently working on a new webinar, it's called the monetization summit. So I'm going to work on the first 10%. So that means yes, I'm actually going to do some work myself.
I have to sit and think about the angle, the messaging, the price, the way we're going to structure it, who's going to do what. Then I'm going to hold the first one, two, three, four, five meetings myself. I'm going to clarify the objectives of this project.
I'm going to make it very clear who's responsible for what and I'm going to make sure it has a clear SOP and it's gone into the task management system and it's very, very clear. And then I'm going to step away and I'm going to let the team do their magic because they're amazing. They have to do that 80% of work.
And this is where you don't want to micromanage people. You got to let people bring their own genius out. You got to let people go ahead and do what they want to do.
So they have free roam to go and execute that the way they see best cuz we want people to be innovative. We want people to have ideas. And then the final 10% is when I come back.
Ultimately I knew exactly what I set out to do and now the team has done the work. My job is to review that, give any feedback and then it's ready to go. It can go out the door.
Meaning we're going going live with the project, we're going to push it live. We're going to do whatever. But 10 80 10 is the way.
You cannot step away and think your team is just going to do stuff. That's where things start to break because they won't know what they don't know. And you're the founder for a reason because you have that instinctive thinking on a lot of stuff that others in your team will not.
And the business is only where it is today because of that skill that you have. So, you don't want to let that go. To today, even with the 150 people, even with the portfolio of businesses, I'm very involved in that 10 80 10 way.
And then I'm making sure we're doing things in the way I see because of what I know. Team does their part, and then it's back to me to review it. And it's a great framework for anybody.
So, look, with that being said, those are my four systems that you must install today in order to build a scalable business. My name is Shawn. I make two to three videos every single week on this channel.
Make sure you hit subscribe, and I'll see you in the next video.
