EP 353: Dancing With Systems In Clickup With Lou Blaser & Sean McMullin from YellowHouse.Media

09/07/21 • 59 min

2 Listeners

In This Episode:
* Why Sean McMullin & Lou Blaser, from YellowHouse.Media, switched their project management software from Notion to Clickup (and why it’s not the right move for everyone!)* How they’ve reduced their podcast management procedure from 75 sub-tasks to 11 umbrella tasks* Why streamlining the procedure has allowed them to bring a more customized approach to each podcast they produce* How focusing on the system behind podcast production has helped them create a lot more capacity for new clients
A couple of months back, I read a downright beautiful article about systems.
Yes, you heard that right: a beautiful, thoughtful, and useful article about... systems.
It was written by Donella Meadows, an influential environmental scientist and leading thinker on systems change in the 20th century.
The article outlines 14 principles for *dancing* with systems. But today I want to focus on the first: get the beat.
When we talk about business systems, it’s easy to default to software, automation, or project management.
But a system is much more organic than that.
And if we don’t allow for a system’s inherently organic nature, we miss out on really understanding that system in order to work with it, dance with it.
Meadows explains that a mistake we so often make when we approach systems is that we see understanding the system as a way of predicting and controlling its output.
She writes, “The goal of foreseeing the future exactly and preparing for it perfectly is unrealizable.”
I get that that might be frustrating—especially as we see data and the ability to instantly connect with customers as modes for the ultimate in business predictability.
It can also be a relief.
If the goal of understanding systems isn’t to control them or predict their output but to dance with them and learn from them, we don’t have to be so hard on ourselves!
And that brings me to Meadows first dance step—get the beat. The mistake I see business owners make with systems is that they try to impose systems on their businesses. They create or build systems for different areas of their businesses.
But that negates the systems already at work in a business. And inevitably, trying to create a system instead of investigating a system, leads to frustration.
Meadows writes, “Before you disturb the system in any way, watch how it behaves.”
So let’s say you want to work on your marketing system. If you start with a blank page and start building something from scratch, you’re missing out on all of the data & feedback that already exists in your marketing system as it is now (whether you know it’s a system or not).
If instead, you map out your existing marketing system, no matter how haphazard or messy, you can start to ask some really interesting questions about that system:
* How did we get here?* How else could this work?* What might happen if we don’t make a change?* What are the long-term ripple effects of allowing this system to continue to play out... ★ Support this podcast ★

Previous Episode

EP 352: Personal Strengths Make Strategy Stronger

Personal strengths are like a photo filter.
Imagine you’ve got a photo that’s... fine. You upload it to Instagram or VSCO or some fun photo editing app.
And then you scroll through the filters until you find one that brings the picture to life. With the tap of a button, you can make the photo go from washed out colors to... black & white, or soft shades of peach and pink, or punchy shades of blues and greens.
Your filter might up the contrast or even everything out a bit.
Personal strengths can do the same thing for your business strategy, marketing tactics, or the way you deliver your offer.
So what happens when we start to use personal strengths as a filter for business?
First, it becomes much easier to make decisions about what steps to take next. The strengths filter makes it easier to see whether one path or another is going to work better for you.
But second, your strengths filter can help you find creative ways to do some of those shoulds and supposed-tos that just feel so meh.
What if you approach email marketing through the filter of relationship-building?
That’s going to look pretty different than an email marketing strategy based on ideation or analysis.
What if you create an online course but filter it through of teamwork?
That’s going to look pretty different than an online course based on focus or competition.
What if you prioritize networking but filter it through humor?
That’s going to look different than networking based on discipline or strategy.
And when you apply your strengths filter to come up with creative ways of reimagining these actions and systems, not only will they feel more natural to you, they’ll be more effective too.
I’ve got four more stories of business owners leveraging their strengths for you today. And the thread that runs through each of them is how using personal strengths as a filter allowed them to make components of their businesses more natural and effective.
You’ll hear from Lysa Greer, Mary Knox Miller (Nonprofit Video Lab), Dr. Nayla Bahri, Mytili Jagannathan, and Lisa Townsend on how they’ve leveraged their strengths.
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Next Episode

EP 354: Making Sales A System With Coach Pony Founder Christie Mims

In This Episode:
* Why Coach Pony founder Christie Mims uses 2 “competing” sales funnels to accommodate for different ways of buying* How she melds both sales automation and a human approach to produce 7+ figure sales* The nuts & bolts of what both sales funnels entail and how they actually work together* Plus, why Christie’s approach is inspiring but, ultimately, might not be the best approach for you
How reliable are your sales?
How steadily do new customers buy? How loyal are your retainer clients or repeat customers?
Every business owners wants to feel confident when it comes to sales. Not just how to close a sale, but really how the chance to make a sale presents itself, how the process evolves, and how that final decision gets made.
Can you engineer a more reliable sales system?
Yes, you sure can. But it’s not the “if this, then that” kind of process that many reductive sales courses try to sell you on.
It would be awesome if I knew that every time I did a particular task, I could count on a sale. It would be awesome if I knew that stringing together a series of specific actions would supercharge my sales.
But so many things impact the way people buy... that it’s impossible to reduce sales to a single process or procedure.
That said, we can still dance with our sales systems!
So let’s return to Donella Meadows’s article on dancing with systems. Meadows encourages us to “celebrate complexity.”
Now, you might be thinking...
“But Tara, what about building simple business models? What about creating simple marketing procedures?”
I’m glad you asked! The reason we actively build simple structures, models, and procedures for our businesses is because the world is a complex place. When we focus on simplicity in how we design our businesses, we really can celebrate complexity in the world and our customers’ lives.
Meadows writes:
There’s something within the human mind that is attracted to straight lines and not curves, to whole numbers and not fractions, to uniformity and not diversity, and to certainties and not mystery. But there is something else within us that has the opposite set of tendencies, since we ourselves evolved out of and are shaped by and structured as complex feedback systems.
When it comes to sales, I believe our goal is to create the simplest system that celebrates the reality of complexity in the environment.
So what makes the environment we’re selling in so complex? Timing, trends, current events, seasons, budgets, competition, competing messages, personal histories, family needs...
The list could go on and on.
Every customers brings their own complex set of influences to the table when they interact with your business—especially in the sales process.
This is one of the reasons that “sales funnels” so often fail. A sales funnel is usually built from the business’s perspective—a perfect scenario of “if this, then that” actions that assume a lot about the people who are going through that funnel.
But no matter how niche your target customer or client is, ★ Support this podcast ★