People dependant vs Systems dependant
Imagine you went to a burger restaurant.
You order a hamburger (or a veg burger if you're vegan) and it's delicious. It is one of the best hamburgers you've ever eaten. The meat is juicy (or the chickpeas), the bread still crunchy... Delicious.
Naturally, you go to Google Maps and put a star on the place to remember to come back.
A couple of months pass and you remember about that place, so you decide to go back to repeat the experience.
They bring you your hamburger and this time the bread is not crunchy. You find that the meat (or the chickpeas) is a bit dry. This is not the hamburguer you were expecting.
Ok, what is going on? you ask yourself.
You decide to reach for the nearest waiter and ask, only to find out that they have changed the chef one week ago.
You decide then and there that it's the last time you're coming back to this place.
We, as clients, as soon as we taste the benefits of a product or service, want to come back to get the same results.
Why does McDonalds still have so many clients?
Because they're able to deliver the same experience no matter which McDonald you go to.
As you may imagine, it's not the same chef cooking for all restaurants, so how do they do it? It is the same system.
Everything in a McDonalds is measured to the second.
How long the fries should be frying, how long the meet is cooked, how think the meat is... Everything works like an orchestra. And they always deliver the same result.
Your around-the-corner restaurant was people dependant.
As soon as the chef left, they were not able to deliver the same results.
McDonalds is systems dependant. No matter who's working there, if they follow the system step by step they will always be able to provide the same experience for the client.
Let me quote one of my favourite business books, The E-Myth:
The question you need to keep asking yourself is: How can I give my customer the results he wants systematically rather than personally? Put another way: How can I create a business whose results are systems-dependent rather than people-dependent? Systems-dependent rather than expert-dependent.
So how do you incorporate this to your business or life?
Think of the things you do that follow a process. Normally this process have to follow some steps.
This can be the way you enter a lead into your system, how you send four affiliate pack to a client, how you onboard a new client into your community, how you schedule a project...
Then write the steps.
This is normally called an SOP or Standard Operating Procedure.
Then store it in your SOPs database for everyone to see and follow next time.
Or better yet, if you use Notion, create a workflow like this one.
We can use linked databases so we can follow the steps and take the actions right there on the same page.
So, how can you become systems dependant instead of people dependant?
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