Founder. Agency Owner. Creative Director. Manager. StoryBrand Certified Guide. Accountant. Daughter. Friend. Dog Mom.

Everyday I wake up and have multiple hats to wear. Chances are, as a creative entrepreneur or business owner, you find yourself in the same spot.

While systems aren’t sexy, they’re vital to scaling a business.

When it comes to systems, where do you start, when do you need to create systems, and when should you edit them? In today’s post, I’m sharing 10 Systems that we swear by in our agency.

First things, first. How do I know if I need to create a system?

As a CEO of a multiple six-figure agency, I swear by systems. Without them our business wouldn’t be able to scale. But I didn’t always function this way. Learn from my mistakes and start small. Look at any task you complete in your business at least five times. This could be onboarding clients, sending emails, paying bills, referral programs, or even following up after networking events.

Our Systems

1. We swear by The Chalkboard method.

We came across this method a few years ago and as a visual person, it keeps our long term goals in mind. (You can listen to the full concept on Being Boss podcast here.) While we don’t have a full wall to dedicate to a chalkboard, we’ve opted to place ours on a smaller bulletin board with pieces of cardstock instead. We have a long-term goals listed, as well as short term goals, and weekly to-do lists. This keeps our quarter’s goals in front of us. Our categories include 10 Collaborations or Sponsored Posts, 10 Affiliates to add, 10 Clients, and quarter sales increase to date. By having blanks in front of our workspace, it keeps us looking forward to grow as a company.

2. When the credit card bill comes in, we fill in our spreadsheets. 

For most entrepreneurs, there’s a massive groan when it comes to all things finances and taxes. It’s easy in the midst of the daily grind to ignore items and have a massive headache when tax season comes around. When your credit card bill arrives in the mail, take an hour and make sure to transpose expenses on an Excel sheet. (We always prefer something on our hard drive for our business finances.)

3. We dedicate 1 Hour a Week to Writing for Instagram.

Instagram is our favorite platform and over the summer, we’ve been tweaking our methods. With a few launches coming up this quarter, we can’t wait to see how this platform continues to grow. Honest engagement and great content are our jam. For most folks, Instagram can feel like a chore. With a content-focus to our Instagram, we spend an hour to write for Instagram a week. This allows us to space to develop our content a week ahead, revise the copy, and shoot accordingly. We do the same for our social media clients, seeking their approval for copy, prior to posts going live. This gives your social media a strong presence and strategy as content rolls out. If you’re looking to get started with content days for Instagram make sure to check out our best hacks.

4. Have an automated system for onboarding clients and replying to inquiries.

We swear by our CRM and truthfully should have set up one sooner. We use Dubsado and love it. (Click here to receive 20% off your first payment.) We have workflows for our branding and website packages, scheduling inquiry calls, our referral program, onboarding and offboarding clients. We also have over 70 canned emails, forms and contracts stored for internal use within our business. It used to take us hours of manual work and spreadsheets for lead tracking. This has truly changed our lives and reduced the administration hours in our business WEEKLY.

5. Personal life hack: Do 2 loads of laundry and dry cleaning, while cleaning the house.

In two hours we are able to get all of our chores done for the week. I typically do this as a Sunday reset and start it around 3 PM on Sunday. We begin by starting with dry cleaning in the dryer, then place whites in the washer. We then follow with darks, the load that has the most hanging items to dry. We combine our whites and darks in the dryer, while most  of our denim we line dry. This reduces our energy bills by only using the dryer for dry cleaning and one load of laundry a week.

6. Spend Sunday evening prepping for the week.

Whether it’s meals or scheduling, if we wait until Mondays to write out to do lists, schedules, or be prepared for meetings, we’re already behind. Instead of investing this energy on Monday mornings, schedule a weekly planning session on Sunday afternoons to get ahead. We plan our content, fill in our Full Focus planner, complete chores, take out the trash, pull out our clothes for the week, and finish off the night with an everything shower.

7. Have an admin day once a quarter.

We firmly believe that if it doesn’t exist in Google Calendar it doesn’t happen. Here’s how we keep our calendars organized. For work, here are our calendars: client work, posting content, and meetings. For the rest of our life: we have home, birthdays, bills due, and holidays. This keeps everything on appropriate calendars and makes our color coding hearts delighted.

8. Develop templates in ClickUp. 

Ever feel like your notes from client meetings get lost in your stack of Moleskines? We’ve been there. Rather than trying to keep everything on paper, we’ve gone digital.  We developed a few templates that we swear by. We have one for Client Intake meetings, one for a Project Brief, and one for a Creative Business Plan. How do we use them? In ClickUp we’ve saved these as templates and adjust them for agency use during our client onboarding process.

9. Track revenue and accounts receivable in the same Excel sheet.

Every quarter this year, we’ve exceeded our sales goals, which is a big, big deal for our company. We track every invoice and payment received in excel. Once a client receives an invoice, their payment is marked in yellow. Once payment is received and cleared in our account the line goes back to no fill. We have a separate tab titled, “To Invoice” for clients on retainer where we’re working on multiple projects at a time, this allows us a simple time tracking system.

10. Automation is your friend.

Embrace systems and automation. Like we mentioned above, we’re obsessed with automations and how it can maximize effeciencies in our business. If you’re struggling to know where to use automations, AI or build out your workflows, make sure to book a workflow mapping session with us to get started. We have built CRMs for multiple clients and this is where we always start – looking at data and breaking down the big picture. Embrace systems and automation by booking your workflow mapping session here.