Systems for a Fast Start [Video]

During the week of March 29th, I hosted several webinars as part of the Small Business Triage Summit. This particular session is called “Systems for a Fast Start.” Business systems help you repeat your successes and are a key part of your brand. But what exactly are “systems” and why do you need them? Learn which systems are a “must-have” for your business and which SaaS tools I recommend to help you systemize.

Susan Fennema: Hi everybody. Thanks for coming in. This has been a great week so far and we’re coming up on the end of it here with a couple of final sessions here on Friday. The one today we’re going to talk about is systems for a fast start. Many of us are in a situation where we have a lull in our business. And that’s not everyone. For sure, it’s not everyone. But, the opportunity if you do have a lull is high to jump in and systemize your business a little bit. So what we’re going to talk about today is how you do that.

Susan Fennema: So first, let’s talk a little bit about why you put a structure in your business. So many small business owners hear the word structure and they think, oh no, that’s a lot of bureaucracy. I don’t want that. But it’s not. Structure, as we go through this you’ll see it’s making things run better. It’s going to give you results, better client or customer satisfaction. You’ll find that you can profit from this for sure. It will streamline some activities to help with profit. It also is a brand. So the way that you interact with your clients is your branding.

Susan Fennema: And so think about this. If you’re a restaurant or a bar and a customer comes into the bar and they want to run a tab. And bartender A says, “Okay, give me your credit card and I’ll hold it.” Bartender B says, “Oh, I scanned it for you at a max amount. You have up to 100.” And bartender C just says, “Oh, I’ll run it. Here it is in a little glass for you in front of where you’re sitting.” None of those customers have had the same experience of coming into your bar. It’s confusing if they come again next week.

Who do they go to? Is there a bartender they like that does better than that? Is there one that if you leave your card, they charge you 20% as a tip a the end of the night without asking? Do you tend to forget to get your card at the end of the night? I know I’ve done that before. So there are situations to think about that. How structure and systems reflect your customer base so that everyone’s having that same experience. So that’s a good reason as well, is branding.

Susan Fennema: The big thing about structure, as much as it sounds rigid and confining, it will set you free. Because if you’re doing the same thing over and over again without thinking about it, then you have freed up time to go be thinking about the important things instead of the things that you do over and over.

Susan Fennema: So let’s talk about when you might need a system in your business. One is to repeat successes. Something went great and we want to do it that same way every single time. So that’s a reason. One is, stop reinventing the wheel. If every single time you have to onboard a software developer contractor, you have to remember, what systems did we give him access to? How do we share the information for them to log onto our clients? If you have to remember that each time, that is a lot more challenging than if you have a system for it and do it the same way every time.

Susan Fennema: Another big on as business owners, it’s a way to start delegating. If you don’t have the way that you do it written down, you can’t ask someone else to do it for you. So those are the main reasons why you need a system. There are more, but those are the big ones that are no brainers of let’s jump in and do it.

Susan Fennema: So, how do we know what to systemize? One is to identify bottlenecks. What are the things that only you can do and it holds up everything else in the business? How can you systemize yourself out of it? That’s one. So anywhere you’re the bottleneck. If you are an approver in a process that might be better than if you are providing a bunch of input into a process. If you are constantly the one that the marketing creative person is waiting on to be able to send something out to the client per se, then maybe find a different way, a different method to do that. Maybe it’s a scheduling technique.

But identify yourself as a bottleneck and figure out how to get yourself out of it. That’s absolutely the first clue of something you need to systemize. The other is when things seem messy, they’re out of order, they seem chaotic. Nobody knows what to do or how did we even get here? This is so messed up. Those types of things. The big clue so let’s write something consistent around this incident so that we end up in the long run not having it happen again, and also be able to create that order out of chaos.

Susan Fennema: Another thing is when steps seem excessive or redundant. You’re always like, “Well wait a minute. Why do I have to sign this when I already signed this earlier and this seems redundant?” Or there are 15 steps to get you from A to B. This is an opportunity to streamline and reduce and ask questions like, why do we do it that way? That’s a big one. And a way that you can always start to ask yourself in your business how it works. Hey, why are we do it this way? And it doesn’t matter if it seems like it’s something you’ve always just done, those are the big ones.

You guys have heard of these stories where it turns out that the reason that the monkeys attack the person coming to feed them in their cage is that the first time that they did it they were doing something horrible to the monkeys instead. So, you go back to doing it because we’ve always done it this way, is usually the worst reason for doing something the way that you’re doing it. I will accept any reason from the people I consult with except that as to why you do something a certain way. And maybe you’ve always done it that way because there’s something inherent in it that works, but that’s the answer then. Not just because you’ve always done it.

Susan Fennema: The last reason to is when you’re finding that specific activities are not efficient or they’re costing too much time or too much money. So if there is a specific action going on that you have to streamline and reduce some cost, that’s a good place to look at systemizing as well.

Susan Fennema: There are lots of ways to set up these systems. Protocols. People call them systems. They call them all sorts of generic names. I’m going to kind of break it down into the three that I refer to. And this gives you the structure to help you as the owner manage like you mean it. The first is policy, and that’s just rules. Just how it is. Second is the procedure. That’s a checklist. Think of the airplane pilot checking off all the things that they go through when they’re preparing to take off. And then a process is a written system. One of the things that I want to reiterate what I said there, was written.

So a system can be in your head and many of you might have systems in your head. But unless it is written down, it doesn’t count. You need to have it out there where people can get it.

Susan Fennema: So let’s dig in a little bit to the policy as our first one. These are the rules and the structure. It’s not negotiable. They are the rules that your team and your company have to follow to make things work. Things that could be policy. What are the holidays? How do we pay personal time off, PTO? What are your healthcare options here? How do we do internal communications? Do you have to be on Slack? Which is my preferred.

If you were in the session on Wednesday you heard about that. Or, are you only through Skype? What are the rules of your company? How do you communicate? This is not necessary really if you’re a one-person show. But it’s still not a bad idea. Back before I hired employees, I wrote up my policy for the holidays. And the reason I did that was so that I would take off my holidays. So feel free to write a policy for yourself. That also then, as you start to grow and add people, makes it a little easier to bring them and say oh, this is how we do it here. These are the rules.

Susan Fennema: The one I want to walk through here is I think most of us probably have some form of timesheet or time tracking in our business. And so that’s a perfect policy. What are you expecting from your team members? Do they just clock in and clock out? In which case, great. How do they do that? Where is the time clock? Is it digital? Do they have to be on-site to clock in? Can they do it remotely? Is there are a certain number of hours that are required every day? If they don’t clock those hours, what’s the consequence? Or is it by week? All of those start to make your policy.

Susan Fennema: If you’re a project-based company, you probably have rules around how you’re posting time to your clients. And how much information do you want an employee to put in a post to a client? Are you reviewing all of it or does it need to be a quick little sentence? Or do you want a big long paragraph that you have to go through that you might risk getting some information to a client you might not want? And then with that too, if you are tracking time on that from employees that way, how do they fill their whole day?

Do they also have to clock in and out or do they fill their eight hour day, if you require eight hours, by filling it out to various clients and then there is an internal time that they have to track? So that’s an example of all the things that you can think about that can go into a policy as simple as time tracking.

Susan Fennema: So, start writing it down. Jot down your rules of how you do it and then you can enhance that as the questions come up. Starting is better than not. Making sure that you have something that people can react to is better. And you guys have seen those things that are written up, where there’s a policy or a rule that you’re like, oh, somebody did that. Somebody lit something on fire that was not intended to be lit on fire. So as those questions come up, you can make them part of your policy.

Susan Fennema: So then let’s move on to the procedure. A procedure is a checklist. This is something that you’re going to go through and just check off the boxes. It could be built in a project management tool as a template. It could be built … There are various places where it’s just a to-do list that you go down and check off everything. It needs to be repeatable. You want to be able to pull that up and use it for things like, onboarding, offboarding, installing software, how to access your website to be able to get in to edit it, how to post your blogs or send your e-blasts. Anything that is steps, that’s a procedure.

Susan Fennema: And on those things, the important thing to is there probably isn’t much description around what you’re doing. It’s just like the airplane pilot, check the landing gear. Is it there? Those types of things. So to me a good one to talk through as far as a procedure, it’s your interview process. How do you interview? First, you have to put a job posting out. Where do you put that job posting out? Who is involved in the interview process?

So step one might be, review resumes. Step two there might be called the resumes. Three might be asking person number one to do the interview. Get the feedback from person number one. Decide if you’re going to do further interviews. Do you see how detailed I’m getting in this? But it’s just making it so that without having to think about it, every time you hire, you go down and check these things off the list. And it makes it very repeatable. This is also branding so that everybody interviewing with your company is having the same experience as well. And so when they go out in the world, even though they are not your customers, they are also sharing that experience.

Susan Fennema: I am a big fan, if you do interviewing, to let the people know that they’re a no. That’s just nice. And if you have that process put in place, it’s just a habit. I know a lot of people don’t like to say no, you’re not going to the next step. But it makes people a little more clear if they have that information. And if you just put it into your process it’s a natural flow. So you don’t have to think about oh, when do I tell them no. So that procedure is really important.

Susan Fennema: Again, procedure, those checklists … If you’re putting it in any of the software tools available, that you can do duplicate a checklist then. You can even systematize the verbiage of what you’re sending out and putting that as a comment. So you don’t even have to rewrite your emails. Your emails that are going out to these people are always the same and they’re always in front of you when you get to that item on your list. So that’s an example of a procedure.

Susan Fennema: A process is a little bit more prose. It could be ways to document a system. It’s usually numbered steps with bullet points. One or the other. But it requires more explanation than just a procedure. It could be things like, how do you do your sales process? When are you following up with people? How often do you follow up with people? So that there’s a consistent way … Once again, when you’re selling people, if you have that process down, part of your branding. So that if it’s consistent, everybody you’re talking to is getting the same experience.

Susan Fennema: Getting paid, that’s another one. How do you get paid from your people? Are you sending out invoices regularly? How do you look at what people owe? How often are you doing it? If you start to write this stuff down you totally can have somebody come in and start to help you with it. Whereas most small business owners, they’re like oh yeah, I do all the billing. Well, do you have to? I mean if you have a process that’s written, somebody else can do it for you. So this is an opportunity to look at that and write those things down.

Another is, for example, if you are opening a project in your software tool, whether you’re using Teamwork.com or Basecamp. What are the steps to get to the tool? So those would be the process and then once you get to the tool, the procedure would take over. That makes sense there.

Susan Fennema: Okay, let’s talk about a few tips for writing these processes. There is a free tool called Loom. Not Zoom. It’s Zoom with an L. Loom. You can download it to your computer and it lets you make movies quick and you can show exactly what you’re doing and you can walk yourself or your employees through the steps very, very easily. It’s referenceable. You can save it. You can go back to it re-watch that again. That’s one of my favorite ways to do it if it’s quick. Now, if it’s a five-day process because it’s sales or something like that, it might not be as applicable.

But, how do I take the timesheets that I get from my employees and put them into payroll? That can probably be a movie very easily. So think about looking at Loom. Once you record that, you can also have it transcribed. I use a company called rev.com. I’ll put that over here. I’ll put both of these in the chat. So Loom is the recorder, the video. And then rev.com is the transcription that I like. Now if you use GoToMeeting, it will also automatically transcribe for you. I have found that it requires a lot of work to clean up. It’s not exactly great because it’s automatic. Rev.com has somebody do for you so it’s better.

Susan Fennema: Then once that’s transcribed, you can go through and write it up. From that, now you have a written list and you have your video. And now your next step is to give it to somebody to execute. Without them knowing anything about it, have them walk through the steps and see if they can do it. And where they get stuck, that’s where you need to hone that process. So if they’re like “Ah, I got here and I don’t know what to do next,” okay, well then there was something in your brain that didn’t make it to the demo or the written document. In some cases like that, maybe you kill the video, don’t worry about that anymore, and just clean up that written portion of it based on that.

In the end, you do want it written because things in your video will change. Your tools might change or the way you do it might change. It’s a lot easier to change that written document than it is to go re-record it. So, your result is likely not a video or at least understanding that your video might have to be remade later.

Susan Fennema: Another way, is you can sit down with somebody and give them instructions on how do you do this. And they need to take notes. So if you’re working with somebody you can just say, “Okay, this is how you do it. You go do this. Here are all the steps.” They take the notes, not you. Then go have them do it. Same thing. Where they come back and ask you where they got stuck, that’s where you need to add more steps and be more clear.

Susan Fennema: Some suggested processes that I think all businesses need, sales process. Where do you get your sales? How do you follow up with them? For restaurants and those types of businesses, that might be more about advertising. Do you do social media? How often do you push information out? Start to systemize that. For more professional services type businesses, it’s going to be more, when they call, what do I say? Or, how do we set up appointments and what’s our follow up process? How do we make sure we don’t drop them? How are we using our CRM? Which is a content resource management tool?

Susan Fennema: The second process that I think everybody should have is invoicing to get paid. It’s a pretty big one and one that I know a lot of people are not that interested in putting together because they hate the accounting part of their business. But having a consistent invoicing procedure makes it a lot easier. And also then if you’re doing it regularly you don’t get behind and you don’t get … Having to catch up can be stressful. Especially when you’ve realized, oh I haven’t billed people and I don’t have money and I need to get it in. If you’ve just been doing it along a regular process all the time, that whole thing becomes easier.

Susan Fennema: Running payroll is a process I suggest that you have in place. If you use projects if you have projects that you run in your business, how you open them, and how you close them, both important. That closing is going to involve how you follow up with your customers after that project is over. How do you find out if they want more from you? Or how do you find out if they’re happy? Or if they might refer you to other people? All of that is a process that is important to maintain.

There is another aspect to process and that’s that software has a big influence on it. The software that you use. So I mentioned CRMs. What is your CRM? Salesforce works substantially different from HubSpot. And there are hundreds of other CRMs out there. So the same thing with point of sale if you’re a restaurant. They all work differently. But, the process is probably similar, but how it’s applied in the software is different. That needs to be part of your process. So your CRM or your point of sale, if you change it, you’re going to have to update your processes for sure.

Susan Fennema: And there also might be some things that you find in those tools that you create the process because that’s how the tool works. Because it’s way easier than trying to work around the way the tool works. So always keep that in mind. Other software influences, how do you manage your finances? Are you using QuickBooks Online? FreshBooks? Are you doing a spreadsheet? How do you manage those? That’s going to affect your process.

Where and how do you manage projects? What tools are you using there? And this is just me as a project manager as an aside saying, if you’re using email, please call me. Email is not a project management tool. And then, also how do you do your timesheets? Is there a tool you’re using or is somebody writing it by hand? In this day and age, there are way too many tools to have handwritten timesheets. Please be using software for that. But, this software can start to drive your process so that some of the decisions are easier to make. That’s just how it works.

Susan Fennema: So now that we’ve created all this, we have all these systems that now are going to help streamline our business, what do we do with them? Where do we store them? I have several suggestions for that. My favorite is my project management software. I know not all of you run projects though. So tons of different options there. Google Drive or Dropbox, Box, OneNote, all of those different tools that are centrally located. SharePoint. Are all storage areas that you can use to share your processes. The main thing with all of these is if you just write to them and no one knows about them, it doesn’t matter.

You have to have a way to distribute them to your team. SharePoint even sets that up where you can check things off and make sure people have seen it. There are other tools like that as well. But that does require a little bit of an investment. Whereas something like Google Drive or Dropbox, those types of things, you can put them on there and they’re there. You also could do a Wiki which is essentially a private website. So if you have a website, you can set some private pages that only your team can access.

Susan Fennema: I much prefer that they are all digital and central. But, if your team is a team that is nontechnical and is on-site, as a last resort you could do three-ring binders. And it hurts me even to say that out loud but it is a possibility, especially if you have team members that just don’t get technology. It will be a little harder to maintain, but it’s better than not having it at all. Another thing is we’re talking about okay, it’s out there. Hey, I put it out there. Okay, but if they don’t read it, then it doesn’t matter.

So the next thing is that you have to make sure that your team has read through them. I would suggest multiple ways of how you can distribute that. If you’re using Slack, you could create a Slack channel where you post your process and require a thumbs up emoji from everyone when they’ve read it. So then you can look and you can see who’s got their thumbs up over there. If you’re using a project management tool, you can assign a task in that project management tool with a link to where to review it. So when they check it off, they’re acknowledging they’ve read it. That’s certainly a possibility.

Susan Fennema: And if you do it that way, that can become part of your onboarding process. So it becomes part of that checklist that as you onboard people they have to go here and read these things. Digital signatures can also be a way to do that. So you can look at a tool like AdobeSign. There’s also one called HelloSign and DocuSign. There’s a ton of them. I prefer AdobeSign myself. But you could put a document together saying they’ve reviewed it and have them digitally sign it. A lot of people do this for HR manuals if you have a full employee manual. This is a good way to have your new hire acknowledge that they’ve received it and read it.

The other, if you’re doing three-ring binder approach, you could have physical signatures or initials saying that those people read those pages. So, the key is that you want to not only say it’s here but also get some feedback from them that they have read it. Because going into the next step, you can’t require compliance unless you’ve shared it with them. And if you are not enforcing your systems here, they’re worthless. All of it is wasted if you are not enforcing the system itself.

Susan Fennema: So, the first thing to note, you set the example. You have to also follow your own process. So, that’s the first thing. You set that example, then you need to make sure they’ve shared it, make sure that they know what they’re supposed to do. Now, one of the things I always hear is people will say, “Well, they’re not following it. They’re not doing it.” Okay well, let’s find out why. First, is it everyone not doing it or is it two people not doing it and everybody else is doing just fine? That’s important to note. Because then you are aware that you have a personnel problem, not a systems problem.

If it’s everyone not doing it, is it because they were not aware of it or is it because there’s something inherent in it that’s not working. So having that communication with your team is really important. Because if something’s not working and that’s why they’re not doing it, then we need to turn things around and start to figure out how we need to change this so that it works. But, one of the things that I often see people doing after they’ve acknowledged oh, nobody’s doing it. But, it’s only two people. And so what I keep doing as a manager is I keep reinforcing to my whole team, you guys have to follow this process.

Susan Fennema: Well if 10 of your team members are following the process and two are not, the 10 that are following the process are going to be the ones that go back and go, “Oh, am I missing something? Am I not doing something that’s on this list? I need to look at this again I guess.” And the two that aren’t following it, are like, “Oh, whatever.” They’re not paying attention to that. So after you’ve addressed it once with the team, instead of coming back and again addressing it with the full team, now you need to start to address personally one on one.

My first suggestion there is to make sure that you are gently reminding. Maybe there’s a step in there they just didn’t understand and it’s not that they’re doing it purposefully or because they’re lazy. It’s because they just didn’t understand. So they’re not doing it right. So a gentle correction is the first step. And then if you keep finding that they’re continuing to push back or continuing not to do it, you need to start an HR process there. Whatever your HR process is. Write them up, escalate it into warnings, and that kind of thing.

Susan Fennema: Because if you let two of 12 team members get away with not doing what you want, then the other 10 are going to be like, but they don’t have to do it. So it’s like that bad apple. It infects others. So, please be aware of that. And make sure that you’re handling them one on one. They are not listening if you’re telling the whole group again. They’re just not. Another thing that’s important with the process and all of this, except for maybe policy … Although policy can change from the owner and maybe from other incidences as well, these are living, breathing, documents. They are meant to evolve. So don’t feel like, too, that just because you wrote it down and you shared it that you can’t change it when a need comes up.

If all of a sudden you have learned something that … Say you’re working with a client on a project and something bad happens. And you’re like oh if only we had X, Y, Z, this would have never happened. Okay, now you have something to add to a process that might not have been in that process before, but if you add that step to your process so that it never happens again, you have already made your company better and probably saved yourself money.

Susan Fennema: So, think about that as well. They’re always meant to evolve as you learn. They should grow as you grow. As you’re creating them too, get input from your team on what is working, what is not. This is also going to help with adoption. If you’re listening to them and taking their input, they’re a lot more likely to abide by it. And I will tell you, even if you don’t take their input, that’s okay. The fact that they were heard and that you listened to matters.

You can always come back to that one person who had that piece input that you did not take and explain to them why you did not. Hey listen, I thought about what you said, I get where you’re coming from, but really because the way you wanted to do it, it just costs the company too much or it puts too much effort on a different department. Something like that. You can explain to them so that they understand that they are heard.

Susan Fennema: Another really big one, someone, and that could be you, that could be somebody else in your company, someone we’re going to call them a process champion, they need to be designated as the keeper of the systems. They need to be in charge of making sure that as new systems come in, that they don’t conflict with other systems. They need to be the ones that put them in a central place, that make sure they’re approved by management. You might have to have a process process. You know, a process approval process so that you’re making sure that they are clear and rolled out consistently. And then also these systems once they’re put together, should be reviewed at least annually.

If you’re moving fast and things are growing and changing quickly, maybe you need to do it quarterly. But read through them. I highly recommend that this be done during the least busy part of your year. So if you’re a seasonal business that goes gangbusters at Christmas, don’t try to be doing this at Christmas. Come maybe June, might be a better time for you to look through them. But put a reminder, a recurring reminder in whatever tool you’re using for your tasks to look at those every year at least.

Susan Fennema: So, that was a lot I put out to you guys here. I want to see though, does anybody have a system that they want to talk through together and maybe start to work on that first system? You guys can come off mute or put it in chat. Nobody? Okay. So does anybody have questions about whether or not they should have a system around something or any questions regarding any of this?

Ann: I couldn’t un-mute fast enough. I was trying to think through some questions. So, I have an interesting setup at work where I have a couple of construction crews going out and doing property maintenance and going out doing doors and windows and whatnot. Big projects. Although I keep throwing systems at these guys, it’s forget about it. I just cannot seem to get them to do it consistently. They’ll do it for one job where we have a system called Knowify. All you have to do is clock into the job. It says you’re there.

Clock out, it says you’re done. So then when I do my invoicing and my billing it all comes together. For some reason … It’s the easiest system I think in the world. For some reason, I cannot get these people on board. They do it a different way every single time.

Susan Fennema: Well it sure does hurt their paycheck if they haven’t posted their time where you can access it doesn’t it?

Ann: Yes. I always say that. You do want to get paid this week, right?

Susan Fennema: Right. So the consequences are something … Especially for policy because that would be a policy. The consequences are something that you can accommodate. Now of course as a business owner you can’t say, I’m not going to pay someone. You can’t do that. But, you could delay it because they didn’t follow the rules.

Ann: Okay.

Susan Fennema: Hey, all of this information has to be entered here by this day at this time. I run the payroll on Monday’s at six or whatever the case may be. And then if it’s not in, well sorry, payroll’s run, you’ll have to wait until next time. So there can be some consequences that you … You’re not saying you’re not going to pay them, but they didn’t follow the rules. So that’s one. And especially because with that type of thing, you don’t want to lose good workers over something like that, but you can make them feel a little bit of pain so they don’t do it that way next time.

Ann: Yeah. Okay. I’ve never thought about that because I say that to them all the time. You want to get paid, but they always do get paid regardless of what their hours are and I just felt like kind of like I had nothing over their head, I guess you would say in terms of the kind of make them conform to the processes we’ve put into place.

Susan Fennema: I have a client who actually for every … I think it’s for every hour that their team is late providing their numbers for the week, she docks them a certain amount.

Ann: Oh I didn’t know you could do that.

Susan Fennema: And that’s a policy that’s written. So if it’s written and they’re aware of it, those are the rules. And the reason is that she can’t bill her clients or pay them until those numbers are in. So they’re holding up the whole company.

Ann: Right.

Susan Fennema: So a consequence helps a lot in those types of situations. And if you write that as part of your policy, then you’re able to hold them accountable.

Ann: Thank you.

Susan Fennema: Be creative.

Ann: I’m thinking about it already.

Speaker 3: I just want to add to Ann there. I had a landscape company before I started doing the home inspections and I had a system that was all paper. Everything was paper. The guys would lose the paper. I wouldn’t know what they were doing…I didn’t have notes. So I got a web-based system and I gave them all cellphones or tablets to enter the data and I would get the same thing. Oh, I forgot. Oh, whatever. So, I just had a meeting every morning … I don’t know if it’s practical for you or not. To just kind of, you know, hey guys … I would go over what they’re doing for the day and be like, don’t forget to do this.

And for the first week or two, I would expect them to forget, but after the first week or two, there’s no excuse. We went over it, I drilled it into your head. Not physically, but mentally. You know, getting it, getting it, getting it. And now they should be able to … All right, not this is the system. So, that may help, that may not help.

Susan Fennema: Oh that’s a good idea.

Ann: That is a good idea.

Susan Fennema: The other is, the bottom line comes down to … And this applies to all trades. I’m including software developers, I’m including content writers, everybody who delivers a product and mostly on deadline. If they can’t make it on deadline, if they can’t enter their information properly so that you can bill your client and pay them, then it doesn’t matter how good they are. It just doesn’t.

Ann: That is true.

Susan Fennema: Especially if you have people … And this is a big software development thing. Where all of a sudden they’ll just disappear for two weeks and you’re like okay, that doesn’t work. So you can write some policy around those things too to make sure that they are present. To make sure that those things count. Yeah, you’re right. You’re great at what you do. But if I can’t get the business side of it out of you, it doesn’t matter how good you are.

Ann: Yep.

Susan Fennema: Go run your own business as a freelancer and do it your way but my business runs like this.

Ann: Good points. Thank you.

Susan Fennema: Does anybody else have anything? You don’t have to show your face. You can even just type it in if you want. But I’m happy to answer any of those challenges of dealing with systems and process which usually also affect people.

Susan Fennema: All right. Well. If we don’t have anything else, I will let you know. I think we have one session this afternoon, right Ann? At three eastern?

Ann: We do. We do. It’s called, strategy for the future. I’m going to be running that and talking about goal planning on how we get through 2020. Let’s survive 2020 and let’s look at the next year or so to see what we should be kind of working on now to make sure that 2020 does not define us.

Susan Fennema: No kidding, right.

Ann: So that is what we’re going to talk about.

Susan Fennema: I’m putting in the chat a link to the business triage Facebook page. We’re sharing information in there. All the videos will be posted there so you can go back to them. And you can ask other questions in there too. So get the help that you need there. Also, I am running a free half-hour consulting session here through the end of the month. If you have any questions about your tools, your method, your communications, your process, anything like that, please feel free to book a time with me and I will be happy to talk through any of those with you, give you some advice on how to set those things up. So I would like to make myself available to you guys during this rough month that we’re all going to have.

Ann: Yes. Well thank you Susan, this was fantastic.

Susan Fennema: Glad you enjoyed it.

Ann: It’s really good information.

Susan Fennema: Thanks for putting this together for us.

Ann: Yeah, it’s been an interesting week. Awesome. So this will be on the website probably by the end of the day and I hope you’ll join me at 3:00.

Susan Fennema: Sounds good. Thanks so much Ann.

Speaker 4: Thank you.

Speaker 3: Thank you.

Susan Fennema: Bye-bye.