Every weekday morning at 6:45 a.m. my alarm clock goes off. I hit the snooze button and Marty the Cat jumps on the bed. He lies down and hangs out until the alarm goes off again. I’m barely awake, but I know I only have eight more minutes until the alarm goes off again, and Marty starts biting my feet.

I love my cat, but I hate it when he bites my feet. So, I roll out of bed, feed Marty, and grab a handful of lettuce for Chester the Guinea Pig. Chester lives in my office and, although I want to check my email, I need to feed Chester first, or he will keeping squealing and pushing his metal bowl against the wire cage, making a lot of noise. So I lift the lid of his cage, say good morning, scratch his chin, and give him a handful of lettuce.

After checking my email, I go to the kitchen to make Emily the Daughter’s breakfast. Right on schedule, Pom-pom the Hamster will be sitting up, too, waiting for his breakfast. I pick him up and hold him in my hand, while he eats fresh apple or banana.

Some people might call this “feeding the pets,” or “the morning routine,” but to me, it’s a system that works.

Over the years, I’ve preached to lots of business owners about the benefits of putting in systems that support their work.

I usually hear one of two answers:

1. I don’t have time
2. It will cramp my creativity and love of spontaneity

Good answers, but totally wrong. In fact, I’m here to tell you that putting in systems will:

1. Give you more time
2. Un-cramp your creativity

Let’s say you don’t have a system to stay in touch with your clients and prospects right now. Your current (lack of) strategy is that you reply to all your incoming emails, send holiday cards, maybe have a party once a year, do a little networking here and there, but otherwise, “wing it.”

How much time do you spend worrying about where your next client is coming from? I’ll take a guess, and assume it’s quite a bit.

Well, what if you had a system for generating clients, instead? What if you had all of your contacts in one place, and you could use them to generate business?

Here’s my system:

• I send one card a day to someone I know
• I get together every week with either two new people that I’ve been introduced to, or two close business friends
• Twice a month, I write an email newsletter with relevant content and send it out to everyone I know
• Once a month (at least), I attend a networking event to meet new people
• Once a year (at least), I have a party
• I keep my LinkedIn profile current, including adding every new person I meet

You may think this is a lot of work, and way too time-consuming to fit into your day. But once you have the system set up, it takes far less time to run than the time you spend worrying about generating business.

This is just one example, but think about how much free time you’d have if you had a great system to track your: inventory; prospects; expenses; projects.

Take a minute right now, and look at your points of pain:

• Information that you need and don’t have
• A website that doesn’t reflect your business expertise
• Budgets that aren’t tracked
• Anything else that is getting in the way of growing your business

Before I figured out my system for taking care of the pests (I mean pets), I used to read my email while protecting my feet from Marty the Cat’s biting, and shushing Chester the Guinea Pig’s squealing. Now that I have a system for taking care of the annoyances that get in the way, I can focus on what’s important, in this case, my email.

I will leave you with two final questions:

• What task (pest) keeps biting at your feet because you’re not taking care of it?
• What’s it worth to you, to fix it?

 

Yesterday I had a meeting with a client in Natick, a little town not far from where I live. My car was in the shop, so I reserved my favorite little blue Prius from ZipCar, and was on my way.

I don’t know if you’ve ever heard of ZipCar, but I love it. Within walking distance from where I live, there are at least 15 cars that I can rent, some for as little as $6.33 an hour. And that includes insurance and gas – a really smart idea, and a great deal.

So, after my meeting in Natick was over, I jumped into my Zipcar and headed back to the office. I hit traffic, looked at the clock, and realized that I was going to be late returning the car.

Zipcar has six rules for successful car sharing, and one of them is to return the car on time. I do my best to be a good Zipcar citizen, because I like the idea of car sharing. Zipcar offers an irresistible incentive for timeliness – late fees start at $50.

I called ZipCar to see if I could extend my reservation.

Believe it or not, here’s Zipcar’s process for extending a reservation:

• • Dial the 866 number listed on my Zipcard
  • Press 1 because I am a current ZipCar member
  • Tap in my six-digit customer code
  • Tap in my nine-digit birthday
  • Press 1 to extend my reservation
  • Find out if the car is free to extend the reservation
  • Type in how many minutes I wanted to extend and press pound

I couldn’t believe that anyone at Zipcar had tried this out, or even thought it through.

I was unbelievably frustrated. Customer number, OK, but my 9-digit birthday? It was clear that ZipCar had designed a system without taking into account how it would be used in the real world.

These days people are moving fast, and a poorly executed operation system can get in the way of a great customer experience.

The good news? Fixing this can be pretty easy. Just “literally” sit in the seat of your customers.

Don’t design a system that’s going to be used while driving a car when you’re sitting at your desk, or while standing at a whiteboard with 10 people in a conference room. Get in the car and try it out while you’re in a hurry, and worried that you’re going to be late.

When you sit in your customer’s seat, you’ll come up with smart, informed, and innovative ideas.

For Zipcar, it can be as simple as their phone system saying: “If you’re driving a Zipcar right now and need to extend your reservation, please press 5 and someone will assist you in a moment.”

Note to ZipCar: I still love you guys, but please, make it easier to extend my reservation from the road.