Introduction: Why Simple Strategic Systems Matter for Small Business
If you’re feeling weighed down by day-to-day tasks in your small business, you’re in good company!
Many small business owners feel this, but wait for their business to grow before putting systems in place. However, setting up simple strategic systems for your business is exactly what will create that capacity in the first place. By setting up a few targeted processes now, you can free up time, reclaim your evenings and weekends, and step more fully into leading your business.
Identify Your Time and Energy Thieves
The first step toward leveraging strategic systems is recognising what’s taking a bunch of time, and what’s draining your energy. There’s quite a lot of talk around time management, but it’s just as vital to pay attention to your energy drains – the repetitive, frustrating, or mentally taxing tasks that disrupt your workflow, even if they only take a few minutes.
Prompts to Uncover Your Biggest Drains
Here are some signals you might need a system in place:
- Repeating the same admin task over and over
- Dreading specific jobs on your to-do list
- Explaining the same instructions to your team, VA, or clients
- Work slipping through the cracks
- Struggling to delegate tasks because the process only lives in your head
When you spot these patterns, look for the ones with the biggest impact. Systems don’t need to be overwhelming projects – pick just one or two areas to streamline, and you’ll quickly notice more breathing room in your day.
How Systems Build Capacity – and Leadership
Putting strategic systems in place does more than ease your daily workload. It frees up mental space so you can think from a place of leading your business, rather than being bogged down in admin tasks.
When you’re leading from that space, you’ll see new opportunities, connections, and generate ideas that wouldn’t have occurred to you when you were running flat-out.
Where Are Your Biggest Wins?
Think about the following areas – these often come up for my clients:
- Customer service emails
- Onboarding new customers
- Delivering your products or services
- Marketing and creating content
Identifying your most pressing bottleneck gives you a starting point – the “release valve” – for your first (and most impactful) system.
The SALSA Framework: Streamline Your Workflow
Once you’ve pinpointed your priority area, it’s time to create your system. Remember, systems aren’t always tied to technology. Sometimes, a simple checklist or step-by-step guide – like a standard operating procedure (SOP) – can be so impactful. Here’s a proven approach you can use:
The SALSA Steps
SALSA stands for:
- Simplify: Is there an easier way to get to the outcome? Remove unnecessary steps.
- Automate: Could any of that process be automated?
- Leverage: Can you repurpose work you’ve already done or existing resources?
- Support: Who else (e.g., a virtual assistant or team member) could take on this task?
- Action: Then, we get into action.
We do these steps in this order too – so you’re not delegating tasks that could be eliminated or automated first.
Operating with a “Hand-Over MindsET”
I give the example of preparing to sell my subscription box business (which I sold a couple of years ago)… Even if you never plan to sell your business, imagine you’re preparing it for someone else to run.
This thought exercise helps highlight what only you can do – in attracting, nurturing, selling, and delivering for your clients – and what could be handled by systems and support. Make it your goal to apply the SALSA framework wherever possible so your focus remains on your high-impact work.
You don’t need to overhaul everything overnight. Selecting just one or two areas to work on can rapidly open up more capacity for you.
Key Takeaway: Simple Strategic Systems for Small Business Growth
Building simple strategic systems for small business growth isn’t just for large companies – it’s how smaller businesses carve out the time, capacity, and headspace to flourish. By identifying your biggest time and energy drains, and running them through the SALSA framework, you unlock space to focus on what truly matters.
Start with one or two key systems and watch how much easier it becomes to manage and lead your business.
Ready to Take Action?
Want to put this into practice? Download my free Simplify Operations workbook and walk through this exact framework to identify your biggest time & energy drains, and systematise them with SALSA. It’s the process I use with my clients to help reclaim their time and create a truly scalable business – get it here!
