LOCAL MARKET MONOPOLY EPISODE 55
Easy Way to Systematize Your Business with Adi Klevit
Podcast by Clarence Fisher
systematize your business

About This Episode

Are you always on-call, 24/7? Do you have difficulty delegating, documenting your systems and/or making sure your team uses them so you have a consistent output of your product or service? If you said yes to either of those questions, you're running an operation that isn't sustainable!

In this episode, Clarence talks with Adi Klevit whose team at Business Success Consulting Group specializes in creating, documenting, and implementing processes and procedures for businesses so they can grow and scale.

They not only outline, map, and document the processes they make sure their team knows about them and follow them on a day-to-day basis.

If your organization lacks the level of systematization needed to get to the next level, use the strategies Adi Klevit shares in this episode to reclaim your time.

Disclaimer: The transcription below is provided for your convenience. Please excuse any mistakes that the automated service made in translation.

Clarence Fisher: All right. Welcome. Welcome. Welcome.

Adi Klevit: Thank you for having me here.

Clarence Fisher: Absolutely. I am excited about it as always happens. We get into this, conversation, animated conversation behind the scenes before I hit record , and so it's like, Hey, hit record, hit record, getting ready for this podcast episode, I went outside of our process and I was like, Hey, I'll get that. Kristine. Doesn't have to get that right now. This is, I really wanna dig into this. And before you know, it, like three days went by four days, went by five days, went by, I didn't send off the questions. So I'm like, oh my goodness, it's coming up. I gotta get the questions out. So I CC'd Kristine who was probably laughing and is saying, yeah, yeah, you tried to, you tried to do it yourself again. So I'm excited to have you here. One of the things that jumped out at me was that you specialize in putting order into the chaos of an expanding organization.

Adi Klevit: Exactly right.

Clarence Fisher: Tell us about that.

Speaker 2: right. So what I love to do is bring order into confusion into chaos, into a disorganized situation. So, but I'm not an organizer. I'm not like, don't get me into your house. I mean, I am personally for my own house. Right. I have my labeler and I like to organize things, but I'm not an organizer. What I am is basically I create, I mean, me, myself and my team, we create documents and implement processes and procedures for businesses so they can grow and scale. So that's how we bring order. We do that. And we also create management systems so they can be replicated. So they're consistent so they can be used over and over.

Clarence Fisher: Yes. So what does that look like for a business?

Adi Klevit: So what it looks like the end product is basically a document. All the processes in the business, outlined, mapped, documented, and then making sure that all the employees, the teams, the staff they know about it. So they're actually being followed by all. So making sure that they're actually being implemented and followed on a day to day basis. So that's what it looks like in terms of the final result.

Clarence Fisher: Oh my goodness. So, okay. Let's, let's bring it back because, uh, my listeners out there, I know as business owners, we're saying, I mean, everyone's chomping at the bit right now, but let's for someone who doesn't understand why not having this is a problem. Let's, let's talk about that. So what, why, where, where where's the problem,

Adi Klevit: Right. So if a business does not see that as a problem, they're probably not in the right stage to start documenting because they probably need to market. They need to get new clients or new patients or new customers, whatever they, whomever they service or work with or sell more products because they don't feel the pain. And I'm not saying you have to feel the pain in order to start doing it, but you have to be aware of it that it's coming or that it's a little bit uncomfortable, right? I mean, if you are right now, sitting there and you go, well, I don't have any problems. You know, you need to probably sell more or get service, more people. So then you start feeling a little bit of uncomfortable. And at that point, you look at it and you go, okay, do I want to grow?

Adi Klevit: Do I want to expand? Do I wanna get to the next level? And if the answer is yes, and then you ask yourself, well, what's the problem. And then the answer that you get is there's only one me. I can't really duplicate myself. I'm wearing too many hats. I'm working too many hours. I don't see my family. I don't have a life anymore. I'm kind of working in my business. I'm a very expensive employee of my business. Even if I hire, how am I ever going to train somebody? You know, it's all in my head, there are no systems. You know, all of those are triggers to know that you actually have to have well documented processes and procedures in your business.

Clarence Fisher: That is amazing. You really know your client because as you're, as you're saying this, I'm thinking those are the exact questions that the exact process that I went through. Uh, and the number one que the first question you said was, do I want to grow?

Adi Klevit: Mm-hmm .

Clarence Fisher: And before I ran into that question. I remember sitting one weekend and I'm telling my wife, I'm like, you know, I am really stressed out, like, like how, what you were saying. It's like, my I'm staying up late. I'm working late. I'm I'm working weekends. I'm, it's just like, and it's still not enough. Do I want to go to the next level? Like, that is a, a serious question, because I think like at one point I really had to decide, do I want to just back go backwards and be a little more comfortable or am I going to, you know, suck it up and really get in here and push to the next level. And that's a serious question.

Adi Klevit: It really is. And when people ask me, who is my ideal client, I can give you, okay. You know, I work with businesses between this and this revenue and this number of employees. But then I stop doing that because really my ideal client is an entrepreneur that is growth oriented that has a purpose. They obviously want to help others. They want to, they have some kind of a service or product that will help. Um, but, but they're motivated because they want to grow their business. Right. And why do you wanna grow the business? I mean, I know you are very big on why I saw your questions that you sent me. I'm very big on why the first thing is to really find a why. Like, why do you wanna grow? What motivates you? And it can be a great game that you wanna play because you're competitive and you want to have a big business or not even big, big, but like at least a business that is growing, you feel responsibility for your staff to provide that, um, playing field for them, or being able to provide for them to provide for their families.

Adi Klevit: You really believe in what you do and you want to grow. You're just an entrepreneur that wanna have several businesses that are very successful, whatever your, why is you have to, that business owner has to have that growth oriented mindset.

Clarence Fisher: I love it. I love it. And as you're, as you're talking, I'm thinking about our buddy , uh, that referred you to me and I'm like that you're right. You're right. So he wants to grow like that and growth oriented. Yeah.

Adi Klevit: We can give, we can give him a shoutout it's Davis Family Arbor and they are, they do an amazing work. And Brad definitely has that mentality of growing and the way that he services his clients, it's from the heart, he really cares about them. And he knew that in order for him to continue to service his clientele, the way that he wants and really create, really help them, he needs systems and automation in place in order for him to actually be able to bring on the right employees, train them correctly. So the quality of service doesn't go away. So that's a great example.

Clarence Fisher: Great, great example. And yes, big shout out to Brad. Yeah. So when you say growth minded, I know it was a while of being in business before I realized that that's, who I wanted to service was growth minded businesses, just probably because I'm competitive myself. And, um, you mentioned, maybe being competitive and I'm, you do better with people who are like at least who are like you. So when we get together and I'm like, Hey, let's dominate the market, you know? And, and then there's kind of this pullback of, I think we're good. Can we, can we kinda shut this lead flow off, like what?

Adi Klevit: I know, I know I'm so totally understand where you are coming from because people, that's why, marketing companies and like processing companies, or business consulting or systematizing work really well together because I see it as a circle, or it's basically like a triangle. So you have, you have the demand, you create the demand and that's what you do, right? I mean, you do the ad words, you do the, um, you know, the referrals, you know, you, you basically get them help with the marketing, right? So you have that. So that creates a demand. Once there is demand, you are basically shoving in people, the customers, the patients, the clients into the company. So now people can have two choices, you know? Well, I mean more than two, because one of them is you have enough capacity and you can service them and things are going well.

Adi Klevit: Okay. So that means you have systems in place. Number two is it becomes a chaos and you can service them. And at that point you have two choices. Either you are going to basically block your leads and say, okay, don't turn it off. Or you go, okay, how am I going to systematize in order for me to service all the inflow that I just got. And then when you have systems, you, all of a sudden will see that you need more demand, and then it's going back to marketing. So then we, well, you are not we, but together as a team, right? So like advising the client, you as the marketing advisor will now create the more demand. So we have more people coming in more organization, and then it just goes around like that. And that is really the cycle that the business should go through.

Clarence Fisher: Absolutely. And which is why I was excited to even have this conversation because that is the next step. And if I want to grow, I need to help facilitate and find a way for them to be comfortable to do just as you said and say, Hey, no, we don't, the machine's going, we don't need to stop it. Let's just, but then we have to have that, that honest question of, do you again, do you want to go to the next level?

Adi Klevit: Right. But if you don't, then don't even start a marketing campaign. You know, there is no point because, I mean, I guess you have the, now I'm supposed to have more clients or more patients because, and Clarence you can, you have more data because you are a marketing expert, but when you shut down those leads coming in, it's not easy to turn it back on. Right. And create, because it takes so much to get there. So it's not like all of a sudden, and that's also I say, like, it just tells about you, you did a fantastic job. You know, there is this flat of leads coming in, and now if I'm gonna shut it down, it's not like next month I can open it back up and it's gonna be this. It's not on demand. People are just waiting there. Right.

Clarence Fisher: This is so true. And we had a campaign, I guess, a month ago that we did that. And it was never revived. I mean, we couldn't revive it because the algorithm shut down and said, Hey, you know, this must not be what we think it is. And it is just a whole thing. So, yeah. Right.

Adi Klevit: So the solution is really to organize. So once you promote, then you need to go into an organization and systematization, but at the same time, don't stop your marketing because when you organize and systematize, the whole idea is that you become more efficient and can service more. So now you need more of the marketing push to actually be able to support that. Right. Because a lot of people ask, okay, well I'm on the verge of having to hire, but I don't have enough income to hire, right? Because let's say for instance, I'm a construction business and you open, you are my marketing agency, you do a fantastic job. And we got all these leads coming in. Well, I didn't hire the estimator yet. So now I cannot service. But it's like, a lot of people feel like it's a catch 22 because you know, if I'm hiring, but I don't have the leads, what should I do?

Adi Klevit: So what comes first? And the answer is always, it depends. It depends where you are at. We need to look at your finances. We need to look at the future. We need to look at where you wanna go and how to structure, maybe the compensation for the estimators. So it ties into the profitabilities. So you make sure that enough leads are coming in. You have the systems, you have the people, and then you go, so it's really, it's the profitability, but it's the people and the processes that comes into play here.

Clarence Fisher: That's really good. I run into a lot of business owners who are, maybe they have one truck or two trucks, and a lot more who have one truck and they're out there, they're making enough, they're making a good amount of money, but if they pull, oh I've got one for you. Okay. I got one for you. I just filled it this call earlier this week. Okay. Five trucks. Okay. They brought on a couple of more people, a couple of more engineers and payroll went up. Okay. So payroll went up then the owner panics a little bit and let those two people go and he jumps back in a truck. Now sales has suffered because we found out he did half of the selling. So now he's in a truck and he can't sell, but we can't bring back the other two or we think we can't because they're not talking to you until after we get off of this call. Uh, but it's this catch 22 of now, we have to get him back out of a truck. So how does that happen? Like how do we get him back out of the truck?

Speaker 2: Well, the way to get him out of the truck is first of all, having a little bit of a mindset conversation, right. To understand that are you a business owner or are you an expensive employee of your business? Right?

Clarence Fisher: Mm-hmm mm-hmm .

Adi Klevit: So he goes, okay. Yeah, I do wanna get out of the truck. I can see that he doesn't work. So the way that you do that is documenting basically the knowledge transfer and documenting everything that he does that is successful when he is in the track. And then once that is documented, you hire the right people by using a correct hiring process, and then you train them, but you have the basically we create a manual, we create a textbook and we create also a way of training. So you train them and now they're trained and they can get into track instead of the owner.

Clarence Fisher: Okay. And so that's the same process, and I'm sorry, I'm just throwing these at you. Yeah. Because this was not scripted at all.

Adi Klevit: no, it's great.

Clarence Fisher: And I'm thinking, cuz I have another guy who he is the only guy in the, he has one truck or he has two, one is sideline he's for the person that he wants to hire. Uh, but he can't bring himself to make that leap. So he is in the truck. He makes very good money, but there, I there's that mindset, I think there's that mindset, but then there's also the, I don't want to take the couple of hours a day to create these processes but that's what you do. That's, that's what you come in to do for them. Right?

Adi Klevit: Right. But that's an interesting question. Let's take that question. I don't wanna take a few hours in my day to create those processes and you're right. I do that for them. It's kind of like saying, I don't wanna do my bookkeeping, but you have to see hire a bookkeeper.

Clarence Fisher: Right, right, right.

Adi Klevit: But the question is, can you afford not writing those processes? What is the other alternative? Because if you can afford it, it's not the right time for you to do it. I mean, that's another question that you should ask yourself as a business owner. But if you go, I cannot afford not having processes and procedures because that means that I am going to continue working 60 hours a day, or 80 90. And people probably hear us and say 60, that's like a vacation. Okay. Right. So 90 hours a week, 80 hours a week now I don't see my family.

Adi Klevit: I can take a vacation. What will happen if I even dream about taking a two week vacation, and not working, no, I'm not talking about vacation where you actually on glue to the phone and the computer and your family's like, come on, go away with us and you go, no, I can't because I'm gonna lose my business. Right. So don't kid yourself that you are in Hawaii, but you are working 12 hours a day or even six hours a day when you actually should be vacationing. All those things you should ask yourself, can I afford not to have it? So yeah, maybe you can't afford a time, but look at it from the other way. It's like, can you really not afford a time? You know, because even if you work with me, you can, you still have to put a time in. You have to put a time. What we do is we make it very concise and very, to the point. So, you know, you don't have to think about where to start. You don't have to think about how to document. We just, all you need is show up for an interview. We interview you and we extract the knowledge and not just you as the business owner, also talking to the other employees. But anyway, that is an answer to the question.

Clarence Fisher: Yeah. This is so awesome. As you're talking, I'm thinking about the one we went to Disney world. This was, I don't know, five years ago, five, six years ago. And um, finally got to the point where I was able to take everybody to Disney world. It's one of those things and kind of the, everybody was happy to go, grandkids, happy to go. But the single silent tier for me was when we got through the gate and just to see everyone run. Right. So it's kinda like this, oh my goodness. We did it. Right. But I was on the phone on Slack between every ride, as we're standing, waiting for the ride and they're like, pop you're, you're ruin it. You're ruin. You're ruin it. You know? And like, well, I gotta get this call and I gotta get this and I gotta get, and I knew it, like, I, I felt horrible, but I had to, and there were, I felt like I had to. Right. And so things had to change when we got back. But what you're speaking to is so real.

Adi Klevit: Yeah. Yeah. You know, this is why I I'm doing what I'm doing. Like, you know, my background, I'm an industrial engineer and that's how I got started my career over 25 years ago. So I'm always, always did process and process improvement. And I used to work in the semi conducting industry. And then I worked, I had two business of my own. I managed a big company. I worked for an international consulting company. So it's different things that I've done throughout my career. And then in 2011, I decided to start my own company and I was doing general business consulting, cuz I'm really good at it. You know, I definitely love implementing business systems and coaching and partnering with my clients, not as a business partner, but you know, partnering on the journey to make sure that they're doing well.

Adi Klevit: And then what I realized is that I can be there and I can give advice, very valuable advice that I know will work, but then it doesn't get implemented. And that's what got me. I said, they're paying me money and I'm giving them advice and strategy and I know it will work, but it just doesn't get implemented because they just don't have the time and they are wearing too many hats. So then I go, okay, there is a huge need to actually create business playbooks and create, implement, create document and implement processes and procedures. So you know that within three months you're gonna have that particular sales department fully documented or the HR department fully documented, or how you do customer service or how you handle customers fully documented without you having to spend time, figure out how to write, how to figure it out.

Adi Klevit: How can it be shared with everyone that is being taken away from you. You know, it's kind of like doing, can you imagine doing your own taxes? No. mm-hmm but you know what, if you don't give the information to the CPA, he would not be able to do the taxes. You know, right now we are, I'm sure this can be an evergreen process. And there is always some kind of a tax season. So that you need to submit the documents to your CPA. You have to find the time to do that. But the truth is is that if you're organized, if you have a process, it shouldn't take that long. It's not fun, but it shouldn't take that long. And then it's up to them to the CPA to process your taxes, same thing here, you have to commit to a time and then it gets done.

Clarence Fisher: I'm curious. Have you been able to create that documentation in one vertical and just offer that, like say you work with a plumber and create a set of processes, and then now you have a set of processes for plumbers.

Adi Klevit: You know, it's a good question. We work with many industries in similar industries. What we gain is the knowledge and the experience of how businesses work well, but we definitely tailor made it to our customers, to our clients because it's not one size fit all. I mean, I can take one planning company and tell 'em, okay, now you use it for your planning company because they have the own way of doing it. And it's very important to me that when we document something for our clients, we take into consideration, what's important for them. What's their, why what's their culture? You know, like let's say we work with many, um, creative agencies, marketing agencies, but you know, what's important for you is not what important for the other person and what you take pride of and your secret sauce. Cause that's what we are good at is extracting that secret sauce.

Clarence Fisher: Mm-hmm .

Adi Klevit: who you are, your why, how do you do things, the language that you like, things written, and another example, we work with many property management companies as an example. So yes, you know, there is like the basic process of like, you need to onboard owners, you need to onboard tenants, you need to do the lease agreement. You need to manage the tenants, you have the move in the move out. I mean, you have the maintenance, so I know what the key processes are, but then I will go, how do you do it? Right? How do you market to your owners? How do you treat your owners? You know, it's like, whatever it is, it's different maybe the way you do inspection. I mean, I know that there should be an inspection done. So I will ask you how do you do inspections, but it's, it's really tailor made to the individual.

Clarence Fisher: Okay. Very cool. So what, what are some of the biggest myths out there when it comes to systematizing a business?

Adi Klevit: That it's hard to do that it's impossible to do, which I don't think so. I mean, you just need to, don't know how to do it. That the other myth is like business owner thinking I'm the only one who can do it, which is no, because it's not true because if that's the case, it's gonna be take a long time to do.

Clarence Fisher: mm-hmm .

Adi Klevit: So if you have a team, I mean, if you are the only one in the business, you are the only one in the business, but then again, that's not the time to document, cause you need to start hiring, you need to start getting more like expand. But it's, you can always use an employee that you wanna clone and interview them or get them to do it. In terms of like, I'm the only one who can do it or it takes, or it's impossible.

Adi Klevit: It takes time, it does take time, but it doesn't have to be impossible. There are many ways of doing it. Like we can record a video, like for an example, I just work with the CPA that just before tax season, right. He decided that he wants to document these processes and procedures because he's expanding and growing. Said okay, here's what we're gonna do. We're gonna create infrastructure. Meaning we are gonna identify your core processes in the business. We're gonna figure out the step by step procedures of what you do. But the how and the actual details, what you're gonna do is you are doing it during doing taxes. You're gonna record a video and you're gonna put the video under each step. And then when taxes is done, then we can take it and we can take those videos and translate it into a step by step procedures. But that was a great way to do it. And we got it all done before he became really busy for taxes.

Clarence Fisher: That is a, a killer, uh, oh, sorry, go ahead.

Adi Klevit: No, no, go ahead.

Clarence Fisher: I was saying that's a, a, a killer tip, right there is to record that video as you're doing it and you don't have to break as much to create the steps. Yeah,

Adi Klevit: Yeah, for sure. And then what we like to do is we actually take the videos and we translate it into step by step. Because if you're teaching somebody that don't always wanna watch, like a five, six minute video, even 30 minutes video, however, it takes long, it takes you to do it, right. Cause then you are, Hmm. I don't know this screen, not that screen. So, but we, we can work with it. You know, you, you give us the video, we create the procedure and then maybe we'll have you rerecord it from beginning to end without any mistakes. Right. You know, and other myth is like, my staff is not gonna like processes or I'm creative. So I don't need processes, processes are going to block my creativity. And that's a myth because I think processes are actually going to increase the creativity because it will take the actions that actually has to be, have to be repeated and will save you time.

Adi Klevit: I mean, Clarence, let's take an example of what happened today. Like in terms of you sending that interview questions was last minute, right. Which is fine. And it didn't bother me, but you said, you said it. So that's why I'm taking that example. So you know, you are creative, but let's say you have the process of interviewing and you send the questions ahead of time. So it's always, okay. I send the questions, like, let's say three days ahead of time, I guess have time to prepare. I get it back. My assistant processes it. She tells me what's important. I'm already smooth. Okay. You don't follow the process. You send it last minute. Now you go, okay. I don't know, is it you gonna be mad at me or not? I mean, is she gonna have the answers? Maybe she doesn't know how to speak.

Adi Klevit: And she had to like rehearse in front of the mirror for two hours and I didn't give her enough time. And now all this time is being wasted on thinking about it. But then also let's say you get a guest that cannot be spontaneously, just speaking. Then you are wasting your time, their time. And the interview is not as good. And the listeners don't like it, et cetera. You see, you have those things that interfere. And honestly, it's also like being creative in a creative agency. You know, you need data from your clients, right? I mean when you are going to do AdWords or you are gonna set up a referral program, you're gonna figure out their website, optimize it, whatever it is, you need to know, you need to have data from them, cuz otherwise it's not gonna work. Mm-hmm if you don't have a system on how to actually gather that data, you are going to basically waste a lot of time. And instead of being able to service several clients at the time, you're gonna be able to service one and chasing them. So there is no creativity in that, but let's take it on the other hand, if you actually had a system, very, very, a system that is very good and being followed, then you can have five clients at the same time, but you can also spend your time being creative as opposed to creating your processes every single time.

Clarence Fisher: Oh, and I am so thankful that you are such a professional and know what you're doing because, because everything that you said that could have gone wrong could have gone wrong, because, and especially for creatives, it's when we say, like I said, Hey, I'm super interested in this interview. I want to dig deeper and get creative in this and that. And step outside of the process that, that allows us to, like you said, keep things rolling because over the past 12 years that we've been in business in order to stay in business, I've had a lot of heartache and going through exactly what you're saying, collecting information. So we had processes and autoresponders and all that stuff that does that collection, but it was so hard earned. I mean, it was, it was almost going out of business earned you know? Yeah,

Adi Klevit: For sure. For sure. I mean, it is, it is a really hard one knowledge, hard work to get that knowledge. And that is a key component of a business is having that technology. And honestly, one of the, you know, there is a lot of things that, to be said about time management and blocking time on your calendar and that system or that system or that system, but having the right technology of how to do something will save you a lot of time. You know, just like what I said if you have the, the procedure on how to get data from the clients and it works every single time or how to onboard a client, then that the client is being onboarded correctly that they have a great experience, you know, you want them from the start because they go, wow, this is an agency that is gonna take care of me.

Clarence Fisher: Absolutely. I'm I'm so glad that we've met now. What about cost? How, I mean, is it because I know, I thought that I would lose not only time, but lose money by doing this

Adi Klevit: Lose money. You mean like internally in the business?

Clarence Fisher: Yeah. Because I'm because the time that I'm taking to do this, I'm not doing something else.

Adi Klevit: Of course. So that's where you have to do, look at it as an investment, it's not cheap, but it's an investment, you know, we are basically like the time that you do that. I mean, it's like any outer service, like, you know, again, the CPA, I mean the CPA is kind of like a given because I don't know who is gonna sit down and do their taxes. It'll take you like, I mean, I, I don't know if anybody can even duplicate anymore how to do taxes by themselves. Right. I remember the first, like back in college, when you can do the 10 40 easy, but then it becomes definitely not easy. You can't figure it out. So that's maybe a bad example. Like if you need a lawyer, you're not gonna go and do it yourself.

Adi Klevit: Right. But some people like, let's say they have, like, I know how to do bookkeeping, but would I do my own bookkeeping? No, because it takes time. It's not worth my time. I can get a professional to do that. Right.

Clarence Fisher: H-hmm,

Adi Klevit: It's the same thing with, any like,ow, okay. So I can go and learn marketing, but I'm not going to do that. You know, I'm gonna hire you. So it's kind of like, it's a, it's the same concept of, and even simple things like at your home, I mean, are you going to clean it yourself? Are you gonna hire a house cleaner? You know, mean, that's the first thing. One of the things that I off boarded off my plate was hire a house cleaner because the three and I love cleaning. It's not a problem. Right. But I don't wanna do it that often because the three hours that I can clean my house, I can actually use it in order to spend quality time with my family, work on something that is worthwhile, you know, so you really need to figure out like, what's, your time is worth. And where is your genius zone? If your genius zone is the right processes and procedures, go ahead and do that. If it is not, then don't do it.

Clarence Fisher: Very cool. I like that. What do you think are some of the pitfalls and mistakes that people make when they are creating the processes themselves?

Adi Klevit: So what I hear most, cause I ask that question, like I ask my clients or business owners, what do you think? And they say, well, you know, it's the, not enough or too much. So some of them go into like details. They can write like 200 page on one step of the process and then go nowhere. And others are like, not enough, just like the right award or two or sentence. And then people cannot really understand or do anything with it. That's a pitfall, a pitfall. Another pitfall is putting it in different folders or different places and it's not organized. So definitely having one centralized place and using a process documentation software is extremely important. So that is one another pitfall. And, and the main one, I really think it's, making sure that it's being implemented, cuz you can write the most beautiful processes and procedures, but if it's not followed by the team, if it's not accepted, if it is, um, forgotten or nobody uses it, no reason to actually write processes and procedures.

Clarence Fisher: That is so awesome. We have a recurring task once a week that uh, something has to be done by the process. Like just pick a process. I don't care what it is, but we have to go by the process. And I can't tell you, well, you know, this, how many times something is either out of date or they've most often discovered a better way to do it. Yeah and then update it. Yeah. That's, that's great. That's great.

Adi Klevit: I mean the same thing with my processes in my company, I apply that, you know, I, I do a review and, and every time we discover something new, then one of my staff goes and updates it. But it has to be, you have to be all the time. And even then when I do the review, I like, oh yeah, this is, that step is a little bit out, you know, outdated because now we do it differently or we have a different software, et cetera. So it's definitely the periodical review is extremely important

Clarence Fisher: For someone like me. It seems so boring though, to ,

Adi Klevit: But you know what, that's why we have the way I look at it. You know, it's like that famous diagram, you have the business owner in the middle as a circle and then you have like those lollipops, right? You have like that line with another circle and a line with another circle and you have all the trusted advisors that you need to have in order to make it holistic and make it as a whole. Because if we were all into processes, nobody will produce and nobody will market and we'll just go and write and organize. So that's why the right synergy is taking somebody who can push the production. Somebody that behind organizing somebody that is pushing the demand, creating the demand and pushing the people in, in terms of marketing, somebody handle the finances, somebody handling the IT. Like I know I would not be even be able to conceive, fixing the IT or creating IT systems, but there are people that's their passion. And I, I so admire it because we work well together, but I need that complement, the skill.

Clarence Fisher: Absolutely. So can you gimme an example of how you've helped someone go from help one of your clients overcome these obstacles that we've been talking about?

Adi Klevit: Sure. So one of my clients, you know, he's a contractor and when I started working with him, he was basically wearing so many hats. He was, it, he had staffed, he had a pretty successful company, but he was just overworked. The same example you gave with the vacation, not able to take a vacation or kidding himself that they can have a vacation, but it's not really family complaining about it. You know, the quality of life, you know, there was no ending view because he was making money, but there was no quality of life. And when is that gonna end? You know, so he's in his forties. I mean, is that gonna end when he's retiring, but how is that gonna end? You know, when is retiring gonna happen and how can you even sell the business when it's so dependent on the owner, right?

Adi Klevit: I mean, that's also a great consideration on make your business. If the business is a turnkey operation and operates without you, it's much easier to sell. So that's another one. So we start working together, we start documenting, you know, I had my weekly meetings with him. I interviewed him, I interviewed his staff. We start writing those procedures. And as we were doing it, you can see that he saw, oh yeah, this one now can be totally delegated to that person. Or that procedure can be done by this person. Or this procedure is actually not necessary. We can have a subcontractor, we can communicate what needs to be done, but it doesn't have to be done internally. So we basically document, we started with operations and then we documented sales and then we documented HR and then we documented how they're actually running the company in terms of meetings and the meeting cadence and all of that.

Adi Klevit: And we did all of that. And then it was able to see like how to actually shift this business model to something that is more profitable and did fantastic and actually hiring a great marketing company. And then they created more demands. So the business extended even more and at the process of doing that, he was able to actually open another two businesses while maintaining that amazing lifestyle of not, I mean, I saw his time blocking. I mean, it's amazing. It's like he's working certain hours during the week and that's it. And that is a success, you know, because now he's able to take a vacation without working. I know cuz I spoke to his wife and I know that that's happening.

Clarence Fisher: that is awesome. And then thanks., you already, uh, shared with us how, you know, how you were inspired to do this and thanks for sharing that, um, you were successful before you started your business. Um, is there a lesson that you learned early on that still kind of resonates in effects the way you do business now?

Adi Klevit: You know, I think the lesson is that I can't do it all. You know, I cannot do it myself and the business cannot rely on me. You know, it's like one thing that I learned in, even before starting my business as an employee, when I was working for a cons in a consulting company and even, even when I was running a business and had my own two, it's always empower the people that you're surrounded by, because that is the only way that your clients or your contacts will trust them. So I either as an employer, like when I was working even as an employee myself, but I still had direct reports, I would hire them. So I would hire people that I can trust that I can actually have them service our clients. And when I would pass a client to one of the consultants that were working for me, I would always make sure to explain why I chose that consultant.

Adi Klevit: It's honest, you know, you can't lie on that, but really choose the right personality, the right person, you know that they're gonna take really good care of them and really empower that person to do that. So don't pass it on to one of your direct reports or your employees or your staff, and then try to micromanage and see what if they're doing. Okay. You know, trust the people, train them, trust them and let them go with it. You know, that, that is something that I learned and that is very valuable because that is the way you are actually gonna grow the business. You can't micromanage or be suspicious or not trust your people.

Clarence Fisher: Very cool. Thank you so much for your time. And closing two questions here for you. One is what is the most important question that we may have already answered this, but what's the most important question that a business owner needs to ask themselves as they consider systematizing their business in a way I, I guess we, we talk about that as do I want to grow. Yeah.

Adi Klevit: But I think in closing it's the question is like, can I afford not to and do I, do I wanna grow? You know, it's gonna do I wanna grow. Okay, good. Can I afford not having systems? If the answer is now I cannot afford it. Like not, not afford paying for getting the systems done. What I'm saying is afford not having the systems in the business, then do something about it.

Clarence Fisher: And then what do they need to consider when they're thinking of, when they're talking with consultants like you, like what's the biggest thing to look for?

Adi Klevit: I think it's like the rapport, like really getting along with that person, seeing that, that person can understand, uh, business processes and they can actually extract the data. Seeing examples of work, looking at the website, looking at testimonials, you know, we have several, we have testimonials like with names of actual clients. And I tell my prospective clients, you can talk to any of them and talk to them. It's just a matter of like really looking at, okay, what is the final product? And do I want that final product and how is it gonna get achieved?

Clarence Fisher: Okay, cool. I'm on your side, you are very transparent with everything there. So that's, that's great to see.

Adi Klevit: Yeah. We have to have like a partnership with our clients, you know, it's it's, we are there for their success. You know, we want to be successful. So, you know, our success is the success of our clients. You know, if our clients are not happy, then we are not doing what we need to do. You know, it's not like I can sell them something and then disappear. It's no, it's like, I am there to do the job. So if it's not getting done, we are not successful. And you know, so yeah.

Clarence Fisher: So where does the energy come from? Have you always had this, this energy or is it like, I don't know, you're vegan or something or like what,

Adi Klevit: No, I'm not vegan. I do the keto diet, but I don't think that's, but that's, that's just a side. Um, you know, it's me.

Clarence Fisher: Yeah. So that's awesome. It's contagious. It's contagious. Thank you. I'm gonna be on my next call. Like, yeah. Alrighty. So how can we find out about you in the business success consulting group, where do you want to send us?

Adi Klevit: So go to bizsuccesscg.com. So that's bizsuccesscg.com. You can call us at (503) 662-2911. And LinkedIn Adie Klevit. I think there is only one Adie Klevit. So it's Adie K L E V I T. Many ways to reaches.

Clarence Fisher: Awesome. Thank you.

Adi Klevit: Call Clarence. And he will connect us.

Clarence Fisher: Oh, for sure. and I will put the link in the show notes and thanks so much for tuning in until next week. Go do what you need to do in order to own the block.

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