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Effortlessly Productive
Welcome to Effortlessly Productive with Annie Veblen McCarty, where we dive into the art and science of mastering your time and boosting your productivity without the burnout.
Join Annie as she explores practical tips, strategies, and mindset shifts to help you streamline your tasks, prioritize effectively, and get more done with less stress.
Whether you're juggling work, family time, or just trying to find more time for what matters most, our conversations will empower you to work smarter, not harder.
Tune in and discover how to make productivity not just a goal, but a way of life!
Effortlessly Productive
How Creating Simple Business Systems Can Transform Your $3K Months into $20K Months
Are you trapped in the daily grind of your business, constantly putting out fires and wondering why your strategy isn't translating into sustainable growth? The missing piece might not be what you think.
Most entrepreneurs focus intensely on strategy—perfecting their social media posts, crafting launches, and fine-tuning their messaging. Yet many overlook the critical foundation that makes those strategies work: business systems. Without proper structure, even the best strategies become exhausting to implement and impossible to scale.
This episode reveals the transformative power of implementing business systems that create both time and energy freedom. We explore the key difference between strategy (what you do) and structure (how you organize it), showing how this shift in thinking can take you from chaotic $3K months to consistent $20K months without working harder.
From lead generation systems that automatically bring new prospects into your world to customer care processes that maintain strong client relationships, we break down the essential business systems every entrepreneur needs. You'll discover how to identify which system will create the biggest immediate impact for your unique business situation, creating a domino effect that solves multiple challenges at once.
The real magic happens when your business systems free up your time and mental bandwidth. That's when you can focus on the high-impact activities that truly move the needle—whether that's developing new offers, connecting with dream clients, or simply enjoying more time away from your business.
Ready to transform your business from constantly demanding to consistently delivering? This episode provides the roadmap to building systems that work for you, not the other way around. Your future self will thank you for the freedom and profitability these changes create.
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So we are going to talk a little bit about some business systems today, and first I want to spend a little bit of time talking about when we think about business systems, for a lot of people our brain actually goes to strategy, because strategy has been pounded down our throat by so many people. So a lot of the time we're talking about business systems and people start to think about like, okay, well, I post every single day on social media, I do reels, I post in my stories. Maybe I'm making offers in my stories, maybe I'm making offers in my stories. I am like launching this program at this time. Or you know, I have this product that I'm selling. This is how I sell those things.
Speaker 1:All of that is really actually a strategy. We need strategy 100%. If your messaging is shit, people are not going to buy from you, people are not going to be attracted to you, people are not going to want to work with you. If you're not posting at all on social media, or you're not in your DMs or having conversations with people or doing launches and it's not that any one of these things has to be the right thing for you, but yeah or if you're super inconsistent with these, yes, your business is going to struggle. You aren't gonna have the strategy to make the sales, to get the clients to have the thriving business that you want to have, to have these beautiful people coming into your world who need your help so badly and who you would just absolutely love to work with. However, a lot of people again, we jump to this strategy I'm going to do all these things, but we don't have any kind of structure in place to make those strategies easy, to make those strategies effortless, like that chaos we feel in our business. A lot of the time we have that chaos going on because there's no structure to what we're doing. We're literally waking up and being like, oh my God, like I talked about, what fires am I putting out today? What are all the things I have to do? It's not so much looking at this overview from a very top level and being like, okay, this is working. Let's analyze this system, let's see what's working here. It literally is just in the business. I have to make a post, I have to share on stories. I have to work on this launch. I have to like, maybe I am building a sales page which is like more of actually a business system, but it's like all these things do, do, do, do, do, do, do, and there's no structure to it, and a lot of people also don't have any kind of automated structure either. So we can have structures in place that are more manual and those are 100% necessary to keep us organized. We can also have structures in place that are automated, which are amazing.
Speaker 1:Now, we don't want to automate everything. There are certain things that have to have a human touch. The community is important to us. That connection is important. However, there are certain things in our business that, if we can automate them and they start to run in the background without us having to touch them, we can all of a sudden free up so much time, but also so much energy, and so that's what I want you to start to think about as we think about business systems. Where are some areas in your business and maybe you have a great strategy for it, but you don't have any structure, you don't have any systems and you don't have any automation for the things we want to automate.
Speaker 1:Again, it's not that we have to automate every single thing in our business. We can have these structures in place for even the things that we do manually. That's going to make our job as the CEO of our business, as that leader of our business, be so easy, because we don't have to spend so much time and energy thinking about it every single day. There's that structure in place for us to just get it done or have a VA get it done, hire somebody to get it done for us and we have all of a sudden all this extra time freedom and that energy freedom and we can now use all of that. Yes, to like spend more time on us, to spend more time with our family, to go on vacation, to unplug, like think about the summer coming up.
Speaker 1:I know a lot of us would love to have some unplug time over the summer. Right, I know I would. I'm going to have three kids at home and we have not done the summer camp thing like we usually do. So I'm like, okay, we're going to be spending a lot more time with the kids this summer. They're older, so it should, in theory, be a little bit more smooth, but also recognizing it's not not every day is going to be totally smooth. So we want to have that.
Speaker 1:And also, I am sure, if I ask every single one of you, there is something in your business that if I gave you a week of time and energy, you would be like, oh my God, I would absolutely love more than anything in the world to launch that program. That's been on my heart for the last year, two years, five years. I would love to go out and find a couple of one-on-one clients who would be my dream clients to work with. I would love to, you know, create this new thing that's going to help so many people. I would love to learn a little bit extra. There's this program I've been wanting to take to make myself better and more knowledgeable.
Speaker 1:So we have these things in our business as well that once we can start to free up some of that time and energy because we have the structures in place, like that's how our business explodes. That's how we go from maybe you're at $500 a month, maybe you're at $1,000, $3,000, $5,000. That's how we take that amount every month and explode it up to $20,000 months. Who in here would love to be if you were making $20,000 a month or $30,000 a month? That would literally be life-changing for you and your family. Yeah, and even if it's not that that's your only income, but that like if that is supporting and adding extra. Think about all the things in your life and in your business that you would do with that extra. Like 20 to 30K a month Like game changer, right? Like 20 to 30K a month like game changer, right.
Speaker 1:So part of the reason why it feels so hard right now and so much effort and it doesn't feel like ease is because we have a lot of strategy but we probably don't have a lot of structure. I think a lot of the time we look at these people who are earning a million dollars a year in their business or multi-million dollar year and we're like I know I am made for more. I know in theory I am capable of that, but I don't know the path to get from where I am making our like $500,000, $3,000 a month up to making a million dollars a year. Like it's just not mathing. It doesn't make sense. The time and energy and effort and hard work that I put in right now. I can't like 100X. That it's just not possible. How we 100X that is by creating that time and energy for ourselves, by putting these structures in place, putting these systems in place, and then with that extra time and energy, we earn more income so that then we can compound that even more, that we can put even more structures in place. We can start to run ads, we can hire a team, we can, and then you have even more time and energy to go out there. That is how you get to that million, multi-million a year, and right now it looks very fuzzy, right, it looks like it doesn't even make sense that that would even be possible, but that's how we do that, and so it is a journey, it is a path, it is a road that we will have to navigate and follow. However, where we need to start right now is figuring out just a couple of simple things that we can start to put a little bit of structure behind in our business.
Speaker 1:This is one of the trickier things with teaching business systems is every single one of you has a very different business than each other. And what one person? Maybe some of you already have a lead magnet opt in and you're like I have leads flowing in like crazy, but I, just, I literally don't have a lead magnet opt-in. And you're like I have leads flowing in like crazy, but I, just, I literally don't have a system to like get these people into my programs, like they're coming in but I'm not launching, I'm not selling to them, I'm not helping them, I'm not like one-on-one coaching them, like I literally don't have that. Or maybe you're like I have all the time in the world, but they're like I have all the time in the world, but they're like nobody's coming into my world, nobody new is coming in. I'm talking to the same people over and over, so every single person is going to have a little front place that they need to work on. However, I have taught enough entrepreneurs.
Speaker 1:There are some things that probably we all share in common. So number one, the awareness to the like strategy versus structure thing, so that we are starting to be more clear about that in our mind. Because once we're more clear about that in our mind, we can start to recognize like, oh, that's a strategy, but I need some structure to it. My day feels like chaos because I need to start to bring in a little bit of structure and then we can start to. Also, as we go through some of these business systems, I want you to start to think about what would make the biggest difference for you right now, and all of them is not an acceptable answer today. Some. I am all about the and like, and, and, and, and and.
Speaker 1:However, when we are talking about building things in our business again, because we don't have unlimited time and energy, it's not infinite we need to start to focus. That's part of that CEO mindset is prioritizing. Like a CEO, we need to start to be able to think about what is going to be the biggest impact right now. That maybe is then going to also take care of some of the other things, the other challenges that we're facing in our business right now, because if we can knock that one thing down, these other things are going to follow like a domino right. So I just want to chat with you guys for a few minutes about some of the different kinds of systems that we can start to build in our business that will start to add a little bit of structure and will start to make your business easier.
Speaker 1:And I want, as we talk about this, I want you to very much like obviously think with your head, think logically, think like a CEO, and I also want you to feel in your body too. How would it feel if you woke up in the morning and that was just taken care of in your business, like you knew when you woke up that this one thing you didn't really have to think about it or worry about it because it was there. And so, like Jenna said so, lead generation is one of them. So when we talk about lead generation, that is new people coming into our world, that is finding our dream, not just dream clients, but dream people that we just want to do life with, that, we want to spend time with that, we want to help that, we want to serve that, we want to create this legacy with. So imagine having a business system where you knew that these people were coming into your world, coming in for you to be able to serve them, and this is one that we can autopilot all the way, guys. We can automate this super, super easily. So maybe this looks like more followers on your social media. Maybe it looks like more people on your email list. Maybe this looks like people downloading a free opt-in, a free guide that you have created that's literally going to change everything that they think of, literally like people just coming in. This can look like ads to bring people in as well, but it doesn't have to be ads. That can be a step a little bit further on down the road, and this is why I said this gets a little bit tricky, because each one of us it's going to be a little bit different. Right, it's going to look a little bit different.
Speaker 1:Like some of you, you're a master. Like, if people are on your Instagram, you're like I can load my program up. I can sell my products all day long. I can help these people. I just need them coming into my social media. Others of you, you're like I don't want to spend any more time on social media. I want to get them over to my email list. Like, let's go, I would rather serve them over there. I would rather run masterclasses.
Speaker 1:There's so many different things we can do to bring people into our world and help them get to know us better. We can also have business systems for delivering our offers having, like, I'm in the process of separating out the meditation. So if you're like I just want to do that meditation, I just want to do that tapping, like you can have just those little portions. That is a system that we are putting in place to help you guys be able to access that offer much more quickly and easily, and it's not like I have to manually send every single one of you, every single replay that we're doing. Right, that's a system to deliver that. And think about every single one of your offers, or the offers that you've dreamed of, the offers that haven't even come into your mind yet, that are just waiting there. Think about how we are going to deliver those, but in a way that's easy, a way that feels easy and a way that's easy for your clients as well. So that leads into customer care. Right?
Speaker 1:Do you have systems in place to take care of your customers, to take care of your clients? This can look like if you are like a one-on-one coach, how do you get them their calls, the recordings of their calls? Do you get them recordings of their calls? And if you don't, that's okay. Not everybody has to offer recordings of their calls, but if that's something you choose, how are you getting that to them? Are you taking notes and getting them the notes from the calls somehow? Are you keeping track of what like homework you've given them for next time so we can start to think about? If people are in our programs, are we checking in to make sure that they were able to access that? That's an example of customer care Just having a telegram group to support all access it. That's an example of customer care. Just having a Telegram group to support all of you, that's an example of customer care, because we know that we can interact with you guys and get that feedback and share things even more powerfully in there than you guys just looking at things in a member library.
Speaker 1:So start to think about the systems that you either have or would love to have to take care of your customers. And again, I want you guys also really leaning in to which one of these. Maybe you're like I don't have any customers right now and any clients. Well, we don't have to worry about customer care right now, like we're going to hit on one of these other things and that's okay. We are all in very different places in our business and have again that domino that's going to knock all the rest of them down.
Speaker 1:Client onboarding is another one. So when a client joins your programs, your one-on-ones, when they order your product, how are you making sure that they get off on the right foot to have success with that? How are you making sure that they know when the calls are? How are you making sure they know how to use the product that you just sent them that onboarding process. It is similar to customer care, but it's like a very important piece of the puzzle. That's why I separated it out, to make sure that, as somebody comes in and pays you for the first time or joins a challenge like this when they come into your world and say yes to something for the first time, how are you making sure that they know what to do, what the expectations are, where to find everything, how to connect with you? So that's something we can start to have business systems.
Speaker 1:On Content yeah, we still have to write our content and post it, but do you have a system to actually make sure that you are keeping up with the posts and reels and stories that you want to have? Are keeping up with the posts and reels and stories that you want to have? If you have an email list and are doing email marketing, do you actually have a plan for your emails and do you have a system to keep track and keep you accountable? Like I know, every single day when I wake up because I have a system in place I wake up and I'm like, okay, I'm sending an email on this today. That's something I have to write. It has to go on my to-do list I don't have to think about. Am I sending an email? What am I sending it on? I don't know what am I posting on social media today? Am I doing a reel? Am I doing a carousel post? I plan all of that out and I have a system like a very structured system. I also have a podcast.
Speaker 1:So within that content creation thing, I have a system that keeps track of like podcasts, podcast emails that I'm sending out and it's all in one so I can look every single day and see here's every bit of content that I am creating and sending today, or I can just look at one channel. Do you have something in place where you're not having to wake up every morning and recreate the wheel and make every all of those decisions, or have you made those decisions in advance and have a system that supports you with those Client upgrades? A system that supports you with those Client upgrades upsells would be like a marketing term. Do you have a system in place that when somebody finishes one of your programs, that you upsell them into your next thing? Do you have a system in place that when leads are coming in, that once they sign up for it. They are then given the option to buy, like, maybe a low ticket item on the back end. We can start to systematize this and that's part of where that income starts to roll in and multiply itself, because once somebody becomes the customer, there's a saying a customer in motion stays in motion. Once somebody is paid for something, they are so much more likely to be like oh my God, that was amazing Like Alicia literally just changed my life. What can I do next with her? And if we don't have a system in place, then we're relying on us to remember to reach out to them and ask if they want to take that next step with us. We can put a system in place to make sure that's done either automatically or that we don't have to think about it because it's already in a system to remind us to reach out to them.
Speaker 1:And very similarly, like collecting testimonials from people how many of you have a huge bank of testimonials because every single person you work with you've collected a testimonial from? I know this is one area I'll raise my hand. I fail at this. I will be completely honest. I completely fail at this because I have not had a system in place up until my like, very last couple of things that I created and I finally started putting an automated email that goes out to people after their last one-on-one call that asks for a testimonial.
Speaker 1:Think about that, so we can all have areas right.
Speaker 1:Like, I will fully admit, that is an area that I've not done a great job of systematizing.
Speaker 1:You have to actually have them in order to share them. That's my issue is, I'm like I would share them if I had them, but I haven't been great at collecting them. So that's definitely a system to think about. And then also referrals we can actually start to have systems to bring in referrals to have our best clients good people, no, good people right, our best clients are one of our best ways of meeting other people that are going to be the most amazing people in the world to work with and that we're going to have such a huge impact on as well. So this is definitely not like a full list. We can dive even deeper, but these are some major areas in a business where we can start to put structures and business systems in place and make things so, so, so much easier for ourselves so that we do have that time and energy to lean into the other things that we want to do and also to start to be able to unplug, and not just unplug, but unplug, trusting and knowing that our business is being taken care of.
