As soulpreneurs we put all of our heart & soul into our business, so much so that it becomes part of our identity, making it hard to actually ask for help. However, the truth is, as your business grows overtime, you simply will find that doing everything yourself will get overwhelming and actually inefficient, making you lose even more money & opportunities long term.

And I get you — it totally feels like nobody can manage your business better than you can, but the truth is, this is a limiting belief that’s holding you back from actually growing your business. Really what we need to be focused on is getting our internal processes cleaned up and sorted out, and then delegating them to someone who can do it even better than we can. 

Here’s how I did it and ended up getting back 15 hours per week of my life back!

So, what does it mean to scale your business?

This essentially means: serving more people at once. To do this, we need systems in place to support us. 

What is a system?

Your systems are your processes, methods or operations to increase efficiency and facilitate the day to day running of your business. Think: content distribution, client onboarding, bookkeeping, etc.— basically an operating procedure for recurring tasks. 

How are they related?

In short, you need systems and processes to be able to serve and manage an increased volume of business. Here’s the thing: a business without clear systems and processes in place is extremely difficult to scale, and becomes too overwhelming, which then leads us to burnout. We easily fall into this place when we’re stuck trying to do everything ourselves. 

4 Steps to Creating Intentional Systems

1. Start with the basics — Identify the necessary yet time-consuming recurring tasks & create SOP’s for them

These can be recurring tasks you find yourself doing often, that aren’t necessarily in your zone of genius, but are crucial for keeping your business going. Think: client onboarding, scheduling meetings / calls, bookkeeping and any other administrative tasks. 

Observe yourself over the next month, write out a list of the tasks you’re doing week over week— call it “Recurring SOP’s” and document your process for getting them done. A simple google doc will suffice for documenting this (you’ll eventually upgrade to a tool like ClickUp). 

Ok, let’s leave this here for now. We’ll come back in just a moment! 

2. Identify your Zone of Genius— and stay there.

What I mean is, the work you love to do and the work that only YOU can do. The essence of your business that requires YOU to show up. No one else can do this for you. What are those things? Think: creating new offers, holding space for your clients, showing up on social media, being creative, generating new ideas, collaborating with interesting brands and businesses— and ultimately keeping enough of your headspace free to actually show up for your business. If you’re bogged down by stuff you hate doing, you lose this space and miss out on some magic. 

And look, if you LOVE writing marketing emails or blog posts (like I do), add those here. The idea is to be doing what you love, while also prioritizing the stuff that only you can do. 

Just like above, write these down on your “Zone of Genius” list and add your fave emojis next to each thing. 

3. Now think of everything in between

Now let’s look at the stuff that falls somewhere in between the recurring stuff you dislike doing and your Zone of Genius. Think: content creation, preparing your newsletter, creating social media posts, scheduling your content to post, social media engagement, etc. Stuff that’s still recurring to some degree, that does require some skill, and at the same time it’s stuff you don’t love (that someone else can do for you). 

4. Make a plan to outsource

Here we go! So, starting with the basics — the recurring stuff you REALLY don’t want to be doing… we’re going to outsource that. By outsource, I mean, hiring a Virtual Assistant (VA) to take care of those things for you.

Va’s are life savers for soulpreneurs. The recurring admin tasks that are not within your zone of genius, are within their zone of genius. What I recommend is, to start outsourcing a few of your recurring tasks, aiming for 8-16 hours per week to start, depending on what you’ve got going on. You can easily find a VA by using a site like OnlineJobs.ph,  inside of Facebook Groups, or by asking around your soulpreneur friends. 

The key thing to making this work, is having systems and processes that they can follow when getting started. This is why it’s important to document your processes from the start and not wait until you’re slammed to think about it. 

I would also recommend organizing all of the tasks and processes in a tool like ClickUp, Asana or Trello so that they have a quick and easy way to access your SOP’s, see their tasks, and track progress. I would recommend a tool like Slack for maintaining communication (email isn’t idea for every day comms). 

Start small and grow

The key here is moderation. Start with a few processes, start with 1 VA and a handful of hours per week. Get that going well, get into a groove together and then increase as time goes on. I know this can be daunting at first, but I promise it’s worth it and you will be so happy you thought of this sooner than later! 

And of course, if you’d like support in growing your conscious business, I’m here for you. Check out my Private Coaching page to learn more about how I help you grow & scale your business.