I have a confession to make…
While it’s true that I’m known as the “Automation guy” because I automated my business early on so that I could watch it grow in my sleep…
And it’s also 100% true that I was able to quit my job (before I got laid off!) in 2017 entirely because I had systems and processes in place for practically everything – especially scouting and sourcing…
There’s one thing I never automated until very recently…
And now that I have… my sales have almost doubled. Naturally, I feel like a dummy for not automating it before now.
I knew HOW to automate it…
I knew WHY I should automate it…
In fact, I have encouraged other people to automate it…
But I never did. Why? Because it’s about my money…
I’ve always had a phobia of turning control of my purse over to someone else
That phobia has meant that I never automated how I place orders with vendors.
Don’t get me wrong… everything AFTER the order is placed is automated.
The logistics, shipping, labels, Amazon shipments and so on…
But the actual act of running a forecast, generating a PO and getting it to a supplier? That’s all me, and it has been since the beginning…
So, why the sudden change? Honestly, it’s because I was very close to losing an account because I was doing a bad job of placing orders on time…
You see, I automated my business years ago so that I basically only have two jobs…
- Smile, shake hands and kiss babies (be the frontman for the business)
- Place orders (Because no one should touch my money… or so I thought)
Everything else I automated and have other people doing for me… That means my time working on the business has shrunk down to just a few hours a week…
With my free time, I started other businesses that needed more attention…
And I got distracted…
And I started screwing up and missing orders and letting stuff go out of stock.
Until one of my brands (who we are the exclusive seller for) told me in no uncertain terms “Hey Ian, thanks for everything you’ve done, but if you can’t stay in stock we need to find someone else who will”
Talk about a splash of cold water…
Believe it or not, I get myself into this situation all the time…
I believe that one of the universal truths of the world is that if you don’t like doing something… you will find reasons not to do it.
I first discovered this when it came to scouting and sourcing – man, I HATE doing that. It’s tedious and I would rather do anything else in the world than scouting and sourcing.
So, I found someone else to do it for me, and trained them to do it, and then automated it with SOPs, and suddenly I was flooded with accounts… Bingo.
Throughout the years since, whenever I find myself getting in the way of my own success, I gently remove myself from the situation and have someone else do it… easy.
So… I KNEW what I had to do to keep this account… but, my phobia… remember?
I decided to just let “Jesus take the wheel” and turned over the whole ordering and restocking process to my awesome virtual assistant…
It was uncomfortable, and I was terrified, but I put an approval step in the process so that I felt more in control…
Here comes the best part…
My VA’s run our financials every month (naturally) and after two months of letting my team do all of the ordering, my VA shot me a message and said..
“Hey sir… I was just checking our numbers from last month and our sales have doubled. Good job!”
She was telling ME good job when she was the entire reason for the sales doubling…
Who would have thought that staying in stock could have such a powerful impact on your business? (heavy sarcasm)
Anyway… I thought this was so cool that I wanted to share the SOP I use to have our restocks done right.
You can check it out by going here.
I built it using a software called Process.st which has been a game changer for my business.
If you try out Process.st and you love it, don’t sign up for an account until you check out Lesson 3 of the Masterclass because in that lesson I’ll tell you more about Process.st and share how you can use process.st for a real steep discount.