L is for Leverage Systems: Getting What’s in Your Head Into the Business
A common theme with owners who are in demand is this - they are, frankly, very good at what they do.
Clients trust them.
The team leans on them.
They’ve built instincts and ways of working over years.
The problem is that most of that value lives in one place: their head.
That’s fine up to a point. Then it becomes a growth ceiling.
Because if the way the business works lives only in your head, the business can’t really function without you.
What I actually mean by “systems”
When some people hear “systems”, they picture either technology or a giant corporate manual with layers of bureaucracy.
That’s not what I’m interested in.
When I talk about systems with clients, I mean:
Simple, clear ways of doing recurring things
Written down in plain language
Good enough that someone else can follow them without you standing over their shoulder
Things like:
How you onboard a new client
How you qualify and follow up on leads
How you handle common issues
How you review what’s going on each week
Right now, you may just “do it” the way you always have. You know what good looks like, so you jump in and fix, decide, reassure, rescue.
It works – but it keeps you as the bottleneck.
How I think about leverage with clients
When I’m working 1:1 with an owner, we don’t try to systemise the entire business overnight. We’re looking for sensible leverage, not a complete reinvention.
Typically, we:
Identify a few key areas where:
Things go wrong more often than they should, or
You’re constantly being pulled back in
Pick one recurring process to start with. It might be:
Client onboarding
How proposals are put together
How a particular service is delivered
How you prepare for a standard type of meeting
Get it out of your head and into a simple format. That might look like:
Recording yourself doing it and talking through what you’re thinking
Turning that into a short checklist or sequence of steps
Adding a couple of “checks” so quality doesn’t slip
From there, we can test it:
Could a competent team member follow this with light support?
Does it make handovers easier?
Does it reduce how often you get dragged back into that process?
The goal isn’t a perfect, polished SOP library on day one. It’s one less part of the business that only works if you personally touch it.
A simple thought
Ask yourself:
“If I was away for two weeks, which part of the business would worry me most?”
That’s usually a good candidate for some light, practical systemisation.
In the final article in this series, we’ll look at Enjoy – making sure that as you build a clearer, more profitable, better‑run business, it actually supports the life you want, rather than consuming it.
