Jake works approximately 100 hours per week on his business. He wakes up at 7am, and his day ends at 10 pm. He doesn't actually end his day because he goes to sleep holding his iPhone while checking for new emails. His body is forced to dream about the daily grind that is about to start in just a few hours. Jake admits that he hates his business, he dreads it. He has no life, and he does not see the light at the end of the tunnel. It wasn't always like that. Jake remembers the day that he quit his job, and finally went to work for himself. He remembers feeling as though everything was going to be alright. He used to love working on his business, and putting in 15 hour daily shifts. He felt fulfilled and accomplished, working for himself.
Unfortunately for Jake, he cant stop now. He has too much time and money tied in his business, and he is committed to making it work. Besides, if he quits now, how is he going to pay his bills or address the newly developed OCD that his business forced him to undertake?
Jake, came to us and said, Ive read about Shopping Cart Elite, and I have a great feeling that this is what I need to get my life back and to get my business growing again. As much as I would have loved to close the sale on Jake, I knew that he needed something else before Shopping Cart Elite. Shopping Cart Elite is incredible software that can automate your business, but automate is a wildly overused word which most people dont fully understand, and many have never experienced it.
SOFTWARE AUTOMATION
Automation is not just about software, it is about accountability. For example, Shopping Cart Elite has 14 different apps to automate your internal operations. The chart below shows how the work flow process would work.
Shopping Cart Elite Apps Chart
Each app includes dozens of different steps to use it efficiently. It is true that if you dont use software to help you be more efficient, then you cant automate anything. It is just as true that if you dont have the right person at the right seat to use the software, then the software will not help you either.
Shopping Cart Elites commitment to our clients is we will solve your labor intensive, sleep depriving daily grind in your business in 30 days or less. It wouldve been, against our commitment and core values to advise Jake to move forward with Shopping Cart Elite, because it wouldnt solve his daily grind, it would just add more to his plate.
So what did we recommend to jake?
DAILY GRIND
Jake was already overwhelmed. The last thing he needs was another software, with another learning curve, just to realize that he has no time to use it. In addition, Jake suggested that since he is a technician, he can do everything himself. He can do the graphic design, data migration, store setup, and learn the new system, all the while running his 100 hour per week business.
It takes five people and a combined 200 hours for our team to complete the graphic design, data migration, store setup, and fine tune everything before launching the website. If Jake spent 2 hours per day, excluding weekends, to launch his website, it would take him five months to meet 200 hours. Now since, Jake is not an expert in graphic design and would need to go through the learning curve of our system, he would be lucky to launch the website in one year.
Shopping Cart Elite includes full VIP migration with graphic design, data migration and store setup at no charge with our annual plan. In fact, our Pro Plan has unlimited everything. Unlimited orders, unlimited employees, unlimited products, unlimited storage, unlimited bandwidth etc. We are the first hosted scalable Shopping Cart in the world that has a true fixed cost. Not only are we light years ahead of our competition on features, but we also end up costing 70% less, compared to any of our competitor solutions.
Did you know that 50% of new businesses never launch their website due to this challenge? One of our competitor advertises that they have 35,000 clients. What they should advertise on their homepage is that 17,500 clients started with us one year ago and they never went live, while still paying their bills.
Jake was thrilled that we could get his business up-and-running in 30 days or less, but he still had a problem. He was working 100 hours per week. So we advised him that he needs to do HUMAN AUTOMATION then SOFTWARE AUTOMATION.
What is Human Automation?
HUMAN AUTOMATION
Jake, why do you do all the work yourself?, I asked. Jake replied, Because I dont trust anyone to do it. Ive had so many unpleasant experiences where they just screwed up, and I cant afford that.
Why do people screw up?, and is there a way to make a bullet proof system where they cant screw up? If someone does end up screwing up on this bullet proof system, well then, the system is not bullet proof yet, and it needs to be fixed.
What if instead of blaming your worker, you blame the system? Then you can go and fix it, so it doesnt happen again. Ive wrote a blog post recently, and I will just copy a few paragraphs out of it below:
First let me explain to you what I mean by system. Some people refer to it as a process, work manual, daily task list, workflow, work guide, etc. I simply call it a system because I try to take all of those terms and combine it into something that works, a system.
McDonalds that sells Burgers is a great example of a system that works. If you open four locations right now, Los Angeles, New York, London, and New Delhi India, then you will need exactly three weeks to find low skilled, minimum wage workers from a Now Hiring window sign, and you will have a functional business that generates on average two million dollars per year per location, and produces the same exact food regardless of what location you will visit.
How is it possible that McDonalds can go from nothing to two million dollars per year by hiring people off the street to produce results that satisfy their target customers, and work 9-5 shifts while you are putting in 14 hour days and cant make ends meet?
The reason this works for McDonalds because they have a system that works. McDonalds was also once a small struggling business with just a single store location. It took 20 years to perfect the system that can make a business go from zero to two million in three weeks with low skilled, and minimum wage workers. McDonalds employs 34,000 people worldwide and generates four billion dollars per year using this half a century old system. That is what I call a successful system. If we divide the numbers, McDonalds makes a gross of $117,000 per year for each employee, how much does your business make per employee?
If you want to learn more about building your system, I recommend you listen to these books:
This book
And This book
Most of us waste so much time during driving, watching TV, etc. Download the books and listen to them on your free time. Take a weekend off and listen to both of them. It will be one of your best decisions you will have ever made.
HUMAN AUTOMATION SECRET
You ready for the secret? You have no chance whatsoever, ever, ever, ever, ever to become a truly successful company without a system. In fact, there is not a single company in the Fortune 500 that doesnt use systems. You have no choice, by not using a system, you automatically put all the odds against you, and you might as well go back to your 9-5 job because you will never make more than $10/hr working your 100 hour weekly shift inside your business.
I highly recommend reading the books I suggested above to build your system, but here are the two things I learned from each book that made a huge difference to our company.
1) How to Build a System I love this layout, thanks to emyth.com. I document a proven system, I record a 15 minute video explaining the details of the chart, and then, all I have to do is hire a virtual assistant to follow it. THATS IT! No more trust issues, no more blaming staff, no more worrying about someone accountable not doing their job.
Now, of course, building a system from scratch will take months to perfect. But in Jakes case, he already knows his job inside out. He has been doing it for years, all he has to do is document it properly, and delegate it to another staff member.
2) How to Build a System Diagram The software I use is Microsoft Visio 2013, and the chart is called Cross Functional Flow Chart. Each line in the chart is what I call a lane, similar to the Olympics Swimming Pool Lane. Each lane is an accountable task that needs to be handled by a single person. Sometimes you can have more than one person handling multiple lanes, and for new entrepreneurs you will be handling all the lanes in the beginning. The idea behind this chart is, if you ever drop a ball in your business, it means you didnt address it in the chart. The goal is to start from the beginning, and get to the end. The more lanes that are involved, the harder the process, and the more chances of there being a mistake.
Keep in mind that you cant just draw this out and delegate it. You need to get your hands dirty and perfect the system yourself, before assigning people to their positions.
The systems in Shopping Cart Elite are so huge that if we were to print out even one of them, it would be 15 pages wide.
I advised Jake to read the books I mentioned above, and to start designing his systems to delegate 100% of his current work to someone else. This way he can have more time to learn Shopping Cart Elite and do the new tasks.
Shopping Cart Elite has a complete software system for retailers to automate their business in 30 days. Everything from migration to running your business will be automated. All of the tools inside Shopping Cart Elite are used by our own company.
For example, the Shopping Cart Elite support desk is so tightly integrated with all the Shopping Cart Elite apps, that you can run your sales, support, returns, customer service and every department from it.
If you are looking to automate your business, or start a new one the correct way, read the books, and join Shopping Cart Elite today so we can start building out your website. By the time you finish reading the books, your website will be ready, and you will be on the right path to a successful online business.