Overwhelmed? Systems are the answer. Guest starring David Jenyns, founder of systemHUB

Andy
Yes, I know. I don’t give you enough compliments, and I know you’re probably getting a little bit suspicious as to why I’ve started now, , but one day, one day I will rock home with some flowers.

Ange
Oh. Can’t wait for that day. I think I have only been married for, uh, 20 years this year.

Andy
Yeah. Well sometimes,

Ange
and I think I’ve got two, maybe three if I’m lucky. Lots of flowers.

Andy
Yes. It’s not my gig.

Ange
It’s all right. I don’t mind. It’s all good.

Andy
It’s just not my gig.

Ange
All right, let’s get to the point.

Andy
Okay, so let’s get into today’s episode, and it’s something Ange, that I absolutely love and that is systems.

Ange
Yes, we honestly harp on about systems all the time, but it’s actually for good reason. Systems are the reason why we were able to scale up our plumbing business. It was a reason we got Andy off the tools whilst allowing the team to operate the business profitably and ultimately it allowed us to sell the business.

Andy
It’s true, but the challenge I see every single day, I hear trade business owners say, I want systems, but what they really need is to get their business model right first. Otherwise, you are building your business on a pile of shit. And why do you wanna systemize that?

Ange
Yeah, fair enough. So true. We talked about this actually in an earlier episode. You can actually go back and listen to it. It’s called Systemizing Your Business, It Will Change Your Life. Will put out our link to the show notes.

Andy
That said, the topic of systems is absolutely one of my favorites.

Ange
And that’s why we’re excited about today’s special guest, David Jenyns, founder of SystemHub, accomplished author, fellow podcaster, and let’s say serious systems guru. Welcome, David. We’re so happy to have you with us here today.

Andy
Great to have you here, buddy.

David
The pleasure is all mine. I have not heard people get so excited other than myself about systems , so I’m super pumped for this episode.

Andy
Mate, it’s gonna be a cracker. I’ve been waiting for this all week, so I’m looking forward to getting stuck in. So for some of our listeners out there that aren’t familiar with SystemHub, do you mind explaining how it works and why you developed it?

David
Yes. So SystemHub is just a place to store your systems, your processes, your checklists, and things like that. Most people have their systems either they’re sitting in their head or maybe they’ve got an experienced trades person who now knows how to do everything. Yeah. Or maybe it’s your bookkeeper who has something stored on their desktop in a folder and someone else has it in a Google drive. It’s basically everywhere. It’s in people’s heads, it’s in documents. And really to build the brain of the business, you gotta have everything in a central location. And that’s what SystemHub is. It’s just a central location that’s purpose-built for systems with, you know, the heart of it is about keeping it simple. Cuz I find complex files, simple scales. So you want to try and keep things as simple as possible.

Andy
And I think too with tradies, you know, for those of you out there listening, we get a bit of chip rock and we’ll write our systems down on a bit of chip rock and throw it in the back of the ute and then we never, ever see it again.

Ange
No, that’s it. David, why did you start this business?

David
Look, the main one was just to scratch my own itch. We used to use a Google Drive folder and we were storing things in Word documents and got all unorganized, and Google wasn’t the easiest to work with if I wanted to change my permissions or insert a video or add some different graphics. So it just got really clunky very quickly. So we built it internally and then we realized, hang on. There’s nothing really that solves this problem as elegantly as we have, because it was with a very specific purpose on which it was built. And then when we opened it up, we realized, hang on, a lot of people have this trouble. A lot of people love the idea of having systems, but they’re not really systems people or they don’t really like creating the systems. And we thought, well, how do we kind of make this as easy as possible.

Ange
So you claim you are a system devotee, and we definitely can relate to that too. We’re huge advocates. Yes. So why do you think systems are so important to business?

David
I think the big thing is it gives options as a business owner, if you have systems and processes in place, it just gives you more options to do things like when the economy’s down, then it makes you more efficient, helps you respond to problems when they pop up. It helps you with recruitment and getting great staff and keeping great staff, which especially right now is incredibly important. You know, taking new trainees as you’re kind of getting apprentices on board, skilling them up as quickly as possible in the shortest time so that they can be productive in your business and they’re not taking a huge amount of time away from your best trades people. I think that’s a biggie, especially in the tradie space where, um, it’s awesome if before an apprentice, you know, sits down and learns how to do a particular task. They watch a little tutorial video or something, and they learn 80% of the knowledge. So when they sit down with an experienced tradesperson who’s your most expensive labor, or maybe it’s you, they already have a base level of knowledge. And it also creates, especially for apprentices, sometimes people don’t like to ask a silly question or something that they feel like they should know, or maybe you’ve taught them something and rather than being embarrassed to ask you cuz they think they should know, they’re just trying to figure it out. So if they have a problem or something and they know that they can just go to their mobile phone and scroll and look for the answer, and they don’t have to ask someone, it just makes it infinitely easier for them to kind of just get the answers when they’re looking for it. So that’s oftentimes just about the day-to-day. But then also in good economies as well. You’ll find as your business is growing and you’ve got good systems, it helps you to make more money. It accelerates your growth, it helps you scale your business and also creates the opportunity for selling the business as well. And that’s, you know, that’s a key part of this. You’re building a business that doesn’t have key person dependencies. So there’s actually a whole range of different reasons because systems touch all aspects of the business. So you can really say that it just has a transformational effect when you start to build this system’s culture.

Andy
Yeah, a hundred percent. And I think the big thing here is a lot of people when it comes to systems, they say to me, oh, but my staff won’t follow those systems, or they don’t want to do those systems. And I’m like, you’d be really surprised because we’ve been a systemized business Dr. Drip for well over 12 years, and it actually made it easier for all of my tradesmen because they knew exactly what needed to be done and as long as they followed that path, everything was great. Where most people just grunt and moan at their staff, the staff don’t really know. They’re scared to ask. And then they make mistakes and they’re just always frightened to make a decision. And that’s the difference that I found. Setting systems up in our business. And for Dr. Drip, I haven’t worked, hadn’t worked in that business for 10 years, and that was all about systems. Now, a lot of tradies that come to me, and I mentioned it a bit earlier on the podcast, they come to me and say, I wanna systemize my business. And I go, The trick is though, you need to fix your business. You need to get the business model right first. So then you’re building the systems off a business that’s already thriving. What’s your thoughts on that?

David
Yeah. You touched on some really good points. That idea around the resistance for the uh, staff. Something to think about, there’s two types of team members you’re gonna be working with. There’s existing staff and then there’s new staff. The existing staff is where you’re gonna get all of the resistance. Yeah, and it’s how you approach it and introduce it, and there’s ways that you can get around that. Just like you mentioned about helping them to understand that there’s a win for them. That’s probably the biggest thing. You frame it. What’s the benefit to them, not to you as the business owner. Now, for all new team members, it doesn’t really matter because if they’re new and you’ve got a good onboarding system, that’s all they ever know. So this is how we do things here. So there’s zero resistance. So that’s what makes introducing systems a little bit challenging because all of the resistance comes up front. It will be hardest for the first six to 12 months. You break through that, then you get all of the wins. But most people, they’ll systemize for three months. Couple of staff will go, no, I don’t like this. I’m not gonna follow the systems. Yes. And then they throw it out the window and go, well, this ain’t gonna work for me, because we tried that and it doesn’t work.

Andy
So, so true.

Ange
Nobody likes change though, right?

David
Yeah, that’s right. The good thing is, This is the, there has never been a better time in history to systemize than right now, cuz you can just blame everything on Covid.

Andy
Yeah. .

David
And you go, cause we’re on Covid. Yeah. Uh, that means that, you know, I don’t know if you’re gonna be sick next week or you need to take time off for your family. So we’ve gotta get some systems in place so I can have other people step in. So when you take time off, you can focus on the family, or there are gonna be times when you’re gonna have to do some stuff remotely. Maybe there’s part of your job that isn’t onsite, and I wanna make sure you can do that from home. So let’s get good systems in place.

Ange
It’s interesting you say this, David, a lot of our members during this Covid period, because a lot of them had their hands tied and literally couldn’t work. Well, I’ll take that back. Most tradies could actually work, but as an example, Victoria was truthfully locked down for a period of time and these guys just literally buckled down and lent into Lifestyle Tradie. Okay, you’ve got me for five weeks. What are we doing? Yeah. And we’ve gone, this is the perfect time for us to pick to death your processes because everything is inside your head. And although we’ve put them in writing, because we know systems are important, and your entire team of 10 or 15 or whatever are doing it a certain way. But let’s just go back and double check them. So we had this fabulous window of time whereby every single trade business owner that we work with literally was watching their systems. And to your point, guess what happened out the other side? Efficiency. They made more money. They were having their best months ever. And they were like, oh my gosh, this is like, the team is totally on fire. They were really on board because they were all still working through this period and now the business is just even better.

David
Yes. And to Andy’s point, uh, before about what’s the approach, it’d be interesting to think about how Lifestyle Tradie thinks about installing this, cuz I almost see it in stages. Yeah. For me the first stage is, Capturing what you are currently doing that is already working. There’s parts of your business that you don’t need to re-engineer. Now, Lifestyle Tradie spent a truckload of time and effort to figure out best practice. Yes. And they can say, Hey, you don’t have a lead generation method here, try this one. You don’t have a way to answer your calls and you know, get them booked in for jobs. Look at this system. So that’s best practice. Sometimes a great way to start is first. What are we currently doing that’s already kind of working and who does it the best? Yes. You know when a lead comes in and they say, Hey, I need to get someone out to look at my leaky pipes. Well, Jenny answers the phone and she does a pretty good job. She asks some good questions, she books them in, she schedules it, and she gets it out to the right tradie and booked in on their calendar. Great. All right, Jenny, what are you doing? Let’s just record that and that becomes base level one. Yes. Now you, you think about that and you build, it’s almost like applying the 80/20 rule. What are the 20% of the systems that deliver the bulk of the result? And I talk about this idea of the minimum viable systems. What are the minimum number of systems that you need to run your business? Maybe you need a couple of ways to get leads. You need a couple of ways to handle and book a job. You need a couple of ways that tradie goes out on site and what they say when they set up and how they take payment and you, you think about what is the basic set of systems and you get that in place first. Then you start to listen to your business and when a problem pops up, Rather than getting angry at one of your team, you always default to how can I make an adjustment to the system? So I remember I worked with a, um, a, a guy, his name’s Dave Porter and he runs a company called Porter Back and they clean roof gutters. Yeah. And he’s got, you know, different trucks out on the field and, and a really great business down here in Victoria. And he said, the moment I got Systemology and SystemHub was, Uh, I had trucks that would get returned at the end of the night and one truck came back that was completely filthy and it wasn’t prepared low on fuel, half of the stock or whatever had been cleared out, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And he said, I was so frustrated. He goes, my normal default response would’ve been to yell at the person who returned the car and said, no, you next time I need this, this, this, and this. Or you’re fired. Yeah. And he just put the brakes on for that thought as soon as it popped up. And he said, I’m gonna create a checklist. And what’s gonna happen is every time someone brings a truck back at the end of the day and, and drops the keys in, they first have to go through the 10 point checklist. Have I filled it up with fuel? Have I restocked whatever, um, you know, is everything ready to go? Have I put the keys back where they need to be? And he said, that moment, I put the checklist in place and then the next day I just said, Hey everybody, when you return the car, now we have this checklist. And that for him was that moment when the business owner goes, I’ve got it. Like that breakthrough. He didn’t default. He started to be able to solve problems once and for all. Most tradies, especially if they’ve got apprentices and other team members will solve the same problem again and again and again and again and again, and it’ll go six months and he’ll tell off just about every tradie on his team five times that they need to clean the truck before it comes back. And that’s his way of management. But now he’s flipped it and he’s thought, how do I solve the problem once and now I can solve a better problem next time. I don’t have to solve that one again. Yes. Now I can focus on what’s the next problem to solve.

Andy
And I think most trade business owners, we talk about this, are control freaks too, and they’re just used to everything coming through them, but you actually train your staff to not make a decision and come through you. In my business, it was like if you’re unsure, go through the systems. Follow the systems and if something goes wrong, we go back and review the systems and we fix the systems and we say to our whole team, if you see something that you can do better, come to us and let us know. And if we all agree as a team that it is better, then we’ll put it in place and away we go. And we just kept the one percenters, one percenters, one percenters, and 12 years down the track. That was killer. And that’s really what helped us sell the business as well.

Ange
I love your example though, David, because it’s actually so simple and I know every listener right now is going, oh my, they’re laughing cuz they’re going, oh my God, that’s, that’s me. And they’re getting cranky and frustrated at their team. And then hence, perhaps they’re wondering why they’ve got this turn, the style of guys leaving cuz they’re just getting the shits with ’em all the time or whatever over something so minor. And we talk about 35,000 decisions in a day. As a trade business owner, let’s get rid of those very basic things that you really should not be spending your time on. They’re not profit producing activities. You need to arm your team to excel. And so how do you arm your team to excel? Get everything out of your head, because you have beautiful best practice that you execute. You just don’t know how to teach it to other people. And we can do that through systems.

David
It’s funny, I go back to that example cuz you’re right. Porter’s an excellent example because it’s right in the sweet spot.

Ange
It is.

David
And then it just started me thinking. What did they do? What were the one or two magical things that they did that were the game changer? Cuz Dave Porter didn’t like writing systems. He wasn’t a systems guy. No change. In fact, the thought , the thought of sitting in front of a computer and writing it out, he really disliked it. That’s why he never got it done. And then when he went through the systemology and SystemHub process, one of the first things I said is, you need a systems champion. In your team we identify this guy, his name was Kane. He was a young, curious details, um, kind of across all parts of the business. An apprentice who was just wanting to get started, tried to go out in the field, didn’t really like it there, got back in it, head office, started working, you know, booking in jobs and handling certain, so he kind of had a little bit of just visibility, but he didn’t know how to do anything awesome. As in he wasn’t. Like a skilled trades person yet, but he was curious enough to go, Ooh, you know, I wanna learn a bit about that. So we taught him how to record things going on, and we sent him out in the field with a GoPro following around one of their best tradespeople for a day with the GoPro recording little videos of, Hey, here’s how I set up the van and got the vacuum started. Here’s how I do my safety harness equipment. Here’s what I say to the client, oh, here at the end of the job, here’s how I text my report. After I hop off the roof and I email it to the head office and basically record everything. And we had the end of the day. He had, you know, 30 odd little videos of different aspects of the day. And then this for him. As soon as he did that, this set off like, it’s almost like a mind virus forum. He just wanted to do this for all parts of the business.

Ange
He got obsessed.

David
He started to record himself booking jobs. He was listening to some of the way that the finance people were issuing out invoices and basically started to make all of these little videos, and then he would watch the video and just pull out. He wouldn’t even write a detailed process. It’d be the video, and he’d do like a 10 point bullet of, here are the 10 main steps that I captured in this video. And that became a great way for this apprentice to learn, who became a very skilled part of the team because he knew how to do a bunch of things. It developed these systems and then every new team member that came on board, Would just watch this training and that, that for him, this built this snowball and it got Dave Porter out of having to do any documentation.

Ange
Perfect.

David
Because he didn’t like it anyway.

Andy
And I think most entrepreneurs out there, and, and people say this to me at work, the number one thing you’re good at, Andy is finger pointing. You go do this and you go do that. But mate, so you built these systems. How do you teach accessibility? You know, cuz that’s a major part of having systems within your business. There’s no point having systems without giving your team the appropriate access to them. So, you know, in the past our bookkeeper would have access to the financial systems. Our tradies would have access to the tradesman systems. But what kind of accessibility features do SystemHub have?

David
Yeah, look, there’s a few key things that I always think about. Ideally, depending on how a task is getting assigned to a person, the point at which the task is assigned is generally the best place to have a link to one of these systems. So basically every system that you create in SystemHub, Has a link, and you can do two things. You can either link directly to the system and have someone log in, or you can even generate what’s called a share link, which means you can just grab this link and you basically start to put that all throughout where tasks are assigned. So if. , you use some jobs management system and you know, you plug in the details of the client and you say, great, you’re gonna go do this job. Maybe in the description in there, you could have a link to, and here’s the system on how to run this job. So when it’s assigned to the trades person, it pops up in their calendar or something with a link to the right thing. That’s one way to do it. Now, it’s not always the case that that works. Uh, I can think of another trades based business where, um, they found that the tradespeople weren’t super techy and when they would get questions come in at head office, um, they would, tradesperson would call up, Hey, I don’t know how to do this or that, someone at head office would get the system outta SystemHub, grab the external share link and text it to them so it would pop up on their phone and they just press the link like in an SMS and it would pop up. That’s another way. Other ways could be, I mean, SystemHub is mobile responsive, so if someone wants to log in and find it, that’s a way to do it as well. So there’s a range of different ways, but it’s always about thinking. What removes the most friction? What makes this as easy as possible? Because systems sometimes will or often, Have friction cuz it gets in the way of doing, like, I want to get something done right now. I think I know how it’s done. I could just, you know, have a crack and try to figure it out. And if I have to, you know, click here and click there and scroll through and find some, that’s gonna get in the way of, of, of not doing it. So that’s a big part of it. How do you make this as easy as possible for someone?

Ange
What I love about SystemHub is the capability of housing, multiple ways of how people learn. So as an example, we do all of our systems like flow chart format. We do a lot of videos as well. So when you think about the reader, you know the VAC principles are really visual audio kinesthetic. You need to be able to cater for all of them, and I love that you can actually do that because there’s lots of ways that people actually learn because as you say, it’s really important to follow those tradesmen out in the field. So they need to visually, actually watch what they’re doing, how they put on clean boots, what they’re touching on their devices. But then some other tradesmen will benefit from looking at a process or from top to bottom on a page and go, oh, that’s actually really simple and there are five steps to that. I can see them 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. Okay, great. I just need to do that. I can’t fail. And that’s what I think is really powerful. But I do understand it can be quite confusing for a lot of trade business owners when they say, oh my God, like where do I start? So what’s your advice on where would you start?

David
Yeah. So the way that I think about this, and, and I talk about this in my, uh, book Systemology, that, um, explains the process for systemizing. Um, and if you’re an audio person, you can grab it on Audible. Um, but I can, I can even tell you the first step here. It’s really easy, like if you gotta, hundreds of things you could be systemizing. You have to think about what are the first 10 to 15 systems you’re gonna start on first, and I have this thing I call the critical client flow, which is identifying your dream client. And you can do all this on an A4 bit of paper, but identify a dream client, identify the primary product or service that that dream client would buy first when they’re getting to know you. So if you’re a builder, maybe it’s like a session on, I don’t know how to build out your dream house. Maybe if you’re, uh, a, um, plumber, it’s how to unblock the toilet or figure out what, what is the first product or maybe one that you sell a truckload of, and then you, what you do is you just map the linear journey of the customer and the business delivering that core product or service. So how do you get the attention of the person who wants the Unplugged drains. Facebook, Yellow Pages online or some tradie type website, whatever, and then you go to how do you handle the inquiry? What happens when someone calls in Next one down? Once you handle the inquiry and you qualify them, how do you book a job then? Once you book a job, what do you do when you rock up on site? You or, or even before that, what do you do to prepare the van and stuff before you go out? Then what do you do when you rock up on site? What are the key steps there? What, how do you deliver the product or service? What happens when you’re done? How do you take payment? How do you then load everything back in the van and get back to the van? So if you map that journey from start to finish, starting there is a great place because if you can deliver that without key person dependency, so it doesn’t rely on you, then the business can make money without you. Now, just about every problem in business can be solved if you’ve got cash flow and money coming in that isn’t dependent on you. So if you first figure out how the business can make money without you, then most of the other things you’ll be able to solve with money. So that’s usually where I start.

Andy
Mate. That is so true. And we have a thing called the 9 Steps Call Converter. And then it’s how does, like everything you just went through, that’s what we’ve built and about the flow of a job. And the one thing I wanna point out to all the tradies out there listening too, is that a lot of the time, the biggest hassle with systemizing a business isn’t that you can’t systemize the office because most of the ladies or men that are in there are happy to do that. It’s the bloody tradies out in the field, but you don’t give them enough idea of what they need to do. So when you break it down in chunks and you tell them exactly what they do, how do they arrive at the front door? How do they greet the customer? Where do they put their tool bag down? How do they give the customer a price? How do they get the sale? How do they quote, how do they invoice, how do they collect everything? You said, once you get all that done, your business is a totally different business. And as you said, as a business owner, if you can train your staff to do that, the whole job is done and the money’s collected, it’s zero and it’s all complete. So mate, you’re a hundred percent right when you said that.

David
And you can, I think you guys, effectively, you offer the shortcut, which is fantastic because some people are like, well, I don’t even know where to start with this. And you can go, uh, you know, log into the portal and be able to go, well, here’s the best practice ready to go. And I’ve got somewhere to start. So I think. That works out really well. And we, for your experienced team members, sometimes again, you, you don’t wanna tell people how, how to suck eggs. So for example, a lot of people, when they think about systemizing a business and you go, Ooh, what’s a great systemized business? Okay, McDonald’s and everybody thinks McDonald’s is a great systemized business, and they think, oh, we have to systemize like McDonald’s. But McDonald’s is running a hamburger business. Their job is to get 15 year old kids and within a weekend have them productive flipping hamburgers. So of course they have to go down to this minute detail. But maybe to start, if you are hiring for certain tasks, experience tradespeople who know how to do things, you’re not gonna have to go step one, get your hammer out of your bag and make sure it’s, it’s sitting right next to the Phillips head screwdriver, like that doesn’t serve them. You might start off, if you’ve got experienced team members there, and especially when you’re introducing it, just start off with high level milestones. It might be, make sure the van’s clean before you go. Here are some things to think about when you get there. You gotta greet them. Make sure that you cover these three things and like. Keep it at a higher level. If you’ve got these really experienced team members to start with, that makes it more acceptable to the existing staff. And then over time you put more and more detail in and create these subsystems that might then help to support the apprentices when they come on board and they get up to speed. And like I said, all you gotta do is get over that first hump. Mm-hmm. Stick with this for 12 months, 18 months. Build this system’s culture exactly like you guys teach. And then you’ll know when you’ve made it. When the team says, oh, this is how we do things here. And that’s when you know you’ve broken through.

Ange
That’s actually a really good point because the consistency of executing the systems inside your business is actually the key. It’s one thing to design a system and teach the team, but if you as the owner, don’t reinforce them through your toolbox meetings. Then we have a hurdle straight away, especially when that owner is perhaps on the tools too. If they’re not following the systems, then your team’s not gonna follow it either. So the consistency throughout the team does need to get mentioned.

Andy
And you mentioned there before David, but, um, you know, when people do look at joining Lifestyle Tradie, the first 50 systems, some of the most important systems are any business. We actually, that’s part of what we do as well. So it gets ’em off on the right foot from the very, very start. Mate, we play a bit of a game here on the podcast. It’s rapid fire questions. I’m gonna ask you three questions. You’ve got a roundabout 20 or 30 seconds to answer each one if you need. Are you ready to play, mate?

David
I’m ready to play it.

Andy
The number one. What is the number one business tip you have for the trade business owners listening out there right now?

David
The number one tip is get a copy of the book, Systemology. No, but seriously, yes. Uh, no, no, no. I joke. Um, I, I think probably the, the number one rule I would say is don’t be the person writing the systems. Like as a tradie, that’s not the best use of your time.

Andy
No, that’s right. And um, I still remember the very first day we started it, we had five people in the office and I went to each one of them and said, systemize your role, systemize your role, systemize their role. And they looked at me. If I systemize it, maybe then you’re gonna get someone else that’s gonna steal my job. You know? So everyone was a bit freaked out. But um, once they started doing it and going through the process and once they had it finalized, then we’d have one of the other people sit in that role and go through the process and pick and choose steps, what was right. So step one, step two. Yeah. Listen, I’m a tradie as well. I, it’s not my job to do that kind of stuff. I know some people out there that are tradies could do it, but, um, if you’ve got someone to give you a hand, that is definitely the way to go. Number two, what’s the biggest challenge you have ever faced in business?

David
The biggest challenge for me was the last digital business that I ran. So I had a digital agency here in Melbourne, and I got stuck in that business for 10 years, and it’s weird because in my head, all of the businesses I’d been involved in before we systemized, I had a rock and roll clothing music store.

Andy
Cool.

David
Called Planet 13, uh, where we sold Metallica t-shirts and stickers and buttons. And we franchised that business and we did all of the systems. We had franchisor manuals and the franchisee manuals. And I was, uh, prior to that I was in the stock market education space and we used to design trading systems and that was kind of, yeah, basically a system. And all of the businesses I’ve been in had systems. But then I got to the digital agency and I thought, ah, this business is different. You can’t systemize this business because you know, it’s a creative business. And I bring the magic and Google keeps on updating. So what’s the point of putting a system in place if it’s just gonna get out of date? And even if I create systems, My team’s not gonna follow the systems anyway, so I came up with all of this reasons why I couldn’t and it wasn’t until we got pregnant and then I thought, I don’t wanna be that dad who’s always too busy, who is working 70 hour work weeks because I am the guy. Yes. And I thought, I’ve systemized before. What if I could systemize this business? And that started me on the journey and I, my biggest challenge and mistake was believing that my business couldn’t be systemized, and that’s what stuck me in that business probably for about seven or eight years too long. Like you really should only be in your business for a couple of years or a few years till you get everything systemized. Then you step out.

Andy
And there’s a lot of people out there now going, but you could never systemize what I do. What I do is so hard. You can never systemize it. Hey, have a look at yourself. Give yourself an uppercut. You can systemize every business. Number three, something a bit left of cent mate. Um, if you could only eat one food. One piece of food for the rest of your life, what would you choose?

David
Just in case my wife’s listening, I’m gonna say my wife’s spaghetti bolognese.

Andy
Ah, no.

Ange
Not too good.

Andy
Good. What a suck. . What? So it’s that good? Is it?

David
Oh, it is, it is. I would, uh, as long as there was no consequence and I wouldn’t blow out and, uh, become a, a, a, a chubby man, I think. Uh, yes, spaghetti bolognese every day. .

Andy
Ah, that’s awesome, mate. I love your work, buddy.

Ange
Fantastic. Thank you so much for giving of your time and your information today, David. We literally love this topic. It is the difference that makes a trade business, and thanks for sharing your love of systems and everything, SystemHub with our listeners.

Andy
Yeah, I thought that we love systems Ange, but I seriously think David gives us a run for our money. I think he’s the new systems King. King David.

Ange
Thanks David. We appreciate your time.

David
My pleasure. I might just finish on one thing. I just, I hope this episode lights a fire in your listeners. If for whatever reason they’ve thought, ooh. You can’t systemize my business. I’ve tried that and I’ve failed or I’ve given up. I just hope this is enough to say, give it another go. Everything that you guys are serving up, it’s on a silver platter. You guys make it easy for them, so hopefully this is enough to get ’em, you know, kick in the pants to bust a move.

Andy
Thanks mate. No, I mean Ange and I have put a lot of time and effort in and we love what we do. Lifestyle Tradies, um, been a game changer just so much for our community and that’s the thing. And I know you love building communities as well, and that’s the thing we love the most.

Ange
If anything David said resonated with any of your listeners today, or you wanna check out if SystemHub is right for your trade business, then can I suggest you go to systemhub.com or check out the link in our show notes.

Andy
And like we said at the beginning of the episode, definitely check out our previous episode called Systemizing Your Business It will Change your Life forever.

Ange
Well, that’s it for us today. We really look forward to catching you next week.

Andy
Catch you, then! Yoooooo!