Why Your First Employee Should Be a Robot with David Jenyns

I’m Igor Kheifets, and this is The ListBuilding Lifestyle. The podcast is for anyone who wants to build a wildly profitable email list working from home. If you’d like to make six figures, travel the world, and help people improve their lives in the process, this podcast is for you. I also invite you to claim a free copy of my best-selling book, The List Building Lifestyle Confessions of an Email Millionaire at www.igorsbook.com. Get the free book plus $3,000 bonus package that includes my best capture page templates, email swipe files and traffic blueprints, visit www.igorsbook.com for details. And now it’s time to claim your List Building Lifestyle.

[Igor Kheifets] 

[0:06 – 2:36]

Welcome back to The List Building Lifestyle. I’m your host, Igor Kaifetz, and today I’m hosting David Jennings, the systemology guy. He’s a fellow systems enthusiast, and he built his life and business around helping others incorporate systems into their lives.

So, I’m really looking forward to this episode because I’m a bit obsessed with systems. Pretty much everything I do revolves around them, and if there’s anything repetitive in my life, including breakfast, I try to systematize it. So, David, welcome to The List Building Lifestyle.

[David Jenyns] 

Hey, Igor, pleasure to be here.

[Igor Kheifets] 

Awesome. Well, today, we’re going to talk about one of the most important parts of systemizing your business, which is hiring your first VA.

And in spite of there being plenty of information about it out there, and again, this just reminds me that information alone is never enough, most business owners still struggle with hiring VAs, hiring any kind of assistance, really. A lot of them struggle with, they have control issues, they have anxiety about their business tanking or blown up or, you know. So, today, I would really love to pick your brain about how can somebody who’s been struggling with this process of finding, you know, superstars, of bringing them on board, of keeping them, managing them, you know, how can they overcome this barrier?

Because I believe it’ll unlock a lot of potential for them, you know, free up a lot of their time, it’ll probably help them scale their income and overall make their life a little bit more enjoyable because they’ll be able to let go of some of the most annoying things in their business.

[David Jenyns] 

[2:36 – 2:53]

Yeah, I think it’s a deep topic and one that I can add a lot to and having experienced it firsthand and seen it many times before, there’s a few little hacks that I think people listening can deploy, which will get them pretty good breakthroughs. All right.

[Igor Kheifets] [2:53 – 3:06]

So I think where I want to start is, how does one know that it’s time? You know, how do we know it’s time to bring in someone onto the team? What are the signs?

What are the tells?

[David Jenyns] 

[3:07 – 4:21]

I think once you reach capacity and you’ve tried to leverage a lot of the tools that you’ve got access to, but you’re just finding when you’re a solopreneur, you wear all of the hats, your marketing, your sales, your operations, you know, delivery, do the work, you’re managing the finance, doing the invoicing. So there’s a lot to manage and there is a certain point once you get a few clients through the door and you’ve got a little bit of traction going, when you start to realize that you can’t do everything and that really you need to focus on your magic and where you add the most value and the highest value tasks. And there are certain tasks that you’re just not adding any magic to anymore and it’s just administrative.

And that’s the perfect time to be thinking, right, we need to delegate down to a team member and start to pass off some of that responsibility. So, I mean, there’s a lot of signs, oftentimes you’re overworked, you’re a little bit stressed, maybe you’re dropping the ball. So many of those can be indicators that it’s time.

[Igor Kheifets] 

[4:22 – 6:20]

Yeah, I agree with you. For me, the first time it came to that, I was running my traffic agency and almost everything I was doing, I was doing by hand, I was doing myself. So just like you said, lots of different hats, invoicing, closing the sales, doing the customer support, handling the delivery of whatever service.

And I found myself not being able to catch a breather. It was around that time when my business was just starting to show growth, just showing signs of potential. And I was already making, I guess, maybe five or six or seven thousand dollars a month, which for me was a lot of money.

So I didn’t complain, right? I just I felt like, wow, it’s amazing money, big money. So I’ll just if it means working very hard, I’ll just work very hard.

I worked hard before and I wasn’t getting paid. So now I’m getting paid and I was happy. But then after doing that for like a year, I realized that I just couldn’t breathe.

I found myself always thinking about this, you know, whatever whatever I had to do, meaning like there was always something that was still waiting for me to do it. It was always an item on the to do list of some kind that had to be done. It was a vital item to, you know, it’s like, you know, switching links or emailing a customer or dealing with a complaint or closing that sale, especially sales, you know, sales where it’s like someone’s if you’re a freelancer or run an agency, you probably know this.

And if somebody’s if there’s a potential customer contacting you, you know, you got to close that deal fast, you know, because things can can change very quickly. So for me, it was absolutely no breathing space of any kind. I found myself working until 2 a.m. And if I didn’t, it resulted in disasters happening, you know, money being lost and customers complaining. And I just felt like I was carrying the whole world on my shoulders, you know.

[David Jenyns] 

[6:21 – 7:11]

It’s also very common to have this feast or famine scenario when you’re solo as well. When you’ve got work and you’re working with a client, everything’s happy, you’ve got the money rolling in, you’re busy, and then the project comes to an end and then you start thinking about marketing and you’re like, well, now I’ve got to get the next one, I’ve got to sell them. And if that pipeline is not quite ready, then it’s the famine period.

And it’s just this roller coaster of up and down when certain functions in business need to happen 24-7. Marketing needs to happen whether or not you have clients. So you’re adding people into the pipeline.

So when you do finish a project, you’re ready to go with the next one. So it’s a real rocky roller coaster when you’re a solopreneur grinding it out, getting it off the ground, which I mean, everybody starts there. You just don’t want to stay there.

[Igor Kheifets] 

[7:12 – 7:21]

You know, so do you think this is different now with AI? Now we have so many different AI tools. I mean, surely we can get a lot more done without working very hard.

[David Jenyns] 

[7:22 – 8:19]

Yeah, definitely. Like, I think you still have to work on the highest value tasks. And even when you get AI, even when you get teams surrounding you, there’s still always more to do.

It’s just the higher quality problems that you start to go to work on and where is your time best spent. But I think the first employee someone should be thinking about is a robot employee. How do we leverage technology and AI and take some of the tasks that you were doing, get it off your plate and delegate it and pass it over?

It’s the same thinking. I mean, at the core of it, you need to understand what is it that you want the human or the robot to do? Like, what is the core process at the center of that?

But then it’s the same. We clearly articulate it and then we look for, well, who or what can execute that task consistently?

[Igor Kheifets] 

[8:20 – 8:54]

Yeah, so let’s talk about what does a business owner need to have in place before they’re able to bring in a VA? Because I see this as a big problem. Like I talk to lots of business owners who know they need to bring someone in, like they don’t argue when the topic of VAs or outsourcing or growing their team comes up.

They’re like, yeah, yeah. But they lack the understanding or the foundation, I’d say, to make it happen successfully.

[David Jenyns] 

[8:55 – 11:14]

It’s very common when someone gets their first VA to be very task driven. So they have a big, long list of to-do lists that they just want to handball to somebody and they’ll start working with the VA. And sometimes the VA will move through those tasks and get things done.

And you’re constantly having to fill up their to-do lists. Like part of your job is just keeping them busy. Sometimes you’ve even got them doing tasks that aren’t really adding that much value to the business just because, well, you’ve got them full time and you need to give them tasks to do.

So a real shift is understanding, well, what does the business need? What are the core repetitive, recurring tasks that pop up? And you want to be thinking about assigning out responsibility to take over those tasks and look after parts of the business.

And that works so much better as you start to scale as well, because as you get more team members on board, if you don’t adopt this mindset, what ends up happening is you give a whole bunch of tasks to one team member, then you move to the next team member. You give them a whole bunch of tasks, then you move to the next team member, give them a whole bunch of tasks, and then the next team member, it’s the same. And then when you get to the last team member, you have to go back to the first team member and start giving them tasks again to keep them busy.

And it’s this cycle that means that the business owner very rarely finds time for them to work on their tasks. And then they start doing the early mornings, the late nights and the weekends, because that’s the only time they can find free when they’re not busy keeping everybody else busy. And so this is a very common trap that traps people.

And it’s a little bit counterintuitive because a lot of business owners think, oh, I’m busy. I’ve got so much to do. The best thing to do is just throw more people at it.

But oftentimes that just magnifies the chaos and the mayhem that you have going on in the business. The first step is actually to get clarity around the process and how the business works and what’s essential, and then look to delegate that. If you get that in place, you scale much more easily and keeping a lot more calm in the business.

[Igor Kheifets] 

[11:15 – 13:08]

Yeah, I think there’s two types of things you can delegate to the VA. There’s the straightforward stuff, you know, like, for example, I got a VA who submits book orders when somebody buys her a book. So she goes in and she puts in the order.

So she has to copy and paste addresses, you know, go to the printer and let them know, OK, this person, this address, ship this book. Right. Very, very simple.

Yes. However, there are processes where, like you said, if you’re just throwing more people at it, you’re kind of magnifying the chaos where, you know, you’ve got to you’ve got to redesign the whole system around it. You have to redesign the process for the process to be more streamlined, less cumbersome, and then you can throw a person and put a person in charge of it.

That’s actually very common. And usually the business owner encounters that when they’re like, OK, I need to bring someone in to do my like I got a client. She’s an author and she she says, well, I need someone to do my my tick tock marketing.

I said, who does right now is that I do it. So I say, OK, well, just I’m sure there’s plenty of tick tock experts out there, you know, like people who know how to use tick tock. So, you know, but I got this, you know, it’s easier for me to do it myself.

Right. So it’s oftentimes business owners do kind of default back to this with a process is so confusing in their head where they can’t really articulate it to other people. They don’t have it down on a protocol, on a checklist, on some sort of SOP, as they call it, the standard operating procedure.

And so they end up saying, well, you know what? Let me just I’ll just do it myself.

[David Jenyns] 

[13:08 – 16:17]

Yeah. Well, that’s a trap that really holds the business owner to the business. And I mean, the whole reason a lot of business owners get into business is for freedom.

Yet most business owners have the complete opposite, because unless they’re working, the business is not making money and it all stems from picking up these habits which serve you at the start. You doing everything, solving every problem, figuring it out, handling every fire and addressing it. Well, that and grinding it out, that’s what got your business to where it is.

But then it’s also what ends up holding someone trapped because they reach a ceiling. They don’t have any more time and they’re spread very, very thin. And then they not only do they feel like, oh, it’s just quicker if I do it myself, but then they also train their team or their first view VAs that whenever there’s a problem, you just come to me and I’ll just solve the problem and you become this knight in shining armor.

And sadly, it doesn’t empower the VA or the team member to start to problem solve and overcome things. And oftentimes, I mean, the business owner very rarely is a systems person. So they think, oh, documenting out a process.

Yeah, well, it is just going to be quicker if I do it myself and I’m going to have to rework it if the VA does it anyway. And it just creates this loop where the business owner is forever trapped. Now, fortunately.

We are in the best place in time right now to systemize the business, it’s never been easier. And what was previously the biggest friction point, which was documenting and getting these processes out of your head and creating checklists now with AI and some of the automation tools, it’s so easy and it’s just a matter of becoming familiar with these tools. And I even think the first assistant that you get on board, you task them with the role of extracting and pulling out some of these processes from your brain.

So you create a bit of a workflow where you’re recording yourself doing a task and you pass it to the VA and the VA then goes through what we call the system for creating systems. And they pull out the key steps and write the checklist and get to the end of that and share it back with you and say, what did we miss, how did we do? And then they might watch you do it a couple of times and before they know it, then they do take over that task, kind of like that book ordering task that you mentioned.

There are certain things in your business that go on that just need to happen, that don’t have any magic. Once you figure out how it’s done, it can be very easily delegated and just start with the easy stuff. That’s the other thing.

A lot of people try and go for some of these more complex things, maybe that don’t have process yet, systemize everything around the magic first before you start to look for some of these more complex processes.

[Igor Kheifets] 

[16:18 – 19:14]

Yeah, I agree. And the thing you mentioned about if you encounter a problem, come to me, this thing where it’s the business owner basically saying, OK, I’m going to let go, but I’m still going to be in control. And whenever there’s a problem, they’ll roll their eyes, of course, but it still makes them feel like they matter.

I guess they still can maintain that sort of presence. And I really don’t, I really think most people aren’t even aware of what they’re doing in terms of how much they’re trying to hold on to things and really insist that they’re the only ones that can do those things right. The other thing you mentioned is that it doesn’t empower the VA, and I agree with you completely.

I’ve now had to let go of at least a few dozen VAs and people who just do not, they don’t like to make decisions and they don’t like to take responsibility as in not so much like they don’t like to be responsible for outcomes. Let’s put it this way. That’s most people.

That’s a quality that annoys me so much. Where basically, if I end up hiring someone who acts like nothing is their fault, you know, it’s like, oh, I was just following the protocol, not my fault, you know, or something like that, that person has got to go like immediately. And in this case, I followed in Kennedy’s higher slow, fire fast.

So the moment someone’s just not that kind of mindset, they have to go very fast. And so most VAs, unfortunately, will come in and they’ll just sort of be very passive in the sense that they will won’t be proactively suggesting improvements. They won’t be proactively solving problems.

They will be very much like a like a like a child where it’s like they encounter a barrier, maybe like a better is a better example. They encounter a barrier and then they stop completely stop and they wait for your feedback. That’s what AI is.

And I think that’s one of the most annoying qualities about it today when you try to use it as as a VA. Right. Well, it learned it from human beings, I think, because human beings act the exact same way.

So the more you can, I think the more you can condition your team to to be proactive, to make decisions, to sure, they won’t always be the best decisions. But I think it’s better to make, you know, somewhat of a good decision than no decision at all, because at least it moves things forward. And I really, I really like when a team member starts doing that.

And I try to reward this behavior.

[David Jenyns] 

[19:15 – 22:07]

I find that most business owners don’t want to micromanage. They they really do want to let go. And I know there’s a trust issue there, but oftentimes it just stems from they want things to be done a certain way and to a certain standard.

If they had the confidence to know that something would be delivered to the appropriate standard and there was clear accountability and transparency where they could look into things if they wanted to. But I think it’s very hard to hold someone to a particular standard or an account if that hasn’t been defined and that expectation is not set. So that’s one of the reasons why systems, processes, documenting how you do things, capturing with videos, building out a staff handbook.

It’s absolutely essential because it sets the right standard and says, well, this is how we do things here. And then it starts to fix what you’re talking about when new team members come on board. If we have a great recruitment system that looks for those qualities that you’re talking about and then when they start working with you, we have an onboarding process which inducts them to your way of doing things and introduces them to some processes.

And from day one, it is made clear what happens is the people that don’t fit into that culture then start to opt out sooner and earlier because they go, oh, this isn’t right for me. This doesn’t work. And you might even filter them out ideally in the interview process.

But if they make it through the door and you’ve got some of these standards in place, it’s much easier to hold someone to the standard, which actually makes it much easier to let go and trust someone because you’ve also got something you can lean back on and you can say, well, I told you I wanted it done this way. Make sure that there’s never more than one click away to get to the process that explains the task that has been assigned to the team member. And then you just go, next time, follow the process.

And if you don’t, then we have another issue that we need to address because that’s part of my expectation and what you do at this job. I mean, I even say to team members, look, I don’t care if you’ve got the process open or not, if you’re delivering to the right standard. But if you’re not delivering to the right standard and you’re not getting it, then have the process open.

So it’s almost like they just need it at the start. I mean, a process is just effectively a documented habit. So someone needs to follow that documented habit till it is ingrained and becomes the way that they do things.

And then it’s a habit. And then they might not need the process in the same way that they did when they were first getting started.

[Igor Kheifets] 

[22:09 – 22:23]

Let’s talk about what I think is a huge bottleneck that might unlock this big world of opportunities for people. And that is the ability to create SOPs. Can you talk about that?

[David Jenyns] 

[22:23 – 24:28]

Yeah. So we used to spend literally half a day, full days completing, getting SOPs documented. And in the last two years, what used to take days can now be done in minutes.

And it’s really just changed the way that we approach this. One of the easiest ways to do it, I’ve always felt it, is firstly, we make it a two person job. We have the person who knows how to do the task.

We call that person the knowledgeable worker. We have the other person, which we call the systems champion. And the systems champion watches or records or takes recordings and then captures that knowledgeable worker doing the task in the moment.

And then we could use AI by then getting it transcribed, taking that transcription, feeding it into AI and then saying, hey, AI, can you draft me up the step by step procedure or the checklist or whatever it might be? And we can get to a great first version draft in a matter of moments, like once it’s actually recorded. So that’s the best and easiest way to do it.

And over time, we’re finding that AI is getting much smarter, the more context it’s given. So as you start to build this database and knowledge base of how your business works, you collect different systems and processes and it starts to build. And when the AI gets access to that, it then even gets great at developing SOPs when you don’t even provide a recording because it’s got full context.

It knows what software you use and your approach and where things are handed off and how other tasks are done. So it makes it much easier for it to start filling in the gaps. But it’s a completely different world now.

And there is zero excuse not to do this. Yeah, absolutely.

[Igor Kheifets] 

[24:29 – 24:38]

So do you have any specific, I guess, guidelines or top best practices for when you’re creating your first SOP?

[David Jenyns] 

[24:39 – 28:25]

The first thing is really, where do you get started? Which systems and processes should you capture first? That’s where you put your attention is probably the most important thing, because there’s probably literally hundreds of little SOPs and checklists and things you could create.

But I mean, it’s a game of the 80-20. We just look for the 20 percent of the systems that are going to have the biggest impact on the business. So we always start with what I call the critical client flow.

It’s just how the business makes money. And we look at how do we grab the attention of our target audience? How do we handle an incoming inquiry?

How do we sell that person? How do we onboard them, deliver a core primary product or service? How do we hand it over and get them to come back?

We high level map that first. And then we ask the question, where in that critical client flow is the pain? Where are we getting stuck?

Where is it heavily dependent on the business owner or where is the business owner actively avoiding it? Because they know it equals pain. Sometimes a business owner, I see they’ll sabotage the sale because they know if they sell, well, then they’re going to get another client and then they’re going to have to do the work and they’re already busy and they’re already stressed out.

So I don’t want another client. So they subconsciously start undermining the sale. So we try and identify in the critical client flow where the bottleneck is and where those issues are.

And that’s where we go to work. So that’s probably the first thing. You have to think about where are you going to get started?

Then, as I said, we capture what’s currently being done. The first thing I say is don’t try and capture every variation. Don’t capture I’m doing this widget and if they choose that widget, we do this.

And if it’s that color, we do that. And if it’s wet, we do this. And if it’s dry, we do that.

Like just pick a dream client and assume everything goes perfectly to deliver a primary product or service. And what is the most likely or most probable or what is the path that we would like most to happen without any variation? Like they pick this color and it’s a sunny day and everything goes smoothly.

Just document that. Don’t worry about variations. Keep it very simple by that linear path.

And you look for things like the trigger. What kickstarts this process? What’s the start of it?

Then you go through the key steps. And when you get to the bottom, like what is how do you know when you’re done and what happens next? And can you provide any examples of what done looks like?

Maybe it’s a completed proposal or it’s some photos of the work done or the form submitted, like attach that to the SOP. So that way it’s very clear. And generally, I’d say write for humans.

Like don’t do technical, don’t overthink this or over bloat it, like write it as though someone’s going to follow it. And it’s nice and easy for them. And it’s the first time that they’re doing it.

It’s like an underarm throw. We kind of want to give someone who’s just learning a task the easiest throw that they can catch. And then over time, they’ll learn the variations.

Or if there’s something that isn’t covered in the SOP, then well, that can get escalated to a more senior team member. And maybe that’s when it does come to the business owner. But for now, let’s try and do as many underarm throws as possible.

So there’s a couple of ideas to get you started.

[Igor Kheifets] 

[28:26 – 30:37]

So what you say about writing is really interesting because, you know, part of what we teach is how to do email marketing and writing is a big problem. And so I noticed that when people and I guess it’s true for me as well, when people start to sit down to write, the brain kind of switches. Right.

So when you get in front of that document and you need to craft the standard operating procedure checklist, you’re just the brain can freeze sometimes. Well, what I found to be very useful early on, and that’s before we had tools like Bloom, was to either film myself doing the task or at the very least start doing the task and start taking screenshots of the task and describing in the document what I’m doing. But that was, of course, a really challenging process.

And, you know, I dread it every time I had to let someone go and bring someone in. I mean, it would take me months to train them. It was very frustrating.

Now, though, now, if you’re literally trying to hand off a technical assignment that you’re doing your business, all you really have to do is get a free Loom account. I think the people who came up with I mean, they didn’t invent the whole screen capture video, but he made it so simple, you know, so you get Loom and again, free account. You can film unlimited five minute videos.

Most technical processes probably take 80 percent of them probably take less than five minutes. And then you just turn on the filming, turn on the screen recording. It records your microphone, records your screen.

And it’s literally as if this person is sitting right next to you. And all you do is just be like, OK, check this out. This is how we do it.

And you start doing it and narrating what you’re doing. And now with Loom having AI features where it can instantly transcribe your video, it can remove the silent spots and the dead spots. So if you got stuck and you went to the bathroom for three minutes in the middle of that video, like it’ll remove that empty space.

It’ll, I think, correct me if I’m wrong, but I think it can also turn something into an SOP if you tell it to.

[David Jenyns] 

[30:37 – 32:18]

It does an OK job. It has a little section where they’ve programmed it and it’s a good first draft. There is a little tab once it’s recorded and it’s you kind of have to bury one or two levels deep, but it uses AI, takes the transcript and does exactly what we just talked about.

And it’s a great starting point. I absolutely adore Loom. And if there’s any skill that a business owner should invest in, it’s the ability to talk through tasks and just get good at it, explaining.

I mean, that’s the art of being a business owner. It’s the master skill to be able to transfer knowledge, to be able to transfer how you do what it is that you do. And it is the easiest way, in my opinion.

It takes a bit of practice and probably you and I have been doing it a long time, but it’s a worthy skill because oftentimes what might take you, you know, half an hour or an hour to write out in an email or assign in a project management platform, you might be able to do it in two minutes, three minutes and explain with much greater detail and have someone just get it because they can see it like there’s nothing quite like it. And it’s repeatable, like you should be using Loom for everything.

It’s not only for team members, it’s for emailing clients and prospects and anyone that you communicate with. It’s just the skill to learn, which is to communicate in some form of online recording format to transfer your ideas in the least amount of time.

[Igor Kheifets] 

[32:19 – 36:09]

I agree. I think there are two primary skill sets that a business owner must have, I guess a CEO must have, like if you start thinking like a CEO, because initially you can argue that when you’re doing everything in your business, you’re the marketer, you’re the customer support agent, you’re everything. Sure, I get it.

But once you start leveling up a little bit, I think there are two primary skills that that lay squarely on your shoulders that you have to be absolutely world class at. And if you’re not world class, then at the very least, you have to go and do it every day, lots and lots, lots of times so you can build that muscle. And the skills are for me, are first off decision making, because in your business, nothing happens till you make decisions.

Your teams, your VAs will not be making decisions as fast as you, as good as you, and most of them will avoid making decisions like it’s the plague. They’ll do whatever, they’ll procrastinate until forever, as long as they don’t have to make decisions. So oftentimes they’ll come to you for that, for those decisions.

And the more you can train them to make decisions and create space for them to make mistakes, knowing ahead of time that if they make a mistake, they’re OK, they’re not going to be fired and everything’s going to be OK. At the very least, defining to them the consequence of that mistake. Like, so if your mistake is going to cost less than $500 to fix, we’re OK.

You know what I mean? Like if it’s a 5K mistake or a 10K mistake, then we have a problem. So decision-making is a skill you absolutely must have.

So decisions about the marketing campaigns you’re going to run, whether or not to refund the customer, how to structure a page or a landing page, which headline to use, everything is a decision. Some of them are micro decisions, some of them are macro decisions, some of them are massive, some of them are small, but they’re all decisions. And then this is a muscle, a muscle you build as a business owner.

The other skill set is what you mentioned is the communication skill set. As the CEO in your business, the better you are at communicating and being understood and I’ll flip it, avoiding being misunderstood, let’s put it this way, the better your business will be, the more streamlined it will be, the more it will scale and the more the better your team will execute everything that you’re asking them to execute. Because oftentimes I find that it’s, you know, whenever people fall into that trap of saying, oh, let me just do it myself, is they’re basically saying it’s I can’t find a way to communicate what I want you to do.

So let me just go ahead and do it myself. But this is where Loom and the like are absolutely essential. I mean, you don’t even need to think just next time you sit down to do the task because you have to do it, record yourself doing it.

And if you can narrate it, perfect. But if you can’t still, you can just hand over the recording and have the VA ask you the questions to which you reply. It’s really a simple process when you think about it.

And having these tools enables us to do it. And you can even take the Loom video, put it through AI, AI will, you know, watch it and turn into an SOP. So there’s no excuse for this.

There’s no excuse today not to have, you know, the standard operating protocols for at the very least for all the basic, repetitive, time consuming stuff in your business. All right. There’s one more thing I want to do before we wrap up.

And it’s a segment we have on the show called the rapid fire questions. So I’ll just shoot a bunch of questions at you and your job is to answer them with a statement. Basically, you’re not allowed to give me a full on, you know, book chapter about them.

Okay. So favorite system in your own business?

[David Jenyns] 

[36:10 – 37:16]

I think the onboarding system, I think I just like setting the right tone for customers because I feel like if you get that right, it sets the right expectations. They’re really happy. And when you have happy clients, your whole business works, they come back and they refer.

[Igor Kheifets] 

Biggest myth about VAs? 

[David Jenyns] 

Biggest myth is that just throwing more VAs at a problem is going to fix the problem. I think process comes first before throwing people at it.

[Igor Kheifets] 

Best tool for remote team communication? 

[David Jenyns] 

We’ve gone all in on G Suite. Just I love the integration.

We use Google Meet, we use Google Chat, we use Gmail, we use Calendar, we use and because it’s all integrated, I’m finding that gets the biggest wins for us. It’s not best of breed on like chat, like maybe Slack or something, but because it’s all in one, it wins.

[Igor Kheifets] 

[37:18 – 37:19]

Morning routine essential?

[David Jenyns] 

[37:20 – 40:58]

For me, it’s having breakfast with my kids, like that’s I just love being there and present and the ability to kind of create that space. It’s the way I start the day. It’s the way that I end the day.

So I feel really good about building a business that has created that space. 

[Igor Kheifets] 

Ideal number of VAs for a small business?

[David Jenyns] 

I think there’s a lot of variables depending on the business, but if I had to pick a number, I would probably say around six or seven.

[Igor Kheifets] 

Your biggest business lesson learned?

[David Jenyns] 

Just you need to move with urgency because things are moving so quickly around you and you might come up with a great idea and you think it’s one in a million, but there’s probably another million people who’ve got that same idea who is trying to execute on it. So you need to move with urgency.

[Igor Kheifets] 

Favorite productivity tool? 

[David Jenyns] 

We use Asana to manage our projects and manage our team. I feel like project management software, when used correctly, is just a force multiplier.

It just makes communication and everybody act so much more efficiently. So we use Asana. I mean, it’s really substitute whatever your favorite project management tool is. But for me, that’s key. 

[Igor Kheifets] 

A book to change your perspective? The E-Myth was a big one for me, being a systems guy, that for me was a real catalyst for just understanding the why.

And I mean, a notable second would probably be Traction. I just love Gino Wickman’s work and how system-oriented and very clearly is very systems driven. 

[Igor Kheifets] 

Best way to overcome procrastination?

[David Jenyns] 

For me, I just count down from three. Like I just if something pops into my head that I know I need to do, I’ll just go three, two, one. And I’ve now built a muscle that almost just forces me to execute on one.

Like I just begin. 

[Igor Kheifets] 

One thing you tell your younger self? 

[David Jenyns] 

I think it’s important to find the right balance and enjoy the ride and life as you go.

There is a time to grind it out and work really, really hard. But you also don’t want to get trapped in that spot. And because years fly by and it’s very easy to keep your eye on the prize and feel like you’re really working towards that and you sacrifice a lot for that.

So you just need to make sure that I mean, I actually got a tattoo to remind myself. It’s DTGW, which is drink the good wine. Basically, you need to make sure that you don’t save that good bottle of wine.

There’s times to drink it. You don’t hold out on the good cutlery. Sometimes you’ve got to drink the good wine.

[Igor Kheifets] 

One thing you wish you knew before hiring your first VA? 

[David Jenyns] 

I think that getting very clear on what they’re going to do before I hired them rather than trying to figure it out, as in have a bit more of a plan. I burnt through so many VAs by not having a plan beforehand.

[Igor Kheifets] 

[40:59 – 41:02]

And what’s the one task you’d never delegate?

[David Jenyns] 

[41:04 – 41:37]

It’s the idea creation. I mean, that’s my magic and what I enjoy most. I’m quite creative and I really enjoy that part of the business, creating for the business until the point at which you’re ready to step out and let go.

Like when you’re ready to sell, that’s obviously the point that you let go. But when I’m still working in the business and even when I’m working on the business, I’m chief idea generator.

[Igor Kheifets] 

[41:39 – 41:54]

All right. So, well, first off, thank you for doing this. And who do you serve?

Like, I guess, who’s your ideal client and how can we find out more about you?

[David Jenyns] 

[41:54 – 42:31]

I work with busy business owners that have teams between 5 and 30 staff where they’re wearing all of the hats still and they’re the center cog and they’re finding that they lack freedom and I help to extract them from the day-to-day operations through process and capturing of best practice. Best place to find me? Systemology.com.

And I’ve got a couple of books that are quite successful and online. You’ll find them over at Amazon. And if you’re listening to this, you’ll be happy to know there’s an audio version as well.

Awesome.

[Igor Kheifets] 

[42:31 – 43:20]

Well, David, thank you for doing this. Thank you for sharing your wisdom with us. And we look forward to hosting you again on The List Building Lifestyle.

[David Jenyns] 

Thanks, Igor. It’s a pleasure. 

Thank you for listening to The List Building Lifestyle. Get access to the previous episodes, transcript of today’s show, as well as other exclusive content at listbuildinglifestyleshow.com.

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