Hello! This is Dean Soto — Founder of FreedomInFiveMinutes.com and
ProSulum.com. Welcome to another episode of Freedom In Five Minutes Podcast! Today, we will be talking about Patching the Holes in Your Processes to Bring Massive Profits.
Overview & Episode Content
- Curb the Flaws in Your System and Avoid Wasting Resources
- Blundering a Manual Watering System in Record California Heat
- Stress and Disruption Caused by Manual System Fails
- Achieve Growth and Profits Without Worrying About Manual Processes
- A Flawless Process and System Takes You to Higher Levels
- Get Massive Gains by Optimizing Your Systems and Processes
Maximize Your Resources and Curb the Flaws in Your System
I made two big mistakes in our garden the other day. And both of these mistakes were because of flawed systems I had in place.
So, the first mistake I made was building the entire watering system for the garden using rubber hoses without using vinyl or latex tapes. Now, if you have ever done a similar project before then you know that wrapping the end of the hose with vinyl tape before putting it on the threads of the hose makes it watertight.
Without watertighting all your hoses, naturally they are going to start leaking water at some point even if there is a rubber washer. The problem was, there were some spots where I did not put that tape.
I thought, “There’s already a rubber washer there, it’ll be fine. We’ll be all good.”
And “fine” it was not. Overnight, as I left my watering system sitting there, it started dripping and wasting water.
For those who follow the podcast, I live in the mountains of California where we use a well. As of this recording, California is in another drought and we do not want to be wasting water.
It is never a good idea to waste water, you never know when the well would go and dry up. The best way is to always maximize your water supply on a regular basis. So generally, wasting water is a very big no-no.
Blundering a Manual Watering Process in Record California Heat
I knew the risks with having those rubber hoses untaped. So I would turn off the water at night and I left the whole system alone for a while.
The second mistake I made was draining our well by accident.
We have four peach trees, a plum tree, and a jujube tree right next to our house. And I hand-water these trees via deep watering. That means, leaving the hose on the ground and letting the trees be watered for fifteen minutes. This soaks the ground deep below.
Now, I always set an alarm for fifteen minutes with my phone whenever I deep water my trees. These alarms help to remind me that I need to turn off the water because I am so forgetful and absent-minded sometimes.
But somehow. I blew through all of the alarms. I totally forgot to turn off the water and it was flowing all night!
Two tank-fulls of water — basically about 5,000 gallons — went to my trees and into the ground. In the morning, we had no water pressure. No nothing. We had no water!
I was thinking, “What the heck happened?”
We literally have no water and we had to wait for the well to fill up which took a couple of days! And all of this was happening as we were having record heat in California.
Stress and Disruption Caused by Manual System Fails
Those two blunders with our watering systems caused so much disruption in our lives for days!
We have misters installed for our dogs and chicken. Another set of misters are ongoing installation for our cats. These misters are to keep our pets protected from the heat. In the past few years, we have had some of our animals die simply because of how hot it got.
In order to avoid such disasters again, I decided to have misters installed with timers during the day from around 10AM to 6PM during the hottest points of the day. And these misters automatically shut off.
On top of that, I have timers for my garden. Of course, my garden needs to be watered as well.
And then, we have workers here who also need water because it’s dry and dusty. These workers need to use the water for building a retaining wall. Water is used to compress the dirt and to get rid of the dust.
Seriously, this water system blunder could not have had the worst timing.
Doing things manually by myself and not having a manual system that was simply not working. Relying too much on my remembering to shut the water off caused a ton of disruption here and a lot of stress as well.
Achieve Growth and Profits Without Worrying About Manual Processes
I had to conserve water and try to remedy the situation.
Earlier today, prior to recording this episode, I made sure that all of the vital points in the rubber hose water system had vinyl tape to completely keep the water from dripping out.
I also checked all my timers and had them set properly. The goal was to make sure it would be really hard to blunder the same way again. I set up a new automated system.
Next, I will be setting up a new system for the peach trees so that I do not have to manually deep water them. That system will go with a timer as well so that the process becomes automatic.
The best thing right now is that all my watering processes are fixed and that all the imperfections within the system and process are patched.
Now that systems and the processes have been patched, the garden is booming and blooming again. We continue to enjoy the bounties of our garden now that I do not have to worry about manual processes.
I got the holes in my systems patched and fixed. And now, my crops have been growing wonderfully.
A Flawless Process and System Takes You to Higher Levels
After automating my watering system, I no longer had to worry about watering my plants. Now that the misters, sprinklers, and other hoses are on timers, all systems in our garden are working together. Every piece is doing exactly what it’s supposed to do.
I get to enjoy my garden growing day after day now with minimal intervention. It is a much faster and better way now with automated systems than those “holes” in my previous process when things weren’t working out correctly within the system itself.
Why is this story important? It is important because the same thing happens in your business.
In fact, a similar thing happened in my business many times where I was relying too much on myself or on a system that was not the most optimal. And that kept me stagnant.
With sub-par processes, there was always something I had to patch up. Whether it was accounts receivable systems, lead generation systems, or whether with my sales team running numbers — resources are wasted because of those holes in my processes.
It is important to patch the holes in your system so you are able to do things that you have never done before. It is all about unlocking more capabilities! If you want to get to the next level, you have to change what you are doing right now and tighten up your systems and processes.
Get Massive Gains by Optimizing Your Systems and Processes
Needless to say, the biggest thing is always having business systems in place. But the next question is, “How can you optimize them?”
How can you take your sales team, for example, and make it where they no longer set appointments? Or, they are no longer the ones who are doing the lead generation portion. Maybe you want your sales team to be the closers only — rather than setters too. How can you separate that?
You might already have a process in place. For me, I had a process where, for the most part, my sales team were the ones setting the appointments and doing the lead generation.
The important thing here is creating a process and optimizing that to create more profit.
For me, things were great! We already sent three different appointments with the help of AI for one of my sales guys. That one sales guy can now just get on the phone and call without worrying about setting up appointments. It saves a lot of back-and-forth time with that sales guy trying to set up appointments and that is pretty amazing!
By optimizing your systems and processes, you end up creating much more profit over time. So what can you do right now for you or your sales team? What can you do to make the process easier and ultimately improve on overall performance?
Conclusion
Right now, I’m currently tightening up a process that increases the conversion rate of our closers. And I’m patching up that system with an AI called Crystal Knows.
The goal is to have the AI look at the prospect’s LinkedIn profile so that it gives you the likely personality profile of that person. That way, when my sales people get on phone calls, they already know how to talk and how to close them — or at least have a good idea of what their personality type is like.
With this patched up system in place, my team is no longer conflicting with prospects and they can mirror who the prospects are. And it's already been pretty amazing. There have been two calls already. It has been super valuable to my sales team.
Resources and Links
I challenge you this week to tighten up one process — especially one that brings in profit like lead generation, or something related to closing, or with your sales team. And you'll see that there is a huge opportunity to make more profit when you tighten up your processes.
This is Dean Soto, Founder of FreedomInFiveMinutes.com and ProSulum.com and I will see you in the next Freedom In Five Minutes Podcast episode!