No matter how many times my son asked me as we walked home from school, my response was always the same.
If I could have any superpower, it would be telekinesis.
I so want to be Mrs. Weasley, wave my hand or my wand, and get the dishwasher loaded and the counters clean in moments.
Kitchen clean up is never ending.
Just like there's a never-ending list of things to do in your business. Like opportunities to add productivity or efficiency or ways to connect with people and clients differently, automatically, or just plain more.
But just like some of the things I value in my personal life, including waking up to a clean kitchen, there are some things that still rely on a person to deliver.
So I hate to break it to you but...
Yours is a people-reliant business.
It's not that AI or automation or systems or processes can't help.
It's that, still, at the end of the day, the value of your enterprise is based on the value your people can deliver on top of it all.
My former colleague, Dave, is a good example of this.
What Systems Can and Can't Do For You
One of my long-standing clients had asked us to go behind the scenes with them on a rather massive project, taking over a good chunk of execution on what started as $1.5 billion in assets under management.
The only issue is that for another, much smaller client, we had generated a $250,000 error just a few years before.
All over a simple mistype of trade data.
The manual entry problem we were about to have with this new one blew that one out of the water.
So I did something similar to what I might do for a client today...
I looked at all the angles, dug into potential solutions - both human and technology, and identified a pathway and process that would get us there.
Then we got that plan put into motion by people, in this case all over the globe, testing and improving it through whatever bumps and bottlenecks came up, until it was primetime ready.
Except this time something different happened.
Because while my team and I got the system from idea to execution, what I didn't realize was how Dave was going to flip it all on its head.
The Value People Bring To Your Business
Just like you might be thinking right now, I figured that the goal was risk management, efficiency, maybe a combination of project management and cheerleading but also... just getting the dang business in the door.
Except Dave brought a whole new light to things.
A couple months in, I'm on the phone with the client asking for their take on things...
And when I mentioned earlier dealing with bumps and bottlenecks along the way... trust me, there were plenty...
So I was kind of taken aback when they said they loved the relationship manager on their account.
Because besides the fits and starts to get there, I was their relationship manager. And I knew it wasn't me they were talking about.
Digging in, Dave, who would have borne the brunt of manual entry - including both the drag on his time and the career risks...
He'd been tasked with checking that all our processes worked day to day.
But what I didn't know was that he'd decided to use his "extra time" to also call the client, chat with them about their accounts, and check in with them personally.
They loved him.
What We Can Learn From Each Angle
The previous error-prone client and this client both had automations.
They both had Standard Operating Procedures.
I'd like to think that both of them got the same level of service.
But only one of them 4x'd their investment in 18 months.
To be clear, the other one actually 10x'd over time, but it took much longer, we had a long slog of weekly meetings to reestablish trust, and we had to dedicate a small team to make that happen.
You need processes and systems.
From the $250k error, I learned to do the following:
- Check all the angles
- Ask the questions that need to be asked, even when they sound stupid
- Make sure there are backup plans in place
- Assign ownership to every step
- Turn ideas into execution
- Create systems and documentation that is accessible and used by everyone
But from the no-errors-ever $1.5 billion to $6 billion client, I learned to empower the Daves of the world.
One approach is risk management and efficiency.
The other is profit and performance.
Yours is a people-reliant business.
And better results come when you have both in place.
If you've got one or not the other, or you'd like both to be working well for your business, let's talk.
