Your marketing, like everything else in the world including your life, is a system.

Systems thinking is a way of taking the things around us, and turning them into diagrams, ideas and concepts that can be broken down, analyzed and improved upon.

It’s a process for understanding how things influence one another and within a whole.

A system is defined as
A set of connected things or parts forming a complex whole
A set of principles or procedures according to which something is done; an organized scheme or method

When thinking of systems we all tend to think of factories or a manufacturing process. Where there are inputs, then a process and finally outputs.

So we can break this down and identify 3 key components that every system has:

Input – anything you do to activate the system or give the system to use.
Process – the actual steps and functions the system will perform.
Output – the result after doing all the steps.

Your marketing system works exactly the same.

The beauty of systems thinking is that the process gives you the same, consistent results that you’re looking for every time.

It’s a repeatable process that allows you to scale the system and its outputs to achieve the results you want.

Bad results from unmanaged systems may appear to spring up out of nowhere, but this isn’t really the case.

Many times, we’ve let things slip or we didn’t realize that our inputs weren’t any good, so the poor results are just natural outputs

By applying systems thinking, you can change the way you manage your marketing to produce predictable, good results.

Systems thinking itself is a process (system) for understanding how things influence one another to produce favourable results.

The sum of these components and the relationships between them are a system. Systems thinking allows us to manipulate the different components to produce the results we want.

We know that the output we’ve received is the result of the current inputs and processes,

In other words, if you have a goal in your life, you can find a system that will help you achieve that goal.

The first step is to take the system, which is a set of steps, procedures, ideas, and concepts, and add in an input (you).

Once you have all the pieces in place just the way you want them, you will get your desired outcome or goal. You may have to improve the inputs (yourself) in order to get the maximum results, but the process will work.

This is an incredible idea! It means that you can take anyone else’s system, and immediately apply it to your own life to achieve similar (or the same) results.

Now start thinking of your Marketing as a system:

Inputs
These are your offers and the eyeballs that see your offers.
How do you help someone get something for a fair and reasonable value
How you drive prospects into your system
The different channels your ideal client hangs out

Conversions (Process)
How well do you convert prospects into paying customers
The more efficient your conversions the less you have to spend on inputs and the greater the return you will get.
Continuous improvement by testing and learning

Growth (outputs)
Your customers buy more and buy more often and increase the transaction value
Upsells, cross-sells, down-sells
Develop business partnerships with joint ventures, integration and supply other products to help your customers.

If you start to look at your marketing as a system and break it down into these 3 parts you will dramatically improve the performance of your business.

By applying systems thinking, you can change the way you manage the machinery to produce predictable, good results.

Systems thinking itself is a process (system) for understanding how things influence one another to produce favourable results. This is a less common way of thinking that is embraced by highly successful people that allows them to focus on the things that are most important.

5 Key Benefits

#3 #1 Why Have A System For Your Business
In many franchise businesses, you can see the same hamburger or service turn out the same carefully-designed way, regardless of location or the employees doing the work.

The reason why these often big businesses are able to perform an operation consistently and at a massive scale is that they use and follow systems and work processes.

This means that they do the right things, in the right way.

#2 Why Small Companies Can't Handle Growth
Unfortunately, most small businesses and entrepreneurs do the opposite.

They fail to create systems and business processes that coordinate routine work in a standardized way. Their style of small business management pretty much boils down to just asking their employees to come on time, and then watching them and hoping their products and services are promoted and fulfilled correctly.

Well, what does "correctly" even mean?

This is a mistake that happens all the time; most entrepreneurs think they don't need to set systems and work processes, or that it has to be done all at once in some monumental undertaking to make an employee handbook as thick as McDonald's.

Because the average small business operates with less than a few dozen employees, their managers generally believe (incorrectly) that since the business only has a few people, creating and applying business systems would be a waste of time and money.

This might work in the beginning, but the problem comes when it's time for the business to grow. Then you may have 10 times the work going on, and things get chaotic. Quality goes down, morale goes down...it's a confusing mess!

The same goes for when your business has to change employees (even satisfied employees change jobs, move, or otherwise stop working for you).

With no systems in place, the new employee will have a tough time doing the task correctly because "correctly" has not been defined for them or demonstrated.

#3 The Process Determines the Results
Another reason why small businesses often lack proper processes is that their management only cares about results, rather than the processes that created them.

They don't care how their employees get the job done, as long as the finished burger meets the standards.
Of course, we should all be results-oriented. But sometimes having your team do something a specific way will lead to better results, higher quality, faster work, less waste, etc.
In these cases, you definitely want to spell out the process for them.

When buying hamburgers from a franchise, for example, people expect it to be perfect or to at least be identical to the previous ones that the burger joint sold.

If you didn't have a system or a process for making burgers (how long to freeze, how long to cook, what the toppings are and in what order to stack them, etc.) then keeping the quality up to your standards would be tough.

One employee would do it one way; another employee would do it another. You would not get consistent results.

#4 How A Systems-Run Business Looks
We've covered the disadvantages of not having small business management systems and processes, but now let's delve into what may actually happen when you do have them.

When talking about the advantages, we just have to reverse the scenarios we talked about earlier.

Imagine a business with only a handful of employees. But also imagine them following a system and doing what they were supposed to do, and doing it the right way.

Costs would go down.
Product and service quality would go up.
Profits would soar.
And your business would be simple to run.

As a result, you would spend your time growing vs. simply operating your business. And tons of other businesses would want to purchase yours for a big premium.

Now imagine one employee quitting for whatever reason. The new employee wouldn't have a problem taking the old employee's place; because there would be a process to follow that everyone knows. It would have become the way you do it here.

Now that you know that systems and business processes are important, how do actually create them?

#5 Make A Few Simple Systems Of Your Own

To create systems, it is best that you start looking at the business processes that take place in your business.

Make a quick list of everything your business does, from accounting to sales.

Once you have a list, take one at a time (in order of impact on your business; the most potential impact first) and start writing down a simple checklist of actions that make it happen.

Start with the beginning of the process (e.g., customer places an order), then imagine the ideal outcome (customer receives perfect result), and then write down each step that should occur in between.

Then write in who is responsible to do what, and estimate the costs of each step in hours and dollars. You should then have on one hand a brief write-up of how to perform the system and what it will take to do so.

Once you've designed your system, test it out once or twice before officially implementing it.

Make sure your systems and processes do what they are supposed to do and nothing short of that. Perform the work yourself or watch someone closely, and pay attention to every step.

Whether it's from not knowing about systems or not making the time for them, most small
business managers do not make and improve their business processes over time.

But that's the manager's main job -- to keep the right people running the right systems, so the company's desired results can be achieved.

If the system doesn't work...change it. If an employee will not or cannot work the system...change employees.

Because once you systematize your business, it will run smoothly and it will run itself. You can then focus your efforts on growing the business, and reap the rewards of a fully systematized company. 

Use this process to review and improve your marketing system and you will see a significant improvement in your business.

Some key questions for your marketing:

Inputs - what are your offers, where are your offers, what pain points are you addressing, how are leads captured

Process - what happens when a customer clicks a link ie in an ad, on a landing page, is the link working, is the message consistent, who follows up

Output - once subscribed what happens, do we retarget, do we upsell, do they enter a nurture campaign.

Try this today for your business and start to track your results.