The Power of Personal Systems
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by Dave Crenshaw
Business Coach & Founder of Fresh Juice Strategy

You can gain control over the flow of time, tasks, and information in both your business and your personal life. That control will give you greater focus and greater success, personally and professionally.

Hi, I’m Dave Crenshaw, Business Coach and founder of Fresh Juice Strategy.  I’d like to share a valuable principle with you.  It’s something I’ve taught to many business owners and executives I’ve worked with.  Your investment in learning this principle will be about 15 minutes of active listening. Afterward I will also offer you something even more valuable, which you’ll be free to take action on or ignore. At the end of this seminar, at the very least, you will have learned a valuable principle, one that is likely new to you. Applying this principle will be the return on your investment of about 15 minutes of active listening.

There is a proverb that illustrates the way to quickly determine whether or not someone is sane.  The individual is shown a river flowing into a pond.  He is given a bucket and asked to drain the pond.  If he walks to the stream to dam the inflow into the pond he will be considered sane.  If, instead, he decides to empty the pond with his bucket without first stopping the in-flow then he would be considered insane.

Ideas & information are flowing at us at an ever increasing rate.  Ponder for a moment the last seven days in your busy life. Imagine the volume of emails, phone calls, mail, advertisements, and interruption after interruption that clamor for your time. Imagine them flowing from an ocean of information into your personal, proverbial pool of to-dos. Does it seem overwhelming to you? Very few among us are not currently overwhelmed by the endless flow of information…yet how many of us are seeking to or have the ability to dam the flow? The solution to stopping and controlling the stream lies in Personal Systems, the tools and training to handle this flow of information properly. Without personal systems, however, we may be very much like the insane test subject, seeking to empty a seemingly bottomless pool with a small bucket!

I have a great deal of experience working with systems. For many years, I’ve trained business owners on how to implement systems in their business.  Systems are procedures, tools, resources that help both your employees and you be consistent in what you do. Systems are a vital part of helping a business run smoothly. Systems move the business closer to that goal of being independent of the business owner. In my experience of being a one to one business consultant and working with many business owners & executives, I have found that work spent on business systems can fall short of it’s intended mark without first working on personal systems.  Many programs & business philosophies focus entirely on business systems.  A Fresh Juice Strategy approach addresses the need for both personal systems and business systems.

What are personal systems?  Personal systems are more than simply having and even using a planner.  Personal systems are more than knowing how to use your PDA or latest laptop or tablet PC.  Simply having a tool, and even knowing how to use that tool, is not a complete system.  A system is much more. A system is a procedure or method of dealing with any number of situations.

I’ll share an example to illustrate what I mean: I remember clearly one lesson from kindergarten: how to make cinnamon toast. It was a fairly momentous day for me, so that’s probably why it sticks out in my mind. The teacher showed us, step by step how to make it. Each step in the process was part of a system. First we put the bread in the toaster. We checked the setting and made sure it was at “2”. We pushed the lever down. While the bread was toasting, we mixed 2 parts sugar with 1 part cinnamon. When the bread came out, we buttered the bread. Then, while holding the bread over our plate, we used a spoon to sprinkle the cinnamon sugar mixture over the bread. Voila! Instant happiness! When I had learned that secret for the first time, I imagined myself being able to survive quite well any disaster, natural or otherwise, by using my new-found culinary skills! Now that I’ve shared this system, you, too, can unlock the magic of cinnamon toast.

Of course, the systems you use daily are more vital to your business. For instance, my guess is that, among the many talents you have, you are successful in selling. I would also guess that you are successful in selling because you have a system, you have a method, you have a philosophy. Perhaps, you even have tools at your disposal to help you sell better, such as brochures, stories, testimonials, examples, and so on. How you say things, what you say, and what tools you use are all part of a system. A system is the method behind how you sell. A system is how you’ve turned your “selling philosophy” into a method of interaction with potential customers.  I use the example of sales because it often brings to mind a certain system that is familiar to you. And if it doesn't immediately bring to mind a system you are currently using, think about what you do that makes you unique in the way that you deal with customers. Compare that to how your employees deal with customers. The employees are using a different system, for better or for worse.

Now, let's return to the source, the head of the stream: your personal systems. When a piece of mail hits your desk, what do you do with it? When you are at lunch with a prospective customer and you agree to do certain things, what do you do with those tasks? When your spouse asks you to do an errand around the house, what do you do with that task? When a meeting falls through and leaves you with an extra hour of time, what is your system to deal with that extra amount of time?

Personal systems are built to help you effectively deal with whatever life throws at you. Personal systems are independent of business systems. They are simply your personal mode of operation. They are the way in which you process new information whether it's a written report, whether it's verbal such as a seminar or conversation, or whether it's ideas that drift into your mind before you're going to bed at night. What do you do with those things?

David H. Sandler, noted sales guru, tells a story of how he went to compete in a Golf Tournament. He was determined to win, and spent two hours on the course prior to the tournament. He hit buckets of balls with every iron in his bag; he practiced on the putting greens, and so on. Just a few minutes prior to the tournament, a Golf pro from the club arrived at the range, hit three balls, and started to walk away. When Sandler, an amateur, suggested the pro should warm up more before the tournament, the pro replied, “If you didn’t bring it with you, you’re not going to find it here.”

If you don’t clearly know exactly how to handle all the information and requests and ideas that assault you daily, your focus is going to be on what to do next to handle those things, rather than on listening, on planning, on being prepared. You must have a personal system, and you must own that system through preparation.

They say necessity is the mother of invention, and the Personal Systems Boot Camp we now use for clients is a perfect example of that.  During the early years of my consulting practice, I found that business owners were slow to take action. Despite my client’s best intentions, they would come back to follow-up meetings not having completed what they committed to do. (Perhaps this has a familiar ring to it?) My clients would make commitments with a sincere desire to take action on certain principles that we had discussed. But they would return to their business and get caught up in the day to day run-of-the-mill activities. A supplier would call, a customer would have an issue, an employee would get fired, an employee needed to be hired and so on and so on. My clients would be side-tracked. Their commitments to do those “important but not urgent” items went undone. Was it that they were lazy, was it that they were a procrastinator, was it that they lacked discipline? If I ask them that question they would often say yes. Yet, the truth is that it's certainly none of those things; it couldn’t be or they wouldn’t have grown their business in the first place.

Their lack of follow-through had everything to do with a lack of personal systems. They lacked the personal systems to confidently and 100% of the time follow through with the commitments that they made. They lacked the skills and ability to take control of constant barrage of To-Do’s and attention-thieves and information overload. This program is now square one for all of my clients, and it makes a huge difference. It helps them gather ideas and always take action on that inspiration. It helps them improve their family relationships and their home relationships and to strike a balance between the two. The wife of one owner I worked with actually shook my hand warmly, looked me in the eye and said, “I don’t know what you did to my husband, but thank you!” Another owner I worked with had a prior reputation of running everywhere and micromanaging everyone. He told me recently, “When I’m in my office, I’m relaxed, I plan, I take my time and I get more done.”

The business is a reflection of the owner. If the business owner is misbalanced, then the business will be misbalanced. If the business owner is sloppy the business will be sloppy. If the business owner doesn't follow through on commitments then neither will his or her employees. This is why personal systems are absolutely vital to the success of your business.
Allow me to share just two of the philosophies that form the basis for the Fresh Juice Strategy Boot Camp:

Philosophy 1. The more collecting points you have, the worse things get.  A collecting point is any place that you're gathering unprocessed items. Unprocessed means you haven’t decided WHAT your going to do with it and WHEN your going to do it.  These collecting points include: email, voicemail, faxes, inboxes, filing cabinets, receipts in your glove compartment, receipts under your chair, things stuffed into your pockets, your purse, your planner, your mind, and so on, and so on..  If I ask you how many collecting points do you have, what would your guess be?  How many places are you gathering unprocessed things? 10, 20, 30?  On average, when I do this training with people and we take a look at their collecting points, most people fall into the category of about 25-35 collecting points.  Prior to training, the best I’ve seen is 12 and the worst I've seen is 70.  The more individual places you have to go to gather items, the more difficult it's going to be for you to be efficient.  It's just cause-and-effect.  How long does it take to gather apples from 20 baskets, verses one basket? When Fresh Juice Strategy clients complete the Personal Systems Boot Camp, they condense to under 10 collecting points.

Philosophy 2. Your mind is not an approved collecting point.  What that means is that of all these different places that you're gathering stuff, the last place you want to put it is into your head.  Why?  Because your head can not prioritize properly.  It does not prioritize what is business, it cannot prioritize what is personal.  Your mind is fickle. It will jump back and forth and it does not care what is important and what is not important.  You can be in the middle of a $1M sales deal and your mind will remind you of the unfinished basement back home.  You can be on a date with your significant other, and it will remind you of unfinished business back at the office.  How many times have you experienced this scenario:  you’re having a conversation with your spouse and he or she says, “Are you paying attention to me?”  And the answer is, no.  You were paying attention to the items drifting in the back of your mind that you needed to do at work.  It’s very likely your mind has wandered quite a bit during this seminar. Why? This is the consequence of a cluttered mind, or using your mind as a collecting point. When Fresh Juice Strategy clients complete the Personal Systems Boot Camp, they un-clutter their mind, clear it of all items, and build a custom-fit system to effectively deal with new ideas.

Now, As a One-to-One Consultant, I’ve found training is meaningless without personal application and clear action steps. Allow me to help you find some personal application and then we’ll wrap things up.  This application is completely in your hands. It’s completely up to you. I’ll guide you through the process.

STEP ONE: pause this seminar and think about all the ideas that have come to you while listening. Some of the ideas may have even been completely unrelated to my topic. Choose the one the task or project that you think would have the greatest impact on your personal life or in your business. Go ahead and pause the seminar now.

STEP TWO: pause the seminar again and think about the idea you’ve just chosen. What is the next action step in completing that idea? You will likely have the tendency to think about more than that one step. Focus on just the next step. Remember the cinnamon toast story? Keep the next step simple and short. Decide clearly what that is.  Go ahead and pause the seminar now.

STEP THREE: Collect that step into something physical, somewhere where you will see it and remember to take action on it. Write it on a scrap of paper, jot it into your PDA, put it on your calendar, something PHYSICAL. Go ahead and pause the seminar now to write this step down.

LAST STEP: In the words of the great corporate philosopher, Nike: Just Do It. But do just that step. Then after you’ve completed that step, you can repeat this exercise for whatever the next step is for your chosen application.
After you take action on this principle I’ve shared in this seminar, you’ll be able to calculate one more thing: your return on investment. When you take action, today, on what you’ve learned from this brief training, what will be your personal ROI for listening to this CD actively for 15 minutes? $50, $100, $5000? It all depends on what you’re worth per hour.

I’d now like to offer you a way to build custom-fit personal systems that dramatically increase your personal effectiveness. You will find this particularly valuable if your business generates at least $1 million in revenue per year, or if you, as an individual, make $60,000 or more per year.  My company, Fresh Juice Strategy offers what we call: The Personal Systems Boot Camp. The Time and Task Bootcamp is a significant time asset that will pay for itself over and over again.  Bootcamp clients drop 15 to 25% or more of their required working hours in 21 days.  How? In the Bootcamp, a Business Coach works with you on-site in your workspace. We guide you in crafting custom-fit, personal systems.  We monitor how you work, and then help you make subtle adjustments that help you uncover HOURS of lost time per week. Then we provide personalized follow-up for 21 Days. Why 21 Days? Because that’s the classic standard for creating a new habit.

At Fresh Juice Strategy, our philosophy is not to give you a quick pick-me-up seminar where the results fade away in a week. We work with you One-to-One to help establish lasting change. Bootcamp clients gain significant amounts of time. They not only become more efficient and focused on their most profitable work, but their stress levels drop like a rock.  Our Bootcamp clients no longer worry about the things that they have to do, because they have a custom-fit system that gives them control of their work environment, their time, their tasks, and their mind. They are better listeners, more creative, and more focused.

Options for the Personal Systems Boot Camp range from $1000 to $1800. Based on our experience, Business Owners and CEO’s require a One and a half Day Boot Camp. The boot camp for Managers and other employees is one day. All Bootcamp options include the personal 21-Day follow-up to ensure lasting habits are developed.

The Bootcamp is not about organization (though increased organization is certainly a byproduct). The Personal Systems Bootcamp is about efficiency and profitability. It is about helping you reduce stress. It is about developing personal systems to maximize your personal & business net worth.
Remember: The amount of money you make will always be dependent upon your ability to focus your time and actions on your most profitable activities. Personal focus comes from personal systems. That’s why we say that the Bootcamp is the fastest way to give yourself a raise. The typical return on investment, based on increased productivity alone, is usually well over 300% after 90 days.

If you would like to reserve a date for your Personal Systems Boot Camp, please call Fresh Juice Strategy at 1-87-SYSTEMS-8. 1-87-SYSTEMS-8. Thank you for listening. I hope you’ve found this training valuable. I hope to have the opportunity to serve you in the near future.

Dave Crenshaw is a Business Coach and President of Fresh Juice Strategy. He began his coaching career in 1998 by becoming the youngest independent consultant, formerly for E-Myth Worldwide. He had already coached business owners several times his age before receiving his degree in Business Management-Entrepreneurship. The creator of the Fresh Juice Strategy program, Dave has coached and consulted business owners from London to Manila and from San Francisco to New York. He is the author of The Myth of Multitasking, available nationwide in hardcover in August '08 by Jossey-Bass (publishers of Patrick Lencioni's fables). You may contact Dave at Fresh Juice Strategy by clicking here.