00:00:25      Josh Fonger

Welcome to the Work the System Podcast, where we help entrepreneurs make more and work less by managing their systems. And I’m your host, Josh Fonger and today we have a special guest, we have Sam Carpenter, the author of Work the System as this book right here in the 4th edition. If you’ve not gotten that, of course, of course. Go to Amazon to get it or you go to Sam Carpenters website workthesystem.com to get the summary or the 1st 4 chapters for free. But Sam, today is going to be a special day. We’re talking about everyone’s favorite topic which is working procedures and also known as the heavy lifting phase. We’re trying to transform our business.

00:01:06      Josh Fonger

Excited to have you here and excited to kind of pick your brain and find out exactly what you did at CentraTel and what our listeners can do to fix their fix their business. So happy to have you here.

00:01:19    Sam Carpenter

Hey, it’s great to be there, Josh. Sorry, Diana just brought me an espresso.

00:01:25      Josh Fonger

Very good.

00:01:26    Sam Carpenter

I’ve got my cat and one of my dogs. One of my cats and one of my dogs over here.

00:01:31      Josh Fonger

Cheers. Cheers. Well, very, very good. Well, well, what I want to do with the first question is kind of set the stage for everybody, which is what was your company like before you had working procedures in it and? What was it? Or how did you get started? How did you get started actually getting those procedures into CentraTel?

00:01:49    Sam Carpenter

Well, it was interesting and there’s the book describes it in detail, so I won’t go into that. But it was chaos. Everybody did everything differently. And every business has a series of the processes they follow and remember the main theme of the work the system method is that our lives are collections of systems. Our businesses are collections of systems. Our cats are a collection of systems.

Our cars are and our businesses too, a collection of processes. And so, if you can make all those processes super efficient, you will have a super efficient and profitable business. And so, I went for 15 years, I bought CentraTel. It’s a call center, I had seven people when I bought it. I think we’ve got 60 now.

00:02:39   Sam Carpenter

It was chaos. Everybody did everything differently. It took me 15, one five (15) years to figure out that and seeing all my friends have the same chaotic businesses, my, my entrepreneur friends, it took me 15 years to discover that our lives are a collection of systems and so as a business and so. Actually, when I saw that and I started dissecting my company, picking out the biggest problem first, and then writing up a working procedure 123 the steps that should be followed helped by my staff, who ends up writing them all anyway now and since then that was 1999 or so it went from chaos to utter control, and that utter control is includes a great bottom line and so I was working 80 to 100 hours a week. Quickly as I got things under control and you have your 120-day transformational program, I kind of went through one ad hoc on my own, not really knowing what I was doing except I knew for sure my business was made-up of separate systems. I was soon down to 40 hours. I mean, within a couple of months and now I work. I work 3 to 4 hours a month because I want to research and development. The company keeps growing. Love the people who work for me. I’ve got one lady who’s worked for me for 32 years now, and that’s Sandra. You’ve heard me talk about Sandra and Andis my CEO’s been with me 20 years. I’ve got a number of people been with me. About 30. So, you have happy employees who are paid very well, and they have a handle in creating these things called working procedures. So, I went from utter chaos to a really controlled environment as the term I guess I would use which is my life now. It’s a controlled environment and not like a machine. It is like a machine, but it’s not like a machine in the sense that everything is regimented. No, it’s total freedom. It’s just that you don’t have fires to put out anymore. So, we’re talking about total efficiency and in this talk today, we’ll keep going back to becoming incredibly efficient, but that says the simple answer your question is we went from chaos to control from losing money to total profitability by creating these written working procedures and I’ll just add this right here, what’s the difference? And I always say this, what’s the difference between a small struggling business and a huge successful business? I’m sorry, but it’s documentation boring, but true, you have to write things down.

00:05:21    Sam Carpenter

Now remember, I don’t write them down anymore. I mentioned that earlier. My staff does it and they love it, and they have a say in how things proceed and it’s a real nice place to work because of that. Nobody works over 40 hours a week and they make a whole lot more money than they make anywhere else and I’m I make more money than Diana and I need so it’s nice. It’s very nice. But you gotta bite the bullet. You can’t just wing it. You can’t let employee A do this and employee B do the same thing in a different way. You put them together and say let’s come up with the best way to do it and we’ll all do it that way. And then if any of you have an improvement. Tell us what it is, and we’ll insert it into the documentation and one more thing is they don’t walk around reading what to do next. They never do. It’s just written over here. Everybody knows what it is and if there’s a change to be made, it’s made you don’t spend a lot of time on paperwork at the beginning you do.

00:06:21      Josh Fonger

So, for those listening to this, who, who, who want that and currently they don’t have it at all. Where would they begin? Because a lot of my clients they start off and say I want what Sam has. I’m overwhelmed right now. I probably have hundreds of procedures I need to write. Where do I begin?

00:06:40    Sam Carpenter

Well, it’s in part one of the book. I mean, the book is a handbook for getting this done. Now you have a lot of people that come to you, and you guide them and you, you give them that structure and that framework and hold them accountable and that’s important, but people can also do it just by the book. The book has everything in it. In part one, it talks about how to get there, how I got there, and the brain change that has to happen. Seeing things as separate systems, Part 1, Part 2 is the documentation, one of which is working procedures and Part 3 are odds and ends and everything. It’s in the book, but where do you get started? Get the book. Can you get the 1st 4 chapters for free at workthesystem.com and start in the preface and the introduction are quite thorough. I’ve pretty much used those two documents to summarize the whole thing. How it works. That’s where you start. You start and you want to read the book and it’s an easy read. There are actually 2 prefaces in it, one for the 1st edition which came out in 2008 and then the latest 4th edition, which came out in 2021, which was. Yeah. So, two years ago, so we were recording this in late 2023, but anyway it’s all there and that’s where you start. You have to do some reading and a lot of people don’t read anymore because our attention spans are short. And if you get to know me and sign up on the website if you’re not signed up already. Sign up and workthesystem.com and every week you’ll get a video from me, and I talk about all this, but you have to, you have to do a little reading and I refer back all the time that people don’t read so much anymore because of these and TV and Entertainment and everything. But you gotta do a little reading. Gotta do a little work here at the beginning, there’s a little elbow grease to do at the beginning, and then once you get it in your head and remember, that’s part one of the book. Once you get it in your head, it’s a piece of cake because you’re seeing the world in a different way, a more efficient way. What I call a layer deeper?

00:08:57      Josh Fonger

So, with your staff you hinted at it in the beginning. They actually created these well, they helped you create in the beginning, but now. They create them all. How do you get your staff to create them?

00:09:10    Sam Carpenter

Well, they read Part 1 of the book, and we talk and of course, I, I’m there — Invisible and once you see this way of examining the world, you find that it’s super accurate. There’s nothing mysterious about it. But you see every element of your life as a collection of systems. And once you get that in your head and you have people who can get that in your head, their head then you’re good. They know what to do automatically. You have managers who really buy into it and guide the process along. But I don’t do anything. I don’t people don’t go off the reservation. People been with me a long time, we don’t… Even the hiring process, Josh is, as you know, is a kind of a regimented, systematic thing with hoops to jump through. And there’s 12, 12 hoops to jump through that’s in the book too. I think it’s chapter 16 or 18, I forget but it’s a matter of getting the right people and getting their heads on straight, and if they can’t get it then you need to get somebody else and a lot of times as somebody takes their business that’s been functioning for a while and buys into this because they’re working 80 hours a week and they’re not getting anywhere and they can’t see their family and have had enough. There’s no money. You really do have to. Probably some people need to leave. Just it’s a numbers game. Not everybody gets this, but most people will. But if you’ve got some people who would just refuse to go along with your new vision, well and obviously they need to go deal with their own vision somewhere else and move through with you and you need to assemble your team. And as I said earlier, a lot of people that were working for me for decades and decades because this works so well, and they make so much money and it’s a nice work environment and they’re all over the United States now since we’ve gone pretty much virtual. My headquarters are in Bend OR but they’re all over the place and I haven’t. We have another business here. We operate the same way. It’s a real estate investment, slash development company and Diana and I have about 10-10 homes and half of them are empty and half of them aren’t. But we don’t have any mortgages, so who cares? They’re just long-term investments, we run them the same way. Yeah, documentation and process control and not chaos. That’s how you start. Start with the book.

00:12:01      Josh Fonger

So, for those who are, you know, kicking off the writing procedures, is there ever a situation where you would say, hey, actually for this you don’t need a working procedure, does that ever happen in business?

00:12:01    Sam Carpenter

Yes. Yeah, it does, of course. Yeah. Otherwise, it’s crazy. You have to be selective. Now, let me give you a couple of examples. An example of 1 where you really need a written procedure is how you answer the phone at your front office. Let’s say you have a little office. Well, ours is 7 steps. It’s all simple put a smile on your face, number one. Number two, pick up the phone. Number three, say I forget what it is right now. I think we’ve changed it in the last couple of years back there. About what, exactly that. Hi, this is CentraTel. My name is Mary. May I help you with the cheerful voice? It’s like 7 steps, right? But you don’t, you don’t have a working procedure about how you should set up your office. What’s your office? What? What should you have on your desk? What should you know, you can get crazy with this. And we always have some people. I have one guy. He says. Well, I wanna do working procedures. So excited in this business. I wanna do them at home about how we wash the dishes at night, and he said my wife won’t cooperate. I said don’t do a working procedure for how you do the dishes. And Josh, you’ve had you’ve had a thing about your boys when they were younger about there’s a little process. They go by where they’re done with their dinner. Correct me if I’m wrong, but they say may I be excused and say yes and they’re to pick up their dish, their dish and their glass and go over and put it in the sink. Right. And move on and I know I’m abbreviating it, but you don’t write a working procedure for that, and in fact, for your personal life, you don’t write a lot of working procedures, but for your business, you do. How is. Well, how is the job interview connect conducted? How are how do you fire people if you have an HR manager in your business, how is she performing and she should be writing up the procedure to follow. So yeah, you don’t want to get crazy about it. You really want to be sensible, but you don’t want. For instance, everybody answering the phone in a different way because they feel like it one day one day, they don’t feel good and answer it in another way. And then so you really need everybody answering in the 100% best way possible and all of you collectively agree what that would be. But you’re the boss 100% of the time. So, what happens with system within your business if it’s performed perfectly every single time you get super efficient and that’s what this is all about is efficiency and bottom-line mechanics. It’s efficiency and its people knowing what’s gonna happen next, which gives them a good state of mind. There’s a whole lot of reasons for written procedures and having things systemized and sequence is so important, and that’s what written documentation does.

00:15:00      Josh Fonger

Well, Sam, for the last question, I’m going to leave a little bit open-ended because there’s a couple things I want to ask. I’m going to wrap it into one for you to close it out on working procedures, but a lot of people, again they, they’ve heard you before. They’ve read the book and they read the book a couple times. It’s been years and years and years, and they still have not finally done this heavy lifting, the procedure right and so, what would you say to them to inspire them to get moving? And then what maybe is the next action set they should take? And how would you help them as we as we close out today.

00:15:34    Sam Carpenter

Well, of course. Procrastination is a problem that extends everywhere, and I would say this. If your business speaking to the viewer listener here. If your business has been driving you crazy, you don’t have any spare time. You don’t see a way out. You couldn’t retire. Now if you wanted to, because you’re in the middle of your business, you don’t have an entity to sell. If you don’t want this to continue anymore. Well, why don’t you do something different and doing something different is grab the book, read the first part of the book and see if it makes sense and be courageous. It all comes down to courage, you know. And Josh, you have a way of guiding people. And if you handle thousands of people through this process and that’s all good. But you can do it through the book too. But it’s a matter of personal discipline and guts, guts, everything of how courage really, every little last decision is about that, and I have to tell you when I got this in my head, I was about to lose my business. It’s all described in part one of the book and that gave me the courage I there’s a chapter in there called gun to the head enlightenment and I didn’t have a choice. I was gonna miss a payroll I had. I had to do something different. And I did. And. And our viewers and our listeners are maybe not in those kinds of dire straits, but they’re real tired of it. They want to spend more time with the family. They wanna go fishing. They wanna go hunting. They wanna travel. They wanna do things without having to worry about the business every minute. And the other thing is this. The last thing here, there’s a lot more to it. But you don’t want to fall into this trap of feeling heroic. That you’re the only one that can do your nobody else is up. Nobody else is equal to you as far as the quality and how you’re. So, I’ve got a let me let me throw an example in. There’s a cabinet maker. Remember we have this real estate; we’ve built some houses, and we have a cabinet maker who’s got his customers about eight months. Eight months. You gotta wait eight months and then I’ll help you out. That’s seriously crazy. So, one of our houses. We had to wait months and months and months for him to finally get to it and get it done and because he thinks he’s he just thinks he’s the only one that can do it, I guess. And he should raise his rates. If he’s out eight months, bring it down to three months. Raise your rates and have some more time with your family. He’s a good guy and everything, but so many people run their businesses that way that they think they’re the only one who. It’s this big heroic thing.

00:18:15    Sam Carpenter

It’s like. It’s like Sparta. Well, we’re not. We’re not all Leonard Leonard’s. We are not all warriors out there in the in the front. We are business owners, and we need to train our people to do what we do and that’s a leader who can. Otherwise, it’s just you’re never going to get anywhere you’re going to live your whole life beating your head against the wall. There’s a couple of good reasons right there that what I’ve just described just get started and just take that first step and I want our listeners and our viewers to know that you and I are not in business together. You have your own business and whatever you do on the consulting and the coaching, I don’t get a dime of, and I don’t want it because that’s the way I wanted it set up. And so, I like doing this. These videos are fun, and I love talking to people about it, but go to workthesystem.com and sign up and get my videos once a week. And they’re always short, 3-4 or five minutes is that and they’re pieces out of my book and pieces out of daily life that you might find fun. OK, alright.

00:19:39      Josh Fonger

Very good. That’s very great. Great summation, Sam. And again, thank you to the listeners, watchers, viewers for being here and joining us episode with Sam Carpenter about working procedures. And then stay tuned into the Work System Podcast. We’ll have another episode come up soon. I’m sure Sam and I have some more coming up. I have a few ideas after this this session today and as Sam mentioned, you go to workthesystem.com and you can subscribe there to get his weekly videos and also get the summation of the book or the 1st 4 chapters. If you’d like to work directly with me, you can go to wtsenterprises.com and we’ll catch you next time.

00:20:17    Sam Carpenter

Thanks, Josh. Thanks. Talk soon. OK, bye.