“Systems” is such a dull word. But systems are vital if you want to move your business beyond startup mode.

When you're starting up everything is new. You make things up as you go along. You just do what it takes to get things to work.

But when you've built that initial client base and you're fairly busy, if you want to progress you can't waste time recreating things all the time.

I've learnt that personally I only have limited mental capacity. I can think hard about stuff for a few hours a day, but after that my brain is much less effective.

I can continue to have meetings, chat to people, do familiar tasks. But I can't create a lot of new stuff once my mental capacity has been exhausted.

So I need to reserve my limited brain power for when I really need it.

For me that's stuff like working directly with clients, creating new training material and writing blog posts, emails and maybe doing the odd video.

I don't have the capacity to be constantly thinking about what to do next. Or how I'm going to get more email subscribers. Or what I can do to get more website traffic.

That's why I've created systems to do that stuff for me.

They're not all automated, but they are all “no brainer” stuff.

My website traffic these days comes from online advertising campaigns, some guest blog posting and appearing on other sites in interviews or podcasts, and sharing of my material on social media.

I review what I'm doing quarterly. But on a day by day basis I don't have to think about it. It's either running itself, or I just get on and do what I need to do.

Similarly for nurturing relationships with potential clients, I don't spend time thinking about what to do next and coming up with lots of new stuff. I just write emails as part of my system and send them out.

Selling stuff? My system is to include a link at the bottom of my emails for people wanting to learn more and get faster results. And I do occasional webinars to promote products.

But again, I'm not reinventing the wheel all the time. I'm not having to think hard about what to do, I'm just executing my system.

Have you got systems in place in your business, or are you having to think hard every time you do marketing?