Building Sustainable Systems feat. Khadirah Muhammad

Narrator 0:00
You’re listening to the all systems go podcast, the show that teaches you everything you need to know to put your business on autopilot. Learn how to deploy automated marketing and sell systems in your business the right way with your host, the professor of automation himself and founder of automation bridge, Chris Davis.

Chris Davis 0:32
Welcome to another episode of The all systems go podcast where I interview founders and digital marketers to talk about software, and systems to scale your small business,

Chris Davis 0:48
really your small business enterprise, and or startup. I’m your host, Chris L. Davis, the founder of automation bridge. And I have a special guest, I have a special guest today Khedira Muhammad, and she is a systems implementation engineer. And that’s why it says special everyone. She’s an engineer. So you already know what’s about to go down in this episode. But she went from breaking into the entrepreneurial world at 18. With the goal of retiring her parents to falling in and falling in love with systems and automation that make true businesses world go round. Her notable projects include taking clients to person operation from 15k to 80k in revenue in 60 days. So if you’re if you’re not doing the math, 52x of 15 is 33x 15 is 45 4x is still under 80k. All right, so she over 4x Just trying to put it in context for you all. Now. Khedira helps solopreneurs and those with small teams create six figure systems so that they can gain back their time freedom and lifestyle freedom and rekindle the joy of their business in their business using systems, automation and technology. Can you not see why I’m excited, and Kadir is going to come on and talk about some of the systems considerations that you must be aware of, if you’re going to achieve this level of success. We’re talking back end stuff today. Some of the techie stuff for my founders, this is going to just inform you of what’s going on behind the curtain for my implementers This may just give you the blueprint you are looking for so Khedira welcome to the podcast. How are you doing?

Khadirah Muhammad 2:37
I’m fantastic. Thank you so much love. Love that intro. That intro, I am excited to be here excited to be here. This value to your audience.

Chris Davis 2:48
Yes. So I’m gonna just start this off by telling everybody I did. I talked to Khedira, like 30 minutes before recording. And I’m unapologetic. And here’s why. Here’s why. It’s hard to find engineers that are entrepreneurs in this space, by the way, if you are one reached out, but I believe firmly my longtime listeners know this. I think that if you need a systems, if you need a system built in your business, there is no one most better qualified than an engineer. That’s an entrepreneur. You can’t prove me wrong. You can’t I’m sorry, it’s not debatable. So you’ve got two on two to entrepreneur engineers, on this episode. And you all if you’re not familiar with my story, I don’t know maybe episode one or two of the podcast, I kind of detail that out. But Kadir I want to I want you to just explain to or reveal or help us understand how you got to where you are, as an entrepreneur building out systems for small businesses and startups with an engineering background. How How did you how did you make the transition? What What was it like? Did you always know? Yeah, I’m doing this engineering thing, but it’s coming to an end. How did you stumble upon this space?

Khadirah Muhammad 4:09
Oh, yeah. Oh, my goodness, no, that that’s gonna bring you back to like, actually, my senior in high school. I actually went to school to be a photographer. That’s what I initially wanted to do. And then it was my first semester there and I took some class and I’m like, this just may not be for me. This just may not be where my talents are. And then I was on YouTube somewhere. And I’m sure I saw some video about learning how to code. It specifically being a front end developer and then I kind of just focused everything in school to be in a friend developer engineer. I taught myself initially how to code HTML CSS, I learned how to read JavaScript. Be very specific, I can do a little bit, but I can’t tell you I’m fluent in it. I learned C sharp, I thought I might be, you know, maybe a backend engineer, or even a full stack developer or something like that. And then somewhere around that, I actually fell in love more. So with marketing, and digital marketing, which changed a lot, because that wasn’t exactly what my major was. I studied in the College of Engineering, I graduated with a Bachelors of Science in Technology. And when I graduate, and that actually, before I graduated, I worked for quite a few different marketing firms in my local area. And I also used to work for a new balance in their St. Louis location, the corporate company. And so I graduated, or I’m about to graduate, I’m like, Well, let me try marketing yet. Let me do something different. I just felt like I had a lot of opportunities at the time. Try that I had a good portfolio. If I do say so myself. Apply for a bunch of places. Nobody called me back. Nobody emailed me back. Let’s move on. Am I missing something? I don’t know. Is it a good deal? Muhammad? I don’t know. Anyway. Anyway, I, I’m like, Okay, well, let me just try this myself. I felt like I didn’t have anything to lose. So I just did it. Right. When I graduated, I had like three months left on my lease at my apartment. And I’m like, Well, we’re going to write this out, we’re going to try it. And I shouldn’t be getting clients. And I specifically was helping them with advertising. And that was going well. So I did that for two years. That a mind you this is 2019. Now I’m fast forwarding to about 2021 did it for two years working with a lot of different entrepreneurs, from out of the gate startups that were just trying to get their feet wet, they didn’t really understand just helping them kind of create strategies to a bit more established, companies have been around for, you know, 10 plus years or so, kind of all the way in between. And in that case, I started to fall in love with the puzzles. Thing about systems engineering, even, you know, coding in unit is the puzzles that we love, you know, and in Chris and I were actually just talking about that for a little bit about the love of puzzles. And my puzzle was helping me helping these entrepreneurs stay organized, and actually create a process to help them scale more, have more time, because I realize my you guys are making more money, but you’re also spending a lot more time. And that doesn’t work. If the equation stays equal like that. You make less money. Probably not spending a lot of time. But if you’re making more money, but you’re still spending a lot of time, you know, what is the benefit of that? You know, and so that was in 2021, I fell in love with it, I worked with a couple clients. And I just, I stay with that ever since. And it’s been a roller coaster. It’s been more interesting, this space of being a systems entrepreneur, because it’s not a lot of us. And you know, you and I were talking just talking about it’s not a lot of us in this space, who actually talk about it in our in it, but it’s entirely different. But it’s enough. It’s a blessing. It’s so much fun. People are checking burned out on this stuff.

Chris Davis 8:41
Yes, yes. And I have to give some flowers here because I went through the same thing. Getting to the point of approaching graduation, not getting any calls. I mean, my friends, they’re getting jobs like that. I mean, just back to back then I start getting worried. Well, I never thought that I could go to college, graduate not have a job. That was never a possibility in my head. But unlike you now you just jumped right in the consulting and freelance and I was like, somebody has to hire me in the first person that called I was like, yep, you had me at hello, I don’t I don’t care where you’re located. I don’t even care what you’re paying. I need a job. So to see you be proactive in generating money, right, doing something that you had got experience with in school and even hats off to getting the experience outside of your major, right, like when I did an intern in school, and it was directly connected to engineering and it was boring. Oh my goodness, it was boring. But if I’d have had the mindset to look outside of it or you know, maybe pick up on different skills while I was doing it, maybe maybe it would have looked different. So for you for You you get into you stumble upon marketing. You realize, man, I’m, I really liked this, like, I really like it. And you get into it and you’re able to bring all of this systems experience with you. Then you get, you start to see some, you start to get some big results. Now if you’re if you’re anything like me, I didn’t notice it the first time I had like a really major result was with LeadPages. I came in, built their whole system and was like, Whoa, millions didn’t know it could do that. Did you have a similar experience where you’re like, Whoa, 5x plus didn’t realize, Oh, yeah.

Khadirah Muhammad 10:41
Oh, yeah, no, this this. So I gotta tell you, Okay, so it’s it’s October 2020. I get a DM from a gentleman. And he’s like, hey, you know, I heard about you. Somebody talked about you. And they said, you know, you’re good at systems and whatnot. Can you Can we talk make sure. We talk the day before my birthday, actually, October 30. So I was actually, I didn’t plan on doing any, any calls or anything like that. I just wanted to relax. I want to talk to you. He tells me about his, his his work. He’s in the financial education space. And I’ll give you a caveat ugi what it really entertainment space where writing his personal reasons. Yeah. And I actually when I looked at him deeper, I realized my mother had actually used the services. And she and my father had gotten actual results from it like real life, they’re actually able to get their I think their car refinanced in to much lower rate. Only what isn’t actually typical. So I was like, Okay, you actually worked for my parents are just regular people. So this, this, you might actually budget. We’re talking, he’s like, Yeah, I got this stuff going on. We’re trying to grow. We don’t know what’s going on. I don’t you know, we want to find somebody who’s sharp, who knows what they’re doing. And he tells me where he really wants to go. That’s the more interesting part two, how fast he wants to go. He’s well connected. I’m like, Okay. Let me just look at what you got going on. He told me he had a meeting on Sunday, with this whole, you know, his whole team, which at that time, just him and one other person. And I’m like, Okay, I look at his process. I just do it. For a lot of people, I do a video kind of audit your stuff, as I see right now. And I’m like marketing hat, and systems and automation hat, putting them together, and just point out a couple of things that you could do better. So Tim, in the video, I shoot it. I sent it to him. Not like even three hours later, he sends me one of the longest emails I’ve ever gotten. He basically saying, Campbell, you found that we need you, or pay you whatever you want. Which is like, Okay, I said, but I need the money. Give me my money. So I know you’re gonna need this software, this software and that software and let me do my thing. Trust me, you will be fine. And we can get into why exactly did for him. But I gotta tell you at the time, that money, you know, he made like, 15k the next month, there was no difference in his marketing. I want to tell you no difference you didn’t want to ask. He does interviews on YouTube channels. And he’s just really good at picking the audience’s that’s all I did. And I’m thinking like, oh, goodness, cool. You know, it’ll probably, you know, I’m only looking for a percentage increase a small percentage, because, you know, it’s like climbing up a mountain, you improve as you go. At the end of the month. It wasn’t just 80,000 in revenue. That was cash collected. I know. Only because we had to switch payment processors in the middle of the month. Because the other one got not suspended. But the Pay Pal does the thing where they stopped after a certain you know, money. They’re like, You got to stop.

Chris Davis 14:16
Oh, yeah, we stay away from PayPal continue.

Khadirah Muhammad 14:20
And I’m thinking I’m like, Well, eventually I’ll tell them about the PayPal thing because I don’t think anything’s right. I’m just trying to get through the month. He calls me it’s like hey, it shut down. We gotta like What do you mean we gotta do what what how much? He’s Oh, we had 30,000 Yeah, that was the most incredible moment. I honestly. I’m like that usually you think that when you break something or it’s like, yeah, I have Yeah, that was the most incredible gift I’ve seen.

Chris Davis 15:00
Yeah, and it’s the power, it’s the power of the system. And you don’t know it until you experience it. For for the business owner or founder. They, they they know that feeling where it’s like, Whoa, is finally working money’s coming in, you know. And then for the implementer, we’re often the last ones, where you know, you can get so heads down, like, Okay, let me hook this up, let me do this. And then before you know what you look up, and you’re like, oh, it’s working already, I had like a list of the things

Khadirah Muhammad 15:30
I was getting. I didn’t even get through my whole list. Because at this point, now, it’s like tending to the new clients they have. And now it’s a claim fulfillment process that needs to be a bit more. Yeah. You know, it took me a while to have to go back and just try to, you know, polish up the things that I felt needed to be polished up, you know, but my client, you have no idea how many times he’ll text me. He’s like, IT system is working. And that’s all Jose, this system is working. I love that. It’s working everyday. Hi, I’m coach, I hope it is.

Chris Davis 16:06
is working, that’s the text that you want. So so for that, you know, I know we’ve got limited time, but I want to just kind of dive into your mindset and your approach here. Just to give proper context to those looking to repeat it as the implementer. And then those looking for it. Right? I’m sure he spread the word and was telling people and it’s like, Well, look, I know I did it this time. But there’s some considerations that when in place, like, I’ve got to assess your business like there are there has to be alignment. I’m not a magic wand waiver, and things just happen. So for you, what what would you say, as you looked at it, were some of the things that you saw, as, as opportunities that that you could start to build on specific to your skill set, you know,

Khadirah Muhammad 16:53
Oh, absolutely. So the first thing is when he and I actually started working together, this is the month of November of 2021. We’re working. And I’m asking him questions. First, I want to understand what he’s selling. Because that tells me how I can build everything. I want to know how you’re selling these people. Because that tells me what you’re going to need more. So the first thing he says, Okay, we, they buy some entry level package. And then he books a consultation with them. And then he sells them at the end of the consultation. I’m like, okay, very familiar with that. I do that myself. So you have zoom, you have a calendar booking system. I’m like, What’s your counter booking system? He’s like, Well, we kind of have that. That’s kind of easy, quite frankly. That’s right. You need a calendar booking system. Great. Okay. How were you? Following up with the people who don’t actually book a call with you? As in? You probably have people who buy it. But how do you what emails are you sending out? What are you sending out texts? Are you sending out anything? He’s like, Well, we kind of send out stuff we don’t really, okay, so you need an email follow up system, you need a workflow. And then I’m like, Okay, where’s actually your database? Where’s where’s that? He says, Well, Mike, Oh,

Chris Davis 18:20
that can’t be a well, not the database.

Khadirah Muhammad 18:22
Not like that. I’m like, he’s like, Well, they’re, they’re in Paypal. So you don’t really it’s kind of on memory. It’s on memory. Okay. You clearly need a customer relation management system. That’s the biggest thing that you need right now. And I told him, I said, like, you need to get one. I can build out a lot of stuff in here. But you’re gonna have to pay for it. That’s what you mean. Okay, great. Here’s my car. Can you do it? I’m like, yes. Okay, trust me that much. Yes, I can go ahead and buy it for you. And together. The first things I always look for, is where’s your database? What’s your selling mechanism? And then how are you following up with people? Because those are usually to me the three foundations, especially in online, only business or a business that has a huge online component, you know, even if you didn’t? Do you have a CRM? Do you have a database where all your customers can be held? And then again, the selling mechanism? So I’m very familiar with the console consulting world. Most of us perform our consultations we have found via zoom, which is cool, but that means you need to have way people booking on your calendar. You’re following up with them on multiple for multiple reasons, not just to book with you, but what if they don’t show up? How do you get them to rebook on your calendar? Right? What if you have to do a bunch of reschedules DM an easy way for them to reschedule? And then after that, do you have a way of emailing and texting them and You know, selling them, whatever your offer is, if they buy or if they don’t buy. And it sounds really simple, but a lot of people don’t have that. And you lose out on a lot of sales. And in particular, that that 10 minute audit video that I showed him, I was able to prove to him that he had like $50,000, but the leakage just off of what I mentioned in that video. And that’s what prompted that very long email he sent me basically saying how upset he was with himself that he had went to some of the, I don’t think I’m not gonna dropping names, but he went to some people who he spent money with. And they never really identified this for him. And that’s all I’m gonna say, you know, on that piece, and he was just shocked. I’m like, the videos free, you didn’t have to hire me. It’s still there to this day, if you just wanted to. Those are the first three places I look at, because they’re usually somewhere in there. You’re missing some?

Chris Davis 21:01
Yeah, foundational. Absolutely. Where are you storing your people? How are you selling them? How are you following up? If you can’t nail those three, you can’t do anything else in business reliably or consistently. If it’s working, let me let you know. Those of you who just play devil’s advocate to what I just said, all give it time. How about that? Give it time. In time, all systems performing improve, right? And a lack of systems in time get exposed?

Khadirah Muhammad 21:36
Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. One of the as we were getting to know each other more, he told me about how he did some he had an in person event that he did many months before he met me. Again, no CRM, no real calendar booking format, no follow up. Engine working for him every single day to get either new consultation bookings, or new sales for his upper level programs. He did an in person conference, it was like a two day event. It was maybe about 200 people. But it was really qualified amount of people like everybody, but there was a qualified lead for him die. And he knew that he made no sales because they had no way of following up in the person that was supposed to do that. Didn’t do it. Because she didn’t have I don’t think they had they couldn’t get the sign. And for some reason, he was supposed to do all that. And it was just, it was a jumbled mess. And of course, you know, when you have events like that people are really excited. The day of the event, you know, they’re a little bit less excited, the left the next day, a little even more less excited by the second day after and then by the third day, they don’t. They’ve moved on to whoever caught that attention. And so I’m telling you, what if he had none of this, and he was making good money, 15k is nothing to laugh at. But he was he was cat because he just didn’t have the foundation. Find frankly, he’s a great salesperson. I could tell like you know how to sell. I asked for his numbers, his closing percentages, his rates, he was able to tell me on the DAT so like, I know, you know your numbers. But you’re just missing this piece. And that foundation, that’s what launched.

Chris Davis 23:35
Ya know that? Oh, so, so many pieces in there. And this is again, this is why I claim what I claim about engineers were tinkerers, where find it, find the wholesalers, whatever you want to call it. You have people who do marketing. And they experienced marketing, they experienced results with that marketing. And they kind of prescribe that way of doing it. Which is nothing wrong with that I just recorded a podcast talking about there’s one size does not fit all I get it, you’re gonna have different approaches. And some people aren’t going to have different approaches, they’re going to be like, hey, look, this is what I do. This is who I work with. And these are the tools that that I use. All fine and dandy. However, when you get to a point in business where you’re just scratching your head, you hit this revenue ceiling and you just can’t figure it out. You’re going to need a different level of a mind that can go in and really what what you’re talking about Khedira is break down process. You it what I what I was listening for when you were talking is every every question about technology was preceded with a understanding of the process. Exactly. Right. You didn’t just go in and say hey, buy these tools. You took the time to go on On to understand the process. Now, I’m going to you if you’re listening to the podcast, you know how I feel about process. You could DERA what, what would you say is the importance of taking such an approach of approach of process before technology.

Khadirah Muhammad 25:21
You know, when you’re, you’re building a house, before you buy all the supplies, you have to get the actual blueprint. And before you can get the blueprint, you have to know what the person wants. And so that’s my mindset with everything. I first ask anybody is interested in like a one on one private thing with consultation with me or help whatever? I’m asking them? What do you really want? Where do you see yourself? What’s the vision, because I need to be aligned with that, I need to understand it. Because that’ll tell me everything I need to know when it comes to the tools that hammers the nails for the house. That’s easy. Go to Home Depot, you get the right hammer, you get the right now you get the right, whatever, I don’t know how to fix anything, but you get the right tools for the job. But you don’t get the tools before you understand what the job entails and what’s the real vision. And so, I focus on the vision, understanding that I’m aligned with that, and I understand it, I don’t need to always be in love with it, you know, but it helps for me to be in love with it for me to really be attached to it. But I at least need to understand it. Then I need to look at what you’re already doing. And I kind of pick out like, what’s already going well for you what are your strengths were in stronger for this particular very shiny, very strong, except he didn’t need any mechanisms to help him better at selling his close race nominee. I’ve never seen somebody that high and actually be legitimate, that I follow those numbers to this day, and he stuck with him. I’m like, one day, you need to get into that, because that’s incredible. But all the follow ups have, he had no process for them, I have no way of doing that. So I know what you’re missing. And then the other thing is never just get tech. And this is this is something that marketers, anybody in tech can kind of struggle with, is when you get tech that you like, and you know how to use and it works for you. Because you have your mindset. Yeah. You can’t do that. With every client. I don’t suggest the same tools for every client. If a client isn’t as tech inclined, which a lot of them aren’t like, you don’t have to be me too behind. I’m not the basis of comparison. But I mean, like in general, if I meet somebody that’s like, not at all, like, they wouldn’t touch a computer, they didn’t have to. I got to give them the basic of the basic. And I you know, that’s their answer. If somebody’s kind of used to it, then I can do a little you know, I can I can choose a technology that offers a few more bells and whistles that will ultimately help them. Because again, we’re not just getting Tech because it sounds cool. We’re getting it because it helps. Yeah. But I have to understand what their current process is. I have to understand how they think, have understand what their core competencies are. And then that’ll tell me, what’s the real big picture of this? Of this puzzle box? Yep. And then from there, we’ll dump the puzzle pieces out. And while the client looks at it, and they’re like, oh my god, I look at it. And I’m like, Okay, let me get the corners, boom, let’s get the perimeter. Will endless magic. Okay, this looks like it might be huge. I mean, I can walk, I can look at anything at that point. Yeah, I gotta get the big picture. And I think that’s where even a lot of tech inclined individuals, engineers, marketers know, we want to start at the end. And that’s the cool part. But it’s not going to help, you know, because you don’t really know what they want. You don’t know what’s going to be sustainable for them. That’s a canvas last without me. Can I just record for you a couple of videos, standard operating procedures, do a couple of trainings with you have you know some service you know, for 3060 90 days after I’m gone, and will you will nothing catch on fire, you’ll be fine and everything will keep working. That’s always my thought process. I don’t care if even if it takes me a little bit longer to implement because the tech isn’t my favorite. You know, but I know it’s in the best interest of the client for them long term that they use this thing other than what may be my favorite.

Chris Davis 29:57
Yep, you may And once once you understand the vision once you once you get the picture, it’s all about putting it together the edge pieces, the corners, and all of that and working to make the puzzle look, as vision was cast, right, that will make will make the adjustments that they can’t see that need to be made. And all of that, but I wanted to go talk a little bit about that back in, piecing it together, right? Yeah. And the reason being is because there is a bit of a fallacy out here, because there were in the no code age and things are in terms of tech are becoming easier and easier. I’m using air quotes for all of you listening easier and easier. But the truth of the matter is, if you’re doing basic things now and you’re a Zapier workflow, flow specialist, if you’re doing basic things in, in my example, your passing name and email, it’s okay, right? You can get away with that, but just speak to as data gets more complex, and processes become a little more intricate. How that back end, though, it may still be using Zapier or Zapier or make or whatever. How that can easily become unmanageable for the non technical inclined to handle properly.

Khadirah Muhammad 31:30
Oh yeah, this is where personally I get myself in trouble. Because I love Zapier, you have no idea how many like 30 Step zaps I have with filters and if and if and statements and all that you know for me, but I have to stop myself from doing that with clients. It becomes as you scale. And as you grow. And you have more individuals, and you have more team members, and you have more clients and customers and people like leaning on you and everything gets bigger. That’s when you have to learn how to make things a lot simpler, because they just get mismanaged. Zapier does not work all the time. It messes up, there are things that are

Khadirah Muhammad 32:25
done, I realize my laptop was there, I think that are that mess up and the whole zap stops. And it can’t move forward. And then all of a sudden you get an email saying nothing’s working. And I’m like, What do you mean? Oh, because the data look different now. And I forgot to update that. And I forgot to do this. And now it doesn’t make sense to have everything in one setup, you really need to have it chunked out. So that way, troubleshooting is a lot easier. When it gets to that point. You do need to consider how do you separate things into more manageable boxes? Instead of having one huge container where everything’s just kind of piled in? Can you separate this? And can you chunk this out? Is that your still a needed? App? Is there any way? Even if it means we have to integrate into a whole different software, but maybe it has a better integration with another piece of software, and therefore makes the whole workflow a lot simpler? That’s where you have to consider. Yeah, you do have to sometimes I gotta cut Zapier out because it’s like, it’s too much. And I tell my clients, you got to move from this app to this app. Because it integrates integrates a lot better with this other than it’s gonna flow easier. With the cut out Zapier. Technically, you’ll save money. It’s gonna take me time, it’s gonna take us time for the transition. But it’s going to be a lot easier, you’re going to be able to skill while fluid.

Khadirah Muhammad 34:07
A lot of times you’ll have to another sometimes I need another set of eyes for myself.

Khadirah Muhammad 34:14
I love the tech. I love potential when you get so into it. Your heads down your focus. But then that’s all you end up seeing. You can’t see the forest for the trees. It takes one of my own team members to say, Oh, come here. I know you’ve built up this 30 Somethings that Zapier workflow, you’re great proud of it, but it’s gonna get stuck here a lot. Sometimes the data doesn’t flow in the same every single time. Yeah. Oh, yeah. And, you know, when you’re at that level you have time for I mean, quite frankly, use all the time for that. So maybe we got to figure out another workaround. Maybe we have to make sure it goes through a format maybe has to go Google Sheets real quick, let the outlook the the sheet itself, you know, with the formulas and then actually create data that can then be formatted as a view. Yes, it’s an extra step, what is going to work? This is this is the importance of having sustainability and scalability in mind when you’re building out any process, and I’m very specific, it’s not just scalability, its sustainability. Because it needs to be able to sustain itself, it needs to be able to maintain itself without breaking everything. A lot of people can build stuff to scale, you can make a lot more money. But if you’re ending up having to troubleshoot a lot of stuff, you end up spending the money that you made in time in fixing. And if you’re not as tech inclined, if somebody like myself, and you’re using Zapier yourself, and you’re building out all these apps, and now you have 100 of them in the home folder, because you don’t have anything titled the way it needs to be, you just use the automatic title Zapier gives you? I’m sorry, that’s a little pet peeve of mine. It was a little bit. Oh, yeah, you know, I’m not gonna harp on it. But it is a pet peeve of mine, to use the one they give, you know, if you’re nothing made, basically revenue organization, it’s gonna be very difficult for you to troubleshoot and figure out where everything started from, and how to really fix it for the long term versus just like fixing you know, something small, but it’s actually a bigger problem.

Chris Davis 36:34
Yeah, for those of you listening, I share, I share the same pet peeve. Naming conventions, I’ve got an entire podcast on it, go listen to that podcast and start naming your things accordingly. Let me say this where I’ve come a mighty long way, I remember there used to be a time where I was the keyboard banger type person where you just put some in real quick to keep going. I can’t believe I was that person. Like, I would never oh my god, I would cringe. But saw somebody with a tag name ASDF J, K h. And it’s just like, Oh, I just created that to see what this is gonna do? No, no, you go back right now sit down and name that thing.

Khadirah Muhammad 37:16
Because it’s so important. It’s so important. It comes from a coding days, definitely. That is definitely from my coding days. Because when I took some boot campers something later on, and they taught us about naming conventions a little bit more deliberately than I ever did when I just kind of was self taught. And then when I was still taught, I was just whatever that HTML, whatever that says, I just want to see if it works. That’s it. Whatever. Got Jas, you know, Bootstrap, and it was the thing when I was using it. Amazing to say that. I don’t know. It sounds like the old days. Oh, seven years?

Chris Davis 37:53
Yeah. Yeah.

Khadirah Muhammad 37:54
But yeah, naming conventions for my coding days, I am stuck to it. Me by the looks at my computer. They are always amazed at how organized every folder is. And every folder in the folder and the folders.

Chris Davis 38:13
Yep, it’s gotta be again, people. The reason why I like to have people like Khedira on on here. So by the way, I didn’t plan any of this. I did not prime Kadir this is all her own knowledge, approach and insight. What I’m saying though, is There’s more than meets the eye. I get it, it’s sexy. Hey, I’m gonna go sign up for this tool. And they say I can do it. Some of you should not touch the back end of your business ever. Like, ever. Just get it out of your mind. Stay from back there. Never go into kitchen, you just stand in front greet people and agree on how great the food tastes. That’s it. Don’t ever go back you will burn something, you break something, you’ll you’ll burn the house down. So it’s always good to get insight on something that, you know, maybe you think it’s simple as Oh, yeah, I’ll just set up a zap and do that. No, no, no, no, no, no. There’s always when you start to tie these pieces together. As as an integration specialists. It’s always something it’s like, you mentioned the house. Khedira very rarely. Now, I do a lot of repair. Unfortunately, I try to hire people to do it. But every now and then it’s like dang, and I gotta get my tools out and do it. And even when the experts come over, they’ll start hey, you need a light like Yes, sir. We just need a light right there. And they’ll get to cutting out the ceiling. And before you know it, they hit something. And it’s like what was that? I don’t know why they will put a beam right here. So now we’re gonna have to cut around more than meets the eye. It happens in the technical space all the time on your building our systems. So Um, yes, I can’t thank you enough for sharing that insight. This is the type of stuff. This is the back end. This is the behind the scenes, everybody. When you see somebody say, you know, I 3x 5x 10x my income, they may have a, I don’t believe anything. But if they did, I want to go see the backend, because how the backend is built, is going to tell me was that a one time thing that’s about to break? Or already broken? They just took a snapshot of the highlight and took a deer’s point is sustainability. Okay, you did it, is it sustainable? You’d be surprised at how many people make their money realize that the ship is a little wobbly, and they jump out in Swim, swim to shore in their, in their new boat, their new small boat that can only fit them that they paid for with the new money, the new money that was generated. So could there I can’t thank you have enough for that.

Khadirah Muhammad 40:55
Oh, absolutely. And that is on. I gotta say, I’m just kept going every I mean, as somebody who was in the marketing world, I still am but in a different in a different capacity. You know, I got used to all the marketers selling marketers, and all the teknicks 2050 99, you know, crazy numbers. And I’m like, What are you just, you know, how many times did you do that? And And thankfully, I’ve been able to teach my clients about that too, because then they’ll tell me, well, this person got, you know, this 30 next result. And so how many times did they do that? Where are they at right

Chris Davis 41:37
now? Yeah. Did it last?

Khadirah Muhammad 41:40
You know, you know that one? No, I just saw the ad. No, I know, you saw the ad. It was very nice. It was very sexy. It was very fun and all that good stuff. But you got there’s no sustainability and into this particular client I’ve been talking about, to his credit, he asked me to stay on as his chief systems officer, because he knew the only way he was going to really be able to, to keep on growing, not just because it’s no fun, just having it sounds weird for me to say, but it’s no fun just having an 80k month. And then that’s it. You know, you have nothing else. Sure you had a great month, but he had sustainability and rapid growth. And I was like, Well, if you want rapid growth like that, you’re gonna need more than just me. And the other person that you got, you’re gonna need 1234 Your new social media person, you’re gonna, you want to do travel stuff, you’re gonna need a travel person. I don’t even know their names. But I know that’s the person. I said, and you’re gonna need more salespeople, as I guarantee you’re gonna need more salespeople before the end of the year.

Chris Davis 42:48
I’m so glad you said that, because I want everybody if you haven’t listened to the previous episode of this called Kill the imposter, how to kill the imposter? Because that’s it, you really summed it up, right? There is understanding hey, look, if I can build a system, it’s going to take more, it’s gonna take more than and that’s okay. And that’s okay. So these are, again, from those of you listening to hiring somebody, these are the things that you’re looking for. This is have you ever thought when you when you’re talking to a marketer, to ask them, How are their folders organized, because how their folders are organized. And name is how your folders gonna be organized today. These are the small things though, right there that a lot of times us we do without thinking like, for me, my entire desktop is automated it I’ve got this app that runs and says, Hey, screenshots been here for over 24 hours and you haven’t opened it. I’m just gonna move it into this folder. So it I look so organized. And I know exactly what folder is going into. I put a little color on it, and it’s all cut anyways, we can go down

Khadirah Muhammad 43:59
for days, but I mean, quite frankly, I’ve had the whole focus thing since high school. I had, okay, wow, this has made me think about this. I had my entire college career mapped out. Before I stepped foot on campus. I knew exactly this is when I’ll be is when I thought it was gonna photography. But I still I looked at the majors. I was like, I might do this minor. I looked at the rules. I mean, I’m telling you, I read them. I read the rules of like some you know how you can do a class like pass fail, because I had to do one of those. Just the general stuff didn’t care. You know, I did it. And I presented it to my advisors. I said, I’m doing this. I just they told me I had to come here, but this is what I’m doing. And they will be my type of brain. It’s on a whole different level. I have a whole routine. Every single day of the week, just at home Am I I record personally, and I hate when people try to interrupt me even even down to my friends, they’ll try to call me. And they’ll be mad, like, how can you answer me earlier? So I was gonna do

Chris Davis 45:14
a listen.

Khadirah Muhammad 45:18
I was like, I had this time blacked out, you know, and you try to interrupt, I love you. But I need to do this thing. You know, it’s just, it’s how our minds work. Everything is a process. And you consider the process before you consider. Just like, how was this? What’s the step? 1234? I need to know that, you know, because it’s very, it feels very, it’s very comfortable.

Chris Davis 45:46
Yes, you need these types of brains and your business, everyone. So Khadira, thank you so much for coming on to the podcast. If people want to find out more about you connect with you, hire you whatever the case may be what what’s the best place for them to go?

Khadirah Muhammad 46:04
Oh, absolutely. If you all want to visit me, you can go to succeedingwithsystems.com. That systems with a sap. And when you get to the site, we have a couple of freebies there, you can actually download what I call the six figure and low tech guide. This is especially good for my startup entrepreneurs, not going to throw you the right to like the really high price stuff. That’s for a different level. I want to give you something that you can actually use. And I should tell you, I should tell you why you should consider what are the use cases, it’s actually very in depth, I’m still kind of adding more to it because it can never be more perfect. But if you want to go look at it, it’s only it’s only on the first page of succeeding with systems backup.

Chris Davis 46:49
Succeed succeeding with systems.com plural, it’s on the screen for everybody on YouTube. If you’re listening, typed that in as you’re not driving, as you’re at your desk or at home, don’t worry, the link is also in the show notes if you missed it. Khedira thank you so much for coming on to the podcast is greatly appreciated.

Khadirah Muhammad 47:10
I love being here, you know, and I look forward to working and honestly, I hope you all take this information and that’s been extremely valuable.

Chris Davis 47:20
Yes, yes. Absolutely. What she said. So again, thank you. I’ll see you online clear. Absolutely. Thank you for tuning in to this episode of The all systems go podcast. If you enjoyed it, make sure that you’re subscribed at the time of recording the all systems go podcast is free to subscribe to and it can be found in Apple podcasts, Google podcasts, YouTube, or wherever you get your podcasts new episodes are released every Thursday. So make sure you’re subscribed so that you don’t miss out and while you’re at it, please leave us a five star rating and review to show some love but also to help future listeners more easily find the podcast so they can experience the value of goodness as well. We’ve compiled all resources mentioned on the podcast, as well as other resources that are extremely valuable and effective at helping you grow your marketing automation skills quickly and you can access them all at allsystemsgopodcast.com Thanks again for listening. And until next time, I see you online. Automate responsibly my friends

Narrator 0:00
You’re listening to the all systems go podcast, the show that teaches you everything you need to know to put your business on autopilot. Learn how to deploy automated marketing and sell systems in your business the right way with your host, the professor of automation himself and founder of automation bridge, Chris Davis.

Chris Davis 0:32
Welcome to another episode of The all systems go podcast where I interview founders and digital marketers to talk about software, and systems to scale your small business,

Chris Davis 0:48
really your small business enterprise, and or startup. I’m your host, Chris L. Davis, the founder of automation bridge. And I have a special guest, I have a special guest today Khedira Muhammad, and she is a systems implementation engineer. And that’s why it says special everyone. She’s an engineer. So you already know what’s about to go down in this episode. But she went from breaking into the entrepreneurial world at 18. With the goal of retiring her parents to falling in and falling in love with systems and automation that make true businesses world go round. Her notable projects include taking clients to person operation from 15k to 80k in revenue in 60 days. So if you’re if you’re not doing the math, 52x of 15 is 33x 15 is 45 4x is still under 80k. All right, so she over 4x Just trying to put it in context for you all. Now. Khedira helps solopreneurs and those with small teams create six figure systems so that they can gain back their time freedom and lifestyle freedom and rekindle the joy of their business in their business using systems, automation and technology. Can you not see why I’m excited, and Kadir is going to come on and talk about some of the systems considerations that you must be aware of, if you’re going to achieve this level of success. We’re talking back end stuff today. Some of the techie stuff for my founders, this is going to just inform you of what’s going on behind the curtain for my implementers This may just give you the blueprint you are looking for so Khedira welcome to the podcast. How are you doing?

Khadirah Muhammad 2:37
I’m fantastic. Thank you so much love. Love that intro. That intro, I am excited to be here excited to be here. This value to your audience.

Chris Davis 2:48
Yes. So I’m gonna just start this off by telling everybody I did. I talked to Khedira, like 30 minutes before recording. And I’m unapologetic. And here’s why. Here’s why. It’s hard to find engineers that are entrepreneurs in this space, by the way, if you are one reached out, but I believe firmly my longtime listeners know this. I think that if you need a systems, if you need a system built in your business, there is no one most better qualified than an engineer. That’s an entrepreneur. You can’t prove me wrong. You can’t I’m sorry, it’s not debatable. So you’ve got two on two to entrepreneur engineers, on this episode. And you all if you’re not familiar with my story, I don’t know maybe episode one or two of the podcast, I kind of detail that out. But Kadir I want to I want you to just explain to or reveal or help us understand how you got to where you are, as an entrepreneur building out systems for small businesses and startups with an engineering background. How How did you how did you make the transition? What What was it like? Did you always know? Yeah, I’m doing this engineering thing, but it’s coming to an end. How did you stumble upon this space?

Khadirah Muhammad 4:09
Oh, yeah. Oh, my goodness, no, that that’s gonna bring you back to like, actually, my senior in high school. I actually went to school to be a photographer. That’s what I initially wanted to do. And then it was my first semester there and I took some class and I’m like, this just may not be for me. This just may not be where my talents are. And then I was on YouTube somewhere. And I’m sure I saw some video about learning how to code. It specifically being a front end developer and then I kind of just focused everything in school to be in a friend developer engineer. I taught myself initially how to code HTML CSS, I learned how to read JavaScript. Be very specific, I can do a little bit, but I can’t tell you I’m fluent in it. I learned C sharp, I thought I might be, you know, maybe a backend engineer, or even a full stack developer or something like that. And then somewhere around that, I actually fell in love more. So with marketing, and digital marketing, which changed a lot, because that wasn’t exactly what my major was. I studied in the College of Engineering, I graduated with a Bachelors of Science in Technology. And when I graduate, and that actually, before I graduated, I worked for quite a few different marketing firms in my local area. And I also used to work for a new balance in their St. Louis location, the corporate company. And so I graduated, or I’m about to graduate, I’m like, Well, let me try marketing yet. Let me do something different. I just felt like I had a lot of opportunities at the time. Try that I had a good portfolio. If I do say so myself. Apply for a bunch of places. Nobody called me back. Nobody emailed me back. Let’s move on. Am I missing something? I don’t know. Is it a good deal? Muhammad? I don’t know. Anyway. Anyway, I, I’m like, Okay, well, let me just try this myself. I felt like I didn’t have anything to lose. So I just did it. Right. When I graduated, I had like three months left on my lease at my apartment. And I’m like, Well, we’re going to write this out, we’re going to try it. And I shouldn’t be getting clients. And I specifically was helping them with advertising. And that was going well. So I did that for two years. That a mind you this is 2019. Now I’m fast forwarding to about 2021 did it for two years working with a lot of different entrepreneurs, from out of the gate startups that were just trying to get their feet wet, they didn’t really understand just helping them kind of create strategies to a bit more established, companies have been around for, you know, 10 plus years or so, kind of all the way in between. And in that case, I started to fall in love with the puzzles. Thing about systems engineering, even, you know, coding in unit is the puzzles that we love, you know, and in Chris and I were actually just talking about that for a little bit about the love of puzzles. And my puzzle was helping me helping these entrepreneurs stay organized, and actually create a process to help them scale more, have more time, because I realize my you guys are making more money, but you’re also spending a lot more time. And that doesn’t work. If the equation stays equal like that. You make less money. Probably not spending a lot of time. But if you’re making more money, but you’re still spending a lot of time, you know, what is the benefit of that? You know, and so that was in 2021, I fell in love with it, I worked with a couple clients. And I just, I stay with that ever since. And it’s been a roller coaster. It’s been more interesting, this space of being a systems entrepreneur, because it’s not a lot of us. And you know, you and I were talking just talking about it’s not a lot of us in this space, who actually talk about it in our in it, but it’s entirely different. But it’s enough. It’s a blessing. It’s so much fun. People are checking burned out on this stuff.

Chris Davis 8:41
Yes, yes. And I have to give some flowers here because I went through the same thing. Getting to the point of approaching graduation, not getting any calls. I mean, my friends, they’re getting jobs like that. I mean, just back to back then I start getting worried. Well, I never thought that I could go to college, graduate not have a job. That was never a possibility in my head. But unlike you now you just jumped right in the consulting and freelance and I was like, somebody has to hire me in the first person that called I was like, yep, you had me at hello, I don’t I don’t care where you’re located. I don’t even care what you’re paying. I need a job. So to see you be proactive in generating money, right, doing something that you had got experience with in school and even hats off to getting the experience outside of your major, right, like when I did an intern in school, and it was directly connected to engineering and it was boring. Oh my goodness, it was boring. But if I’d have had the mindset to look outside of it or you know, maybe pick up on different skills while I was doing it, maybe maybe it would have looked different. So for you for You you get into you stumble upon marketing. You realize, man, I’m, I really liked this, like, I really like it. And you get into it and you’re able to bring all of this systems experience with you. Then you get, you start to see some, you start to get some big results. Now if you’re if you’re anything like me, I didn’t notice it the first time I had like a really major result was with LeadPages. I came in, built their whole system and was like, Whoa, millions didn’t know it could do that. Did you have a similar experience where you’re like, Whoa, 5x plus didn’t realize, Oh, yeah.

Khadirah Muhammad 10:41
Oh, yeah, no, this this. So I gotta tell you, Okay, so it’s it’s October 2020. I get a DM from a gentleman. And he’s like, hey, you know, I heard about you. Somebody talked about you. And they said, you know, you’re good at systems and whatnot. Can you Can we talk make sure. We talk the day before my birthday, actually, October 30. So I was actually, I didn’t plan on doing any, any calls or anything like that. I just wanted to relax. I want to talk to you. He tells me about his, his his work. He’s in the financial education space. And I’ll give you a caveat ugi what it really entertainment space where writing his personal reasons. Yeah. And I actually when I looked at him deeper, I realized my mother had actually used the services. And she and my father had gotten actual results from it like real life, they’re actually able to get their I think their car refinanced in to much lower rate. Only what isn’t actually typical. So I was like, Okay, you actually worked for my parents are just regular people. So this, this, you might actually budget. We’re talking, he’s like, Yeah, I got this stuff going on. We’re trying to grow. We don’t know what’s going on. I don’t you know, we want to find somebody who’s sharp, who knows what they’re doing. And he tells me where he really wants to go. That’s the more interesting part two, how fast he wants to go. He’s well connected. I’m like, Okay. Let me just look at what you got going on. He told me he had a meeting on Sunday, with this whole, you know, his whole team, which at that time, just him and one other person. And I’m like, Okay, I look at his process. I just do it. For a lot of people, I do a video kind of audit your stuff, as I see right now. And I’m like marketing hat, and systems and automation hat, putting them together, and just point out a couple of things that you could do better. So Tim, in the video, I shoot it. I sent it to him. Not like even three hours later, he sends me one of the longest emails I’ve ever gotten. He basically saying, Campbell, you found that we need you, or pay you whatever you want. Which is like, Okay, I said, but I need the money. Give me my money. So I know you’re gonna need this software, this software and that software and let me do my thing. Trust me, you will be fine. And we can get into why exactly did for him. But I gotta tell you at the time, that money, you know, he made like, 15k the next month, there was no difference in his marketing. I want to tell you no difference you didn’t want to ask. He does interviews on YouTube channels. And he’s just really good at picking the audience’s that’s all I did. And I’m thinking like, oh, goodness, cool. You know, it’ll probably, you know, I’m only looking for a percentage increase a small percentage, because, you know, it’s like climbing up a mountain, you improve as you go. At the end of the month. It wasn’t just 80,000 in revenue. That was cash collected. I know. Only because we had to switch payment processors in the middle of the month. Because the other one got not suspended. But the Pay Pal does the thing where they stopped after a certain you know, money. They’re like, You got to stop.

Chris Davis 14:16
Oh, yeah, we stay away from PayPal continue.

Khadirah Muhammad 14:20
And I’m thinking I’m like, Well, eventually I’ll tell them about the PayPal thing because I don’t think anything’s right. I’m just trying to get through the month. He calls me it’s like hey, it shut down. We gotta like What do you mean we gotta do what what how much? He’s Oh, we had 30,000 Yeah, that was the most incredible moment. I honestly. I’m like that usually you think that when you break something or it’s like, yeah, I have Yeah, that was the most incredible gift I’ve seen.

Chris Davis 15:00
Yeah, and it’s the power, it’s the power of the system. And you don’t know it until you experience it. For for the business owner or founder. They, they they know that feeling where it’s like, Whoa, is finally working money’s coming in, you know. And then for the implementer, we’re often the last ones, where you know, you can get so heads down, like, Okay, let me hook this up, let me do this. And then before you know what you look up, and you’re like, oh, it’s working already, I had like a list of the things

Khadirah Muhammad 15:30
I was getting. I didn’t even get through my whole list. Because at this point, now, it’s like tending to the new clients they have. And now it’s a claim fulfillment process that needs to be a bit more. Yeah. You know, it took me a while to have to go back and just try to, you know, polish up the things that I felt needed to be polished up, you know, but my client, you have no idea how many times he’ll text me. He’s like, IT system is working. And that’s all Jose, this system is working. I love that. It’s working everyday. Hi, I’m coach, I hope it is.

Chris Davis 16:06
is working, that’s the text that you want. So so for that, you know, I know we’ve got limited time, but I want to just kind of dive into your mindset and your approach here. Just to give proper context to those looking to repeat it as the implementer. And then those looking for it. Right? I’m sure he spread the word and was telling people and it’s like, Well, look, I know I did it this time. But there’s some considerations that when in place, like, I’ve got to assess your business like there are there has to be alignment. I’m not a magic wand waiver, and things just happen. So for you, what what would you say, as you looked at it, were some of the things that you saw, as, as opportunities that that you could start to build on specific to your skill set, you know,

Khadirah Muhammad 16:53
Oh, absolutely. So the first thing is when he and I actually started working together, this is the month of November of 2021. We’re working. And I’m asking him questions. First, I want to understand what he’s selling. Because that tells me how I can build everything. I want to know how you’re selling these people. Because that tells me what you’re going to need more. So the first thing he says, Okay, we, they buy some entry level package. And then he books a consultation with them. And then he sells them at the end of the consultation. I’m like, okay, very familiar with that. I do that myself. So you have zoom, you have a calendar booking system. I’m like, What’s your counter booking system? He’s like, Well, we kind of have that. That’s kind of easy, quite frankly. That’s right. You need a calendar booking system. Great. Okay. How were you? Following up with the people who don’t actually book a call with you? As in? You probably have people who buy it. But how do you what emails are you sending out? What are you sending out texts? Are you sending out anything? He’s like, Well, we kind of send out stuff we don’t really, okay, so you need an email follow up system, you need a workflow. And then I’m like, Okay, where’s actually your database? Where’s where’s that? He says, Well, Mike, Oh,

Chris Davis 18:20
that can’t be a well, not the database.

Khadirah Muhammad 18:22
Not like that. I’m like, he’s like, Well, they’re, they’re in Paypal. So you don’t really it’s kind of on memory. It’s on memory. Okay. You clearly need a customer relation management system. That’s the biggest thing that you need right now. And I told him, I said, like, you need to get one. I can build out a lot of stuff in here. But you’re gonna have to pay for it. That’s what you mean. Okay, great. Here’s my car. Can you do it? I’m like, yes. Okay, trust me that much. Yes, I can go ahead and buy it for you. And together. The first things I always look for, is where’s your database? What’s your selling mechanism? And then how are you following up with people? Because those are usually to me the three foundations, especially in online, only business or a business that has a huge online component, you know, even if you didn’t? Do you have a CRM? Do you have a database where all your customers can be held? And then again, the selling mechanism? So I’m very familiar with the console consulting world. Most of us perform our consultations we have found via zoom, which is cool, but that means you need to have way people booking on your calendar. You’re following up with them on multiple for multiple reasons, not just to book with you, but what if they don’t show up? How do you get them to rebook on your calendar? Right? What if you have to do a bunch of reschedules DM an easy way for them to reschedule? And then after that, do you have a way of emailing and texting them and You know, selling them, whatever your offer is, if they buy or if they don’t buy. And it sounds really simple, but a lot of people don’t have that. And you lose out on a lot of sales. And in particular, that that 10 minute audit video that I showed him, I was able to prove to him that he had like $50,000, but the leakage just off of what I mentioned in that video. And that’s what prompted that very long email he sent me basically saying how upset he was with himself that he had went to some of the, I don’t think I’m not gonna dropping names, but he went to some people who he spent money with. And they never really identified this for him. And that’s all I’m gonna say, you know, on that piece, and he was just shocked. I’m like, the videos free, you didn’t have to hire me. It’s still there to this day, if you just wanted to. Those are the first three places I look at, because they’re usually somewhere in there. You’re missing some?

Chris Davis 21:01
Yeah, foundational. Absolutely. Where are you storing your people? How are you selling them? How are you following up? If you can’t nail those three, you can’t do anything else in business reliably or consistently. If it’s working, let me let you know. Those of you who just play devil’s advocate to what I just said, all give it time. How about that? Give it time. In time, all systems performing improve, right? And a lack of systems in time get exposed?

Khadirah Muhammad 21:36
Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. One of the as we were getting to know each other more, he told me about how he did some he had an in person event that he did many months before he met me. Again, no CRM, no real calendar booking format, no follow up. Engine working for him every single day to get either new consultation bookings, or new sales for his upper level programs. He did an in person conference, it was like a two day event. It was maybe about 200 people. But it was really qualified amount of people like everybody, but there was a qualified lead for him die. And he knew that he made no sales because they had no way of following up in the person that was supposed to do that. Didn’t do it. Because she didn’t have I don’t think they had they couldn’t get the sign. And for some reason, he was supposed to do all that. And it was just, it was a jumbled mess. And of course, you know, when you have events like that people are really excited. The day of the event, you know, they’re a little bit less excited, the left the next day, a little even more less excited by the second day after and then by the third day, they don’t. They’ve moved on to whoever caught that attention. And so I’m telling you, what if he had none of this, and he was making good money, 15k is nothing to laugh at. But he was he was cat because he just didn’t have the foundation. Find frankly, he’s a great salesperson. I could tell like you know how to sell. I asked for his numbers, his closing percentages, his rates, he was able to tell me on the DAT so like, I know, you know your numbers. But you’re just missing this piece. And that foundation, that’s what launched.

Chris Davis 23:35
Ya know that? Oh, so, so many pieces in there. And this is again, this is why I claim what I claim about engineers were tinkerers, where find it, find the wholesalers, whatever you want to call it. You have people who do marketing. And they experienced marketing, they experienced results with that marketing. And they kind of prescribe that way of doing it. Which is nothing wrong with that I just recorded a podcast talking about there’s one size does not fit all I get it, you’re gonna have different approaches. And some people aren’t going to have different approaches, they’re going to be like, hey, look, this is what I do. This is who I work with. And these are the tools that that I use. All fine and dandy. However, when you get to a point in business where you’re just scratching your head, you hit this revenue ceiling and you just can’t figure it out. You’re going to need a different level of a mind that can go in and really what what you’re talking about Khedira is break down process. You it what I what I was listening for when you were talking is every every question about technology was preceded with a understanding of the process. Exactly. Right. You didn’t just go in and say hey, buy these tools. You took the time to go on On to understand the process. Now, I’m going to you if you’re listening to the podcast, you know how I feel about process. You could DERA what, what would you say is the importance of taking such an approach of approach of process before technology.

Khadirah Muhammad 25:21
You know, when you’re, you’re building a house, before you buy all the supplies, you have to get the actual blueprint. And before you can get the blueprint, you have to know what the person wants. And so that’s my mindset with everything. I first ask anybody is interested in like a one on one private thing with consultation with me or help whatever? I’m asking them? What do you really want? Where do you see yourself? What’s the vision, because I need to be aligned with that, I need to understand it. Because that’ll tell me everything I need to know when it comes to the tools that hammers the nails for the house. That’s easy. Go to Home Depot, you get the right hammer, you get the right now you get the right, whatever, I don’t know how to fix anything, but you get the right tools for the job. But you don’t get the tools before you understand what the job entails and what’s the real vision. And so, I focus on the vision, understanding that I’m aligned with that, and I understand it, I don’t need to always be in love with it, you know, but it helps for me to be in love with it for me to really be attached to it. But I at least need to understand it. Then I need to look at what you’re already doing. And I kind of pick out like, what’s already going well for you what are your strengths were in stronger for this particular very shiny, very strong, except he didn’t need any mechanisms to help him better at selling his close race nominee. I’ve never seen somebody that high and actually be legitimate, that I follow those numbers to this day, and he stuck with him. I’m like, one day, you need to get into that, because that’s incredible. But all the follow ups have, he had no process for them, I have no way of doing that. So I know what you’re missing. And then the other thing is never just get tech. And this is this is something that marketers, anybody in tech can kind of struggle with, is when you get tech that you like, and you know how to use and it works for you. Because you have your mindset. Yeah. You can’t do that. With every client. I don’t suggest the same tools for every client. If a client isn’t as tech inclined, which a lot of them aren’t like, you don’t have to be me too behind. I’m not the basis of comparison. But I mean, like in general, if I meet somebody that’s like, not at all, like, they wouldn’t touch a computer, they didn’t have to. I got to give them the basic of the basic. And I you know, that’s their answer. If somebody’s kind of used to it, then I can do a little you know, I can I can choose a technology that offers a few more bells and whistles that will ultimately help them. Because again, we’re not just getting Tech because it sounds cool. We’re getting it because it helps. Yeah. But I have to understand what their current process is. I have to understand how they think, have understand what their core competencies are. And then that’ll tell me, what’s the real big picture of this? Of this puzzle box? Yep. And then from there, we’ll dump the puzzle pieces out. And while the client looks at it, and they’re like, oh my god, I look at it. And I’m like, Okay, let me get the corners, boom, let’s get the perimeter. Will endless magic. Okay, this looks like it might be huge. I mean, I can walk, I can look at anything at that point. Yeah, I gotta get the big picture. And I think that’s where even a lot of tech inclined individuals, engineers, marketers know, we want to start at the end. And that’s the cool part. But it’s not going to help, you know, because you don’t really know what they want. You don’t know what’s going to be sustainable for them. That’s a canvas last without me. Can I just record for you a couple of videos, standard operating procedures, do a couple of trainings with you have you know some service you know, for 3060 90 days after I’m gone, and will you will nothing catch on fire, you’ll be fine and everything will keep working. That’s always my thought process. I don’t care if even if it takes me a little bit longer to implement because the tech isn’t my favorite. You know, but I know it’s in the best interest of the client for them long term that they use this thing other than what may be my favorite.

Chris Davis 29:57
Yep, you may And once once you understand the vision once you once you get the picture, it’s all about putting it together the edge pieces, the corners, and all of that and working to make the puzzle look, as vision was cast, right, that will make will make the adjustments that they can’t see that need to be made. And all of that, but I wanted to go talk a little bit about that back in, piecing it together, right? Yeah. And the reason being is because there is a bit of a fallacy out here, because there were in the no code age and things are in terms of tech are becoming easier and easier. I’m using air quotes for all of you listening easier and easier. But the truth of the matter is, if you’re doing basic things now and you’re a Zapier workflow, flow specialist, if you’re doing basic things in, in my example, your passing name and email, it’s okay, right? You can get away with that, but just speak to as data gets more complex, and processes become a little more intricate. How that back end, though, it may still be using Zapier or Zapier or make or whatever. How that can easily become unmanageable for the non technical inclined to handle properly.

Khadirah Muhammad 31:30
Oh yeah, this is where personally I get myself in trouble. Because I love Zapier, you have no idea how many like 30 Step zaps I have with filters and if and if and statements and all that you know for me, but I have to stop myself from doing that with clients. It becomes as you scale. And as you grow. And you have more individuals, and you have more team members, and you have more clients and customers and people like leaning on you and everything gets bigger. That’s when you have to learn how to make things a lot simpler, because they just get mismanaged. Zapier does not work all the time. It messes up, there are things that are

Khadirah Muhammad 32:25
done, I realize my laptop was there, I think that are that mess up and the whole zap stops. And it can’t move forward. And then all of a sudden you get an email saying nothing’s working. And I’m like, What do you mean? Oh, because the data look different now. And I forgot to update that. And I forgot to do this. And now it doesn’t make sense to have everything in one setup, you really need to have it chunked out. So that way, troubleshooting is a lot easier. When it gets to that point. You do need to consider how do you separate things into more manageable boxes? Instead of having one huge container where everything’s just kind of piled in? Can you separate this? And can you chunk this out? Is that your still a needed? App? Is there any way? Even if it means we have to integrate into a whole different software, but maybe it has a better integration with another piece of software, and therefore makes the whole workflow a lot simpler? That’s where you have to consider. Yeah, you do have to sometimes I gotta cut Zapier out because it’s like, it’s too much. And I tell my clients, you got to move from this app to this app. Because it integrates integrates a lot better with this other than it’s gonna flow easier. With the cut out Zapier. Technically, you’ll save money. It’s gonna take me time, it’s gonna take us time for the transition. But it’s going to be a lot easier, you’re going to be able to skill while fluid.

Khadirah Muhammad 34:07
A lot of times you’ll have to another sometimes I need another set of eyes for myself.

Khadirah Muhammad 34:14
I love the tech. I love potential when you get so into it. Your heads down your focus. But then that’s all you end up seeing. You can’t see the forest for the trees. It takes one of my own team members to say, Oh, come here. I know you’ve built up this 30 Somethings that Zapier workflow, you’re great proud of it, but it’s gonna get stuck here a lot. Sometimes the data doesn’t flow in the same every single time. Yeah. Oh, yeah. And, you know, when you’re at that level you have time for I mean, quite frankly, use all the time for that. So maybe we got to figure out another workaround. Maybe we have to make sure it goes through a format maybe has to go Google Sheets real quick, let the outlook the the sheet itself, you know, with the formulas and then actually create data that can then be formatted as a view. Yes, it’s an extra step, what is going to work? This is this is the importance of having sustainability and scalability in mind when you’re building out any process, and I’m very specific, it’s not just scalability, its sustainability. Because it needs to be able to sustain itself, it needs to be able to maintain itself without breaking everything. A lot of people can build stuff to scale, you can make a lot more money. But if you’re ending up having to troubleshoot a lot of stuff, you end up spending the money that you made in time in fixing. And if you’re not as tech inclined, if somebody like myself, and you’re using Zapier yourself, and you’re building out all these apps, and now you have 100 of them in the home folder, because you don’t have anything titled the way it needs to be, you just use the automatic title Zapier gives you? I’m sorry, that’s a little pet peeve of mine. It was a little bit. Oh, yeah, you know, I’m not gonna harp on it. But it is a pet peeve of mine, to use the one they give, you know, if you’re nothing made, basically revenue organization, it’s gonna be very difficult for you to troubleshoot and figure out where everything started from, and how to really fix it for the long term versus just like fixing you know, something small, but it’s actually a bigger problem.

Chris Davis 36:34
Yeah, for those of you listening, I share, I share the same pet peeve. Naming conventions, I’ve got an entire podcast on it, go listen to that podcast and start naming your things accordingly. Let me say this where I’ve come a mighty long way, I remember there used to be a time where I was the keyboard banger type person where you just put some in real quick to keep going. I can’t believe I was that person. Like, I would never oh my god, I would cringe. But saw somebody with a tag name ASDF J, K h. And it’s just like, Oh, I just created that to see what this is gonna do? No, no, you go back right now sit down and name that thing.

Khadirah Muhammad 37:16
Because it’s so important. It’s so important. It comes from a coding days, definitely. That is definitely from my coding days. Because when I took some boot campers something later on, and they taught us about naming conventions a little bit more deliberately than I ever did when I just kind of was self taught. And then when I was still taught, I was just whatever that HTML, whatever that says, I just want to see if it works. That’s it. Whatever. Got Jas, you know, Bootstrap, and it was the thing when I was using it. Amazing to say that. I don’t know. It sounds like the old days. Oh, seven years?

Chris Davis 37:53
Yeah. Yeah.

Khadirah Muhammad 37:54
But yeah, naming conventions for my coding days, I am stuck to it. Me by the looks at my computer. They are always amazed at how organized every folder is. And every folder in the folder and the folders.

Chris Davis 38:13
Yep, it’s gotta be again, people. The reason why I like to have people like Khedira on on here. So by the way, I didn’t plan any of this. I did not prime Kadir this is all her own knowledge, approach and insight. What I’m saying though, is There’s more than meets the eye. I get it, it’s sexy. Hey, I’m gonna go sign up for this tool. And they say I can do it. Some of you should not touch the back end of your business ever. Like, ever. Just get it out of your mind. Stay from back there. Never go into kitchen, you just stand in front greet people and agree on how great the food tastes. That’s it. Don’t ever go back you will burn something, you break something, you’ll you’ll burn the house down. So it’s always good to get insight on something that, you know, maybe you think it’s simple as Oh, yeah, I’ll just set up a zap and do that. No, no, no, no, no, no. There’s always when you start to tie these pieces together. As as an integration specialists. It’s always something it’s like, you mentioned the house. Khedira very rarely. Now, I do a lot of repair. Unfortunately, I try to hire people to do it. But every now and then it’s like dang, and I gotta get my tools out and do it. And even when the experts come over, they’ll start hey, you need a light like Yes, sir. We just need a light right there. And they’ll get to cutting out the ceiling. And before you know it, they hit something. And it’s like what was that? I don’t know why they will put a beam right here. So now we’re gonna have to cut around more than meets the eye. It happens in the technical space all the time on your building our systems. So Um, yes, I can’t thank you enough for sharing that insight. This is the type of stuff. This is the back end. This is the behind the scenes, everybody. When you see somebody say, you know, I 3x 5x 10x my income, they may have a, I don’t believe anything. But if they did, I want to go see the backend, because how the backend is built, is going to tell me was that a one time thing that’s about to break? Or already broken? They just took a snapshot of the highlight and took a deer’s point is sustainability. Okay, you did it, is it sustainable? You’d be surprised at how many people make their money realize that the ship is a little wobbly, and they jump out in Swim, swim to shore in their, in their new boat, their new small boat that can only fit them that they paid for with the new money, the new money that was generated. So could there I can’t thank you have enough for that.

Khadirah Muhammad 40:55
Oh, absolutely. And that is on. I gotta say, I’m just kept going every I mean, as somebody who was in the marketing world, I still am but in a different in a different capacity. You know, I got used to all the marketers selling marketers, and all the teknicks 2050 99, you know, crazy numbers. And I’m like, What are you just, you know, how many times did you do that? And And thankfully, I’ve been able to teach my clients about that too, because then they’ll tell me, well, this person got, you know, this 30 next result. And so how many times did they do that? Where are they at right

Chris Davis 41:37
now? Yeah. Did it last?

Khadirah Muhammad 41:40
You know, you know that one? No, I just saw the ad. No, I know, you saw the ad. It was very nice. It was very sexy. It was very fun and all that good stuff. But you got there’s no sustainability and into this particular client I’ve been talking about, to his credit, he asked me to stay on as his chief systems officer, because he knew the only way he was going to really be able to, to keep on growing, not just because it’s no fun, just having it sounds weird for me to say, but it’s no fun just having an 80k month. And then that’s it. You know, you have nothing else. Sure you had a great month, but he had sustainability and rapid growth. And I was like, Well, if you want rapid growth like that, you’re gonna need more than just me. And the other person that you got, you’re gonna need 1234 Your new social media person, you’re gonna, you want to do travel stuff, you’re gonna need a travel person. I don’t even know their names. But I know that’s the person. I said, and you’re gonna need more salespeople, as I guarantee you’re gonna need more salespeople before the end of the year.

Chris Davis 42:48
I’m so glad you said that, because I want everybody if you haven’t listened to the previous episode of this called Kill the imposter, how to kill the imposter? Because that’s it, you really summed it up, right? There is understanding hey, look, if I can build a system, it’s going to take more, it’s gonna take more than and that’s okay. And that’s okay. So these are, again, from those of you listening to hiring somebody, these are the things that you’re looking for. This is have you ever thought when you when you’re talking to a marketer, to ask them, How are their folders organized, because how their folders are organized. And name is how your folders gonna be organized today. These are the small things though, right there that a lot of times us we do without thinking like, for me, my entire desktop is automated it I’ve got this app that runs and says, Hey, screenshots been here for over 24 hours and you haven’t opened it. I’m just gonna move it into this folder. So it I look so organized. And I know exactly what folder is going into. I put a little color on it, and it’s all cut anyways, we can go down

Khadirah Muhammad 43:59
for days, but I mean, quite frankly, I’ve had the whole focus thing since high school. I had, okay, wow, this has made me think about this. I had my entire college career mapped out. Before I stepped foot on campus. I knew exactly this is when I’ll be is when I thought it was gonna photography. But I still I looked at the majors. I was like, I might do this minor. I looked at the rules. I mean, I’m telling you, I read them. I read the rules of like some you know how you can do a class like pass fail, because I had to do one of those. Just the general stuff didn’t care. You know, I did it. And I presented it to my advisors. I said, I’m doing this. I just they told me I had to come here, but this is what I’m doing. And they will be my type of brain. It’s on a whole different level. I have a whole routine. Every single day of the week, just at home Am I I record personally, and I hate when people try to interrupt me even even down to my friends, they’ll try to call me. And they’ll be mad, like, how can you answer me earlier? So I was gonna do

Chris Davis 45:14
a listen.

Khadirah Muhammad 45:18
I was like, I had this time blacked out, you know, and you try to interrupt, I love you. But I need to do this thing. You know, it’s just, it’s how our minds work. Everything is a process. And you consider the process before you consider. Just like, how was this? What’s the step? 1234? I need to know that, you know, because it’s very, it feels very, it’s very comfortable.

Chris Davis 45:46
Yes, you need these types of brains and your business, everyone. So Khadira, thank you so much for coming on to the podcast. If people want to find out more about you connect with you, hire you whatever the case may be what what’s the best place for them to go?

Khadirah Muhammad 46:04
Oh, absolutely. If you all want to visit me, you can go to succeedingwithsystems.com. That systems with a sap. And when you get to the site, we have a couple of freebies there, you can actually download what I call the six figure and low tech guide. This is especially good for my startup entrepreneurs, not going to throw you the right to like the really high price stuff. That’s for a different level. I want to give you something that you can actually use. And I should tell you, I should tell you why you should consider what are the use cases, it’s actually very in depth, I’m still kind of adding more to it because it can never be more perfect. But if you want to go look at it, it’s only it’s only on the first page of succeeding with systems backup.

Chris Davis 46:49
Succeed succeeding with systems.com plural, it’s on the screen for everybody on YouTube. If you’re listening, typed that in as you’re not driving, as you’re at your desk or at home, don’t worry, the link is also in the show notes if you missed it. Khedira thank you so much for coming on to the podcast is greatly appreciated.

Khadirah Muhammad 47:10
I love being here, you know, and I look forward to working and honestly, I hope you all take this information and that’s been extremely valuable.

Chris Davis 47:20
Yes, yes. Absolutely. What she said. So again, thank you. I’ll see you online clear. Absolutely. Thank you for tuning in to this episode of The all systems go podcast. If you enjoyed it, make sure that you’re subscribed at the time of recording the all systems go podcast is free to subscribe to and it can be found in Apple podcasts, Google podcasts, YouTube, or wherever you get your podcasts new episodes are released every Thursday. So make sure you’re subscribed so that you don’t miss out and while you’re at it, please leave us a five star rating and review to show some love but also to help future listeners more easily find the podcast so they can experience the value of goodness as well. We’ve compiled all resources mentioned on the podcast, as well as other resources that are extremely valuable and effective at helping you grow your marketing automation skills quickly and you can access them all at allsystemsgopodcast.com Thanks again for listening. And until next time, I see you online. Automate responsibly my friends