Theodore W. Garrison (1998) notes in his article “The Magic of a Marketing System”:

“Have you wondered how Ray Kroc managed to get teenagers in California, Illinois, Florida, and Maine to produce the exact same fry? It is really quite simple; McDonald’s starts with the same kind of potato. Each potato is cut into fries of the same size. At all locations, the fries are cooked in the same type of oil in the same type of fryer at exactly the same temperature for exactly the same amount of time. Is there any surprise that all the fries come out the same?”

Just about everything that happens in a business is repetitive. That means that it probably doesn’t have to be done by you! Here is a two-step approach:

1. Take a hard look at what you and your colleagues do each day and write down how it’s done
2. Start delegating tasks to other people, by having them first observe how you do it and then doing it themselves with appropriate oversight

Systemisation is the key concept of The E-myth Revisited by Michael Gerber (1995), one of the great guide books for entrepreneurs.