Happy Sunday,

Welcome back to the 16th edition of the Nord Media newsletter.

Wanting to learn about anything specific? Let me know, as always I appreciate all of you that reply each week and share feedback with me.

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This week, we’re diving into the importance of systems for business growth. If your systems suck, you're f*cked.

Our systems sucked when we first started. 

Everything was chaotic, and inefficiency was everywhere. 

Now, everything is automated and runs smoothly. 

I’ll lay out how we turned things around, and what I’d look at if I was needing to restructure things again today.

Let's get into it.

When Our Systems Sucked

When we first started, we were using only Slack for everything—approvals, reviews, feedback, and all our communications.

It was a mess. 

Messages got lost, and everyone was confused and frustrated, both within our team and with our clients.

We missed deadlines, and performance suffered. 

Overall, it was just a poor system that led to a lot of frustration and a lack of accountability. 

We knew we had to change things.

The key things we lacked here were operations and fulfillment.

We didn’t have the ability to properly onboard clients and scale.

It was terrible 😂 

We couldn't scale because we had inefficiencies in so much of what we were doing. 

All of this created way more delays and work than necessary.

Figuring Out the Mess

When a good client and friend told me they were unhappy and ready to leave, it was a wake-up call.

We quickly on-boarded onto a proper CRM and client management system. 

I spent an entire weekend developing better SOPs and processes to make sure approvals were timely and efficient. 

Things weren't perfect, but they definitely got better.

We implemented Monday.com as our primary project and approval tracker. 

The main reason was the large number of automations we could set up. 

With Monday, our teams could run independently and keep pushing work forward while waiting for feedback and approvals from clients.

Everything became automated. 

No more waiting around in Slack for feedback. 

We had clear timelines and deadlines, and people were automatically pinged when things were falling behind schedule. 

It made a huge difference in our workflow.

Getting our clients to transition with us wasn’t the easiest thing in the world... 

Most of them preferred Slack and weren’t thrilled about the change. 

They didn’t want to learn something new.

We spent 2-3 hours in meetings with each client, walking them through everything to make sure they felt set up for success. 

Plus, we filmed dozens of hours of Loom videos to provide good reference points and easy-to-access details for when questions came up.

Automation Feels like Magic

Everything is automated now.

The most manual parts of our agency are client calls and managing calendars. 

We're still working on improving our marketing calendar systems, but once a monthly calendar is approved, everything after that is automated except for the actual work.

Approvals, feedback, revisions—it's all automated. 

Client communications are now handled by our account managers instead of individual stakeholders. 

Everything became streamlined, and it’s made a huge difference.

Take BF/CM 2023 week, for example.

We had zero misses and no errors.

We sent a staggering 300+ emails for our clients that week without any delays, issues, or concerns. 

Everything was executed perfectly.

Anyone who's worked BF/CM in email marketing knows how hectic and unpredictable it can be, so this was a huge win for us.

This Week’s Product Highlight 👉 Konstant Kreative

I love making my own creatives.

I also love getting everything on my to-do list for the day done.

If I can get both at the same time, well, that’s literally the definition of a win-win.

Konstant Kreative has been doing amazing work for our agency and my brands. 

They offer solid creative at an affordable price, which has allowed our internal teams to expand (and get even more work done).

It’s nice having different opinions and sets of eyes of other designers without having to hire and train someone.

Now we can work more efficiently and take on more projects while providing solid designs for email and ads.

Check out how Konstant Kreative can check off some things on your to-do list so you can get more done. Get Started

Your Blueprint for Systems Success

Here’s what I’d do if I was wanting to improve my systems from square one:

Ask your customers and clients what would improve their lives. 

Don’t guess—make sure you fully understand how you can help make things better for them.

Once you have this feedback, bring it internal. 

Ask your team members who are doing the actual work what they need to keep making improvements and how you can support them.

I seriously don’t know how we’d run things without Slack and Monday.

Here’s what NOT to do when you’re improving your systems:

Rush things.

I moved fast because I had to. 

It’s much better to execute and test, then execute and test again. 

Don’t try to build everything out at once. 

Focus on finding those 1% improvements that stick and build on them. 

These small improvements will compound over time.

To make sure these improvements compound, review them quarterly.

We review our systems and processes every quarter to make sure we’re staying efficient and not missing out on new software or technologies that could make our lives easier.

Overall, systems are only as good as their use-case. 

Make sure your team is actually using the systems you have in place.

The Road to Effortless Growth

Strong systems are the backbone of sustainable growth. 

By streamlining our processes, we've not only improved efficiency but also enhanced the relationships with our clients. 

Don’t let inefficient systems be the reason you can’t grow your business.

Have a specific question or something I can help with? Shoot me a message on twitter and I’ll answer to the best of my ability 👉 Twitter 

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Thank you for reading! I appreciate you.

Best Wishes,
Kody