Entrepreneur Resource Management = REAL systems thinking for Smedium Businesses - RJ Lewis

RJ Lewis – "Planning Out Loud Show"

IBGR.Network - PROFIT Radio. Everything a business owner needs to start, grow, or exit a business. GROW WITH US.

Objectives + Opportunities + Challenges.In Season 4 of the Planning Out Loud Radio show, we're going to talk a LOT about Entrepreneur Resource Management. 

If you are wondering what that [Entrepreneur Resource Management (ERM)]is; then you're in the right place!

Entrepreneur Resource Management is the process of planning your processes and platforms in a way that creates a unified, interconnected system for your people — an ecosystem.

By the end of our time together today, I want you to understand what creating a plan for this ERM can do for your business and the episodes that we're going to dive into this season will help you to make systems thinking a core standard within your smedium business.

🎙 Listen → Apply → Engage

Check.
Understand that thinking of your business as an ecosystem means just that - your business IS the ecosystem that performs your critical business functions and provides you + your stakeholders with relevant data when and where it's needed.

What are those critical business functions that your system should support?

• marketing and promoting products and services
• enabling commerce
• delivering programs and services

Think.
Contrary to what a casual google search might lead you to believe, Resource Planning and Management - ala ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning… a TOTAL misnomer) - is not about software. It's about sanity. It's ... an ideal that you strive [AND iterate] towards.
Our key strategy for ERM thinking (systems thinking) is to plan for ease and convenience. Holistic touchpoints are procedural, predictable, and replicable. Spend some time thinking about a process that would make you and your team more comfortable and empower you to provide a seamless experience for your external users – your customers.

When you're deciding on which tools will be the most useful in your ecosystem, start with the tools that you're already using and evaluate their interoperability.

1. To what extent - if any - does this tool integrate with other tools that you use?
2. Can this integration be achieved or expanded with the help of no-code applications such as Zapier?
3. If this tool does non of the above:
   1. Is there a comparable tool that does? OR
   2. Is it easy for you and your team to manually perform this portion of the process?

Act.
You can begin to use systems thinking to plan your ecosystem and Agilean methods to iterate from your "As Is" systems to your "To Be" ecosystem.

I recommend more of a research BY development approach and I agree with the IBGR Station Manager, Bill Eastman when he recommends, doing a soft launch to test out processes in place. You can see that type of methodology applied in progress here at the station.

Whether you deploy experiential testing or do more traditional R+D, the first step is to create and define your process for doing so and use it every time.

Resources.

1. INTEGRATING AGILE AND LEAN - AGILEAN TECHNIQUES FOR GROWTH
2. IBGR.community – Agilean Operations group

Shows.← Previous show: Season 3. Episode 13 – Ask RJ ALL THE THINGS!

• In our final episode of Season 3, I answered a myriad of questions from listeners covering marketing, integration, and software recommendations. We talked a broad range of things from ad strategy to the best ECRM 🔗 Check out the episode if you want to know what an ECRM is

Next show →: Season 4. Episode 2 – Design your own predictable profit plan part 1

• The next topic – Forecasting + Goal Getting – is broken up over both episodes 2 AND 3! Next week on the Planning Out Loud Radio Show with RJ Lewis, we're going to talk about creating a strategic plan that empowers you do business, BETTER by exploring benchmarks and metrics that'll turn you into a soothsayer. ..or maybe just a savvy entrepreneur that deals in hard facts and probability. 

Here’s the FULL Season 4 Episode list!
A quick overview of the plan to break down your ERM into the manageable bits and bytes that you need.

• Ep. 3 – Design your own predictable profit plan part 2
• Ep. 4 – Productizing Your Services
• Ep. 5 – Minimum Viable Product (MVP) for service-based businesses
• Ep. 6 – Building a business with No-code applications
• Ep. 7 – Reverse engineering your business operating system
• Ep. 8 – Making it easy to get paid
• Ep. 9 – How to choose the right CRM
• Ep. 10 – Email Marketing Roundup
• Ep. 11 – Strike the balance between platforms and people
• Ep. 12 – Business Operating System Strategy: Season 4 Recap
• Ep. 13 – Ask Me Anything

Written by Rahgna J. Lewis

An Army wife and mother of 3 living in the Richmond area of Virginia, USA, RJ is a digital experience strategist.

RJ Lewis Digital is a consultancy that is helping CEOs like you simplify and streamline their business operating system strategy by peeking at the digital systems you use to deliver your programs, communicate with teams, organize workflow, onboard staff and convert lurkers to clients. This agency's specialty is to ALIGN ALL THESE SYSTEMS so you and your company can flourish.

Videos and social media posts are all fun and sexy, but WHAT'S HAPPENING BEHIND THE SCENES IS GONNA MAKE (or break) your company BANK.

Visit justrjlewis.com to learn more about designing a business operating system strategy – an experience-driven digital ecosystem for your business.

Instagram: @talk2rj | Facebook: @RJLewisDigital | LinkedIn: @talk2rj

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