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A few months ago I was doing a series of research calls when it became evident that

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thinking in systems is not something that everybody does.

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Throughout these calls, I got perhaps the most important feedback I’ve gotten since

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moving away from web development. The person I was talking to said I read all of

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your stuff and I’m always like, this sounds awesome,

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but I don’t even know where to start or how to ask.

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And some version of this quote came up multiple times throughout these calls. So

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I decided I would finally solve this problem

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of solopreneurs not knowing where to start

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when building systems. I want to make it as easy as possible

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for you to start, which is why I put together the solopreneur System Starter kit.

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It’s available now and today I am going to walk you through the four systems. Every

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solopreneur needs to run a business that allows them to take time off, worry free.

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So I’m gonna give you a high level overview of all four kits today, or all four systems.

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And if you wanna get your hands on this resource, this is the most valuable thing

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I’ve ever created

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and it’s completely free. You can get it at streamlined fm slash kit. You will get

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the full document that tells you not only what the systems are and why you need them,

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but my systems and then the simplest version of each of those systems. It will give

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you a full tools index of all the tools I recommend for you to build these systems.

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And it will give you an automations and AI prompts swipe file. So again, that’s over

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at streamlined fm slash kit,

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but in this episode I’m gonna tell you why

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we have these four systems and why you need them. Hey everybody in, welcome to another

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episode of the Streamlined Solopreneur, the show that helps you automate your business

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so you can take time off, worry you free. I’m your host, Joe Casabona. And here’s

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the problem, most people don’t think in systems. I remember the first time I went

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to my accountant, I was probably 19 and I figured it was time for me to start my

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side hustle, uh, or or treat my side hustle of building websites as an actual business.

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I had been reading books on how to start a business and one of those books talked

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about the shoebox method for accounting, which is just shoving receipts into a shoebox

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and letting your accountant sort that out later. That sounded like madness to me,

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but I thought I’d play a little joke on my accountant who was also a family friend

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and I told him that’s what I was doing and I will never forget the look on his face

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wide eyes, mouth aga, cold sweat forming on his brow

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before I told him I was kidding

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because even then 20 years ago,

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I knew the importance of having importance, a good system. I was a pretty sloppy

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kid to be honest with you ask my parents or my college roommate.

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But I knew

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in my business, in school work and in work work,

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I need to be organized if I’m going to

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excel at anything.

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And that’s ultimately why I moved from web development to podcasting to now helping

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solopreneurs because I know how hard it is for people to build systems and think

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in systems and build something that lets them confidently take time away from their

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business. I had a panic attack six years ago

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as I record this

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and the systems I put in place are the thing that helps me now stay calm and not

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freak out and not be working all the time so I can spend

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time with my children, with my wife

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away from my desk.

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So

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that is why we need

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good systems

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because the truth is,

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being a solopreneur doesn’t mean that you need to do everything yourself. You don’t

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need more work.

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I think that people believe that busy is equivalent to being productive, but it’s

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not.

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Right. You can if you’re, if your car is stuck in the mud, you can spill in your

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wheels all you want, but you’re not getting outta the mud.

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You need productive work. You need a couple of people to help you push your car out

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of the mud.

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So

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not having a system in place means that you might be busy,

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but you’re not being productive, you’re not using your time wisely.

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And

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if you’re anything like me, you left

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full-time employment to get time back.

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And that’s what these four systems, the four I’ve been

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teasing them, but the four systems are

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admin work,

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your CRM,

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content creation and idea generation and capture. So I’m gonna walk you through the

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why

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and what these systems are and why they’re important.

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And I’m gonna refer you to streamline fm slash kit if you want to get the whole thing.

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So

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let’s start

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with

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the admin work.

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I put the admin work first because it could potentially have the biggest impact,

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right? You should have a system for capturing your daily work calendar, events, notes,

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tasks, actionable items from meetings and email. And luckily there are a lot of default

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apps for pretty much all of these. But a system isn’t just a bunch of apps,

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it’s making those apps, those tools work together.

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And so there are a few questions that you should ask yourself

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as you’re putting together your system

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for admin work.

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Uh, the first is, how can you protect the time on your calendar so that you can do

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your best work?

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How are you capturing tasks into a task manager you’ll actually use?

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Are you able to quickly capture notes and put them someplace where they don’t get

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lost to history?

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And how are you getting your most important action items from meetings and emails

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while still being

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fully present?

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And there are a couple of really important things here, right? The first is

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a lot of people believe if it’s important enough, I’m not going to forget it or it’ll

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come back to me. That is demonstrably not true.

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We forget things all the time, especially as we get older or we have more things

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going on.

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My mind was a steel trap

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when I was the only person I had to think about taking care of

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when I was the only person whose wellbeing, uh, you know, was important to me most

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of the time, as long as I wasn’t with my parents or brothers.

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Now I have a wife and three kids,

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so my brain is constantly thinking about their wellbeing as well as doing all of

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my work stuff.

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So we will forget things and being able to capture them into a place that’s gonna

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surface the information when we need it is really important.

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The other thing is protecting your time.

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I wanna recommend a book here called At Your Best. It’s by Kerry EU Hoff. And he

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will walk you through in this book

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how to figure out when you do your best

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work, when you do your worst work, and how to structure your day

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so that you are

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doing your best work or that you’re doing your most important work at your best time.

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I know I’m at my best in the mornings, so I have no meetings from 7:00 AM to 11:00 AM

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that that time is sacred to me.

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I know I am at my worst from 2:00 PM to like 4:00 PM So I will put meetings or work

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that doesn’t require a lot of energy at that time or, or maybe I’ll just go to the

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gym

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or go for a walk

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’cause I know I’m not going to get any productive work done at that time. So understand

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how you work and then use your system to protect your best time.

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Use a calendar app or a scheduling app and make sure that you have lots of time blocked

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off on your calendar

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so that you can dig into your important work without interruption. That’s what the

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ad, that’s really the admin work system is twofold. It’s protecting your time and

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it’s surfacing the information you need when you need it.

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So that is the admin system.

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now let’s move on to the CRM.

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That’s the second system in this kit.

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CRM stands for customer relationship management. And most simply, it’s a way to capture,

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nurture, and convert leads into customers or clients. And there are entire industries

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and enterprises based on this niche.

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But your CRM does not need to be complicated.

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I always recommend starting with some simple thing that you’ll actually use

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Big Honk and CRMs can be super overwhelming and require a lot of access to other

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accounts right off the bat.

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And that’s what prevented me from implementing A CRM in my business for a long time.

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And I’ll say here, HubSpot is a former and current sponsor of my content over on

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YouTube

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and LinkedIn

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and they have a free CRM and it’s really good.

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I use it now because I know what I need.

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But you can use something basic like notion,

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uh, or or whatever, a Google sheet. And the really nice thing about notion in a Google

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sheet is when you’re ready to graduate to HubSpot for free,

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you can export, right? They make onboarding pretty painless.

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But A-A-A-C-R-M, here’s how important A CRM is

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in 2025,

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I added $20,000 to quarter four simply by following up with leads from earlier that

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year.

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Most people won’t just reach out when they need you. Most people need a nudge. And

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the CRM

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is a place for you to know who to nudge and when.

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So when you’re thinking about your CRM, I think consider these requirements.

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People should be able to fill out a form and automatically get and be automatically

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sent to your CRM.

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You should also have a way to set up reminders or follow ups so that you don’t forget.

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You should track the status of your leads to see how effective your outreach and

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sales are. It doesn’t have to be a lot. It could just be like,

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uh, new lead prospect,

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uh, or had sales call proposal sent, one lost, maybe later work complete,

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right? Something to just let you know how things are going

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and make it something that you’ll actually use. Like I said, if you think that Google

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Sheets is the place where you’re most comfortable, start there and upgrade later.

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Now,

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the last thing I wanna say about CRMs in general, again, you can get the full walkthrough

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recommended tools recommended setup in in the kit

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over at Streamline fm slash kit.

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But

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I think that forms are really a linchpin of the crm. And I think you should have

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three, three kinds of forms your call scheduler. So like a cal.com or.com,

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uh, a mailing list, opt-in

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and lead capture forms. These are the ways that people will raise their hand and

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tell you

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they are interested in what you are doing.

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So I think you should have all three of those forms now.

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Now is also a really good time for me to mention my fewest links philosophy,

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uh, which is that the fewer links in the chain, the better,

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big complicated automations are fun, but the more links there are, the more likely

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something is to break

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direct integrations or one step automations are often best from a reliability standpoint.

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And this is why I think a tool like HubSpot is really good and important because

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a lot of HubSpot has direct integration to a lot of things. They even have their

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own forum builder. So

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that is something to consider

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when you’re building your CRM, make it something you’ll actually use and make it

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something that is easy to get people into and something that will remind you to actually

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follow up with those folks.

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Now in the kit,

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uh, I also talk about like customer onboarding. That’s a whole other animal. I actually

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don’t make it its own like this could have been like five systems, but I do talk

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a lot about that in in the actual system starter kit.

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Uh, ’cause that’s something else to consider and something that can piggyback right

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off of your CRM.

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Okay? Content creation. If you are a solopreneur, this, this is the third system.

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Content creation. If you’re a solopreneur, you’re likely creating some sort of content

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videos, podcasts, articles, newsletters. And having a good system in place for this

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is important to be consistent without feeling overwhelmed.

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So you should have a system for this. And again, it could be a Google sheet, it could

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be notion, whatever works best for you,

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but you should consider these things.

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How are you capturing ideas, which we’ll talk about more in the next section.

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Uh, what the idea approval process looks like.

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How you’re tracking the status of multiple pieces of content. This one’s really important,

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right? Mondays, I protect my time. I have no meetings on Mondays.

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Mondays are my recording days.

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My kids are at my father-in-law’s. I know the house is quiet. So I have five podcast

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episodes. I’m recording today and at least one YouTube video.

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And I wouldn’t know, I wouldn’t be able to record all five of those episodes today

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if I didn’t know

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what I was talking about. And so having a system that allows me to look at my, my

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content schedule and review everything, and then record is really important for you

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to batch content. Otherwise, you’re just running around every week going, what am

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I gonna talk about?

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How am I gonna talk about it?

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And that increases the length

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of the content creation process.

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What tools are you using to create the content? How is that content getting edited

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and reviewed? Again, in my system, editing is really easy because I do a lot of stuff

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on the front end to make sure I don’t have to edit on the back end.

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What goes into publishing? How are you promoting it? How are you repurposing your

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content?

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And maybe most importantly, what is the

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goal of your content?

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The goal of your content is going to dictate how often you publish and on what platforms.

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It’s also going to determine your CTAI have one call to action in this episode.

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Get the solopreneur system starter kit.

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My goal is to get people onto my mailing list.

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That’s the goal of this podcast and my YouTube channel. People should know I know

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what I’m talking about

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and want to learn more.

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So

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understand what your goal is because it’s going to affect everything else.

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I also wanna mention repurposing here, right? The reason that I am, uh, so proficient

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and I can publish to a lot of places

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is because I repurpose, I write my newsletters

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and then I look at my newsletters to see which would make good podcast episodes.

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How can I combine these to make an a full episode out of it?

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What do I talk about in my newsletters that could be good show and tell YouTube videos

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and how can I chop these newsletters down

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into a social post?

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All of that is because it all, it all lives in my planner

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inside of my system.

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So a planner goes a long way. I’m not gonna tell you which one to use in the kit,

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in the system starter kit, I do tell you,

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uh, what I think you should use if you don’t know where to start.

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The last thing I’ll say in this section is, uh,

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I’ve basically written a treatise on AI and creative work.

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The line is going to be different for everyone.

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For me, I don’t think it should touch

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anything until post-production.

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And so when I use AI to speed up my content process,

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it’s strictly on the backend.

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Very few times I will say, take this really long written work and turn it into an

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outline for a podcast episode.

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But

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it’s really just taking the headlines from my article at that point.

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It suggests a bunch of stuff, but I don’t really pay attention to that stuff.

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So it

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should really, for me it’s post-production work. That line is gonna be different

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for everybody.

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Okay?

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Also, I should say that I have like a lot of other opinions about AI and I’m sure

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you’ve heard them

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if you’ve a long time listener,

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if you are a long time listener. But

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the important parts of your system are capture ideas.

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Give yourself a way to plan content ahead of time so you can batch it and repurpose

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Okay?

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The last system, idea generation and capture.

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Every solopreneur should have this.

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It’s a a way to quickly capture ideas. We all have ideas. Maybe you’re wondering

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why it wasn’t part of another system, but I think an idea can slot into any of these

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systems. And so you wanna have a separate place to capture and evaluate ideas. That’s

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not mucking up the works for your CRM or your content planner or your admin work,

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right?

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Like if you just threw every idea you had into a task manager,

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that would muck up your task manager.

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So I like to put my ideas some someplace separate. I put them in obsidian.

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That could be different for you. That’s not really the point

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of the idea capture system.

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the point of the idea capture system

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is make it easy for you to capture ideas wherever you are.

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So you want to ask yourself these questions.

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What devices do you use? And what devices do you usually have on you?

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What apps do you use to take notes?

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What apps are you using with the other systems we’ve talked about here?

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Do you prefer to write

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type or talk

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because that’s also going to affect how you capture things And how do you evaluate

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ideas?

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I share my full system here, but I mostly,

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I, I use obsidian for everything. And so I make it very easy for me to capture to

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obsidian no matter what I’m doing. My my Voice Memos app will automatically send

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notes to obsidian.

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I have a button on my lock screen for me to automatically put a note in

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obsidian or to

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quickly put a note in obsidian.

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So you want to capture ideas as quickly as possible because you will forget them.

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so this is why the system is different because ideas can apply to any place

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you want to capture ideas. And then maybe once a week, maybe when you’re not at your

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best,

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right? When you’re in, in one of your

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uh, less productive times, you can just go through and say, oh, this was a good idea.

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I’m keeping this, this was a terrible idea. Get rid of it.

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But you want a place to quickly capture ideas and you should make it One place.

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I’ve talked to, to solopreneurs, I’ve experienced this myself where I have ideas

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in a bunch of different apps

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and I thought this is silly

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Obsidian is where all of my notes go now,

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except for one note I’ve shared with my wife in Apple Notes. ’cause I’m not going

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to subject my wife to obsidian.

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So everything else, everything from my work, all the ideas I have, it all goes in

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obsidian. Once a week during my weekly startup routine or my weekly planning session,

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I will go through my ideas inbox or my notes inbox in obsidian

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and I will process them. You should do the same thing.

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So those are the four systems, admin work, CRM, content creation, idea generation,

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and Capture.

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They can all interconnect

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if you want, but

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you don’t need to build them all at once.

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I would say pick the one that feels the most urgent and the most chaotic right now

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and start there

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over at Streamlined fm slash kit. I’ll have a link in the description too.

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Streamlined fm slash kit.

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You can pick the system. And then

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there is a section on how to implement it.

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So insanely valuable resource

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and as the simplest version of each system, the exact tools and you get automations

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and AI prompts all laid out

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in the free solopreneur system starter kit.

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But that’s it for this episode.

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Thanks so much for listening to the Streamline solopreneur

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and until next time,

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I hope you find some space in your week.