Systems Simplified

Adi Klevit
  • 4.4 (7)
  • Entrepreneurship
  • Updated Semiweekly

This is the Systems Simplified podcast where we feature top leaders who share stories on how to successfully systematize a business.

  1. 5h ago

    How to Build Organizational Systems That Last With Carla Zwaan

    In This Episode Being organized isn't about having fewer things. It's about having a system that tells you what to do with everything that comes your way. In this episode, Adi Klevit interviews Carla Zwaan about how entrepreneurs can eliminate clutter, reduce overwhelm, and create productive work environments. Carla explains why buying another organizing tool or adopting the latest productivity hack rarely solves the underlying problem. Instead, lasting organization comes from establishing a consistent system for making decisions about information, tasks, and physical materials. She shares how the organizational principles developed by Barbara Hemphill continue to help businesses create order in both physical and digital environments. Carla introduces a practical approach built around three decisions: act on it, keep it for reference, or toss it. She explains how this method applies to everything from incoming paperwork and email to the ideas and tasks that constantly occupy an entrepreneur's mind. Adi connects these principles to the importance of having clear processes and procedures in a business. When information is consistently captured, categorized, and stored, employees spend less time searching for what they need and can focus more on productive work. The conversation also explores what it takes to maintain an organized environment after the initial transformation. Carla emphasizes that a good organizational system must make information easy to find, even when the person who originally stored it is unavailable. She also explains how weekly accountability helps clients develop new habits that keep their systems working over time. The result is not simply a cleaner office, but a repeatable way of managing information that supports efficiency, consistency, and peace of mind.

  2. 2d ago

    How to Build a Business That Runs Without You With Scott Siegal

    In This Episode Getting out of the day-to-day operations of a business doesn't start with finding someone to replace you. It starts with building a company that doesn't depend on you. In this episode, Adi Klevit interviews Scott Siegal about his journey from starting a roofing company to building a business that could operate without his constant involvement. Scott shares how he hit a growth ceiling early in his entrepreneurial career and discovered that knowing the technical side of the business wasn't enough. After joining Certified Contractors Network and implementing stronger systems and processes, he was able to grow his roofing company and eventually shift his attention toward leading CCN. Scott identifies three elements that business owners need to scale successfully: systems and processes, the right people, and a clear understanding of the numbers. Great employees alone aren't enough if there isn't a consistent way for them to perform their jobs. At the same time, contractors need to understand the full cost of operating their businesses so they can price correctly, invest in growth, and avoid simply creating a demanding job for themselves. The conversation also explores how Scott is combining established processes with new technology. He shares how his roofing company used AI to reduce a proposal process that previously took an hour or more to approximately five minutes, helping improve speed and sales performance. He is also using AI-powered voice role-playing to reinforce sales training through repetition. The lesson is not technology for technology's sake, but using technology to strengthen processes, increase efficiency, and help people consistently execute what they've been trained to do.

  3. 6d ago

    How to Build a Lasting Business Legacy With Lorin Beller

    In This Episode Selling a business doesn't have to mean losing the people, knowledge, and culture that made the company valuable in the first place. In this episode, Adi Klevit interviews Lorin Beller about employee ownership, business transitions, and the role ESOPs can play in preserving a company's legacy. Lorin shares the story of selling a multimillion-dollar company she built with two partners and why, looking back, she wishes she had known about employee ownership. Her experience shaped her belief that owners should understand all of their options before deciding how to exit or transition their companies. The conversation explores what can happen when employees become owners. Rather than allowing years of institutional knowledge to disappear after a sale, an ESOP can provide a path for employees to remain invested in the company's future. Adi connects this to the importance of getting knowledge and know-how out of people's heads and into the business so the organization can continue without being dependent on one person. Lorin expands the idea further, explaining how keeping a locally owned company intact can also have a positive impact on the surrounding community. Lorin and Adi also discuss what owners need to consider before transitioning out of their businesses. A successful transition depends on more than the transaction itself. Owners need to consider whether they have the leadership team, knowledge, systems, and organizational structure necessary for the company to continue without them. Lorin explains that an ESOP can be structured in different ways, allowing an owner to leave, remain on the board, consult for a period of time, or transition into another role based on what they want their next chapter to look like.

  4. Oct 1

    How to Reduce AI Risk While Improving Productivity With Ovetta Sampson

    In This Episode AI can produce impressive results, but responsibility for those results still belongs to people. In this episode, Adi Klevit interviews Ovetta Sampson about responsible AI implementation and the increasingly important role of human judgment. Ovetta explains the distinction between traditional machine learning and generative AI. With generative AI, determining whether an output is appropriate or useful often requires subjective human judgment, making it critical for businesses to establish clear standards around how these tools are used. Ovetta and Adi also discuss some of the risks that come with widespread AI adoption, including copyright concerns, privacy, unreliable information, and the possibility of inaccurate information being repeated until it is perceived as true. Generative AI can produce an answer that sounds authoritative without actually determining whether that answer is accurate. That makes human review, verification, and critical thinking essential parts of any process that incorporates AI. The conversation then turns to how businesses can use AI more effectively. Ovetta emphasizes a deceptively simple principle: remember that you're working with a machine. Once businesses understand how the technology processes information, they can create better systems for interacting with it by providing clear context, objectives, scope, guardrails, and examples. Rather than allowing everyone to experiment independently, companies can create repeatable processes for using AI while keeping people accountable for the final result.

  5. Sep 30

    How to Build a Consistent Sales Process With Dean Curtis

    In This Episode A sales process only creates value when your salespeople actually use it. In this episode, Adi Klevit interviews Dean Curtis about the intersection of sales processes, technology, and consistent execution. Dean explains that many organizations train salespeople on a particular approach but have very little visibility into what happens once those reps are sitting in front of customers. Ingage helps bridge that gap by giving salespeople consistent content while providing leadership with insight into how that content is actually being used. Dean and Adi explore what makes a strong sales process work in practice. Dean views selling as educating the buyer, which means salespeople need the right visuals, information, and supporting content available at the right point in the conversation. Rather than overwhelming prospects with everything they know, successful salespeople need to understand what matters to that particular buyer and communicate the right information in the right sequence. The conversation also turns to AI and technology adoption. Dean emphasizes that businesses shouldn't implement technology simply because it's new or exciting. Instead, leaders should identify the desired outcome, determine which KPI the technology should improve, and make sure the underlying process works before automating it. As Adi and Dean discuss, technology can amplify a strong process, but automating a broken process simply leaves you with a broken process that operates faster.

  6. Sep 26

    Building a Marketing Message That Opens Corporate Doors With Chala Dincoy

    In This Episode Most businesses describe what they do. Chala Dincoy believes a stronger marketing message starts with identifying the expensive problem the customer desperately wants solved. In this episode, Adi Klevit interviews Chala Dincoy about repositioning B2B marketing messages to stand out and attract corporate clients. Rather than keeping the conversation theoretical, Chala puts her methodology into practice by analyzing Adi's own description of Business Success Consulting Group. She challenges Adi to move from a broad explanation of creating, documenting, optimizing, and implementing processes toward a message built around a specific audience, problem, and business consequence. Using construction as an example, Chala and Adi work backward from inconsistent processes to inconsistent onboarding, delayed productivity, costly mistakes, and ultimately the potential loss or delay of valuable projects. Chala explains that this level of specificity makes it possible to communicate the value of a solution in language that matters to the buyer. Instead of leading with process documentation itself, the message can lead with the costly business problem the documented processes help eliminate. The conversation then moves from messaging into a repeatable approach for creating sales opportunities. Chala explains how research can uncover a very specific pain point within a target market and how that insight can become the foundation for outreach, sales conversations, and creative campaigns. The larger lesson for business owners is that systems aren't limited to operations. Marketing can also become systematic when companies clearly define who they are targeting, understand the problem they solve, quantify its impact, and build their message around the outcome the customer values.

  7. Sep 24

    How to Build a Repeatable Advertising System With Keagan O'Connell

    In This Episode Great advertising doesn't require reinventing the wheel every week. Once you understand what works, the opportunity is to build a system for repeating and improving it. In this episode, Adi Klevit interviews Keagan O'Connell about the systems behind successful social media advertising. Drawing on his experience working with home improvement companies, Keagan explains why creative is the foundation of a strong campaign. Rather than getting distracted by complicated targeting and optimization techniques, he recommends first creating an ad that captures attention, maintains interest, and gives the prospect a clear next step. Keagan also explains how businesses can make smarter decisions about advertising budgets and lead generation. Instead of choosing an arbitrary monthly ad spend, he recommends starting with the company's acceptable cost of marketing and working backward through average ticket size, customer acquisition cost, appointment rates, and other conversion metrics. He also discusses why sending paid traffic directly to a general website can create unnecessary distractions and shares what his agency has learned from testing Meta lead forms against landing pages. Most importantly, Adi and Keagan explore how creativity itself can become more systematic. Once an ad proves successful, businesses don't necessarily need an entirely new concept. They can create variations by changing elements such as the aspect ratio, background music, captions, or other components while preserving the core idea that already works. That approach turns marketing from a constant search for the next big idea into a repeatable process of testing, learning, and improving.

  8. Sep 23

    Building Stronger Business Relationships in the Age of AI With Ryan Paugh

    In This Episode The most valuable opportunities often don't come from carefully orchestrated networking. They come from staying connected long enough for the right conversation to happen at the right time. In this episode, Adi Klevit interviews Ryan Paugh about building relationships, nurturing professional networks, and creating communities that generate long-term value. Ryan explains that while there isn't one perfect blueprint for relationship building, there can be systems that help people remain intentional about it. He categorizes relationships, maintains his closest connections, and creates systematic ways to stay in touch with the weaker ties in his network that can otherwise easily disappear. Ryan also shares the story behind Forbes Councils and how the organization developed from an earlier community for young entrepreneurs. The goal was to give real practitioners, entrepreneurs, executives, consultants, and other professionals opportunities to share their expertise while also connecting with one another. Ryan and Adi discuss how strong communities become especially valuable when members actively contribute, ask questions, exchange ideas, and help each other solve problems. The conversation then turns to AI and the importance of protecting the human element of connection. Ryan cautions against adding AI simply because it is available, particularly when technology begins making conversations and interactions feel less authentic. The opportunity is to use AI where it genuinely helps people connect while preserving original thought, curiosity, generosity, and real human engagement. Systems can remind us to nurture relationships, but the relationships themselves still require people to show up genuinely.

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4.4
out of 5
7 Ratings

About

This is the Systems Simplified podcast where we feature top leaders who share stories on how to successfully systematize a business.

Information

  • Creator
    Adi Klevit
  • Years Active
    2021 - 2026
  • Episodes
    513
  • Rating
    Explicit
  • Show Website
    Systems Simplified

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