Simplifying Your Systems and Processes with Owen McGab Enaohwo

Owen McGab Enaohwo is the CEO and Co-founder of SweetProcess, a business process management software that helps management teams as well as employees easily document procedures, implement processes, and manage tasks. Owen was previously the CEO of Hire Your Virtual Assistant (H.Y.V.A.), a virtual assistant service for small business owners. His specialties include business development, negotiation, operations management, and more.

Here’s a glimpse of what you’ll learn:

Owen McGab Enaohwo talks about SweetProcess and how it was first conceptualized
How Owen and his business partner built a system that solved the pain points of clients in multiple industries
The future of SweetProcess and Owen’s upcoming goals for the company
Creating a legacy for yourself and others through your business
Owen’s strategies for boosting your company’s success by documenting your procedures and processes

In this episode:

Why is documenting procedures and processes so important for a company’s success? How can effective documentation drive continuous improvement in your organization? And, most importantly, what can you do to start improving your documentation systems today?

According to Owen McGab Enaohwo, effectively documenting your company’s processes can boost your efficiency, improve your revenue, and give you more time during the day to grow your business. That’s why he co-founded his business process management software, SweetProcess: to provide an easier way for business owners in all industries to improve their documentation systems and scale their businesses.

On this exciting episode of the Systems Simplified podcast, Adi Klevit sits down with Owen McGab Enaohwo, CEO and Co-founder of SweetProcess, to discuss his strategies for effectively documenting your processes and procedures. Owen talks about the vision behind SweetProcess, the benefits of an efficient documentation system, and the value of leaving an impactful legacy through your work. He also offers an exclusive free trial of SweetProcess for today’s listeners. Stay tuned!

Resources mentioned in this episode:

Sponsor for this episode:

This episode is brought to you by Business Success Consulting Group.

At Business Success Consulting Group, we create custom processes and tailor-made management systems so businesses can thrive.

Businesses simply can’t survive without workable systems and well-documented processes. That’s why our team of experienced professionals takes care of it for you.

We provide business owners, entrepreneurs, and key executives with strategic implementation, process improvement and documentation, and long-lasting systems necessary to support business expansion.

So, what are you waiting for? Do yourself a favor, and cut the chaos out of your business.

Visit bizsuccesscg.com today or email info@bizsuccesscg.com to schedule a free consultation.

Transcription:

Adi: [00:00:00] All right. Adi Klevit here, the host of this podcast, which is simplified systems podcast, where we interview top founders, entrepreneurs, and thought leaders about how to systematize the business. And this podcast is brought to you, the sponsor for this podcast is business success consulting group, where we help you systematize your business by documenting and writing processes and procedures and business management systems and Owen, did you know that businesses need systems and processes in order to thrive?

Owen: [00:00:39] No, I did not. Of course. I know

Adi: [00:00:46] That’s what we do here at business success. So I encourage everyone to go to bizsuccesscg.com or call us, or text us at (503) 662-2911. All right. Let’s get started. So I am very happy to have here. Our guests, Owen, who is the CEO and co-founder of SweetProcess and those of you that work with me and know me, you know, how much I love sweet process.

So Owen, why don’t you introduce, give us a little introduction about yourself.

Owen: [00:01:21] Great, great. So full name, Owen McGab Enaohwo, and I am this. CEO and co-founder of sweet process. So where do we start? What’s the process does or you tell me,

Adi: [00:01:30] well, tell me a little bit about yourself, just a little bit like a one sentence bio so that our listeners know who you are.

And then I’m going to start asking you questions.

Owen: [00:01:38] Right? So like I said, CEO, and co-founder we process our software, basically. It’s a business process management software that makes it easy for use listening and your management team as well as. Employees on the ground to be able to collaborate together and document procedures.

Processes and even policies of how you do your work at your company, so that, you know, at any given time, you know, if anybody’s looking for how a specific task is done, they just simply log into sweet process, find a step by step instructions in there and they go ahead and do their work. Or if it’s like onboarding of new employees, they can hit the ground running because when they come into their role, Every procedure with instructions, for steps, for how to do that work is already in there.

And so you can never say, Oh, any information is stuck on anybody’s head because you guys essentially have that operating system with how work is done inside of the sweep process. And that’s what we process those for. We make it very easy for y’all to collaborate together, to do this so that constant improvement is, is happening in your company as a result of using our software.

Adi: [00:02:41] Absolutely. Absolutely. And that’s what we’re going to talk about, but you’re going to talk about systematizing businesses and how to use software in order to help with that. So that’s great. You know, I just want to tell the story about how I found out about SweetProcess. I don’t know if you know this stories, so, okay.

So four years ago, you know, that’s what we do. Obviously we systematize businesses, we help them systematize. We help them grow. We help them scale. We help and we write processes and procedures. So about. Five years ago, I was researching for a software that can do that. Because up to that point, we were using, you know, the word documents or Google drive, or, you know, we were definitely writing those processes and procedures.

I mean, I’ve been doing it for over 25 years, but I wanted something that will take you to the next level. So I actually Googled processes and software for processes and procedures and sweet process came as the number one ,and I go okay, okay. You know, let’s do it. It’s number one, let’s go for it. So I start using it.

I signed up for the demo to got like, wow, this is going to elevate the game for myself, for my clients to the next level. And I reached out to you. And that’s how we started working in collaborating. You know, I, many of my clients are using SweetProcess, you know, you send me clients, you know, we just, we, we work together because I help flush it out, right.

A processes and you’ll have an amazing software. So that’s how we all started was about five years ago. Via a Google search.

Owen: [00:04:06] Yeah. It makes total sense for us to work together because you do that work of helping them brainstorm and think through, know those systems they need in their business, but we don’t do that.

We just make it easy for you to document it yours, your systems, once you have thought through it. So that’s where the whole consulting thing comes in place, where you as a consultant, you know, you can help them think through stuff. And then you as a consultant, need a place for them to have it documented.

Well, SweetProcess makes it easy to go and offload all those thinking and all those brainstorming in terms of documents in so three process. So it made the most sense when we had that conversation years ago.

Adi: [00:04:41] Now, this is how we got introduced. So now tell us, how did you, how does SweetProcess start?

What’s the background?

Owen: [00:04:48] Great Question. So we officially started in the fourth quarter of 2013. So, but what happened was I went on. Quick background. So I used to run an agency where I would provide people in the U S here with you know staff. Right? So basically this was a Philippine based agency.

And so. People here in the U S this was a time when, you know, after people have read the four hour work week from Tim multifarious or Tim Ferriss or whatever. And, you know, people were like, I want to just hire somebody in from day one, just, you know, they start doing my work and think is magic. But the reality is that, you know, in order for someone to actually do your work, even if they’re in the same office as you you are in the same office with them say needs to be systems.

So in terms of procedures, documented prop policies, document for how. Things are done. Right. But people don’t know that because that whole hard, heavy lifting is not even told to them in these books when they read this books. Right. And so they, this wasn’t a heyday, like I said two first is four hour work week.

And so as I say, you know you know, let me try to meet this need. And obviously people will come to me say I need, you know, staff to help me with my stuff, but you know, when they come. Thinking people were just jumping right there. It wasn’t happening. So I had to, you know, show them the, Hey, in order for this to work, we have to take that time.

He said he was an investment of time to understand let’s take the single you know, tasks that is requiring the most time, because if we can focus on that one that is giving you the most headache, right. Then once we have solved that one, the other one that is less. Headache. You’re more willing to talk about that.

So that’s how we started. We looked at that task. That was the biggest headache for you. We spend that time to document a procedure for how the work is done. And then my team in the Philippines, you know, a member of my team in the Philippines could take over the work and then do it for you. And then before, you know, it, you’ve assigned that big bottleneck that is taking the most of your time to, you know, someone in the Philippines through us.

They’re doing the work. Now you’re thinking about the next thing and the next thing. And so how does your process. Come up from there. So what happened was. I went, I was invited on a Mixergy this podcast by Andrew Warner is very popular podcasts. Like they talk about startups and stuff like that, but I wasn’t there to do an interview to talk about my business or anything.

I was there to teach a course on how people can systematize the operations and document how work is done. Right. So he has. The the, the public facing podcast way interviews intrepreneurs from tech, startups, and soda. And then he has the you know not public facing course where people who are members of his course who pay a monthly fee go and learn a specific topic.

Right. And so my topic that I was brought on as an expert on was how to document procedures in, you know, systematize your operations. And so lo and behold, I did that you know Interview nervous as heck because this is Andrew, you know, and all that stuff. So I, I did it. And my co-founder Jarvis from SweetProcess.

I just, you know, I just, I’m supposed, as I’ve not been created, right. My co-founder Jervis listened to the course and then reached out to me and said, Hey dude All the way from Australia, mind you I’m in the U S is in Australia. So email me and say, Hey, I’m working on this idea of building a software that can, of those, what you were talking about during the course you did with Andrew, or it will help, you know, document procedures and processes for you.

And I was like, dude, hold up, let’s have a conversation and I’ll give you some backstory away. I said, hold up. Let’s cause he was asking for advice on how to build it. And I said, yeah, And I’ll give you the backstory is that when I was working my agency trying to help my clients, there were not that many tools that made it easy to document procedures in process.

As a matter of fact, back then, how was hacking to get a bunch of different tools that were not even made for what I was trying to do to do this. And then there was also enterprise level tools that were so hard to use that I’m like, if it’s hard for me to use this too. It’s not going to be easy for my team to use this tool.

Neither is going to be easy for my client. Figure out just to start like, you know what, I’m not gonna use it, this enterprise level tool. So I started hacking to get a bunch of different free tools to make it happen. And in back of my mind, I was like, I have to, you know, the skill, this, I have to figure out a way to build software for this, because there are certain things that needs to be done and done easy and intuitive.

And so lo and behold, like moving forward now, fast forward. And I did that interview. Jovi’s reached out to me. And I was like, dude not only do I, will I give advice, let’s go ahead and build this to get it. Cause there’s something that we actually need. And so that’s how we got started, you know, company was formed and all that stuff.

And then immediately I said, dude, instead of us building out the software, let’s not just do that list. Right. Take the time to interview people so that we, you know, I have my own perspective of what needs to be done. Right. But it’s limited to, you know, my own experience running this agency. Right. So instead of jumping in, because what we were not trying to do was build a bloated software that was hard to use for people.

We want to keep this. Thing, which we know is critical for every business success. We want to keep it as simple and easy to use at all levels at the management level, the owner level. And even though the, the, the ground level employee level. So we say, we’re not going to build anything. We’re going to spend time.

Having conversations with potential customers from different industry, trying to understand the pain. And so I, I remember I had like over about 50 different calls with different employees employed by different people from owners of different businesses from different industries. Just trying to talk about, you know, the pain that we’re experiencing from trying to scale their operations.

And, and you know, how do we have an employees? Know What they need to do. And you know, what challenges do we having that? So after having all those conversations, you know, I say, you know, writing all the different things I was hearing and diving into each point, cause they would tell you, I need this to do this.

I need to do that. But if you just go based on that, then basically you’re building features. I wasn’t doing that. I was like, no, why. Do you need it to do that? I’m going to tell me why I going a step low. I say why? And so my, my goal was to try to find out the root problem that they were trying to solve, hence why they were asking for that feature, because if we can.

You might tell me one feature that person might tell me when a featured out of prison. My, tell me another feature. And if I try to build based on futures, then now we have three different features, right. But if I try to dig in deeper and go to the underlying problem that we’re trying to solve, When suggested that the software needs to have that.

Then I get to identify root causes that, you know, we can then as a software company determine, okay, how do we attack this root problems that they were having. Right. And so we were able to interview that I came up, you know, talk to a bunch of different people and come up with a bunch of different root things that we wanted to solve for.

And we hit the ground running and, you know, As since then, you know, we’ve built three process now process, is it going to be used by government agencies, hospitals, law firms. I mean, some of your clients are banks using this new process. Right. So it runs the gamit

Adi: [00:11:43] yeah. Banks, construction. Retail. Yeah, I mean, it’s like, it’s amazing and you know, What you mentioned is so true.

And I experienced it firsthand. I mean, I come to you and say, Oh, and you know, we need this. So this feature is not here. Can we look at that? And you are so always so receptive and it’s always like, we always like, it’s why, why are we doing this? Why are we doing that way, et cetera, because it is super important too.

To listen to what, what the customers need, what the clients need. So I definitely experienced that and it’s very robust. And I have to say, you know, the thing is when you document the processes, right, you need to have all methods of learning because some people like to watch a video, some people, and especially nowadays, you know, when you want to look at something, you watch a video.

Right. And it’s amazing. Even like when installing this microphone, they don’t. Instead of saying they actually have a picture. Yes. And this do it this way or don’t do it that way. Right. It’s very picture like it’s very fast and sweet process has the ability to upload videos, pictures, screenshots attachments.

So it’s so fast.

Owen: [00:12:55] All styles of learning, Yeah.

Adi: [00:12:57] It Integrates everything. So that’s a great story and it’s really a success story. So for those of you that don’t know, Owen is actually located in Georgetown

Owen: [00:13:06] Germantown, Maryland yes. Yes. And I’ll tell you that actually a remote team. I mean, we’ve been doing remote. Yeah. Before it became fashionable right now, everybody.

I mean, we, my co-founder, like I said, Australia, so it was me and him. I’m in the us in Australia. We started invention, we got members of engineers joining the team, Poland, Brazil. Now we have, you know, writers all the way from Nigeria, my country. And we have people in Kenya writing for us. We have people in marketing and we want some people in the U S too as well.

And basically, you know, we’ve been remote from day one and that’s how, you know, we want to be. It’s just a guess. Different you know people from different places in the world helping to build this product that we believe, you know you know, impacts all businesses. Absolutely.

Adi: [00:13:50] It’s truly international.

And I agree, so, Owen, this is, you know, this is very, it’s an inspiring story because you started, you saw a need and you took the business now it’s, it’s expanding, it’s growing, it’s here for the future. And it’s solid, which is definitely very, very inspiring. So what’s, what’s the future like. Well, where are we going from here?

Owen: [00:14:11] Well, the future, I feel likes to, to, to expand you know, get more people in the U S which is primarily, most of our clients are based in the us using it, but I’m more passionate as well as trying to get, figure out ways in which other people know the countries can also use the software in a very affordable way.

So I can disclose this Adi what we are planning to do, but we have ideas on how we are going to do that. Maybe initially we’ll focus on some of the English speaking countries, because it’s easier to get someone else in English. Speaking country to use your software versus trying to go to a country where they don’t speak English, and then you have to gather, you know, translate your software.

But the goal is to try to you know, Nope, try as much as possible grab as much market share in the us here. And then also have that goal to expand as well.

Adi: [00:14:53] Yeah. Yeah. And you know, we actually have a common client that is using SweetProcess and he’s in Vietnam. So I helped him write a processes in English, in any hat.

One of his staff member translate it into Vietnamese. So I’ve seen it in sweet, amazing. It was beautiful. I mean, they had the beautiful alphabet and it’s all SweetProcess populated in Vietnamese, so it definitely can be done in any language. And it can be done in two languages too. I mean, you know, you can have English and Spanish, which is very important to some of my clients and whatever, whatever language it is.

So I think it’s. I think it’s great. Awesome. That’s great. So in closing, let’s inspire our listeners. So what inspires you?

Owen: [00:15:37] Hmm, that’s a good question. So for me, I don’t think I get this quite question that often in podcast interviews, but for me, what inspires me is having a stronger call to action.

Like basically it’s not just making money. Yes. Money making money is the first goal, but I, I have I think some idea of. The legacy I want to leave behind. Right? And so we process is just a way to get there so that it gets, I get to the next step of being able to create the things that I could have a legacy.

And to me, legacy is not making money for myself. And legacy is about through the wealth that you build impacting people. Right. And to you, people get, you know, get to leave their goals and achieve their goals. That is legacy. So I can’t go into specific details. I love to go into details, but these are things that, you know that’s great.

Adi: [00:16:24] And I, you know, it’s, it’s totally true. And that’s where you are creating the legacy for yourself, but also for others. Because I can relate to it. Like when I let’s say I start working with a company and they don’t know about documenting or that have no documentation or documentation here and there, and then we create a project and then at the end they have that knowledge that got transferred from their heads, from the hard won experience into sweet process.

Intuit software documentation, and that stays there and they now have the certainty that they, they can continue forward because they know how their hard won knowledge is there. To stay and to improve upon. I totally understand what you’re talking about. So that’s, it, it is inspiring. So we definitely want to inspire our listeners to engage on those processes on documenting the processes and procedures and what I’m going to do.

Owen: [00:17:18] Let me do something too, because I’m thinking listeners, you know, they’ve heard my story and all that, but at the end of the day, You know, it’s, what’s in it for them. Right. So I want to say,

they say the same thing. What I wanted to do was actually give a listener some action in which they can take, but that they used to be purchased or not, because the reality is that, you know, you’re trying to document how work is done. You’re faced with the fact that, you know, you don’t have as much time.

In a day. You also, in this case now probably, you know, working from home, given the current situation. So do you need to make sure that, you know, people are not just sitting down there twiddling their thumbs? It’s more, if it didn’t, it was evident before, but now it’s critical. So how do you then document procedures for how work is done?

I would say don’t worry about everything just yet just. Let’s 80 20. What is that one task that employees, you know, it could be, keep asking you over and over again. You know, how, how do we do this? Right. But it’d be new or old implement. For some reason, they keep asking for a new beginning, you know, you want to slap your head saying, gosh, I wish there was a place where they could just literally go and find it.

Right. That’s a way of identifying it the first task to start, or it might be like, okay, what is that single task that we do it. Invest the time to go document how the work is done. And I can get someone else to replace me doing this. I can drive more revenue for this company, right. So that’s another way of identifying.

So either way, once you’ve identified the task, now the next thing is to say, okay, how do I document the tasks? So people might start thinking, Oh, let’s create an encyclopedia. You know, with all the details, food it filled in, I should, that’s not the place to start. You want to start from version 1.0, which I call minimum viable procedure.

And that is just a rough outline that has tied all of the. Title of the procedure or the task and title of each of the steps. No details field in just yet. So you want to get that skeleton outline. Okay. I call it a minimum viable procedure. And then from there, if you’re in a tool like sweep process, you can then invite your employees.

Who I’ve had experience with this task already, right? Say, Hey, I’ve documented this procedure coming to this document and let’s work together to build out the details. And by being, build out the details. I mean, putting out the fleshing out, the diesel’s having the B. Texts screenshots videos, whatever, in each of those steps.

And now they do work with you using the software, like process to do that. You approved the document and now over time as they, you know, start doing the task, Hey, I have a question going into sweep process. You have a question going industry processes over time, not becomes a teeny accompany the way they like.

Okay. You don’t ask the boss any question, except you’ve gone to see it in three process. If it stay or not. And if you go into sweet processes it’s there, great. Use it. If it doesn’t work the way you want it to work, because there’s something wrong. Go ahead and try to improve the document because we allow you to work, to improve as a continuous improvement fan.

Once you improve a document, your boss gets to see it likes the improvement, clicks a button to approve it. And if you go in and search reprocess, the answer’s not there, then that becomes an opportunity for, you know, for a new document. To be created. So that’s one way of, you know, I just show you how to start the process of documenting and stuff.

And then on, I think two is like, we also are married in the ability for you know, only to work together to document how the work is done, but to actually do work right. Because you’re not documenting how work is done just for a documented sake you’re document. Cause you won’t actually do work. Right.

But we also realize that sometimes some of the. Insights and gains you get you get it while you’re doing the work. Right. And so by using SweetProcess for document, document, and also doing the work when they are doing something and they run into something that wasn’t accounted for, guess what, as long as they’re using the same software, they can pass that intelligence, that feedback, or that whatever thing they noticed back to you, then you can go into that underlying document on which that task was based on and say, Hey, Hm.

The, on the ground right now, we didn’t account for this step, like the pipe Boston or whatever. What do they do when they event? Now you upgrade that on the line document. In real time tasks they’re working on will be upgraded based on the new information that was passed to you from them. When do we do it?

It works. So if you believe in that whole thing, yeah. You know, you don’t, you don’t, you know, the room wasn’t built in a day, it’s a continuous improvement thing. And sweet process like will really help you. And your employees live that culture or that continuous improvement. Yeah,

Adi: [00:21:41] absolutely. Absolutely.

That’s great, great advice. And thank you for giving those tips. So what I was going to say, cause I thought you were going to say that, but what we’re going to do, because you’re too humble to do that. I’m going to do it for you. We are going to actually include a link so people can, because I know before we talk before the podcast, You know, there is this link that you are very graciously offering the listeners instead of a 14 day trial, 28 drive trial, free trial.

So they can actually find out for themselves about SweetProcess. And I will encourage each one of our listeners to click on that link. And it’s going to get included just if you’re watching the video it’s below and if not, it’s going to be on there. You’re going to see the link there, sign up and see for yourself and do what Owen said, you know?

Follow those steps. Those are very proven steps in terms of start documenting and create a legacy for your business.

Owen: [00:22:34] And I think the link I probably have to create it, especially for your sweet process.com/adi. Well, I guess we can make it very easy. So sweetprocess.com/adi. That will excellent.

Adi: [00:22:46] Let’s do that. Thank you. Thank you for creating a link to my neck. For my sake. I’ve never had a leak like that. Yeah.

Owen: [00:22:54] Yep. And so you come from a sign up from that link, you will get that extended trial, just so you know, when you come to the main website, you will get a 14 day trial, but you can come through at his link, you get an extended trial, so why not go right?

His link. Yeah.

Adi: [00:23:09] And you know, and before we end off here, I definitely would like to give a shout out to Dr. Jeremy Weisz because you from rise 25, And he’s he, you are the way, you know, you’re working with him and he interviewed me for a podcast. And I said, I would like to have my own podcast now because of Jeremy.

So shout out to Jeremy, some person that thank you for introducing me to Jeremy Owen.

Owen: [00:23:34] Great. Great. Great, great. Yeah. So if you have any questions guys, and ladies listen to the call, you know, feel free to reach out to Adi or reach out to me and you can reach out to me. My email is very simple all within that suite process.

That’s right.

Adi: [00:23:46] And Owen always responds and he’s responses are fun and fast and next to say, awesome

Owen: [00:23:53] sauce. My words don’t.

Adi: [00:24:00] All right. Thank you so much. And thank you for our listeners and our viewers. Those are the looking at us watching this video. So thank you for listening and tuning in, and I’ll see you in the next episode of, systems simplified.

Owen: [00:24:14] Awesome.