https://youtu.be/Hz2VsfN4L8U
David Jenyns is the founder of Systemology and the author of the best-selling book with the same title, where he helps business owners systemize their businesses. We talk about the Systemology framework, the benefits of consistently updating your business systems, and the difference between a scalable and a sellable system.
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Apply Systemology with David Jenyns
Our guest is David Jenyns the founder of Systemology and the author of a best-selling book with the same title. He also founded and runs, I don't know if he still runs it. It may have already been systemized, but he formally is the CEO of the Melbourne SEO Services company, a digital marketing agency. So welcome to the show, David.
Oh, it's a pleasure to be here. Thank you for the kind introduction. And yes, I ended up stepping out of the digital agency. We had a lady who ran it and she ended up, it's actually the final chapter in the book, she ends up moving back to the US for some family reasons, and we ultimately sold that company. And now my focus is exclusively on systemology.
Ok, so I missed that. I don't know what happened. Maybe my lawnmower was a little bit too loud when I go to Pittsburgh, but I missed it. But anyway, I can't wait to get into this stuff. And so let's start at the beginning. How did you become an entrepreneur and build a digital agency? And then how do you transition to become an author and kind of creating a business about creating and improving businesses?
Yes. Well, I feel like I've always been an entrepreneur. I think right from when I left school, I started different projects, everything from importing product from the US. I helped to create a stock market education training program. I was involved in a rock and roll clothing music store. And the digital agency is probably what I was most well known for. I got stuck in that business for probably about 10 years too long, I think, when I look back on it. And for a lot of the same reasons that a lot of business owners get trapped in their business.
I just thought that the business was dependent on me and I thought our business was too creative and my team wouldn't follow systems. And then I kind of had a little bit of that moment when I found out we were pregnant and I just saw my future flash before me. I kind of felt like, oh, I could, if I'm not careful, I'm going to be that dad who's always too busy, who's working 70-hour weeks, doing the mornings, late nights, weekends. And I thought, no, this is not what I want to do. And that really was a big U-turn and really kind of spore. That was kind of like where the seed of systemology came from. There's like a few steps in between there, but that's what it grew from for sure.
Well, it certainly doesn't sound like you're that kind of person who is stuck in his business with you having this conversation. 6 p.m. here on the East Coast of the U.S. You're in Australia, which is like 9 a.m. in the morning, and you already been surfing this morning. So that doesn't sound like a workaholic just kind of waking up under his desk and climbing out of his sleeping bag. So let's talk a little bit about this whole journey, which led to Systemology. And this podcast is all about management blueprints, I call them, and Systemology definitely qualifies as a management blueprint in my vocabulary.
So before Systemology, as you were building your digital agency and the previous businesses, was there a management blueprint that kind of inspired you that you kind of adopted partially or fully in building your businesses?
The main one, and I've still dipped back into it today, take a lot of ideas from it, and I feel like Systemology fits very well, hand in glove, is the traction framework by Gino Wichmann. I've always found he was able to take a lot of what I felt was Vern Harnish's work, which felt like, you know, there was just a lot of different tools all thrown into one place. And Gino was able to effectively translate that ...