The 3 Most Important Systems your Business Needs
These three systems are the backbone of how your business runs. When they’re built correctly, everything else gets easier.
It doesn’t matter if you’re just starting or you’ve been in business for years. One of the fastest ways to grow your business and get your time back is to organize, systematize, and optimize how your business actually runs.
Most service-based businesses don’t have a workload problem. They have a structure problem. Before you start adding more tools or building complex workflows, you need to understand the role each system plays.
These are the three core systems behind a functional, scalable business.
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1. Your CRM System (Client Management + Experience)
If you’re new here, a CRM (customer relationship management) tool is one of the most important tools for service-based businesses.
This is where your client experience lives from start to finish.
It’s where you:
Manage inquiries
Send proposals and contracts
Collect payments
Communicate with clients
Track what’s been promised and delivered
If something goes right or something goes wrong, this is the first place you look.
Even if you communicate with clients elsewhere, your CRM should act as the source of truth. If you step away or your team needs to step in, everything they need should be documented here.
The most commonly used platforms for service-based businesses are also the Core CRM platforms we build in:
These platforms are flexible, widely adopted, and designed to support the full client lifecycle. They’re often the starting point for building a structured, reliable system.
2. Your Project Management System (Operations + Workflow)
Your project management system is where your internal work lives.
It’s the one-stop location for all your ideas, goals, projects, and general business operations that need to get done, as well as ideas you may want to pursue at a future date. It can be a dumping ground of topics, or you can optimize the system to better work for you. This is the area where picking a tool you love and use is FAR more important than picking something pretty (unless that’s what you love).
It’s where you and your team manage:
Tasks and deadlines
Recurring workflows
Content and marketing plans
Internal operations and ideas
Typically, the project management system is where your operations support staff hang out, and it’s a great location to input recurring work due dates and reminders (like filing taxes, writing blog posts, planning social media posts, etc.). You can further organize the PM tool with mini workflows to keep your team on track and up-to-date on projects without cluttering each other’s inboxes.
Here are some of the types of tasks that live in my project management tool:
Runs Quarterly - Tax Filing
Runs Monthly - Blog Writing + Publishing
Runs Annually in February - Renewing my State Business License
And each mini workflow for recurring projects addresses:
What is the goal of the workflow
How often does this workflow need to run
What are all the tasks needed to complete the workflow
Who is responsible for each task in the workflow
When is the workflow task due to stay on track
Bonus: links to any files/documents the team needs to complete the project
We use Clickup at Brooke Olsen Co to keep our tasks in order, but there are so many great ones on the market, including: Asana, Trello, Monday, etc.
3. Your Email Marketing System (Audience + Lead Nurturing)
Your email marketing system is your direct line to potential clients.
It’s not for one-to-one communication. That’s your CRM.
It’s for:
Newsletters and updates
Nurture sequences
Lead magnets and opt-ins
Announcements and offers
This is where you build trust before someone is ready to work with you.
A basic setup includes:
An opt-in form on your website
A confirmation step (double opt-in when required)
A first email that delivers what was promised
From there, you can build automated email sequences or send emails as needed.
We use Flodesk at Brooke Olsen Co and value how easy it is to set up while still creating well-designed emails. You can get 25% off your first year using my affiliate link.
The goal is not just to send emails.
It’s to create a consistent, permission-based system for staying connected.
How these systems work together
These systems are not interchangeable.
Each one has a specific role:
Your CRM manages client experience and communication
Your project management system runs your internal operations
Your email marketing system supports audience growth and lead nurturing
When these systems are clearly defined and connected, your business runs more smoothly. When they aren’t, everything overlaps. That’s when things start to feel disorganized, manual, and harder than they should be.
Most business owners don’t struggle with finding tools.
They struggle with:
Deciding what should be built
Structuring how everything connects
Setting up workflows that match how they actually work
This is where systems break down. And this is where most DIY setups stop working.
The best systems are built together
Every project at Brooke Olsen Co is custom-built. Nothing is pre-packaged, but the foundation is always the same:
CRM system setup
Project management system setup
Basic email system setup
We start with a deep dive into how your business is currently running, including the tools you’re using, the workflows that are breaking, and the gaps slowing things down. That first phase creates a clear roadmap before anything is built.
From there, your system is structured based on what you actually need, whether that’s a Core CRM build, a more customized setup, or multiple systems working together.
If your current setup feels pieced together or harder to manage than it should be, that’s usually the signal.
You can book a discovery call and walk through what’s working, what’s not, and what needs to change.
