Systems & Workflows - The Roadmap To A Happy Business Ecosystem

There is so much chatter about systematizing your business. What exactly does that mean?

According to this article on PI world.com:

The systematization definition for small business is: to arrange into a system, plan, or method, how the business operates from start to finish. In other words, simply mapping or writing down, step-by-step, exactly how each process or function in a small business works.

These are known as SOPs or Standard Operating Procedures in the corporate world. 

I remember when I would work on contract projects how the departments that I worked in were in chaos due to someone leaving and taking the information to do their job right along with them. That is and was a recipe for disaster. Thank goodness there are tools to help with creating SOPs so that you don’t fall into this trap. 

Check out this article that has a list of SOP tools that are low-cost or free to use.  Additionally, this article has ideas and practical steps to help create your SOPs. 

I hope these tools help you get your ducks in a row to run your business more efficiently. Check out the blog I wrote last month on tech stacks. Once you have your SOPs ready to go the tech stack will help you to automate some of those processes. 

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Do You Have Systems In Place To Run Your Business Efficiently?

Running a business is a full-time job. Remember the good old days when you would work for someone and they took care of everything? All you had to do is show up and start working. In contrast, you are now in charge and it is up to you to have an organized way to run your business daily. These are the systems, tools & processes you use to run your business. Here are a few categories to consider:

Customer Center - This is where all things customer related live. This is where the initial customer meeting is documented for each customer. If they were a lead that turned out to not be a good fit then you would document why. You should have a CRM tool to help manage this process along with standard operating procedures to follow so that consistency can be maintained. A good CRM tool to check out is Zoho CRM.

Office Management - The place where we do business has changed in 2020. Some people are working at a traditional office while other people are working remotely. No matter where you call the office it is important to establish a few processes that will help you to stay organized. Do you have a way to make & receive customer calls when you are out of the office? Do you have a standardized greeting to answer customer calls? Some good tools to check out for phone communication is Grasshopper or Google voice.

Running a business is a lot of work. It is helpful to minimize friction and maximize efficiency by taking a look at your current processes to see where you can make improvements.

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