Your systems and processes do more than ensure quality; they save your organization time and provide clarity in expectations. If you are doing everything well as an organization but you’re not documenting what you do, your business is vulnerable and unable to scale.
You are reinventing the wheel every time, counting on people to uphold an unspoken standard or understand things through osmosis, overly relying on people who know your business to continue working for your business, or all of the above.
In this episode, Tricia and I break down ways to help you take the lid off of your business’s potential by helping you identify the processes and systems you need to grow your business.
These processes will help you deliver a great customer experience, hire the right people, convert leads, and more. All great organizations have nailed this down so that they ensure a certain level of quality and consistency.
Here are some takeaways we shared:
1. Never assume everyone is clear on your mission, values and guiding principles.
Each department might have its guiding values, but are they consistent and cohesive with other departments?
Start going through the process at a high operational level to make sure you have the right operating principles and a foundation for creating them. Look for gaps and inefficiencies that need to be addressed.
Creating a values pyramid — consisting of your mission and vision, values, conflict norms, guiding principles, business objectives, and standard operating procedures — is essential for any business in any industry.
2. Create a list of guiding principles.
These principles will answer your team’s questions and allow everyone to be on the same page. Get input from your team leaders on the principles that guide them, and narrow all of those down to form your list for the organization.
As an example, one of BELAY’s guiding principles is, “The price is the price is the price.” That simply means we believe in the value of what we sell and we aren’t willing to negotiate. So our guiding principles make that expectation clear.
If you are an operationally driven entrepreneur, we get that you may see this as a bit fluffy. However, creating this list allows everyone to be on the same page which reduces redundancy and increases clarity for your team. This will, in turn, cause your business to become more scalable and grow faster.
3. Your Standard Operating Procedures are an awesome opportunity to see where there are big gaps and inefficiencies.
They help answer the questions, “How do we save time here? How do we shrink this process or use technology to make it more efficient?”
For example, a lead has come in. What happens after that? They get an email, then they get a phone call, and so on.
The SOP simply helps you define processes so everyone understands and knows what to do next.
For everything your business does, you can create a “how-to” to streamline your processes and continue to measure your goals and overall growth. SOPs are a great way to clearly lay out what each team member is doing and pinpoint potential tweaks that need to be made.
Make sure that you have team members who can help you track the success of your SOPs in the moment, as well as quarterly, to make sure they are current and relevant. Having detailed SOPs in place will allow for you to continue to grow your revenue seamlessly.