How do you simplify business processes?
1. Stop Playing ‘Chief Everything Officer.’
Why not start with your own job description? When you have clarity in your role, you make it much easier to get your message across to others, identifying gaps and achieving your own outcomes. Most business owners I work with have not developed their own job descriptions. Doing so can be a valuable tool for growing your business and as a time management tool. You wear many hats as an owner, but in order to make the best of your time and resources, you need to be able to identify and prioritise your time and workload. Doing this will help you to avoid burnout.
2. Do you have a job description?
Well if not, it is about time you spent that hour sitting down and reviewing your core responsibilities. If you do maybe it’s time to review it?
3. What are your core values, duties, key performance indicators, skills, and tasks?
Cluster and categories them. Prioritise them; what has to be done daily, weekly monthly? How much time do you allocate for everything? Create a spreadsheet to organise the categories timeframes.
4. What are your outcomes?
I am not just talking about Financial profitability here I am speaking of your basic productivity outcomes.
- What do you do with your time?
- Is there unnecessary time spent on matters that someone else could be doing?
- Do you have your own KPI’s (Key Performance Indicators) if not, then set them up?
- Key performance indicators are used by businesses of all sizes.
KPI measurement uses data you already have, to show how well your business is performing. They will be different for each business, but the basic idea is the same. That is, to measure the important features of your business.
5. Review what your time is worth.
What it would cost to delegate some of those things that take up a lot of your time? What would be your salary if you were working for someone else in your profession? Have you calculated what your chargeable time needs to be to enable you to receive the same wage, if not better? After all, you are in business and should actually be making a profit on top of your wage. Know what your time is worth and work towards pricing your time to ensure you are getting paid accordingly.
6. What can be delegated?
Do you have the right or best skills for all your tasks? That might be technical, writing, editing, communication, financial, or marketing. Delegating to either a staff member or considering outsourcing to a virtual assistant. Is there someone on staff or do you know someone who has the skill to help? Be careful here of employing family or old work colleagues without considering what skills and attributes they actually have, it is easy to employ people we like, but it’s not always the best decision.
7. What can be automated to spare your time a little?
There is just so much software available make sure it does what you want before you start paying heavy fees; they all add up. Choosing the right software or automated tools will not only save you masses of time but help you get the desired results for your business. A few examples that you could use if you aren’t already.
Respond immediately to an email contact request.
Playing phone tag can lose you a customer…Using automotive software, you can note in the system that you left a message for a contact. Doing so triggers an automatic email to them: “I just left you a voicemail. Sorry I missed you! If I don’t hear from you, I’ll follow up tomorrow.”
There are so many things available nowadays it can be hard to select what would be the best for your business – look at reviews or recommendations from other businesses you are in contact with to help you make the right choice.
To cap it all off it is fair to state that no one starts their business dreaming of owning a job. But often, they end up doing exactly that — they become slaves to their business. If we dive headfirst into trying to be good at everything, it will be incredibly hard to pull back out, and we will wind up owning a job. On the other hand, if we dream of taking holidays, seeing our friends and family, watching our kids grow up, and take an hour off in the middle of the day to do something if we want — WE CAN’T DO THAT if we are trying to do everything ourselves. It is as simple as that!
Need help reviewing any of this, don’t forget to make that call and have a refreshing conversation about your business with Helen Cowley.
