4 Tips to Help You Take Inventory of Your Business Systems
Building a business is an amazing challenge – it will always keep you on your toes! One of the most important things a business owner can do is to build out their systems as they grow. This not only allows you to see where gaps may exist that need to be filled in, but they also allow you to develop your team as you grow.
Over the last few years, some businesses have seen a lot of stops and starts while others grew faster than anyone could anticipate. As a result, almost all have had to pivot, some in significant ways. Add these changes to the current hiring challenges, and systems have become more important than ever.
Two questions remain, though: how do you know which systems to build, and how do you prioritize them?
I’d like to share some tips to help you take inventory of your business systems – that’s the first step to getting them under control!
Tip 1: Take Inventory of What is On Your Plate and What Can Be Delegated.
The first step is to make a list of things on your plate and then identify all the things that YOU don’t need to do. Be relentless in getting things off your plate. Now, you may not be able to fully delegate the task immediately as you have to train a person, but go ahead and write down things you want to delegate off your plate!
The quickest way to figure out which systems need to be built is to ask yourself what you feel comfortable delegating. If you believe you could hand it off to a temp or new employee with confidence today, you probably have those systems in place or it may be a low level task.
The next step is to look at your list and identify what you could train a person to do in 10-20 min. Do that training, record it, and have the new person transcribe the recording and write out the procedure. In this way you are killing two birds with one stone!
The whole point of having systems is so that a) you can easily delegate processes to your team as it grows, b) keep everyone on the same page, and c) know it is being done the same great way by everyone! (By the way, if processes aren’t repeatable, things are going to go sideways quickly! So be sure to get clear on the primary way and set up that as the main guideline and deal with one-offs later.)
If the thought of delegating something fills you with anxiety or dread (either because the entire process lives in your head or because you’re not quite sure how to do it yourself), that’s a sure sign that those systems need some attention. (If this is the case, we can help!)
Tip 1: Inventory and Delegate Tasks to Streamline Your Business
In every business, there are tasks and departments that seem to almost run by themselves…and then there are those that seem to need your constant attention. (I know I’m not the only one who has experienced this.)
In the midst of our busy schedules, it’s sometimes far too easy to just “accept” these areas as our “problem children” – tasks or departments that will just always need our help. That isn’t the way a business is supposed to run!
Is your email constantly out of control? Is something falling through with your client communications? Is there a tech issue that keeps popping up?
If you have a process that always seems to fall through or an area of your business that needs you constant attention, do some digging. Why doesn’t it run smoothly? Chances are, there’s a lack of communication or systems there – and that’s something you can fix.
The goal with taking inventory of your overall business second is to help you map a plan of what areas you will need to tackle once you get some things off your plate!
Tip 3: Does Your Team Understand Your Expectations?
When I first started Upleveling Your Business, I had a very small team – it was just me and a team of VAs that handled the daily work. However, I had big plans to grow, and those plans included expanding my team.
I knew that in order to do that, I would have to have clear Policies, Procedures, and Systems in place, so we set to creating them. I required the VA team I worked with to submit a checklist, SOP, video, or example of the processes they did every week.
As my team grew and I moved from the team of VAs to an in-house team, some things went smoothly and some didn’t. At first, I was incredibly frustrated – I spent all that time building clear systems, and they weren’t being used!
Eventually, I asked some questions and found the problem: some of the original systems that I built were no longer available in my Dropbox. The checklists, examples, and SOPs that I thought had been readily available to my new team members…weren’t.
They weren’t ignoring my systems; they had simply never seen them. Lesson learned (and it wasn’t a fun lesson).
This is why it is vital to have open communication and that everyone has easy access to the systems that are built and are empowered to help you build more systems as you evolve!
Tip 4: Evaluate Whether You’re Ready for Growth
As a business owner and Coach, very little excites me more than growth. It truly puts a huge smile on my face to see my clients grow, and our growth is one of my favorite things to announce to my team.
Something that many business owners miss, however, is whether they’re actually ready to grow.
If you doubled your client load this year, would you have the infrastructure and bandwidth to handle that growth?
If you were able to significantly expand a department, would you have the systems, communication structures, and steady funds to accommodate?
If you had the opportunity to shift to a better CRM or Case Management System, would you be able to handle the transition or would it have to stop halfway through?
These are all questions to ask and systems to build. And answering these questions can help you identify and prioritize your systems builds in a proactive fashion! Don’t wait until you are underwater!!
Just a little planning goes a long way.
If you would like help auditing your systems and creating an action plan for the growth you want to see, contact us – we’re here to make the process easier!