Category: WorkFunnels

This isn’t the whole ‘fake it before you make it’ argument. I’m taking about how I used to be, a business owner that was so engrossed ‘IN’ the business, that I’d bump from one urgent task to another, attending to panic jobs that sprang from nowhere. To solve this, instead of acting like a small business, I acted as though I was a giant corporation, well went it came to my organisational structure at least. I constructed my business around the three pillars present in ALL businesses: Customer, Support Functions and finally Production and Services. I then mapped out all the Work Centres (or departments) within each pillar. The Customer pillar contains: Marketing, Sales and Customer & Product Development. The Support Function pillar contains: Finance, Quality and Resources to name only a few. The Product & Services pillar is your front-end operation. The production line that produces the widgets or the team that deliver your services.

My organisation chart looked like that of a huge corporation, except my name was in every box! Once I’d identified all of the roles within my business, I could begin organising myself much better. I could plan to perform the finance team role and submit my VAT return in advance instead of last minute. I could start setting time aside to perform the role of marketing for new business. I’ll tell you how I went about organising myself in another post, but I changed from being reactive to proactive!

Most small business start from the skills that the owner possesses. The business grows and develops as a reflection of them. Personally it is what I love about small businesses, seeing the care, thought and sheer ability that the owners have developed for providing products and services that others really value. 

However, often the processes behind this creativity remains locked inside the owner’s head. The finished result is clear to see in the service provided or the completed widgets! The value of a business is not wholly in the finished service or product. The greater part of the value is in HOW those service and products are created. This ‘HOW’ is often overlooked by business owners as being obvious and where it is easy for growth of the business to get stuck at simply the owner’s maximum capacity. 

The lack of ‘good people’ is often blamed for being unable to grow. Typically I trust in human nature and typically people want to do the best job they can. It’s difficult for your team to do their best you’ve not made clear how tasks are to be performed. The questioning and constant checking-in with you are not an inability to perform the work. On the contrary, it highlights the lack of definitive information you’ve provided. Does this sound harsh? Well clearly lay out with images, snap descriptions and videos exactly HOW you expect their task to be done, and see how much you get hassled after. I guarantee it’ll be a heck of a lot less!  

In Part 1 I discussed how providing a systemised and consistent customer experience impacted revenue to the tune of 25% within 2 months, for a business at which I was consulting.

The last two jigsaw pieces of the 25% revenue increase puzzle were a production scheduling system and a How-to manual for everything in the business. These two practices provided a supportive environment for the team, in which each team member knew exactly what they needed to be working on, and what they needed to be working on next. They also knew exactly HOW to do the things that they were doing, even if they hadn’t done them for a while.

The 25% revenue increase was just that. An increase in revenue. It did not account for the additional efficiency cost savings. A greater throughput of products through the factory simply added to the bottom line. To help create how-to guides for your team, try our free WorkFunnel PDF tool at: https://18.133.239.66/download-our-free-fillable-pdf-workfunnel/

A motorsport company that I worked with couldn’t afford my consultancy charges straight away, but we struck a deal whereby the changes I made would have to be sufficient to cover my fee. In 2 months I’d increased the revenue of the business by 25%, covering my fee may times over.

I didn’t spend any more of the company’s money, I just worked differently. I introduced four practices that systemised the business to respond and operate consistently to every single enquiry (not just every sale). We didn’t drop the enquiry until a quotation was rejected or a product left the factory.

These four practices subsequently focussed on the two most important elements of any business, it’s customers and the team that delivers the products and services to those customers. I focussed on providing a consistent experience for customers and a supportive environment for our team members.

A consistent experience for customers meant they knew what they were going to get, and when what they got was good and exceeded their expectations, they kept coming back. Again and again. Asking us to solve other problems for them. Money flowed into the business.

In part 2 I’ll discuss what a supportive environment for the team, meant.

To systemise telephone and email processes in your business, try our free WorkFunnel PDF tool at: https://18.133.239.66/download-our-free-fillable-pdf-workfunnel/

Skilled people are flipping amazing! It’s mainly because you can just give them stuff to do, and it gets done without additional explanation or support. Truly wonderful for the busy entrepreneur or business owner.

The problem arises when these girls and guys want a pay rise or want to leave! We come to rely upon them because as we strive to develop and grow our businesses, they take care of getting done the stuff the business does day to day.

In fact, as they begin to take care of things, often they’ll hone processes and come up with efficient ways of getting things done. They know exactly HOW stuff in the business should be done. They have a wealth of information about your business, but it’s stuck inside their head!

All this knowledge is about your business and is an asset of your business. It shouldn’t be locked inside other peoples’ head (just because you’ve allowed it to be). It should be available to all and be at the heart of your business.

How we do things in our business doesn’t have to be recorded in wordy written procedures. I urge you to use video, images and snap descriptions instead, to capture HOW your business does what it does.

You don’t have to use WorkFunnels, but you might get some ideas by trying our free WorkFunnel PDF tool at: https://18.133.239.66/download-our-free-fillable-pdf-workfunnel/

There is a problem with common sense. The problem is that it isn’t actually all that sensible, it turns out that what is sensible depend an awful lot on many other elements of the situation. The relevance of these elements is impossible to understand until after the fact.

When everything is obvious, we arrive at conclusions without any thought. Therefore, the outcome feels completely true, and it really doesn’t matter if it actually is true! After all, it was obvious!

Common sense is based on our personal experiences and inherited beliefs from our environment. Everyone has very different experiences and beliefs, growing and developing in very different environments. So everyone’s perception of common sense will be different.

It makes for common sense therefore, that common sense is actually not common sense! Not because sense is uncommon to find, but because it makes no sense to expect a common set of experiences and subsequent beliefs.

Common sense is often implied as the minimum level of understanding expected from an adult. However, you should avoid accusing a team member of lacking common sense. Momentarily you’ll feel the superiority-fuelled rush of endorphins, but at a social level it’s derogatory and demonstrates your gaps in the understanding of a situation.

Find new ways to do things and capture them! Try our free WorkFunnel PDF tool at: https://18.133.239.66/download-our-free-fillable-pdf-workfunnel/

As entrepreneurs and business owners we don’t often stop and appreciate the capabilities that we have. Your superpowers are the special abilities that you have that have got your business to where it is today. The problem is often it is difficult to scale beyond the business owner, especially when the value of the business is in the skills the owner has.

The only way to scale is to communicate to others HOW you do what you do. This can be difficult. Capturing your superpower needs to be fast and simple, as a business owner I’m sure you don’t have time to be sitting down to write wordy documents. The content of any guidance needs to be engaging too, otherwise it’ll just get left on the shelf.

That’s why I use videos and pictures with short descriptions to quickly and easily create engaging HOW to guides. I suggest that you use this same approach to scale and grow your business.

You don’t have to use WorkFunnels, but you might get some ideas by trying our free WorkFunnel PDF tool at: https://18.133.239.66/download-our-free-fillable-pdf-workfunnel/