One of the major factors that will determine the success or failure of your business is the efficiency of your best business practices.
I know all too well that this is something not enough businesses take the time to figure out.
You go through the same processes daily and weekly and never stop to think … how efficient are these?
… is there a better way?
By adding a little time to assess and plan, you can work smarter.
The result is a streamlined business where you can focus more on important things and not the daily mundane tasks.
So, how do you know when it’s time to examine your business processes?
Your tasks take too long to finish
You may notice that certain tasks seem to take much longer than they should. This is a sign that you need to think about your business practices. You may just get the feeling something takes longer than it should, or you can conduct a time audit to discover exactly where you’re wasting time. Then, you can focus on these processes and look for ways to improve them.
The real work is not getting done
You might find that when you have important things that need creative brain space, like:
… review cashflow to decide on your next business hire
… generate new ideas for lead development
… follow up with hot leads
… prepare for your next virtual event write your
… weekly newsletter
everything is rushed and squeezed. You either can’t find the time, or the tasks you need to do end up losing their allotted time. You should be spending your time on revenue generating activities, not getting bogged down in the mundane to-dos every day.
Stop doing everything alone
Ask the team for feedback. Your team might know of areas that could be improved that you hadn’t noticed. They may have ideas about their own tasks. Regularly seek feedback from your team. Ask them if they have any issues or get them to perform time audits. Find out where they spend the bulk of their time.
Say what you see. Go visual.
Map out your business processes. Sometimes it helps to go through and document your business processes. By mapping them out, you can see where things could be done more efficiently. Another benefit of doing this is that you can create protocols that make team training or outsourcing easier.
#tooltip We use draw.io to map out processes and funnelytics.io to map out funnels.
Start with results
At the beginning of the year you set goals and metrics to measure them.
Consider your business goals and which activities help you progress toward those goals. How much time are you and your team spending on these activities? Rather than looking at activities that waste time, looking at those that get results can help you figure out ways to improve.
How to Optimize Business Processes
Once you’ve found some processes to improve, here are some things you can do:
- Examine each step of your business processes to see where you can tighten up.
- Look for bottlenecks in the steps where something holds up the work’s progress.
- Consider what the task’s flow should ideally look like and compare with its current workflow.
- Secure resources that can help get tasks done more efficiently.
- Get feedback from all stakeholders on ways to improve.
- Look for tasks you can delegate, outsource, or automate.
All too often, businesses don’t take the time and effort needed to analyze and optimize their processes. However, this is an investment in time and energy that you’ll save later. Make this a priority and you’ll see more results from what you do every day.