If you own a small business or you are starting one, you will give yourself the best start possible if you develop a business process first. This process will represent the entire way you handle your company. Read on to find out how you can make your process a winner.
You need to make sure your customers get the same experience every time, I want to spend today talking about the process of your business. Too many companies are built around their employees and how nice it is to work for them, the amenities, and the help provided. Too many companies rely 100% in their people to bring the company to the next level.
Now, of course this sounds like I'm saying that employees are like a virus or something, but that's not what I mean. I mean, that if you want to have a successful, rockstar-like business, where you are kicking the arse off of 98% of the other businesses out there, you need to have a PROCESS that you can plug people into.
If your employees define your company and they go work next door for 50 cents extra per hour your business folds, period. That's not a good position to be in. It's almost likeyou are blackmailing yourself with your own business design. You've got to have a process. Even if you are an army of one, you need to have a process so that you can save the business from yourself. Sound weird? I hope so... but it should make more sense in a second.
You have to have direction. A business process begins with your Unique Selling Proposition (USP) and moves into a method or everything that the business does, a map that you can refer to when you get lost. These need to be in place BEFORE you open your doors, or in place as you are rebuilding your business.
This way, with a map, even if you are the entire business, you can refer to your vision and your overall goal to get you back on track when you get off course. Let's say you build houses. You develop an ingenious PROCESS that will allow a team of 4 people to frame an entire house in 3 days. This allows your company to frame 60% more houses than any other team out there. You have this process before hiring a single person. You then hire the RIGHT people and plug them into the PROCESS. That way, if someone quits, you can easily find another person to replace them.
But isn't that a little harsh? Aren't we treating people like numbers? Not really. As a business owner, I dare you to treat your employees like numbers for a few days and see how they respond to you. No amount of process in the world will save a manager that doesn't care about her people. The management is part of your process design too. Just think McDonalds. You get the same experience whether you're in Alaska, Calcutta, or New Jersey. It doesn't matter who is serving the fries,because the PROCESS is all designed on making that work.
I hope that motivated you into ACTION.
If you are already doing this in your business I commend you. If not, well now you know. If you want to learn the foundation of your process, you need to start at the beginning and you need to start with your Unique Selling Proposition (USP).