Episode 36: Systems and Processes: The Seven Steps Every Small Business Owner Needs To Do To Set Them Up
In every business, a problem comes up every now and then, and in some cases, a lot of these problems are often blamed on the people behind it. But before looking at the people, why not look at the processes involved. In this coaching episode, Fiona guides us through her steps in ensuring that a business’ systems or processes are set up properly.
Topics discussed in this episode:
Introduction
Fiona’s Consulting Background
People and Processes
Seven Steps To Set Up Processes Properly
Identify all of your business functions,
Understand the output for each function
Map out the processes and identify which are working well
Look for the leaks
Test it
Set a deadline for when you are going to implement this process.
Review and improve
Conclusion
Resources mentioned in this episode:
Episode transcript:
Hello. I'm excited to have you here listening. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. And hey, if you're new to listening, then welcome, welcome, welcome.
I'm Fiona Killackey and I run a business called My Daily Business Coach, which offers surprise, surprise business coaching, as well as consulting, creative ideation, online education products, group coaching and live workshops, which we just kicked off. I'm so excited (such an amazing group) and live workshops. If you want to find out more about me, you can come over and say hello on Instagram. I'm at @mydailybusinesscoach or you can head to our venue, a.k.a. our website, which is just mydailybusinesscoach.com. I also offer a bunch of tips and insights every single Sunday in a free weekly email. And if you're not already on that list, definitely go over and do yourself a favour and subscribe to that. And you can just do that at mydailybusinesscoach.com/subscribe.
So today you're listening to a coaching episode. And this is really where I take one business element and sort of coach you through that and I provide some tactical steps to help you with that element. So even if you're really experience who've been in business for a long time, sometimes it's worth just putting on a bit of a curiosity cap and thinking, “oh, okay, well, how can I learn from this?” And if you're new, of course, to business, then this is gonna be really helpful. Really, it can be really helpful for anyone in any stage of business because I've worked with lots of people in all stages and I definitely think this is something that everybody needs to work on.
So today's coaching episode is on an area that is perhaps one of the most challenging parts of running a small business. And it's an area where I find that most, if not not all, I wouldn't say all, but most problems lie in small business. It's an area that I specialise in. It's the reason that a lot of people come to me to work with me, and it's something that I just love. I like working in this area because it's to me, it's almost like fitting pieces of a puzzle together. So what is this? Let's get going and find out.
All right. So in the intro just now, I just explained that my business is called My Daily Business Coach. I've been running this business for about five years now. And for the first probably, let's say, three years, the majority, the largest revenue stream that I had in my business came from consulting jobs. So big brands like Australia Post, Etsy, L'Oreal, Audible, even government departments. You know, these big kind of corporate brands, they would bring me in to help either create like a cohesive team in terms of their marketing, their branding to help them set up a sub business within a larger umbrella company to help them rejig their entire marketing processes or other issues that were related to management, marketing and hiring of staff, efficiency and productivity.
So I have a background working in the marketing and content space in senior roles for almost 20 years. And a large part of that was creating really good processes so that, you know, things didn't get missed or that we were able to put out a lot of good content or create marketing campaigns that worked. And we were able to analyse them and we had strong processes throughout that.
Now I still do some consulting. Very little now in comparison, because a lot of my revenue, I guess, comes from business coaching and also online products. So but I still do it and I'm really super conscious of the brands that I consult with now. The need to very much align with my values and my beliefs around the world and and all sorts of things. I have a little checklist. But one thing that I found while consulting, and I find it in many small businesses as well, is that no matter how big or how successful that brand seemed from the outside, at least, internally, there were always issues. There was always a mess. Not a complete mess. But, you know, you can see things from the outside and think, well, they must have amazing processes. And, you know, they don't always like in any business. And when I drill down into these businesses and I would do, you know, quite a bit of prep work, usually I'd be meeting with the MD or the CEO or the CMO before I started working in the business as a consultant. And I could find that a lot of these issues really stemmed from two main areas - people and processes.
So you can have the best product or service in the world, but if the internal structure, i.e. your people and your processes are not working, chances are that the business as a whole will fall short of its goals. Likewise, you can have and this isn't great, but it happens. You can have a subpar product or service. But the way in which it's delivered and the enthusiasm of its people and the quality workflow of its process make up for any lack in quality. And it can cultivate a loyal following and cultivate really great revenue streams and profitability.
And if I'm honest, what often happened when I worked in a lot of these larger companies and when I talked to the MD, the CMO, is that when these issues would surface, people were often blamed for the issue. So it was this person's problem or that person or that person in that team doesn't do their work properly. When in actual fact when we really got stuck into things. In actual fact, it was the processes or the lack of processes that were to blame.
So how do you begin to fix these problems, whether you believe that the issues in your business right now are a result of people or of your processes?
My advice is to always start with the processes. And that is what today's episode is exactly on its own processes.
So you might have been surprised by that advice that shouldn't you look at your people? You know, people are your best asset. And I say that all the time. But really, I believe that you should start with the process and you shouldn't really be too surprised by that, because in the majority of businesses I've worked with, large and small, the people issues often stem from a lack of quality systems and processes.
Now, there was a US professor, engineer and management consultant, William Edwards Deming, and he once said, "85% of the reasons for failure are
deficiencies in the systems & process rather than the employee. A bad system will beat a good person every time."
In other words, people are often set up to fail if you don't have quality systems and processes in place. So what does that mean?
That means things like they're either hired without a sufficient background check or without them having to do any kind of test or during the interview process or something that would show you whether they know what to do or not. So that in that interview process, you're 100% relying on what they say they can do, not what they actually do when bringing them on board.
Now, 10 years ago, I worked at Amazon in the U.K. and love it or hate it. You know, Amazon is one of the most innovative companies.
But one of the things that was really good about working there was I was part of the recruitment. So I put my hand up and I was like I worked in the marketing part and marketing content. But I said, you know what? I'd really like to help hire the people into marketing and content. And so I worked closely with some other people that were interested in the recruitment process. And Amazon would have back then. I'm not sure how they do it now, but back then they would have assessment days. So if you applied for job at Amazon, you went through so many steps in order to get into the company. So first you had like an exam online. So you just did that on your computer at home or actually I think you had to go into somewhere, but you had to do it. They timed you and it was for marketing at least, and content. It was like a grammar and sort of marketing messages sort of exam. And then from there, you would go into an assessment day.
So you'd be invited into our offices and we would have the full day. And again, ypu would start with an exam, another exam that would be testing common sense. It would be testing things like attention to detail. So things like, you know, June 31st, there is no June 31st. So you'd have a marketing message that said “Sale is on June 31st.”, and you'd need to pick that up. You'd have other things like that to an exam sort of situation.
Then you'd go through all sorts of things for the day. But one of them was a role-play. So one of the issues and it comes up in all owned places, not just at Amazon, but one of the issues that can come up is the old kind of battle, I guess, between marketing and buyers like the buying team. And then you'll have the marketing team that needs to promote everything that the buyers or the designers are creating and what can happen. We needed to see if people could do back then was that they could stand up for what they knew, what the customer needed.
So, for instance, in the role play, it might be that a buyer has come to you and said, we need to do this campaign, but I don't have the right images. I don't have the copy, but you'll just have to figure that out. And what you had to do and what the person being interviewed had to do was kind of stand their ground. That's something that regularly actually happened inside of Amazon, so in the interview process, we had to examine whether that person, you know, took the initiative or whether they kind of had that in them, too, to be able to be in that situation, stand up for what they needed to stand up for, for the marketing content to be correct for the customer.
So that's just one example of going through a very thorough process and not you don't have to be that thorough. But I think what I'm saying is that sometimes people hired without sufficient background cheques or without having to do any kind of test. And what can happen then is that then they come in and they can’t actually do the job. And that again, yes, maybe it's the people because you've hired that person, they couldn't do the job they said they were going to be able to do. But it's also the process was broken because if you had a stronger process at hiring, maybe that person wouldn't have got through. So there's that.
There's also things like people are hired for a role that's not completely understood either by them or, you know, weren't you as the CEO or the founder. And then once they're in that role, there are no systems or processes to help them succeed. So when you look at it like this, you can easily see how somebody is set up to fail.
And, of course, sometimes it's just people's personalities and they are the issue. And that's a whole other episode. But in a lot of the cases that I saw and I've worked with hundreds of brands now most of the time, not every single time, but a lot of the time, the processes are the issue, not necessarily the people. So which brings me to the question how do you start setting up processes for your small business? And why should you? Because I think that, you know, obviously I think they're great. But also, as well as helping people, processes can save you time. They can increase engagement within the company and staff morale. They can help you meet or even better yet, exceed customer and client expectations. They can help in some way of getting you consistent results and they can potentially even save you money, which could in turn potentially increase your profits.
So it's worth pointing out here that when I'm talking about processes, sometimes also systems and processes, but there's actually quite a difference between systems and processes.
So to put it simply, systems are the what?
They’re really the core elements of a business or its output. So, for instance, your systems might be sales system, marketing system, operating system, HR system design and finance. And then the process, which is what I'm talking about more in today's episode, is the how. So if you're the process, you are the activities and the steps that together support the systems to run smoothly.
An example of this, because it can be a bit hard to get your head around is you might have a public transport system. So that system is made up of things like trains, buses, taxis, trams, bicycle's. The processes for the public transport are things like ticket sales, timetables, the routes of the different trains and time to buses, driver training. Know, do we have a good manual for our drivers when they come in? Maps, mechanical maintenance, pricing - all of those are processes that support the systems and the systems being trains, buses, taxis, trams by schools.
I hope that that sort of shows it a little bit clearly the difference between systems and processes. Today, we're gonna be talking about processes.
Obviously, when it comes to processes, there are loads of things that you could do to help create processes in your business. But I'd like to get clients to work through seven key steps when trying to create processes for their business. Now, yes, these definitely work for large companies. And I've talked about large companies a bit, but they are just as easily applied to small businesses and even solo operators and freelancers.
So let's get stuck in.
The first thing is you want to identify all of your business functions
because these are really the systems and you can use a tool like mindmeister. I’ve talked about that a bit. It's like an online mind mapping tool. And you can use pen and paper. You can do whichever you know. Don't let the medium get in the way In the words of Michael Gerbr, Organize around
business functions, not people. Build systems within each business function.
Let systems run the business and people run the systems. People come and go but
the systems remain constant”
So again, I guess that's just reiterating what I've said about you want to work on the processes first. So then you can put in place people that are kind of set up to succeed. So the first thing. Identify all of your business functions. So people I found often create a process only when something goes wrong or they find themselves super frustrated by one area of their business. I suggest that you future proof your biz by starting out mapping all the business functions, such as marketing, which you might include sales and PR, or depending on your business and how much PR you might do. You might separate that out. HR, people management, accounting, finance, production, research and development products, services, etc..
You want to visit map out what are the functions of our business? That's step one.
The next step, step two, is understand the outputs for each of those functions.
So literally for every single function that you've listed, list out the tactics or the outputs that you deliver. So, for instance, under marketing, you might have social media, press release, video ebooks, optins events, weekly email while under hate. For example, if you haven't big enough team and you have a nature department or you have a nature kind of function, you may have, you know, weekly one-to-ones, quarterly reviews or quarterly offsides monthly team bonding sessions, quarterly strategy planning days, professional development training, etc..
So you start with the things you do regularly. So when you've got your business function, then think about all the things you regularly do and then think about, you know, maybe something else that you should be doing potentially you're not doing it yet. Or if you grow, you definitely want to be doing that but maybe you don't have the resource right now or the financial resource to be growing in that direction. So that’s step two - understand the outputs for each of the functions.
Step three, literally with one business function at a time.
And I know people might be listening to this thinking, god, that's going to take time. Believe me, it will save you so much time and heartache and stress in the future. But with one business function at a time, literally map out the process that you already work with and maybe you don't have a clear process. Maybe it's just in your head. But literally think about, okay, what are the processes for these? And then with your business functions that you've sort of looked at the processes, think which ones work really well. So maybe you've got a process for marketing. For instance, maybe you saw a marketing consultant at the start of setting up your business or some time in your business, and they were able to help you set up a process or likewise, maybe you had a HR consultant and they were able to help you with the hiring and firing a staff or management of staff. And so you already have a process in place.
You want to think firstly, do we have a process if it works well? If not, but it is working well, can we create one you know, has one person been doing these for a while? So they have their own process, but they just need to document it. And with all processes, you want to be thinking. Is this documented? It's not good enough to be like, oh, it's in my head. I kind of know what to do. Even if you have no other staff, you want to document this so that you can start seeing where the kind of flaws in here. Where are things not working quite well? Or maybe there's a platform or there's a way to automate something in the process so you gonna save yourself time.
So you want to be thinking, you know, with step three, mapping out the processes and in which work and which don't?
For the tactics that need some focus. So for this process is waking up to this point and then it kind of falls apart. You want to write down the ideal scenario from start to finish in a series of steps. So what we've done today or what I've talked about right now is to map it out in the current process. What you're going to do now is to map out the ideal scenario from start to finish. And again, you can use pen and paper. You could use mindmeister. Or you could even put these steps into a project management tool online, like Trello or Asana or literally just a Google Doc or whatever. Don't let the medium get in the way. But you want to map out the ideal process. So even if you know it's broken, at some point you might be like, okay. It works really well up to this point. But from there, what I would ideally like is that, for instance, I could step back and my V.A. could do X, Y, Z, or if you have staff, you might be like, I'd really like that I only come to a meeting once a week and I'm not, you know, CC’d on every single other thing.
So map out the ideal process. And obviously this step should be done in conjunction with whoever in the business is responsible for achieving that. But again, you want to think, could the process be done without that person? So definitely you want their input, but you also want to be thinking process first, people second, if that makes sense. But if somebody is in that role and they going to stay in that role and they're doing it, definitely get them on board because getting them on board is crucial for the process to actually work.
Otherwise, you're kind of making something they've got no idea about it. And then sometimes there can be resentment about, well, and I want to do that because that's not the way I've done it. And that's not how I want to work and blah, blah, blah. You get a bit of culture clash sometimes.
So that's step three. You're going to map out the processes and identify which are working well and which need focus.
The fourth thing is to look for the leaks.
And again, I'm gonna use another quote. Benjamin Franklin once said, “A small leak will sink a great ship.”
So you want to review your processes and checklists for clarity. So I can’t tell you the number of times that I've heard an MD or a CEO or anyone that I'm working with that has staff say something like, well, “I assume that he or she or they know that in relation to a process.”, you know, breaking news. They don't.
Any steps in the process you want to add that will make it just crystal clear what is expected. So you've got you kind of mapped it out. So you've got your business function. Then you've got the outputs. Then you've mapped out the process. You've mapped out the ideal process. And you've looked at where you need to kind of focus on. Then you want to look for the leaks.
So maybe you've mapped out this ideal process and you completely forgot about this other step that's crucial. So, for instance, if I was to map out the process of podcasting, for example, I don't do the show notes for podcasting. That goes to my lovely VA Who does those? I don't edit this podcast. It goes off to another great person in my team. But. And so if I'm mapping it out and is crucial, you've got to get people on board. If they're in those roles, I may completely miss something to do with the show notes that my V.A. does. So you want to look for the leaks. You want to look at it and think, “Okay, where potentially things not being included in this process that are really important.” So that is step four. Really look for the leaks.
Step five – very important. Test it.
Test it. Ask someone who has nothing to do with the tactic or the process. You know, either another staff member or even a friend. If you've got a boyfriend or somebody else and asked them to show them the process and say, you know, could you have a look over that? You know, could you do this task required based on the process that I've created and documented? You know, skills aside, could you understand what you're supposed to do, like step by step by step? Do they understand how to follow the steps? Does it kind of makes sense if they are completely even, you know, skills aside, if they like, that makes no sense. Why would you do that thing? Why wouldn't you do that first?
Really go through it again and test and test and test. And maybe there are things that people are going to catch. Or maybe it's just things like you used an acronym and they're like, well, I don't understand what that means. And you're like, maybe my team doesn't understand that either. Or maybe I have a certain way of framing things. Or maybe I'm really to the point. And maybe it's coming across abrasive or some other way. So make sure that you test it and then add in any extra steps and then test again until it's at a point that anyone could look at it. And skills aside, understand what they're supposed to do.
Step six - set an implementation deadline.
So it's absolutely one thing to create a process. And, you know, people can get really excited and get Post-it notes and get their new Trello board happening and put like little labels and make everything look pretty. But it's quite another to actually implement that process.
So set a deadline for when this process is going to be in full swing. For example, you might give people two to three weeks to get it down, tested again or at. But then after this, you'll be like, this process is the way that we're working from now on. And of course, the process can be changed and adapted over time as you test it. And, you know, new things might need to go into that process, but make sure that there's a deadline, that it doesn't just become, “Oh, we had a strategy day and we created some processes. And now that's all well and good. But, you know, let's just half do it the way we were doing it and have to if the new process. That's just gonna be annoying for everybody and it's a complete waste of your time to be doing everything that I'm talking about.
You really want to set an implementation deadline like from this date, this is the process and we all know what the process is. We all know what's expected, and that is what we're going to work towards.
The seventh point, which is applicable to anything in business review and improve.
So, you know, like I just said, like anything else in business processes should never, ever, ever be set and forget, you know. Set up a series of future reviews for the processes within each but business function. So you might say, “Okay, every time we do a quarterly offsite, you know, stage one is to review our processes and really see where the gaps are, what's working, what's not, and what could be improved.”
So to recap those seven steps again to set up your processes:
1. Identify all of your business functions,
2. Understand the output for each function, and list out the tactics or the deliverables for that function.
3. With one business function at a time, map out the processes and identify which are working well and which need to focus.
4. Look for the leaks. There is always going to be a leak. Make sure you look for it and don't just assume that people understand that process.
5. Test it. Potentially ask somebody who has nothing to do with that process or the tactic or a friend even and ask them to test it. Then review. Change. Test again, test again and test again
6. Set a deadline for when you are going to implement this process.
7. Review and improve
Good processes - they don't equate to a perfect business. There is no such thing as a perfect business. But good processes do act to remove confusion and stress and inefficiency, which are three factors that really, really impact a person's performance.
I mean, think about it. If you go to a job, you don't know what you're doing. You are stressed and there's no clear pathway. Of course, you’re going to be inefficient and you're probably going to be ineffective and maybe even resentful and you're not gonna be performing it at the best standard that you could be performing.
So whether you work on your own and you just really want to be able to take a holiday at some point and know that you've got your processes set up or you have staff and you really want to be able to make sure that they're working in the best way that they can work. And I feel supported for it to be successful in their position, then consider putting time aside before the end of this year to review your processes and add new ones in.
That way, you'll start 2021 in a much more prepared place for it to be, you know, possibly your best business yet. And I know that 2020 has been incredibly challenging for everybody. So this little tactic of, you know, working through your processes, documenting things, testing things, making sure that, you know, everyone's across it and thinking process first so that you can set up your people to perform as well as they possibly can, could really get you into good standing so that the next year is hopefully not so challenging from a worldwide global pandemic perspective, but also not so challenging because you've got your processes set up.
So that is it for today's episode. If you are someone who likes to have visuals when you learn, then consider either checking out the full transcript of this episode, which you'll find over at mydailybusinesscoach.com/podcast/36 as this is episode 36.
You could also consider joining my good business group on Facebook. A link to that in the show notes, because inside of that good business group, we have lots of different trainings. They're all free, they're all videos. And in one of those trainings, I actually go through this process information in a lot more detail in a one hour video training on this topic. And I have diagrams and charts and all sorts of things. And I know that some people learn better that way.
And so you'll find that, like I said in the show, notes the link to the good business group. Or you can just search in Facebook, My Daily Business Coach Good Business group.
If you found this episode useful, I would love, love, love, if you can leave a review by a podcast app or on Apple iTunes because it really helps the show get found and helps other small business owners like you grow their business and actually enjoy the process. Thank you so much for listening and I'll see you next time.
If you are someone who likes to have visuals when you learn, then consider either checking out the full transcript of this episode, which you'll find over at mydailybusinesscoach.com/podcast/36 as this is episode 36.
And so you'll find that, like I said in the show, notes the link to the good business group. Or you can just search in Facebook, My Daily Business Coach Good Business group.
If you found this episode useful, I would love, love, love, if you can leave a review by a podcast app or on Apple iTunes.
