Small Business Growing
Small Business Success: You Must Have Systems
The past two weeks in The Entrepreneur’s Journey we have been working through Systems and Processes for small business.
Identifying and improving the primary systems and supporting processes for your small business is critical for sustainable success.
Many small business owners get the idea that they need clear, repeatable steps that produce a predictable result, but they are not sure how to get the whole business to the place where it is lean, process oriented, and fully “systematized.”
For sustainable small business growth work on clear systems and repeatable processes.their business. But they are not sure how or where to begin.
System and process thinking and execution can transform your business, and take you to a whole new level of business performance. But it won’t happen with one single step, or in one 30 minute time period. You’ll have to work at it over time. But for the business that clearly lays out their major systems and the supporting processes, there is a whole new level of possibilities that will open up.
We work on this challenge in The Journey and it is a joy to watch participants make progress. By the way, the next cohort of The Journey will probably start around April of 2012, so if you are in the Northern Virginia or DC area, we certainly invite you to learn more about this program.
Where do you begin if you are serious about crafting or re-crafting the major systems of your business?
Start with identifying the overarching categories under which you will list your systems. This is simple. You could start with something as intuitive as Before, During, and After. “Before” might include your marketing and lead conversion activities. “During” might include the delivery of your primary product or service, And “After” might include your follow-on activities such as how you stay in contact with past customers. You could also nest your Administrative and Financial support functions here.
Another way of categorizing the high level activities of your business might be Marketing, Sales, Operations, Product Development, Financial, and Human Resources. Obviously your high level Category identification depends on the size and complexity of your enterprise.
The next step would be to identify the Systems and Processes that fit under your prime categories. More about that in the next post in this series.
Getting your Categories, Systems, and Processes identified and organized so that you can perform the functions of the business in a lean, coherent, and repeatable manner will separate you from many of your small business competitors. And as someone who has consulted with many large organizations, I can tell you that even, or should I say especially, big businesses are nowhere near as lean, and systematized as they could be.
Once you get hooked on well formed systems, you won’t want anything less.
[Fran O'Neal provides consultation and installation of a simple, low cost, easy to use marketing and business retention system that helps small business owners get and keep more customers. Email Fran with questions or for more information on this resource.]
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