Today we’re going to talk about how to improve efficiency in small business to either help growth or help smooth out processes.
Map Out Your Process to Find Any Inefficiencies
One of the biggest things when you’re talking about how to improve efficiencies in small business is to figure out and map out where you stand. Map out your entire process from the time that you start to the time that you end and all the customer interactions in between. This helps you see on a very high level what is happening, when is it happening, and how many times is your customer or client being interacted with? This helps set the stage for what is happening and potentially what could change in the future.
So when I map out clients’ processes, we start and look at every single step, and then we identify what of those steps have maybe the largest impact? Where are the biggest trip ups? What are you struggling with as a company as a whole? And where can we make changes to that process that’s going to have the biggest impact? We look at that and determine, say, a list of 10 things that we could be doing.
You can’t process and change things all at one time in every situation. It puts too much burden on you, as a business owner, and your employees. Take a couple of these issues that you’ve identified and focus on those first. Some may be quick to change and others may be a longer term process. When you identify areas of issue, figure out how long it will take. This can help you pick and choose which ones you’re going to focus on.
Choosing Steps to Improve Efficiencies
Sometimes what happens is you identify that there’s not enough information in one particular area to know for sure what is happening. And then that’s when other people get involved to kind of dig in. Or you have to get involved at a different level, to dig into the details to find out what is truly happening. That could mean asking your employees what is happening. It could mean asking complimentary departments within the business what is happening on their end. It could also mean that you need to reach out to your customers either via conversation, surveys, or something to get data from those sources in order to make better decisions on what would need to be improved.
Usually, most people within the organization have a sense as to what is tripping them up. They just don’t know what specifically needs to be done to fix it. So gathering this additional information can help lead to the answer that you’re looking for to fix the issue at hand. The more you can involve your employees and other stakeholders in this process, the better information you have to help initiate the change that is needed and to improve your business, how your employees work and how they’re going to deal with your clients and customers.
Take Measurements and Monitor the Situation
Now we need to think about how to take measurements on the processes. We need a measurement that happens prior to making the change. Then measurements incrementally as we go. Everyone wants more growth. Well, what does that mean when you’re talking about what you need to do differently? And what are the actions that need to be done differently now in order to see the growth that you’re looking for? Because wishing it is not going to make it happen. Selling more isn’t necessarily the answer either. You have to be able to have the capacity and the process needs to be smooth enough that it can handle the growth that you’re hoping for.
A lot of businesses can measure but they don’t. What they’re hoping for is that they implement it and then forget it. This doesn’t always work. You might implement something where the first round is really good, but then something else has come to light that you didn’t know was there. There could be a need to continuously tweak it.
You will get to a point where you know you have a really good process. That is the goal. But you also have to remember that if you don’t look at it on a regular basis, or at least every couple of years after you’ve done all these tweaks and all these changes, your business will keep changing. You’re always going to be up against issues that you have to address.
Accountability and Efficiency
You have to have the mindset (along with your employees and other stakeholders) that change is going to happen. Don’t do the same thing all the time forever and never change. Accept and adapt and make those changes as necessary.
Keep everybody held accountable. You can hire a business coach to keep you accountable. Maybe your other partner holds you accountable for your piece and you hold them accountable for their piece. It could be that your sales team needs to be accountable to someone for what is actually happening and what could be done better.
If you’re in an organization that has multiple departments, having the departments work together to solve these problems and to and to make any changes and getting their input is important. You definitely need that kind of connectedness amongst the departments and amongst the various people within the organization.
Conclusion
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