What is Your Process

Whether you know it or not, you do have a process. In your daily life, your marriage, interaction with your kids, how you drive to work and of course your work day. The question is, is it the right process for the results you hope to achieve?

Above I shared a portion of a screen shot that defines the business process our Enterprise solution for trades-based small to medium sized companies cloud software, SmartOFFICE, follows in its roadmap. Your business' daily routine as custom, random and unpredictable as you may think can be broken down into small bite size pieces. Let's call them micro-processes.

Each step of your business process should be thought out. I used Microsoft Visio when developing process solutions, there are many other software that you could choose to use. Work your way down to the details. Start from the 10,000 foot view. Then once you have a broad overview, start expanding the explanation of each process segment.

A process segment might be customer relationship management, billing, creating proposals, change orders, follow up, etc. In each of those segments you will have micro-processes such as upon meeting a "suspect" enter their information in your contact manager, CRM, email system or whatever you choose to use for your company. Now, who does that? When do they do it? How is the name input first, last - last, first - company name, etc. The more detailed the better. But, you do not have to start with tons of detail. As I suggested above start large and move to the details, but get started.

Think through what does it take to complete this next step or goal? Write it out. Assign who takes responsibility and when the hand-off happens. This will make it easier for you to scale your business and bring in new employees. Why do you think fast food restaurants were so successful after McDonalds? PROCESS! Why did car manufacturing take off after Henry Ford's assembly line? PROCESS!

You may even consider printing these steps out and connecting them together visually in your warehouse or boardroom, wherever everyone in the company can see it on a daily basis. If everyone is on the same page and understands what their part in the process they are responsible for, they will be more productive.

This was the case when Simply Reliable's original Founder, Jonathan Knapp, first engaged with The Gerber Company, (Michael Gerber's company - author of the book The E-Myth). They spent two years defining the processes necessary to operate a trades-based small business. In Jonathan's case it was a custom installation company focusing on installing technology in luxury homes. They mapped out each process necessary from first contact through final invoice.

Jonathan then went on to realize that for a business to succeed it must have a repeatable process. The best way to implement a sustainable process is through software. Thus SmartOFFICE was born.

Fast forward to 2014 and Simply Reliable launched its platform for Enterprise SaaS, SmartOFFICE Online. It was designed by trades-based entrepreneurs for trades-based companies in order to help them reign in the chaos of running a business.

I have a pdf of an example "Process Map" that I would be more than happy to share with those who enjoyed this article. Just send me a request in LinkedIN and I'll send it to you.

Shameless Plug Time

Whether you are in the IT industry, custom A/V, Pro A/V, Security, Electrical, Plumbing, Advertising or the Moving business, SmartOFFICE can help you run your business more efficiently. Sign up for a free trial and find out for yourself.

Our team will assist you with our ZERO SETUP and free on-boarding meetings to help you maximize your trial experience.