3 Techniques You Can Start Today To Build Effective Processes That You Will Actually Use

brand direction & styling by us for How Charming Tea | photo by Mike Sung Photography

Processes and workflows are usually the last things on the to-do list of a small business owner. And many people assume that setting processes is something that only big companies should worry about.

Meanwhile, most entrepreneurs and business owners say that their biggest headache is never having enough time for all the things that need to be done in their businesses. They feel that their attention and time are split and pulled into different directions all the time. As a result, they are in survival mode from day to day and buried in the everyday tasks while never having enough time or energy to work on the important tasks that gain traction and growth.

On the other hand, when you have processes in place, you can better delegate and automate your day-to-day tasks. This allows you to communicate with customers and partners faster, deliver your products or services more efficiently, and get more time to focus on the important tasks that actually benefit your business growth.

The biggest trap people face when it comes to setting processes, is that most people start by documenting their workflows and creating templates from scratch. They begin to type out everything they do in a text file, which can easily become extremely time-consuming. And when the process documentation is finally complete after weeks or even months, it ends up becoming this overly lengthy document that sits in a folder that people rarely open, or even worse, the process has already changed by that time.

To avoid this trap and set your business processes with less time, use the following 3 simple techniques:

Technique 1.

Record any online or offline training session or knowledge transfer meeting you have with your team members, partners, or contractors. In the future, you can simply send this recorded video to anyone that needs to go through the same training, which saves you time on having to repeat the same session every time.

Technique 2.

Screen record any routine tasks you do throughout the day and the week. Many of the tasks that you find yourself doing repeatedly are the ones that can be delegated. Instead of writing out how you do each of these tasks, Take a screen recording with or without voice recording. Compared to a document, how-to videos of your day-to-day tasks are often much easier and take less time to create.

Technique 3.

Start building your “email and message bank” by identifying the common replies you send out to answer inquiries and any emails and messages that you send out regularly. Copy and paste these emails and messages into text files and organize them by usage, workflow, and/or topics, etc. Then save the files in an easily accessible location that can be shared with your team. This way, you can empower your assistant, sales team, or customer service team to take over replying to messages and emails without compromising the quality and professionalism of the communication from your business. On an ongoing basis, continue to add to your “email and message bank” as you receive more frequently asked questions and inquiries.

Apply any of these techniques to easily set business processes, so you can free up more time to focus on the important things and the needle movers in your business!

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