In this episode of the Business Owner Breakthrough Podcast, host Pete Mohr discusses the importance of honing your business processes, which is the fifth law of the 10 Laws to go from Operator to Owner.
Efficient and effective processes are crucial for business success, and analyzing and streamlining operations can eliminate unnecessary steps and redundancies. This leads to increased productivity and allows you and your team to focus on tasks that drive your business forward. The processes need to be documented in some way for proper alignment and accountability.
Pete Mohr also outlines a framework for a process that should prevent recurring overwhelm, clarify, evaluate, simplify, and systematize. He suggests optimizing, automating, or outsourcing processes to save time and focus on strategic planning and growth.
Here are a few things Pete covers:
The importance of efficient processes for business success
Analyzing and streamlining operations for increased productivity
Documenting processes for proper alignment and accountability
A framework for a process that should prevent recurring overwhelm, clarify, evaluate, simplify, and systematize
Optimizing, automating, or outsourcing processes to save time and focus on strategic planning and growth
It's time to take action:
After listening to this episode, take the time to analyze your business processes and identify areas that need improvement. Document your processes and identify ways to optimize, automate, or outsource tasks to increase productivity and focus on strategic planning and growth.
Are you looking to make some changes in your business and your life in 2024? Head over to speaktopete.com and book a chat with me to see if we're the right fit!
To Book a no charge Freedom Call with Pete, to see if you’re a good fit for his business coaching head over to http://speaktopete.com to find a time that works for you!
Welcome to the 10 laws for moving from operator to owner series here on the business owner breakthrough podcast I'm excited about this series we're going to explore the key principles for transitioning from operator to an owner mindset in your business. Each episode will focus on one of the 10 laws and provide practical tips and insights to help you apply these principles in your business. If you'd like a downloadable PDF for the 10 laws slide on over to simplifying entrepreneurship.com forward slash laws to download your copy. By following these 10 laws, you'll be able to move beyond the day to day operations of your business and focus on the long term growth and success. Whether you're a solopreneur or leading a team, this series will provide the tools and insights to transition from operator to owner and take your business to the next level. So join me on this journey of growth and transformation. If you'd like to chat with me about how I can help you get started on this journey, simply go to speak to pete.com. That's speak to pete.com and book in a chat to see if we're a great fit. Now let's get started. Law number five of the 10 laws to go from operator to owner in your business is not going to be a stranger to anybody who's listened to this podcast for a while now it's to hone your process. efficient and effective processes are essential for business success. Take the time to analyse and streamline your operations, eliminating unnecessary steps and the redundancies that surround them. Right. This will lead to increased productivity, allowing you and your team to focus on the tasks that truly drive your business forward. Remember, last week, we talked about the line around decisions need to be made at the lowest possible level of your business. While you can't align in the sign authority and accountability, if the processes aren't, right, and I think how important is that? Well, it's just vital for your business. If all the processes are in your head, and not out on paper, or on video or on audio or in some sort of manual that other people can do, you're always going to have to make those decisions. A little while ago, I came up with an acronym for the word process. And it really goes like this, a process should prevent recurring overwhelm, clarify, evaluate, simplify, and systematise. So think about whatever it is that you're trying to put a process to. And here's what it should do, it should prevent recurring overwhelm, clarify, evaluate, simplify, and systematise. Let's talk a little bit about that prevent recurring overwhelm Well, if something's done more than two or three times, it really should have a process around it. If it's a repetitive type thing, you should be able to set up the process and then hand it off and assign and align accountability, right. It needs to be really clear the clarify it needs to be evaluated. Is this the right process? Are we as perfect as possible as we can. Of course, like we said, there are no perfect processes, but we want to make it as good as we can on this first run through. We need it to simplify the situation so that everybody who's going to tackle this process is able to understand it clearly and systematise it so that it can be done repetitively, one of my coaches along the way, his name is Ari Mizel. And he came up with a idea around process development, which is oh a Oh, and that's optimised automate notes or so when you think of those kind of things. We need to optimise anything that we're trying to put into process, we need to make it as good as we possibly can, we need to automate it. So if there's an automation out there like Zapier, like any of the different things that you have that could make these things automagically great, where you don't have to touch it, and either a tool will touch it or another person will, then that's great. And if you can't find an automation for whatever it is you're trying to do, then you need to outsource it and outsourcing it means not necessarily outsourcing it to somebody outside of your business, it could just be getting it off of your plate and into somebody else's hands within your business. So that oh, a Oh framework works really good in this particular part of thinking about honing your process as well, right. As a business owner, you're overwhelmed with the daily tasks and responsibilities that often lead little time for any strategic planning or growth. And if you're bogged down in the operations and making all those decisions, it usually revolves around process development. And you might say, well, I don't have time to do that kind of stuff. You don't have time not to. Once you sit down and create the process, if it's a 15 minute job that needs to be done every week, we'll sit down and spend an hour because after the first month's worth of doing that, you're going to have it already set and somebody else can take it from you You'll get 11 hours out of 12 back over the course of the whole year just by using that one hour to create your 15 Minute process that you can align in the sign for someone else. How important is that it's the way to get your time back. When you systematise your business and establish these clear and efficient processes, your business runs smoothly with minimal intervention. It allows you to focus on the growth and enjoying the fruits of your labour and enjoying the things that you truly want to do in your business. As opposed to the things that you think you have to do in your business. That's the freedom point, when you're doing what it is you want to do in your business, instead of the things that you have to do. That's the moving from operator to owner. So where do you start? If you don't have good documentation and processes in place? You start with the low hanging fruit, you start with? How do we turn on the lights and open the door and vacuum the floor in the morning? You know, you start with how do we answer the phone, you start with how do we input the next bill into our point of sale system or into QuickBooks or whatever it is you're using, you start with the things that are being done on a routine basis every single day so that every person in your organisation is doing it the way they should. And then once you get those main fundamental processes down, then you start working on the smaller ones and the ones that aren't done as often and the ones that are a little bit out of the norm. And then you're building this process playbook out. And the process playbook. We can talk about this in another episode too. But it should be in a variety of different content formats, it should be in video where video is available, it should be in written format. And we can use all sorts of tools around this, whether we're using auditor transcribe things, chat GPT, to work in, clean up some of the things so that we have it in various different formats because people learn process in different ways. We need to be continuously training and empowering our team and moving us up the process ladder so that they can take an own through the accountability framework. That particular chore Systemising your business isn't a one time event. It's an ongoing process where you regularly review your processes. seek feedback from your team, I usually will have my team member create the process for whatever it is that they're doing. And we'll review it together to put that rubber stamp on it makes sure that it's good for anyone else to do as well. continuously stay open to new ideas and technologies. It's that idea that we talked about last week on continuous and never ending improvement as well. So here's the call to action for today. If you think your process situation is not where it should be, just start with one little process because I can tell you this becomes like a rolling snowball rolling down the hill. When you start seeing this happen. And when you start freeing yourself up from making some of these decisions, you'll want that to happen even more. And more importantly, your team will want the accountability as well. It's all part of the process of moving from operator to owner in your business. Now go and make it a great day. An ironic media production visit us at our ONICK media.com