If you’re thinking, “I don’t have any processes — where do I start?” then you’re in exactly the right place to learn how to organize, grow, and scale your business.
You guys, I think that process is sexy. Seriously. It is. And I think that by the end of this you’ll understand exactly what I mean.
A healthy, growing business is built on process. In fact, the larger or more complicated it is, the more it typically will consist of a series of processes that all complement each other and work together as a process of processes. When those operations all work together successfully and push the business closer to achieving its mission and vision, well, that is a thing of beauty.
Your business can be just as sexy. But if you’re not focused on creating these processes, then your business cannot scale successfully. It simply cannot.
Document, Document, Document — and Document Some More
No matter what size your business is — but especially when you’re starting out and you have a small team — you need to be documenting what’s happening in the organization so that as you grow you can duplicate the teams and their individual roles, you can scale the business effectively.
For example, let’s say you’re a single-location business with a plan to grow to six-plus locations in the coming years. You have a front office staff person who is responsible for client interactions, whether it be in the four walls of business, on the phone, or responding online. It’s a crucial role, one that you’re presumably working with this individual to perfect.
Why? To give your present-day customers the experience they deserve and to duplicate their performance across all future hires who will one day be in the very same role at a different location. If you’re not documenting the best aspects of their performance, how can you be confident that you’ll be able to set up employees two through six for success? You need a foundation to duplicate upon.
Process creates confidence and confidence is the foundation for success.
You need a process to help guide new hires for what to do and what not to do. It’s the what, the how, and the why. Do not let a lack of documentation diminish the potential growth of your business. Make a decision that you’re just not going to allow that to happen. This is a priority for the organization. Here’s how we currently do it at Cardone Ventures, and it’s exactly what I recommend you do, too.
Step 1: Create a Process Tracker Document
Maybe you use Excel. Perhaps you’re a Google Sheets sort of organization. Regardless of your preferred spreadsheet software, the purpose of this asset is so that you (or the most appropriate member of your team) can document, categorize, and organize all the pertinent information about every role on your team.
Create one for each department in your company. Store them in each department’s respective shared drive, so that they’re easily accessible for new hires and cross training between departments.
Step 2: Organize Your Tracking Document — Keep It Simple!
Column A is your department. Column B is your process name. Column C is the link to the process overview document. That’s all. Adding too much information will make this document too difficult to use.
Work with your department heads or leaders in your organization to prioritize the processes that are most important to the company’s growth. This will help you focus on what will create the most impact. Entrust your team with this, however, I do recommend that you personally document at least one process yourself so that you can set expectations with the team in terms of how you want this information organized.
Step 3: Link Each Individual Process to the Master Document
This is a simple but effective way to keep your tracker clean and organized while also more easily allowing you to have your team (or yourself) manage and update each individual process across the organization. But what should that process template look like? Let me tell you!
Step 4: The Process Template: Vision, Commitment, and Execution
Formatting your processes into these three categories helps you and everyone on your team understand why a process exists (vision), the training offered by leadership so that the executor of the task understands how the process is done and the executor’s willingness to learn, master, and train on that process (commitment), and the actual, sequential steps needed to execute that task (execution).
This part of your process template will look something like this:
- Vision
- Commitment (leadership)
- Commitment (team member)
- Execution Steps: Pre/During/Post
Allow space in your template for adding things like screenshots if it’s a more visual task.
Also include pre, during, and post sections to your template. What needs to happen before a task can be completed? How many things are there? Document them all. What happens during this process? Document every detail. What kind of assessments need to take place after a task has been completed? Document every element of follow-up. These are all essential elements to creating a bullet proof process.
Step 5: Properly Catalog Your Process Documents
Include essential information surrounding who created this process, when it was created, and when it was last updated, and who approved it so that you’re always using the best, most up to date, and vetted information with your teams.
The purpose of these processes is to create something that can be updated based on new experiences and improvements. They’re living documents. They’re not set in stone, but you do need to be capturing the information that tells you where you came from and where you’re headed. Technology changes. Requirements change. Be flexible, but track your flexibility.
Lastly, Identify a Process Point Person to Avoid Inconsistency
Assuming you don’t have the bandwidth to handle this yourself, you need a person who can keep track of how you keep track of your processes. You can keep them accountable to keeping everyone in your organization accountable to their commitments, so that you can all win. Sounds pretty sexy, doesn’t it?
Want to learn more about process development and implementation?
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