One of the benefits to subscribing to the Business Success Consulting Group newsletter is that we share business tips with each email. While most of these tips pertain to the article or podcast we discuss in the newsletter, some are particularly applicable to doing business in 2022.
We’ve compiled five tips that pertain to growing and sustaining your company during 2022 and beyond, and we are sharing them here.
Five Business Tips You Can Use in 2022
Below are five tips, tools, and strategies that you can use to get your company organized and scaling for a successful third and fourth quarter.
1. Use productivity tools to improve accessibility to documentation materials.
The CEO of Business Success Consulting Group utilizes productivity tools to share documentation and coordinate within our team. Many of our clients use these same tools and find them vital to manage their business.
Here are some favorites:
- Sweet Process (Documentation Software)
- Whale (Documentation Software)
- Pipedrive (CRM)
- Monday.com (Task Management System)
- Asana (Task Management System)
- ClickUp (Task Management System)
- Text Expander (Email Productivity Tool)
If you are looking for new productivity tools to coordinate team actions and document processes, we hope the above list will help!
2. Consult with your team to discover how process documentation will help them.
We worked with a wonderful client who was ready to get his processes and procedures documented so he could reduce his workday to 40 hours a week, improve business efficiency, and take well-earned, uninterrupted vacations.
While he had his reasons for tackling this project well in hand, his lead salesman did not. It became clear that the salesman wasn’t making time for process documentation and didn’t really want to do it. When we asked why, he shared that he didn’t see the benefit.
After a discussion, the salesman let his boss know that he needed help. He needed to delegate tasks. But there was no one to whom he could delegate, so he didn’t see the point if he had to do it all on his own anyway. So, as part of the documentation process, the company owner hired a support person for his lead salesman.
The salesman not only documented processes and procedures, but he also delegated tasks that halted his productivity throughout the day. He got the help he needed, the company sales increased, and all of his processes and procedures were documented so that he, too, could take interruption-free vacations.
The moral of the story is that you have to get your staff on board when tackling a big project like process documentation. Find out how they will benefit from completing the task and get them motivated to do the work. It will benefit you, them, and the entire company to have motivated people doing this vital work.
3. Systematize sales so you can hire the best salespeople
If you have always had one salesperson, it can be easy to avoid systematizing the sales process. After all, your single salesperson knows what they are doing.
However, your one salesperson may turn into a sales team as you grow. If there is no system, your one salesperson is no longer making sales. They are training the team and introducing each team member to the system. Over and over again.
Not having a sales system can lead to:
- Not being able to pass on knowledge to others.
- Hiring the wrong people from the job.
- Difficulty transitioning a salesperson who was initially trained with a different sales process.
- Sales tanking anytime your primary salesperson goes on vacation or needs to take a sick day.
When you systematize your sales, everyone is on the same page. Your lead sales rep can get the help they need to do their job with even greater success – and everybody wins.
4. Build an onboarding system that includes training.
In many companies, onboarding has traditionally included providing a new employee with a workspace, maybe an introductory video, and an introduction to immediate coworkers. Then, letting them flail around trying to learn the ropes and ask questions of their coworkers.
This is not efficient.
If you are hiring new employees – and hoping to scale quickly – then you need to create an onboarding system. The system should certainly include the aforementioned introductory video, but it also needs to have videos, images, and documentation that shares what the employee needs to get done, where to find appropriate information, and more. Training new hires will get them up to speed and working in your business much more rapidly than letting them flail about.
5. Utilize systems in customer service.
Most companies have particular scripts used by customer service representatives to help support customers when they call or email. However, the step-by-step functions that a representative needs to perform are not always well defined, leading to inconsistent experiences.
Take a look at the service provided by your customer service team and set up processes to make sure the support provided to customers is consistent no matter what else is going on in the business. Establishing basic and core processes will also help to support supplemental processes that may be needed to address a particular bug or issue, which will enable the day-to-day customer service operation to excel.
One Extra Business Tip
We wanted to include one additional business tip to accompany the five above. This particular tip is useful because it recommends that you reflect on why you are systematizing your business in the first place. That is:
Extra Business Tip: Make yourself redundant
As a business owner, making yourself redundant means that you do not need to be physically in your business for it to run smoothly. The best way to do this is to set up knowledge transfer systems and business systems now – well before you want to step away from your company. This will allow you to train new executives and ensure they have access to the broad base of knowledge that you’ve accumulated.
Additionally, creating a company culture based on knowledge transfer systems and documented processes ensures your team is continually growing, learning, and passing information on to other team members. You will not have to be the only one providing top-level knowledge all of the time.
Once you have systems in place, you will be able to step back from your company. This gives you time and space to take a vacation, tap into your entrepreneurial side, or begin building on the big ideas you’ve had for your business.
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