Systemising your business

Systems and procedures aren’t something we as business owners think about, particularly in the beginning when it’s just us working in the business. We’re busy getting our logo’s done, domains registered, websites created and finding clients to even think about procedures.

But as a business grows, as the number of clients increase and as we take on team members it soon becomes very clear to the business owner that systemising your business is the key to future growth.

Let me tell you a story. Once upon a time there was a VA who started her business with one client. She would write down her projects and tasks in a notebook and everything was fantastic in VA-Land. The client was happy and the VA was happy. Soon enough the VA became busier and busier. She now had multiple notebooks for all her clients but being such a visual person, found it difficult to remember where she was up to and what she needed to do each day.

The VA started using a whiteboard the size of her office wall to track everything and that worked for a period of time until she signed up her first Associate/subcontractor and became a Multi-VA. Why was the whiteboard no longer working? Her trusty sidekick lived in Kentucky USA while she lived in country NSW.

The VA then hired an employee and more subcontractors. The business grew too quickly and there came a point where the employee quit and the VA was overwhelmed. She didn’t have time to find another employee or subcontractor and felt she had to do the work of two people just to keep the business moving and her clients happy. Needless to say that if the VA had created her procedures and systemised her business, she would have been able to find a new team member quicker than you can say ‘I need help’.

Learn from my mistakes. Take the time TODAY to systemise your business. From recording how to reply to potential client emails to how to answer the phone. Procedures on when to follow up overdue invoices through to how to show your clients you care, systemise everything. Not only will it free up your time it provides a framework in which all your team members or staff know exactly what is expected of them and why. It will reinforce your brand, your professionalism and it will allow you to grow your business consistently knowing that you have the ability to cope.

So to end my story, I recently took two weeks off from my business and left it in the capable hands of my project manager Melinda and the rest of my team. The business continued to work efficiently and my team dealt with everything in my absence including dealing with new clients.

Start writing down the things you do everyday and how you do it. Systemise as you go through your day and before you know it, you’ll have a procedure manual that just needs to be made pretty.