Processes Are Where The Magic Happens
Now that you productized your service, you can create processes to get a repeatable outcome every single time. The more times you sell your offering, the better and more efficient your processes becomes. You can quickly teach other people how to reproduce exactly what you do so you can focus on more important parts of your business or spend a little more time off work.
Most of the time you, as the business owner, are the bottleneck keeping growth from happening in your company. Processes get you out of the way so your business will have the room it needs to grow. You will be able to use software to automate parts of your business that would not have been possible otherwise.
Templatize
The first step to creating processes is to create a template for delivering your service. Take your productized service and break it down into steps. Define what parts of your offering can be the same with every customer and write them down.
You can save a lot of time and money if the structure of every project you do is the same, but the content is different. Done correctly, your customer will assume everything is custom, but your template significantly decreases the amount of time you spend.
If you have positioned yourself to serve a specific niche with a specific product, templating your offering allows you do offer a better solution for your customer. You have found what works. Why change it for every customer instead of building on the success you have already had.
Map Out The Steps
Write out your process for delivering your product and break it down into steps. Every time you go through the process with your customers, refine the steps to make your process even better. If you spend the time to create "pillars" for your product that need to be fulfilled every time, even a customer that needs a truly custom solution will go faster because you have written out what foundational things need to happen every time.
Processes give you guidelines, not hard rules. I often hear people say that processes steal their creativity. Most of the time this isn't true. Processes give you the freedom to be creative. Instead of spending a large part of your time figuring out how to help your customer, you can spend almost all of your time creatively implementing something you already know will work.
Processes are like a canvas and a medium like watercolor. Now you know where to paint and the tools you need to make the painting. Now you are free to paint a watercolor masterpiece rather than spend your time figuring out what medium to use and where to use it.
Automate, Delegate and Outsource
When you have clear steps in your process, you can automate, delegate, or outsource effectively. You now have your processes mapped out clearly into steps. All you have to do is use automation software, delegate tasks to a team member, and outsource parts of your business to a vendor or virtual assistant.
How do you know what to delegate? Anything that isn't in your strength zone and doesn't require your input as the business owner can and ultimately should be automated, delegated, or outsource.
It may be cheaper to get things off your plate than you think.
Why Should Someone Work With You?
What are your goals for your business and are they enough to inspire people to buy from you?
We will explore this topic in tomorrow's post!
This topic and the rest of the steps in the Business Growth Guide are covered in much greater detail in the Brand Compass Course. You can access the first section of the course, which covers the customer profile, here.