By Certified Action Coach Dave Beam
I am amazed when I drive past our local McDonalds in the morning. There are days when the cars are lined up around the building, almost into the road! And what is even more amazing is that most of those people will be served a consistent hot breakfast for under ten dollars by teenagers who likely didn’t even make their bed!
The “McDonalds Experience” is the same worldwide. The consistency and minimization of surprises is what brings customers back again and again. It’s really not an extraordinary product. It’s quite average. The service isn’t even that amazing. But it is consistent and usually easy to buy. If you are a business owner or manager, you have to ask the question: “How is it possible to run a multi-million dollar business that produces a consistent product and service day after day with minimally trained employees?” A big part of the answer is systems. Good systems are also a key to your freedom! For our purposes, a system is fundamentally just a written checklist of routine tasks. McDonalds has detailed, complete and simple systems for their whole operation. And you can create systems for your business as well.
The first step in systematizing your business is defining your vision, mission, and values. Your vision is vivid description of what your business would look like if it was complete, perfect, and ideal. It provides you and your team with a clear target. Your “mission” is your plan and strategy on how you are going to accomplish the vision. It includes a description of the business you are in, who your customers are, and most importantly what unique value you bring to the marketplace. Finally, your values, or culture, define who you choose to be to perform the mission. Your values are your non-negotiable rules of the game – your corporate conscience.
The second step to systematizing your business is to create an organizational chart, positional agreements, and key performance indicators. The organizational chart illustrates each of the functional positions and how they are related. The positional agreements line out the accountabilities for each of those positions including all the routine responsibilities and tasks for each position. Often this can be broken down into daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly and annual checklists. The key performance indicators (KPIs) are three to five key measurements for each position that form a basis for accountability.
The third step is to create flowcharts that illustrate each major function of the business. These flowcharts may include detailed “how-to” manuals, pictures, or videos that detail individual processes. For example, one flowchart may track the customer experience beginning at the marketing and sales stage (customer acquisition system) through the purchase, delivery, and payment for your product or service. Other areas that may need flowcharted are team training and hiring, administrative and financial operations, purchasing, transportation and warehousing. It obviously depends on the nature of your business.
The final step to systematizing your business is to define specific measurable goals in-line with your mission including some celebration points (milestones) along the way. This final step provides a clear understanding of the long and short term goals, and how you are going to celebrate their achievement.
Having great systems in place is a key to having a business that runs well even when you are absent! Systems do not have to be overwhelming or complicated. Furthermore, they are a necessary component of having a business that is stable and growing. Call us if you would like some help in getting your business systems in place!
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