Five Steps To Success: Step 5 Minimize and Optimize Your Processes

5 Steps to Business Success

Step 5: Minimize and Optimize Your Processes

The main goal of process optimization is minimizing time while optimizing output and efficiency, basically doing more with less, and in less time. The key is to minimize your operations without taking away from your client experience. Your ability to optimize your business processes will determines how successful you are in your business. (I repeat: Your ability to optimize your business processes will determines how successful you are in your business).

There are a number of benefits to implementing business systems and optimizing your processes. As a solopreneur, it was imperative for me to automate time-consuming processes. It was also important for me to ensure that all of my clients received the same excellent customer experience. If you are an entrepreneur or solopreneur, these things should matter to you as well.

Here are my tops tips to get you started with minimizing and optimizing your processes.

Identify Repetitive Tasks and Create Processes

This is the most critical step in systemizing your business. You do this by creating a detailed step-by-step process for each task. This means listing out every step needed to accomplish the task from the first step until the last step. These steps need to be developed in such a way that your business partner or staff can understand them and execute the steps without any problems (and in the event of your absence). As a nurse, I was trained to document everything! If you are not accustomed to documenting things you might want to get in the habit.

In addition to documenting everything, it’s also helpful to record everything! I create videos for every process in my business. If you do the same, your videos will quickly turn into a training library which you can use when you need to onboard new staff and business partners.

Automate, Delegate, Eliminate

Automation saves you time, hassle, and worry and there are tons of things that you can automate. You may be new to this term but chances are you are already automating some things. If you are busy and you let your phone calls go to voicemail, that's an automation. If your monthly bills are set-up on autopay so you don't have to worry about making the payment, that's an automation. Automation works just as good in your business as it does in your personal life. (Just set, schedule, and forget).

I will be honest, delegation is something that I have always struggled with (even as a nurse). My mother always told me "if you want something done right, just do it yourself" and I guess that has always stuck with me. Well, let me tell you from experience - burn out is the result of not delegating. You MUST delegate and not just at work. Delegate at home by asking for help. Delegate in your business by hiring help (i.e. Virtual Assistant). Get comfortable with giving less important tasks to others and save the higher priority tasks for yourself.

You can automate and delegate as much as you can but at some point, you’re just going to have to take some things off of your plate. You can’t eliminate all the areas in your life but you can reduce and eliminate stressors. Sit down in a quiet place and take personal inventory. Write down your schedule from the moment your feet hit the floor in the morning until the moment they are back in bed again. You can do this for one day, one week, or one month. After you complete this exercise, ask yourself the following questions: What do I do that can be automated? What do I do that can be delegated? What do I do that could be eliminated?

Implement and Analyze the Process

After identifying the necessary workflows and processes needed for your business, it is now time for implementation. For these changes to be successful, it is crucial that everyone on your team embraces these new processes and implements the changes accordingly. It’s also important for you to integrate a QA process early on. Quality Assurance allows you to track and monitor your business processes. It essentially means going deep into how each process operates and discovering the necessary improvements you need to make if you are not yielding the necessary results. This is how you identify bottlenecks, wasteful or unnecessary steps, and processes you can simplify.

Monitor and Continuously Improve

After successfully implementing new business processes, you must keep monitoring for the need to revise and improve your systems and workflows. Every time a revision or improvement is needed, make sure to document and automate the process. Every single step in business process optimization is critical. However, a one-time implementation does not guarantee long-term efficiency. You must make it part of your organization's culture to ensure client satisfaction and long-term success.

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Quisha Umemba is a Registered Nurse with a Public Health background. She teaches "helping professionals" to monetize their skillset so they can build, launch, and scale a profitable public health consulting business using her proven step-by-step system called Ready.Start.Launch! Find out more by visiting https://quishaumemba.com/ or schedule a 20-min discovery session.

Categories: : Ready.Start.Launch!