Audit Your Business Systems
or let me do it for you.
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ICYMI…
Last month I retired from nightlife permanently.
Truthfully, I hate the word permanently, because who knows what could happen, but for now, it’s firmly in the rearview.
If you missed the memo, you can check it out here.
So what now?
Past readers know I’ve been doing consulting work since 2020 and for the past few weeks, I’ve been working with one of my favorite consulting clients to date.
It’s the first time I’ve really felt as though the client has a clear vision for what they want to achieve and has given me complete trust to help them pull it off.
It could be a function of their competency as business leaders or perhaps I’m just starting to make more sense when I talk out loud.
Either way, it’s a good feeling to have.
Who Are They?
Quick Facts about Company A:
~ 3 years in business
~ 15 full-time employees
Goal to 5x Revenue over next 3 years
Current Challenges:
Fragmented internal knowledge base spread over a number of platforms
Management bandwidth & capacity nearly maxed
Too many daily interruptions for upper management due to a lack of clear standardized practices and feedback cycles
(one employee est. >400 pings per day between slack & phone)
Time is Money…Let’s Stop Wasting Both.
In my last post, I wrote about how I automated every single touchpoint for my business’s entire sales cycle.
Unfortunately, in this instance, it’s not exactly possible.
Instead, the goal is twofold:
Remove Bottlenecks To Help Scale (aka reduce reliance on founder)
Create Clearer Processes To Increase Employee Productivity
As it currently stands, the founder and core operators are great at what they do.
Great operators.
Great managers.
Great people.
The problem they’re having is that after creating a successful business out of sheer grit, they’ve reached the capacity on their own time, and as they increase their headcount, don’t have systems in place to transfer knowledge & practices to new employees.
They have some systems, but for the most part, they were created on the fly while growing rapidly and managing a full plate of client work.
As a result, newer employees aren’t getting onboarded properly, knowledge-sharing tools are out of date and there are no standardized procedures to ensure the same level of service is maintained as they continue to add new and often less experienced employees.
It also means leadership is getting interrupted with questions related to low leverage tasks throughout the day, so it becomes harder to focus on the big picture.
Let’s be clear - this is a GOOD problem to have.
Being super-organized without revenue is not where you want to be.
There should be a constant push and pull between growth & stabilization, and it is a balance every business owner needs to manage carefully.
Slowing down to create these systems is also a challenge because it would come at the expense of paid work.
In my previous business, seasonality was a huge factor - I could build & refine processes in the slower months and sprint with my head down in the busy seasons.
In their case, there is no off-season, meaning they can’t afford to take their foot off the gas.
Lucky for me, this means they needed someone to come in, work autonomously to audit how things are going, and set up standard operating procedures so they can double in size over the next 18 months.
So What Am I Doing?
The goal here is to create an internal knowledge base where all relevant company information is stored.
How do I come in as an outsider and reconfigure how someone’s business operates, without knowing all the ins and outs?
Effectively, it’s a three-step process:
1) Audit existing procedures for each department to identify problems & bottlenecks.
I spent a week watching how everyone works and proceeded to interview (almost) every employee on common issues they come across, the most annoying tasks they have to deal with on a daily basis, and what slows them down/frustrates them most.
After all, it’s no use reinventing the wheel to solve problems that don’t exist.
2) Implement new knowledge & system improvements.
Essentially step 2 is all about creating the entire company’s operating system - a place where you can (easily) find every piece of information relevant to all aspects of the business.
I like to approach this with the mindset of “what would Mary Kondo do?” - except for organizing digital rather than physical spaces.
If everyone within an organization knows where to find something, nobody needs to interrupt someone else to ask where it is.
And if everyone within an organization knows HOW to do something, no one needs to interrupt someone to ask for help.
The goal is not to create a bunch of siloed employees that never collaborate, but rather to reduce time lost to interruptions, misunderstandings, or poor communication.
Furthermore, by removing menial tasks, every employee can spend more time on high-impact projects.
3) Train employees on system improvements.
A system is no good if it doesn’t get used.
Step 3 involves training employees on new systems, including giving someone ownership of the platform, making them “Chief Organizer”.
This ensures “adoption compliance,” and that long after the “systems audit,” the knowledge base continues to get used.
Oftentimes, internal knowledge bases can become a bit of a graveyard with out-of-date information and materials, but by designing a largely automated synchronizing database, and assigning ownership to key employees, this will never be the case.
Slow is Smooth, and Smooth is Fast.
Taking the time to organize and create is one of the highest leverage actions you can take and building an organized internal company knowledge base can drastically change how well a business operates.
The goal should always be to create the leanest amount of standardization possible - avoid bureaucracy for the sake of it and create systems not to stifle creativity, but to create a well-oiled machine.
It allows the business owner to step away and trust others to take their place.
It allows a company to attract talent and scale to heights that wouldn’t be possible if the owner was still the bottleneck on every decision.
Most importantly, it creates the feeling of a real company - one that doesn’t sink or swim solely by the actions of a single person.
People will join often join an organization for money, but often, people want to join an organization to learn - and it’s not easy to convince someone they’re going to learn from you if every day feels you’ve stepped into a 24/7 chaos factory.
By setting aside the time to improve how their business operates, I won’t be surprised to hear an update 12 months from now that they have doubled revenue and are exceeding targets.
The tools used aren’t that important, but in this case, we built out their entire company operating system in Notion, and integrated them into all relevant Slack channels.
If you have any interest in checking out a template or brainstorming solutions for your own business, shoot me a message and I can send it over!
That’s all for now - have a great week everyone!