When running a business, one may feel they need more time to complete certain tasks, the people they work with are not competent enough, or they simply need more money to scale their business further. There are hundreds of frustrations an entrepreneur faces when running a business. And all of them can be defined under TTM – Time, Team, and Money.
But how does one get out of this vicious cycle of frustrations? The answer is simple – through SYSTEMS & PROCESSES.
Medium and Small Enterprises often struggle to scale their business further up after they reach a certain level and make the team independent and function flawlessly. I’ve been emphasising on building systems & processes for years, but how do you build them?
Make A Process
What does a hotel owner do to ensure success for their business? First, they provide a seamless booking process to help ease the hassle of reaching the hotel for the guests.
Second, he makes the guests feel at home. Your guests must be comfortable at the hotel, and the hotel must have that atmosphere, food, and services that make guests feel at home away from home.
Third, he helps them travel comfortably when outside. Guiding a tourist to attractive locations, or getting a taxi for a guest travelling for the day, will help the hotel feel more authentic and connected with the guests.
A business must always have a defined system to deliver impeccable service (Step-1 2, 3, and so on). Having an identified process over a long period of time helps the business run on auto-pilot and saves the owner a lot of time and hassle.
Understand And Improve The Process
Understanding and improving upon the existing systems in a company are the most important steps in expanding your business. A seasoned entrepreneur updates his Customer Relationship Management [CRM] and identifies and fills the gaps between a customer’s expectations and the product or service that his company delivers.
[What Is CRM? The Ultimate Guide]
The same hotel owner would focus on what common things guests ask for. What is the most ordered dish from them? How many guests in a month ask for early check-ins, and can you accommodate that? Use your existing customers and data in place to improve the process.
Identify an ideal product for the customer, and then compare it with your product to work on the missing components.
Testing The Workings Of The Process
Today’s digital world has incorporated businesses with plenty of data and results to analyse the progress of a company’s process. But, a human touch to analysing data is something machines may never be able to replace.
The hotel owner must analyse reports to understand whether the new dishes introduced have been well received by the guests. Put in certain things to test your own process.
The dynamic nature of the market forces an entrepreneur to always be on their feet and focus on evolving their business. But one must remember that your only competition is with yourself. Remember never to compare your 5% to another’s 50%.
[5 Principles That Guarantee Success]
Act-On The Analysis
Analysing insight is an integral part of improving your business, but providing and acting on solutions is the only way to observe the changes the analysis may bring practically. Constant actions to improve are of paramount importance to make your business world-class.
If the hotel owner does not introduce the new dishes, the hotel would fail to satisfy its customers. Actions to improve make for one of the important principles I use to guarantee success.
Conclusion
When working on the above, business owners must ask themselves these four questions:
1. What are the exact steps you need to take from now on?
2. How is the system going to be set up?
3. Why? What is the purpose of putting a system in place?
4. Who? What roles will everyone be assigned to ensure the system runs properly?
When answered to the best capacity, the questions will help one develop a better system in place for their company and begin their journey to make their business world-class.
If you’re a business owner spending more time on solving TTM (Team, Time, and Money) challenges rather than focusing more on growing your business, book a 30-minute strategy session for free with me here.
