How to establish processes that will have the biggest return on investment, energy and time (and help you meet your goals!)

Written by Alicia Lozano

On December 7, 2022

Systems are the backbone of a successful business. Having them clearly established can be the difference between chaos and success.

I’m not saying that to be dramatic, but it’s true! 

Having the right systems in place gives you order and direction. 

When I say systems, I’m referring to any sets of policies, procedures, and processes in your business. But before you set up these systems and identify your processes, you need to take a few steps back.

The key to having a good system in place is using your visions for the business to guide them. This will also give you a much clearer picture of where you need to start and help you move your business forward using goal-centred action.

But how can you do this? Let’s break it down!

Step 1: Establish your goals

When it comes to mapping out processes to support your business growth and overall goals, the logical first step is establishing your goals!

However, I’m not talking about your super long-term or overall goals like building a million-dollar business with a large team. I’m talking about your shorter, overarching goals for the next quarter.

After all, these quarterly goals are going to help you achieve the longer-term goals!

So once you’ve established the goal for the quarter you need to establish the different strategies that are going to help you achieve this goal. 

The best way to do this that not only supports your business but also your customers is to look at the strategies you can implement in each core system bucket in your business.

There are 4 in total and I’ve introduced them below! 

The 4 core systems buckets your business needs

To keep it simple, your systems all essentially fit into one of four categories. 

  1. Prospect 

This stage is all about increasing awareness of your brand for potential customers. This also includes any strategies you are using to prospect and generate your leads. Systems around marketing and lead generation all fall into this category. 

  1. Sales

Systems in this bucket are any that involve the sales experiences a potential customer has with your business. Once a customer expresses interest in your service or product and officially becomes a lead, that kicks off your sales system… For example, the discovery call or inquiry process are part of this system. 

  1. Delivery 

These systems are the ones that help you deliver the work to your clients. I’m talking about onboarding, delivery, and offboarding systems. 

  1. Post delivery 

These systems are all about the stage after you’ve offboarded your client. These systems could be for getting feedback and testimonials, your referral scheme, or a follow-up procedure! 

My biggest advice when it comes to setting up these 4 key systems is to start mapping them out one process at a time, then you can evaluate where you’re at and build from there. 

So using the one goal that you choose earlier, establish any actions you need to take in each core system bucket to help you reach your goal.

Once you’ve listed all the things you could do to help you move towards your goal under each bucket, it’s time to figure out where to start!

The systems sorter 

This systems sorter is your new way of figuring out where to start in your business. 

To use this, you want to look through each of the strategies you listed under each bucket and highlight any that are repeatable actions! 

As the name implies, these are the actions you’ll do over and over again. 

These are the best type of actions to put into the systems sorter. 

In the first column, you put your repeatable actions and then you rate them on a scale of 0 – 5 with 0 being low ROI and 5 being high ROI.

Then you can add up the total ROI score and whichever is the highest is the one you should start with to get the most bang for your buck!

It’s simple but really effective when you feel confused about where to start. 

If you want more detailed advice on how to untangle your brain and sort your systems, my freebie is here to help!

However, I’m here to help you through the whole process and since you’ve now figured out where to start, you need to know what to do next. So let me introduce you to the next step…Mapping your processes.

Creating SOPs

Now we’ve established your goal, identified the actions you can take within each of your systems to help you achieve it and figured out which one to start with…it’s now time to actually start! 

You want to take that repeatable action that is going to get you the most bang for your buck and map out the process required to make it happen.

This will become your SOP (standard operating procedure) and is the actual process you’ll start implementing! 

If you want to learn more about SOPs and how to create one for yourself, then click here because I have another blog all about it! 

PS. Keep an eye out for my next blog because there’s more you need to know about building processes that work for your business and I’ll be sharing more in the next blog!

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