Why You Need to Think About Your Business Processes and Workflows

Sometimes we can feel so disorganized running our businesses. There is so much to do, and we wear so many hats as an entrepreneur. These include managing our marketing and social media, networking and attending industry events, managing our employees and staff, keeping up with our bookkeeping and expenses, and I haven’t even mentioned doing the actual work we do AND working ON our business to help it grow! This leads to overwhelm and you either overwork to keep up or you freeze and do nothing. One of the solutions would be to delegate or hire someone to help you. But, you don’t know what or how to transfer work to someone else.

So, what can you do?

Stop. Breathe. Take a break. Take a step back and think about your business.

Ask yourself: What tasks or decisions can you hand off to someone else?

Most entrepreneurs will say:

“Nothing.”

“I can’t hand off anything.”

“I need to do everything. My business is me.”

“I have to decide x, y, and z.”

“X, y, and z is too important for someone else to handle.”

Now think about a successful, well-run business you have worked for in the past.

It could be the local grocery store or an international corporation. Were you good at your job? And did the fact that you worked there allow your boss the time and space to focus on higher level tasks and business decisions? Did your boss have a good understanding of what you were working on and how that work affects the entire business? Well, the answer to all these questions is usually YES!

If the owner or founder or CEO did everything her or himself, they would have never attained that level of success. If they didn’t create the space and time to make sure all the business processes aligned with their vision, they would never have succeeded. You should know that the action of you doing your job created that time and space for them to do that.  

How does this apply to your own business?

From the largest corporation to the smallest home-based business, there are business processes that are made up of people, workflows and tasks, all there to accomplish the goals of the business. I won’t complicate things with definitions and examples; I will just say that you should be aware of what you do in your business, why you do it, and how you do it.

There are steps that you follow every time you create your product or design your service. Everything from writing a blog post, filming a video, getting ready to call a client, or giving a talk at an event can be broken down into tasks and threaded together into a workflow. No matter how creative or intuitive your business is, you go through some sort of method to get things done. If you can map out this flow, you would have a workflow that lets you see exactly everything you do.

What can you do with this Understanding?

Some of the important things that will become evident include the following:

You can determine if you are spending too much time on things that don’t help your business grow.

You can figure out what tasks can be done by someone else. And, by having already documented the workflow, you can easily use that to train someone and transfer that responsibility more easily. This person will now have a guideline of what they’re supposed to do, and you will have a guideline to help you review their work and see how their work affects your overall business.

You can select tasks or an entire workflow to be automated through apps and other technology to simplify.

What if you would like some help with this?

For most of my early career, I have mapped out business processes for the purpose of understanding how a business works in order to audit it or provide guidance on improving processes and cutting costs. I believe the practice can be simplified and adapted to help small and mid-sized businesses. If you would like to know how I can help you with this, please check out my website at www.nbkaccounting.com.

Disclaimer: This information is provided for informational purposes only. I am NOT an attorney and I am NOT YOUR accountant. The information provided does NOT constitute legal, tax, accounting or any other type of professional advice. Please consult with your own attorney or tax professional. We assume no liability or responsibility for any errors or omissions or reliance on this information.