Businesses need systems and processes to maintain quality and efficiency in their operations. Systemization helps to communicate to your team how you’d like your business to be effectively run and provides a clear model for them to follow. However, busy entrepreneurs don’t always take the time (or have the time) to put those systems in place.
Streamlining common business functions like bookkeeping, marketing and employee onboarding can be extremely beneficial for your business. Below, nine members of Young Entrepreneur Council explain which tasks they believe should be systemized and why.
Young Entrepreneur Council members discuss what you should systemize in your business.
Photos courtesy of the individual members.
1. Bookkeeping
Entrepreneurs should set up automation in their bookkeeping software to systemize administrative tasks like payroll and invoicing. These tasks are simple but can take up a lot of time each week that could be better spent on sales or product development. Payroll software can automatically generate checks, forms and tax filings without wasting multiple hours each week. Likewise, your accounting program can automate invoicing, so each sale generates an invoice that is automatically sent to your customer. It can also automatically send overdue customers reminder emails for payments. This not only saves time generating bills, but it also saves time tracking overdue receivables. Automating admin tasks will free up your time to focus on selling activities and becoming more profitable. – Shaun Conrad, My Online Accounting Course
2. Lead Qualification
The entire process from lead acquisition through nurturing and conversion should be systemized and automated as much as possible. Using an email marketing tool and a customer relationship management (CRM) tool (or a tool that combines both features, like HubSpot or ActiveCampaign) can help you build automated processes to acquire new leads, nurture them over time, score them and try to turn them into sales. More often, entrepreneurs just keep sending one-off email marketing messages or launching other ad hoc marketing tactics without a strategy for how the message, ad, etc. fits into their overall marketing strategy and what the plan is to engage and qualify leads generated from those investments. That’s a big missed opportunity that costs the business time and money. – Jonathan Prichard, MattressInsider.com
3. Employee Growth
Let your hiring process be systemized enough that it works as a profile document for the applicant in case they get hired. It should be the norm for management to update the new hire’s profile quarterly by continuing notes in the profile document and comparing their growth or differences as they work for longer periods in the company. This document is very important because it will help management know if the employee has difficulties or inconsistencies in their performance over time. It will help management avoid or solve possible issues in the future. Finally, this helps management know if there’s a need to promote, transfer or let go of an employee. This profile document will help the whole management team from the first day the interviewer profiles the applicant. – Daisy Jing, Banish
4. Social Media Scheduling
A simple business function that you can systematize is scheduling and posting content on social media. When you have profiles on multiple platforms, it can take a lot of time to post images, videos and other content to each network. Invest in a good social media management tool. It will let you add content in advance and schedule it to appear at the date and time you want. This makes it easy for you to manage your social media marketing, and you have a way to document and track your content creation. What’s also helpful is that you’ll be able to find shares, comments and other forms of engagement on all your profiles from one place. A social media marketing tool will systematize an entire area of your marketing to save you time and effort. – Blair Williams, MemberPress
5. Customer Support
I believe all business leaders can benefit from systemizing their customer support. Existing customers and prospects will reach out to your company for many different reasons. If you don’t have an organized way to handle these requests, you’re going to find yourself in a position where wait times are long and customer satisfaction is low. One way I’m able to use this strategy is by using chatbots and live support agents to help our customers. The chatbots deal with common, repetitive requests, while the live agents work with customers with more complicated or nuanced issues. – Chris Christoff, MonsterInsights
6. HR Tasks
There are many HR tasks that you can systematize by using the right tool. You can track employees’ information, grant time off, upload reports and more with a good online tool. It’s also great for employees because they can make requests and track their benefits and other details without having to manually ask for these things. We use BambooHR in our business and it’s useful for remote teams. Make sure you find something that works for you that allows you to systematize the many tasks related to managing your teams. – Syed Balkhi, WPBeginner
7. The Hiring Process
More entrepreneurs should systemize the hiring process starting from the very top. This can save a business the hassle and headache of hiring the wrong fit and ending up with employees who don’t understand the company vision, among other things. You can build systems to create optimized job listings, search in the right places, ask the right questions and much more. This makes it easier to hire the right candidates and creates a smooth transition to the onboarding process. – Stephanie Wells, Formidable Forms
8. Onboarding New Employees
Business leaders should think about the system they use to onboard new employees. When we first started out, we gave everyone sort of sporadic training, and it worked for a while. However, we eventually got to the point where we needed a system to onboard new team members based on their role, department and responsibilities. We decided to work with our existing team members to create an onboarding system with Google Docs and scheduled meetings designed to help new hires feel comfortable in their roles. I believe this is one thing that we can all work on, regardless of our industry. – John Brackett, Smash Balloon LLC
9. Marketing Tasks
Schedule your marketing activities. It goes without saying that marketing is the backbone of every business. It’s the only way you can grow your business and achieve your revenue goals with time. Whether it’s social media posting, email marketing or cold calling, it’s essential to work with a solid strategy and have everything planned out. You’ll get to schedule your posts, your emails, etc., without forgetting to measure important KPIs like click-through rates, open rates, likes, shares, brand mentions and the like. – Candice Georgiadis, Digital Day
Source by www.forbes.com
