Maximising Your Thought Leadership Series: How To Create Clear Workflow Procedures!

Everything you do repeatedly in your business requires a workflow; there is a cadence to it, and if you can recreate a workflow, you can do one of two things. You can protect your business when you’re away from it and delegate the tasks you don’t need to do. It is a win-win way of streamlining your business operations. You enhance productivity, ensure consistency in your service delivery, and keep the world turning. 

It’s not rocket science. In a nutshell, it’s a series of bullet points on a page in sequential order. It can’t be any simpler than that. Because I manage a team, I use Monday.com as my workflow management tool. But I’m not here to talk about online apps.  If you’re new to your business world, this is something you can nut out yourself without having to find the time to learn new applications.

1. Identify the core activities of your business

Block time in your diary for this activity. You need time to think and work through this process; I recently wrote 5 Key Small Business Time Management Strategies to Fight Time Management Problems if you need a refresher on blocking time.

For one week before working on your core activities, spend 10 minutes daily and list the tasks you did. This will help you when it comes to identifying the core activities of your business.

When you’re ready to begin, gather the list of tasks you’ve done the week before.

• Add in any other tasks that you can think of that you may not have done that week but do regularly. 
• Now go through them and label them, daily, weekly, monthly, ad hoc
• Rate them as either business critical, important or nice to do. 

Business Critical and Important are your core business activities. We need to break them down even further by deciding which of these business-critical cadences are done first. 

2. Break down your core business activities.

Under your core activities, write down what you do from beginning to end. For some cadences, this is a short process; for others, there may be a lot of pieces to the process. Just write it out in list form for now because you will return and add more details. 

Consider client onboarding; for example, it is critical for your business. You may include everything that happens right from the initial contact, including timelines, agreements, follow ups. I wrote a blog on onboarding, giving options for those using automation and those without. You can check it out here.

When developing a workflow, think of it as steps 1 to many needed to achieve the end goal. 

3. Fill in the blanks to document your workflows

Let’s continue with the client onboarding workflow to keep it all consistent. 

Now you have identified:

Example: Client onboarding is a critical workflow, and you currently have five steps documented in your process. Now, you need to revisit each step. What else happens? You record their details; where? You enter them into your invoicing system. What needs to be done? What needs to be sent to them when they come on board? If you send a welcome pack, what is in it, where are they located on your filing system, and who can access them? This information is vital to your workflow because it tells someone else what, when and how a task needs to be done. 

4. Tools and technology make life easier

Automation is the absolute key to everything in the online business admin world. You don’t need to sit and spend hours daily doing all the admin required for your business. You can delegate tasks, even writing your workflows to a team member. You just need to give them your notes and clear instructions. Consider how you can better use the software you already have—appointment scheduling tools and automated/scheduled/canned emails, to name a few.

5. Assign your tasks to your team

If you work with a team, think about those members who can take on specific tasks with minimal supervision. You’ve prepared your workflows, and they must be good enough for anyone coming in to pick them up and run with them so your business doesn’t miss a beat. 

Continuity of business is great for you, your team and your clients. A benefit of this is it gives your team accountability and avoids any confusion for your clients. 

Your team could even create a list of all your workflows and link them to the workflow document if you use Google Sheets and Google Docs instead of a done-for-you workflow management system.

6. Review and refine your business

As part of your workflow, you should also include a timeline for review. This is a fantastic way to identify improvement and allow your team members and clients to provide feedback. This will keep your workflows effective and efficient. Your workflow should not be designed to hinder your business but to enhance your business. People like to buy from and work with businesses that provide a seamless, done-for-you way of doing business with them. 

If you would like to invest some time with me helping you work through your workflows, you can organise your session here, and if you are looking for a total done-for-you solution, the team and I are happy to get you organised, and you can book a time to chat about your requirements here.