Many business owners work 50+ hour weeks. Typically this extreme workload isn’t due to the excess of business flooding in. In fact, most companies have to completely restructure to handle an increased workload.
No, most company executives end up working a 50+ hour week because they dedicate 30 hours to their vital tasks and 20+ hours putting out fires within their organization.
This isn’t just the case in your business. This is the case in most businesses.
There is a solution to this unsustainable work schedule! You’ll find it below.
How to Stop Putting Out Fires and Start Getting More Business
The best way to reduce or completely cut out the chaos in any company is: organize.
Organize your business so that the right people put out a fire before it runs rampant through your company.
This is more than simply assigning a job title or even creating a business hierarchy. Organizing a business is a holistic task that accounts for every aspect of the company.
Let’s start by looking at how your business works.
Organizational Charts
An organizational chart is similar to a giant flowchart for your company.
It should show how your product or service is delivered, along with who sorts out any customer and internal concerns.
For example, your organization may be small - consisting of you and five employees. That may mean that you hold many “hats.” However, your goal is likely to grow your company and give those vital tasks to new employees, right? So, you want to create an organizational chart that reflects every actual job within the company.
A brief breakdown of an organization could include these departments: HR, Sales & Marketing, Accounting, Production, Customer Service, and Management.
The various department heads and staff may be holding different “hats” in various departments. Breaking down how your company works may show you what cross-training needs to occur, and what jobs should be re-allocated depending on the departments they are straddling.
You can see this and more with a good flowchart.
Flowcharts
Flowcharts show workflow. You can create a broad chart for the entire organization to see how your product goes from A to B, or you can create a more narrow chart which shows the onboarding process.
The use of a flowchart is in what processes and procedures come out of it.
Processes and Procedures
When establishing business processes and procedures, we recommend going department by department, beginning with the one that is usually in the most chaos. In many companies, these are the sales and/or production departments.
Let’s tackle the sales department in this example.
Here’s the scenario: You frequently have to go into sales to tackle:
a. Low sales numbers,
b. A failing deal,
c. A salesperson who has promised too much,
d. A salesperson who does not understand the product
e. A failing campaign.
f. Some other fire.
Many of the above issues can be resolved without your personal attention. They simply need effective processes and procedures in place.
The first step is to document the core procedures in the sales department. These may include cold calling, employee training on new and existing products, how to run a successful campaign, and more.
Once these are laid out, get into the nitty-gritty with step-by-step processes. This is where you create the organizational tools your employees need to succeed in their job. You don’t need to know every step right off the bat. Instead, be sure to include your employees and ask them to contribute to the task as you build out your procedures and processes.
Ensure that these tools are both accessible for employees who need to review the material AND have accountability built-in so that it’s clear they have truly completed each step.
Testing
Finally, the above organizational tools must be tested against the workflow.
It’s possible that some, like the organizational structure, have retooled the workflow and altered who handles what within the company.
Others, like the processes and procedures, need to hold up to use and scrutiny. As you test, you may find that a step or two is missing from a process or that an additional procedure must be documented.
This is a great time to bring these organizational actions to your team's scrutiny, allowing them to provide insight and share what else you need to include to make these organizational tools useful.
Feeling Overwhelmed?
The above is a basic “how-to” for creating a more organized, less chaotic company.
Does it seem like a lot to add to your already-full workweek?
We understand!
Contact the team here at Business Success Consulting Group for a free initial consultation. We will work with you to find the organizational pain points that are causing chaos - and we will also help you to establish solutions.
You are the leader of your company - not the resident firefighter. We are here to help you stop putting out fires and start expanding your business. Contact us today!
