Steady business growth provides your company with a defense against market fluctuations and creates greater economic stability for you and your employees. Every business owner hopes to place their company on a steady growth trajectory. Some succeed, and some fail.
How do successful business owners lay the track to continued expansion?
This article provides an answer to that question.
How to Grow Your Business Steadily
Systematic, steady growth is built upon a firm foundation of company policies, processes, and procedures. The purpose of these systems is laid out clearly and concisely, and the systems themselves are accessible to the whole team.
This may sound too simple to be the basis of business growth. However, it is often the simple things that are most effective - and that are least likely to be done.
Here are five steps you can take right now to begin systematizing your business:
1. Write down the overall vision and goal.
Before you begin to systematize your business, you will want to ensure that the systems and policies you document move your company forward. So, ensure you have a clear vision and goal before you begin.
This is not something that you need to do alone. Bring your management team in on the process and ask them to contribute their vision for a successful company. You may find your visions differ - and it’s best to align them at the outset.
2. Document the policies and systems that are already in place.
Even if you or your team haven’t consciously built systems into the workplace, they exist. How you manufacture your product is a system. The way your receptionist answers the phone is a system. The only way to improve them is to document them. Do this by:
a. List the overarching processes. These will likely fall into the categories:
- HR
- Marketing
- Accounting
- Production
- Customer Service
- Management
You can break these categories down by area. For example, HR may have hiring processes, dispute processes, general processes, and firing processes. Each system will have many steps, but having a list of overarching processes will help you document the policies and procedures that need to be followed to achieve the result of each process.
b. Write down the end result of each process.
Every process and procedure needs to achieve a result. That may be the customer is transferred to the next department. It could be that the customer reaches out to your business. It may be that the product is shipped to a warehouse. No matter what the result is, it’s essential to have one noted.
c. Get your team to write down the policies that undergird each system.
These key policies may be as straightforward as: "A salesperson must always smile when greeting a new customer.” Simple yet effective policies are the backbone of your systems.
d. Finally, document each step necessary to achieve the result you have noted.
Documentation can be video, audio, written, images, or anything else that will allow another person to follow a step-by-step procedure.
3. As a team, revise and optimize the policies and systems.
Have your team review, and optimize the systems and the underlying policies to ensure they align with company values. For example, if your company value is to donate to a particular charity for each sale, and the system for doing this is haphazard, fill in the gaps to make sure that donation happens.
4. Run through the systems as a team and make sure any revisions work.
Once you’ve reviewed and optimized any system, run through them as a team. Get your entire staff on board. Doing this will make loose ends glaringly obvious and give you a chance to fix them.
5. Have the entire team use these systems, providing periodic updates as the company grows.
The policies, processes, and procedures you and your team have built are now the backbone of your business. Make sure they are used and keep them up-to-date.
Your business is using systems right now. They may be inefficient or haphazard, but they are there. Taking ownership of these systems, optimizing them, and implementing them across the board will make your company more efficient, reduce wasted time, and set you up for success.
Build your business systems with Business Success Consulting Group today. Click here for a free initial consultation with our team of systems specialists.
