Save Your Sanity By Creating Systems and Structures in Your Business
I volunteer in an organization that manages brand’s digital marketing processes and every day, my supervisor comes in and says “I’ve not slept in days” or “I work every night back to back” and honestly, I wonder if he’s saying it to make himself look good.
Does he actually stay up every night to work? Or is it just something he says to make the rest of us think that he’s indeed working? -all hail the nocturnal supervisor. LOL
What my supervisor doesn’t know is, it has become a cliche, everyone in the organization, both volunteer and full staff know it’s a big white lie. Digital marketing, heck, any kind of marketing doesn’t need you to lose sleep and get big bulgy eyes every day.
You can simply do any work by setting the right systems and structures in place.
No matter how big or small the work you do is, there are many online tools that can help you achieve so much in so little time with very little effort on your part.
I wrote a post on some mobile apps that can help you work faster, you can check it out
Anyway, let’s get back to business.
Having systems and structures in place helps save your sanity, reduces your workload and makes you become more productive with better results. Working every day without positive results is a disorder.
How Do You Start?
First, you need to understand all the processes involved in your business and every step that should be taken to get an actual result. Look at the step that must be taken to move things forward.
For instance, decision making is a vital aspect, and if the decision is only made by you, then you’re still running a solo business. But if you have teams or employees working with you, who else can make vital decisions in your absence?
Another integral part is product creation, what’s the entire process that goes into creating products? How then can you make sure that production goes on seamlessly? Set-up a system that will ensure that nothing is delayed or disturbed.
Look for ways to automate certain processes in your business, make use of automation and productivity tools. Use autoresponders to respond to emails. Create marketing materials and guides that will help your team do their work without delay.
But don’t drive yourself crazy trying to create all these at once, identify your core business process and next time you are working critically on a project, document all the steps involved and look for ways to add systems and structures to it.
Because if you want to remain in business for so long and make a lot of profit, you need to deliver results to your customer or your audience, and having good systems and structures in place help you do that.
Henry Ford
The pioneer in creating systems that increase work efficiency was Henry Ford, founder of Ford motors.
He used methods that reduced the length of time to make automobiles. This enabled him to use an assembly line system to mass-produce the Model T car in 1913 from over 12 hours to 2 hours 30 minutes. This put cars in the reach of average people and his system helped to boost productivity rates across many industries.
Establish guidelines, policies and procedures as control mechanisms over the people, places and technology. Document all your business processes and have a policy rule.
Separate and describe roles in the business in written forms, use technology to map out, simplify and automate vital tasks too. Have a job description for very important roles in your business.
Don’t be reluctant to ask for help, many times, entrepreneurs get over-inflated egos that prevent them from reaching out, leading them down the part of mediocrity and ultimately failure.
So know the difference between activity and productivity.
Do you want to create a business brand that will put you on the map? Then join the tribe and let’s teach you how to.
