One of the best shows on television for entrepreneurs is The Profit with Marcus Lemonis on CNBC. Watch it through Marcus’s eyes, but also through the eyes of the business owners he’s trying to help. Marcus focuses on what he calls the Three P’s: People, Process, and Product. Today James and Megan focus on the second P, Process. Do it right, and your Processes are an anti-Kryptonite!

Our anti-Kryptonite today: Process

 Why do Processes matter in a business?:

• This P looks at how an organization creates, delivers, and sells.
• If your processes are unorganized and chaotic, it’s doubtful you can deliver to your customers consistently. If you only have home runs and strikeouts, that could be a sign that Process is the P you need to work on the most.
• Process will look at effectiveness and efficiency.
• Processes need to change as the business changes. Be rigid enough to have structure, but flexible enough to shift when needed.

What processes should a business have?:

• That will depend on the type of business, but some processes are fairly universal:
  • Customer Service
  • Marketing
  • Branding
  • Production
  • Financial Management
• If your Process isn’t repeatable, your successes aren’t repeatable. Consider them recipes for running your business.
• Processes should be properly documented. This documentation helps drive consistency, can be used for training, and makes evaluating necessary changes easier.

How can you develop and improve your business processes?:

• Start with high-level documentation. What are the key processes that drive your business and define what and how you deliver for your customers?
• Look at how your processes connect and overlap. The act of documentation will help you find areas for improvement.
• It can also be helpful to hire an outside expert. There are consultants and coaches who specialize in both process documentation and who know your industry. They can help with best practices so you aren’t inventing the wheel over and over again. Use what works elsewhere and adapt it to fit your way of doing business.
• As your business grows, the processes will likely have to change in order to scale up. Don’t be afraid of that change. Embrace it while staying true to what it is you do best in the marketplace.

Action Steps:

1. Capture the key processes of your business. Write them down and see how they overlap and support each other.
2. Review your written documentation (or write it if you don’t have any).
3. Actively seek to improve your process. Engage your people (if they are the right people, they’ll offer valuable inputs) and/or hire experts to assist.

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