Jamie runs a business, and she wants it to grow and make a full-time income. She started her business out of a passion. She got frustrated about having the worst customer service at the local retail store and went to build her own retail store with the best ever customer service.
She gathered her savings, rented a space, stocked it up and all the things went well, she got customers visiting the store. She happily served the customers, then she hired a few employees. She trained them, she managed her employees and propagated the customer service ideas to them. All was going well.
Now, it’s the holiday season. And she started running a few promotions in her store. Jamie starts her car to go on a vacation. Suddenly she gets a call.
A call from her regular customer complaining about the long queue at her store’s cash counter. He’s really frustrated about the level of service he received from Jamie’s store. Jamie talks to the customer cool him down and rushes to the store instead of the vacation.
When she enters, she found chaos everywhere. Things were not kept properly in the racks. A long queue of customers standing at one of the counters, the other two counters don’t have cashiers. Everything is out of order.
What happened? Jamie is a very cool person. So, she calls her manager Dorothy and asks her what happened. Dorothy said, Jamie, that there was a huge influx of customers.
That’s fine, But Dorothy… “Why is there no cashier in the other two counters?”. Dorothy says that her cashiers were re-routed to the warehouse to pick some things up and re-stock them.
If Jamie would’ve been there, then things would’ve been completely different. The priority would’ve been to clear the queue first, rather than to re-stock. At least Jamie would’ve stepped into the cash counter.
Welcome to the chaotic world. Where nothing happens as you want it to happen. Jamie thought that Dorothy is capable of delivering the level of service that Jamie wanted to provide to her customers.
Jamie starts to lose confidence as she dwells in the chaos. Suddenly her vision of having the best retail store with the best customer service is fading away…
So what are the options for Jamie to have a seamless operation, for everything to be in order, for her employees to deliver her vision to her customers, to make sure your manager thinks like you want them to think, to ensure that proper training has been provided?
Jamie is smart and seeks the help of a business coach. Mr.Business Coach now steps into the business. He understands what’s going on and what her real mission and vision are about her business.
Mr. Business Coach finds that Jamie wanted to travel and take a lot of vacations. He advises that Jamie needs to systemize her business. So that when Jamie steps away, her systems can work in such a way that Jamie can ensure that employees follow without errors. Her job will be to keep the systems up-to-date, train, and to keep her employees happy. And her systems will take care of the customer service and other things.
The coach teaches her how to “work ON her business” and not “work IN her business!”. Working ON the business freed up a lot of time for Jamie, so that she could focus on bigger problems and business growth. And what not, to take the long pending vacation plan.
Systemization also makes the business a rapidly scalable one, Jamie went on to open her store in almost all parts of the city. She now never visits all her stores. Her profits went higher, her customer service goals were achieved regardless of whether she’s present or not.
Finally, Jamie’s dream of building her own retail store with the best ever customer service and also make a full-time income became a reality.
How to systemize your business in 3 simple steps:
- Note down the repeated jobs that are there in your business every-day
- Write down a step by step procedure on how to do those repeated jobs
- Prepare a checklist of outcomes of each of those repeated jobs
Examples Repeated Jobs for Jamie’s Case:
- Cleaning the glass door every hour
- Check whether all the things are properly placed in the racks
- Clean the bathroom every hour
Example Step by Step Procedure to clean the glass door every hour:
- Spray on an all-purpose cleaner
- Scrub off the stains and dirt
- Finish it off with a basic glass cleaner
Example Checklist:
- The door has no water stains
- The door doesn’t have any fog
- The open/close sign is in place
Stay tuned, I’ll dig into detailed systemization techniques, automation techniques, and using technology to take your business into auto-pilot mode in my upcoming posts. So hit the Follow button and subscribe to my posts.