In the first three stages, business owners are usually closely involved, managing every process, making sure things are being done the company way. So often working long hours and beginning to feel frustrated that they simply cannot expand any further without loss of consistency and brand integrity.Why you need operations systems
Way back in the early 80’s two Harvard researchers found there are 5 clear steps to business growth. Every business must go through these stages if the owners want to expand their empire.
To get to the next stage, Takeoff, the researchers found the business owner must put in an operations system which enables staff to do tasks delegated to them consistently, without constant input.
They found business simply will not expand beyond a certain ceiling without an operations system.
After over 30 years working with businesses in the franchise space I can agree.
These are the steps we promote for making sure your operations systems will be used by your staff and give you a platform to expand.Structure your business for growth
First, structure your business for growth. Business structure has a significant impact on the way your operations will be organised and where to start.Say you have a cleaning company. The structure now, if you’ve thought about it, may look something like this.
Right now, you the boss, with a little help from some staff, are probably wearing all hats and doing some of the work in the light green boxes sitting under admin.
To escape from this, focus on your delivery teams which are the drivers of growth. It doesn’t matter which business model you use (franchise, company outlets, licence, etc.) the fundamental thing is to be very clear about the characteristics (skills and personality) of the people you need to make sales and deliver your product and how your business is going to be structured so they can be supported to successfully do the tasks allocated.
So, we look at:- Your market
- Your product
- Your sales
- From this you can work out the skills and personality of the person you want to make face-to-face sales and deliver that product. Does it matter if they are good with people or not?
- What support is needed to help them along the way?
Have your operations documented so they are easy to use
Now you clearly have a vision on who is doing what, the operations to govern how tasks are done fall out much more easily. This is how we approach the process of documenting operations.Make someone else responsible
Give someone the role of documenting your systems and for managing the team that will help with the task. This person needs to be responsible in the long term for ensuring your operations are usable and used.Plan as best you can
Start with the most important and urgent tasks. This will almost always be with your sales and delivery teams. Admin almost never gets done unless the admin task is associated with sales or delivery. Start the process by creating a plan of important and urgent headings in sequential order of execution.Use a cloud-based system
Paper documents are a thing of the past. Cloud-based operations systems which are available at the touch of a button on a phone when needed are the only way to go. These systems also allow you to create a system that is intuitive to use, is based on multi-media documents using video, images, text or a mix as required. And by using hyperlinks and overviews, these systems let you create a hub, pulling all your digital systems together in one place and mean you can create a sophisticated system where nothing is duplicated and messy.Then make sure your operations systems ARE used – it’s up to you
Maintenance
Make sure your Systems Leader is there to keep everything up to date. Outdated systems are the first to be dropped by staff and franchisees.Training
Base your training processes on your operations manuals – don’t duplicate ops in your training systems. This way staff are trained to use the ops as well as how to do the job.On the job
Don’t allow your staff to ask you questions on how to do things – send them back to your operations system by asking if they have looked up the question there.Performance Management
When things go wrong - base your performance management on your operations. Move them back into training again.Be the leader
The bottom line is you are the leader. Set up your business so you have a focused view of what’s important, get the operations for those tasks documented in an easy and usable system, then make sure everyone uses them.Brian Keen has been involved in the franchise industry for more than 30 years and, today, is the Founder of Franchise Simply, Systems2Grow and Microloan Foundation Australia. His on-the-ground business experience as a multi-unit franchisee, franchisor and consultant helping many of the big names create their own franchise systems and growth over the years has been fed into Franchise Simply, helping today’s SMEs grow their business by franchising. https://franchisesimply.com.au/ https://systems2grow.com/ https://www.microloanfoundationaustralia.org.au/
