3 Simple steps to find clarity in your business systems

Grey areas in your business can be costly. Here’s a three step prociess to help you find clarity in your business systems, and reduce the grey.  I’ll also share 3 features of a project management software to help you find clarity in your business systems as you grow and scale.

In life, there are a lot of grey areas – in love, in relationships, parenting,
Grey areas give you room to move and navigate through life around all the things that you don’t know.

But in business, grey areas mean extra time, extra money, extra energy.

Here’s an example:

Before I started using a CRM, my lead management was definitely a grey area. Everything was grey. So the follow up emails that I used to send, gray area, every one was different.

The follow up times. So it was sometimes a week.
sometimes the next day, everything was different.
Winging it in my discovery calls and customizing every  single offer that I made to a client.
Oh-M-G!

Once I tided it up that aspect of my lead management, everything became so much easier because there were less grey areas.
So I realized that I had to decide, map it out in a checklist, templates, and a process so that it was consistent. I didn’t have to keep it in my head so that mental load was easier.

Once I did that, I had more space in my brain to think about more important things.

What are the grey areas of your business?

So grey areas are loose boundaries, the deferred decisions, inconsistencies, uncertainty.
As you can see, they sap your energy.

They are really time consuming and oh so costly, especially when you are the business owner.

So when your business evolves, there are more people involved.
You start to get a team, and even especially, they often are remote, and these grey areas can compound.

Problems take longer to find. They take longer to fix. They cost more money, the mental energy.

Once you have a team, you need to delete any of that grey, and fill it in with color!
Clear and simple is the best way to go. It doesn’t have to be complicated ever. Just keep it really simple.
It’s like the success to business.

How to find clarity in your business systems

#1  Decide so that it’s in line with your business goals and your business values
#2 Document it so that it’s out of your head.
#3 Organize it so that it’s easy to find and easy for someone else to use.

You’re the boss, right? So it’s OK for you to set the standards, but make them clear.

How to find clarity in your team management

When I started working in my business with a team, I really noticed that I couldn’t keep that information in my head anymore.
My VA was waiting for me all the time, definitely not the other way around.
I had to be so clear about what I wanted. I had to make it really simple for her to understand so that she could go on do it, otherwise it was backwards and forwards with questions because I wasn’t being clear,
and putting it into a project management system forced me to be clear.

These grey areas constantly popped up. It meant everything just took longer all because I hadn’t decided and I hadn’t made it clear enough for her. All my own doing.

It meant a simple task took so much longer and cost me a lot more.

Another client that I worked with wanted to expand the capacity off her business so that she could take on more clients.
To do that, she had to make her workflow super clear to reduce the risk of mistake’s when someone else was doing it and she couldn’t control all those steps, but also to improve that process so it was even better.

Once we were clear on every single step that she wanted to happen, to ensure that the creation process was thorough, and the publishing process was really clear and easy to follow.

I set the workflow up in Asana. The steps were detailed enough if required, but easy to follow.
So then she went on to hire a great coordinator and has now expanded her business and has doubled her capacity.

This wouldn’t happen without that clarity, making those decisions,
getting rid of the grey areas in the big vision and in the details.

I’m all about making things easier, and I know that when there’s a clear set of steps to follow, it’s so much easier to get it done.

Even when I’m when I’m when I’m working on my own and when I’m working with the team, it’s easy for a team to follow steps and achieve their outcomes. to a high level of quality and consistency.

It’s easy for client to follow steps once they have paid so that they feel in control and loved and appreciated.
It’s easy to know what to post when, and where to put all the captions or that kind of stuff when there are simple steps to follow.

If you can relate to any of these and so many more intricate little details and they’re grey areas in your business or the process is inconsistent or it takes too long, perhaps, is done by memory each time,
and it’s really important to make them clear.

Grey is hard work.
It takes more energy, takes longer to get the results that you’re looking for. Your business really needs to be clear and simple.

So where do you start with finding clarity in your business systems?

There’s three key elements to this to help you get started or if you have started in the past and dropped the ball to pick it up again.

#1 is to just put your CEO hat on. Systems are the foundation off your business. You don’t have to like feel like it’s set in stone. If it’s not right,
adjust.

#2 Document it so that it’s out of your head, because when it’s in your head, you’re the one that has to do the work.
Keeping it in your head is just keeping your business small.

#3 get organized and find somewhere to put it. Put your operations, your checklist, your templates somewhere.

Where do you go to find clarity in your business systems?

I recommend a Project management platform such as Asana or ClickUp.

Give everything a home, make a business hub, so that there’s one central place where everyone can find everything they need to be able to do their job – its really transparent and it’s it’s really organized, and it helps you and your team go out and do what they need to do effectively and efficiently.

This would be perfect for a small team so you can add all of your business operations and your marketing operations, your planning.

You can set clear tasks.
You can set due dates.
You can assign it to other people.
You can add checklists, processes, see how it’s forcing you to make those little decisions, so there are no grey areas.

3 features of project management systems

#1  is being able to capture tasks forcing you to be clear about having to set a due date, assigning it to someone, adding all the supporting sub tasks or checklists or information and allowing your team to have that transparency.

#2 The second one is getting you organized.
A PM Platfortm makes you more organized. It’s helping you create a business hub.

Similar to your to do list – the same categories. Maybe just starting to expand from your to do list.
Building this project management platform into a business hub for you again, creating such strong foundation so that it’s not just you doing everything and starting to expand all that information.

You can also organize and prioritize your work and your team’s work,
being able to plan your time – See the big picture as well as the details.
It reduces the need for sticky notes, for email, for lists, in your head, for notebooks.

All of those extra places that you have to check and scan in your brain ‘Have I checked my sticky notes?”
“Have a check my diary?” that’s extra work for your brain.

It reduces that and it reminds you of things coming up without you even
having to do anything.
You know that makes life easier for everyone.

#3 Track what happens in real time
So this improves your team’s accountability and improves their productivity because they have all the information they need to be able to achieve their work outcomes.

This means that you can look at the end of the day at the start of the day to see what other people are doing to see what’s being done rather than not knowing having that anxiety or having to follow up with someone.
Having information at your fingertips is such a time saver.

So once you reduce the grey areas in your business and focus on clear and simple.

All you need to do is add the information into a project management
system, you’ll have more space, you’ll have more time and you have more energy and you will be freer to do all the things that you love
doing.

You won’t be tied to the day to day operation off your business as much.

It’s allowing you to slowly step away from that tiny detail so that you can work on the big picture.

Aerlie Wildy is a team management & business efficiency consultant and mother based in the Adelaide Hills.

I specialise in making teams more effective and efficient.

You can connect with me on Facebook, Instagram, check out my Youtube Channel or Pin with me on Pinterest.