Fast Track Your Business Systems

I am lucky that I am a naturally organized person. Always have been, even as a young child. So keeping up with the administrative work in my business has been fairly easy. I have several systems in place to help me track clients, monitor website visitors, reports on my ezine, monitor overall metrics on various marketing efforts, bookkeeping, etc.

My business is growing fast, however. And I'm noticing that things I am doing manually that were perfect when I only had a few clients and ran a few workshops are now slowing me down. So it may be time for new systems. Ones that will take me to the next level and beyond.So what are business systems?

Entrepreneurs often don't take the time to write down what they do. It seems unnecessary when their business is run solely by them or is very small. However, writing down our business systems helps us to think through processes clearly so they are designed efficiently. This can be a huge time and money saver, both of which are critical to a business's success.

Business systems are the tools, processes and procedures that we use to run a business. They may be used in all areas of our business: sales, marketing, accounting, operations, production, etc. Examples might include using Quickbooks for your accounting and bookkeeping and tax reporting. Of course, just using Quickbooks is not a system. There has to be a regular routine around it such as entering receipts each day or each week. Printing reports weekly or monthly and at tax time. Another system might be the metrics by which you measure your business's success. This can be a spreadsheet or program report that gives you the critical information needed to see if you are on target with your goals. For example, I measure how many workshops I have given, average number of attendees, how many people are on my ezine list, are added to my ezine list and have dropped off my ezine list, as well as lots of other factors. I track my income, my marketing efforts, both what and how productive. I review the counts each week. Your own systems may include sales, tracking a particular marketing campaign, expenses, new products added, products retired, customers added, complaints, etc. Almost anything can be counted, but you don't want this to be so unwieldy you never get anything else done. Just count what is critical to your business success. A third system might be how you handle payroll or even update your website or perform data back-ups on your computer(s)

.So a system consists of what is being done, who does it, when they do it, where it is done or kept, using what tools and why, because you don't want to develop unnecessary systems. I find it best to have these systems written down. And when your business is big enough to start hiring help, such as an assistant or virtual assistant, you'll already have training material to hand over. After all you want everyone who works with you on the same page. Business systems can be an entrepreneur's best friend, making your business run more smoothly, helping you manage your time productively and insuring you always have the information you need to run your business and have the most success. If you aren't using business systems today, try it.

All blog content is copyrighted, all rights reserved, Mary Anne Fields and Life Unfolds, 2006