A million dollar enterprise has multiple employees even thousands performing very specific tasks propelling that business forward. These enterprises have organized operation plans in place. The leadership of the company has defined the role, responsibilities, performance metrics and work instructions for every one of these employees. They also have process flows drawing out how all of these tasks and employees interact with each other to produce their ultimate product or service.
Having procedures documented will help you to clearly set expectations, delegate, duplicate for growth, improve training time and maximize your ROI on employees.
The risks of not having an operations manual in place are numerous. Your customers probably will not have the same experience each time they interact with your company sacrificing your branding, service delivery and customer loyalty. Your employees will by human nature make up their own processes and before you know it your operations are out of control. Without well thought out and communicated plans, your operations might be inefficient and cost you more money to operate. As your enterprise grows, the problems multiply.
Some of the basic documented procedures an enterprise should have in place are:
- Human Resources
- Sales and Marketing
- Accounting
- Service Delivery
- Data Management
- Technology
It is also important the manual is easy to read, easy to follow and accessible. You may also consider creating training webinars highlighting the most critical parts of the operations manual saving time and resources spent on training. It also ensures consistency in communicating expectations with each employee.
Creating operations manual doesn’t have to be an overwhelming task, hand drawn process flows and simply written work instructions shared with your employees is a great way to start. Remember to delegate where you can and include your employees, vendors and customers in the process. Just like any other written goal, your operations manual will begin to help you to create the enterprise you’ve been dreaming about. I invite you to start creating your operations manual and your foundation for a million dollar enterprise.
About the Author
Lisa Meloche is President of Bodywork Alternatives Massage Therapy. She combines her corporate background of project management and business process design with her entrepreneur experience to help small businesses develop operations manuals for a foundation to a million dollar business. For a free webinar outlining the steps to create an operations manual, visit http://bodyworkalternatives.com/Organized_Operations.html