Is your team winging it every time you get a project?
Do you think that because there are only 2, 3 or 10 of you that you don't need processes or systems?
Do you need more clients, yet you don't know how you would be able to add on another one without sacrificing time for family, friends or yourself?
One of the services I offer is small business and team training. I love working with groups of 10 people or less because we can make immediate progress. There aren't seven levels of permission to go through in order to change a footer and it doesn't take a year to implement.
Here are some examples of team tasks I've helped eliminate. Do you see your team in any of these?
- CEO handwriting a task from an email he received. He gives the task to his Ops Manager, who then types in that task into the computer. This was double work for both of them.
- Printing out of monthly invoices and filing in a cabinet because “that's what we've always done”. The invoices are all stored electronically and no one ever looked at the printed copies. They wasted a lot of money in ink, paper and time.
- Rewriting the same emails to clients instead of writing canned responses.
- Working in silos because the team all worked from home.
You helped my entire staff work more efficiently and have a better understanding of how to manage the ever changing technologies. By showing me how to manage my voluminous email inbox, you have saved me hours of non-productive time and allowed me to be extremely efficient which has an immediate and material impact on my bottom line. The adherence to the OHIO concept has saved hours of non-income producing time for all of us. – Joel Levy, CPA, Chapel Hill NC
The testimonial above is from a CPA who shut down every night during tax season, with less than 20 emails in his inbox. During tax season!
Some of these may seem obvious to eliminate but they didn't to the people who were performing them. We all get caught up in doing what we've always done. Staff may not feel comfortable telling the boss that something isn't efficient. The entire team may not be aware of a technology that can save them all time and money.
That's where I come in. Someone from the outside, with no financial or emotional ties to the current work environment or situation. I worked with a team who was planning to purge some of their clients because they just didn't have the time. After working together for a few sessions, I asked how the purging process was going and they ended up not having to do it. They saved so much time with their new systems that they now were able to keep all their clients!
Still not sure? Check out this Skybound Designs High Five
What's the most inefficient thing your team does? Help me and enter in the comments below!
