031 Processes Are A Business Owners Best Friend
Topics Discussed This Episode:
0:00-4:00 Introduction to the importance of processes in business and personal anecdotes about planning from a young age.
4:00-8:00 Discussion on using processes to manage business tasks efficiently and stories from school projects that highlight the benefits of preparation.
8:00-12:00 Insights into mentoring sessions that emphasize the necessity of breaking down tasks into manageable steps for better execution.
12:00-16:00 Strategies for documenting processes for easy replication and the use of digital tools to keep track of necessary tasks.
Explore the transformative power of processes in business, focusing on how they minimize stress and maximize efficiency.
The podcast sheds light on the significance of establishing robust processes in business to curb overwhelm and boost efficiency. The host shares personal stories and professional experiences that demonstrate how a structured approach to tasks can lead to faster completion and less stress. By adopting systematic processes early on, from school projects to business operations, the host illustrates the long-term benefits of being prepared and organized, which not only saves time but also ensures quality in execution.
Listeners are encouraged to start integrating detailed processes into their own business practices. The episode highlights how documenting each step of a task can make future endeavors quicker and easier, reducing the cognitive load and allowing for more creative and strategic thinking. The call to action is for listeners to begin documenting their workflows, using tools like digital notebooks or project management software, to create a replicable system that not only enhances personal productivity but also sets a foundation for training team members and scaling operations efficiently.
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0:06
Good day, everyone. It's Zoe the video confidence coach here on video, confidence Connect. Thank you for those who are listening or joining us, either in video format or audio format, and those who are listening to the podcast being recorded live on our weekly live stream, video, confidence, connect. You can find all these things on my website, VCC, dot training. So today we are going to talk about how processes are a business owner's best friend, Damon zorika, best friend. And the reason that I want to bring this up is as per usual, like a lot of things that come with the podcast episodes that we record here, I have a tendency of just letting them be whatever I find interesting in the moment as a conversation topic to talk about and with My clients. I do my best to outline processes either ahead of time, or I do my best to have a systemized approach on how to do something, just so we can get started, just as an absolute starting point. And this is something that I realized I've done for most of my life. When I'm set a task for whatever reason, I immediately go into brainstorm and write down the tasks that I need to do. There may not even be an order, but just writing down like, okay, what are the possible things that I have to do? Cool, and I remember very much in primary school, I would then cut out all those things and then put them in a list of like, okay, what can be done, what has to be done first, okay, for this, you know, for you know, me to put the poster together. I need to collect all the things. For me to collect all the things I need to know, what I need to collect. So I need to do research, like I was able to move those things around. And of course, I was made fun of a lot, because people would just get up and do it. They would just start running. And they would just start running at the problem head on. And of course, most of the time they wouldn't get it right, or they would be messy or take more time or induce more anxiety or stress, but they got it done. And my mentality was, plan what I want to do so that I can reduce the amount of overwhelm and stress and anxiety for myself, but also I can get the thing done properly, properly being the operative word there, and then I can, if I need to do this again in the future, I can just look at my notes and follow them. There were so many times where we had a project in school that was similar to a previous project that we had done. So all I would do would just go in and get my notes for that previous project follow the steps of what I had already done and get it done so much quicker and so much more efficiently than all of the other students that were in my class, to the point where I would have, like, you would have this big assignment, this big project, that would take, like, you know, two months of class time, for example, on and off, and I would get it done within the first week or two, because I had the time and the energy and the focus, because I just wanted to get the thing done, and I had the steps and a checklist that I had done previously to get it done. And then, of course, it's not what the teacher wants, because I'm not at the same pace as the other students, when I just ultimately to say with that story that I've just shared with you right now, that's why I found myself starting a business, because I had so much downtime that I had to spend in school, that I had Between all my different classes, and I would just get the work done quicker, not because I'm smart. Mind you, I don't want to stress of that. It's not because I was smart and I got everything done quickly. It was because I just did the things consistently, like I put in the energy to get the things done so they could be done and then ship off. And then I could relax. I could, you know, you know, not read a book because I'm dyslexic, but like, I could spend time doing what I wanted to do, and that thing was usually working on my business, was researching things that would be helpful for me and the work that I wanted to do because I wanted to support myself, no one was hiring, you know, 14 year old Zoe, so I had to make my own work. And of course, that's not what school is meant for. School is designed for you to be a good worker. Well, I was, but not to the type that they wanted. So when I what I mean to say, but that entire story Zoe, and the reason that it spurred on was because I was talking to a client this week, and they were just so I was mentoring this client. And when I do my mentoring work, it is less coaching, because I'm not actively giving you tools to, um. Achieve what you need to achieve. I'm more just like here with you, with the process and guiding your general direction into things, maybe letting you know of some opportunities that maybe you can't see because you're too far into something that as someone who is a little bit further back but wants the best for you, as a mentor, I'm able to guide you in that direction that may be beneficial to you, but again, keeping in mind that I'm guiding you, and you can always fight back. I want to stress that to some of my clients, but essentially, I was working with this woman who had started her business a couple of years ago, and it was doing well, it was doing gangbusters, and now it's kind of plateaued, and she has felt that she's kind of lost the energy and momentum. And when talking with her, it was clear that she was avoiding a few things. Now, of course, I am a marketing mentor. I am not a business mentor, an executive coach, or any of those things. I am mainly focusing on your marketing, which is usually why people come to me for coaching and mentoring, because it's a part of the oeuvre of running a business that they lack, not necessarily the creativity, but the processes and motivations and just all over energy to actually do marketing on that front. So that's why I'm here to support people again, plug over. But essentially it was getting too clear that it was clear, after talking with her, that she was avoiding doing really important things for her business that were really important to marketing, because she just felt so overwhelmed that she just didn't know where to start. She didn't even know where to begin, and she would constantly find herself coming up with excuses. So we spent time during our session outlining, okay, what are the steps, what do you need to do? Okay, what are the what are the big, big, big steps, what are the big, humongous things that you need to do to achieve what you want to achieve? Okay, so, for example, like, she needed to update the new prices on her website. So she needed to get into the website. She needed to know what the new prices and news descriptions are. She needed to write those descriptions so that they're ready for the public, and then input them, update them, and then test and make sure that they worked. So ultimately, that's six steps. And for some of you that may sound like Zoe, that's really easy. That's not a lot of work, but with everything else that you've got to do as a business owner that you are already juggling, not to even mention the work that you're doing for your customers and clients, it can feel like, great, I gotta do another thing on top of everything else that I'm doing. But what we did was we discussed, we wrote down those steps, and then we chunked those steps down even further to the point where it was like, not minutia, but like, almost like choreographing a dance. When you choreograph a dance, you're not just saying, you know, Step Two steps to the right, fling your arm in one fluid motion as just a vibe. You just, just do this thing, like me. No, you give people steps. You go, okay, one step to your right, turn your left leg in, knee, down, flick, hold your arm like a limp tree trunk, and then flick it up in the air. I've now broken down this choreographed scene, for example, but that's how you go about tackling tasks or processes in your business, and when you break these down into such small minute tasks that you could easily do them in 30 seconds with very little energy, with very little motivation, and you're able to complete these large tasks, because once you start to get going, The process just moves quicker. I have so many processes. Like I said, business processes are a girl's best friend, essentially a system of tasks that I need to do, to complete what I need to complete. I have so many of these where it becomes almost second nature. I don't even need to look at the process or the list that I have lined out of my tasks, because it just becomes habit. I find myself doing these things just out of sheer will, because it becomes part of my routine to do so, and it feels weird when I don't. And but when you first start out, it becomes, it is a very much of this log, because you just there's so much writing on it and writing down what you're doing as you're doing it can feel almost counterintuitive, because you're adding extra workload and extra mental load to the work that you're doing. But future you is going to thank you if you know with a smidge of knowledge that you are going to have to do this task again, write it down. Just just a good rule of thumb, if you know you're going to have to do this again, write it down. Write down your steps. And even if at the end of it, just like after you finish the task, write down like the steps that you took to get there, even just really basic things, like, you know, I. Got up, stretch to left, stretch to right, done. Like really basic steps.
10:07
The reason I recommend writing as you're doing it, though, is because you're in the moment, you're thinking about things. And of course, you can always go back and just cross out and say, Oh, I did. You know, I maybe shouldn't have stretched back as much as I did, I'm going to cross that out as a step in the process that I shouldn't do next time. And next time you do the thing, you're going to be 10 times faster, of course, because you're obviously long longer the first time. But anything beyond that third time that you do something, you're going to be so quick and so efficient at it to the point where you can if you're able to delegate it to other people to do for you, because you've already tested the process, you've already done it, and you've outlined it to a point where people can do it. They can do it for them. And that in corporate speak is called an SOP, system of priorities, system of process SOP. I will definitely look that up for you once we finish this podcast episode. But making sure that you have these notes in one place is very useful. I have clients who still like pen and paper, so they use a diary. Or I have people who are more like myself, who are a bit more digital, because I'm able to have all my notes in one place and then search up when I actually need to use it. Tools that you can use this with are things like so diaries and whiteboards for people who want to actually physically write things down. You can use tools like Evernote notion or OneNote is essentially digital books that allow you to write things and put things down. This can include everything from images, graphs, statistics, videos, PDFs, all those things can be in the one place, and then when you need to search it again in the future, you can just type in the search bar and find what you need to find. And of course, all these tools have different minutias to them. Have different things that are not exactly incorrect, but you have to kind of learn how to use these tools, which, again, can make the writing things down process harder. I understand that, but I live by this mantra that once you get the process started, once you start writing it down, it takes away that anxiety. It takes away that overwhelm, because no matter to what task you are given, you can just take it step by step. And if you need to search like online, how to do this basic thing, and then the basic steps, and then just copy and paste that and just go, follow your best. Do your best to follow those things. That's a good thing to start off with, using a tool like, say, for example, chatgpt, to give you the, again, basic it's not obviously, it's a tool that's based on data. So it's not going to give you the correct way of doing things, but it's going to give you something to start with that you can put your own flare on it, that you can put your own knowledge on it, and again, keep this in a place where you can search for it later, and especially when it comes to both digital and, I argue, physical ways of media, make sure that you back it up when it comes to diaries and whiteboards, I actually have got my clients to just take photos on their phones so They've got somewhere physical that just in case someone you know, someone comes in and wipes your whiteboard clean, you've got a backup of whatever you wrote on the whiteboard, if some you know, if the dog ends up eating your homework, then you've got a digital backup to refer to later in later in time. And then digitally, you've got somewhere on a hard drive that is not connected to anything that is backed up, that you can find this information again in the future when you need it, because that's why we do this process. Is for future us. Is for future team members. It's for future people. Where I have honestly just said, Hey, Zoey, how do you do this thing? And I haven't had the bandwidth to go, oh, this is what you do, step by step. I just say, hey, here's the page that I follow for this process. Take what you want from it gotta go by, and then, of course, they are very thankful. And then they usually give that thanks in return. By doing me a favor later on, you're making this thing easier for you, making this whole doing business thing easier for you, so that you can focus on, is it getting, you know, getting clients and getting money, or maybe once you're able to process and make that stream, that system streamlined for you when working with clients, then you've got the time to work on your own business. You've got that time to make your business better and make your systems and your own internal priorities. Even better, I am doing a lot of process talk, I must say. And I apologize for any of you who are filming a little bit just like Zoe, shut the fuck up for a second. Maybe I shouldn't have sworn there, but that's okay. So as I mentioned, a. Through today's podcast episode. It may be harder the first time you do this, and it may be harder the first time that you find Hey, I gotta check in every half hour to write down what the hell I'm doing. But these steps are going to be useful for you for way longer than you think they may be useful for you now. So say, for example, you're doing a process on how to do something again, let's focus marketing based, and let's just say, Hey, you want to do more research into what other people are doing in your industry, so you can see what they're doing and then do it differently. So you're doing some research, and you can go about this many different ways, but you find yourself just scrolling through Instagram, through Facebook, through Tiktok, through LinkedIn, just Mindlessly scrolling for hours, and then you have nothing really to show for it in the end, but having a process of, okay, I'm going to do this task. I'm going to do this research. I'm going to give myself 20 minutes on each platform that I want to focus on, for example. And I'm going to use this time whenever I come across something of my competitors. How am I going to do this? I'm going to do this by hashtags, by nine competitors that I already have a list of. Okay, so from these competitors, what are they doing? Okay, so it looks like they use a lot of bright colors. Write that down. They it looks like that. They have a lot of common faces, so they use the same people in front of the camera every time. Okay, I'll write that down. And it looks like that they use a very casual, laid back language, cool. I'll write that down now, of course, you're going to go through all of the different platforms and see what they do. And then once you look at your notes, being able to actually step back, maybe go get a cup of tea or a cup of coffee, and then come back to your notes fresh after having done something else, and coming back to it and looking at it and going, Okay, I've seen what all these other people do. What from this, you know, list of things that they do. What can I realistically do differently, and how would I go about that? Okay, so it looks like there's not a lot of trends being used. Okay. I could probably ride the trend waves a bit more. Okay, I can do that. How am I going to do that? By giving myself two weeks to get this done. And again, you start systematizing your thinking to make things easier for you in the future. It's not necessarily something that you're born with or it's for a lot of people. It's not necessarily a knack. I have developed this type of mentality and thinking when it comes to business over time, because that's just what I've had to do to make business easier for myself. I am very much an overthinker. I am very much an overstresser, and for very large sections of my life, I was someone who just constantly pushed themselves to burnout, died mentally and physically for about two days, and then I'd bounce back up and then do everything again, full pelt, full everything, to the point where I would, you know, not I hadn't developed full anxiety disorder, but I was getting there. I was getting there to the point where the doctors were saying, calm down. And also, like, for example, the trainers in my online course that I'm taking are a little bit on that same front of, hey, I'm getting the impression, Zoe, that you really care about this. Yes, I do chill, and that's what they need to tell me. And of course, I find myself telling that to my clients as well, both mainly in my coaching and mentoring clients. And of course, I'm there to be real with them. I'm there to help and guide them through the process. I'm not going to sugarcoat things, but sometimes that stress as business owners, especially when you've left a career or you've left a high paying, consistent, paying job where it, you know, did not work out for you. It is not your vibe, as in, like, yes, it gives you money, but that's pretty much it. It's taking everything else from you. Yes, businesses are not easy. They are absolutely hard and diabolical things to do, but you find more about yourself as you do it. There's a reason why, in the scamming part of the internet, when it comes to building a business, there was a lot of mindset coaching mindset, you know, focus when it comes to those things, because it's something that is not something that you can really measure compared to, say, finances, or the amount of reach you're getting, or your email list, or, like, all these, like metric numbers that you can actively see, okay, we've gone, you know, up, or we've gone down. When it comes to your mindset, it's something that you have to do as a human and as an individual as you're growing and to be able to have. Mindset, mindset of process, writing things down,
20:04
what did you do? How did you do it? How can you do it better next time that type of process and coming up with that way of thinking to make it a habit for the work that you do is going to save you. It's going to make things easier for you, and it's going to be a new bare fucking minimum for you, your new BFM. Now what I mean that is a mantra that I use a lot with my clients, but I use a lot in just my general marketing. So for those who are checking out the live stream, who are checking out the podcast today, in a future episode, I will be going through my two mantras that I use a lot, BFM and MVP, and I'll go through those in future episodes. But a short little detour of it is essentially, what is your bare effing minimum? What is the thing that is going to be your bare minimum that once you have overcome it, once you have, you know, posted more than twice a week, you can ultimately relax if you post again on social media, awesome, but you've met your bare minimum. And when it comes to the people that I work with, their bare minimum is high. Their bare minimum is so super high that people who they work with, people who are even outside of their sphere, think your bare minimum is so high that it's unattainable even for you. So it's not a bare minimum for you. But as an expert, as you grow, your bare minimum seems higher to people who are not experts in your particular field, and that is okay, and I'll get to that in a future episode. So what I and then your MVP is essentially a very industry term, but it's called minimum viable product. What is the quickest, easiest, cheapest thing that you can do to prove that a concept or an idea works for you and your business? It doesn't need to be perfect, straight off the bat. You just need to get it out there, get it seen by people and get their feedback. That is what a minimum of our product does, and it's what all businesses do to get a reading. If people want the service, people want their product, you don't go out there and create a mansion for people who just wanted a one, one room flat, you work with what you can in the you know, with the resources that you have available, both personal and business wise, to be able to test your theories of what could work for future products and services that may, you know, help your business grow, or may explode your business online and make it become viral. I argue that you don't really want to become viral, but I digress. So when it comes to your processes, having this habit of writing things down is going to be your best friend, and it's going to be a process that you are going to continually develop and consistently develop as you grow yourself and as you grow your business. So I thank you so much for listening to today's podcast episode of video confidence, connect.
The above episode description and transcript were generated with ai.
Who is your host?
Zoë Wood, your Video Confidence Coach connects the dots between personal branding and video marketing. Helping women and non-binary folk in small business, find their way in the world of marketing their passion without the energy drain.
Find out more about how to grow your personal brand with the power of video right here on vcc.training
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