Feeling exhausted? If you work tirelessly to generate revenue yet struggle to turn a profit, then the answer's a no-brainer. We often allow the grand illusion of revenue growth to distract ourselves from the most critical part of any business' success: Profit.
If you were to weigh up your business' full list of expenses against your total income, only to realize that you're just breaking even - you'd be sure to ask yourself, "What's the point?" This is a pain point for a vast majority of business owners, which is why it's integral to learn how to work smarter (not harder).
Here, we reveal how to improve your bottom line through the implementation of 'the lean process,' which is an industry-renowned method for eliminating waste and increasing efficiency.
1. Focus On Your Customer
Part of being a lean organization, is being able to amplify the value you deliver to your customers without expending your resources. Your customers should be at the centre of every business decision you make; without customers - there is no business.
It's imperative to focus on ways to improve efficiency for your customers, which in turn, will ensure that as they grow - you grow. Any business can convince a customer that the product or service they provide is "outstanding," yet the hardest thing to prove is how you're able to answer their needs; providing a solution is far more important than merely offering a product.
2. Document Every Process
Every process within your organization should be documented. Not only is effective documentation a core component of a business' valuation, but it's also integral to risk management. In the event that an employee is sick or on leave, you need to ensure that any member of your company is able to own that responsibility.
"Organizations that invest in these capabilities will derive exponential benefits from economies of intelligence just as their predecessors did from economies of scale and scope. To achieve this goal, organizations will need to cultivate high data literacy and an evidence-based culture. They will need to redirect their investments to data and processes that are structured and well-defined from those that seem to be ad-hoc and undefined."
Whether you're using a documentation platform like IT Glue, which is specifically engineered to help Managed Service Providers (MSPs) to drive the utmost efficiency within their organization, or the ConnectWise-powered alternative ITBoost, having a documentation hub for all members of your organization to utilize, should be a priority.
In the long run, it will cost you more money, time, and energy, to teach each employee how to perform a task that could easily be documented for them to follow. Here, thorough documentation will also enable your staff to repurpose their efforts toward building your business (instead of maintaining it), which brings us to...
3. Remove Inefficiencies and Stop Waste
If you haven't already discovered why agile development is key, it's worth knowing that having all hands on deck is what will propel your company vision toward an actuality.
"IDC predicts, that over the next four to five years, enterprises that invest in the future of intelligence capabilities effectively will experience a hundred percent increase in knowledge worker productivity resulting in shorter reaction times, increased product innovation, and improve customer satisfaction."
Before you implement another inefficient system, you need to first establish where the bottlenecks in your organization are: What's holding you back? Which areas need improvement? What could be better?
After you've mapped out your existing processes and identified these areas that need to be addressed, you'll then be able to strategise toward creating enhanced systems that your organization can trust.
4. Track Numbers, Manage by Evidence
In case you've never heard, "analysis paralysis" is real. More often than not, we find ourselves facing a wall; the direct result of either overthinking or of course, over analyzing a "problem," instead of searching for a solution. If you're spending weeks on-end to close your books, the likelihood of being able to make future decisions, is close to none.
If you look for problems rather than solutions, you'll never be able to move forward. Stop overanalyzing, and start making changes. The numbers are there, the evidence is there, and now it's time for you to put your best foot forward and look for solutions that will provide the financial data you need to drive these key decisions; let the numbers inform you, allow the evidence to empower you.
5. Empower Your People to Run the Process
Like a well-oiled machine, each moving part consists of a core function. Your people are your future. A company without a vision is an automobile without fuel; it's going nowhere. Businesses invest money, time, and energy into recruiting the right people for their organization, yet struggle to retain talent.
Why? Staff don't feel empowered. Whether it's the lack of company culture, or the inability to see a company vision, your people need to know what they're working for. When your staff feel empowered to be part of the vision, to live your company values, and to feel supported by a family - only then, will your business truly hit its peak.
Here at Wise-Sync, one of our core values is to 'own it'. When your people feel empowered, they'll not only get the job done - they'll take it to the next level, whereby you can expect to revel in more profitable outcomes. Any organisation running on the Entrepreneurial Operating System (EOS) will be able to recognise this as the GWC framework (Gets It, Wants It, Capacity to Do It).
If you haven't already established a successful staff retention plan within your organization, simply learn how to with our best practice guide here.
6. Systemize and Refine
The final stage of adapting a lean process, en route to improve your bottom line, is the implementation of key systems that can refine the areas that are bogging you down (these are the very inefficiencies that you would have identified at step '3. Remove Inefficiencies and Stop Waste' above). This is achieved through workflows, automation, and third-party tools, which you can learn more about here.
As we work to create, enhance, and innovate within an evolving digital world, it's important to remind ourselves, that the industry is rapidly changing (but your vision remains the same). This means, we will continually be offered with enhanced solutions to improve the processes, systems, and procedures we currently use, and we need to be open to these possibilities - we need to adapt.
There you have it! To learn more about how to take your business to the next level, discover How to Embrace a Digital Transformation with our best practices' article here.
Wise-Sync provides a streamlined and stress-free solution for integrating ConnectWise Manage or Datto Autotask PSA to Xero and QuickBooks Online. With Wise-Sync, long gone are the days of double entry, painful procurement and endless data errors because now, at just the click of a button - you can balance your books and revel in the greater financial visibility and improved cash flow that every MSP desires. Some call it “magic”, we call it Wise-Sync. To find out more about how we can help you, speak to our friendly team today.
