Blast through your current constraints with systems that work for you
Identify and target incremental impacts that create exponential results.
Hi there! When it comes to dealing with the inevitable “fires” that interrupt sales or operations, which of the below team leaders do you resonate with more?
Team leader #1 “I encourage my team to prioritize putting out fires and keeping the customer happy. Worst case, I can jump in to help. We always find the time and resources to figure it out.”
Team leader #2 “Fires happen, but we have the systems in place to efficiently deal with them without wasting time and resources, all while keeping the customer confident in our work.”
When it comes to your company's growth, which team leader are you?
Team leader #1 “Our business grows when we work our ass off to make it happen. If we find more people who can keep up, we’ll achieve our company goals.”
Team leader #2 “Our business grows when we identify steps in our processes that have a compounding impact when optimized. We’re already on track to achieve our company’s goals.”
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As a team leader or business owner, you may not prioritize documenting processes when it feels like every customer and project has specific needs. Especially when you and your team are experienced enough to adapt to anything thrown your way.
It is important to personalize your solution when the task calls for it. But the problem with always figuring it out as you go, is that you don’t have the time and resources to zoom out past the present fires to see the path to your goals; and if you can’t, your team surely will not either.
You may have the team that can handle the heat, but they’re likely stuck focusing on whatever is urgent, not what will have the most impact on achieving your company’s goals. And good luck training a new hire… no one will have the bandwidth to make sure they stick around!
Is everyone on your team a firefighter? Good. They’ll know what’s required shorten the response time, minimize damage, and spend more time on their real job. Now it's time to consolidate and organize all of their best practices so that everyone can benefit from them.
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Alright, enough of the firefighting analogy... Below are some of the ways I’ve helped companies standardize their systems for incremental impacts that create exponential results.
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Biz Dev and Sales Standardization Documentation – a.k.a. a “Sales Playbook”
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Create a resource that includes your best performing elevator pitches, cold-calling scripts, slide deck templates, sales presentation scripts, CRM guides, and SaaS tool guides for creating automation triggers and workflows
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Identify and document everything needed for a new sale or biz dev person to know exactly how to convert a cold lead to a promoter.
Why is this valuable?
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To identify areas of sales slippage and bottle necks and understand your current constraints growing sales - and create a strategy to breakthrough them. (Read more about simplifying your sales)
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To share best practices from your top performers company-wide and replicate their results.
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To effectively onboard new hires and scale without them making the same mistakes as everyone else.
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To give salespeople the tools, resources, and understanding they need to autonomously close deals.
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To provide your team with clear metrics to determine when they're successful, and you with reporting to understand your team's performance holistically.
Estimating/Quoting and Proposal Standardization
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Automate the process for calculating pricing that you and your team are confident presenting.
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This may include an automatically breakdown of your costs: materials, labour, etc.
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Proposal creation system that is curated to the client’s pain, problem, mission, vision, and the value your solution provides.
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May include the conversion, onboarding and delivery processes and their interconnection amongst roles/departments (that's a system!).​
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Why is this valuable?
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To automate pricing and proposal creation so your team can spend more time with the customer instead of in spreadsheets.
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To understand your costs, opportunities to reduce costs, and profit margin.
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To increase conversions and shorten the sales cycle.
Customer Journey and Marketing Standardization – a.k.a. a “Marketing Playbook”
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A consolidated place for all fonts, graphics, colour codes, logos, brand patterns, elevator pitches, key client testimonials, and your brand’s mission and values.
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Identifying and documenting the ideal and alternative customer journeys
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Process documentation and best practices to…
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create a blog that your market gets value from reading
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post to social media accounts
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write newsletters
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any ongoing marketing activities
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Why is this valuable?
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To create consistent and compelling content and copy that converts, nurtures, and provides value.
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To identify where content creation can be automated, and where it makes sense to outsource.
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To track and analyze the results of all marketing activities to better prioritize your efforts.
Operations and Production Standardization: Document exactly how your company executes...
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This will vary significantly depending on your industry. My experience includes SaaS, a variety of software, e-commerce, IoT, AI/ML, facilities management, architectural lighting, aviation, and mobile applications. Book a no obligation call with me to discuss if it makes sense to work together: 30-min intro meeting.
As for team leaders at the beginning, I think it’s important be both types of leader! Just taking the time and resources to become a type #2 systemized team leader, will make being a type #1 hustling team leader easier.
Book a no obligation call with me now: 30-min intro meeting.
Kind regards,
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Josh
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