Just like the most successful sports teams, businesses that operate consistently and effectively win the game more often. It starts with having all of your top plays and strategies documented in one place so that it’s clear to everyone on the team what they’re doing and how they’re doing it. With a Business Playbook your team stays aligned with your company’s purpose and intention, your people are accountable and your organization is empowered to grow and scale successfully.
What is a Business Playbook?
Business Playbooks contain all the parts and pieces that explain how your company gets things done. Said simply – what you do and how you do it. Business Playbooks include process maps, workflows, standard operating procedures and your core company values that together create a consistent response for your clients and customers. It describes exactly how your business does what it does, right down to each role and responsibility.
When you buy a new car, it comes with a user manual that outlines everything you need to know about how to operate and maintain your vehicle. Just like the user manual for your car, your Business Playbook explains how to run your business. It captures the tribal knowledge that’s hidden within your business and ensures smooth and efficient operations. Unlike the user manual for your car, you have to create your own Business Playbook, including maintaining it as your business grows. You don’t have to be a big business to have a Business Playbook – even small companies and start ups benefit from documenting their processes.
When you’re first starting out, you’re inventing processes as you go and things generally work out as business processes develop organically. But start adding employees to your operation and you’ll quickly hit the limit of organic process development. Your new employees have questions and different ideas on how to do their jobs. You’ll find different employees asking the same questions and often receiving different answers depending on who they ask. Questions like,
How do we onboard new clients?
How do we manage customer complaints?
What’s our refund policy?
Where should I save my files so everyone can access them?
Your Business Playbook is the one-stop shop for your employees to get their questions answered. It’s as much of a training tool as it is an access to streamlining and optimizing your operations. The Business Playbook answers the questions “What do we do?”, “How do we do it?”, “Why do we do it that way?” and “Who does it and when?”. As a Business Owner if you want to remove yourself from the day to day operations of your business, you need a Business Playbook.
Say you run a meal delivery service and you’ve invested in creating a Business Playbook. Your Playbook explains what your company does, why you started the company, what kind of experience you provide your customers and your company mission and values. It covers the major processes involved in collecting customer orders, preparing food, delivering meals and ensuring the best possible customer experience. The Business Playbook contains all the information your employees need to do their jobs effectively and efficiently, covering who is responsible for what, your expectations for communication practices – essentially everything they need to know for how to win the game your business is playing. As a result, your business has grown 20% since you streamlined your processes, your employees are empowered and your customers are raving about your service, further fueling your success.
Why You Need a Business Playbook
Without a playbook, your team is left scrambling to find the information they need to do their jobs and left to fend for themselves when it comes to how to do their jobs. The outcome is wasted time and energy and as many ways to deliver your product or service as you have employees. This creates a disjointed and inconsistent experience for your customers and frustrated employees.
If your organization is currently dealing with bad processes (or no formal processes at all) then you’re familiar with problems that ensue. If you’re trying to grow and scale your business with poor processes, you’re invariably dealing with errors and breakdowns with your customers and employees. Frustration, errors, re-work, late deliveries, low productivity, rising costs – all of these experiences undermine the success of your business and your confidence to grow and scale your operation. Having well defined, repeatable and scalable processes boosts your bottom line. You decrease the amount of time spent on training new hires, empower your employees, save time and money and ensure a consistent customer experience. In short, you’re set up to succeed.
To scale any business successfully, regardless of the size or industry, you need documented business processes and the systems to support them. Championship winning sports teams have the best players and the best game plans. So why would your business be any different?
Once your team is working from your Business Playbook, you’ll have more time to focus on creative and innovative ideas to expand your business because your employees will be managing the day to day activities instead of you. Stop putting out fires and ignite your pathway to productivity and growth!
How to Create Your Business Playbook
You can do this yourself but if you don’t want to spend months of time creating your Business Playbook off the side of your desk, you should talk with us. We’re process experts and we’ll help you create the foundation for the successful growth of your business with a Business Playbook created in a matter of weeks, not months.
Our process to create your Business Playbook consists of three workshops, which can be held in person or virtually. The workshops are designed to maximize the use of your time, leaving the grunt work to us. You know your business and we know processes.
1. Discovery Workshop – We begin by mapping your Customer Journey, identifying your critical processes and collecting the important information about your business. We build an outline of your completed Business Playbook and create models of your business.
2. Current State Workshop – After completing an inventory of any existing process documentation you already have, we engage with your frontline employees to map out your critical business processes and identify lean process improvement opportunities to streamline your operations. Not only do you get the process documentation you need, but your processes are ultimately left more effective and efficient after this workshop.
3. Future State Workshop – We conclude with the third workshop where we create an easy to implement, customized suite of resources for your business to thrive. We’ll complete all the process documentation including process maps, procedures and checklists and help you execute improvement actions to streamline, optimize and automate your business processes.
Ready to get started? Want to learn more about how it works? Visit our website and book a free Discovery Call to start building the foundation to grow and scale your business with confidence. You can also sign up for our next free webinar – Business Playbooks: Skyrocket Your Productivity and Effectiveness and discover how a Business Playbook will empower your business.
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