The modern world of business is flooded with technology. Whether it is the basics like an email client or complex ERP systems, every company out there is going to have to leverage technology. That is a good thing. We can use technology to spend more time on our business instead of in it. That means better customer service, improved response times, and happier employees. Better yet, those returns do not require an investment that is equivalent to betting the farm on it.
Not all of us are “tech gurus,” and often we do not know where to begin. I am going to give you a crash course in improving your business and steps that can get you going today. These are steps you can take even if you do not know the first thing about technology. They start where you do, your business and what you do best.
Technology gives us ways to do more faster and at a lower cost. However, that is not beneficial if we make mistakes faster, produce more errors, or do any of that at the expense of our customers. Thus, we start with what we are currently doing. Before you can leverage technology, you need to be able to describe what you do in a way that your technical solution will understand. Computers understand black and white, well-defined steps that include all the details you can provide. That is where we begin. There is no cost to taking this first step. You can do it with technology that is no more advanced than a pencil and sheet of paper.
Getting Started
The most important thing a business does is where we will find the biggest “bang for our buck.” Start by describing your most crucial business task in a sentence or two. This is your primary product and what it provides to your customer. Think of it as why your business is in business and why it generates revenue. As an example, my company would start with, “Help companies assess where they can leverage technology best and build a plan to do so.” Your answer doesn’t need to be flashy or polished. The goal is to start with the process that means the most to your business.
Now you need to go down a level and create a list of steps that takes you through the customer’s journey. This list will likely be several steps and may be dozens. Here is an example that can help you get started. Your steps will look different, but maybe the thought process will help you build out yours.
- Identify potential customers
- Contact customers
- Send/provide a pitch that tells a prospect how we will provide them value
- Confirm a sale
- Schedule product/service delivery
- Fulfill order
- Follow up with the customer to confirm successful delivery.
Those steps may seem a bit vague and general. That is ok. We want to keep this at a higher level for now. The next steps are to take one of those identified above and make it our focus. When you list out the steps for your business process, there will likely be one or two that give you the most trouble or cost the most to execute (or both). That is where you want to begin. Take another step down in detail with that step. I will use step 3 above to provide an example. These are the steps we take to send a pitch to a customer.
- Research the customer industry/background and find where the most likely needs are.
- Build out a custom pitch from our core offering.
- Add details to the pitch that personalize it and let them know this is not some inhuman automation.
- Add a proposal and call to action.
- Send the pitch
- Follow up
We are now at a point where we can start leveraging technology. While each of the above steps will have another layer or more of detail, we can take some steps with minimal technology cost. The easiest way to begin is to turn the above into a checklist. You can create a list of prospects. Then, for each one have a checkbox for each of the above steps. You can do this in a spreadsheet or similar tool. Check out Asana or Trello for free options that can help you.
Now you have something that can leverage technology. There are plenty of ways to set up your list so that you have a dashboard of where prospects are, what is the next step, and reminders to ensure no one falls through the cracks. There are plenty of tools available that can provide those features. They can save you time, help avoid mistakes, and get you on a track to an easily reproducible process. That is where you can further automate a process or scale it by handing it off to another employee.
