When establishing system benchmarks, it’s best to stick to the essentials. Leave room for common sense and avoid the clutter of excess detail about process.
This blog entry will review the nine steps we use to actually design business systems for our clients. These steps were originally created by e-Myth, but we use a similar strategy, or system, when advising our clients:
most managers only measure outputs, not inputs, which is like telling a Little League team to score more runs, rather than actually explaining how to swing a bat and make contact with the ball. Similarly, most companies measure traffic, revenue or earnings, without considering how to improve the company at an atomic level: how to make a meeting better, or an engineer more productive.
One of the primary reasons that the strategic planning process fails is because the plan is written and then set aside to gather dust. Once the plan is created, it needs to be communicated to the parties involved in its success. Provide metrics that align with the expectations for the plan’s outcome
The litmus test for each of your strategic objectives is that it has to meet each of these five criteria. If the objective fails to meet one or more of these criteria, then either assess it to determine if it is truly strategic, or revise it to make it more specific, measurable, actionable, realistic, and time bound.
In addition to checking the data accuracy and closing the books, you should think about and plan for the up-coming year. Be sure your tax objective is aligned with your business goals.
All too often we see people over plan and make no progress, as opposed to measure how their plan is working and make the necessary changes to the plan as conditions change
In the last blog post we talked about creating an operating budget. This is a blueprint of your operations to help you chart the growth
Every aspect of your operation needs to be structured and documented so the results are predictable and the knowledge needed to execute is captured, clear, and transferrable. Systems should be created to provide repeatable results; rinse and repeat is the key.
To outsource or not to outsource…that is the question. If you find running payroll, tracking AP and AR, and being responsible for the multitude of routine accounting functions is a drain on your resources rather than being an asset to your business, you might consider hiring an experienced, reputable accounting service
Employee performance measurement can help you understand how your employees are developing and contributing to your business using quantitative metrics.