The end of the year is quickly approaching and you might be reflecting on the goals you set for yourself. What were they? Increased profits? Increased efficiency and productivity? Better client and team communication? Implementing SOPs?
If any (or all) of these were goals you set for yourself, then you’re definitely setting some big goals – and I applaud that! Bravo! Without big goals, you can’t achieve big things!
But you may also be sitting here reflecting and thinking, “Wow! I didn’t accomplish half of what I wanted to because I was too busy working IN my business…not on it.”
And that’s something I hear often.
So you’re in good company.
And that’s why I created my T.A.P.P. Framework – a.k.a. Your Operations Blueprint.
And with Q4 still to go, it’s not too late to accomplish some of those 2022 goals – or even get a head start on 2023 – especially if you use my T.A.P.P. Framework to help.
So let’s break down this Operations Blueprint and see what you can take away to help you and your business!
T – Tools/Workflows
The “T” in my T.A.P.P. Framework stands for “Tools/Workflows” and this is the part of the blueprint that’s designed to make you more efficient, more productive, and give you back the time you want (and deserve) to do the things you want.
There are 6 key areas that I focus on with my clients:
- Outline your core offerings: Are your core offerings locked down? Do you know exactly what you’ll deliver to your clients? Do you have pricing established? If not, you need to do this NOW!
- Map out client onboarding, client management, and client offboarding: Do you have SOPs in place for these things? You probably have an established onboarding and offboarding process, and with solidified core offerings, you can also create SOPs for your core offerings.
- Review current tools: Looking for gaps, redundancies, and opportunities: Tools should make your life easier – not more difficult. So spend some time reviewing the tools you have to make sure they’re doing what you need.
- Recommend and set up tools: If new tools are needed – or there are no tools/limited tools in place, now is the time to find solutions that will work based on your needs.
- Create templates: Do you send the same email every time a new client comes on board? Do you send the same proposal for your core service offerings? Then templates are your friend! They’ll save you time and energy and keep you from reinventing the wheel each time a new client comes to you.
- Set up automations: Once you’ve got tools and templates, it’s time to set up some automations to make things even easier!
A – Agency Communication
Agency Communication is important to any business that has a team – and that’s why it’s the “A” in my blueprint.
The four focus areas here are:
- Streamline and improve the effectiveness of internal meetings: Whether it be team meetings or one-on-one meetings, making sure your team communication is on-point is crucial for a successful business. As a business and operations expert, I can help you with this so that meetings are more productive for everyone.
- Improve team collaboration on projects: Are you and the team working out of emails, Slack, Google, Dropbox, and maybe even your desktop? When this is the case, it makes collaboration difficult, but there are solutions that can be easily implemented to help.
- Remove bottlenecks in workflows caused by gaps in project knowledge or client familiarity: What does your team look like? Do you have a few full-time employees, maybe a couple of contractors, and a VA? If so, your team is like a lot of teams I work with – and, while each of your team members most likely has their areas of expertise – it can make working on client projects difficult if everyone is “off doing their own thing.” But when you make your project management tool the hub of your business, you can eliminate the bottlenecks and project gaps – meaning a better work experience for your team and happy clients because you’re delivering an A+ experience.
- Create and train business standards and expectations: It’s important that the team knows what your standards and expectations are – and this doesn’t happen if they don’t know about them!
P – People
Your team – your “People” are the backbone of your business. They are what makes your business run. Without them, client work doesn’t happen. But it’s important that we’re always assessing what’s going on with our team. I like to:
- Look for gaps in training and create a training plan when needed: Whether it be a new tool you’re introducing or a new SOP that’s being implemented for onboarding, training team members is always a good idea. It makes them feel included and part of the process.
- Identify gaps or redundancies in the team: Part of being efficient is identifying gaps and redundancies and making changes to correct them.
- Create consistency in the client experience team members deliver: Do you want emails to clients returned within 24 hours? Who has the responsibility for sending over the client deliverables? When the team knows the answers to questions such as these, you can create a client experience that’s second to none.
- Understand workload and capacity: Who’s got so much on their plate right now that they can’t even take a break for lunch? And who’s got some extra time while they wait for a client to review a project? When you know where your team is at with their workload, you can make informed decisions on whether it’s the right time to onboard a new client or shift some work to that capable contractor on your team.
P – Project Management
The final letter in the T.A.P.P. Framework is “P” for “Project Management” – and this is a HUGE part of your business. After all, without client projects – you have no business.
When you get to this stage of the operations blueprint, I want to:
- Create a high level view of the business and team projects: Doing this will allow you, as a business owner, to see what’s happening with your business. From who’s coming on board as a new client to what stage various projects are in, you need to know what’s happening.
- Look for and eliminate scope creep: Ah, the dreaded scope creep. It happens to everyone. But what starts off as a one-off nice thing you did for a client, can lead to repeated asks for things – which means you’re losing valuable time and money.
- Create boundaries with clients and team members: Everyone – clients and team members – need to know what the boundaries are. If emails won’t be answered after 5 pm or on the weekends – let’s share that.
- Write and implement a client communication SOP: Client communication is crucial for the client experience – and it’s essential that everyone on the team knows when and how to respond to client needs. An SOP can help with that.
- Implement and monitor time tracking: If you’re not monitoring and tracking time, how do you know if projects are being completed on time and on budget? You don’t. Which means you could be losing money.
- Streamline offers: Once you’ve got core service offerings established, you always want to review and streamline them. There may be things that need to be added or deleted to make the offering better – therefore, helping you and your clients.
- Increase productivity through automation and efficiencies: Yes, becoming more efficient and implementing automations will make you more productive – and now is the time to do it – because the work has been done to make your operations the best they can be!
Now, if you read this and thought, “Whoa! This seems like a lot to do!” – you’re not wrong. It is a lot. But with the help of a good project manager, many of the things can be taken off your to-do list and put on theirs. Because a capable project manager should have the expertise to help you with all of these things.
If you’d like to learn more about how I assist business owners as an operations consultant and project manager, helping them implement my T.A.P.P. Framework, let’s talk. I’d love the opportunity to learn about your business and the pain points you are currently experiencing. You can schedule a call by going to: https://melissavmorris.as.me/discoverycall