Process Breakdown Podcast (audio)

On this episode of the Process Breakdown Podcast, the guest speaker David Finkel, an ex-Olympic–level athlete turned multi-million dollar coaching guru, speaks on the mistakes to avoid and gems to use when scaling up, and also on how to effectively streamline your business processes using the Pareto (80/20) principle. He shares how he has used it to provide high value for his company and the companies he works with. 

He also explains how a business can scale up, the mistakes to avoid, and how to implement functioning systems in place by using his proven concept called ultimate business systems (UBS), a concept that saved a financial service company from losing their quarter-million and half a million-dollar clients. 

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Key Resource List:

* The Freedom Formula: How to Succeed in Business Without Sacrificing Your Family, Health, or Life* The Freedom Toolkit 

Show Notes: 

0:10 – Intro.

0:41 – Introducing guest speaker, the CEO of one of the world’s premier business coaching companies, Maui Mastermind and also a Wall Street Journal best-selling author of 11 books.

1:30 – John Corcoran shares the best solution for documenting standard operating procedures (SOPs), making it easy and efficient.

4:10 – The guest speaks on the important business lessons he learned from sports as an ex-Olympic–level athlete.

6:20 – The biggest mistakes companies/businesses make when they are struggling to scale up.

8:30 – The guest speaker talks concisely on how businesses can pick the ideas/tasks to focus on and the ones to streamline by using the Pareto principle, popularly known as the 80/20 principle.

12:55 – An example of how a company can focus on low-value tasks thinking it will generate more revenue; which is false.

13:45 – Where companies fail when trying to implement systems and how to increase productivity by using their tested and proven concept, ultimate business system. 

15:52 – An example of how the guest implemented his systems concept with a real-time company.

17:20 – Lastly, the guest shares how he effectively leverages design and uses systems, procedures, and processes to operationalize his workflow.

23:23 – Outro.

Guest profile:

David Finkel is the CEO and founder of one of the world’s premier business coaching companies, Maui Mastermind, a company that has helped businesses in the $1 million to $50 mill...

Introduction

Having grown his business mostly through the acquisition of similar businesses, Zac Cullen, chief executive officer at Cullen Insurance Agency suffered huge bottlenecks due to inconsistency in operations. The employees from the acquired companies were stuck on their old ineffective processes and did not see the need for a change. The different branches of the organization were operating on different processes, making it hard to achieve a common goal.

As one who understood the importance of having the same processes across the entire business, it was evident to Zac that until the problem was resolved, they would not make headway. He tried a few systems, but none did it for him. There was something missing until he found SweetProcess.

Zac shares his experience on how SweetProcess helped his organization to become a top player in its industry. First, let us get a picture of the organization for a better understanding of their progress.

About Cullen Insurance Agency

Cullen Insurance Agency offers various insurance packages to meet the peculiar needs of private individuals and businesses. A pioneering agency in Southern California with over twenty years’ experience in business, the company has expertise in car insurance, life insurance, motorcycle insurance, business insurance, homeowner’s insurance, etc. Its seasoned staff handles each case with the utmost professionalism in their clients’ best interests. This has earned Cullen Insurance Agency a good reputation in the industry, making it the go-to agency for persons and businesses looking to secure their assets. The agency currently boasts 40 employees.

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The Breaking Point

“The thousandth time you’ve said something when you are just sick and tired of explaining is the first time most people get it,”

Zac says this was a common joke made by managers in his establishment.

Having employees perform their jobs without explanations was a tall order. He and the managers had to go through the painstaking task of explaining things over and over again before making sense. Though tedious, they tried to manage it initially. But as they acquired more businesses and began to operate from multiple locations, they could no longer cope with it.

Everyone was doing things their own way. In their defense, they were operating based on how things had always been done in their various organizations before the acquisition. But that excuse did not hold water. If the acquired businesses were doing so well with their own processes, they would not have been sold off in the first place.

“Most of our growth was through acquisition. We had other agencies we bought that had their own processes. But obviously they weren’t working that well; otherwise, they wouldn’t have sold their agencies.”

One thing was clear to Zac: leaving his employees to continue ...

Introduction

On a mission to build a household clothing brand, Jonathan Harvey, chief operating officer at Neon Buddha, realized that their success was threatened by the inadequacy of their archaic business process documentation. Rather than focusing on channeling the high-level creativity needed to excel in such a competitive industry, employees were struggling with the complex processes in the organization.

Determined to set things right, he embarked on a search for a better business process documentation system, and then he found SweetProcess. Jonathan takes us through their journey to efficiency. Before we proceed, let us have an overview of the company for context.

About Neon Buddha

Neon Buddha is an original work-to-weekend female clothing brand. Established about twenty years ago by Sébastien Sirois, the proudly Canadian company creates a synergy between travel, adventure, and fashion. Travelers can be stylish aboard long flights or train rides en route their destinations. When they are not in transit, they can go about their daily engagements in an array of designs suitable for different occasions.

Offering an inclusive fashion experience to women, Neon Buddha caters to all sizes and shapes. It further empowers women by having an all-female design team in Montreal, Canada. Mirroring its tagline “Express Your Zen,” it is a juxtaposition of expressiveness and calmness. At the moment, it has an employee capacity of 15.

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Missing the Mark

As a fashion brand, Neon Buddha’s workflow involves several processes from idea conception to production and marketing. To service these different aspects, they created a myriad of standard operating procedures (SOPs).

“We are always looking to have as many SOPs as possible. If you want your business to be efficient, having many SOPs for every part is important,”

Jonathan explains.

While the company had a need for many SOPs, it lacked the capacity to manage them effectively. Created in Word documents and Excel sheets, the SOPs were all over the place, making employees scamper around to get the information needed for work.

“Everything was on Excel sheets and Word documents—that’s how we started…We have always been trying to look for a way to put all our SOPs in one place. One day, I started Googling to find a program that is easy to use to put all our SOPs in one place.”

When documented business processes are ineffective, they become liabilities, elongating the workflow, wasting time, and resources. Ultimately, Neon Buddha turned to SweetProcess to solve this problem.

How Neon Buddha Attained Its Turning Point with SweetProcess

Having been in business for about twenty years, Neon Buddha obviously understands the ropes of the fashion business. However,

Introduction

With more than 20 employees working offshore, Lisa Phillips, Group General Manager at Aizer Group, understood the pitfalls of not having standard operating procedures to guide operations. Despite their zeal, there was only so much the employees could do without documents to reference. Without having Lisa around when they needed to ask questions, they risked making grievous mistakes or spending too much time on tasks at the company’s expense. Leveraging technology, Lisa sought out a system that would enable her to guide her employees without necessarily being physically present with them. She explains how SweetProcess was the game-changer and more in this case study. First, let us learn a little bit about Aizer Group to give you an idea of how a similarly sized company can use SweetProcess to improve their remote work and processes.

About Aizer Group

Aizer Group is the product of a merger involving different businesses in the construction and building industry in Australia. Consisting of top players, it is a leading name in recurring and one-off services in the areas of commercial property and facility management.

The company operates in several independent trades including electrical, plumbing, carpentry, air conditioning, painting, plastering, roofing, and cabinetmaking. Each trade boasts of individual sector divisions spearheaded by a manager working closely with a dedicated team. These divisions include insurance rectification, general building, preventive and reactive maintenance, and facility services. It currently has about 110 employees, with more than 20 of them working remotely.

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The Breaking Point

Like many modern businesses, Aizer Group understood the importance of documenting their processes. However, the company used a do-it-yourself (DIY) approach by creating documents with tons of pages to assist their employees in being efficient. Recounting the documentation process, Lisa says:

“It’s just pretty much relying on us mapping out general procedures and policies in black and white writing…20-page documents that really don’t get the behavioral effects that you need for people to do their jobs.”

It was not until they wanted to expand their offshoring staff that they discovered a large hole existed in their business processes all these years. Faced with the challenge of building an effective offshore team for its backend administration, the multiple pages of documents they created over the years did not help. They needed something more.

“We were looking at, what is the best way to actually get all the processes mapped out and used as a training tool as well? That was the driver for us to look at: okay, how are we going to do this so the guys know what they need to do and do it right?”

The fact that a problem is not glaring does not mean that it does not exist – and that it’s not important enough to deal with.

In this episode of the Process Breakdown Podcast, our guest speaker is expert problem-solving and decision-making facilitator Elisabeth Swan. She talks comprehensively about streamlining business processes, a method to reduce waste, and eliminate unnecessary work-related tasks to improve efficiency in the workplace, using her proven DMAIC method. This strategy saved UC San Diego Medical Center four million dollars and is being used in various sectors today.

She explains the process, how to implement it, and shares her all-time favorite process-related and non-process-related books.

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Key Resource List:

* Case Study: “How Lean Six Sigma saved four million at UC San Diego Medical Center,” featuring Lily Angelucci* GoLeanSixSigma.com Resources (blogs, Lean Six Sigma tools, project templates, downloadable guides, webinars and many more )* How to get started with GoLeanSixSigma.com* How Lean Six Sigma Could Make a Huge Difference for Your Business

Show Notes: 

0:10 -> Podcast introduction.

1:00 -> Dr. Weisz shares the best software to use for documenting standard operating procedures (SOPs), making it easy and efficient.

2:03 -> Introduction of guest speaker Elisabeth Swan, the best person to talk to if you want to have a streamlined company and be successful.

3:00 ->The guest speaker talks about two effective problem-solving methods used by Toyota and Motorola that break down a system to reduce deficient and wasteful processes in an organization.

5:10 -> How the company uses belt levels to determine where to start streamlining from. 

6:24 -> Elizabeth talks about her streamlining methodology, DMAIC: A Process that Helped King County Improve Suppliers Record Setup by 52%, Reduced travel expenses approval time by 96%, and saved UC San Diego Medical Center four million dollars. The following time markers cover each part of the DMAIC method:          

8:32 -> D

11:56 ->M

13:12 -> A

17:30 -> I

24:30 -> C

22:10 -> No methodology is perfect and exists without issues. Elizabeth Swan discusses the objection about Six Sigma and how to deal with it. 

26:32 -> Companies that have used the DMAIC method and their results.

*       A pothole repair company*     ...

In this interview, Sandra Yeow Managing Director & Founder of Nucleo Consulting reveals how she removed herself from day to day operations in her business by creating a system that prevents anything from slipping through the cracks.

You will discover how she went from working 16 hours per day to taking multiple vacations per year, and how she created a fair working environment for her employees, how she keeps her employees happy, and much more.

Click the link below to review the show notes and transcript:

http://www.sweetprocess.com/sandra-yeow-removed-day-to-day-operations-business-got-freedom-travel/

In this interview, Justin Eckrich Founder of Appliance Repair Marketing, LLC reveals how he has been able to run his marketing agency business on autopilot and grow it rapidly! You will also discover the business systems he put in place to separate himself from his business so that he can spend his time however he wants.

Click the link below to review the show notes and transcript:

http://www.sweetprocess.com/business-on-autopilot-justin-eckrich-able-run-marketing-agency-grow-rapidly/

In this interview, Jean-Guy Francoeur CEO of Black Card Books reveals specific steps on how to scale a business...you will discover how he grew his business from 0 to $30 million in gross revenue without venture capital. Today, he is able to travel the world and choose how much he wants to work on his business and much more!

Click the link below to review the show notes and transcript:

http://www.sweetprocess.com/how-to-scale-a-business-jean-guy-francoeur-0-30-million-40-months-without-venture-capital/

Are you overwhelmed by how much work you have to do each workday at your company and do you want to discover how to systematize your business?

In this interview, Scott Woodley Co-Founder of Tutora reveals how he went from working until 10PM daily to getting freedom from work by systematizing the operations of his tutoring company.

You will also discover how he built an online platform with over 4,000 tutors across UK.

Click the link below to review the show notes and transcript:

http://www.sweetprocess.com/how-to-systematize-your-business-scott-woodley-went-from-working-10pm-daily-getting-freedom-systematizing-operations-tutoring-company/

Do you feel like you are chained to your company because it cannot run without you? Do you want to create freedom in your business?

In this interview, Christopher M Duncan Founder of M2M Media reveals how he created freedom in his business and made time to do what he loves!

You will also discover the steps he took to systematize his business so he can spend time with his fiancée and friends, travel the world, and have his employees work on his business.

Click the link below to review the show notes and transcript:

http://www.sweetprocess.com/christoper-m-duncan-create-freedom-in-business-made-time-loves-can/