Last week I asked the question......would your business survive if you were in a car accident and unable to communicate for 3 weeks or worse still 3 months. I hope over the past week you have had a chance to think about the things you need to change in your business in order to survive.

So what are some of those things you can implement or change now.....

The 1st place to start is documented processes and procedures. Every business should have these. And I'm not just talking about the procedures that you have to have in your Industry from a compliance perspective. I'm talking about everything. From the way the telephone is answered & appointments booked, information collected to what should be done with new enquiries and even how to do the jobs.

Over the last 2 years I've harped on about systemising and automating your processes.....well this is not just to ensure you are being efficient but it's also relevant to your survival. The more automated your system the easier it is for someone else to jump in and keep things running.

So what are the steps to documenting your processes and procedures?

  1. Step 1 is to work on a list of everything that is done in your business.
  2. Step 2 is to document the systems/software you use in your business
  3. Step 3 is to take that list and then work on a list of processes & procedures that need to be written around your jobs
  4. Step 4 is to start documenting

Now everyone is different when it comes to the way in which they learn. Gone are the days where you need to have detailed procedures that take hours to read & don't really explain exactly how to complete a task.

You can now download Jing (www.techsmith.com/jing) and record your screen movements showing exactly how to complete a job. You could take your video camera and have someone explain exactly how to complete something or record an actual meeting with clients & upload the video as a how to in your database. If part of your work involves if this happens to do this then you could try something like Gliffy (www.gliffy.com) to help map out the steps in your process.

If you have trouble brainstorming or listing everything out you do try using a tool like mindmeister (www.mindmeister.com) or alternatively just get one of your team to follow you around for a week and document everything that you do. You will be surprised at the outcome.

So the 1st thing to do to ensure your business will survive is to start documenting.