How to Improve and Streamline Your Business Processes

Speaker 1: Welcome to the Process Breakdown Podcast where we talk about streamlining and scaling operations of your company, getting rid of bottlenecks, and giving your employees all the information they need to be successful at their jobs. Now, let’s get started with the show.

Dr. Jeremy Weisz: Dr. Jeremy Weisz here host of the Process Breakdown Podcast, where we talk about streamlining and scaling operations of your company, getting rid of bottlenecks and giving your staff everything they need to be successful at their job. Past guests include David Allen of Getting Things Done, Michael Gerber of The E Myth and many, many more. I was talking to Brandon, John Warrillow, Built To Sell. There’s so many good ones. Check out other episodes. They’re great. And this episode is brought to you by SweetProcess.

Dr. Jeremy Weisz: If you’ve had team members ask you the same questions over and over, and it’s the 10th time you spent explaining this… Brandon, you could totally relate to this. There’s a better way, and Brandon is going to talk about that better way because he actually helps implement this. But people use this software, SweetProcess, that makes it drop dead easy to train and onboard new staff, save time with existing staff. Universities use it. Banks and hospitals use it, software companies.

Dr. Jeremy Weisz: And then actually, Owen, the founder, was telling me that there’s first responder government agencies that use it in life or death situation. So I was like, “Well, Owen, I’m going to mention that because that’s pretty cool.”

Dr. Jeremy Weisz: So use SweetProcess to document all the repetitive tasks that eat up your time, and to focus growing your team. So there’s a 14-day free trial, no credit card required. It’s SweetProcess, sweet like candy, S-W-E-E-T, process.com.

Dr. Jeremy Weisz: I’m excited to talk to today’s guest and introduce you to Brandon Turner. He’s founder of Procedure Sheets, and they help businesses build and make scalable business processes, because what they’re doing is they help create jobs and they help you get your time back as a business owner, which is what we want to do. So basically he helps owners, managers, and teams document all these processes so they can delegate them and remove bottlenecks to get their time back.

Dr. Jeremy Weisz: You can go to getsopscom. That’s S-O-P-S, and proceduresheets.com. Brandon, thanks for joining me.

Brandon Turner: Thank you for having me, appreciate it, love being here.

Dr. Jeremy Weisz: You put this and implement it for people. So like, okay, drop dead. This [inaudible 00:02:25] easy button. Okay. Just document this. So we can hand it to my team to actually do to remove the bottlenecks. We are talking about what does this boil down to? What’s the background behind this?

Dr. Jeremy Weisz: And it kind of boils down to the 80/20 rule in a sense. If people don’t know, I’ll let you explain the 80/20 rule and how this kind of comes into play.

Brandon Turner: 80/20 rule, simply put, you can think about it as 80% of your results will come from 20% of your efforts. This is going to apply to every area of life. But specifically in business, it breaks down into a few areas, such as maybe thinking about your client base or your customer base who are the 20% of clients that give you 80% of your headaches. And if you wanted to flip that coin, maybe think about who are the 20% of clients that you love to work with, or the 20% of customers that are the lowest maintenance and make it easier for you to do what you do and they understand your processes and they understand your flow and your rhythm. Those are the areas where you can focus your energy instead of having to be spread out so much. So it’s like, how do I get it down to my 20%, whatever that may be?

Dr. Jeremy Weisz: So how does the 80/20 rule relate to SOPs or business procedures or freeing up the time?

Brandon Turner: So if you think about one of the things that I’ve explained to folks sometimes when we describe what we do, with dealing with SOPs, is think about your processes as recipes for your business. They have ingredients, amounts and instructions. If your recipes are documented as SOPs, you can hand those SOPs to anyone and get the same dish every single time.

Brandon Turner: Well, while somebody else is making your dish just the way you make it, now you get that time back and you can go spend it on something that makes you more productive or maybe something else that fulfills you. Taking it outside the business, it’s like hanging out with your family, traveling, whatever. Or maybe if it’s in the business, maybe you’re a better suited to do a specific task that you could not do because you’re too busy making this other dish.

Dr. Jeremy Weisz: So where should people start? Where like, “Okay. Brandon, I want more hours of the day back?” where should they start?

Brandon Turner: I would recommend performing a little exercise and you can perform this exercise either weekly or monthly, depending on what industry you’re in and what your situation is. So this exercise, I call it “Do it. Delegate it. Do away with it.”

Brandon Turner: At the end of this exercise, you will have three lists. You will have the classic to-do list that we’re familiar with. You will also have a to-delegate list, and then you will have a to-do-away-with list.

Brandon Turner: Here’s how you go through this exercise and brief. So when you are presented with an activity, something you have to do in your business, ask yourself three questions. The first question you ask yourself is, will I enjoy doing this? That’s a personal thing. It can determine where you’re going to direct your energy, of course, where you may be the best, it may be a strength for you. But if you ask yourself, will I enjoy doing this activity? That can be the first filter that you go through.

Dr. Jeremy Weisz: I’ll give you an example, Brandon. So I was talking to a friend the other day and I’m like, “What are you doing?” He’s like, “Well, I am building this thing at my house.” I go, “That sounds like a nightmare. I would never want to do that.” And he’s like, “I love doing it.”

Dr. Jeremy Weisz: So, like you said, it would be something I would delegate because I do not want to do it, but he chose to do it because he enjoys doing it. It’d be my worst nightmare to spend four hours putting something like that together. Anyways. Keep going.

Brandon Turner: Absolutely. And completely applicable to your business. So of course you doing the exercise and him doing the exercise, you have different results already. Okay.

Brandon Turner: So let’s say it’s not something that you enjoy doing. The second question you want to ask yourself is, is it income generating? Why that matters, of course, we should all know because cashflow, sales, revenue are the lifeblood of our businesses.

Brandon Turner: Typically, if you’re the one in charge or the owner or the founder, or the main manager or management team, it’s probably best to focus your energies on the income generating activities of the business while you delegate out the menial tasks. I don’t mean to belittle certain tasks. Not everything’s menial, but maybe you’re spending too many plates at the time and you just need to be focused on one specific area. So is this an income generating activity? That would be my second question.

Brandon Turner: If you don’t enjoy doing the task and it’s not income generating, the third and final question you can ask yourself, is, is this an obligation? Do I have to do this to move this client relationship forward? Do we have to do this in order to establish this relationship with this new vendor? Do we have to do this in order to make sure the wheels don’t fall off of our operation?

Brandon Turner: Once you filter through those three questions, you’ll be able to start filling out your to-do list, to-delegate list and to-do-away-with lists. We can use an example. Let’s say you’re a hairdresser and maybe you’ve brought in a couple of other hairdressers. They have booths inside of your shop. You are a head dresser, but you’re also the owner of the business. Maybe you’re better suited to do some other activities. You want to grow. You want to get out to the community and talk to people. Maybe you’re doing some interviews. Maybe you’d like to be interviewed by the local newspaper or something like that. You’re not able to do this because your hands are always on clients’ heads when maybe you can just delegate this out to your other hairdressers.

Brandon Turner: So let’s say that you run through the exercise. Do I enjoy hairdressing? Yes, but I can’t do these other things. Okay. Is hairdressing income generating? Well, it leads to the client paying me, but I mean the actual receiving of the money, of the payment for the hairdressing, maybe it’s not necessarily tied together like that. So, okay, the last thing I ask, is it an obligation? Well, yes, the hair has to get done. Otherwise, we have no business. So then maybe this is something I can put on my to-delegate list. Maybe that’s something that I can just have one of my other girls or other guys do, and then I can move on to these other areas.

Brandon Turner: So it’s kind of a long-winded answer to your question, but it’s not an easy conclusion.

Dr. Jeremy Weisz: Yeah. So in the exercise, you categorize them, do it, delegate it or do away with it. So in the case of the three questions, will I enjoy it? If someone says no, well, you need to think is it income generating. And also if it is income generating, well then, is it something that you have to delegate? So any of the no ones, you may be consider doing it because maybe it’s ultra important or maybe you’re the only one with that skillset in the company at the time. But if it’s no, you have someone, like you said, in the hairdresser, well, if it’s income generating, you could still delegate it if you have someone in your company that you can delegate it to. Or you think of, well, maybe that’s an exercise of maybe I need to get someone to delegate it to as well.

Dr. Jeremy Weisz: But let’s say it’s yeah. So I will do it. Will I enjoy it? And let’s say it’s yes.

Brandon Turner: Yes.

Dr. Jeremy Weisz: Then what? You still then ask, is it income generating? And if it’s no, then you may not want to be doing it potentially?

Brandon Turner: Yes. So for example, you say, yes, it is something you enjoy. And then you ask is this income generating because you could be doing something you enjoy that could be sucking away from other areas of the business or some of the businesses or some of the needs and other areas of the business. We can’t always see that. Sometimes we’re so immersed in what we do when we love what we do so much, that we can’t see the forest for the trees. This is why another reason you want to surround yourself with a team, if you can, at least mentors or somebody so that they can say, “Hey, we get that you’re really good at this. You love it. But these areas are suffering or this is suffering over here. Maybe you might consider delegating this.”

Brandon Turner: Maybe you still want to do some of it if your business is like hairdressing, or maybe you’re baking pies, you own a bakery or something, and you love baking the pies, but well, is it necessarily income generating for you to be doing that specific thing?

Brandon Turner: So, yes, you still ask yourself those other questions. But the whole idea, of course, is that to get to your 20% that you need, you still have to run through all of those filters. You could enjoy it, but maybe it doesn’t make any money for your business. It could be income generating, but it’s not really something you necessarily need to do. Maybe it’s a service that you offer that people like, but you don’t necessarily need to do it in order for them to still come in your doors or to do business with you. So-

Dr. Jeremy Weisz: Or something may be, Brandon, I guess, that there could be something that’s more income generating. So in the case of the hairdresser, they may like doing hair. It may be somewhat income generating, but them going to local news would create even more income than them doing someone’s hair. So I guess, they have to think of, there something more income generating that I could be doing with that same time?

Brandon Turner: That’s exactly right. Yes, absolutely.

Dr. Jeremy Weisz: Then, so that’s the do it piece. The delegate, that people have a hard time delegating.

Brandon Turner: Yes. Yes.

Dr. Jeremy Weisz: So what do you tell people? You sit them down in a chair, “Listen, business owner”-

Brandon Turner: Been there.

Dr. Jeremy Weisz: “You need to delegate this.” I don’t know how do you go about that conversation? Maybe someone’s listening to this and their boss or their business partner. They need to have that conversation. How do you approach that conversation of when you think or you know that this is not the best use of your time?

Brandon Turner: Right out of the gate, you would expect the conversation starts with the X’s and O’s. It’s like, okay, yeah. So to delegate this, we need to make sure we’ve got some documentation and we can onboard the person and train them.

Brandon Turner: But that conversation doesn’t start with the X’s and O’s. What I found is that it starts with the psychological piece. It starts with the emotional piece. I can’t trust anybody else to do this. I’m the best at this. There’s so many of those. So many of us have been through that, been that person, known that person.

Dr. Jeremy Weisz: I know someone, Brandon, who says [crosstalk 00:13:01] as well.

Brandon Turner: [crosstalk 00:13:03]

Dr. Jeremy Weisz: I know someone else knows.

Brandon Turner: Okay. Yes. Okay, good. There, yeah. So you know something about this. But it’s that conversation and that internal dialogue where I can’t delegate this because nobody else can do it right. Or if I hand this to somebody else, what if they mess up? Now I have a fire to put out.

Brandon Turner: So you have to start, at that point, the psychological, emotional component. What needs to happen in order for you to trust somebody else to do this on your behalf? Maybe this project or this entire business is your baby. Okay. Do you want to see this baby grow and walk on its own? Yes. Okay. Is there a reason that it’s not walking on its own already? Well, I’m doing the best I can or our team is doing the best we can. Okay. But what if you tried something a little bit different? What if you made the change and decided maybe we should bring another voice in? Maybe we should bring another pair of hands in and let go for a minute and see how it goes?

Brandon Turner: It really comes down to a trust issue. So I would say you start that conversation with… This is kind of a journey. This journey can happen in a 20 minute conversation, or maybe it takes months. But you’re trying to help that person go from I don’t trust anybody else to do this to I’m willing to let somebody handle this while I step back. Don’t give it to them. Don’t delegate it and then take it back from them saying, “Okay, I want you to do this for me.” “Cool. Okay. So I’m on it.” “Wait, don’t do it quite like that. Change this and this and this.” Don’t give it and take it back. You have to be comfortable with handing it to somebody and then just letting them go with it.

Dr. Jeremy Weisz: What’s interesting about that, Brandon, is I feel that people will resist handing it off and they don’t know why. what I think you’re saying is it’s mostly coming… Because they may not say I don’t trust someone else to do it. Some people will be that conscious of it, but I think some people resist it and they don’t know why they’re resisting it. I think if you bring it to the forefront, I think you just don’t have a set pro… You don’t trust someone, and you don’t trust someone because you don’t have a set recipe for it. I think people would mostly agree with that.

Brandon Turner: Yes. And there are several experiences that we’ve had with clients in that respect. There was a client that we work with in 2018. They’re a digital marketing agency. They lost their account manager, their sole account manager, responsible for all 20 of their accounts. They brought us in and we basically had to rebuild the account management position because the only person that had the knowledge of how to manage the accounts was the owner.

Brandon Turner: So we’re in this eight-hour training class on a Friday. Eight hours the owner does not have having to retrain this new flock of people to go take over this role. It’s like, well, this is a great opportunity for us to write your recipes for handling account management.

Dr. Jeremy Weisz: That could be the best thing that ever happened to them. Unfortunately, at the time, they didn’t feel that way, but when that happened, it allowed you to come in and make a replicatable process.

Brandon Turner: Exactly. Yes. This is why I use the recipe analogy when I’m speaking to folks that maybe don’t know the term SOP or documentation, things like this. There are business owners who have vocabularies that are larger than others. Some business owners don’t know the term process or procedure or SOP, and they need to know those terms. So that’s why I say recipe.

Brandon Turner: So I was like, you’re in the kitchen. You’re making all of the dishes yourself. You’ve got these other sous chefs coming in and they could help, but they’re doing it wrong. Or you say, “Okay, I need you to go make this dish.” But you left out this ingredient. What’s the story?

Brandon Turner: I was like, well, can you write out the recipe for us just like we see in recipe books that we buy off the shelf? Just like we see on YouTube videos if we want to download a recipe there? Can you just document it for us?

Brandon Turner: In our language, of course, that’s an SOP.

Dr. Jeremy Weisz: Right.

Brandon Turner: And then that, of course, will make it easier to delegate because like, Oh, I just wrote out how it works in my head. I just wrote out what the outcome’s supposed to be. Let me hand this to you. Okay, cool. I can’t miss.

Dr. Jeremy Weisz: So we have do it, delegate, and then to do away with. We’ll talk about to do away with, but I want to stop for a second on the delegate. I have two t-shirt ideas for you.

Brandon Turner: Okay. Let’s go.

Dr. Jeremy Weisz: Okay. I feel like when you have that delegate conversation, you should have a t-shirt that says you’re the bottleneck and hand it to them on it. Just to start the conversation, you’re like, “Yeah, no. Got SOPs?” Question mark, [crosstalk 00:17:44]. So you’re the bottleneck. You give it to them and you’re like, “We’re going to have a conversation with delegation today.”

Brandon Turner: Yes. Yes. That’s beautiful. Yes.

Dr. Jeremy Weisz: You could steal that one. The delegate piece, where do you start? So you meet with them. Okay. You’re with the business owner. You’re the easy button, right? So where do you start? I have this whole business, where do I start in what to actually create that first SOP with?

Brandon Turner: So once you’ve made the decision of what you’re going to delegate, what we ask you to do is record yourself performing the work. And by record, I literally mean let’s say that the task or the duty that you need to perform is on your computer. Well, we’ll ask you to do is record your screen. Let’s say that the task or duty you need to perform involves carrying a file from one office to your colleague downstairs and the next office. We would have somebody follow you with a camera and watch you hand the file to them, open up the file, show us what’s inside it.

Brandon Turner: Then, what we do is we take those recordings. You submit them to us. We take those recordings and transcribe them into written SOPs. Which, of course, if you use Sweet Process, it would be a digital SOP. So we just load it in Sweet Process for you and do that. Or if you’re using something like a Google Drive or a Dropbox, we’ll just load it in there for you.

Brandon Turner: But we take recordings of your processes, video and audio recordings of your processes and transcribe them into process documentation. This documentation can take the form of a flow chart and SOP, a whiteboard video, whatever format is palatable and digestible for your team or somebody else.

Dr. Jeremy Weisz: Got it. So you’ve Sweet Process before. What was the reason you started using it? What did you like about it?

Brandon Turner: It began because I wanted to use it internally because my thing is because of the business that we’re in, it didn’t make sense for me not to eat my own cooking. How am I going to go in and help you systematize your business or have my team document your processes if I’m not doing it for us? So I-

Dr. Jeremy Weisz: Right. It’s like cowboy shoes or however that saying goes.

Brandon Turner: Yes.

Dr. Jeremy Weisz: Kids have no shoes or whatever it is. Yeah. You don’t want to be like that.

Brandon Turner: I don’t. No thank you. So I go in and-

Dr. Jeremy Weisz: I don’t even know what a cobbler is, if that’s [crosstalk 00:20:06] .

Brandon Turner: Well, I mean, it’s a-

Dr. Jeremy Weisz: Like a pie maker. No, I’m just kidding.

Brandon Turner: Yes,. I think about the dessert myself, because I love cobbler. So that’s why I went into Sweet Process is because I knew that I needed a central repository for our business’s playbook and the knowledge in our business and the processes and things that we do. This is exactly what our clients need as well.

Brandon Turner: Early on, we had a contractor, a flooring company actually, where we started storing all of their SOPs in Process Street, talking about onboarding things, things of this nature. I was like, so, hey, there you go.”

Brandon Turner: Because it’s not just documenting the processes. We need a place for [inaudible 00:20:48] to go. for those who may be sports fans, excuse me, I use the analogy of a playbook because, of course, your playbook is how you do this and how you do that and when you do this and when you do that. And here’s the outcome when you do this and when you do that. All that stuff, it’s like, well, you need a central place where everybody can access it, but it’s secure and duplicatable.

Dr. Jeremy Weisz: I can’t wait for you to have merch. T-shirts, you should have wristbands with their playbook on it.

Brandon Turner: Yes.

Dr. Jeremy Weisz: [crosstalk 00:21:17]. They flip it up. So do it, delegate it, to do away with. Same thing with delegate, some people resist doing away with. I know even if you have clothes or something. You know you haven’t worn that thing for 10 years. You just need to toss it Or donate it.

Brandon Turner: Yes.

Dr. Jeremy Weisz: So what’s an example of to do away with?

Brandon Turner: We had a client. This was a nonprofit organization. We had a client that constantly, they had a team member that constantly tweaked the website. Now, I’m being modest when I say team member. It was the co-owner. They would constantly be tweaking the website. They would constantly make changes to the font on certain pages of the website, or maybe they didn’t like an image that was on the website, or maybe they wanted to do something with the logo or whatever. This was just a weekly thing. It was probably more excessive than I’m saying, but from our knowledge, it was a weekly thing.

Brandon Turner: Well, these tweaks to the website, the purpose of their website was to attract donors and sponsors. Donors and sponsors need to see specific things on a website for a nonprofit in order to pour into it, in order to be inclined to submit an inquiry or whatever the case may be. They’re not as concerned about how pretty something looks here or whether or not something pops right here. There’s information that they’re looking for.

Brandon Turner: We had to have that tough conversation that did not start with the X’s and O’s. It started with we went through the exercise together and it started with, you should probably stop doing this and here’s the reason because you’re missing out on these opportunities to talk to these people that have requested information about being a donor, or you’re missing opportunities to start working on this task where you’d be better suited. It just became a real big time-waster and energy just sucking out some of the energy in what they were trying to accomplish.

Brandon Turner: So this is the part where when you do the exercise, you’re getting to the point where you’re looking at what can I do away with? There may be some menial stuff, menial tasks. They mean a lot. Internally, they mean a lot to you and maybe they seem very, very important-

Dr. Jeremy Weisz: But they’re pointless.

Brandon Turner: Yes, yes. To put it bluntly.

Dr. Jeremy Weisz: Do you have to have that conversation? Does the other co-owner have that conversation with the person? People can hire you, Brandon, just to have the hard conversations. Like we just need you to tell them they’re doing something’s pointless.

Brandon Turner: Yes. Yes. So if a client or a customer asks us, “Would you please intervene?” We will. We prefer not to impose or put our stamp on something, but we do kind of encourage. It’s best to have that conversation within your culture, within your family of your business and within your team before you bring somebody outside.

Dr. Jeremy Weisz: Yeah. Another tag you could just use is we will have the conversations with the business owner that you don’t want to have.

Brandon Turner: Yes. That’s going on the t-shirt too. Yes.

Dr. Jeremy Weisz: But in that situation, did you have that conversation with the co-owner or did the other co-owner for the hey, stop tweaking the website conversation.

Brandon Turner: We had the conversation together. I had the conversation with the-

Dr. Jeremy Weisz: With the intervention.

Brandon Turner: Yes. It was an intervention. So I had a brief conversation with the co-owner that was not doing it, the other co-owner, had that brief [inaudible 00:25:07] “Would you mind if we sit down with this person and just level with them?”

Brandon Turner: And the reverse has happened where there was an administrative assistant. She was the right hand of the owner of a different business. We had to have that intervention with the owner. I was like, “Okay. Yeah. So here’s what’s going on.” And I felt more comfortable because I had somebody that they trusted like family in the room instead of just-

Dr. Jeremy Weisz: And the vice versa. They probably felt more comfortable because they had a third party in the room. It wasn’t just dumb saying it.

Brandon Turner: Right. Yes.

Dr. Jeremy Weisz: So I think both are very key. It sounds like both are key into having that fruitful conversation.

Brandon Turner: Yes. Yes. It does help tremendously. I wouldn’t recommend just the first party going in there and try to do that.

Dr. Jeremy Weisz: So, Brandon, any last things to talk about? People should listen to this because you really go through a specific question that you should be asking as far as when you’re thinking of do it, delegate it, or to do away with it, and the questions you ask on how you should decide, decision-making tree, essentially on those things. Then, really the psychological pieces. There’s a lot of psychological warfare that’s going on inside of our brain why we shouldn’t be doing this, some of this stuff. So you kind of uncover some of those things. I have a visceral response when you say you just don’t trust… If you are saying those things, I don’t just trust anyone else but myself, that just means you haven’t put a process in place. That’s all it means. It doesn’t mean someone else can’t do it. And I want to point people towards proceduresheets.com and getsops.com. That’s get S-O-P-S.com. If you don’t SOPs are, then you definitely need to call Brandon.

Brandon Turner: Ride on.

Dr. Jeremy Weisz: But what else should we leave people with, the first step they should take towards systemizing? Or anything we haven’t talked about.

Brandon Turner: Certainly. Once you’ve established your three lists, again, your to-do list, your to-delegate list, and you’re to-do-away-with list, the to-do-away-with list is easy. You just toss that stuff. Get to delegating. Start delegating stuff because what’s on your to-do list. You can handle. You can time block those things and set appointments with yourself to perform the stuff on your to-do list, but start delegating stuff.

Brandon Turner: The easiest way to start delegating stuff is to just write down what you do before or after, or while you do it, or you can order our service at getsops.com and we will write your recipes for you and your SOPs for you so that you can just hand them to somebody else. So that’s where I would start.

Dr. Jeremy Weisz: Cool. Thanks, Brandon.

Brandon Turner: Thank you. Appreciate you.

Speaker 1: Thanks for listening to the Process Breakdown Podcast. Before you go, quick question. Do you want a tool that makes it easy to document processes, procedures, and or policies for your company so that your employees have all the information they need to be successful at their job? If yes, sign up for a free 14-day trial of Sweet Process. No credit card is required to sign up. Go to sweetprocess.com, sweet like candy and process like process.com go now to sweetprocess.com and sign up for your risk-free 14-day trial.