Last Updated on October 30, 2024 by Owen McGab Enaohwo

Stephanie Chavez was determined to enhance operations at Zen Media when she resumed her role as chief marketing officer. Having previously worked at the organization for five years, she was familiar with the territory. They had business processes to work with, but the processes were all over the place. Employees had to sort out their own processes, causing disorganization and a lack of uniformity. Stephanie understood the need for a more structured workflow for the company to achieve its goals as a team.

Her search for an effective workflow tool came to an end when she discovered SweetProcess. She tells us how using the software has helped the organization to create a standard knowledge base and streamline its operations.

About Zen Media

Zen Media is a public relations (PR) firm specialized in the tech niche. Established in 2009, the organization captures key moments in a brand’s life and turns those moments into the talk of the town.

The new-generation PR agency gives brands their desired level of exposure and ensures that such exposure translates into money. It uses a variety of techniques to measure the performance of its PR campaigns to understand their efficiency and round up the numbers. 

Based in Dallas, Texas, Zen Media has a track record of offering results-driven PR services to B2B and B2C brands around the world. 

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The Biggest Pain Point

Stephanie understood that the efficiency of the workers at Zen Media was never in question when she resumed her role as their CMO. The company had a series of great products that catered to their clients’ needs well, but they lacked operational structure underneath this great performance. 

“We were always producing great products and doing a great job for our clients, that wasn’t debatable. What was debatable was the ‘how can we streamline?’ and so that was really one of the first things that I noticed.”

In the absence of a central knowledge base, employees relied on tribal knowledge to get by. There was little that could be done when the people who knew how to perform certain tasks were indisposed, holding the organization hostage. 

“What happens if one of the employees is out or sick? Every client is a little bit different—the way we research their content topics and their hashtags and whatnot, they are all different.” 

Discovering SweetProcess From a Reliable Source 

Having noticed the structural gap in the organization, Stephanie was keen on finding the right system to resolve the problem. She found her answer when she attended a marketing class organized by a friend on LinkedIn. He recommended SweetProcess as an effective tool for streamlining business operations, and she checked it out. 

“Anthony talked about SweetProcess and I thought, well I’m going to check that out, and it’s been really wonderful. I have each department go through it and we have a list of all the things that they do that are repeatable each month so that I can make sure, ‘Hey what did you put in this month? Let’s run through it and make sure it makes sense to everyone.’”

Although Stephanie had confidence in Anthony’s recommendation due to his expertise in processes, she had to try out SweetProcess herself, and the system proved itself useful. 

“Since the recommendation came from him, I felt confident that he knows what he’s talking about. He does this for IBM, so clearly he’s done this for years, so I trusted his recommendation. But honestly, I hadn’t seen anything like this before. I had looked at other software platforms in hopes of doing this, but it wasn’t really the right match. I was a little lost in my journey but then again as Anthony mentioned it, I went to it and said, ‘Yes, this is exactly what we need.”

How SweetProcess Raised the Bar at Zen Media

Zen Media had the initiative to scale at the time Stephanie came on board. She had a huge role to play in the scaling process as the CMO, and streamlining their operations was part of achieving that goal. 

Let us find out how SweetProcess facilitated the growth at Zen Media.

1. Employee onboarding and training

Hiring more employees is necessary as a business grows because there is more work to be done. Bringing the new hires up to speed with the processes and procedures in the organization is a tasking activity that many organizations grapple with. The team at Zen Media now enjoys a seamless onboarding process thanks to SweetProcess. Rather than going through a rigorous onboarding process, they simply direct new employees to the standard operating procedures in the system to get all the information they need about their duties.  

“When we hire new interns or we hire new employees, I send them to a whole bunch of the SweetProcess steps that we have and I just send in the email, link it, and say watch all these, go through these processes, and that’s the very first onboarding process.”

Employee training on SweetProcess is not a one-off. Both new and established team members can always go back to the system if they are in doubt of any process or procedure.

2. Quality control and assurance 

Achieving desired results at the workplace is more feasible when team members operate on the same level and produce consistent results. Beyond creating uniformity in organizational output, quality assurance helps to win customer trust and loyalty as the customers are sure of getting great results repeatedly. SweetProcess has helped the team to work consistently as a team rather than working individually. 

“It helps from a consistency perspective because everyone might be doing something a little bit differently and I think it’s really hard to scale. Think about McDonald’s: if everyone in every franchise was making their hamburgers a little bit different, it wouldn’t be McDonald’s because you couldn’t expect the same thing every time…. By having everyone on the same page with SweetProcess, they can have a more efficient and predictable result.”

3. Standard Knowledge Base

Productivity in the workplace often relies on employees’ efficiency. Team members are held accountable for the specific tasks under their watch and problems arise when certain employees are not available to perform tasks delegated to them. The workflow is halted, and the waiting game begins. 

Stephanie and her team do not have such a problem as a result of using SweetProcess. They have created a knowledge base in the system that contains all processes in their organization. Anyone with authorized access can step into the shoes of an absentee team member and get the job done by simply accessing the steps outlined in SweetProcess. 

“You’re doing things well but there’s no hub to go to and send people to… I have been making a process for each step in SweetProcess so that if Brandy happened to be out, Natalie could easily pick up and keep moving forward so that there’s no gap.”

The Next Big Goal of Generating High Sales

There is so much in store for Zen Media going forward. The team is focusing on increasing their sales and they are using streamlined processes to measure their performance. It suffices to say that SweetProcess is an integral part of the project. 

“If team members are all doing their own thing then you can’t really measure what’s working and what’s not. From a sales development perspective, I think it’s really important.”

Advice for Streamlining Business Operations

If you are looking to streamline your business operations, Stephanie has the following firsthand advice for you.

“SweetProcess is definitely a great tool for that. As I said, I did some research before and none of the platforms met the requirements I was looking for.”

• Pick the right tool—she recommends SweetProcess. 
• Work closely with your team. 
• Write out every repetitive task that team members perform.
• Create a single process for each task.
• Delegate the task of creating processes to team members. 
• Evaluate each process created with the entire team.

Take the Initiative

Adopting SweetProcess in Zen Media has helped the organization to scale up and streamline its operations—both team members and customers are enjoying the benefits of using the system.

Here is your chance to replicate the same results in your business. Sign up for a 14-day free trial of SweetProcess to check out if the system is right for you. No credit card is required.