Automate Your Agency

When should I worry about processes?

• Alane Boyd & Micah Johnson • Season 1 • Episode 6

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Knowing when to implement processes in your business is critical; premature focus can hinder growth, while delayed focus can cause burnout and inefficiency. So when should you actually start worrying about your processes? 🤔

In this thought-provoking episode of Automate Your Agency, Alane and Micah discuss the key indicators for finding the process implementation sweet spot. Tune-in to learn how leveraging tools like Loom can make process documentation a breeze and how visual process diagrams can supercharge your team's ability to execute! 🎉

Why Listen? 👇

  • (1:15) Learn When to Start Focusing on Processes
  • (7:02) Explore Creating Effective Processes Through Delegation and Collaboration
  • (11:58) Learn to Optimize Process Documentation with Loom and AI Tools
  • (16:32) Discover How Visual Diagrams Can Help Streamline Your Processes

If you're interested in building process diagrams that drive more knowledgeable and efficient teams, join our Free Process Mapping Course to start creating today. 🚀

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0:00:00 - (Alane): Welcome to automate your agency. Every week we bring you expert insights, practical tips, and success stories that will help you streamline your business operations and boost your growth. Let's get started on your journey to more efficient and scalable operations.

0:00:18 - (Micah): Okay, so there's actually a topic that I want to talk about today. Okay, can you guess what it is?

0:00:25 - (Alane): Processes.

0:00:26 - (Micah): It's always processes.

0:00:28 - (Alane): Okay, what's specific about processes?

0:00:32 - (Micah): Like, I want to talk about when is the right time to worry about processes.

0:00:37 - (Alane): Yes, this is something that we get asked a lot, but also, even if founders aren't asking the question, it's like they don't know when the right time is.

0:00:48 - (Micah): Yes, we've seen it happen both ways, and I'm guilty of it being too soon. We've seen that happen with some of our other clients and some of the engagements that we've done where it's probably not time for them to worry about it, but they went ahead and worried about it, and that actually limited their growth because they were too focused on building before validating and selling what they had.

0:01:15 - (Alane): Oh, yeah. You have to really think about where, how much of the process have I defined if you don't have a process for it yet, don't worry about trying to figure out the process. I'm on the exact opposite side where you just want to keep building processes. I'm like, let's just wing it. Like, let's just go after it. We'll figure it out.

0:01:36 - (Micah): Yeah, absolutely. I like to build, and so I get stuck in that mode, and I just want to, like, have everything built, and you're like, screw it, we're selling it. Let's do it. Okay, so we talked a little bit about that. There is a time that it's too early, right? What are the indicators between those two? When is it too early? When is it time?

0:02:01 - (Alane): I mean, if you don't have a process in place for something, you've got a new idea. It's just an idea, and you need to try some things if you're going to waste time trying to document something. I mean, sure, you could put together some ideas, like maybe like a little checklist of things that you want to have happen for something, but this isn't something that you need to document and have somebody follow yet, especially when you're really small. If it's just you and your organization, you're still trying to figure things out.

0:02:28 - (Micah): I've got a great example of this. We see this a lot. Essentially, there'll be this concept that, hey, let's automate our processes, but we don't actually have our workflows or our processes or our systems created yet, but we want to automate them. And, you know, I find myself saying this a lot, is you have to do it manually first. Start doing it, try it out, get it working, work out all the issues, figure out the things that you don't know, all the

0:03:01 - (Micah): I don't know what I don't know things. Get all of that worked out and then that's a good time to start.

0:03:10 - (Alane): Yeah.

0:03:10 - (Micah): Or keep running it like that until you do run into issues.

0:03:14 - (Alane): Yeah. When your team is really small, of course you want to get some things out of your head so your team can be getting things done on your behalf, but you're also going to do a lot of unscalable things early on so you can figure out what works. Just because you have a process documented for your organization doesn't mean that's the best way to do things or that.

0:03:35 - (Micah): It's going to continue to change, because that's the, that's the other thing that I think we've run into in our past. We've run into that with engagements is as soon as you document it, by the time it's documented, it's already a new iteration, ready to go and needs to be redocumented and re updated. And if you are worried about all of these things, you're not worried on just growing. Like, like you said, unscalable things. Like in the beginning, it's going to be unscalable.

0:04:05 - (Alane): I mean, I remember selling stuff in our previous agency. I would come up with an idea and I would go sell it. I had no idea how we were going to accomplish doing it. And one of them was, I came up with the idea of taking their customers and emailing them for a five star review. And we did that manually. We did not have a process for it. I'm like, you know what? You've got customers. You need five star reviews. We can close this gap.

0:04:32 - (Alane): We didn't have a process for it. I sold it. We weren't profitable on that service for the first several months, but then we're like, okay, it's working. Now we can get a little bit more refined on how we're actually doing this. And we had some people much smarter at processes figure it out. But that was also what we, from me doing that, we did come up with a better process and we built a software that did it, but that you're going to do things in the beginning, maybe, that don't have everything refined.

0:05:04 - (Alane): That isn't going to be the fastest way to do things. But that's okay. Figure it out early on when your team's small, so. But how do you know my goat when it's time to start doing it?

0:05:14 - (Micah): I don't know. That was one of my questions.

0:05:15 - (Alane): That is such a lie.

0:05:19 - (Micah): So I think, I mean, you indicated it right there. One of the reasons or one of the ways that you know is that you got it worked out and you had that gut feeling, oh, I can refine this, I can improve it, I can delegate it or I need to delegate it.

0:05:38 - (Alane): Yeah, I mean, one of the biggest ones is how much of your time is being consumed by questions from your team. It can be as simple as that because that means your team doesn't know how to do something and they're having to come back to you constantly, hey, how do I answer this client question? We just got a new client. What do I do next? Well, then, you know, well, I've got a team, so that means I'm big enough a, it's a great indicator. Good indicator B that there is enough process in place that we need to.

0:06:06 - (Alane): I've got clients, they're coming on board. We need to fulfill something we sold. That's a process right there.

0:06:12 - (Micah): Yes, absolutely. Absolutely. So what are, one of the things that I wanted to chat about was once you identify that it's time to do this, how do you start? I think you and I start in different places, so I'd love to hear where you start because my mind is an easy answer. It is planning everything and then building.

0:06:32 - (Alane): Yeah, and I'm the opposite. So I like to get a proof of concept out there happening before to make sure it's viable. And so, like, I have a new hire this week. I just hired somebody. She went through our normal training that we have every employee go through, so they know how to use our systems. Well, then I've got about three things that I have already done to test if it was going to work or not that I was hiring her for. So I already had a loose idea of things that I'd been winging.

0:07:02 - (Alane): And then with her help, because I don't have enough time to baby step everything, I record a loom video. This is the process. I have a template that I've been using and I'm like, hey, can you build the process from this? She's got more time than I do right now. Right. So my process is, I kind of dabble. Figure it out, what works, what doesn't and then when I'm ready to delegate, then I can shoot a recording, a video of it, go through the steps.

0:07:30 - (Alane): I've got some of it in ClickUp where I've got maybe a main task with some sub task with the main idea, but the details they can worry about, they can refine those things. And what I like about that process is that there's ways I like to do things, but I'm not the one doing the work anymore. As long as they're using our systems, our software, I don't care how they save their email template, especially in the beginning.

0:08:00 - (Alane): So that's how I see it, is like, okay, let's kind of, like, fumble around a little bit. And then this week, she's been in the work for a week, and we've got a really good flow. So I'm like, okay, now we've got a process we can use, and she's got it documented. And we moved our templates from a Google Doc into Front because now we have an actual template we know that works. We've got a golden template. We've got four different ones that she uses.

0:08:24 - (Micah): Yeah. What I love about that is it's almost like you're blending. How do I create this process with delegation? So how do I get this off of my plate and delegate the process creation and the work so that she knows exactly what she's doing and has ownership and buy in with what she's doing? And we've seen this in the past, too. Team members are gonna sometimes find a better way than we even thought of doing it. So if it's just my way is the highway around here, then we're not actually leveraging all the experience and all the knowledge and all the different perspectives of the team that we've hired.

0:09:00 - (Micah): Beautiful. Love it.

0:09:01 - (Alane): Yeah. So how do you like to do it, Micah?

0:09:03 - (Micah): I'm gonna start doing how you're doing it. That's way better. No, I tend to plan things out and try to piece it all together. Like, it gives me peace to think about all the different pieces that would fit together, come up with a potential solution, and then iterate on that solution with the team. So similar in the end, but in the beginning, I spend a little bit more time on my side. It just helps my brain work out how all the processes, all the workflows within the process and the system fit together.

0:09:34 - (Alane): I think this is really important when you think about who you hire, because if you hired a me that has already has the system in place, I just feel completely defeated and I'm just doing data entry, basically, because there's no leeway for me to improve things, I feel like, because the system's already there. And so for people, you know, I'm Enneagram 3, if, you know, culture index. I'm a Persuader.

0:10:03 - (Alane): So in 16 personalities, I'm an Entrepreneur personality. And all these things basically come to, I'm social. I like being at the top of things and not at the bottom of a system. Like, I like coming up with the ideas and solutions. So if you put me into a system like that, I feel like, oh, my gosh this isn't for me, but for you, who you hire, that just needs to take it and run with it. So really thinking about who you're hiring. Somebody for me, I actually need somebody like you.

0:10:34 - (Alane): Somebody that likes the systemizing part, that they can take it and go, okay, well, I've got this, this and this. So who did I hire? I hired an architect on my team. She could take it and improve it. And so that's why we got to know who we are and who we're hiring, so that they can do the best they can with taking our processes and running.

0:10:53 - (Micah): All right, one final topic that I thought would be interesting to cover on, on this subject, which is what happens when you wait too long.

0:11:01 - (Alane): Gosh. Well, I mean, a lot of companies get there in that position, right. Because you're so in the day to day of just trying to survive when you're building your company early on, and then suddenly you've got 25 to 30 employees. And this is always the breaking point, is when a department or a company gets to this size, they realize they are burnt out. They don't have enough stuff documented, and that there has to be some real change because people, it's not just maybe the founder or manager, but everybody is burnt out.

0:11:36 - (Alane): No one can get their job done in the timeframe because they're having to ask too many questions. So that's a perfect example, is like, it's time now when you're at that point. But a lot of companies get to the point where it's way past due. Right. But there's, there's. If you're going to start, that's the perfect day to start, it's only going to get better from there because you're going to start documenting.

0:11:58 - (Micah): Yep.

0:11:59 - (Alane): And there's some easy ways to do it. We talk about a lot, like, you don't have to go and build your company entire SOP and training system in a day. You can do it a lot more reactive than that early on.

0:12:13 - (Micah): Absolutely, absolutely. And it can start with just, you mentioned it earlier, simple videos. Get them organized into a structure so that people can find them. Set up a system so that when a question is asked, it's asked of the knowledge base or the information that's already been documented first. And then if it doesn't exist, designate people. Maybe it's the person asking to add that information in there and build it one step at a time. In over six months, you've got a massive database of knowledge that's automatically documented, diversified across the team, available for everybody to use, and a perfect foundation to build upon.

0:12:52 - (Alane): Yeah, and my favorite way, because now technology makes things so much easier. And my favorite way, somebody asks you a question, I record a loom video. Answer the question, great, now I have how to do it recorded. Then take that transcript, put it into ChatGPT, or whatever AI you use, and ask it to write out the step by step process. It is brilliant. Then you can copy and paste that step by step along with the video.

0:13:22 - (Alane): Put it in Google Docs or Arvo or whatever knowledge base you have, and you have a real sop now on that process.

0:13:31 - (Micah): And that used to take hours.

0:13:34 - (Alane): I mean, even before Loom made it so easy, recording videos like that was not as simple.

0:13:41 - (Micah): It was not as simple. The transcript wasn't available. Chat GPT wasn't available. To produce a summary in 5 seconds or less and having the tools to organize all of that didn't exist. So, like, we're in the heyday of process driven documentation right now. It's amazing.

0:13:58 - (Alane): Yeah. I mean, the biggest mistake that I see companies where they fall off is they're using something like loom or whatever recording tool they want, which is great. That's your first step. But then they let it live in loom, right. Giving your team access to that just became an obstacle. Having them be able to find a video on their topic just became an obstacle. So you did the right first step, but you have to take it and put it in your knowledge base.

0:14:29 - (Alane): And having a knowledge base there is so important for process documentation.

0:14:33 - (Micah): I think, you know, you have an issue if you find yourself recording the same video over and over again. That's, that's the indicator for that, that it's time to potentially organize the videos that you've created. And I think when we do that. Cause I've been guilty of that, we all have that gut feeling like I probably shouldn't be recording this again, but it's just easier doing it. But what's even easier than recording a video, again, is just organizing it in the first place and developing that habit as a leader.

0:15:03 - (Alane): Yeah.

0:15:03 - (Micah): And training your team to develop that.

0:15:06 - (Alane): Habit stuff is so much more fun when you don't have to redo it again.

0:15:11 - (Micah): I agree.

0:15:12 - (Alane): You know, like, oh, actually, you can go search the knowledge base that's in there.

0:15:16 - (Micah): Podcast episodes. This is our first take. We don't have to do this one over again.

0:15:22 - (Alane): So one of the things that I found too, with us working with so many companies, is how do you even document your process?

0:15:29 - (Micah): It's a huge challenge.

0:15:31 - (Alane): Oh, yeah. And it feels a little bit overwhelming when you're in it every day to figure out, okay, well, how do I get this outside perspective? What do I even start with? Do I just start with Google Docs or a checklist and just write it out? Where do I start? So we actually took our knowledge and built a free mini course.

0:15:51 - (Micah): We did all about process mapping. And the reason we started with process mapping is because when you try to document a process in a Google Doc or an Excel spreadsheet, you can't get the logic. But in a visual diagram, it's very easy to draw a box with an arrow to a decision diamond and have a yes no logic decision happen. And all of a sudden, what seemed like a complex process can be visualized very easily in a few boxes and arrows and diamonds and circles and all that good stuff. So we took how we did that, built the free course, and we'll put a link to the free course in the description.

0:16:32 - (Alane): Yeah. And this is perfect for, you know, what we've been talking about, for examples, is a very task driven answer. Right. I need. I have this problem and I need it to be solved. That's a very task centric kind of example. So this is looking at one step further. Okay. We have all these pieces of how to do something. How does it work with a process, for instance, new client onboarding? That is a process.

0:16:55 - (Alane): And I used to not want to do a process map. You know, that goes against me. Just fly with it. Right. But when it comes to actually documenting things, especially when there is so much knowledge in people's heads, this is extremely valuable, and it could be in multiple people's heads. How do you get it from all of these different places into one place? And a process map does that.

0:17:19 - (Micah): 100%. 100% agree with that. It just, even if you start at the high level and you match a process map with a loom video, you're off to the races. Like, you're 800 times more powerful as a team than you were before and probably your competition.

0:17:39 - (Alane): I love the addition of a video walkthrough of the process map because then I don't have to work so hard to figure out what's there. The person that built it is there explaining it to me.

0:17:53 - (Micah): Yep.

0:17:54 - (Alane): And then I can. This is great. You know, it's easier for the people that don't have the context that haven't been building every piece of it to then be able to jump in and explain exactly what's happening.

0:18:05 - (Micah): Yeah. And I think it's, you know, we talked about or you mentioned just the tasks and having all these different tasks. And yes, you can document those tasks, but what is a process, you know, at the very base level, you have all these tasks that are getting done. And what we see happen a lot is tasks just proliferate through teams and it's like we do tasks in order and that kind of makes our system, but we're jumping the gun a little bit because a set of tasks makes a workflow and then one or more workflows that are connected make a process, and then one or more processes make a system.

0:18:44 - (Micah): And so there's all these different levels that when you think about it, and that's, that's a lot of times when I start planning stuff out, I think across those levels I want to build a system. But in order to build a system, I need to figure out, well, what's the process or processes that would be included in that. Well, how does that break down to a workflow which gives me my tasks? And once I identify all those levels, then I can see how things fit together much easier and it allows me to understand the mapping and the connecting and how this works. If we just go from task to system, then you just, it's like think of like Alphabet soup in a big bowl, right? You have all these letters mixed up and yeah, you can absolutely build words, but you have to be the person that knows the sentence that you want to write and how to spell the words.

0:19:32 - (Micah): And so if you don't have that, then somebody cannot look at that and make a mess or make a solution with these tasks. They're just going to make a mess. But if you look at that bowl of Alphabet soup and then you have guidance of like, here's the written out sentence that you need, then anybody can match the letters to the letters in the word to make a sentence.

0:19:56 - (Alane): Yeah. You know, when you were explaining that, I was thinking about our system for product development. So for Arvo and how our developers, they have tasks, those, you know, they've got to add the QR code generator to it. That's a task that the developer is going to work on. But the workflow is much bigger than that because as that developer is working on it and getting it to different stages, for instance, they've moved it from their local development machine to staging.

0:20:32 - (Alane): There needs to be testing. That happens. Okay, well, that part of the workflow, the developer is not responsible for that. That goes to our testing team. And so now we've got these different tasks happening simultaneously. Maybe because while things are getting tested on staging, then the developer now is going to go to a different task while he's waiting to see how it is and as it moves then and ready for production, which is our flow, then marketing gets notified so that they can go into staging and start building marketing assets. That has nothing to do with the developer doing his task.

0:21:07 - (Alane): But as part of the bigger workflow and the system that we've created for our Arvo roadmap is kind of how everything works.

0:21:16 - (Micah): Exactly. Perfect scenario, perfect example. All right, well, I feel much better after getting all that out.

0:21:26 - (Alane): I'm so glad I could share all my knowledge with you, Micah.

0:21:29 - (Micah): It was very helpful. Thanks for listening, everybody. Hopefully this episode was helpful. Don't worry about processes too early. Look for those indicators. With those indicators, start slow, build easy. Remember that there's different layers. Don't make Alphabet soup out of your tasks. And it's just a step at a time when building a business.

0:21:52 - (Alane): Yeah, great. Talk to you next week.

0:21:54 - (Alane): Thanks for listening to this episode of Automate, your agency. We hope you're inspired to take your.

0:21:59 - (Alane): Business to the next level.

0:22:01 - (Alane): We have free content and tools for automating your business at our website, workdayninja.com.

0:22:05 - (Micah): And join us next week as we dive into more ways to automate and scale your business.

0:22:10 - (Alane): Bye for now.

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Alane Boyd

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Micah Johnson

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