All businesses start out the same – you have an amazing product or service you are eager to ship out into the world, coupled with an endless drive and motivation to be successful. You put in hours upon hours of hard work, and diligence only begets positive results. Naturally, a “one man show” can grow into a small team, and in turn transform into a bigger organization in the long run.
This growth encompasses an increase in not only your team members, but also your clientele base, and even your sales! Before you know it, the dam holding your business together is exploding and you’re fighting to stay afloat in the current, all while looking up to successful CEOs and wondering how they manage to keep it all together.
Their secret? Investing in administrative processes early on in the game.
When it comes to sink or swim situations, many companies make the mistake of channeling all their efforts into launching sales campaigns and cutting expenses in all other aspects. Indeed, making sales and closing deals can directly equate to an inflow of cash and help to pay the bills. However, these are only temporary measures that will soon give way and reveal the real problem – a lack of proper administrative processes and procedures to set the foundation of your company.
Think of administrative processes as both the backbone and the brains of your company. While administrative processes is a blanket term that covers many different functions, one of its main objectives is to help define each team member’s role in the company. As the team grows, responsibilities and boundaries can get blurry, causing team members to not know their true functions and leading to inefficiency in your business operations.
Take First Quality Music’s case, for example. A family business that grew rapidly, and spiraled out of control just as quickly. They were operating with huge overheads to meet demands without thinking about the slumps ahead. A quick review by outside consultants found that “internal financial and operational reports were few and far between” and that it being a family business, employee responsibilities essentially became “poorly defined and uncoordinated, creating inefficiency and frustration.”
This inefficiency was part of the reason that First Quality Music was operating with high overheads. If employee roles were clearly defined, and an administrative framework was set in place early enough, they would not experience “problem swarming” – a tendency for an excessive amount of employees clustering around a single task – and they would have had regular operations reports that would forewarn them of their predicament.
Apart from the abovementioned benefits, the administrative section of your business is what helps to manage daily operations, track marketing efforts, report sales and revenues, ensure that goals are met, and most importantly, ensure that the organization is properly managed. Proper administrative functions can also help to streamline your business for success and even assist in your efforts to keep track of your customers for various operational reasons.
While it is highly encouraged that administrative processes be established early on in the game, it is also never too late to get started if you are halfway into your business operations. Better late than never. If an overhaul or complete rebuild of the administrative side of your business may seem to be the scariest thing you’ve ever done, hiring an experienced Online Business Manager (OBM) may help to ease some of that stress and help you to focus on what matters.
Remember that it is important to always tend to your administrative functions as you are operating your business. Many times these are not our strength, and they may seem boring to us. No one likes doing things that are not fun at all, and procrastinating can be another vice. Whether you decide to outsource your administrative processes, or tackle them on your own, it is imperative that businesses realize their importance and not neglect them.
Christelle Fernandez
Operational & Administrative Consultant
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