Your Small Business: A Collection of Systems

Let's talk about the undervalued, unappreciated, and unsexy essentials of any business even small businesses.

I'm talking about systems.

Especially for the Solopreneur. We're all doing so much that we must have systems in place to not reinvent the wheel every time we want to execute a task. Think of systems as recipes - a step-by-step methodology for a predictable outcome.

The first thing to think about when you seek to make your days more manageable and more effective is the different parts of your small business.

And think of these parts as individual systems within the greater system which is the entire business.

What parts of your business are essential to your success, and how can you streamline them to function in a successful and repeatable manner?

Primary Functions of A Small Online Business

First off, take stock of the different functions in your business. You may not have thought of your business in this way before, but think of all the categories of things that you do as distinct "departments".

Viewing these separate parts will make it possible for you to develop your systems for each department.  If you try to do this for the whole business at once, you're doomed to fail - totally unwinnable.

I've listed departments in the order that I think you need to systematize for a solopreneur business.  It' subjective as they're all important...

Information Technology: Even if it's just you & your laptop, you need to have a general understanding of the technology available in your industry to help you manage and do your business. That means a range of products from email service providers and software, all-in-one "landing page to checkout & fulfillment" platforms, to your bookkeeping and accounting systems.

Marketing and Advertising: No business can exist if they don’t get the word out about their solutions.

Production: Your product, whether physical or digital, needs to be created somehow. Much of production can be automated depending on the type of products you have. You can handle the process in-house, outsource or purchase ready-made.

Operations: The inner workings of your business are ripe for automation. It's the what you do to make all the bits fit together. It doesn’t matter if you sell products, manufacture products, or perform services, someone has to be in control of this work, and that’s typically the small business owner because they don’t usually hire managers, but you can. In the beginning this can be a VA to help you stay organized and do the repetitive tasks.

Customer Service: Even if you only serve a handful of customers a year, you need to focus on customer care in order to keep them happy. A lot of this process can be automated too with FAQs, a knowledgebase, messaging and/or a helpdesk.

Business Development and Growth: This includes sales, marketing, project management, product management, and more. If you focus on business development, you’ll focus on how you can use what you have to expand your audience and make more money. You really need to pay attention to this area. Proper systems can be a "crystal ball" to point you in the best direction.

Purchasing: This is a department that will often fall to the owner of a small business but exists as a separate department in a large business. In this department, you’ll want to figure out what the business needs, how much, when, and negotiate better prices, and so forth.

Legal Department: This is one doesn't get much attention in a small self-owned business, but it is still important to acknowledge this area. You always want to make sure what you do is legal and follows the laws. There's a lot of compliance to deal with in an online business. You need to read the fine print!

Human Resources: If you hire or contract out to others, you’ll need to concern yourself with setting up, organizing, and managing all your HR. Having some knowledge of this even if you think you’re going to do everything yourself is essential because you at some point you might want to hand off some work if you want to scale up your business.

Some Thinking Required

Give this some serious thought. Take pen to paper and list your departments and what they do.

Then put your list aside and look at it again after several hours or a day. You'll probably come up with more details.

I'd compare setting up your systems to doing a DIY home reno job. Most of the work is in the preparation. That's why this first step of giving it a good think is fundamental.

In future posts we'll go deeper into finding tools for process automation and setting up systems. You'll be able to ditch that overwhelmed feeling and focus on what moves your business forward!