Susan Fennema, CEO of Beyond the Chaos, gives an insightful talk on the importance of documenting your business processes. Drawing on her extensive experience in operations and project management, Susan provides valuable advice for entrepreneurs looking to standardize their businesses’ operations and reduce dependence on themselves as owners.
Key Takeaways:
- Document processes to increase business valuation and make your company more attractive to potential buyers. It shows that the business can operate without you.
- Processes reduce chaos and inefficiency. They allow employees to know exactly what to do and when. This leads to happier clients and employees.
- Start by identifying bottlenecks and problem areas. Look for where things seem disorganized or take too much time/money.
- Prioritize which processes to document first based on your pain points. Address what’s causing you the most headaches.
- Record your processes while doing them. Explain each step out loud. Test them to identify gaps.
- Store processes digitally where employees can access them. Train staff on new processes and have them confirm their review.
- Processes are living documents that should be updated periodically. Assign someone to be the keeper.
- If outcomes aren’t as expected, kindly inquire about process adherence before blaming the employee. Update process if needed.
Please see the full video transcript below.
Holly: I’m Holly Carroccio, and I’m very excited to introduce our breakout speaker today, Susan Fennema. Did I say it right? Awesome. I love her topic. She’s a chaos-killing, clutter-kicking, disorder-fighting maiden and CEO of Beyond the Chaos. Susan is a fractional COO for clients and a leader in helping businesses eradicate chaos through effective process development and structure. Today, she’s going to be talking to us about the importance of documenting your processes, which is actually something I talk about as far as a business continuity plan. So I’m really excited to hear her talk.
As business owners, we understand the value of having efficient and effective processes in place, but we often forget to document them and fail to do so. Her expertise in process development and project management will provide us with valuable insights on how to document processes, create redundancy in our business, and reduce our business’s dependence on us. Yes, I said create redundancy, that sounds like a bad thing, but that’s actually a good thing. This is crucial for any business owner who’s looking to sell their business, we need to become less valuable to our company. It ensures that our business can keep operating efficiently even if we’re not around or absent.
Beyond the Chaos helps small business owners feel less overwhelmed and more productive, and who couldn’t use that? And successful by helping them gain control of their businesses through the effective use of software, process development, and structure. So, let’s very warmly welcome Susan. I can’t wait to hear what you have to say.
Susan: Thanks, Holly. All right. So that was a great intro. Can everyone hear me because I’d rather not use the mic with you all. Okay, great. The point of today is not only why to document processes now, but why to document them for the sale of your business as well. If you do it now, you get all the benefits that will come before you’re ready to sell. So, twofold beauty here. I am the chaos-eradicating officer, CEO, as Holly mentioned, of Beyond the Chaos, and here are a few other interesting things about me
My business has been around for seven years. It is a virtual business. I have actually been virtual since 2010, even before I started my business. I have 30+ years, I stopped counting at 30 years of operations and project management experience, and I am a very big fan of technology. I’m a little geeky that way, and I adore small businesses. I do not love working in big corporations. I like the speed and the agility that small businesses bring. I’m also a home chef. I love to cook. And if you think for one second, there’s not a lot of operational process and project management surrounding putting on a multi-course dinner with wine pairings, because I do love to have a lot of glasses too, you’re missing out on that. And I am married to my husband, Craig, for over 15 years, and that is our doggy, Shelby. So, we live in McKinney just down the road.
So I want to start with enough about me, but let’s get onto you. Show of hands, who has a process in their business? Okay, keep your hands up. Of those with your hands up, who has them written down? Two. The same, that’s good. Okay, keep them up. Of those who have processes and have them written down, how many of you have a process about how to maintain your processes?
Holly: I wrote it for Jim.
Use Processes To Overcome Burnout and Overwhelm
Susan: Oh, we have two. I’m sorry, I missed one. Okay, great. So that will be part of what we talk about today. And you can put your hand down. So, in general, if you’re running a business that doesn’t have processes, this is how you feel. It’s exhausting, it’s overwhelming, you’re buried. Now, since COVID, I find more people are burned out, definitely overwhelmed. And to Ally’s point earlier, do you want to sell your business, or do you want to sell your job? And this is a step to selling your job. The general situation is similar to a client that came to us. She was working 80 hours a week in software development. She couldn’t see the light of day, she couldn’t do anything with her family. But she didn’t want to change, she didn’t want to document her processes. She thought, “It’s going good enough. If only my team were better. If only my clients reacted better.” if only, if only, if only. But the bottom line was that all of those processes would’ve fixed her.
The other key to this, too, is you have no vacation. You’re just busy, busy, busy. And guess what? You will quit being busy when you die or when your business goes bankrupt. Busy is not the measure of whether or not you’re a successful entrepreneur. Busy just means you’re doing things. Are you doing the right things? Are you focused on the right things? And is your team working for you? How businesses look without process. We talked about how the owner looks, but what’s the business look like? It’s inefficient. You’re probably running into issues with overruns on certain things. There’s no real clear branding, either. Are you delivering the same thing versus… Well, everybody that’s in your business, are they delivering it the same way? Are your clients having the same experiences? Are your jobs over budget? Are you late on things? If you are developing a solution that you roll out, are you running out of or running over scope all the time? All of those things are what businesses without processes look like. And essentially, you’re just a bunch of people running around doing stuff. There’s no focus, there’s no division. So, putting these processes in place will help there, and it doesn’t matter how hard you or your team is working. If you’re growing harder and working, working, working, working, you got to be going in the right direction. So, having these processes will help with that.
So let’s talk a little bit about how businesses look and run with processes. First, your team knows when, where, and how to do things. You stop getting interrupted as much because there’s a resource for them to go to. Your clients are satisfied. That’s a big one. Your clients are happy with the product that is being delivered because one of your processes is how to communicate with them and how to make sure they understand the expectations of the engagement. That is important to make sure that they are happy. When you need to hire somebody, it’s easy. You have a system, you have a training that they can walk through, oftentimes without you, that is systemized for that role. That’s hugely important. Your team members are very engaged and happy. It turns out that most of them want to meet your expectations, but if they don’t know what they are and they’re running around meandering, and you’re getting mad at them, you’re going to run into situations where they’re unhappy, and they’re going to leave. And let’s face it, in this day and age, it’s impossible to replace people, especially qualified people. So making sure that they want to stick around is really important. You, as the owner, are also spending a lot of time working IN your business instead of ON it. With processes in place, you’re able to focus on growing your business and developing those relationships that you need to develop to help grow it. So, those are some things that are really going to help you on that path.
Document Processes to Increase Your Business Valuation
Susan: The last part I touched on a little bit earlier is your brand. That is a big part of what becomes realized with the process. How are all your clients being served, and are you trusted in the workplace? Do people know who you are, and do they know the quality of your work? You can repeat quality if you have a process in place. If not, you’re probably stumbling, and everybody’s getting something different, so it’s a big difference. Here’s another big thing. Processes increase your business valuation. And as you’re creating process, all of these things come up, how you’re running, you’ll figure out problems you didn’t know you had when you start writing processes. The automation options, we all hear automation, “Let’s just automate everything.” That’s fantastic, and we want to see automation, but until how it’s supposed to run until you have a clear process, you can’t automate it. So you have to start by knowing what the steps are and what are the processes that you can automate. Also, you can’t automate all of them. It reduces the dependence on you as the owner. That’s what makes it subtle. If you are actively involved, that’s going to be a really big challenge. Tom Bronson told me a story about a business that had all of its processes really well documented, very, very structured business. And the market was running at about six or seven times the valuations in that industry. But somebody in the industry came and offered 21 times because they wanted the processes to move into their larger organization. So, they actually got a deal because of their processes. Don’t promise that’ll happen to everyone, but it’s a good way to realize the importance of them and what that could bring you.
Documented Processes Aid In Transitions
Processes also aid in transitions. You’re going to leave a team behind, they need to know what to continue to do. The information’s not all in your head, so when you’re walking out the door, it doesn’t go with you. It’s easier for a new owner to step into the role, which means, too, that at the time when you’re selling, you’re not going to have to contract back or become an employee of your company for the sale to take place. I don’t know about any of you, but I have absolutely no interest in working for somebody else. Does anybody want a job? So, it makes everything faster. And the bottom line is no one wants to buy a job. If you don’t want one, they don’t want yours. Ally made a great point, write your own job description, and do what you want to do now. That part is probably something that somebody would buy, because it’s bigger things, it’s more important things. But if you’re doing a whole bunch of little things in your business, nobody wants that job. So, let’s get some processes in print place because a process-driven business doesn’t create bureaucracy; it sets you free. And I know a lot of small business owners feel like, “Oh, I don’t want to go through all that written rule that big companies go through. I want to put all this stuff in place, it’s just messy.” Okay, well, you are messy without the processes, and you can’t go on vacation, and you get no freedom from the chaos of your day-to-day life. So that’s the big part, the process-driven business sets you free.
All right here, another show of hands. What are the biggest pain points in your business? I’m going to run through some things just raise your hands when they come up. Internal drama? Yep, okay. Client chaos. Okay. All right. Not enough time and money. Now I know we’re all going to say that, but really, you don’t have enough time, and you don’t have enough money to execute what you’re trying to do. Is that… Okay, a couple.
Audience Member: You don’t have all of the above, do you?
Susan: I don’t, but I’ll offer it. Employee turnover? Okay. Okay, all the above? All right, so the good news is process development, and process, when structured correctly, can solve almost all of these problems. Now, I’m going to say, with some employee turnover and internal drama, it might be managerial problems that you need to look into and make sure of, especially as culture changes in our world these days, how you’re talking to and treating people, that’s a whole other session that I’m sure is in another conference, but something to consider as part of that as well.
Add Structure to Your Business
Susan: So, let’s talk about where to add structure to your business. First, identify the bottlenecks. And I’m going to promise you almost always, as a business owner, it’s you. Keep looking in the mirror. No matter how many times you do this exercise, do it again in three months. It will still be you. So, keep writing yourself out of a job over time. Watch for those bottlenecks. And if they are in another area, the company, that’s probably easier to solve because it’s easier for you to let go of someone else than it is for you to let go of yourself. Another place is fire burrows. If you have an area of your company where everybody’s running around with their heads cut off all the time, that is a good place to say, “Okay, we probably need to put some process around this.”
What’s messy or chaotic? So it might not be a fire drill, but it just seems like nothing’s flowing, and nobody knows what anybody’s doing. That’s another area. When steps seem excessive or redundant. When you’re like, “How can it take three days to do billing?” Maybe there’s a process simplification that needs to be put in place there. When something costs too much or takes too long. So if you have an area of your company where you’re like, “Wow, how come I have so many billable hours against this one part, and everything else seems better?” Maybe there’s something in there that doesn’t flow well, so look at that. Anywhere there’s a crossover, a handoff. And this is a place where even if you have processes in your business, you might not have bought through these parts. But for example, I’ve made a sale. How does it get to production? I’ve finished the project. How do we get it back into a marketing cycle or a new order, or is there just an end, natural end where you want a testimonial or case study? Any of those things can be outcomes, but how are you transitioning those things? Here is a list, and you all are welcome to take a picture of this. These are the minimum viable processes you need in your business. You need at least these. I can’t think of any company that doesn’t need this unless maybe you don’t have anyone on payroll. Note the bottom one, process maintenance or the process of process. I do like to use that one with our clients, it kind of makes them feel like, “Now you’re bringing in the bureaucracy.” But really, without that process of how you roll it out, how you maintain it, and how you keep it going, the rest of it is irrelevant because you’re just capturing a point in time instead of how to maintain that.
How To Create Processes
Susan: So, let’s talk about how to create processes. Here are some quick tips here to get through here. First, start by brainstorming your pain points. What hurts the most to you? What hurts the most to your team? What hurts the most financially? What just feels bad? That’s a great place to start. Make a list.
You can also make a list of all the things you, as the owner, do every day, or if you have a particularly busy employee, what does that person do every day? Those are opportunities for process development. But we want to start by creating the list.
And then we have to prioritize them because this is going to be a big undertaking. It is going to take some time, it’s not going to happen overnight. So you need an order that you’re going to go in. I would absolutely recommend what’s on your plate that needs to come off needs to be first. Then look at what’s costing you money, all that. I guarantee you, you’ll have more time to figure out what’s costing you money if you get some of this stuff off your plate first. Here’s a big one. You also have to follow the rules. So, if you put a process out to your team and you are not following it, you have just given everybody permission not to follow it. I’m a firm believer in staying out of it. Stay out of the way. You wrote the process so other people can do their jobs. Let them do their jobs. I have a great process of how proposals get shipped off and followed up and all this kind of stuff in my business. Every single time I think, “Oh, I’ll just help out. I’ll insert myself.” I screw it all up. Just stay out of the way and let everybody do their jobs. But if you’re going to do it, go look up the process and follow the rules so you don’t mess it up. After you get that, the next few parts are more tactical on how to do this. You need to record somehow what you’re doing. It can either be notes. If it’s a physical thing, somebody may be taking notes while you do it. If you’re doing it on a computer, you can just pull up Zoom or Loom, which is my favorite new tool. If you aren’t doing that, look into it… Yes
Audience Member: And so, when you’re doing that, are you doing that like saying, “Hey, we got to process that’s too centric to one of us.” You just turn Loom on and start just doing what you do?
Susan: Yep, and talk it through. And you can even talk through your thought process of what you’re doing and why.
Audience Member: As if I’m talking to another person?
Susan: As if you’re talking to another person. So you’re basically explaining, “This is how you execute it.” And so you can act all those times when you say, “It’s faster for me to do it than to hand it off.”, which is probably true once, but it’s not true 40 times. That’s a perfect example of, “Oh, let’s pull it up, and let’s just do it while I’m doing it, and now I can get it off my plate and move it forward.” I did this with proofreading stuff.
Audience Member: And what if it’s too long of a video?
Susan: Loom is going to limit you to five minutes, which is probably a good little snippet. But if you pull up Zoom, you can do longer. I would try to break down and don’t do all your processes at once this way. Break them into separate ones. Yes?
Audience Member: I’m curious about Loom. Can you stop and start the video, or does it have to be continuous?
Susan: You know, I don’t know. It’s five minutes. I have never tried to stop and start it. You can on Zoom, but then you have to piece it together. But for this, because the next step is writing them. So, even if they’re broken into parts, they still need to be written. A video is great, and there are perfect examples of when you can use a video, say, a training process where you want to welcome a team member. Okay, great. You can make a video, and maybe that’s permanent. But on a step-by-step process, software changes, you learn things that you want to edit. There are all sorts of things that might change, and it’s much more challenging to change the video because you have to re-record the whole thing as opposed to editing two words or changing the software name. So you need it to be written. That’s also the place that you can go back and say, “Oh wait, why did we do this here? Shouldn’t we do this here?” So it’s easier to simplify the process as well. And test it. This is a big one. Just because you did it, doesn’t mean somebody else can do it. Because especially if it’s coming out of our heads, there are all sorts of things that we skip over because everybody knows that, except they don’t. So have somebody, the person that you would want to execute it, go ahead and execute against that process because you’ll be able to run to the gaps so that you can fill in.
The other part of this is, is that you need a way to confirm that the process is being executed properly. You can’t just write these and say, “Okay, great, I’m out.” You have to be able to make sure that you’re still getting the outcomes you expect. There are dashboards that you can create to do that. There are checkpoints you can put in that you need to make sure that things are happening, and there are some checkpoints to make sure that they’re happening that way. Don’t forget, you have to follow the rules. So anything you create, it needs to apply to you too.
So the next part is, how do we distribute these? We get them all written, that’s fantastic, but now I want to start the step by holding my team accountable for fulfilling the process. So first, they have to know what it is. So, train them. I highly recommend getting the group together and walk them through it. Please do not walk your manufacturing people through your accounting process. Make sure that you have the right people covering the right processes so that you’re not overwhelming people with needless information. But you can do it in person, you can do it on video if you’re more remote, and whichever path you take, record it because now you have an onboarding recording that can be shared when a new team member comes into place. Next, we want to assign a… Hold on, my bullets got out of order somehow. Okay. Send the right people to process, don’t overwhelm them. We did cover that.
And then, we want to have a way to verify that it has been reviewed. So there are several different ways. You could assign a task, if you’re using a project management software, you can assign a task with a link to the URL of the written process and have people check it off to confirm, “Yes, I read it, and I get it.” You could also post in a Slack channel if you are using Slack or Teams and have them do the same thing. You could have a little emoji if that’s what you want. I do think there will be one that pops up, but it’s not in order, so I apologize. The other is you could do digital signatures on a written form. This might be really important if safety is involved in your business so that you know you’re guaranteeing they’re not cutting off their hands and that kind of thing or endangering someone else. So, if safety is an issue, I would actually have somebody, maybe physically or digitally, sign the document saying they were there. And then, anytime you update it, you want to update it the same way. So, if you’ve rolled it out for your project management tool, that’s how you want the next one to go out. There are tons of ways to store them, there are tons of ways to come back to them on. Oh, there’s my emoji.
The other thing to remember is these are living, breathing documents. You’re not writing it once. You’re going to have it evolve and grow as you evolve and grow. They are great for capturing input from your team. And that’s also imperative. If your team is not following the process, my goodness, find out why. Is it too complicated? Does it not apply, or did they change the software or a piece of equipment, and it’s not even accommodated in your revised process, make sure that you’re including your team. Also, you need to review your systems regularly. Once you have them written, I highly recommend picking the least busy time of your year. For some people, maybe that’s between Christmas and New Year’s. For other people, maybe it’s August. I know in August, I could just go on vacation. Those are great times to walk through and review them. But we want to have designated a keeper of the process, so it doesn’t have to be you. Maybe there are some you have to look through, but you don’t have to look through every one of them if you have the right person being responsible for those processes.
How To Manage Processes
So, let’s talk a little bit about how to manage the process. When you have processes written, and your team is following them, you’ve rolled it out, you’ve trained them all, something happens, and you’re like, “Okay, that’s not what I thought. I didn’t want that to happen.” Your first instinct is, “You’re messing with my money. I want to yell at somebody.”, right? That’s not really productive. Take a deep breath and go back and ask the person. You can simply say… And I know, how many of you, let me ask this question, how many of you don’t like confrontation? That is a very common business problem, you don’t like confrontation, and so you don’t know how to do it, and it’s awkward. And some of you might not mind confrontation, but you also know it might tick off the person and might make them walk out the door these days. So, this is a great way to approach it. You simply go to the person and say, “Hey, listen, the outcome of this wasn’t what I expected. Can we look at the process and figure out what we need to change to fix that?” Now guess what? Your team member’s actually helping you fix the problem, which could be a process problem. It could also be that the person wasn’t paying any attention at all to the process, and now you have a teaching moment where you could say, “Okay, well, next time, you need to make sure you do this step.” If it’s a recurring problem, obviously, that person needs not to be there.
Your processes will drive your business. They can also if you let people just violate them and do what they want. Doesn’t matter how good they are at their jobs. They are giving everyone else permission also not to do it. So, it’s very important to make this a cornerstone of how you’re managing your business, as we will follow these processes. So, if that gives you an easy way to hold yourself accountable as well as confront without being confrontational. This happened in my business. We had a billing issue, and my catch on that was if my cash flow didn’t look right. My cash flow didn’t look right, and I’m like, “I don’t understand. Everybody’s working, we have billable hours, but we don’t have invoices. What’s going on?” Real quickly, I asked the person in charge. She’s like, “I don’t know; let me look into it.” She found something had been set wrong in our software, so all of the budgets had gotten dropped. She quickly fixed it, we quickly invoiced it, and since most of our clients are also using that software, we alerted them to the problem. She was so excited that she solved the problem. I was thrilled we had income, and we served our clients, all because of that one thing. But I could have just yelled at her, and I could have gone in and figured it out, but this was such a better outcome. So, here’s your takeaway plan. Five things you all can do to bring this to your business, and some steps to walk through. So with that, I will leave this up, and I will take questions.
Automated Processes And Choosing The Right Technology
Audience Member: Susan, define or give me an example of an automated process.
Susan: For example, when we mark a deal closed in HubSpot, our sales software, it automatically opens a project in Teamwork.com, which is our project management software, and brings in all the steps for us.
Audience Member: Got it. And then a managerial problem. Give me an example of that.
Susan: Can I come back to that one? Think about it. But I think you had a question too.
Audience Member: So, there’s a ton of these things like Trainual, how to leverage technology on this, because like a Word doc seems antiquated now?
Susan: It is. And I love that you asked that question because I love technology. If you are using a tool like a project management tool in your business like Teamwork.com or one that has documents as a section, I absolutely recommend that be the first place to put it because everybody’s already in that tool every day. If you don’t have a project management tool, or it’s not applicable to your business, or it doesn’t have docs, you can look at something like Trainual, which is fairly expensive, Process Street also does this, or you can just do it in Google Drive, but you are going to have to be organized about how you roll it out with URLs and how you announce the changes that come about.
Audience: Is Teamwork.com a project management tool?
Susan: Yes, and Teamwork.com is absolutely my favorite tool. I will readily admit we are partners of Teamwork.com, but we became partners because we loved it. I don’t push it because I’m a partner.
Audience Member: I was going to maybe try to help you out with her question on managerial processes.
Susan: Okay, great.
Audience Member: So, there’s a ton of process automation platforms out there, ServiceNow, for example, is one of them. But a lot of processes have multi-dimensions or multi-departmental dimensions. So employee onboarding, they have to have a laptop, and it has to get provisioned and shipped to their house. They have to go through HR training. So there are process connections through those systems that allow an employee to be able to do the job they want, for example.
Susan: That that’s a fantastic example. Another example of managerial because an IT manager would normally have to do all those things, or an HR manager, would normally have to walk through all that. And if you put some tests in place during your onboarding process, even if it’s just something like, “I want the branding of your signature line to look like this, now send such and such an email with that branding line.” You could test it in your process, too, and avoid having to have as many manager-level people involved and things like that. That might not be what you meant, but I can talk to you about that after.
Audience Member: I just didn’t have a good… I had an assumption and didn’t want to stay with that, that’s why.
Susan: A sales manager is another example. Who has salespeople in their business? Okay, great. How many of those salespeople enter all the information they’re supposed to in their CRM every single time? So you might need a process so that a sales coordinator can help that salesperson. Because our salespeople are great at their jobs, they’re horrible at that part, though, horrible at it. And that’s okay. Let them live in their genius. Sorry.
Audience Member: We use ISO for manufacturing, and we have for about 18 years. As far as what it really does, it’s pretty shaky. It’s really easy to cook the books on that stuff. But what we’re seeing now is we had a new interview with our biggest customer, which are a bunch of brainiacs, and they have set up a system now where we have to confirm all purchase orders within 24 hours. We have a weekly meeting about our inventory levels, and then they develop a program called ROP, which is a reorder program, and they tell us when we’re supposed to buy their metal for their product. And they’re doing that for everybody who supplies them, and they’re a multi-million dollar company.
Susan: Wow. So, that’s great that all those are in place, but on your end of that, it can feel heavy. So there might be some opportunities on your end of that to automate some things.
Audience Member: Well, we’re instigating an inventory system, and I’m changing everybody that does business with us. They have to follow the same profile.
Susan: That helps.
Audience Member: Just so I can keep up with it, which everybody hates because they all have their different what they want to know. But it is just amazing to me how they have the computer power to do this and make it mandatory, and they actually pull it off.
Susan: If you think computer power’s amazing today, wait five years. What’s going to happen with AI is going to be mind-blowing and maybe terrifying. But I know we’re about out of time, but there’s one last question. Okay.
Audience Member: How does Beyond the Chaos push an owner to take a look because there’s one of your slides because I’m ready, I’ve been ready, was ready, I had a fire, I get the processes, I know where they need to be done. But there was one of your slides that made me get really uncomfortable, and didn’t want to look at it, so now I need to be pushed. How do you guys do that for us?
Susan: We start with pain points. So, what hurts? Obviously, not being able to sell because you’re in the middle of it hurts.
Audience Member: No, it’s an embezzler, and then the CEO walks out the door a week later.
Susan: Well, I’m not a CFO.
Audience Member: That’s an awkward situation that I had if there was nothing to buy for the buyer.
Susan: So, in that situation, though, you could have had some more checks and balances put in place on your financial processes so that you were more aware of cash in/cash out and not being surprised. So, that’s a pain point. The process, we would come in and talk all through those pain points, not only those but the other things that are affecting you personally, and start identifying what processes we can take off your plate and write for you to be able-
Audience Member: But I don’t want to look at that. It’s too painful. What are you going to do for me?
Susan: Well, I’m not a psychologist, but I can talk to you nicely and explain to you-
Audience Member: Maybe I don’t need nice. Maybe I need a push.
Susan: We can be pretty pushy too. I’m sorry, one of my clients is here in the room. So Joe, would you like to answer that?
Joe Scarpetta: Susan brought me into this kicking and screaming that she was doing project management, and one of my challenges was I was completely overwhelmed, and we were that group of people just, it was like herding we black cats trying to run a software company. And so, we went through all the stuff that was like, “What don’t you want to do?” We wrote all those processes first. Where this all landed is last year, I spent three weeks in the Maldives, and I got one text, and I had to change all my passwords. So, that’s what got us…
Audience Member: Nice. Very good.
Susan: But are we pushy when we have to be but gentle when we have to be?
Joe: She’s fair, but she made me see the other side of this from that?
Audience Member: Because there’s got to be something I don’t want to see, but that actually is there and better for me.
Susan: Yeah, if you can kind of see what the other side of this looks like, that kind of talk motivation because this is work. Writing a process takes about five hours internally, and one process five hours internally. If you export it to somebody like us, it probably only takes three. It might be a little bit better, and you don’t have to do it. So, those are the benefits of that, but it’s still going to be a time-consuming process.
Audience Member: Absolutely. I just want to make a comment as well. The benefits of it, I saw some of this directly. It helps you improve cause analysis. If you document your process, it is comprised of consistency and actually helps you develop key performance indicators for your business. And your example, it actually controls risk.
Susan: I’m going to need to speak to you after so that you can build a slide for me. Thanks so much for coming. I do have some flyers up here in business cards if you want. Thank you.
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