How To Systemize Your Agency in 5 Steps

If you’re working long hours and repeating the same answers to questions, then it’s probably time to systemize your Agency.

‍

So what is agency systemization?:

‍

Systemization simply means organising your agency so that it runs more efficiently. 

It involves centralising knowledge & processes to help employees work faster and more efficiently. The great news about systemization is that it's easy to do and can actually be fun once you get started (seriously:).

‍

The benefits of systemizing your Agency:

‍

There are so many different benefits to systemizing your Agency. With a small investment of time you can:

• Simplify recurring tasks
• Improve team productivity
• Reduce time pressures on staff
• Make your business more scalable
• Make it easier to sell your business in the future
• Eliminate the risk of key knowledge-loss when a team member quits

So let’s get this show on the road!

‍

Step 1: Create a List of Important Tasks in Your Agency

‍

The first step is to create a list of the most important and most frequently recurring tasks within your business. 

You’ll probably know what most of these tasks are off the top of your head. Once your list is complete we’ll use it to achieve some quick wins for you and your team. The kind of activities that will probably be on your list include items such as:

• Your customer sales process
• New customer onboarding process
• Staff onboarding & training processes
• How to perform key work tasks
• Strategy or workshop formats
• Monthly billing & reporting

‍

Step 2: Turn Activities Into Simple Processes

‍

A process is basically a sequence of steps that others can easily follow.

By turning your work activities into processes you will immediately make it easier to delegate work and bring clarity to your business. You can speed up this step by using the right tool for the job. 

‍

To create a new process simply follow these 4 steps:

‍

1. Write down the title of the activity / process
2. List the sequence of steps to be followed to complete the process
3. Add a few helpful tips next to each step 
4. Finally, add your new process to a shareable library

‍

Quick Tips:

‍

• Tools such as WorkPilot make this very quick and easy to do. It also makes processes easy to share, use and track.
• A searchable library will make your processes easy to find & use 

Step 3: Launch an Agency Knowledge Library

‍

A knowledge library is a central place where team members can access company knowledge & resources. This searchable hub is going to dramatically reduce the time that employees spend looking for answers. It’s also going to help you to scale your future business by making it easy to onboard and train new staff.

Elements which are often included in company a knowledge hub include:

• ‘How-to’ guides for work tasks
• Annual leave & staff FAQs
• Internal company documents
• Employee onboarding materials
• Company policies (COVID-19 & I.T)
• Remote working guidelines
• Training guides

‍

Tips:

Your knowledge hub is a valuable asset that will help to grow your business. It should be:

• Searchable
• Shareable
• Easy to use
• Allow multi-person authoring 
• Let you set access rights

‍

Step 4: Eliminate Agency Key-Person Risk 

‍

Now that you’ve started to systemize your Agency it’s time to remove a really big risk. At some point in every business, a key team member will suddenly leave. 

It might be because they get sick, take a new job or move to another country. Whatever the reason, when they leave you will lose valuable business knowledge that’s expensive to replace.

The best way to avoid key-person risk is to systemize key roles & knowledge before you think you need to. This should be an ongoing process that takes place throughout the year.

What to do:

1. Have your employee create a list of their core work tasks
2. Next, ask them to create short processes for each task, adding it to your shared library
3. Finally have your team member add some short articles to the company knowledge hub including:

• Their key job tasks
• An FAQ document for their role

By spending one day creating some simple tutorials and reusable checklists, you can off-set the risk associated with them one day leaving.

‍

Step 5: Delegate to Succeed

‍

The final step to systemizing your Agency is to proactively delegate work between your team members. This will speed up how quickly tasks can be completed and distribute work more fairly.

You’ve now been systemizing your business by adding your process and knowledge library and that will make it much easier to delegate tasks tot your fellow team members.

That’s it! Congratulations your business is now well on the way to being systemized, scaleable and will be easier to sell should you ever decide to cash out.

‍

--

WorkPilot makes Agency systemisation & knowledge sharing - simple. Get started free within seconds here.

‍