015: The Secrets of Businesses that Scale

1. Never assume everyone is clear on your mission, values and guiding principles.

Each individual department might have their guiding values, but is it consistent and cohesive with other departments? Start going through the process at a high operational level to make sure you have the right operating principles and what is the foundation of creating them. Look for gaps and inefficiencies that need to be addressed.

2. Create a list of guiding principles.

These principles will answer questions your team has and allow everyone to be on the same page. Get input from your team leaders on the principles that guide them, and narrow all of those down to form your list for the organization. As an example, one of BELAY’s guiding principles is “The price is the price is the price.” That simply means they believe in the value of what they sell and aren’t willing to negotiate. 

3. Your Standard Operating Procedures are an awesome opportunity to see where there are big gaps and inefficiencies.

They help answer the questions, “How do we save time here? How do we shrink this process or use technology to make it more efficient?” For example, a lead has come in. What happens after that? They get an email, then they get a phone call and so on. The SOP simply helps you lay out processes so everyone understands and knows what to do next.