A Beginner’s Guide To Freelance Business Processes

Source: freelanceswitch.com

Process schmocess. Who needs them eh? Well actually every business needs them, no matter how big or small you are; but if you’re a one-man freelancing business you might still be wondering why you need to bother with them?

Having effective processes in place can help you…

• Spend less time on the boring, time-consuming aspects of your business
• Build a client-generating machine
• Let go of some of the reins and work out what tasks you can hand over to someone else (also known as outsourcing)
• Set your business up to grow beyond the confines and limitations of a small, one-man band business without the additional hassle and growing pains

If you’re just starting out or you have no idea how to implement smarter processes in your business, then here’s a brief guide to implement some of the basics…

Basic Marketing Processes

Many freelancers hate marketing themselves and would far rather work in their business servicing clients than spend time generating new clients. If this sounds like you, then implementing some or all of the following, could make completing your marketing chores simpler and less arduous:

• Plan out your prospect journey - plan out a sequence of all the steps that an ideal prospect could take on their journey with you before they become a client. This will include how and where you’d like them to find out about you initially; where they can go to get more information; the choices they have; and what they need to do to become a client.
• Create ‘common enquiry’ email templates to respond to some of the more common requests you receive such as requests for more information about what you offer, requests for your prices, more details about how you work, your payment terms and how to respond to media enquiries.
• Prepare some standard marketing materials such as client reference sheets or info packs for each of your individual services and products. These could include a price list and some testimonials and could be sent over as attachments to the above emails or snail-mailed to interested prospects.
• Create a “marketing message bank” of the key marketing messages that you’ve defined for each of your target markets; whenever you need to create some marketing materials, you can then pick and choose or cut and paste from the headlines, bullet points and calls to action that you’ve got in your marketing message bank.

Operations & Service Delivery Processes

As you work in your business, begin to compile a basic manual for some of the typical things you do to run your business and service your clients effectively. A great way to start doing this is to make a note every time you’re doing something that you think someone else could do for you. These may include:

• Bringing on a new client - tasks included in this process might be how you collect payment details; when you send out a welcome pack; how & where you enter client details into your CRM system or customer management spreadsheet.
• Managing client billing - tasks in this process might include how & where you enter details into your invoicing system; how and when you send out your invoices; how you deal with and chase up missing payments.
• Making a business purchase - tasks for this process might include how you raise a purchase order; how you purchase items with a company credit card; how and where to log the purchase in your business inventory; how and where to file the receipt.
• Finishing work with a client - these tasks might include sending a “thank you” email; asking for feedback or a testimonial; how you plan to keep in touch with them and send details of further support available.
• Prepare a range of basic “Company Info” sheets which detail the key information you’re likely to need for “official” purposes; this includes your official business/trading name, your company structure, date of incorporation if relevant, trademark and copyright info and the names and contact details of professionals like your bank, accountant, insurance advisor, lawyer.

Maximising People Productivity

The following suggestions can help improve not only your own personal productivity but also help prepare your business for introducing new people. Whether as employees, sub-contractors or outsourcers, improving and enabling their effectiveness to do their job means they won’t have to drain your time by asking you how to do something every 10 minutes…

• Create a bookmarks folder of frequently accessed services in your browser - mine is called “Daily Admin”; if you work in a team, then use an online bookmarking service to share frequently used bookmarks.
• Keep a folder of frequently used programs and software on your desktop or in the “quick start” menu of your computer and then create a USB key or zipped folder of these programs (with applicable licences of course) which you can share with any new team members who join you.
• Create a folder of frequently used documents/templates on your desktop and/or share them using google docs or another file sharing service which lets your team access the resources they need.
• Knowledge management for small businesses means gathering together in one easily accessible place, any useful tools and resources that will improve your and your team’s ability to do their jobs. This could include marketing resources, “how to” resources or any guides that you refer to regularly.
• Create job spec sheets for all the roles required to run your business - yes, even if you currently fulfill all of them yourself! Doing this will not only help you improve your effectiveness in each role, it will help you define what you’re looking for when the time is right to expand; and will help ensure that the person you hire knows exactly what is expected of them in their role.

If all of this sounds a bit daunting and you have no idea where to start, then the key to creating and refining effective business processes is to start to log the key activities you do on a day-to-day basis. You’ll begin to notice the tasks that take up too much of your time, the tasks you hate doing and you wish someone else would do, and the tasks that you do on a regular basis but have always suspected there is a more efficient way of doing them.

When you have this list then start with these processes, take a step back and think about how you’d do them if you were starting all over again…then document them.

When the time comes to expand or outsource parts of your business, having the above basics in place will help you do this far more smoothly and effectively.