Video Transcript:
So the best way to tell you why you need to do some process mapping is with a story. Okay I had a client and they asked me to come in and solve a problem they were having. They do collections in a sense for customers. And what they were doing was they had whenever they got a new customer coming through Salesforce they would print out a piece of paper with you know all the information about that customer, put it in a folder and send it over to the bookkeeping department to keep on hand so that when it was time to pay out that customer they had all the information on file to double check because the customers had typed this information from day one to make sure they were paying the right person. They had the right banking information etcetera. So that the money would go straight through. and they wouldn’t have any bounced check fees.
So they asked me to come up with a better way to do this because they really wanted to not have to have people bringing this paper across the building all the time. And it was just a big waste of time. And they declined to do the process map. They said this is a big problem. We’ve got we’ve got to solve this first and then we’ll talk about it. I said okay fine.
So what did we end up doing? We ended up buying a printer that was on you know go on the network and plugging it in over by the bookkeeper and writing some code to make Salesforce automatically summarize the information they needed and print it out to that printer whenever they converted their opportunity into a into a client. And so this was great.
You know it took quite a bit of work but we got it working and everybody was happy and then we started doing the process mapping to do some other improvements in the business. Once you know they felt that the load had been lifted about this problem. And when we mapped out the entire process, it turns out that the reason they were doing this whole printing thing is because they didn’t use Salesforce after the clients opened the file they moved that information into two or three other systems before it got to the accounting software and they were manually copying and pasting or typing this information every single time.
So it was like a game of broken telephone. By the time it got to the accounting system, the name was spelled wrong or there was a number missing or a whole big mess and that’s why they always have to do this double checking. And, so, when we process mapped it, we saw this clearly. And we said, well what we really need to do is software integration. We need to tie these systems together so that no human ever has to do any typing after it’s put in the first time.
If the person who is your client types it in by themselves, they made it correct or at least they’re the ones who made the mistake and then your systems all talk to each other and that information is perfect as it gets all the way to the accounting software. Now, when you take a zoom out, and you look at this and we fixed the problem, we didn’t need to buy the printer, that’s a couple hundred bucks saved. They don’t need filing cabinets anymore. They’re saving money and space on that. They’re getting rid of the paper, they’re getting rid of the folder, and most importantly, they got rid of not only the bookkeeper wasting their time double checking all this stuff, but all the people in the middle that were copying and pasting the information or moving it — all that all that wasted time was gone.
And nobody even thought about it after that — they didn’t even, you know, nobody realized without taking a step back, they just carry on with their job. Now they can take their time to do more meaningful things. This wasn’t a case of trying to eliminate somebody’s job. People are sometimes afraid of, this was just getting rid of useless work that People are doing on a day to day basis so they can do more useful things in the business.
So the business can handle more customers without having to hire more people to do these menial tasks that a computer could easily do without any special programming knowledge other than a one time effort of integrating these systems.
So with that, I hope that my story has convinced you that process mapping is something worth doing. It is not something that takes a lot of skill. It doesn’t take any special tools. You know my my preferred method is there’s a free tool online called Miro or you can use Microsoft Visio if you’ve got that, you can use Microsoft word to do this even.
But honestly, some of my favorite ones have been done with sticky notes and a giant piece of paper. So you don’t even need a computer for this. All you need is people’s time and their brains to sit down and talk about what it is that they do every day and why; and figure out the questions that need to be asked at every point and the information that need to be passed around and what happens at each step and just draw it all out, get it all out on paper.
I’ve got a video that goes into depth on this. I’ve got some tools that can help you do this better. But, really, as long as you can spend the time to do the process mapping, you could probably find all kinds of ways to make your business better with software without software. I don’t care how it’s done. Sometimes it’s just as simple as adding an extra piece of information to a piece of paper that goes around your office to save a ton of work. But you can’t figure those things out without sitting down and looking at the big picture, drawing it all out and realizing where the inefficiencies are.
And with that, please check out my other videos. Check out my website: Processfixer.com I’m happy to always answer questions on the chat below and happy to, you know, if you don’t want to do the process mapping yourself, I’m happy to do it for you. So let’s meet up and let’s get it done, and let’s get your business operating more efficiently. please hit the like or subscribe button below. Give me some of your feedback. Ask some questions in the comments. I make these videos for you guys all the time so that we can help make your businesses better and get you guys where you need to go.