Challenges and Rewards of Constantly Adapting Processes in a Small Business

You started your business twenty years ago with a plan and a whole heck of a lot of hope. At the time, you had no idea what that dream would amount to. You were passionate about serving coffee and creating an environment where people could come to relax. Maybe catch up with a friend or a relative.

Today, your café has two locations. You are dreaming up a third. You employ twenty people and enjoy your life of lattes as much as ever. More so, perhaps, as you mature into the confidence only an experienced business owner can wield.

Your processes are basically the same today as they were when you began. Scaled up, of course, but otherwise unaltered. Why shouldn’t they be?

Tempting though it may feel to hunker down into what works, business owners in every category can benefit from regularly reviewing and adjusting the way they do things. In this article, we take a look at how adapting your processes can help you keep up with the times and make more money.

Read on to learn more about how you can use change to encourage growth.

Why You Should Change Your Processes Regularly

There are a few core reasons why it is important to constantly evaluate how you are doing things. The most obvious is that technology changes over time. If you aren’t using AI and other forms of advanced data processing, your business is almost certainly missing out on key efficiency drivers. These technologies didn’t exist at all two years ago and they are still in their earliest stage of development right now.

Here’s the other thing: your business is also changing all the time. New team-members. New products or services. You can’t grow sustainably without rethinking your processes. It doesn’t mean rewriting the book every week.

It does mean always asking: is there a better way to do this? Often, the answer will be yes.

Things to Think About

You should, of course, consider new technologies and industry trends as you look for ways to adjust your business processes. However, effective strategies aren’t just about leaning into what is trendy. They are about finding out what makes sense for you. Remember, that there is no magic formula or one size fits all solution.

Ask yourself: What has changed since the last time I reviewed my processes? The answer could be a new technology. It could be that your goals have shifted, or your business’s performance has changed. If your company has grown, or shrunk, or in some way shifted, the stuff you were doing before may no longer make since.

Also zero in on your goals. Do you want to achieve something new? If so, you’ll have to do something new. They say that the definition of insanity is to keep doing the same thing while expecting new results.

Remember that small changes can have a big impact. Let’s go back to that coffee shop example from earlier. Let’s say that it is open for fifty hours a week. If you can come up with a change that produces just one $10 sale more per hour, that’s $500 a week. Around $30,000 in increased profit per year.

Why it is Hard

All of this said change is never easy—particularly not the sort of changes that need to be scaled across an organization. Constantly adjusting your processes can create a lot of stress on your employees.

It’s a fact that organizations often experience heightened levels of employee turnover while they are making adjustments to internal policies. Some people simply don’t want the stress. Other people will feel like their skills are better applied elsewhere when their responsibilities have suddenly been radically shifted.

You can help alleviate this stress by:

• Being selective- The title says “constantly adapting” but that doesn’t mean rewriting your business model week to week. It does mean keeping your finger on the pulse of emerging trends and evolving in the way that makes the most sense for you.
• Implementing your strategies gradually- Don’t spring it on them in one day. Provide paid training. Develop your new expectations slowly so that no one feels overwhelmed.
• Modify your expectations- You can’t expect your staff to be just as productive as ever while also learning your new process or policy. While you are rolling out a new strategy, allow your staff to focus primarily on learning and adjusting to it for a few weeks.

Note that in the early days of a new policy or process, you might experience diminished profit and productivity. Give it some time. No one can be expected to master a new set of skills or expectations overnight.

Also, keep in mind that an adaptive mindset puts a lot of stress on you as well. You need to keep your finger on the pulse of what is going on. You also need to be discerning. Adapting your business takes time. It takes money. Yes, it might burn through some of your staff. You don’t want to go in without fully understanding how best to leverage the changes, and what benefits they might cause.

Conclusion

Let’s go back to that fifteen-year-old café for a moment, shall we? A decade and a half ago, smartphones were still a new concept. Social media marketing was in its infancy. Heck, Twitter and Facebook were only a few years old.

AI was the stuff of sci-fi stories, and concepts like remote work or even work-life balance were basically non-existent.

Things change constantly. You have to change with them. No, business owners shouldn’t chase every new fad. They should develop a set of strong processes that can be adapted and elevated with relative ease. They should also implement those policies in a way that is approachable for existing staff.

Change is hard, but it is also a necessary ingredient of progress. In business, stagnation is death. Learn. Grow. Improve. When executed properly, adapting your processes can drive revenue and improve efficiency, without risking personnel.