Red.Hot.Case.Study: Sprout New Media

Make More Time, Be More Productive – Now!

I’m all for having systems in place to help you get your work done faster, more efficiently and with far less stress. However, I don’t think everything needs a system or that everything should have its own system.

You can literally suck the creative energy out of any business by placing too may restrictions on folks through process and procedure.

But there are places where a simple system can free up lots of brain fuel for creating. Nothing conquers “overwhelm” faster than a well-thought-out system.

When Lisa Wood of Sprout New Media and I worked together recently, our primary goal was to conquer some of the overwhelm she was experiencing.

Make no mistake; Lisa isn’t your typical creative independent. She is way smart, gets a tremendous amount of work done, is organized and uses her left brain to keep all the balls in the air which is why her business is growing.

However, growing pains are tough. There comes a time when you finally hit the tipping point. You have work lined up with more potential clients calling. And, suddenly, you aren’t sure if you can service all of them in the way they need. More importantly, there can be a tremendous amount of fear and doubt that creeps in when you are faced with the idea that maybe you can’t grow anymore, you can’t get bigger and more profitable because there just aren’t enough hours in the day.

Worry not! That’s my job!

On the blog I talked about being able to see the forest for the trees! And just like when I can’t see my own forest through the trees, Lisa was feeling like it was all getting a little out of control.

Here’s an important thing to remember, everyone gets overwhelmed, everyone. That is why it is so very important to have someone who can look through the trees with you. Sometimes I tell you stuff you already know but it isn’t about what you know, it is all about how you see it. And that’s what I call the Reframe.

Systems

Among the various things we worked on, one of them was implementing systems and strategies for handling work flow.

Overwhelm can creep up on you because it’s sneaky. And before you know it, BAM you need a system, except how will you ever find the time to design one? What part of the wee morning hours are you going to find to dedicate to getting that done?

I threw on my Red.Hot cape and we went to work!

A system should be as simple as possible. It should be easy to modify to accept changes if necessary. Its primary job should be to eliminate the re-inventing of the wheel every time you have a task to do. For Lisa, sitting down to put together a bid and then if accepted a contract and invoice for deposit was already in place. The big frustration came from keeping track of all the parts and pieces that are needed for a successful project, and getting that information in a timely manner to keep the project on schedule.

Lisa was telling her customers what she needed from them and they were responding. The problem was they were responding on their own time frame, bit by bit, through the lens of their own work load. I certainly can attest to the fact that from time to time I have been that customer.

Yes, it’s frustrating but unless you tell them how you want to receive the information, you’ll get what you get when you get it.

Lisa already had a check list of items she needs to get from customers to work on their projects, so we started with that list. Lisa put one more step in her initial customer contact system by formalizing that list and sending it to customers. Once she has received a signed contract and deposit, rather than get on the phone to talk about the things she needs, she now will send out an email with a check list of items they need to provide to her with instructions on what she needs and how she needs it, along with the instruction they email when they have everything together.

Now Lisa will get everything she needs in one email, not 10 different emails and all at one time. No more time spent going through emails looking for the one password or image she needs. This is training the customer to do your work for you in a way that makes sense for you. This also eliminates a phone call requesting those items that could potentially take 45 minutes, worse yet if the customer wasn’t taking copious notes they might not remember everything they need to send causing yet another set of emails or phone calls.

We added a few more things to the customer contact system so that it will do the work for her and should eliminate one big area of overwhelm.

I’ve got a whole bunch more stuff we can do to make those processes work even better now that I’ve had time to think about it… but don’t tell Lisa, I don’t want to overwhelm her!

We Get It Done

Getting Red.Hot is not just about pointing things out, I don’t just say, “you really outta have a system…” Lisa and I actually worked on creating that system, we worked out the details of what would be included, we figured out what was already working and where we could slip in a few more ways to systemize what she was doing. We worked out the format and language of the new pieces.

I know Lisa will attest to the fact that our time together was a real work session, not just a talk about it session.

The point behind getting Red.Hot is to figure out where you are at, what you need and then work on the needs to layout a course of action. We worked out enough of the details during the work session that Lisa was able to easily create the new documents, create templates and implement the new process.

Red.Hot.Success comes from a combination of strategy, brainstorming and support, with a dash of smart and motivated clients.