No business is built the same, and the same can be said for their culture, marketing strategy, operations and tech stacks.
Since introducing Syncaroo Advantage audits and playbooks, I’ve had the pleasure of working with growing operators on mapping how they work across people and technology in order to help them plan and become more streamlined businesses.
In this post, I’d like to share a simple framework (and two tips) for how you can quickly think about and prepare to streamline your workspace business.
Simple Framework: who, where, what, and how.
The framework is actually quite simple.
For each task take note of the following:
-
who is involved in the process?
Find them and build a list of the how, where and what for each. -
how is the task actually done?
Make a bullet point list of all steps that need to happen. -
where is the work being done?
Think of specific platforms, software, in-person, via phone or email. -
what information do they need to be successful?
List any information that will need to be shared, to achieve goals from start to finish.
These building blocks will help you plan how best to approach automation and streamlining any task.
Getting started with using this framework.
1. Prioritize user journeys.
User journeys are usually processes that take a specific person from one state to another.
An example is “taking a lead from your website through to becoming a paying office customer“.
You can find your user journeys from either an operational level, or by asking specific team members to share their most laborious repetitive tasks.
Once you have a list of your 10 most important user journeys, use the framework above to explore for bottlenecks, issues, duplicate (or trapped) data, or other inefficiencies.
As an example, I’ll apply the framework above to our example of converting a new lead, you get something like this:
- who: the lead
-
how:
1. Submit form.
2. Get email with next steps.
3. Check schedule and confirm visit.
4. Ask additional questions.
5. Confirm pricing.
6. Providing billing details.
7. Pay.
8. Get onboarded. - where: your website, their email inbox, maybe a phone call, and in-person for a tour.
- what: price, availability, amenities, community, perks, neighborhood details.
- who: your sales team
-
how:
1. Receive request.
2. Send email with next steps.
3. Schedule and confirm visit.
4. Provide additional questions.
5. Confirm offer.
6. Get billing details.
7. Process payment/deposit.
8. Begin onboarding.
- where: email inbox, CRM, inventory system, current pricing, calendar, physical tour(s), accounting software.
- what: request info, billing details, preferred scheduled dates
2. Remove steps and duplicated info.
You can now explore how to remove steps and deduplicate information so you can become more streamlined and more data-driven as a business.
Following the example above you could explore the following:
-
connecting website forms directly to CRM
- less duplicated data and quick for the sales team
- CRM can trigger checks or initial sales process -
connecting CRM to inventory or management system
- once again, less duplicated data, and quicker actions from within CRM
- connect inventory system to external systems without exposing CRM data -
Trigger actions from changes in accounting software (eg payments or cancellations)
- no more manual welcome emails or off-boarding follow-up emails
- no more updating of user lists in access control systems
- automatic updates in CRM and connected inventory system
- automatic updates to connected partners, platforms and booking interfaces
- etc
Each step that’s automated, and the data-set that’s streamlined, the more efficient your business becomes.
Like any great investment, the time and resources saved per task compound exponentially over time.
Want to move quicker?
Of course, this takes time to do well and we know many teams that run space are already busy enough.
However, if you’d like expert guidance and would like to move even faster we’d recommend checking out the availability of Syncaroo Advantage in your region.
Reach out here if you have any questions.
