Dawn used to work with me at shopVOX as a coach / expert a few years ago.

She's literally the smartest person I know in regards to business processes and systems. Probably the most organized as well. A true process geek like myself.

She has a super power for analyzing, breaking down, and solving tough business challenges. – Bryant

Q:  Let's say I know I have communication problems within the order workflow from sales --> design --> production even after investing in a software management system. How would you approach trying to solve the issues?

Bryant Gillespie Ahh, a challenge right out of the gate – love it! Typically, if you’re having communication problems after implementing a software management system, it’s either because the system is lacking key information people need, people are hesitant to enter status updates or notes because it’s easier to use verbal communication (especially in smaller shops), or it’s a training issue.

I would take some time to step through the process with your team to see where it’s breaking down. Block out time on everyone’s schedule to sit down and have a round table about the process. I’d also “set the software aside” to a degree, meaning, map out the process everyone is currently following both in and out of the software. When I’m analyzing a company/team’s workflow, I look for the things people are creating workarounds for. Spreadsheets to track something the system won’t track, extra/unnecessary steps, sticky notes, etc. There’s ALWAYS one of these lurking around somewhere. There might also be a special tool or way someone does something that others aren’t aware of, causing chaos when the person is out.

A great approach for this process is to ask people to pretend they are training a new employee for their position. What things do they do on a daily, weekly, or monthly basis? Who do they get their information from? How? Who do they need to provide information to? How? What are the little things they do that are the shortcuts that make their job easier? What are the things they do that are workarounds? When looking at their process from a collaborative or “flow of information” perspective, what do they think could be simplified?

This process can help bring a lot of clarity to the underlying issues.

Here's a bit more detail on the common issues I’ve seen that can cause the order workflow process to “clunk” and some recommendations:

- Not using the software management system to it’s fullest potential. Often companies will only utilize certain parts of a management system because they think that’s all they need or they don’t have the time to fully implement it. This leads to doing double-duty - entering information into the system, but still relying on other tools; such as Excel to track other parts of the process or create lists/reports that the system could do. If this is an issue, again, spend some time flushing these areas out and finding ways to do it in the system.

- Relying on person-to-person communication rather than utilizing the system to keep everyone up to speed. If you have a small-medium sized team (1-10 employees), then usually everyone is pretty engaged with one another in communicating about what’s going on. So, the communication happens on the fly, as “water cooler” talk, or during a morning meeting. If someone isn’t there, they miss the updates, or if you’re so busy that the whole team doesn’t have time or forgets to pass something along, the process starts to break down. This is where the management system can help. Training the team to add notes and push the order through the correct statuses within the system, even if the person they would need to update is sitting next to them, then the better it can become. This way, if someone’s out, busy, or as we’ve experienced with COVID, the dynamics of the operation need to change (i.e., someone needs to work from home), the easier it is to transition because you already have the system in place.

- Staff may not feel that they can’t “trust” the system. If the system is cumbersome or hasn’t performed properly on multiple occasions, people will start to lose faith in it and backslide to using spreadsheets and verbal communication. The best thing to do here is flush out these issues and tackle them head on. Spend some time figuring out why the system isn’t performing to expectation or spend time doing some training so people feel more confident in using it.

- Clashing communication styles. Whether it’s a personal or business relationship, let’s face it, communication can be tough. Not being clear about what we want and need and misinterpreting what others want and need can quickly lead to disaster in any situation. This is where working with your team on what the process should be, step by step, and documenting things in the system can really help.

Q: How can I ensure changes to our processes and procedures “stick”?

Great question. To ensure changes to your processes and procedures stick, create a process for the process, i.e., set tasks/deadlines around the implementation of it. For example, implement the change and have employees track how it works for them for a few days or a week and then revisit it. Find out how it’s working for them. Does it feel clunky? Is there something that could be done to make it more efficient? Is it tedious/do they feel like it doesn’t align with what they need to get their job done?

Another thing I want to add here is that while having processes and procedures documented is important, at times, they can come from a place of trying to fix something in the process, rather than keeping an already fine-tuned process consistent. Do the work on the process first to make sure it’s well-oiled… THEN document it.

Q: How do you stay organized and also avoid "tool burnout"? I'm talking about apps that help keep our businesses moving forward -- Trello, Quickbooks, Google Calendar, email, etc. etc. etc... I feel like I can never find a good balance between having just enough apps and tools to keep me on track. There's either a missing piece to the puzzle or I've got so many apps and tools they just slow me down. What's the secret?

This is a good question. Sometimes it feels like it takes more time to juggle all these efficiency softwares that it does to just get the job done and worry about the details later.

Dawn: Totally. Unfortunately, this often comes from having tools that only do 80% of what you need. I'm sure you've heard this saying before... if a system only does 80% of what you need, you'll spend 80% of your time doing the 20% it won't.

The struggle is real. It’s easy to end up with a suite of applications to make your job easier that you spend 80% of your time managing - including Business/Shop Management Software. I think the secret is taking time to stop and look at where the burnout is coming from. Often, we ignore what it’s taking for us to manage everything because we’re trying so hard to focus on the work itself.

Some questions I would ask are:

- Are the apps really doing everything you need or are you engineering a management system out of multiple apps to try to do something another app would do all in once place?

- Is there something you can tweak in the setup or how you’re using the system to take some things off your plate? For example, I use QuickBooks online and fully lean on the Banking feature. Pulling transactions directly from my Bank saves me a lot of data entry time.

- Is it time to outsource some of the “small stuff” like your Bookkeeping, for example?

- Do you really NEED to track everything you’re tracking? I don’t know that I really considered this question within my own process prior to last year. I used to have a system for my lists. Saying this “out loud” makes me want to do a 🤦‍♀️. I didn’t want to lose track of all the things I planned to do, so I kept my task list in Airtable, categorized by Personal/Business and then priority using a similar system as the Eisenhower Matrix. 

The priorities I had were: HOT List, Next Up, Schedule Later, Recurring (so I knew I needed to add it again), Idea (for things that weren’t fully baked into a task yet), Keep (for things that were complete and I wanted to save) and Get rid of it. I would sort the list by Priority and then Category so I could see that view, and then I had a separate view for the HOT List items. This is the list I would work off of as my to-do list items for the day. I’d make a goal to get the top 4-5 done. 

Sound exhausting yet?? If I had sticky notes on my desk, or create other lists, I’d go through every few days and update the list in Airtable so I only had one list. Over the last year, however, I’ve been using a new system for tracking goals and action steps and now, I have a specific set of goals I’m working toward, and I outline the action steps I need to take on a daily basis to move me toward those specific goals. Since I started using this system, I only have 7 items on that Airtable list, and they are ideas I had for action steps to take so I can be sure to include them when I circle around to the related goal.

In summary… I realized I was keeping myself in a rat race of busyness with all the things I thought I should be doing, rather than working on the action steps that really moved me toward my goals. While this might seem a bit off course from your original question, the point is, sometimes we’re so busy spinning the plates that we don’t realize that the problem is we need to STOP spinning the plates and try something new… in our own process.

Q: What did the top businesses do differently on ShopVOX than 90% of the others?

Honestly, I’ve been out of the shopVOX world for a few years, so Bryant, Michael, or Pete may have some better advice here. In thinking back to some of the customers I worked with, I’d say it was fully utilizing the system and fitting it into their workflow instead of the other way around. IMHO, these are the top two reasons why software solutions fail. Most people, in looking at what a system can do, will see the demo, get really excited about the potential and then take it back to their office and either 1) can’t make it do what they thought it would or 2) try to change their process to fit the software which leaves people feeling frustrated which results in a low morale. To solve both, it’s better to look at your overall process and see where the software can bring value, then work it in as a new tool to that part of the process.

Q: What are 3 things we can do in ShopVOX in the next 7 days to make an impact on our business?

Again, Bryant, Michael, or Pete may have some better advice on this one too. As an alternative approach, a good exercise is to ask the following: What are the top things that are causing me pain in shopVOX (or my business)? Make a list of the first 3 things that come to mind, even if you aren’t sure why or if they’re the right ones. Then outline the steps you’d need to take to tackle each.

Q: What is something you’ve seen work in other industries that isn’t widely done in the sign industry that can help us take our businesses to the next level?

I’d need to know a LOT more about your business to offer specific suggestions on what I see that’s different from other businesses I’ve worked with, so I’m going to be kind of general here. I think the success of any business is more about who they are than what they do. 

To take your business to the next level, you need to step into what it’s going to take to become that business. This can range from doing a lot of personal growth, so you aren’t sabotaging yourself or your company’s success from the inside out; to being more open to/researching new ideas of how to streamline your processes; to creating balance within your company culture; to getting clear about who your customer is, how you can best serve them, and either scaling your services up to meet their needs, or niching your offerings down so you aren’t taking on the world for fear of missing out.

In simple form – don’t be afraid to grow.

Q: What are the most important leadership characteristics you’ve seen in our industry?

Hands down, the most important leadership characteristic to me can be summed up with the following quote by Gary Vaynerchuck: “When you’re a leader, you work for your employees. Not the other way around.”

If you can truly embrace that, you’ll see your business start to thrive in ways you would never have imagined.

Q: What is the #1 tool we can use to build out our training processes?

It depends on what you’re trying to accomplish with your training process, what features you’re looking for, what your budget is, and what resonates with your employees.

If you’re trying to fix or improve something in your process, spend some time on the process first. Figure out what’s working and what isn’t.

If you feel like you need an onboarding process because you don’t have time to train new people, my question would be, do you feel like you need an onboarding process for new people because you have a lot of turnover? If so, that’s a separate issue 😉.

If, however, you’re having exponential growth and need a way to replicate yourself – then I think it depends on your resources, what you’re most comfortable with, and what flows the best for your Shop. There’s nothing worse than trying to learn a new tool to take something off your plate that ends up being counter-productive… meaning it takes 10-15 hours per week to learn and implement in order to save yourself 10-15 hours per week.

If you don’t really have the time or money to invest in a training tool, I would leverage what you have to free up some time and then transition to something else later when you have both the time and money to invest. For example, some simple checklists, basic SOPs in PDF format, or creating an Onboarding to-do list in Airtable or Trello that you can share with new employees can give you a good start. There are also a lot of great resources in this community who are willing to share and videos out there that may already have the basics you can use so you don’t have to reinvent the wheel. 

For example, in watching the replay of last week’s call, I saw that @Pete Kourounis mentioned that while at shopVOX, he created a video on the 9-steps to order taking. If something like this is close enough to your internal process, I’d use it until you have time to create your own.

It also depends on what works best for your team. Do you have a team of tech-savvy folks who are going to appreciate the ease of an app, would they rather have the playbook in their hands, or are they going to respond better to having a flow chart or checklist on the wall?

Last but not least, one easy way to take some of the training load off your plate (unless you’re a one-man show) is to have the new employee shadow each person in the company for a few hours to learn more about what they do. To take it a step further, ask them to bring one takeaway back to you or one thing they saw in the process that might need improvement. It’s amazing the insight a fresh set of eyes can bring.

In summary, this is an area where it’s easy to get something that’s way more robust than what you actually need, so I’d get clear on what you’re trying to solve.

Q:Which would you rather fight: 1 horse-sized duck or 100 duck-sized horses?

Love this question! 1 horse-sized duck. Better to tackle one big project/problem at a time than 100 small ones all at once.

Q: What are standard automations that every shop should be doing but aren't?

I tend to look at every process as unique and reverse engineer workflows based on what the end result needs to be/how the company operates, so it's tough for me to boil it down to a set of "standards," but what comes to mind is:

- Lead Management - making sure that there is a system for leads similar to what there is for Order Management.

- Connecting their Shop Management System to their Accounting System - I've seen a lot of disconnects here.

- Pricing of course... whole separate topic.

- Customer Onboarding and Follow-ups - often these get missed when people are busy. Having Onboarding information that is either added to the Quote when it's sent out or readily available for someone to attach can help educate customers on what to expect and automated/scheduled follow-ups for both the front end (Quote) and back end (after the job is complete) can really help save time and build customer rapport.

Q: Back to scheduling and keeping track in general, since Shopvox doesn't integrate with Google calendar do you or should we be utilizing one over the other?

Honestly, I never had any shops implement scheduling while I worked at shopVOX and I'm not sure what updates may have been made since that time. From what I remember it took a lot to setup in the areas of machines, products, and resources. Personally, I like the idea of using a Google or Outlook calendar, especially if you're relatively small because you can block out time on the calendar for specific tasks/jobs. Bryant, Michael, or Pete might have more to add here.

Follow up Comment: That is what I've been trying to get in the habit of doing. Once I have my sales orders created and approved I kind of move to my Google calendar and have been trying to stick to that to keeping everything blocked out.

Dawn: That's a great approach. It's also helpful, if you aren't already, to schedule in the time you need for other parts of your day as well and give yourself extra time. For example, making sure to put time for your Morning Meeting (if you have employees), or block out a time for customer follow-ups. Adding the Job Name to the Subject line and adding separate calendar items for each stage in the process, i.e., Print, Cut, Install can help you easily see where you need to multi-task and where you're overbooked. While you probably already have your process down and know what needs to happen when, the exercise of blocking it out forces you to "get real" with what you've stacked on your plate.

Appendix

Dawn’s Bio

I became interested in computers at an early age. A friend of the family was a computer whiz - and I'm going to really date myself here, but I loved seeing how lines of code could make the computer display certain lines of text or an audible beep. In High School, I was fascinated with DOS and how you could save files to a floppy disk. Back then, they were truly the floppy disks! My first office job was for a Restaurant/Event Center in the Historic District of a neighboring town and the first Word Processor I used was Word Perfect. It came easy to me. I quickly learned ways to automate mailings, create templates, and fancy/professional looking letterhead and fax forms.

I loved the feeling of being able to change how the text in a document looked by changing some of the "hidden" codes or how to move multiple files at once using a few lines of code in DOS. I also found I had a knack for hardware and peripherals and quickly became the resident "computer expert."

In those early days, I also had jobs as a Commercial Loan Secretary, Office Manager, Bookkeeper, and Help Desk/IT Support.

I realized in each role that my purpose was to figure out ways to streamline, improve workflow, automate, and ultimately make people's lives easier.

This was where my passion for Business Systems and Workflow Process was born.

Over the last 25 years, I have helped multiple companies ranging in size from small businesses to large corporations unlock their business potential as a Business Systems/Process Consultant.

My skills include:

• Business Systems Analysis
• Software Implementation
• Business Process Improvement
• Report Writing
• User Acceptance Testing
• Staff Training & Development

I am a Microsoft Access Developer, experienced QuickBooks Pro, former shopVOXer, and have experience with a wide range of other SaaS Tools.

I live in North Idaho with my Husband. We have two children and are now empty-nesters. We were on the road for the greater part of 7 years while he worked as a traveler for a construction company working on Windmill and Solar projects. We came home full-time a little over a year ago and have been enjoying getting settled back in to our home.

In my spare time, I support my husband in his business and am in the process of launching a new company with the goal of serving women who are looking to break free from the long term impacts of trauma so they can live fuller lives.