In the early days of any small business, it’s a miracle if any focus can be paid to the process by which the work gets done. Owners are putting out fires constantly and figuring out ways to expand their customer roster to ensure the longevity of the business. These tasks likely require a more idiosyncratic approach, as not enough time has passed for the small business to standardize much of how it operates—or for the business owner to step away from the daily grind.

The goal here is to get folks to work on the business, not in the business. This shift in thinking is subtle, but produces pronounced effects. Small business owners who work on the business have their eyes on growth and spend time refining business plans, standardizing approaches, and considering the company’s long-term health. Meanwhile, those working in the business are stuck in the day-to-day grind, unable to extract themselves from its distracting minutia.

Software can assist in this endeavor. The right tech stack reduces repetitive tasks like manual data entry, enhances customer experience, and, ultimately, serves as a tool to escape growing pains. But if software is implemented in a haphazard fashion or in a way that doesn’t align with the way a company operates, it’s rendered largely irrelevant. The value of all software is its ability to model a process and perform actions faster than what we could do without it; without a clearly defined process, software serves little purpose.

Becoming process-oriented lays the groundwork for sustainable growth, particularly when it comes to onboarding new employees and customers. Standardizing processes leaves less room for error, empowers employees to do their best work, and enables teams to utilize the best tools available while improving ROI.

Identify What’s Working—and What Isn’t

It’s easy for a small business to fall into a routine and stick to it. These companies operate within the limitations of what time they have available, and finishing a task is often more important than how it gets done. But business owners do their highest-value work when we are working on ways to improve the business.

While it sounds obvious, it’s only by taking a step back and analyzing the process as a whole that small business owners can begin taking steps towards change.

This exercise works best offline, with pen and paper or a crowded wall of Post-It notes. Small business owners should write out every step of doing business—from identifying a prospective customer through the conclusion of the sales funnel and into the operational details of delivering on deals. Start with key processes like selling, delivery, production, and others. Even if a small business employs only a single person, it’s worth writing everything out for posterity.

The reason we encourage that this step be taken offline is because it demands visibility into everything, and it’s far easier to take a step back when you can physically take a step back and absorb everything at once. Plus, these old-fashioned methods eliminate any danger that software issues will consume any time completing this important exercise.

What, Why, When, Who, and How

Once small business owners understand what they’re doing, they’re in a great position to dream up what they wish their business was doing instead. With clear goals, they’ll be able to prioritize what parts of the business they want to work on and which processes will change.

Small businesses can start establishing a process by focusing on the basics: the what, why, when, who, and how. This breaks down like so:

• What: Naming a specific activity or process that we want to address
• Why: Defining a clear goal or outcome for the process we have named
• When: Defining the start and end points of the process; the trigger point and completion
• Who: Listing who’s involved and what their role is in the process
• How: Breaking the process into small steps that include what tools or resources people will need to complete each step

The first step in defining a process is naming one to map out.

Next, it’s essential to understand the goal of the eventual process. Sometimes it is sufficient to have a goal that is very general—”increase sales,” for example. This is a fair starting point, but SMBs may want to think about this a little more deeply. Are they willing to increase sales by any means necessary? Does this include employing predatory sales practices to make a quick buck? Or, do they want to increase sales and create repeat customers through a high-touch sales model?

Then, defining the start and end of a process allows owners to understand the scope of what they are doing. Without a start and end, they are not describing a particular process. Specificity is what allows them to zoom in on something that they can think through and improve.

As for “who,” the easiest way to list who is involved in a process is to think about the goal or targeted outcome of the process and then the people who are involved. When thinking about people, try to think about their specific jobs, roles, or responsibilities. These details will make the ultimate process more actionable.

The “how” is last and arrives once the goal, scope, and categories of people involved have been defined. It’s now that owners can begin breaking down the steps that get them from the start of the process to the end. Each step in this process should have additional questions to answer, as these will act as decision trees to lead folks through the process in a way that works in a practical sense.

Unlock AI Benefits with Process

While a small business may not have standardized how its employees work in an official way, they may find that the work is fairly predictable and follows certain patterns. In some cases, they may feel that things are too disorderly for there to be a process. The good news is that if a small business owner doesn’t know how a particular thing is happening, they probably have someone they can ask who works beside them.

This is the point where it makes the most sense to consider implementing software, especially now that we are living in an era where AI comes standard with many technology solutions. The robust automation features of AI enable employees to offload time-consuming tasks to AI, which is then capable of configuring important documents and data to be used immediately by others. Folding AI into the process means focusing less time and brainpower on how a company handles its nitty-gritty and more on prioritization, efficiency, and iterative improvement—the elements of a strong process-oriented backbone.

In addition, AI automation ensures that process is repeatable; small businesses can insert new employees into the workflow itself without fear that they will skip an important step and force errors to cascade throughout the system.

A strong AI agent also enables small businesses to punch above their weight in customer experience. Important customer touchpoints can be handled by automation, reducing the risk that a customer feels neglected or that they’ll have to be bothered by repetitive asks. AI also frees up a lot of brain space for salespeople, as they won’t be bogged down by nitpicky issues and, instead, can step back and ensure the proper processes are followed.

From Process to Process-Orientation

Once small business employees are working on the business rather than in the business, it will be difficult to go back.

Processes are meant to be repeated, so no small business can call itself process-oriented if the process itself changes at every turn. To ensure the process can be undertaken each time, small businesses need to keep things relatively simple to start. They can focus on a few key elements to standardize and use the momentum gained to focus on others down the line. It’s far easier to scale a process up than it is to scale things down, especially after folks have gotten used to a certain way of operating.

Simultaneously, small business owners can’t institute a process and let it lapse. Even if these changes start small, it’s worth sticking to them, even if it feels counterintuitive at first, as an example to the rest of the company and to get in the habit of operating with a purpose beyond survival. The good news is that once the groundwork for process is laid, technology can do much of the heavy lifting; becoming process-oriented has never been easier for small businesses.

This article, “For Success and Maximum ROI, Think Process, Then Software” was first published on Small Business Trends