You are the Master Chef of Your Small Business

I love thinking of a business like a Master Chef.

A good Master Chef has:

• recipes (even if he/she cooks from memory there still is a ‘way’ of doing something)
• tools (knive, bowl, spoon, etc)

With the recipe, the goal should be to create a high quality, repeatable meal as efficiently as possible.

With the tools, the goal should be to know ‘when’ to use each tool and ‘how’ to maximize usage - ie. a knive is used to cut, you need to keep the knive sharp, there are different techniques to cutting, etc)

In a business, recipes are the processes. Tools are the software systems.

Here are some of the biggest problems I see in businesses:

• the recipes are in peoples head, are executed inefficiently, or no one updates them (ie. making a cake takes them 20 steps when it should take 10)
• the tools aren’t used right or the right tool isn’t optimized - ie. people are using a knive when they should be using a spoon, their knives aren’t sharp, or they haven’t been coached on how to cut properly so are wasting lots of time

Get the recipes written down and constantly refine them.

Get the right tools and get someone to show you how to keep them sharp by training your team.