(Based on The Back Office Podcast Episode 1: The One That Makes Things Happen )
In my career, I’ve personally witnessed just how crucial it is to have smoothly running operations for any business to thrive. I actually like to call it “the back office operations.”
I used to work in the hospitality hotel industry and I remember I was literally in the ‘back office’ right behind the front desk. And that’s how I got this understanding that the people in accounting, human resources, and even marketing were the back office people. This experience made me realize how important these “back office” operations are!
When I worked for a homegrown brand in my hometown I was fortunate enough to have developed and executed successful marketing initiatives and promotions. What I can’t deny is that our success was always through the work of the operations team.
Then it hit me: Even a half-assed idea well-executed trumps any great idea that’s carelessly executed.
I understood that in business, the operations is the glue that keeps everything together.
Just think about how Accounting is trying to cut costs or change suppliers while HR is rolling out its own employee wellbeing programs – those all have to work in sync with whatever the marketing plans are!
WHAT’S IN THE BACK OFFICE?
Today as a business owner, this is how I see back-office operations.
At The Homebased Worker, I’ve seen firsthand how essential a well-functioning back office is to the success of a business. It’s the heart of a business, pumping resources and facilitating important processes that keep everything running smoothly.
What are these behind-the-scenes operations all about?
Let me break it down in the context of what we do here at The Homebased Worker.
In our day-to-day work, we support six-figure businesses that are on track to becoming seven-figure enterprises and we sometimes do this for them from the very beginning.
The Launch
For some clients, we start from the very top so we must do a launch.
When we launch with clients, we figure out what the needs are. Usually there has to be a sales page, registration page, Email automations, a social media plan and so much more.
This is about two weeks to a month of pre-work that leads to the launch itself. There are times when this prep time takes even longer.
Who’s involved?
In our ops team, there are several people handling different tasks but all of these tasks and processes are, of course, very connected to each other.
We always have an Online Business Manager which is the role I often assume. For a launch, I do all the planning, delegating, creating instructions, cross-checking, and sometimes even testing.
Then we have account managers who handle all the client deliveries and executions. She then coordinates with our support ops: The creatives and the tech experts.
The creatives work on all things writing and design
While our tech expert works on our automations, integrations, page builds and a lot more.
But that’s just launching. There are other things that need to be executed in the business’ daily operations.
The Day-to-Day Ops
When a business or campaign is officially launched, then it’s time for the daily grind.
For most of my clients, there are components of social media, customer support, deliveries to the client, sales, and so on. All of them have operational support needed one way or the other.
And here’s what I realized are the benefits or having effective operations on a day-to-day basis:
• Efficiency in processes and costs: When processes are optimized and resources are used efficiently, everything is a lot more cost-effective
• Easier monitoring and analysis: In my experience, it’s very important to understand many kinds of data and when the back office is on top of all of it it’s easier to gain insights that provide a lot of assistance when it comes to decision-making.
• Scalability: Properly handled back office processes can handle growth seamlessly, ensuring that everything remains agile and adaptable.
All of this is essential because operations are not only to sustain your business and its daily needs, but it’s also about the bottom line.
Well-executed campaigns deliver great results. It’s as simple as that.
Now let me write like the business owner that I am.
The reason I really value operations is because it’s very helpful to me as an entrepreneur. When the back office operations aren’t great, you’ll end up getting pulled back by a lot of bottlenecks and uncertainties. The worst thing to come out of this is for you to end up doing things yourself.
That’s why I believe that those who run operations are the unsung heroes of your business.
So now I encourage you to take a good look at your operations and assess how it’s going.
• Is it supporting what needs to happen on the day to day to sustain you, your clients and your products?
• Is it going to be able to support you and the business if you want to scale?
• Would you be able to do more collaborations and take in more clients?
• Is it executing your pre-cash and cash generating activities really well?
Your answer should be a straight-forward YES. If not, then it’s time to revisit the back office operations and make some decisions.
Remember, CEOs don’t run their business operations. They’re not accomplishing things on their own. What they have is a solid team with well-delegated objectives that lead to efficient operations.
That is what we do for clients at The Homebased Worker. If you want to know more about how we do this for our many six-figure clients, follow along our journey @thehomebasedworker.
And, if you think you could use end-to-end operational support we might be able to help! Hop on a no-strings-attached 15-minute discovery call with us and we’ll see if we can help you out.
