Basics of Online Business Procedures

The key to a profitable business is in it's procedures. A set of well documented procedures will ensure consistency in the business, while undocumented procedures will most likely result in failure - leading to disappointed customers, disgruntled employees and a higher cost of doing business. We all want lower costs, so we'll go over the steps needed to produce procedures in your own online business.

First off, you are going to need to know how to do the procedure you want repeated. You may have been doing it for months or it may be something entirely new to you. Either way, you must know it and know it well enough that you can explain it to someone else.

Secondly, write down all the steps in order. Break the task into subtasks if there are options that need to be chosen. Never leave an ambiguous step in a procedure as it will lead to confusion and failure of the process. Make sure that the words used are command words and not words that convey options. Go through the steps yourself to make sure that you have covered everything.

Third, using a screen recording device, such as CamStudio or Camtasia Studio, record yourself performing the procedure. Talk the person who is going to be watching it through every step that they need to do in order to finish the task successfully. Now, package it up on a DVD or put it out on the web and make it available to your interns, contractors or employees.

The last step is to continuously improve the documentation and the procedure itself. Make sure you are getting feedback from those who are actually using the procedure in their day to day work. Once you have that feedback, incorporate those ideas into your system. The more times the documentation and procedure go through a review process the better they will be.

Learn how to start and build your own successful & highly profitable Internet Business in 45 days… 100% Free! I'm Ernie Sandan and I know from personal experience. Online Business ABCs

- Ernie Sandan