Tip of the Week: Keep WorkflowMax Clear of Clutter

The last thing you want when you implement a new software into your business is for it to create even more clutter than you had previously! WorkflowMax has the ability to streamline and de-clutter your workflows and processes, however you must be an active part of making it happen!

Here are my top tips for keeping WorkflowMax clutter-free:

Keep your job manager clean!

Be careful not to take shortcuts each time you raise a job. I recommend filling in as many details as accurately as possible at the onset; it may take you an extra 2 minutes at the start, but it will save information being lost, incorrect or obsolete. This is especially important when it comes to dates. Take the time to put in an accurate start and finish date so that you are not getting red alerts permanently popping up in your job manager.

Create internal processes around how the job manager is treated, in my business everyone knows that monthly jobs need to be invoiced out by the 3rd of each month, weekly jobs by the following Tuesday and small one-off jobs by the end of the following day. This means that ONLY the jobs that are in progress are visible. Keep things clean and tidy in a timely manner.

If a job has been invoiced out in progress amounts to date, but is now complete, then raise the final invoice, don’t leave it sitting there getting in your way, confusing everyone! If there is a good reason it needs to remain open then create a unique Job Stage to give easy visual reference to your team as to why it’s sitting there.

Keep your Lead Manager clean!

Similarly with your lead manager, I recommend filling in as many details as possible at the point of entering your lead into WorkflowMax. Add specific lead activities to specific staff members and ensure these are ticked off when completed.

Add quotes to your leads to make it easy to locate and understand which quote belongs to which prospect. I would suggest reviewing your lead manager weekly, to ensure obsolete or cold leads are moved on and only your legitimate potential business remains. It may make you feel great to have a lead manager that is full to overflowing, but if the leads are not legitimate then you are not doing your business any favours! Once a lead is won, quickly mark it as won, and convert it to a job so work may commence!!

Using lead types to differentiate different business or lead stages is a valuable way to be able to visually segment your leads, as well as giving valuable business intelligence as to the type of work in your sales pipeline. Adding relevant notes and emails directly to the lead or via the collaboration manager will also ensure your lead manager is useful rather than useless!

Keep your Quote Manager clean

If your quote manager is cluttered, it can be very difficult to ascertain what is going on! As a handy checklist, I’d recommend the following:

1. Delete draft quotes that did not progress to ‘Issued’. A staff member may have started on a quote, then been called away, then started the quote again from scratch. Lots of old drafts will create clutter.
2. Archive old quotes that weren’t accepted – they will be helpful to keep for future reference but don’t need to be sitting in your list of current quotes
3. Create job templates to use for creating quotes that follow a specific format – perhaps one of the reasons your quote manager is cluttered is that staff don’t have the tools to complete quotes easily. If you can build job templates, quoting will take less time and be done properly from the start.
4. Review periodically – weekly or monthly – jump in and ensure the above recommendations are done regularly so it doesn’t progress as a job that is in the “too hard basket”.

There is a saying that a cluttered desk = a cluttered mind. The same applies within your workflow management system. It’s hard to think straight, make proper assessment and plan accordingly if your WorkflowMax file is messy and cluttered….so what are you waiting for! Schedule in a clean up today.