But what if your team was overrun not because there was too much work, but because they were performing common tasks inefficiently, simply because they don’t know any better? If that’s the case and you hire someone else, you’re not solving the problem—you’re feeding it.

What if, instead of throwing more bodies at the problem, you took a step back and assessed how your team performs their day-to-day tasks at a high level?

Doing so will help you uncover:

• If your processes are being performed consistently, or differently depending on who is performing them and when

• The reasons why they are being performed inconsistently

• Bottlenecks and double ups that are resulting in delays and/ or confusion, causing your team to find hacky workaround solutions

• If your tech is used incorrectly, inefficiently, or not at all

From this high-level assessment, chances are you will identify the need to refine, standardize and document your firm’s processes. That is, taking each workflow, task and procedure that your firm performs, refining it into consistent steps, and then documenting these steps in a way that makes sense to your team.

As a result of standardizing and documenting your processes, your firm (and clients) will benefit from leading-firm indicators, like

• Increased productivity and efficiency

• Boosted top line

• Team alignment

• Scalability

• Visibility across processes

• Consistent client experiences

Recommended reading: The difference between firms that focus on their processes vs. those that don't