A Holiday Gift Even Mr. Scrooge Would Love

Now wait a minute...

We have GREAT customers, and we’re thankful for them! But, like you, we are busy people, and we don’t want to lose sight of the most important people in our business—our CUSTOMERS! So we created a system that won’t let us wait until the last minute.

How does this system work?

On our Production Administrator’s Daily Routine Checklist (under the title November), there’s a PROMPT telling her to meet with the President (me) and our Bookkeeper about Christmas gifts and cards for our customers. On the Bookkeeper’s Daily Routine Checklist, there’s a PROMPT for her to print out certain reports from our customer database for this annual meeting, and another PROMPT for her to print out labels for mailing our Christmas cards and gifts.

Since our bookkeeper only does the label printing once a year, it’s hard for her to remember all the steps for how to do it. So—adding to her holiday cheer—on her Daily Routine Checklist right next to the prompt for printing Christmas labels, there is a Reference Number (actually, the document number of a procedure) with step-by-step instructions on how to do the label merge from our customer database and print out the labels.

Now, this doesn't appear very technical or impressive at first glance. But, if I were to spread out, end to end, all the Daily Routine Checklists used by key personnel, Quality Control Checklists for all our processes, all Preventative Maintenance Checklists, Procedures, Policies and other documents—you would see thousands of PROMPTS to do THIS or THAT. Nothing is ever just forgotten!

What are the THIS and THATs?

These are the hundreds of “little” details that owners and managers typically carry around in their heads—the way their business or department operates from the time they turn the key and open for business until the time they leave at night. Yes, many business leaders leave late at night because THEY are the system!