Excerpt from Soap Making for Profit

Here is an excerpt from the new ebook Soap Making for Profit, explaining the need for effective processes...

PROCESSES
Systemize to maximize! - Systemize your operations and you will maximize your profits!!

You may be the most intuitive thinker on the planet, but if you’re not you will need to prepare some written processes. This will ensure that when you have spent a great deal of time and effort deciding the best way to do something, you don’t then forget how you did it next time and waste your valuable time and money finding another way. Any great ideas you have during your set up period need to be captured and documented, so they can be repeated again and again.

Your processes can be as simple or as complex as you feel you require, from a short checklist to a detailed guidance document.

As a general guide, they need to be as simple as possible, but maintain the quality of output you require.

Each of your soap recipes is in fact a process, so are the steps you go through when ordering extra supplies.

Ensure that you document these processes carefully and should the need arise to ask anyone for assistance their instructions are already prepared. You may have to ask for help during periods where you need to increase production on the approach to a craft fair, or even if you wish to leave someone else in charge while you take a well-earned holiday.

If you are having trouble coming up with a logical way to document your processes, try the following approach:

Input: Cake ingredients (the Input is the trigger that starts things off)
Actions: Mix and cook (the Actions describe tasks carried out)
Output: Tasty cake (the Output describes the result)

This is a very simplified example which outlines the process, but would not really ensure that the cake was good quality, increase the level of detail until the process can be followed simply and clearly and the final result always remains consistent and the quality is as good as you require.