This transcript was generated from the episode audio and may contain minor errors.
[Music]
Week in Workshop, design your first workflow. This is gonna be a fun one. Welcome to the podcast, the podcast known as Side Hustle School. My name's Chris Guillebeau. In this segment, we started it in January, it's still going here a few months later, called Week in Workshop.
It's all about helping you learn the key steps to a new side hustle in 2025. One step or concept per week. It includes activities, examples, and more. And of course, it's all free. We are using the book, Side Hustle, from idea to income in 27 days as our text.
That book is available wherever books are sold, including an audio version, of course. And today's episode comes from day 15, which is all about designing your first workflow. So what is a workflow? Maybe I should explain that. Basically, it is a clear, repeatable system or an order of steps for running your business efficiently.
And more specifically, just running one part of your business, one particular part of your business, your business often has lots of different workflows. You have workflows in your day job, in your other work, anything else you do, there is an ordered sequence of steps. And maybe it's not written down like that, maybe you haven't thought of it like that, but normally there is a sequence of steps. And you're actually going to work more efficiently if you identify those steps and you just have, again, a clear process. So let's see if we can help you with that today.
As an analogy, think about a restaurant kitchen, right? So there is a clear sequence there of what happens, like an order comes in, the prep work begins, food is cooked, quality checks happen, plates go out to customers, there are probably some additional steps, but those are a few of the big ones, right? Everyone knows exactly what happens next, that's the key point. So your business or your site hustle needs the same kind of clarity. And a workflow is simply a map of how things get done in your business.
It answers some basic questions like, what happens after someone places an order on your website? And how do we make sure nothing gets missed? So by creating these maps, you can spot potential problems before they happen and make sure every customer has a consistently good experience. Wouldn't that be great? All right, so there are two main workflows that matter most because we could really go in the weeds here and talk about 50 different workflows, but let's not do that.
Let's keep it simple. Two main workflows that matter most. Number one, how customers find and buy from you. And number two, how you deliver what they purchased. So when you do this right, it helps you identify bottlenecks, improve efficiency, scale your business and so on.
As an example, I wrote about Amanda in the book. She built a successful business selling digital cookbooks. But at first she was overwhelmed trying to keep track of everything. So she sat down and mapped out exactly how customers would move through her business cycle. First, they discovered her food blog.
They would do that through social media or search engines. Then they would sign up for her email list to get free recipes. And after building trust with helpful content, she offers them her cookbook for sale. When someone purchases, they automatically receive download instructions and a welcome sequence of emails with bonus recipes and cooking tips. So there you can see essentially the steps required for both of those workflows, how they find her in the first place, and then what happens after they purchase.
By mapping this process out step by step, Amanda could see exactly where she needed to focus her efforts. For example, she noticed that many people signed up for free recipes, but never saw her cookbook offer. So she made a better system for presenting it to them. All right, we're gonna take a quick break when we return designing your first workflow. Let's see what we can do to make this a reality for you.
[Music]
All right, so part two, a good workflow identifies every step in your business process from first customer contact to final delivery. The key elements to include in the customer journey, that would be the first workflow. How do people find you? What is their first interaction? How do they purchase?
And then what happens after purchase? Okay, which leads to basically the second workflow, delivery process. What needs to happen first? Who does each step? Are there manual steps you need to take?
Is there some other step that someone else needs to take? When does each step occur? Some steps might be automatic, and some might have a delay of a certain number of days or weeks, however long. And then how do you know it's complete? Those are basically the questions you want to answer to create this workflow.
And of course, the notes page for every weekend workshop includes an action exercise. You can go to sidehustleschool.com/3018 for today's, that's 3018. And this action exercise, as noted, is to design your basic workflow, your first one. So list every step from customer discovery to delivery. And by the way, if you don't have a business yet, well, you're working on that, right?
You're thinking about different ideas and such. So for any particular idea, you can go ahead and design the workflow. You don't actually have to wait until you have the business. So for any particular business or business idea, list every step from customer discovery to delivery. Put those steps in logical order.
Note who is responsible for each step. It might most likely be you, but just in case it's somebody else. And then identify potential problems to solve. I mean, that's pretty much it. Start with a simple workflow and improve it as you learn.
It's gonna make your life easier. It just helps to have things clear and specific. Then you can focus on other things. You can be more creative, do fun stuff. Workflows allow you to be more creative.
Just keep that in mind. It actually allows you to do more of what's important to you. The goal is clarity and consistency, not perfection. As I say in this series, it's better to have a simple idea you can start right away than a brilliant idea that never launches. Hey, thanks for listening today.
This was Weekend Workshop, Design Your First Workflow. Next week, we'll have another segment in this series. But of course, until then, a new episode every day featuring some other segments and case studies, some questions and answers and more. I'm so grateful for you. Thanks for being part of this community.
Much more is on the way. My name is Chris Guillebeau. You're listening to Side Hustle School. [Music]
From the Onward Project.
