SECTION ONE: Defining Business Value This section will enable you to answer the questions, “what value does my business provide?” and “how can I define my business value in a quantifiable way?”. We will begin with a discussion of the meaning of "value" in a business context, and then talk about how this concept can be applied. Too often, we as business owners believe that “if I build it, they will come” but that’s only one piece of the puzzle -- you need to make sure that you’re building something that people want to buy! In Section 1, we'll cover: - What people mean by “value” in a business context - New ways of thinking about and visualizing value creation in a business - How to use data to understand and measure the value your business is creating...and increase it! - How to make sure that you are creating value for your customer rather than using guesswork to determine your growth strategy - How to identify your business’s “core value proposition” and why that matters. SECTION TWO: Process Storytelling In this class, you will learn the fundamentals of “Process Storytelling,” a framework for effectively understanding, visualizing and communicating business processes in a way that enables anyone to understand and execute the process effectively. In Section 2, we’ll cover: - Why it is necessary to start from a physical frame of reference when documenting a process; - How to use the 5 ‘W’ framework (an approach also used by journalists in crafting news articles) in order to identify the information you need to include; and - How to visualize process steps in a simple, easy-to-understand way using just 3 shapes. By the end of this section, you will be able to identify and document the key processes and process steps in your business (things like onboarding clients, invoicing and bookkeeping, scoping projects etc) in a way which will enable you to both delegate work more successfully and better understand how your business actually works. SECTION THREE: How to Grow a Company Profitably? In this section, we'll define the categories of decision-making around sustaining profitability in a growing market place: "automation", "scale", and "growth". We will discuss a formal definition of the terms, how they relate to one another, and what you need to know to manage a business’s growth sustainably over time. This course will be particularly useful for those who have already started a business and yet are struggling to figure out where to go from here in terms of growth, marketing, sales, etc. No prior knowledge or experience is required.