Say you go into a fast food restaurant and order a No. 5 with a Coke. After receiving your order, the employees are off and running.

Sound familiar? But what you might not realize is that the minute you walk into any fast food location, the operational systems are already in motion: How they handle customers, supplies and production is all pre-determined. Business seminars, books and courses often recommend that business operations mirror popular chains like McDonald's.

Flipping to a Fast Food Mindset

Standardizing operations, including restricting certain creative elements, could unlock great efficiencies.

By Richard Korbyl

(Originally printed in the January/February 2024 issue of Insights.)

Say you go into a fast food restaurant and order a No. 5 with a Coke. After receiving your order, the employees are off and running.

Sound familiar? But what you might not realize is that the minute you walk into any fast food location, the operational systems are already in motion: How they handle customers, supplies and production is all pre-determined. Business seminars, books and courses often recommend that business operations mirror popular chains like McDonald's.

If you have never seen “The Founder”, starring Michael Keaton, I highly recommend it. The movie shows how operational systems helped create the empire we all know.

There is no doubt that these chain restaurants are kings when it comes to these systems, which, simply put, force a business to operate in a logical and predetermined manner that can be repeated and scaled.

Can systems be used within the personalization business? Definitely—but they do come with challenges. As business owners with creative minds, we can be our worst enemy. We look at a tumbler, hat, shirt or award and when combined with powerful computer design software, the internet, lasers and 3D printers, we see infinite personalization opportunities.

Ultimately, we are creative animals with a huge ability to produce almost anything, and it’s this “I can produce anything” attitude that restricts our ability to standardize products and systems.

Easy Operations

As business owners, we often try out new technology, products and processes with high hopes of expanding the business. Unfortunately, while we do this, we lose focus on streamlining. Consider the old idea of working in the business rather than on the business.

There is a fantastic author, Michael E. Gerber, who has produced several books, seminars and coaching services on how to help better systemize your business. His theory, also known as the “e-myth,” states that once your systems are running properly, the owner should almost be the least important person in the organization.

Wouldn’t that be nice? You go to work, and everything is running relatively smoothly, and you are not forced to fight (as many) fires.

Gerber recommends that business owners concentrate on what they do well and what makes them money. After all, Steve Jobs killed about 80% of the Apple product line, allowing them to focus on prime products.

In our family business, we have always believed in the principles of creating and maintaining an operational system. But that’s easier said than done. There are two main reasons why implementing an operational system is so challenging. First, mapping out your system with details, processes and even diagrams is extremely time-consuming. Second, forcing yourself to stick to these systems is almost more difficult.

For example, let’s say you want to standardize an individual product or product collection. It doesn’t matter if you are selling a T-shirt, glass award or a wedding gift. All these products will require some form of personalization.

The first step is to establish the decoration method depending on your abilities, creativity and technical know-how. You’ll also have to contend with limitations regarding fonts, graphics or variants you plan on offering. Remember, when you are creating these systems, your goal is to standardize your products so you can replicate and scale your business.

Of course, any add-ons you offer could be considered additional revenue streams. Think of add-ons as your chance to increase the average value of each order. If you are creating an operational system for producing tumblers, you could possibly offer name personalization as an add-on.

One-off Products

They say that the devil is in the details, so don’t forget to record and relay all the important order details to your staff. Systematizing your back-end processes, such as order-taking, record-keeping and client communication, will also help you streamline an integral part of your business.

Let’s assume that you have created a system for your product. The next step will be disciplining yourself to use the newly created system. This can be difficult, especially when a client comes in asking for a one-of-a-kind fantastic product or design. Sure, you could do that, but you are trying to standardize your operations. By streamlining and systematizing your products, offering a fully one-of-a-kind design might not be ideal. There are so many unknowns that you need to factor into your custom project. How long will the design process take? Does the customer even have a good idea of what they’re after? Does the customer have the budget to compensate you for your time and effort? (Of course, there are special clients who require a fully custom-designed product.)

But for those clients who just want a nice creative product, you might be able to offer a product that has some restrictions on designs and variants. The limitations you place on designs and variants may not fully satisfy your creative outlet, but they could help your bottom line. 

If you want to increase your efficiency, you need to begin standardizing your business practices and product offerings. By doing this, you just might find some freedom, and in turn, you might be able to super-size your business.

Richard Korbyl is the manager of Columbia Awards, a longtime family-owned awards and personalization business in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. He is also a past APA president.