Ecommerce is a massive sector, with a projected value of $4.5 trillion by 2021. However, without the proper ecommerce processes in place, it’s more than easy to fail before you even get close to selling your first product.

And have you ever heard:

“That’s fantastic! Have you thought about selling those?”

We’ve all had a moment of inspiration for our own online store. Whether (like me) you took up a new hobby (crochet) and showed your project to a family member (my gran) or you stumbled across a cheap source for a certain product, the lure of online sales is difficult to ignore.

“… data from Statista anticipates a 246.15% increase in worldwide ecommerce sales, from $1.3 trillion in 2014 to $4.5 trillion in 2021. That’s a nearly threefold lift in online revenue.” – Aaron Orendorff, Global Ecommerce: Statistics and International Growth Trends

That’s why we here at Process Street have put together this ecommerce processes pack. These templates will provide you with detailed instructions on how to do everything from setting up an online store to listing products, designing a logo, and promoting your content.

Better yet, every last process is completely free!

So, what are we waiting for? Let’s start selling!

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Now we come to the heart of our consultant’s guide to Process Street – how to document client processes and deliver them as efficiently as possible.

This is your bread-and-butter in any BPM software, and by weighing up the pros and cons of the various ways you can manage business processes, you’ll be able to see what best fits your company and customers.

I’ll be detailing the method, advantages, and disadvantages of:

• Documenting client processes in your own Process Street organization before handing them off
• Setting up a new organization in the app to later hand off the whole thing
• Accessing and working inside a client’s existing Process Street organization

I’ll also be covering the various options for actually documenting client processes (such as using new or premade templates), collaborating with clients to get the best results possible, how to hand off business processes, and when to set up integrations with other apps.

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It’s hard watching someone make mistakes, especially if you already know how to avoid them.

Staying silent while they slip up (or even do things in ways you would not) is harder.

That doesn’t mean you have an excuse to micromanage them.

Micromanagement is the ultimate controlling management style. It’s demoralizing and counter-intuitive, as the desire for control to make sure everything goes to plan only creates more problems in the long-term.

That’s why in this Process Street article, we’ll be looking at:

• What is micromanagement?
• The pros and cons of micromanagement
• How to spot a micromanager
• How to offset micromanagement with OKRs
• Using process management to remove the need for micromanagement

Let’s get started.
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“Without IT process management, there is no way to assure [cost-effective IT services]” – Casper van der Kolk

Whether you’ve been in the IT business for years or are just starting to make your mark, there’s no question that managing your processes is vital.

With processes, you can you do more with your current resources by standardizing and optimizing your work. And, when your team knows exactly what to do for each recurring task, they can greatly improve their productivity and motivation.

However, the benefits don’t just stop at a happier and more efficient team.

Integrating these recurring workflows into your IT management resource basket can reduce incident response times, increase customer satisfaction, ensure security compliance, manage department stock and – perhaps best of all – enforce consistency, to give you peace of mind that everything is running as expected.

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Ah, the days before I started using project management software.

I don’t miss them.

70+ hour weeks of pure stress and disorganized skitting from task to task, unable to focus on the things that mattered when they needed to get done. It was a lesson hard-learned but one of the most valuable I’ve ever had the misfortune of going through.

So I’ll save you the trouble and show you the best free options on offer.

You don’t need a massive budget or a lot of experience to get the most out of these apps – hence why they’re the best free project management software. Most have paid plans but all are functional with the free version and all will help you and your team organize your projects and get things done on time and to a high standard.

I’ll be covering:

1. Process Street
2. Agantty
3. Airtable
4. Asana
5. Avaza
6. Backlog
7. Bitrix24
8. FreedCamp
9. HiTask
10. KanbanFlow
11. MeisterTask
12. Paymo
13. Pivotal Tracker
14. Podio
15. TeamGantt
16. Toggl
17. Teamwork Projects
18. Todoist
19. Trello
20. Wrike
21. Zenkit

Enough talk – let’s get stuck in.
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What would happen if you were hit by a bus while walking to work?

Well, other than the morbidly obvious, and the time and money spent hiring and onboarding their replacement…

This is the line of thinking behind the infamous “bus factor” – the minimum number of people who, if out of action, would cause your operations to collapse.

“46% of UK businesses would be forced to cease trading immediately if a key person died or was unable to continue working through illness or injury” – Online Money Advisor, Key Man Insurance: A Definitive Guide to Key Person Insurance

It might not be ideal, but it’s a harsh reality that every team has to face; whether temporarily or permanently, your colleagues aren’t always able to make it into work.

We, here at Process Street, have had more than our share of project delays (and even failures) due to a low bus factor, which is why this post has been written. Today, you’ll learn how to identify risky projects by using the bus factor, and how to mitigate those issues as quickly (and cheaply) as possible.

We’ll be covering:

• What is the bus factor?
• How to calculate the bus factor
• Bus factor elements
• How to increase your bus factor
• The limits of boosting bus factor

Let’s get started.
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Bidding for jobs can be cutthroat.

Not only do you have to create an accurate estimate of how much everything will cost, but you have to do so as quickly as possible to have the best chance of securing the customer.

You don’t want to waste time filling out forms when you could be working, but any mistakes can severely damage your chances of getting the sale (if the estimate is too high) or even ruin your reputation (if the estimate is too low).

That’s why we here at Process Street have created and gathered these 14 free estimate templates.

Instead of having to create your own job estimate form, all you have to do is look through the templates below and see which one you like best. All serve the purpose of giving your clients a professional job estimate document, but allowing you to just fill in basic details instead of creating each document from the ground up.

Just head for one of the following sections and make your pick:

• General free estimate templates
• Microsoft Word job estimate templates
• Microsoft Excel estimate templates
• PDF estimate templates

Effective HR management tips prevents company-wide anarchy.

From solving internal disputes, to presenting a united front to customers, to just plain abiding by the law, HR is a vital discipline which is all too often generalized and pushed out of mind.

That’s why today I’ll be going through 12 HR management tips to help you keep your employees engaged and your company running smoothly. From the utter basics such as being open to hearing feedback on techniques like using social media to grow your network, keep reading to learn everything you need to know to avoid being another Michael Scott.

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There’s only so many times you can read “the button is red which makes it stand out” before getting frustrated. “Yes,” I thought, “but what about everything else? Why is this call to action example where it is? Why isn’t it a circle?”

“What is this CTA designed to do, and how does it achieve this?”

I couldn’t find an easy answer to these questions, and that had to change. That’s why this post will take apart 24 CTAs in detail. No one-sentence summaries and vague details.

From landing pages to supermarket signs, you’ll see how these calls to action may play a larger part in the company’s strategy, how they are set up to achieve this, and therefore how to apply the lesson from each to your own.

Let’s begin.

“Airtable vs Trello. Which is better?“

Our team (and customers) used Trello for years before transitioning to Airtable several years ago. We were having a tough time adjusting (old habits die hard), and my Process Street colleague Ben Brandall was trying to get to the bottom of why.

We love improving our productivity using everything from business process automation to focus music, and this case was no different.

Trello is a powerhouse of task management but Airtable is a masterful mix of database, spreadsheet, task and project management app. How are you supposed to choose?

That’s why I’m writing this post. After having used both apps personally and professionally for more than three years, I’ve been able to get to grips with who these apps are designed for and what makes them useful.

Most of all, you can learn from this to see which app would suit you instead of spending years testing them out yourself.

Let’s get started.