Navigation Point: Structure
Whether you’re a solo business owner or run a small team, the thought likely has crossed your mind once or twice or a thousand times, “what happens if I’m unable to work, even for a short time?”
COVID-19 made that thought come front and center, but so does the prospect of going in for surgery or coming down with a debilitating short term illness.
The realization hits entrepreneurs hard when they’re faced with being unable to work for weeks or months.
Let’s Focus On What You Can Control.
- Do you have employees, subcontractors or freelancers you can delegate work to?
- Do you have processes and procedures clearly documented and accessible by all?
- Do you have an open line of communication with your clients and vendors?
- Do you have systems and automations that can take over manual tasks?
- Do the people in your household or family have access to your contact list?
While no one wants to “write themselves out of a job” the most important goal is to continue to communicate what is going on, plan ahead and provide premium and flawless services to your customers. Do you want them to go elsewhere for a few months and then expect them to return to you when you’re up and about? That is unlikely to happen.
An Easy Starting Point
Start a binder that will contain all the critical documentation someone can use as reference to manage things without you; or even to communicate with the people who can.
The binder will contain contact information for support team, clients and suppliers. It will also contain login credentials for any accounts someone will need to access in your absence.
I suggest you purchase a colorful binder or make it somehow stand out from any other books and documents in your office, so someone can find it quickly. Let them know where you keep it.
The “binder” can also be digital, but be careful to not make it so that everyone has access. The idea is to let one person or at most 3 people have access to it, no more. You can password protect the doc and give the password to only those people.
I keep my binder where someone can spot it easily. It’s a pretty and colorful design. I’ve also taken to calling it, “the keys to the kingdom” 😊.
I guarantee that once you start adding documents to this binder, you’ll find more pieces of information to add to it.
Note: this is not a filing system, but a place where the key data is gathered in one place.
If your family member or admin had to step into the company in an emergency, they would need to know
- Professional Services: your accountant, bookkeeper, attorney, insurance person, coach, suppliers and vendors.
- Admin Team: subcontractors, freelancers, employees.
- Financial Access: QuickBooks, bank account so that your suppliers and team get paid, your bills get paid, and your clients are invoiced in a timely manner.
- Appointments: Who are your active clients, access to your calendar so they can manage your upcoming appointments.
- Communications: logins to access and manage your social media, email marketing.
The Benefits Of Adding To Your Binder.
As time goes on, you can expand it and add your business plan, marketing plan, branding standards, anything. It becomes comforting to have everything in one place, easily accessible. The goal is to review it every 3 months if not monthly, to keep it current.
The more you add, the easier it will be to turn those keys over to someone in case you want to sell the business or simply hire a replacement for your self.
How Can I Help You?
If you need help with this or similar scenarios, and are reaching decision exhaustion and entrepreneurial loneliness, it may be time for you to enter a supportive group environment. The Clear Path Collaborative provides you with access to the Growth Positioning System, a coach, and fellow entrepreneurs who experience what you do and are ready to help each other on a steady path of growth. Running all aspects of a business alone is madness. Even when you have a team working with your clients, the buck stops with you and it’s lonely at the top. A peer advisory board has helped millions of business owners. Here’s how you can benefit as well.