Entrepreneurs usually have to be available 24/7 when their company launches. However, that is not a long-term solution for anyone hoping to build a successful business.
If you started a business, have employees, and still need to be on call at all hours, on all days – even on vacation – you need to change.
This article discusses three strategies you can use to step back from your “on-call” role while still growing your company.
Use These Three Strategies
There are three common reasons that business executives and entrepreneurs are always on-call.
1. Difficulty delegating
If you have built a business and hired employees to do meaningful work, you should be able to delegate tasks that do not fit into your workweek. However, many business owners work long hours every week, find their vacations interrupted, and don’t get enough family time.
Strategy #1:
One of the best solutions for an overflowing “to-do” list is delegation. You hired employees to do the work that you cannot do. Now that your company is growing, it’s time to look at what work falls under your job as an executive and what work others should do. If you are constantly diving into sales, training new employees, or doing work beyond your executive function, you need to start delegating.
Strategy numbers 2 and 3 will share additional steps you can take to make delegation easier. However, the first step is to write out your job description, what you would expect someone in your shoes to do, and what jobs you do that don’t fall in that purview. Then, hire a new employee to take on those additional tasks.
2. No reservoir of institutional knowledge
Many business owners try to be the reservoir of institutional knowledge for the company. This is often because letting other people build up their own institutional knowledge means that, when that employee leaves, the institutional knowledge is gone.
Strategy #2:
There is a simple solution to both problems. That is, create an accessible documentation system for institutional knowledge.
Here are five steps to take when structuring your documentation system:
- Find a place to store the documentation that will hold video, audio, image, and written files. This place should be secure and accessible to those who need access.
- Write policies around documentation. These would include who should document, where to store files, how to access them, and when to update them.
- Build a model and use that as a template for all documentation.
- Define what information new employees need during onboarding – and what information is specific to a particular job.
- Get your team on board to document new information and utilize already recorded data.
Having your institutional knowledge documented and accessible means that you can go on vacation or go “offline.” Your staff will still have the knowledge base they need to do their jobs. Additionally, documenting knowledge allows you to delegate tasks that need underlying information. All you have to do is ensure the person to whom the task is delegated studies the documentation.
3. Lack of systematization
It is challenging to delegate tasks and train new employees if clearly defined systems are not in place. Systems show your team how to achieve the goals you’ve created for the company and help make tasks duplicable and scalable.
Strategy #3:
The best way to ensure the unique experience your company promises is delivered by your staff is to systematize.
Without systems, you likely need to be part of almost every interaction to ensure it’s up to your standard. However, with systems, you can define a standard once and then show your team how to attain that standard. Then, your staff can use the system to ensure clients get the unique experience they’ve been promised.
We have many articles and podcast interviews that discuss how to systematize. This article shares where to start so that you can quickly scale up. However, here’s a process you can follow:
- Utilize the resources you found in strategy #2 to store your institutional knowledge and use that space to store your policies, processes, and procedures.
- Define the policies undergirding your organization.
- List the various processes that need to be accomplished (sales processes, product building, product delivery, customer service, onboarding, marketing, etc).
- Define the overall tasks that need to be accomplished within the processes listed.
- Get granular and define how those tasks are accomplished on a step-by-step basis.
It’s best to go through these steps with your team rather than have the company’s executives define every process. When team members are involved, they can share what they have run across and how they handled unusual situations. This information will add to the processes and make them even more valuable.
Do you want to accomplish the above three steps but don’t think you can add more to your already overflowing plate? Get in touch with Business Success Consulting Group. We are experts in business documentation and systematization.
