Every Thursday of the week on the Small Business Owner’s Mastermind call, we will talk about a different topic in order to cover the most important points of a business. In a week we will talk about sales, a week about marketing; operations in the third week of the month (which we talked about in this week’s issue), and then business accounting and finance in the fourth week, and then the month where there are five, we do a workshop.
Operations
This week’s topic was talking about business systems, processes, operations, etc. So to start you should think, what were some of the best practices that you learned and what are you going to implement in the future? Because we hire employees, we position them to the right, we put them in the correct seat on the bus, we train them, and then we think we never have to follow up with them. So what are some of the things you learn?
Technology expert Alan Reeves confessed to us that he is one of those people like being a surgeon who wants to be able to walk into his building in the middle of the night with no lights on and put his hand on the exact tool he wants. At any time without turning on the lights, he has to be in his place.
For this reason, everything that enters or leaves our facilities, and everything that is in our clients’ locations, is labeled with the proper name, the proper nomenclature, and the proper naming scheme. And if you see something that is missing an identification marker, an address is assigned, it must be addressed at that time, no walk past and go. Oh you know what, I’ll look at it tomorrow.
What should you do?
As a business owner, if you are just starting out now, you are actually in a much better place. versus this client that I just hired this week, that’s like $ 3.7 million 27 employees, and they have no processes or systems, I’m still in awe of how they got to where they are, compared to the startup.
So you can learn now and start, I mean, you don’t have employees yet. That is what I would consider as you are in startup mode. Because until you actually have a payroll that you’ve covered, you’re probably only self-employed right now.
Everything changes the moment you bring that first person. Okay, and I’ll show you how to make that decision here in just a second.
So as the owner, at some point you will have to write the processes and systems. And then once you bring in that first employee, making sure you hire the right person, the right time, use evaluations, you do background checks, you never hire anyone, when you need it at the last minute, you always make a mistake. that way.
Then you need to do checks and balances on them. So for me, in the companies that I own and have managed and in the companies that they consult, in the future it is necessary to have a monthly or quarterly review depending on the size of the business review with that employee.
If you are in a company where you are hiring a professional, and they are doing a very special type of work that you do not know, very important, you have some checks. and balances in place to make sure they are actually doing what you pay them to do.
So if everything you need in business, from a process and procedural point of view, was written in the book, we wouldn’t have enough pages to print the book, right? So what you have to do is start from where you are. Every time you bring someone in, you want to make sure they are better than you. And then you use the proper delegation, make sure they understand what it is, they are required to what success is the way you currently do, and you give them permission.
This is where most small business owners fail, such as giving them permission to own. Well, you are the owner of this process and system. Now it’s up to you to make the upgrade, it’s up to you to keep it up to date, but you can’t just leave it up to you, you have to check and verify it.
Roadmap
It is a step by step of how you should do this process. This is how you systematize your business at the end of the day if you want your business to function without you.
By the time you are done with this exercise, you can be based on the time per week, and then you can decide, will I hire an employee right now? Or am I going to hire Joe or Mary, the subcontractor in the US or the Philippines or wherever, to get this task off me? And once you’ve got 20 or 30 hours to spare here, now I’d be looking at an employee.
Alan Reeves Reflections
I feel like a lot of business owners go into business because they are really good at what they do. They didn’t go into business because they love process, payroll, human resources, compliance, OSHA, and everything that their industry entails. And then they come to you guys, they come to John, well they come to business coaches, because they say, I don’t understand how to create a structure around a business.
So I think it’s really crucial that we identify what are the issues with the processes that need to be implemented and then have partners who know how to help them implement those processes and delegate where necessary. And whether some people use the outsourcing model, with what we do, we basically hire everyone, to do their payroll, their human resources, and their risk in their business strategy together. And I think that’s what makes a business successful: getting people who are good at what they do and delegating what speaks to them as good.
Conclusion
You have to do all the nonsense in your business that you don’t want to do until you make enough money to hire someone to do the nonsense you don’t want to do. The only reason I’ve ever hired an employee is when I want them to do things that I don’t want to do, or I want them to do more of the things that I am running out of time to do.
Our job as business owners is to create a structure and a system in which that employee does not have to guess what is expected of them. Truth be told, most employees don’t want to start their own business. There are some who do. But most of them just want to hear it.
They want to be able to come to work in a great environment, act and leave feeling fulfilled. This is how you get to 95% utilization. Are you happy, do you want to be there? Well, the written processes, systems, procedures and, especially, obtaining their input will help you to have your freedom, your absolute freedom.
