Business Operations Playbooks
Put It In Writing
Most businesses grow organically and before you know it the founder is no longer the one who knows every single operating process or procedure. Your business has probably hired great people who are really good at what they do – but are you prepared for them to leave? Do you struggle with how to onboard a new person in an operational position when you don’t have time to verbally tell them how to perform your core business functions? Do you want to turn over some of the functions you’re juggling, but everything is in your head? Are you thinking about scale and growth – maybe adding a location?
It’s time to put your core business knowledge in writing.
These days your team might not be just across the hall. Give them access to consistent information that’s searchable by building a digital library of your core business processes.
Plan for Change
Business continuity and succession planning are things smart business owners plan for, especially at the top of the organization. Very few, however, extend this same planning to their key knowledge holders. How much of your finance and accounting processes are documented? What about your daily operations? You have an Employee Handbook, but do you have documented processes for how to run your payroll? Your people have a good handle on what they do, but what is the plan if one of those people wins the lottery? We help businesses document their core knowledge so you’re protected against contingencies.
Build Resiliency
Change happens – competitive forces, floods, changing customer tastes. Pandemics. And when change happens you’ll find ways to adapt, pivot, and improve so you keep up. This is when having written contingency plans and processes – for a suddenly remote work force, for example – makes companies more resilient because siloes have been removed, and company knowledge has been shared (or at least is accessible).
Share Knowledge
It’s not just basic office policies and procedures that need to be documented. Departmental best practices, playbooks, and checklists make onboarding new team members easier, and prevent existing members from re-creating the wheel. But this kind of knowledge base also encourages growth by building on what is already there. This can’t happen if every challenge is always a new one.
We help small companies streamline processes, and then document their collective knowledge to protect and future-proof their business.
Let’s discuss your goals and see if there’s a way to make them happen.