I’m a planner by nature. Not everyone can say that comes easily. I’m here to encourage the non-planners towards benefits and creative freedoms found via documenting their business procedures and systems. For the most part, it’s a one-time thing with occasional updates as the business evolves and grows.
You may think being a solopreneur that it is not necessary to document or create procedures because you’re the only one working the day-to-day. You don’t have all of a large corporation counting on you but you do have your clients and family and your own expectations to safeguard.
Tell me, how many times do you refer to your policies when a client asks about this or that and wants to do something a bit outside the boundaries? Do you find yourself feeling pressed against the wall with out-of-the-ordinary requests? If you take a moment to document your policies, your what-if scenarios, those guidelines you plan to abide by in daily operations, than I can promise you it will be a timesaver AND a stress reliever later on. You will have already worked through the issues and have an idea of how you want to proceed when the pressure is off rather than be thrown into the boiling water and sinking deep in a murky scenario.
This freedom doesn’t need to come in a HUGE manual filled with reams of paper. It can be bulleted lists in a Word doc, an Excel spreadsheet, or files on Evernote. You’re building reference points to have at your fingertips. For example, having your procedures outlined for securing and processing payment for a late or non-paying client ahead of time will be a matter of following the steps for collection rather than scrambling and allowing more time to elapse without payment. Determining now, where your bursting point is will give you signs and symptoms to diagnose when your business is ready to add employees, add subcontractors, branch out into a new division, or open a second location. Documenting the steps for how to use a certain software or application that you use once quarterly will save time and ward-off frustrations.
Think through situations in advance and determine the path that’s most direct and results driven for your business model.
Documenting your procedures may feel overwhelming when you begin so here’s my tip: document as you go. Today, when you begin to work on a project open a Word doc (or grab a sheet of paper if you’re a pen-in-hand kind of person) and bullet point the steps for what you’re doing. This serves two purposes: 1) you have a how-to guide for when your business grows to the point of needing an employee or subcontractor and 2) should you take ill or have an emergency that calls you out of the office for an extended period of time your go-to, second-in-charge person can step in during the interim and keep the wheels of your business turning, seamlessly, following your quality control parameters.
Ah, that feels good (and freeing) doesn’t it?
Systems can be documented the same way or consider using a mind-mapping tool. You’ve seen these types of flow charts that include if-this-happens-do-this and if-that-happens these are your next steps with arrows pointing the way to the next step.
The freedom, efficiency, non-stress days, and creative juices you seek are a documented system or procedure away. When others are scrambling and looking for the way, you will have some paths through the madness mapped out.