How Many Times Is Your Name on Your Organization Chart and What Does It Mean?

March 26th, 2010

When we solo-preneurs start our business, we’re often responsible for every single function in our business. We do the marketing, sales, administrative tasks. We answer the phone and emails, we take care of the financial and legal matters. AND we create, deliver the programs, products and services we sell. In other words, it doesn’t matter how we set up and structure our organization. Our name appears in every slot on the organization chart.

If you want to stay small, if you like doing all those things, if you never plan to sell your practice or business, if you don’t want to go on vacation often or have a life and a business, you can continue to do it all as long as you’d like.

If you want to take your business to the next level, if you want to serve more people and make more money doing what you love, if you want to share your expertise with others and leave a legacy, if you want to take vacations, and might someday want to sell your business, you need to start working your way out of jobs. Whether you hire employees and delegate to them or outsource, you need to get others to do what you don’t like, don’t know, or don’t have time for if you want to spend your time serving your ideal clients.

And if you do want to sell your business, eventually you’ll need to have someone else doing everything required to run your company… or nearly everything. You could sell if you were the only one doing something that’s mission-critical. It’ll mean you stay on for a while to train someone in the new organization to do what you’re the expert at doing so the company can run without you.

Here’s a BIG tip about how to get from where you are to wherever you want to take your businses: Start documenting what you’re doing.

If you know you’re going to do something over and over again, write down the steps. Next time you do that job, follow your own steps to see if you need to make them clearer. Continue doing this until someone else can follow your instructions and get the job done right.

In other words, create your operations manual. Start today. The sooner you have a job documented, the sooner you can hire someone to do it for you.

Yes, you could hire someone to figure it out and document their way. They’ll probably cost more than the person who would be able to simply follow directions.

I know I’m making this sound quite simple. For example, I know you don’t have to train a bookkeeper to keep your books. You might need to give them special instructions about the categories of expenses you track or specifically how you want something done. So why not write down those types of details.

That way, you know the job will be done the way you want, you can go on vacation, and someday you might decide to sell your business and move on.

So make your business and your life more enjoyable and more profitable. Work yourself out of this job, then that one… until your name doesn’t appear anywhere on your org chart. Then your are free to stay and do what you love or move on to something new.

Either way you win!

Tags: Business development, Strategies for Success, Take your business to the next level

Entry Filed under: Become known as an expert, Business development, Strategies for Success