Building a Business is Like Dancing Underwater
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I’m finding the transition from an employee or even self-employed mentality to a business building mentality to be a bit like dancing underwater.
What is relatively simple to do as an employee or one man shop becomes a whole new ball game, with layers of complexity in a real business.
A Real Business is all about Scale
An example is setting up a simple WordPress blog. In the last couple days, I’ve been training someone to do the setups for me on the blog network.
I could set up a blog, including modifying the header and hooking up all the plugins and accessories [FeedBurner, StatCounter etc] in less than an hour, maybe half an hour if I had performance enhancing substances.
Instead of doing that I’ve been creating a document that someone who has never heard of WordPress can use to go from site concept through to finished and tricked out Home Turf Media city blog; without having to ask me any questions.
It will probably take me about 25 hours work to create one document for this. I’m trying to roll out 10 new sites, which means that it has taken me about 3 times longer to produce the document than it would have to just do all the work myself. Then I still have to pay someone to do the actual work!
That’s what scale is about though. Scale shifts most of the costs of the business process up to the front, and then pays [hopefully] huge dividends when the process is repeated over and over at a much lower per unit cost.
The break even point of my document is roughly about 25 sites; but everything after that, is virtually free.
Why Building a Business is Like Dancing Underwater
My blog roll out document is one quick example. Now imagine EVERYTHING you do and apply the same thinking to it. Even creating a document needs a process behind it; a document template, a naming convention so you can find it when there are 200 of them, etc.
What it comes down to is the everything you do is probably 5 or 10 times more difficult and time consuming than if you were just to go and do the task.
Why There are So Many Self-Employed People
It takes discipline to not just “get it done.” Currently I have 10 bloggers waiting for sites and the only way I can make any money is to get them online and writing. Needless to say I like money; especially for things like paying my rent and eating, so there is a very real pressure to move forward.
Experience tells me that it’s a dead end street to give in to that pressure. To maintain my discipline and stick to creating systems that can scale beyond my own efforts goes against a life time of behavior patterns, but I think it is worth it.
I would guess that most people will bend, like I did in my first couple businesses, to that pressure and dive in and begin to work “in” the system rather than “on” it. That will relieve the pressure, bring money faster and severely limit the upside potential of any business.
My Goal
Here’s the thought that motivates me:
If I died, could someone, with no special skills, be able to read the password for my computer from my will, log on and run my company without missing a beat.
I admit is sounds like a pipe-dream, but really it is an essential target to hit. Since I now have 4 [soon to be 14] people who rely on me to get paid. That means that everything must be automated [yes, you can automate using people] and documented, and there needs to be a map of how to navigate and apply that documentation.
Does anyone have any tips for documenting processes in a way that is easy, yet comprehensive?
Is it possible to reach my goal in a small company?
Is it a waste of time to even try for something like that?
Should I just focus on trying to make money and sort out this kind of stuff after I have actual earnings?
Leave a comment an let me know what you think.
- Jon Symons
Feeling like an underwater dancing fool.
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Comments ( 8 )
Richard added these pithy words on Jan 17 07 at 7:39 amMy theory is that a process should be an evolution of you everyday workflow. I timestamp and add meta data to all notes and working papers. After a few weeks I sit back and see “how things work”. The working papers and notes serve as my rough draft. I have some templates on my website, http://www.mymindmap.net that could help you organize these notes (shameless plug I know).
On your second question, If you don’t start making money then you won’t have to worry about making processes. There won’t be a business to make processes for.
Alli added these pithy words on Jan 17 07 at 8:15 am“If I died, could someone, with no special skills, be able to read the password for my computer from my will, log on and run my company without missing a beat.”
January 26th will be my last day at the company that I currently work for. And no, no one could take my password and do my job… but then again, it isn’t a small buisness, and I have no desire to keep it going when I leave.
But I will be creating documents left and right to give to someone so they can attempt to fill my shoes when I am gone.
If I cared as much as you did about your business (this is my 9-5, not my blogging), then I would aspire to that goal. I think it is possible to document it all and definitely not a waste of your time. But don’t get bogged down in documentation. I can also see it being a roadblock to getting things done. Just because you don’t have the documented process doesn’t mean you can’t keep going right now (you are still alive, right?).
Jon added these pithy words on Jan 17 07 at 8:37 am@Richard, good tip and I’ll check out your site…agree with your second point.
@Alli, yes it’s a fine line, currently I’m just focusing on documenting the processes as I prepare to have someone else take them over. Everything else I’m doing a bit of what Richard suggested and compiling notes and documents that will become documents some day.
I think I’m still alive…but maybe some day it won’t matter…at least to the business
markinjapan added these pithy words on Jan 18 07 at 4:23 amHi Jon,
Yes, it is certainly a stretch (or end) goal…but one worth aiming for IMHO.
Have you thought of setting intermediate (performance) goals along the way to this nirvana such as:
“which documented processes would result in 50% of my business web sites being back online within 24 hours of event ‘X’ , and 80% within 72 hours?”
Some Business Continuity folks I know of drive the “money makers” crazy as they attempt to get ear-time (and money and people) to do this work which has been swept under the carpet of busyness…
and then along comes a natural event like the recent Taiwan earthquake which took out a bunch of undersea fiber optic cables used for data and voice and internet around the Asia_pacific region. Suddenly a lot of folks (since they cannot do much else lol) sit up and take notice for a while.
regards
Jon added these pithy words on Jan 18 07 at 8:03 am“which documented processes would result in 50% of my business web sites being back online within 24 hours of event ‘X’ , and 80% within 72 hours?”
That’s a great way to look at it. It’s easy to get caught in the all or nothing mentality. Thanks Mark.
Fred Schebesta added these pithy words on Jan 19 07 at 4:05 pmDear Jon,
Thank you for your thought provoking blog. I started a business 4 years ago and have been a big believer in process from the beginning. I used to write these documents you speak of ALL the time. I read the E-Myth book and was determined to get every process into a turnkey system like McDonalds or as you talk about with the password to your computer. Unfortunately what happens is business reality sets in. You dont have the cash/time to invest to do all of those procedures documents. When you get to being a bigger company and you have spare profits then its time to hire someone and get them to write the documents. That is called scaling the scale! It future proofs your profits and enables succession planning and all those wonderful terms the experts talk about. But in the real (not academic/arm chair theorising) world when you run a small business all you need to do is get cash in the door and keep growing. Do whatever it takes to stay alive. I personally did every single little thing and sometimes we went backwards. But over time we have grown to 12 people without procedure documents and this year we plan to grow to 20 without them. When you are small what usually happens is that some key staff members teach what you have taught them. Its a low tech way of procedure writing, think of corporations/entreprises before writing and paper e.g Armies getting together. Sure its not as effective and as turnkey as the internet, but its cheap and you can get by low cost and give you cashflow to grow. You have taught this guy to build blogs, now you can brief him to teach someone else. You will have to start the process by teaching someone each time for a new job, finance, accounting, sales, marketing, operations and even answering the phone. That is what every new business needs. I have bought info products to try and make short cuts but they never work. You need to get the people to do the process and then once you have found what works you get them to document it. Similar to @Alli. Although I too have found that employees are very reluctant to write documentation about their job. Why do they care if someone has a good or bad experience with their new job. This passing on of training is tough but what you find is that managers that sit below you teach that next person for you after a while, if not you will have to teach them yourselves but hey thats what it takes. I have found as a company grows and you get enough business it gains too much momentum to fall down. E.g. It would be tough to just push over GM, IBM, Microsoft just because someone didnt have a procedure for their job. What I have found is to focus more on cash coming in the door and ensure you are growing. If you stop growing you will never get to your nirvana. Keep your dream Jon but understand that the way to get there, from my experience, might be a different route.
Jon added these pithy words on Jan 20 07 at 9:50 amThanks for the great comment Fred. I guess, as a rookie CEO or whatever I am, on of the thing I learn everyday is how to work on what will contribute the most to the success of the company. That seems to be a combination of having my foot on the gas and less bottom line type activities like creating documentation.
Since I come from a systems analyst background, creating process documents is one of my strengths and a productivity benefit that I see from having something on paper is that when I can say, “go look at the document” rather than explaining or typing [most of my employees are virtual] out something that I have covered before.
My real motivation for creating a document is something like, “How can I make sure I never have to deal with this again?” to try and free up time to do more productive things.
Thanks to your comment though, I am going to reflect on whether I am finding the right balance in that equation. I know the time is right for my idea to really be grown fast and large, so maybe I could throw caution to the wind and just “go for it” a bit more.
Fred Schebesta added these pithy words on Jan 21 07 at 10:30 pmIf you are typing things to people already just reuse the emails and form it into a document later.
I always build the business then optimise it after.