Can your business survive without you?

• Bernard Tanner
• 22 May 2009
• Page 1 of 2 : single page

The aim of most businesses is to make them grow and once that starts to happen, your role as boss has to change. The ultimate goal is to make yourself superfluous by building a business that works without you.

Most start-up businesses are heavily reliant on the knowledge and skills of the owner. If that sounds like your business, then it might mean your money-making potential is limited by the time, knowledge and experience you bring to the table.

It can also mean that you need to be present every day in the office or on the shop floor to keep the business running — which limits the time you can spend finding new business opportunities. It’s time to start to build a great team of people around you, who can start to take responsibility for the day-to-day running of your business.

Building a great team

The key is to build a great team who share your skills and can manage the business when you’re away, whether for a day, a week or even longer. It’s an essential part of making the journey from self-employed to entrepreneur.

Step 1: Share your responsibilities and tasks

Your first step should be to train people to share your responsibilities and tasks. That way, you’ll have a backup if you’re sick or simply need time away from the shop floor.

Start by nominating two people, then give them opportunities to perform in different roles so they can build up their skills and gain a broad understanding of your operations.

If you own a cafe, for example, allow the waiter to serve as the barista for a while, then work the till or draw up the roster. Train your key staff – your lieutenants – so they can multi-task and share responsibilities with you.

Step 2: Share your knowledge

As the boss, you may have invaluable management skills or knowledge that benefits the business. Make the effort to share your knowledge with your two lieutenants so that get a clear vision of how your business runs. It’s vital to establish systems that make it easy for knowledge to be shared — whether through written procedures, a database or simply good communication. Keep your lieutenants in the loop about major events and decisions.

Step 3: Delegate, delegate, delegate!

Don’t think you’re the only person who can do the job. Give others a chance to share the responsibility of running your business. This will help lift the weight off your shoulders. As you train up others and delegate tasks, you are building up your assets, which can only help achieve your goals and boost your business’ profitability.

Step 4: Involve your lieutenants in decision making Once you’ve trained up your ‘mini-mes’, involve them in decision making. You’re likely to find that they have some great new ideas to contribute. Your employees will see your business from a different — possibly more objective — view, so make the most of that. You’ll also make your workers feel more valued when you seek their opinions, which is great for staff retention.

Step 5: Emphasise team goals

It’s important not to set up dysfunctional competition between your seconds-in-command. Your aim is to build a well oiled machine where people complement each other, rather than compete against each other and create unhealthy – and unhelpful – relationships. Creating healthy emotional bonds between your team members and establishing core goals or beliefs will help establish ties and keep people focused on your business objectives and their own targets.

You need to motivate your staff so they want to achieve the goals of the business. Offer support and encouragement and care about your workers and their individual needs and concerns. In turn, employees will learn to respect you and take care of your business while you are away.

Step 6: Reward your lieutenants

As you give your lieutenants more responsibilities and they become involved with managing operations, you’ll need to consider whether they should be paid more. Paying competitive salaries and rewarding your staff are important steps to making them feel valued. If you underpay, the loyalty of your lieutenants could be tested and they may begin to lose focus on the job at hand.

Often a relatively small rise can be enough to keep someone happy. That’s a good investment when you add up the costs of recruiting, retraining and lost productivity when an experienced staff member leaves.

Once you’ve built a great team who share your skills and can manage the business when you’re away, you’re ready to make the journey from self-employed to entrepreneur.

Moving from self-employed to entrepreneur

As a business owner, a critical step in your journey from self-employed to entrepreneur is to ensure you have the systems in place to get there.

Start by writing a comprehensive business plan mapping the direction you want to take and the systems you’ll put in place to achieve your goals. The key word here is systems: documented effective processes that can be repeated every day. Systems create consistency, which is the key to strong business performance. Importantly, they don’t need you and they can be taught to your team.

The kinds of systems you create will depend on your industry, but there are some every business needs:

• Accounting systems. You need to track your cash flow and accounts receivable, pay staff and suppliers, and manage your tax obligations.
• Customer service systems. The service your customers receive shouldn’t depend on who serves them that day. Develop checklists and protocols for everything from answering the phone, to greeting a new customer, to making a sales call. A great complaint-handling process is essential – and an excellent opportunity to find out what your customers think.
  
• Customer management systems. Your customer database is an important asset. The more you know about them, the better you can service them and target your most profitable clients. It’s also important to track prospects to assess the effectiveness of your marketing.
  
• Delivery systems. Consistent delivery is fundamental to success. If you can’t deliver consistently, your customer is going to go elsewhere. Your staff have to understand your quality standards and how to deliver on them, every time.
  
• HR systems. With your other systems in place, you need a team to execute them. A human resources (HR) system covers everything from recruiting excellent people, to training them, monitoring their performance and providing feedback.
  

With your systems up and running, you can begin handing over day-to-day responsibilities to your team so you can step back and develop the business for greater growth and profitability.