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MenuWhat are your best resources and advice to structure and build a business that can fully run without the owner?
For context: I run a productized service (https://contentpros.io/). As we grow and build our team I'm pushing myself to create and put the pieces in place remove myself as much as possible.
Answers
1. Make sure you have the right team in place.
2. Make sure job descriptions and methods of practice are well documented.
This is where all those more "ethereal" parts of a business matter.
The more you can codify your company mission, goals and guiding principles, then the more autonomous your workforce will be.
Get these in writing, share them with your team and then create detailed procedures based on activities, expected outcomes and available resources. This way people will always know the boundaries within which they are expected to perform.
I did this with one of my businesses once - A Super Food ingredient import + product packaging + final product export.
The way I approached this was as follows.
1) Anytime a person asked me how to do something, I wrote up a procedure for them + walked them through the task once.
2) Next time this same task had to be repeated, a new person was given the procedure write up + this new person worked together with person who did the task last time.
3) They refined the procedure, engaging me as required.
4) This process continued with each task in business.
Roughly 3 years later the residue was a complete system manual.
Now I invest maybe 5-10 minutes/week into this business.
The primary factor in this process is your commitment to...
Never complete any task in your business again. The degree of your commitment to creating systems will determine speed of your business going on autopilot.
You might consider hiring someone to assist you with this.
And, based on your Website, your business should be far easier to automate than mine was.
Before you can step away you need to make sure you have a proven system in place for delivering your product at the quality and service level that you expect.
Then you have to recruit a sufficient number of key people who both share your passion for the product and where you want the company to go.
Last you have to train those key people not only in the steps of your proven plan, but the reasons behind each step. Make sure this training includes how to react when the plan doesn't work as it usually does. You always have to be alert to the unexpected, and your team needs to know how to react when it pounces !
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How to deal with co-founders that aren't pulling their weight?
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What are some early symptoms of conflict between people working on a team together?
The number one would be shipping product (or anything really) out in front of a customer. If you can't work together to get something done fast, that is usually a huge indicator that somethings wrong. That usually means your values or mission aren't aligned.DM
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How do you delegate effectively? What holds people back from delegating tasks?
I would add in the Do # 2, ask the employee to paraphrase what you're requesting. It's a common problem that people say that they understand what you say, and when the deadline comes, the result is not the expected. I call this practice "duplicate".RD
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