How to prepare your business for running without you…

As a business builder, the goal of every business you buy should be one of 2 things:

1. Resell it quickly (within 12 months) for a substantial profit.
2. Keep it as a great cash producer with minimal work on your part.

This blog is going to focus on one of the most important parts of achieving step 2 above – getting your office used to running without you! For this to happen, you MUST set a goal of being out of the office for at least a few days (preferrably a week) per quarter. If you’ve never done that before, choose a week in the next 3 months and write it on the calendar right now! Seriously, if you don’t make the commitment to be out of the office right now you may never do it. Don’t worry. You will not be 100% prepared for the office to run by itself the first time. Or the second time. Or maybe even the third time. However, each time you’ll learn what your team relies on you for. As you learn more and more what items they just HAVE to call you to take care of, you will immediately know which items you need to create procedures for to replace you. If procedures won’t cut it, you need to pay someone else to make those decisions for you.

Now let’s look at what’s necessary for you to leave the office while your business keeps making money. Firstly and most importantly, you cannot be the one responsible for direct customer interaction. Whether that means taking care of customer service issues or selling your product, if you’re the only one capable of that, then you have a problem. You need to learn how to replace yourself right away. OK, so you’re not looking to retire so what are you allowed to do? Anything that doesn’t require you to actually be in the office. In other words, all of the tasks that can be done or maintained remotely.

A few of those items that I work on regularly when I’m out of the office are the following:

1. Paying bills – I do this with Quickbooks Pro and Wells Fargo Online Bill-Pay. I can pay my bills electronically from anywhere. My office administrators put all the bills into Quickbooks and scan all of the bills onto my server so I can actually look at every Purchase Order, Order Confirmation, Packing Slip, and finally the Invoice before I pay anything.
2. Working on marketing – whether it’s updating the website or working on new direct mail campaigns all I need is internet access and my laptop to work on almost any marketing our company might be doing.
3. Reading and responding to emails – This can always slow down your “productivity” when you’re in the office so a few quick minutes in an airport or in the morning before you hit the beach can help you remain “productive” all day as people are reading and responding to all of the emails you’ve sent out.
4. Keeping an eye on daily, weekly, or monthly tasks – Since I’m the Team Leader at my business there is no one else to take over management functions while I’m not there. For that reason, all of the girls who work in my office email me their “To-Do” list every evening before they leave. That way I can review and update it at my leisure. I also review our service schedule, inventory, receivables, payables, customer complaints, new leads, and a host of other things remotely. One girl in my office compiles the reports weekly and emails it to me so all I do is read them and make decisions – No matter where I might be sitting when I read those reports. Check out the “Know your numbers” section of my blog on weathering the economy for a better idea of what numbers I watch.
5. Staying in touch with team members – Whether that means calling, emailing, or reviewing performance there’s a whole lot you can do to make sure everything is “business-as-usual” when you’re not around.
6. Finding new business opportunities – If you aren’t ready to retire with all the money you have in the bank, you should always be researching new opportunities. As a matter of fact, the number one reason you need your cashflow business to run without you is so you have time to invest buying, building, and selling other businesses.

How to make sure your business is “running without you”.

1. Leave the office – But don’t just stay at home. If you’re in close proximity to the office both you and your team member’s will be too reliant upon you.
2. Try not to answer your phone – Let it go to voicemail, listen to the voicemail and respond appropriately. If possible, respond via email or text.
3. Make yourself available via email (IM if necessary) – I prefer written communication because it’s short and to the point (no time for small talk) and because it’s all tracked. Someone can’t tell you you never told them to do X or Y.
4. Have access to important information on your server – Whether that means having your invoices, inventory, schedule, or incoming leads on the computer. Whatever is important to you, you need to make sure you have access to at all times. If you can’t get to your important information from anywhere at anytime you’ll never be able to work remotely.

Have you ever had one of those days where you have a list of things to accomplish and at the end of the day the list hasn’t gotten any shorter? You just worked on “little things” all day. It’s amazing to me how many of those “little things” take care of themselves when I’m not around… In my experience if I leave the office for 2 days or 2 weeks, if I’m keeping up on things day-to-day while I’m gone, my list of “catch-up” work when I return is the same length. The list is limited to the items only I can handle. There are no “little things” on my list to catch up on… Every time my list consists simply of the things only I can do. (With the goal being to shrink that list with every trip.)

Since I track customer complaints AND testimonials if there were problems created by me not taking care of those “little things” I’d know about it, too. 😉

So make a commitment to be out of the office!

To your “remote management” success, Bryan

P.S. When you go to sell your business do you think it’s going to be worth more or less when you show the buyer that it can be managed, to a large degree, while sipping red wine on the balcony of your hotel in Italy?