What happens when you’re the first employee at a company? What happens if you’re the first person in a brand-new department? What happens when you run your own business? What happens when you walk into a company that’s in complete chaos? Every one of those situations comes down to the same thing: business process documentation, or the lack of it.Â
You do what I do. You roll up your sleeves and start documenting everything.Â
I've Been In This Arena
I’ve been in this arena a few times. New hire. New HR department. My own business. Walking into chaos more than once. But I loved walking in, working through it, and building the process, and watching things unfold naturally.Â
Why Cross-Functional Experience Matters
Having cross-functional experience helps translate that across departments. Your sales team needs to coordinate with accounting. Accounting needs payroll. HR needs the entire department, from sales to marketing and back to accounting and payroll. They all work together. When the baton is passed, the next steps get executed, but only if everyone knows what those next steps are.
Where Do Your Processes Actually Live?
The problem with most businesses, especially those under 10 employees, is that processes don’t live on paper. They live in the business owner’s head, or the sales manager’s head. What happens if the sales manager goes out on parental leave? I know exactly what happens: things start to fall apart.Â
If you want your business to run well, you need to maintain process documentation. This is the place where all your instructions live. So when your top sales manager goes out on leave, things don’t stop and fall apart. They continue.Â
Where are your processes right now? Do they live in your head? On a sticky note? Doodled on a napkin? It’s time, my friend, to document properly so you can get out of every corner of your business, and your business still operates.Â
If You Ever Want to Sell, You Have to Get Out of the Corners
I’ve got a little secret for you too. If you want to eventually sell your business, you have to get out of the corners. No one will buy a company where every customer and client still depends on you for everything. That business, my friend, isn’t worth much in the end.Â
Start building, and start smart. It’s time to document your processes. If you’re not sure where to begin, the Starter HR Kit is built to help you get your foundational documentation in place, so you’re not starting from a blank page.
Where do your processes actually live?
I don’t do one-size-fits-all. I focus on what your business actually needs.Â