Marie Kondo is my hero.
Even if you are a ‘company of one’, you should be documenting your business and acting as if you will be adding team members because…
… eventually you will!
‘Adding team members’ does not equal ‘full time employees.’
You are probably not ready to add full time people to your team.
Instead, you could add a Virtual Assistant or other Freelancers to help free up your time for you to stay focused on higher value activities.
You may be thinking, “Documenting my business seems like a waste of time. It’s just me here! Why do it?”
Now is the time to document everything in your business so you can:
- Add people to your team without having to spend hours and hours of your time onboarding them
- Free up 3-5 hours per week of time by offloading administrative tasks to a VA
For most people, documentation is painful.
My goal with this article is to explain what you need to document, where/how to do it without pulling your hair out, and when you should be thinking about adding a VA to your business.
What Do You Need to Document?
1 - Task List
First, you need to list out every task you are currently doing in the business.
Everything from ‘write blog post’ to ‘conduct sales call’ to ‘pay invoice.’
Nothing is too small to add.
We really need to understand EVERYTHING you are currently doing on a daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly, or annual basis to run the business.
Also, add these three columns to the list:
- Like Doing? (ie. do you like doing this task? Yes or No)
- Good at Doing? (ie. are you good at doing this task? Yes or No)
- Shouldn’t Be Doing? (ie. your hourly rate is higher than what you would pay someone else to do this task)
This will be a long list but we need to capture everything you are doing.
You will probably need a few days to capture everything. Don’t think you will get everything in one shot.
2 - Core Processes
Next, you need to list out your core step-by-step processes with these at the top of the list:
- Marketing/Sales: What is your step-by-step process to turn a lead into a customer?
- Operations: What is your step-by-step process to give customers what they paid for?
- Finance: What is your step-by-step process to receive or pay out money?
Don’t get overwhelmed or give up because you go too far ‘in the weeds’ with these processes.
The goal is to create a high level step-by-step process and fill in more detail later.
3 - Knowledge
Write this out if it’s not documented already:
- Why did you start this business?
- Your Mission / Vision / Values
- What are your goals?
- How to Work Best With You
- What Drives You Crazy
You can add more if you want but the purpose here is to write out why you started the business, where you are going, and what it’s like working with you.
Where to Document?
For your Task List and Knowledge sections, I recommend using Notion.
For your Core Processes, I recommend using Scribe.
These step-by-step processes can be embedded in a Core Processes page within Notion so all of your documentation is in one place.
VA
When should you add a VA?
Before adding a VA, I recommend having good documentation so that the person you work with has clear instructions.
Too many Solopreneurs jump to adding a VA before they have created solid documentation.
To create your documentation, first, look at your Task List from above.
Second, pick 3 important tasks where you noted you don’t like the task, aren’t good at the task, or shouldn’t be doing the task.
Third, for these 3 important tasks, create a step-by-step process for each preferably with Scribe.
Fourth, ask someone else to run through the process so it is clear and the outcome meets your goal.
Now, you are ready to offload these processes to a VA.
Where do I get a VA?
The best VA’s are busy with clients given they provide incredible value, have impeccable integrity, are expert communicators, and have great systems.
