A closer look at how I think about decisions in a business, and what I’m working through in my own.
Delegation and Team
Should I Make My First Ops Hire Full Time or Start With a Contractor? For most service business owners, starting the first ops hire as a contractor is the right call. Full…
Business Building
How do I get my ops manager to own decisions without me stepping back in? Your ops manager isn’t owning decisions because you never gave them any to own. Most owners hand…
Delegation and Team
How Do You Hold Your Team Accountable When You Have No Formal Org Chart? Accountability in a small service business does not come from an org chart. It comes from ownership: each…
Systems and SOPs
What KPIs Should Every Core Process Have to Ensure Accountability? Every core process needs three KPIs to create real accountability: a completion KPI to confirm the step happened, a quality KPI to…
Delegation and Team
Is It Better to Hire an Operator Before or After Documenting All SOPs? Document first. Specifically, get your five highest-frequency processes written down before anyone new sits down to run them. If…
Delegation and Team
What SOP Template Works Best for Small Service Teams? The best SOP template for a small service team is not the twelve tab binder most owners start with. It is a one…
Systems and SOPs
What Are the Critical Client Flow Steps to Systemize First in a Service Business? The first client flow steps to systemize are the ones you run on every engagement: intake, kickoff, delivery…
Systems and SOPs
Why Does Every New Process Doc End Up in a Folder Nobody Opens? Process docs end up in folders nobody opens because they were built for the wrong moment. The business owner…
Systems and SOPs
How Do I Stop My Documented Processes From Being Ignored? You stop documented processes from being ignored by changing when and how they enter the workflow. Most documented processes get ignored because…
Delegation and Team
Is 400K Too Early for an Ops Hire or Am I Just Being the Bottleneck? No, $400K is not too early. For most service business owners at that revenue, the bottleneck is…
Delegation and Team
How Do I Make Delegation Stick Instead of Everything Bouncing Back? Delegation bounces back when you hand off a task without handing off the decision-making authority that comes with it. The fix…
Delegation and Team
What Processes Should I Document First Before Trying to Delegate More? Document the process that creates the most rework when someone else gets it wrong. For most business owners, that is client…