To scale a business, you need structures in place.

Do you struggle to bring on new employees? Or feel like you spend all your time training and re-training them and never get time to actually work on your business? Well, that’s where having structures can help.

Now, what the hell are these “structures” that I keep talking about?

At Soul Vibe Capital, we define structures as simply processes that document the way you work. Now, this can look differently for various businesses but we ultimately all have one. Most times, you already have existing structures or processes and you just aren’t aware of them.

Let’s look at a few examples of just how simple structures can be.

  1. Do you have a specific way you organize your emails?
  2. Your daily routine (timeblock, exercise, mindset, rest)
  3. Or perhaps a unique way to start your sales calls? 
  4. An onboarding journey for new employees
  5. A project management tool
  6. Communication when you sign a new client
  7. Your outreach through social media

Or a simplier version.

  1. Mindset
  2. Operations
  3. Sales
  4. Marketing
  5. Management

Structures are a way to document “how” you run your business. And each structure has its own functionality.

How do structures work within a business and why they are important

Do you remember when you first started your business? Or if you’re still a solopreneur, there comes a time where everything is simply a mess and all the intellectual information lives inside of your head?

Well, a structure becomes handy when you bring a new team member onboard. Instead of you spending countless hours training someone new and worse, when they don’t work out, you get to do it all over again. A structure allows you to train new team members simultaneously because you’ve already taken the time to put your thoughts to paper, document your process and therefore your new team members know exactly what to expect and what you expect of them.

These can range from the way your business prefers to prospect clients, how you manage your bookkeeping, client communications, and how you prefer to manage client projects and deliverables.

Without creating these structures, it becomes extremely difficult for you to scale a business because you essentially spend all your time checking in on your team members to see if they’re doing the task properly. Not only is that micromanaging but that kind of defeats the purpose of you hiring someone in the first place doesn’t it?

But what if I don’t have any structures in place or the time to build them?

MAKE THE TIME!

Unless you’re happy running the business all by yourself, make the time to document your process (pen to paper!).

There’s no excuse to NOT do something that is actually going to help scale the growth of your business in the long run. If you don’t have the time now, you’re only cheating yourself because what will happen is you’re going to be spending even more time with new employees answering all their questions versus focusing on the things that matter in your business (sales, client projects, expansion plans).

Don’t overthink structures as this glamorous document with your brand colors and all these beautiful looking graphics. Sure, that could be pleasing to look at but is the time investment worth the output? All you need is a Word document, or Evernote (that’s cool too), honestly, a good old pen and paper will do.

Write it down or start a journal and start tracking how you operate your business. The more details the better. And know that you’re not going to be able to include every single detail because you already know your business like the back of your hand. BUT, that’s why this doesn’t have to be perfect, you go as far as you can and when you hire new team members, they become the perfect guinea pigs to test it out!

All their questions, confusions will help you fine tune your process until you can hand it off 100% to the next team member. THEN, you can truly walk away from the operations within your business.

So, what is a structure?

Structures are the tools you create to document the different processes within your business operations. It is what will set you free from the day to day operations and allow your team to powerfully take over the business (if you wish).

If your currently don’t have any structures in place, that’s okay. We all have to start somewhere.

A lot of times entrepreneurs don’t know or can’t see that they already have structures in place because they’re too busy running the business. This is where we come in as your partner in the trenches. We observe, explore, and validate your current business operations and either create the structure with you, or optimize and adapt your current structures to help you grow and expand your team.

Structures are what you put in place so you can eventually exit the business or bring on more team members to expand your growth.

Think of structures as the foundational elements within your business. Once they are built and in place, other people can work from the existing structure and have an idea of what’s next without you having to tell them. Now, doesn’t that sound like a dream if it was your business?