Owning a business can feel like nothing but herding cats every single day—you can get so focused on problems big and small that you forget to look at the big picture. In fact, if you can just make it through the week without the whole thing burning down, sometimes that feels like a huge win.
But constantly putting out fires isn’t a long-term solution, and it doesn’t take into account possibly the most important aspect of the business—you and your energy.
You only have so much to give, and you can only give it for so long. You can’t shoulder it all yourself forever—and you shouldn’t have to. It’s possible to build a business that runs smoothly without your constant oversight.
That doesn’t mean you have to lay around on the beach all day sipping margaritas forever (though, if you do this right, you totally could). What it means is that you have the freedom to choose how your time is spent.
If you want to put out fires all day, you can. If you want to work 20 hours a week and spend more time with your family, you can. If something terrible happens that keeps you from working, you can stop without losing income.
And when it’s time to retire, you can sell that business to someone else for its maximum value (or pass it on to family without worrying about it falling apart). No one wants to buy a business that’s dependent on its owner. They want to buy a business that works right out of the box, that’s self-driven, not owner-driven.
How is this seemingly unthinkable situation possible? You have to intentionally create a culture of self-entrepreneurship, put powerful processes in place, and build a brand around the great people who are in charge of those processes.
Why Processes Matter (And Why You Should Care)
Processes might not sound thrilling, but they are your ticket to freedom. They ensure that your business operates efficiently and consistently, even when you’re not around. By turning chaos into order, processes guarantee that tasks are completed correctly every time, reducing errors and increasing productivity.
Whether you plan to ever sell your business or not, you need to think the way a buyer would think. When someone decides to buy a business, they’re not looking for a place where they’ll have to work 60 hours a week to keep it afloat.
They’re looking for a place that runs itself. They want to see clear, documented processes that anyone with the right skillset can successfully follow. They want to know that, if the right people are in place, they won’t have to do much but sit back and rake in the cash.
Document Everything
The first step in creating a process-driven business is documenting every procedure in your organization. Think of this documentation as the true bones of your business—a comprehensive collection of Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) that covers everything large and small throughout your business.
When we work with clients, this is one of the biggest deliverables we give them—marketing SOPs that explain in detail how to complete any of the tasks we recommend to them. It’s a key part of our Vision Value Model™.
In an ideal world, you’d write clear, concise instructions that are easy to follow, and use visual aids like flowcharts or diagrams to make processes even more understandable. To get started though, keep it simple and use bulleted list and quick video recordings to document how you do things. You can assign someone on your team (or hire experts like our friends at Beyond the Chaos) to write the detailed processes for you.
It’s important to make these as evergreen as you can, but if you’re in an industry or business where processes undergo constant change, you need to assign someone to keep these instructions up to date.
And that’s all you’re really doing—writing instructions. You’re creating processes, but now you have to make sure you have the right people in place to follow those instructions.
Building a Dream Team of Entrepreneurs
Processes are crucial, but the right team brings them to life. Your aim should be to build a team so competent and aligned with your vision that the brand stops being about you and starts being about them and the processes themselves.
Focus on hiring for culture and training for skill. Skills can be taught, but a strong cultural fit is essential. While it’s important to define your core values, one of those values should be self-entrepreneurship.
You want to hire people who are self-starters, go-getters, people who don’t come to you with a question until they’ve exhausted all resources, people who are willing to get it done themselves and don’t like being micromanaged or having their hands held.
There’s a reason this is so important—if your culture is built around micromanagement, there always has to be someone doing that managing, and that goes all the way to the top. There’s no way for you to step away if you’re constantly watching your managers watch your employees.
On top of that, people who need their hands held and aren’t willing to take the lead turns into a whole culture of people who don’t solve problems without very specific, direct guidance and instructions, which means that it all falls apart if you pull back or sell the business.
Which means no one wants to buy it. Selling your business may not be something you plan on doing, but life has a tendency to ignore our plans. There are a million and one unexpected scenarios that could put you in a position where you have no choice but to step away.
The sooner you create a culture of self-entrepreneurs who can handle everything with the processes you’ve given them, the stronger your business becomes, and the more able it is to run without you, no matter what the reason is that it has to do so.
Find the people who just need SOPs slapped into their hands and problems to solve, and they’ll do the rest.
Build Your Brand Around People & Processes (Not You)
Finally, you’ll want to build your brand around these people and the processes they’re putting into place—and not you. If your brand is all about you, that only works as long as you’re around.
Here’s a little test to try out. Go to the Amazon homepage and see if you can find Jeff Bezos listed. Click all around—see if you can find him… well, anywhere, really. Check their careers page. Check their culture page. Check their about page.
You’ve already guessed that you won’t find him. If you went back 10 years, you wouldn’t find him then, either. He removed himself as the face of the business as soon as he could. Sure, he still worked there for a long time, but when he decided to walk away in 2021, at the age of 57, there was nothing to stop him.
Amazon hadn’t been about him for a long time—it was about a shopping experience and a culture that he intentionally built to function without him. While Amazon is unique in many ways, what he did isn’t—any business can do the same thing.
Your Process-Driven Paradise Awaits
Building a business that’s process-driven and not dependent on you can take time to build—usually a few years—but it’s an effort that pays you back forever. Document your processes, embrace automation, hire wisely, delegate effectively, and cultivate a culture that values getting things done yourself.
If that sounds overwhelming (and don’t get us wrong—it’s a huge project), we can help.
We’ll create a marketing strategy for you that uses our proprietary Vision Value Model™, including marketing SOPs designed to be used by any marketing professional. It’ll be customized to your unique goals for your business and your future and chart a path to sustainable growth that doesn’t require you to be there forever.