Morning all,
The time is 8.58 on Tue 12th October and I’m back again with another update on my journey to build a freedom business.
Let me walk you through exactly what I mean by that:
Right now my focus is on getting Pearl Lemon into a place where it can run entirely independently of myself.
To make this happen as I’ve discussed several times across the course of the last couple of blogs (since this is top of mind for me at the moment) – there are all manner of things I’m instituting:
The first big thing to discuss is that once you’ve got the core people in place within your team – it’s important then to have them start identifying problems.
To that end I asked (in my week away) for everybody to keep a running ‘complaints sheet’ when it comes to the PL.
This ended up being this document here:
It documents (currently) 30 issues that have been identified as problems with the business whilst I was away.
I’ve not yet added my own challenges to this myself.
But these are all issues that have come from the team regarding things that need improvement.
So this is the fastest way to figure out HOW to improve your business operationally.
Let’s walk through practically what has happened to give you a better insight into how you can ‘fix things’
- Leave the business to run itself for one-week
- Whilst you’re away – have the team document all of the problems that come up
- When you come back – get a catalogue of those problems (I have 30 currently – all of which have been responded to – with at least 50% of them fixed)
- Go away again for one-week and repeat the same activity
- Add your own list of items to such a sheet
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Assuming you’ve got the ‘right people in the right seats’ – you should begin to identify many issues that are both human as well as procedural and be able to work on them.
Going ‘away’ for a week at a time gives the team an opportunity to ‘step up their game’.
It means self organization is required and puts more pressure and emphasis on the team to succeed so it will help weed out the weak and allow as many people as possible to shine.
I guess in some respects now that I’ve started to implement these things – it seems simpler than it used to be and in a way I’m kicking myself for not setting up this process sooner.
But it really does make a difference.
And at the apex of this – is this question:
If you were going to LEAVE your company for a week/month/year – what would the team need to do to make things function without you?
Answering this question will really help set you free.
When you answer this question you also recognise where the weaknesses within your organisation are!
So for me I can tell you these things out of the gate:
- We need a dedicated internal cold email expert
- We need a dedicated social media manager
- We need a dedicated BDM for Pearl Lemon
- We need a dedicated US-based BDM/commission closer
- We need someone to run the lead-gen team to replace Lydia
There’s a bunch of BIG things that need changing….
And I’ll also underline –
The ‘act’ of writing this up into a blog – has caused THIS blog to take two days to write….(piecemeal)
Because I keep thinking of additional things each time I write something up anyway 🙂
So let’s then (to that end) outline possible solutions in place for all of the above:
Internal cold email expert:
I’m pulling in two placement folks who are full-time to learn this role
Dedicated social media manage:
Someone is on trial for this right now
Dedicated BDM for Pearl Lemon:
No solution for this right now – for now I’ll work with our SDR working to book appointments for our commission closers and see how this goes
US based BDM/Commission Closer:
This is a role that needs filling – will talk to the hiring team to try and find someone – this is a priority
Someone to replace Lydia so she can effectively ‘replace me’:
Lydia knows about this and is aiming to make it happen!
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Final thoughts….
Most of the value (at least the value I got) from this exercise happened ‘off-page’ – but I hope this gives you a grass view insight into how you can truly build your company into a ‘freedom’ business…
It’s just taken me 4 years loool.
