Who’s The Boss? YOU.

I’m sitting here scanning through my feedreader on this lovely Memorial Day (waiting for the grill to get cleaned up and ready to use) and I found this post by Andy Beal (oops!) Jeremy Luebke of Marketing Pilgrim about preparing your business to be able to survive without you. In it, Jeremy points to a super inspiring post by QuadsZilla over at SEO Black Hat. (Don’t worry, I’m not changing hats…)

I think it’s the goal of many a business owner to be less “hands on” and more “executive”. I think that no matter what your current situation, if that’s not one of your goals, it should be. Sure, doing the work yourself ensures that it gets done the way you want it to – but sometimes you need to let go and have faith in others to do their jobs the way you want them to. After all, if an employee anywhere doesn’t do their job, they get in trouble. They don’t do it enough and they get fired. So why would they want to be that way? It’s not feasible for every business to start off with a full staff. Freelancers are great for part-time or contractual work, and in this day and age it’s almost easier to outsource work than it is to manage a brick-and-mortar office with schedules and insurance and unemployment and all that mess. In terms of preparing your business to function without you (be it due to an illness, or maybe you’re in the military, or just that you feel like becoming more “executive” than “hands on”) I think Andy hit the nails right on their heads. These are some things I myself plan to work on.

• Create a will and a living will outlining my desires for the business.
• Put everything under an LLC/Corporation so I am only a stock holder and not an owner. Should I die, the only thing that must be willed to a family member is my stock. Domains, Adsense, etc do not have to be transfered to a new owner.
• Create a living document that is updated quarterly with all the companies assets like domains, hosting accounts, revenue accounts, both business and personal email accounts, etc (with logins for each) laid out in plain english. This document will remain in both the hands of my family lawyer and a safety deposit box.
• Create another document outlining the day to day operations of all websites and future plans. Describe how they operate, what systems they are built upon, and and detailed technical specifications whether obvious or not.
• Slowly wean myself off doing the day to day operations such as content creation, link building, user moderation, server maintenance, etc by hiring freelancers or in house employees if money permits. Start to work “on” my business and not “in” my business.

Like Jeremy, I feel that creating a document outlining day to day operations of all sites and future plans is one of the most vital items in this list. As well as a document that’s updated quarterly that lists all assets like domains, accounts, and access to everything laid out in plain English. I know that right now, there is no individual other than myself with information or access to any of this stuff, and honestly – these posts sort of scared me a little. I’ve not only invested my money and time into this business, but I haven’t laid out plans for the business to continue in my absence, so that my family or anyone who works for me could continue to grow and profit from it.

So I’ve decided – my plan for tomorrow is to get my business more on track with my becoming an owner and executive. I’m not planning on getting sick or having an untimely death – but my plans do include taking some nice, well deserved vacations and NOT bringing my laptop with me. I owe it to my clients to have them continue to get the service they rely on my company for when I’m not around, just as much as I owe it to myself to just relax a little more.