Everyone is talking about it, The Magical Business Playbook, do you have yours?

It is no secret that as your business grows you become sucked in. Before you know it passed the time to be home for dinner. Or you realize you missed another appointment because you had to stay and explain something to an employee. Or you even missed a deadline because you forgot to do something.

Why are these common in business and entrepreneurship?

Easy – we are shooting from the hip most of the time. We are using our internal knowledge that we have gathered through experience and surviving. Not to sound like Liam Neeson …

Leim Neeson, Taken

“I have a particular set of skills; skills I have acquired over a very long career.”

As your business grows though you must be cost adverse to keep profitability as it may just be you. Teammates at that ‘cost adverse’ level may not have the skills or experience, so you must train, and hire, and train, and hire, and so on. Your skills might even improve in training as you perform each session. Let us hope you are training the same way each time, or you will get different results.

There is a mantra in the leadership arena – Policy, Procedure, Practice, & Training – (by John H.) and reflects the path to needing a playbook. Before training is applied your outcome must be clear and defined. Our sole job as entrepreneurs and business owners is to supply a service and profit. The best way to do that is to create a playbook that holds your secret sauce. Every successful story has a secret recipe. Your playbook is your recipe.

But where to start? When to start? Why should I start? What should I write? Who should write it?

Those darn teachers invading our lives years after school.

Notice anything, the same English lesson we all had, the 5-W’s: What, Why, When. Where, Who.

So, let us answer these questions…

The Small Business Administration (SBA) has a mound of information, make sure to check out their site. One article, 10 steps to start your business (U.S. Small Business Administration), mentions the second thing every business should do after performing market research is to “write a business plan”. This is the WHAT. Your business plan is the foundation. Everything in that document should be in the playbook.

The big question though is WHY.

Because you want the business to succeed.

Plain and simple. Succeeding means something different for all, so careful thought should go into the outcome you are looking to achieve. To channel Michael Porter, choosing which generic strategies is important: “Cost Leadership, Differentiation, and Focus” (Porter, 1980). Your strategy will help build the playing field to get the gold. This will require a standard operating procedure (SOP). Some fear this combination of words. That feeling is expected. To get where you are now you had to break away from the pack a bit. Or you are afraid the SOP’s will strangle the creative abilities of any employees you hire. All valid fears. The cool thing is any successful business has SOP’s, so start small. Attached is a report “Ten simple rules on how to write a standard operating procedure.”  Download it and try to create one. The benefits of SOP’s are steppingstones and really boil down to providing yourself and/or your employee with one way that will work. The main aim is that information be of “reliable quality and reusable” (Hollmann, et al., 2020). Keep that in mind for any document you create. Information automation is vital for business continuity.

Do Not neglect the advice that creation of the SOP needs to be repeatable

Workflows like on the right can aid in the process from ideation to completion

Creating a playbook for a playbook’s sake is not and will not solve all business issues. The main issue that a playbook solves is creating, supporting, elevating quality on deliverables. So when should you write one? When there is a “separation of roles” (Ronzio, 2021`). It seems like a small answer, and it is. However, adding people to a deliverable. ns there are areas for cracks to form.  One new person in a team can mess things up. For example, if you are into sci-fi movies and watched Prometheus, I was not happy about them casting Guy Pearce as Peter Weyland but then tried to age him with prosthetics. They should have just used an older actor.

So now you are thinking about creating SOP’s. But where and Who? This one could not be easier. You and your staff can do this right at the office. Use it as a training tool and help create buy-in to your mission. Detail things when they happen and have a point person keep the data and assemble the procedure over time. Investopedia claims the number two reason businesses fail is due to poor management (Horton, 2022). In the case of their article, in part due to unwillingness to delegate. This is precisely why a playbook is needed.

HandPrint Content has the resources to help you write your playbook, do not wait any longer. Do not be a statistic for Investopedia or the SBA. Let us get you covered.

Works Cited

Hollmann, S., Frohme, M., Endrullat, C., Kremer, A., D'Elia, D., & Regierer, B. (2020, September 3). Ten simple rules on how to write a standard operating procedure. PLoS Comput Biol .

Horton, M. (2022, October 29). The 4 Most Common Reasons a Small Business Fails. Retrieved from Investopedia: https://www.investopedia.com/articles/personal-finance/120815/4-most-common-reasons-small-business-fails.asp

Porter, M. (1980). Competitive Strategy. New York: The Free Press.

Ronzio, C. (2021`). The Business Playbook. Lionscrest Publishing.

U.S. Small Business Administration. (n.d.). 10 steps to start your business. Retrieved from business guide: https://www.sba.gov/business-guide/10-steps-start-your-business