For the first few years of building a business, ensuring proper management and performance success can be a monumental undertaking. Gradually, once your organization has reached a point where the day to day operations are functioning well, it’s time for Plan B.

But what exactly should Plan B look like, you may ask? In simple words, it would require you to relinquish some of your tasks in daily operations. You’ll also want to delegate some of the decision making responsibilities to others in the organization.

Now, you may guess our answer for the crucial question of the day. Yes, it’s possible for a business to function day-to-day without your constant presence. However, the key to achieving this single point mandates that some crucial choices be made.

So, let’s dig in a bit more, shall we?

What are the Day-to-Day Operations in a Company?

Before we delve into the tips to running a business without constant oversight of the owner, we want to identify the operational aspects. This way, you can determine which functions of your business will operate well by hiring employees who will be responsible to complete necessary daily tasks.

Sales

The Sales Department of the business interacts with clients and provides guidance regarding products and services.

Marketing

The Marketing Department in a company is responsible to develop branding strategies and to focus on making the products visible to its client base.

Finance

The Finance Department is involved in the decision making process by securing proper usage of the company’s revenue and channeling it accordingly.

Accounting

Among its many responsibilities, the Accounting Department handles the management of the company’s capital. This department also focuses on maintaining the track record of both the company’s profit and expenditures.

Customer Service

All companies need to focus on developing a better rapport with their existing clients, as well as bring in new customers with the view to creating more profit. Therein comes the productivity of Customer Service Department, dedicated to bringing in money to the company either directly or indirectly.

Human Resources

Lastly, all businesses require a Human Resources Department where the day-to-day tasks mainly involve managing, as well as hiring new employees, to ensure an overall excellent company function.

Know When It’s Time to Stop Maintaining Daily Involvement

Growing a company from its humble beginnings into a thriving business can be a source of great pride in ownership. You’ve worked hard, stayed the course, developed the infrastructure to succeed and kept the focus on developing a successful operation.

But how much control should you maintain in the daily operations? Can your company function without your daily constant management? Should you be the one person responsible to provide guidance in all aspects of your business?

Are Your Vacations On Hold or Non Existent?

How often do you schedule time away for yourself? Do you take vacations with your loved ones? Or do you put off getting away due to lack of confidence in your employees to get the job done?

If you are the one person who can sign the checks to pay a supplier, if you are the one person responsible for decision making or if your input is needed to determine every step of daily operations, then you must make organizational changes.

Determine which employees are dependable and best suited for leadership in various areas of your business, and tap into their expertise. Develop leadership so that your business can flow uninterrupted while you take time away to refresh and renew.

You’ve been hiring employees as you’ve grown, and no doubt there are employees in your company who are able and willing to take the lead in your absence.

Do you Experience Flat Revenue Growth?

The business you’ve created should be profitable enough to perform well in your absence.

If your business is sales, one action to take would be to review your inventory and take a direct look at the sales, or lack of sales, of existing products. Perhaps eliminate those with poor performance.

After all, scaling down to only products that produce profit may be the means you need to ensure increased revenue in your business. This could be one aspect to enable your absence in day to day involvement

Do Customers Want to Do Business with The Owner Only?

Perhaps you, as sole business owner, are considered the best salesperson in the organization. But your company’s success should not be measured in your accomplishments alone, but also in how you help your employees to achieve success.

One solution would be to develop your leadership to train all employees for success. Your customers receive the same excellent service no matter who is the single point of contact.

Do Employees Need Your Approval Alone?

No one wants to be responsible for every email, approve or reject every decision or solve every problem that arises in their business. From taking care of accounts, processing inventory, securing deliveries to receiving all payments safe and sound, delegating responsibilities is imperative.

As your business grows, you’ll know when change in infrastructure is necessary. Begin by sharing the load of responsibilities among your organization, enabling yourself the freedom to take a break from being responsible for every detail.

Make Your Business Function Day-to-Day without You

Setting up your company to develop into a success and letting it grow on “autopilot mode” can seem quite daunting at first. But with proper planning and management, the tasks get easier with innovation, productivity of your employees and a satisfied client base.

To confirm whether you’re on the right track or not, here are a few key points you might want to remember and implement.

1. Jot down your daily functions in the organization. Give a thorough look into your recent activities, noting frequency as well as urgency.

2. Now comes the critical part. Reviewing each of the tasks, create a list of employees who have worked hard enough to showcase their leadership skills in each of the existing departments.

3. Offer benefits to your employees so they start treating the company as their own. For example, let them explore their limits and provide a percentage of the financial gain made each year.

   You’d be surprised to know how quickly many organizations realized success this way!

4. Provide various services and perks to the employees in your organization so they remain loyal. This may be health insurance , paid vacations or paid maternity leave.

5. Let your employees discover the different aspects to the business and have them share their valuable insights.

   A simple “I trust your decision on this,” or “What would you do if you were me?” will take your company a long way when you learn to rely on the insight of those who know the business first hand. Learning how to stop developing a sense of micromanagement and delegate properly is the way to success above all.

6. Allow the firms’ executives to accept leadership, improvise and provide guidance to them when needed. A healthy chain of command will surely be helpful to establish a brand correctly.

7. Always make sure to look into the performance of each worker periodically, so you understand the situation of each department.

8. Having a healthy working environment is prerequisite to running smooth operations on a regular basis.

   Always be aware that the HR department is doing its job and maintaining a proper communication between you and the staff regarding the needs and requirements at both ends.

9. Be certain that the quality control of your ongoing product line is strictly maintained. Sooner or later, your business is bound to have a downfall even if your business strategies are top notch, but your products aren’t.

   Discovering such problems will definitely take effort. Yet, following the adage “work smarter, not harder,” is a good rule of thumb.

   Incline your organization to tech-dependency, and spread the utilization of online meetings and other business software to keep up with the operation daily.

   “No meeting Wednesdays,” adopted by Shopify, can be another creative solution to support your employees’ increased productivity.

10. Known as “Standard Operating Procedures” or “SOPs” in the cliché MBA language, or in a generalized sense, an employee manual is vital to a business.

    Operations and procedures are clearly defined for your employees, whether they be executives, management or department team members.

Tips to Stay Connected to Current and Potential Clients

More often than ever, when you’ve been the face of the brand for years, you may find yourself needing to step back from the spotlight. Nevertheless, does this mean that your customer relationship would eventually collapse without your presence?

The accurate answer would be—it depends. Now before you become uneasy, let us clarify. With a few precautionary measures, as well as smart planning, you can easily avoid any negative outcomes in customer relations.

1. Schedule a date each week or month to interact with your customers.

   This could be done by appearing in marketing campaigns and showing your enthusiasm about the newest launch or even by responding to the concerns created by the customers personally.

2. Take advantage of Social Media.

   A quick solution to stay connected to your company’s fanbase can be through spontaneous social media posts to let them know you’re still the face of the company.

   This way, you can also keep it personal, and not just transactional, with your valued customers.

3. Show appreciation to your existing customers by offering incentives or rewards programs to keep them satisfied and coming back. Reach out to new customers with offers of new customer discounts, knowing they will increase sales.

4. Use traditional email to stay connected to all customers. Contact them with latest offers, customer surveys, as well as company news appropriate to share.

   Besides, surveying via emails, creative blogging can be a way to draw their attention to products and services, allowing your marketing team to acquire data for future business plans.

We hope you found these suggestions helpful, and that you’re encouraged to step back and allow others to step up. Free time will enable you to enjoy the fruits of your labor!