Image: Creative Commons

Your operational plan should be a roadmap for the who, where, and how of your business.  There is less number-crunching involved than with the marketing and financial plans.  You’ll want to think about how your business is going to function.  Your plan should answer the following questions:

• Who are the key players in your business?  If you haven’t done so, create an organizational chart to plan out the future of your business.
• Do you have contractors, interns, and/or employees?  Will they continue on for 2012?
• Will you hire additional people in 2012?  How will you find them and train them?
• Will your team have enough work to keep them busy?  Will you need to hire additional people to keep up with the demands of your clients?
• Will you outsource any tasks and responsibilities in your business?
• Who are your suppliers/vendors?  If you don’t have suppliers, who are the wedding professionals that you partner with most often?
• Will you work with new suppliers?  Other wedding professionals?
• Where will you meet with clients in 2012?  If you don’t have an office space, where is a good match for your company’s brand?
• Which processes will you create systems for?  How can you service your customers better?  How can you improve your processes?

Goal-setting for Operations

If your plan is looking like a list of 100 to-dos, let’s narrow it down to the most manageable tasks.  Select 3 operational goals that you’d like to accomplish in 2012.  Pick the ones that are your favorites and ‘top of mind’.  It’s easier to stay inspired about your goals if you are passionate about them. Use our SMART goal-setting sheet to help.

Join us tomorrow to craft your financial plan for 2012!

A holiday deal for you…

Throughout these 3 weeks, we’ll be offering $100 off The Simple Plan Exclusive which is our one-to-one partnership with small business owners to help build a business plan.  Simply visit The Simple Plan website to learn more about The Exclusive and enter the discount code “2012” when you enroll.  This offer is only good through December 30^th and space is limited to first-come-first-served.

Over the next 3 weeks we will be helping you put together a plan for 2012.  This week, we’ll be examining our past.  In week 2, we’ll be focused on the present.  And, in week 3, we’ll be building for the future.  We’ll be examining our marketing, operations, and finances.

Make sure to revisit our post from yesterday where we reviewed your marketing strategy in this past year.

Let’s continue!

Image: Creative Commons

Do an inventory of your business operations…

Your business operations are the ‘who, what, and where’ of your business.  How does your business function?  How did it run in 2011?  Was it smooth as silk?  Or were there any hiccups?  It may be a good idea to whip out a calendar and review the year month by month.  OR, examine your 2011 clients to see if your operations best supported their needs.

Here are some questions to ask yourself:

• Did you have any personnel?  Were they interns, contractors, or employees?  Did you feel they were hired and trained effectively?
• How about your suppliers?  (These are the people whom you order raw materials from or the outside people who help service your clients?)  Did they deliver when promised?  Are they good partners for your business?
• Do you have an organizational chart?
• Do you have systems and processes?
• Do your systems and processes help you run a smoother business?  Do they bring consistency to the client experience?  Do they help you in training personnel?
• Do you have solid accounting procedures?
• Have your contracts been reviewed by a legal professional?
• Do you have trademarks and copyrights to protect your company name and your intellectual property, respectively?
• Where do you meet with clients?  Is it a good representation of your company and your brand?

Now, make 3 columns on a sheet of paper and label them each: “Operational Factors, Strengths, and Weaknesses”.  Spend a few minutes listing strengths and weaknesses for the following operational factors:

• Your personnel: interns, contractors, and employees
• Your hiring and training procedures
• Your suppliers
• Your business systems (particularly your sales process and your ‘production’ process – or the process by which you make your goods or the process by which you service a wedding)
• Your legal protection
• Your accounting process
• Your location (if you work at home, where do you meet with clients?)

By examining your strengths and weaknesses you should be working towards areas of improvement for 2012.

Come back tomorrow and we’ll review your financial strategy in 2011.

A holiday deal for you…

Throughout these 3 weeks, we’ll be offering $100 off The Simple Plan Exclusive which is our one-to-one partnership with small business owners to help build a business plan.  Simply visit The Simple Plan website to learn more about The Exclusive and enter the discount code “2012” when you enroll.  This offer is only good through December 30^th and space is limited to first-come-first-served.

Image: Creative Commons License -- Flickr: bjornmeansbear

You know the problem with being a business owner?  You think you’re always right.  Don’t be angry with me for saying this.  I’m guilty 1000% for this also.  We have so much passion fueling our business that we don’t always see objectively.  We are artistic and creative people.  And, we think we know what’s best for our business.  And, 99.5% of the time, we do.  But… sometimes… we don’t.

We need to trust the professionals we hire.

It’s easy for me to trust my CPA or my lawyer.  While I’ve studied accounting, I’m not a tax professional.  I will always defer to her for advice.  I know enough law to ‘get by’ in my business.  But, when it comes to the nitty-gritty details on how to protect myself and my business, I go to my lawyer.  It’s easy to let go of my business with these professionals because my skill level is low and I’m OK admitting that.

But, when it comes to branding… that’s a whole other thing.  I’ve seen it time and time again… the small business owner who is battling with their graphic or web designer. Let’s trust the designers we hire to do the job they are incredibly qualified to do.

Letting go…

Let’s assume these factors are in place when you’ve hired the designer to help you with your branding identity or website:

• You’ve hired a highly qualified professional with vast experience and an outstanding portfolio.
• You’re checked references and have read glowing reviews.
• Your communication has been top-notch.  (You agree to the same terms and milestones of the project.)
• The designer understands marketing, understands your market, and has asked you all the right questions to learn more about your business.
• The designer is flexible, willing to revise and edit (within the terms of your contract).

And… then you start to work… and the designer is taking you in a direction that surprises you.  How open are you to change?  How open are you to this professional’s point-of-view and creativity?  How open are you to your designer’s marketing expertise?

The designer ABSOLUTELY wants and needs your input.  But the designer also needs room to be creative and do his or her best job… a job you hired them to do.

The designer knows what we don’t know.

Jeannine Kennedy, editor for The Stylish Planner blog, shared last year that when she was having the logo designed for the blog that initially she was disappointed by the simplicity of it… the neutral colors and simple fonts.  Her designer worked with her and saw something in her branding that she had not initially seen before.  The Stylish Planner is a platform for wedding industry professionals to discuss style, fashion, and branding as it relates to their business.  These topics need to shine on their own.  A logo shouldn’t distract from her mission.  And the logo needed to be classic, timeless.  The designer understood this.  And, soon Jeannine learned that he was onto something she hadn’t initially identified.  She loves the logo now and everything about the way her site looks.  (I do too!)

Don’t you expect the same from your clients?

There is nothing worse than a bride or groom that has hired a planner and then decides they are going to interfere with every recommendation or suggestion that planner has made.  Ever had a client go behind your back, unbeknownst to you and change a design without your knowledge?  Ever had a client question and micro manage every little stage of the wedding planning process?  Isn’t it frustrating to have someone hire you that doesn’t trust your expertise?

Be a team.

Working with a designer on your branding can be SO SUPER FUN!  But, the two of you need to be a team together.  You need to trust one another and work with each other.  You need to be open to each other’s input, knowledge, and expertise.

What are your thoughts on this?  Have you had the experience of working with a designer that opened your eyes to new possibilities?

OH… make sure to check out the Sage Branding Specialists in the right column.  These are sage professionals we’ve partnered with to assist in your branding identity.

Image: AVClub.com

I’ve talked about this before, but it’s worth mentioning again.  If you have an unpaid intern, you better make sure you’ve hired them legally.  The New York Times reported yesterday on two interns who are filing suit against the makers of the film “Black Swan”.  According to The Times, Fox Searchlight Pictures “had the interns do menial work that should have been done by paid employees and did not provide them with the type of educational experience that labor rules require in order to exempt employers from paying interns. ”

Yes – gone are the days where we can have interns make pots of coffee and photocopy papers for FREE!  Making coffee is hardly an educational experience.  The law requires that interns be hired for training purposes only.

The US Department of Labor has 6 criteria for hiring unpaid interns.  They are:

1. The training, even though it includes actual operation of the facilities of the employer, is similar to what would be given in a vocational school or academic educational instruction;
2. The training is for the benefit of the trainees;
3. The trainees do not displace regular employees, but work under their close observation;
4. The employer that provides the training derives no immediate advantage from the activities of the trainees, and on occasion the employer’s operations may actually be impeded;
5. The trainees are not necessarily entitled to a job at the conclusion of the training period; and
6. The employer and the trainees understand that the trainees are not entitled to wages for the time spent in training.

The USDoL goes on to say that if a person meets all 6 criteria they are a “trainee.”

Unsure if you are doing this correctly?  Talk with your CPA or attorney to help guide you in the right direction.

The people who support you and your business go far beyond the people actually employed by you.  In the wedding industry, we expect our clients to hire professionals to handle their wedding, you should do the same with your business.  Here are some people who should be on your team:

Accountants:

• Bookkeeper – if you don’t want to manage your monthly accounting transactions
• CPA / Tax Accountant – for assistance with filing taxes
• Financial Advisor – for looking at your numbers and helping you strategize

Lawyers:

• Contract Lawyer
• Trademark and Copyright Lawyer

Marketing & PR Pros:

• Branding Specialist
• PR Professional

Human Resources Advisors

Operational Management:

• Admin/Virtual Assistant
• Cleaning Staff

Now, let’s get real here… you probably aren’t going to hire ALL of these people ALL the time.  And, you may not have a need for some of these professionals, depending on where you currently are in your business and your personal ability.  But, once you can identify your weak spots (and those areas which you despise) consider hiring people to join your team.  It’s important to recognize where our abilities are limited and how adding someone to our team can only make our business stronger.

Who else?  Who did I miss on this list that is helpful for your business?

Creating a system for each position

Today, we are going to create systems or processes for these positions.  A system (or process) is the step-by-step approach for accomplishing a particular responsibility.  Each position on your org chart will have a set of responsibilities.  Each one of these responsibilities will have a process or system.

I like to make my systems into checklists.  This is something I learned from one of my favorite books, The E-Myth Revisited.  In the book author Michael Gerber talks about “systemizing” your business.  This may sound robotic to you.  (I remember thinking that my business would lose its soul if I made everything standardized and systematic.  McDonald’s came to mind.)  But, in reality, systemizing your business ensures:

• that you’ll give the client a consistent experience.
• can hire and train additional personnel.
• efficiency.  When you can work through a list of procedures, you don’t have to recreate the wheel ever time you sit down to work on a project.

How to create a system or process

We covered this a few months ago in a series we did on Client Management.  You will want to revisit the post on documenting systems here.  Here are some of the tips I shared:

• Start at the very beginning: what is the very first thing you do in this specific process?  (In my example of assembly, the assembler is responsible for ensuring that they have all inventory and supplies in place.)
• Then walk through ever single step of that specific process and identify a task.
• Do not worry about other processes.  Focus solely on ONE process.
• Don’t over-explain or over-document.  You want to give enough detail where anyone following will be able to do it.  But don’t over-complicate things.
• Keep your checklist to a page if you can.  It’s nearly impossible (nor is it fun) when you have to go thru a checklist that is 8 pages long.  If it’s getting too long you may have to split the process into some additional separate processes.

You’ll also want to check out some of the management tools (including software) that I love for keeping my systems organized.

Have you created systems or processes for your business?  How did you do it?

On a less serious note… I found this procrastination flow chart.  Just think… you can even systemize your “Procrastination Process”!

Image: Creative Commons

Source: Wikipedia

We are going to make one of these today!

Creating your organizational chart

I’d like for you to think about your business on a larger scale.  What does your business look like in it’s complete structure?  What does your business look like if you were to break down all of the responsibilities into separate positions with different people?  What does your business look like if you were operating with various people in charge of separate roles?

In yesterday’s post I described some areas of responsibility for a stationery business.  If I were to break down the areas of Design, Sales, and Marketing… it might look like this:

VP of Design

oversees:

• Collection Designer
• Custom Orders Designer

VP of Sales

oversees:

• Sales Manager for weddings
• Sales Manager for babies
• Sales Manager for other events

VP of Marketing

oversees:

• Brand Manager
• Pricing Analyst
• Marketing Researcher
• Advertising/Promotional Manager

That’s just the start.

Sure – your org chart will be comprised mostly of you in each position. That’s OK.

Why is this important?

The org chart will help you…

• see responsibilities/jobs for which you can outsource or hire.
• develop a vision of what your business will look like as it grows.  (This is always exciting to me!)
• separate responsibilities and “areas of management” if you do have employees.  (No more duplication of work or confusion as to who does what.)
• keep yourself accountable to run your business with each of these responsibilities in mind.  We tend to focus on our strengths, and neglect what we cannot do well.  But, by assigning the job of “VP of Finance” to yourself it ensures that you know this is your job and it has to get done by you (or, by hiring an accountant.)  Someone’s name has to be in this role.

There is no formula for this.  There are some great org charts out there (just google).  Make this yours.  Make it easy for you to work from and build from.

Have you created an org chart before?  Was it helpful?

A self-employed business owner does it ALL.  If you have a small team, or no team, this is no exaggeration.  We sell, we create, we clean, we tweet, we calculate, we compute, we write, we publish, we collect trash.  We know we do it all… but, what does all really encompass?  Have you ever sat down to write down EVERYTHING you do as a business owner?

Today, I’d like you to do just this.  Write down EVERYTHING you do.  I’d also like you to write down everything you should do but don’t have time, energy, resources, experience, knowledge to do.  (These are the things that should get done in your business but don’t.)  Make a list of responsibilities within the spectrum of your business.

I find it helpful to make my list in sections separated by area of responsibility.  For example:

Design

• Design Samples
• Design Client Custom Orders
• Design Website Collection

Sales

• Schedule Appointments
• Meet with Clients
• Write Proposals
• Write Contracts

Marketing

• Define target market and market’s buying trends
• Determine pricing that is most suitable for products/services (and reassess annually)
• Determine where to advertise, where to market, where to network
• Assess promotional activities for return on investment

(and so on!)

I come from a business background so I tend to talk in “business jargon” in my own business.  Yours doesn’t need to sound like this.  Make it yours.  Make it something that represents your business.

What exactly is that you do all day?

It’s OK if we disagree.

Yesterday, I talked about how this social media thing is a conversation.   I want you to know, dear reader… it’s OK to disagree with me.  I welcome education in all forms.  We all have something to learn and something to teach.  I certainly don’t have all the answers.  I’m just like you… I just happen to have this platform to share business-y type things.

Why bring this up?

A friend of mine posted a comment on a blog (not in our industry) and it was not approved by the author.  She is a very respectful professional.  In fact, she gives some of the most insightful comments on wedding and business blogs.  (Yes, I notice!)  But, she did disagree with this blog post.  Apparently the author didn’t want any contrary opinions to be shared with their readership.  It’s a shame, really.  This is all part of the conversation.  When you have a conversation there are points where two individuals may disagree.  It’s an opportunity for one side to learn from the other and vice versa.

Be respectful.

On the flip side, I’ve been witness to some blog posts that become very unbalanced in the comment arena.  The comments take on a life of their own where the writer is bashed for expressing his or her opinion.  This is disrespectful.  Comments should be insightful and helpful and should ADD to the conversation.  If you find yourself disagreeing with the point-of-view of a blog, be respectful in the opinion you share.  It’s easy to hide behind our screens and say things we’d never say to someone in real life.  But, on the other side of that internet is a human being with real emotions.  Be respectful.  Be kind.

What do you think about this?  Have any of these scenarios happened to you?

Image: Creative Commons

Yesterday, we talked about how your energy impacts your sales.  If you are tired, annoyed, burned out you are most likely giving off negative energy.  And, it impacts your ability to do business.  No one wants to do business with someone who is negative.  It can hurt your image, your brand, your sales and your profitability.

We all go through this.  It’s called LIFE.  But, you’ve gotta turn that frown upside-down!  (I blame my husband for that corniness.  He’s known to say that around this house quite frequently.)  So… here you have it…

5 Ways to Turn Negative Energy into Positive Energy:

1. Devote 30 minutes each day to yourself

EVERYONE has 30 minutes to spare.  (I don’t want any excuses, folks!)  Spend a few minutes committing yourself to 30 minutes of ‘something’ daily for yourself.  I encourage you to make this 30 minute activity first thing each morning.  Otherwise, the day takes hold and we push this commitment onto the backburner over something work-related.  I recently committed myself to do 30 minutes daily of some sort of physical activity (exercise, for lack of a better word).  I want a healthier lifestyle, but the sanity and balance it has brought to my day has been incredible.  By committing myself to doing this daily (as opposed to exercising 1 hour, 3 days a week) it has become a habit.  And, dare I say, I find myself craving it.  (Who’da thunk?)

2. Know when you are most effective and positive

What are your happy times of the day?  What are your not-so-happy times of the day?  Plan your consults and meetings around this.  This may sound silly, but if you think about it… there are times of the day when you are most effective and “fresh”.  For me, Mondays are OUT.  I am not happy on Mondays.  And, I can be downright negative.  I also know that I’m not a morning person; early morning meetings aren’t smart for me.  At the same time, if a meeting is too late in the day, I’ll have the exhaustion of the day weighing me down.  I’m most “happy” and “fresh” between 10am-2pm so those are ideal times for me to have meetings.  This doesn’t always work – especially when clients want to meet in the evening after their work day.  But, it’s still something I’m aware of when I’m talking to people on the phone and conducting general business.

3. Find something positive

This one is a toughie – but it can be very effective.  It requires you to grab hold of your mind and put yourself in charge.  When you feel yourself steering into negative territory.  Stop.  Think.  What are some positive things happening in your life right now?  What are some positive outcomes that will come out of your current situation?  I see life’s biggest challenges as life’s greatest opportunities.  Write down some positive things in your life and tape them to your computer.  Look at that list when you feel negativity rising.

4. Stay off social media

If you are exuding negative energy, get off the Facebook, get off the Twitter.  These are not good arenas for you if you have a tendency towards public venting.  Oh sure – we all need a good vent from time to time – and some of us lean on our social media friendships for this.  But, when it is day-in day-out venting, you need to lay off the Twitter.  It’s hurting your brand and your company.  Also, social media can drive a negative feeling.  If you are having a bad day and others on social media are having a bad day, this can add to it.  Take a little social media time out.

5. Talk it out

I think one of the hardest things about being a business owner is that we are so isolated, in a little cocoon.  If we work by ourselves (many of us from our homes) we miss out on valuable workplace relationships.   These are relationships that without our even knowing may boost us in times of trouble.  The water cooler chatter is the real deal.  (I think this is why social media has become so important for us entrepreneurs.)  So when we have a bad day (or week – or month) we fester, fester, fester and exude negative energy.  It’s important to find another way to talk it out… call a friend, or drop all of your stressful mess and have lunch with someone.  Get it all out.  It’s incredibly cathartic just to be around someone else… especially if they have positive energy.  That energy will rub off on you… and you may even get a laugh in there.

I’m gonna sneak in just one more… SMILE.  It doesn’t fix everything.  But, forcing a smile when it’s the last thing you feel, can actually make you feel a bit better.  I promise.

What are your tips for turning negative energy into positive energy?