Your sales documents are in one folder. Your onboarding checklist is somewhere else. And a few of your most important processes still live in your head.
You know the business needs better systems. But before you start creating new documents, I think there’s a useful lesson to borrow from Marie Kondo.
One of the ideas behind her KonMari Method is that you have to commit to tidying up before you start reorganizing everything.
The same thing is true in your business. Knowing you need to systemize it and making time to do the work are two different things.
Gather your business documents by category
Marie Kondo talks about gathering things by category instead of going room by room. That applies pretty well to your business too.
Start with your sales documents. Pull them together so you can see what you have. Then do the same with your marketing assets, job descriptions, compensation plans, onboarding documents, and team resources.
Before you create anything new, look at what you already have.
You may have what we call Rembrandts in the attic. Good assets that already have value, but they’re buried somewhere or completely forgotten.
Maybe someone built a useful checklist two years ago. Maybe you have a sales process that needs a few updates. Finding those gives you a place to start.
Decide what stays and what needs work
Once you can see what you have, you can make better decisions about it.
Keep the documents your team uses and trusts. Update the ones that still have value but no longer reflect how you work. Archive outdated material, and remove duplicates that leave people guessing which version to use.
Then look at what’s missing.
That’s where you can begin building the systems and processes your business needs, with a clearer picture of the work ahead.
Getting knowledge out of your head and into documents your team can find and use is part of building a business that depends less on you for every answer.
Here’s a thinking time question to take into your weekend:
If you Marie Kondo’d your business today, what would you keep, clean up, or get rid of?
So we pulled up a Google Doc and started writing things down.
Not a fancy tool. Not a complicated system. Just a document where we could get the thoughts out of everyone’s head and onto paper.
At first, there were 15 or 20 things floating around. But once we could actually see them, we were able to group them into a handful of areas and start creating clarity:
Where are we stuck?
What needs to move forward?
What does success need to look like?
Who needs to own what?
That one document changed the conversation.
The next leadership meetings were better because both people knew what needed to be discussed. The issues were not just living in someone’s head anymore.
Your team does not have the same context you have as the owner. They do not see everything the way you see it.
That is why getting things out of your head and onto paper is such an important part of moving from Rainmaker to Architect.
So here is the thinking time question for this week:
Where do you need to get on the same page with someone on your team?
