When building a house, the blueprint is the strategic plan that tells the construction workers and their managers the logistic requirements to build the house, where each part of the facility will be placed and helps them to maintain order as they build the house. Similarly, a business blueprint is a strategic plan that tells those operating the business the productivity requirements, the necessary jobs, the milestones, the targets, and the expected outcomes. A business blueprint is a plan for how you will strategically execute business.
Set Your Life Plan
Your Life Plan is the foundation of the business blueprint. The business is not your life, but it’s a vehicle you use to manifest components of your legacy–this is HUGE! The life plan “begins with the end in mind” as Stephen Covey would say by having you look at the most important things you want your life to say to the world, and sets milestones for how you can ensure the message and impact is left behind.
Businesses can be huge legacy vehicles to build leaders, cement relationships, transform limiting beliefs, change economic climates, and impact the world with solutions. If there’s no life plan, the business can become synonymous with the entrepreneur or become stigmatized as “work” only.
Begin with an Organization Chart
It can seem funny to complete an organization chart without having a sizeable organization, but the organization chart is a crucial component of planning before a bottleneck. When you do the organization chart before having an organization, it’s simply for planning and future thinking purposes, but it’s so important. You begin to think about what positions the business would need to operate with peak performance.
Simulate the Position Contracts
Similar to a job description, a position contract tells you what tasks each position is responsible for, the quality standards, the expected outcomes, who they report to, how the position fits into the company mission and vision, and so on. Even while you are a small company and wear several of the positions, it’s still important to recognize what tasks you’re responsible for, consistently execute them, and document. Once your able to hire, you can take the work you’ve done to fill the position, and brief the new hire on where you left off and give them the operations manual.
Design the Job Prototypes
As an entrepreneur who works ON the job, and not just IN the job, you should be documenting how you are doing each task necessary to make the business run. The compilation of documentation should be kept in your training manuals for your new hires. The operations manuals will enable you to provide instruction and accountability as a leader to the new hires. It will also stabilize consistent processes, so your customers know they can expect equivalent quality standards every time they return: regardless of who serves them.
Organize All Neatly
You can use sheet protectors, binders, or a completely digital setup–whichever is most comfortable for you. You want to make sure the documents are neat, orderly, and positioned where you can continually reference them.