Throughout 2008, we had an interesting, uh, adventure in hiring, before we found our infrastructure queen, Kate Williams. Kate is blogging the Insider View, as previously self-employed and now working with us. I expect that she’s going to embarrass the crumb out of me. The intention, however, is to be as transparent in our business as possible, so you can learn what really works (and what really doesn’t.)
Here’s the introduction to this series, including a list of all Insider View posts. Enjoy. Learn. Comment.It’s been almost seven months since I entered the Heart of Business, and coming up to speed doing administrative tasks, participating in a product’s creation, helping put on a five-day retreat, and filling in gaps while Mark and Holly went through their longer than anticipated adoption process, and more has kept me busy and challenged. In mad dashes to handle one urgent need after another, it’s become glaringly apparent how little planned infrastructure holds the business together.
Although Mark and Holly have embraced my pleas to put more stable financial, marketing, reporting, and project management, and other administrative systems in place, it’s been really difficult to break the crisis pattern of operation that born of the necessity to get a small business generating revenue quickly. It’s sort of been like trying to secure tent stakes in gale force winds actually.
Ok, maybe I exaggerate, but these gusts of ever more attractive growth possibilities, and a series of unexpected events, have challenged my charge as Infrastructure Queen, let alone the business’s forward momentum. We’ve got to have solid systems to handle sales growth, product creation, and curriculum development, yet we have to be actively marketing and creating to keep the revenue flowing in, and there are only so many hours in a day. You know the story.
Just When You Think There’s an Opening to Get it Done . . .
Thankfully Mark, Holly, and the twins are back home in Portland, we’re clearly still not in Kansas anymore Toto. Holly is doing the mom thing now, and Mark is emotionally torn between his new role as dad and taking care of the business that so needs him back full-time.
When the number of obstacles couldn’t have gotten more absurd, Mark got sick just as were beginning to regroup and strategize our efforts. He was beside himself in frustration and disappointment and, well, and I was on the verge of breaking under the pressure to hold more in the business for even longer. That was a couple of days ago . . .
Surprise, then two days later, I got sicker than I’ve been in years. Still am as I write. Holy moley Batman, now what? Remember that high school football game cheer: “Push ’em back, push ’em back, waaaaay back! Goooooo Wolfpack” (We’ll that was one of ours anyway. :))
This parade of obstacles that keep raising their big ol’ heads has been quite a test of our mettle as a team, but they have only drawn us closer and made us more determined to take them in stride with deep acceptance.
Taking the Electric Screwdriver to the Bed Frames
Mark says to me this week, looking for fresh approaches to the business, “What would you do if this was your business?” Whew, no little questions here. In the same conversation he asked me, “If Heart of Business were a million dollar business, what would we need to do differently?” How could I not bring up the “I” word in both cases. I am the appointed queen of that domain, aren’t I.
I was overtaken by a silly image of a long line of empty bed frames catching musical mattresses that were shifting about randomly. I said to Mark, “If you already have the bed frames in place, you can move the mattresses around as needed. Having the framework in place allows for easy movement and fluid organizing. If we put the frames in place before buying the mattresses, none of us would have to hold each new heavy mattress alone while the other urgently struggled to build a new frame.” Lousy metaphor except for the “you made your bed, now you must . . .” You know how it goes.
The question is, however, how do we shift the pattern and get ahead in the frame building part of the business without compromising our revenue generating efforts.
Were talkin’ business culture shift here. Heart of Business must move from reactive to proactive when it comes to financial decisions, project management, and marketing. Because I’m the new kid with a great aversion to cramming for exams and all such last minute efforts, I’ve ended up with the electric screwdriver in my hand.
Ok Mark, I say, but if I’m in charge of the power tools then you’ll need to hand me the screws and help hold the bed frame pieces together while we work.
Enough with the Bed Metaphor, What Does Infrastructure Mean?
Remember going to Office Depot when you first started your business? How exciting it was to buy a phone, bookkeeping software, file folders, pens, paperclips–ah, the visions of order you would create. Remember finding a domain name, setting up your email, and creating your first website, developing a subscribers email list?
Yea, and then somewhere along the way the phone cord gets wrapped around your neck, you can’t remember where you put that tax form, you forgot to warn your printer that you need books printed in one week for your upcoming seminar, and sticky notes are growing around your desk like kudzu. You simply can’t keep gaining forward momentum if your systems of organization and information aren’t developing at the same pace.
That’s kinda where we are, only further down the road maybe. Here’s a few places we’re working on. Any sound familiar?:
- Organize systems for easy financial tracking–incoming and outgoing. Assess monthly balance sheets and profit and loss statements. Generate monthly goals.
- Run regular reports that track things like number of ezine and forum subscribers and unsubscribers, product and services sales, website traffic, client demo- and psychographics, so that we can make marketing changes that work.
- Create a how-to manual for all the facets of our operation so that someone can step in and take on an aspect of the business as needed. This includes implementing systematic approaches to all of our online marketing and services programs like AWeber, AMember, 1ShoppingCart, PayPal, Highrise, Basecamp, etc.
- Develop a stronger system for managing contacts and communicating about them within the business.
- Create a project management system, including a year-out plan, that will prevent production crisis
“Ok Then, Let’s Get It Built and Move on Already!”
So Mark asks me after I bring up the “I” word again, “Ok, so do you think we can get it done by the end of January?” (It’s January 20 at that moment.)
“No.” (Are you kidding me, I’m thinking!)
“Middle of February?” he asks.
I said, yes. The meeting ended, and I was left mulling over what just got agreed upon. Middle of February. Then it hit me. This is part of the culture change issue. Building infrastructure, like relationships, doesn’t happen, and then you go on to live a happily-ever-after life. It is a never ending effort. The success comes in having more bed frames than mattresses.
Don’t be fooled into complacency around your business’s infrastructure, especially if it is growing.
How Are You Managing Your Infrastructure?
It’s an ongoing balance. Building infrastructure requires resources, and gaining resources requires infrastructure. In the midst of growing pains, we at Heart of Business are actively seeking that balance regardless of the big ol’ obstacles that keeping coming up.
How about you? I would love to hear stories of how you strive for balanced systems development and revenue generation in your business. If you work with others in your business, how do you problem solve these types of issues? How do you allocate tasks? And if you’re a million dollar business, (congratulations!) how has attention to infrastructure helped get you there?
13 Responses
Hi Kate,
Thanks for this. Very timely for me – 2009 is my year to really look at infrastructure and growing long-term systems. I blogged about it myself this week – see http://bit.ly/CnnN
I look forward to reading more of this from you.
With warm wishes
Corrina
http://www.youinspireme.co.uk
Corrina Gordon-Barnes
Setting up infrastructure is an important part of moving from someone running a sole business who has help at times, to an e-myth style of business.
That said, if you are working for an entrepreneur most of them/us hate systems because it boxes them/us in and limits their/our options.
It also means they/we are tied down and can’t avoid an issue any longer through perfectionism (unless they/we get caught in fiddling with all of the written procedures to make them perfect before they go live)!
When I create a system for myself it is a sign of me under stress. If a Gantt chart appears … then run for the hills. If I am full time on process, it is because I am afraid of the next step I need to take with a client or the business.
The funny thing is I was the Infrastructure Queen in a pre-business job. I can create systems for others – but systems for my own business are a heck of a lot more challenging.
What I need is for my team to be strong where I am weak – to create systems that work for the team and then just fill me in on the broad details.
I don’t need it all at once – just one or two new systems a month would be great, starting with ones I have the least emotional involvement in and working up to my pet projects.
In tandem, I also need to work on my own personal emotional issues around sharing control before we move into systems and processes – otherwise whatever we do will only be activity with no heart and no real results.
Good luck with it Kate!
@Ingrid: You’ve done a great job of profiling common feelings of an entrepreneur faced with systems. I appreciate you naming what would work for you–“my team to be strong where I am weak–to create systems that work for the team and then just fill me in on the broad details.” How do you see this working in a one owner, one employee situation? Seems here the team must include the owner.
I wonder if taking on one or two new systems a month would make a difference in successfully building change that results in “activity with heart and real results.” I’m working on ways to bring in systems that nurture responsive, planned movement while dissolving the tendency to drama and crisis management.
Thank you for your perspective and personality insights.
Kate
This is a hard change! I am proud of you all for addressing it and working to meet it. A good, working, thoughtful infrastructure is so important to taking good care of your customers (and yourselves). Glad Mark found you, Kate! I know he is as well.
Sonia Simone | Remarkable Communication
Sonia,
Hard, yes. Frustrating, yes. And I know in my heart that when we get over the hump, we will all crumple in a love heap and laugh at the insane ride. Thank you for your recognition and support.
Hi Kate:
I am a small business that is getting the foundational work in place as we speak – and the metaphor about the frames for the mattresses was really helpful to me. I didn’t recognize I was doing that til you mentioned it. Thank you.
So, what’s happening for me is I hired an editor to write my web copy, newsletters, and other materials. After spending thousands of dollars on marketing courses, I realized that this piece was essential for me.
It freed me up to come up with rough drafts that express what I want my business to. My editor polishes them up and makes them shine.
Recently, I started having issues with my reliable computer person who is on mountain time. His schedule isn’t a match for mine and the things I needed for him to do weren’t happening.
I couldn’t even find a mutual time to talk with him when both of us were awake.
So, though it wasn’t the most graceful thing, I introduced my editor to my computer guy today -both work for me through the internet. My editor noticed numerous issues with the website that I had been unable to address with my computer guy due to timing.
It may not have been the most graceful thing to do but in response to the editor’s request for who’s doing what, I told her that I’d like her to do the writing and the website and for him to do my computer maintenance.
I know I’ve hurt his feelings and that wasn’t my intention. At the same time, I am referring people to my site and it needs to be professional and work correctly.
I’ll call him later this evening and apologize for not talking to him personally first. We’ll work it out.
Though it may seems somewhat autocratic, it works for me – the business is small and right now I have what I’m thrilled to be relieved of some administrative responsibilities.
I have an accountant that I consult as well as an attorney on an as needed basis. They are easy to get ahold of and respond to my messages. It works for me.
Thank you Kate for writing this article – it helped me to reflect on what structures I am putting in place right now. It also makes me conscious of how I may need to adjust them in the future.
Kate, what do you think, are some folks just more hard-wired to create structure than others? It’s one of the things I start to do right away, start building structures and forms and processes. But I don’t think everyone gravitates to that, esp. most entrepreneurs.
Some people think that creative folks aren’t good at structure, but that’s not my experience.
Sonia Simone | Remarkable Communication
Great sweeping bow to Sonia Simone for sending me here.
So refreshing to read this level of intelligent problem articulation and willingness to share.
I follow the thought that structure may seem both essential and a hindrance to sales. Think we have to go a step further, as well, because even more than structures, people forget about EVALUATION. Yet all due processes are supposed to conclude with it, right? You plan, then execute, then evaluate. You remember to take the time to reflect. Right? Maybe so, but few do it.
It’s a continual cycle: structure to sales to summary analysis, and back to structure again. If you don’t keep the cycle turning, the energy will fizzle.
Char@: You know, I think you make a good point in noticing what structure you have put in place already. Even those who don’t like structure or detail work function within some level of structure.
It’s from that place that we can take a next takable step. Like you are doing, in a small business the first steps are usually hiring contracted work to pick up the jobs that quickly can’t be done by just one person as the business grows not much beyond the idea phase.
Sounds like you’re making great moves to grow your structure with your business.
Now you just have to make sure you remember to use that structure to then build in methods of measurement and assessment. That way, you’ll be more aware when it is time to put a next level of structure in place.
Sonia@: “Are some folks just more hard-wired to create structure than others?” Great question. I would say yes, and those of us who are “hard-wired” are that way for different reasons. Obviously I am too, yet it doesn’t always mean that I do it for myself.
There is a difference between having an aptitude for creating structure and being good at executing it, following through and sticking with it. That’s when we can get into other personality attributes and challenges, eh?
Maybe it comes down to how strong our sense of self-preservation is and our craving for ease, and even our level of determination to succeed at whatever it is we’re doing.
“Some people think that creative folks aren
Mary@: I so appreciate you bringing in the importance of evaluating or assessing. Yes, it’s the whole point really, to be able to know how your business is doing at any moment, to be able to put our fingers and minds on information when we want to make an important business decision. If you haven’t, check out my latest blog. I include this piece as it relates to tracking finances.
@Corrina: Good to hear from you here. I just read your latest blog post and am excited to know that you are embarking on some similar changes as Heart of Business has been going through in the last year and a half.
Getting to the point where “infrastructure” and “systems” enter into a microbusiness’s conversations is definitely a right of passage, a maturation. It’s a razors edge walk between focusing on increasing structures and systems to hold growing revenue streams and making sure that you don’t put so much time into infrastructure that the revenue streams shrink too much.
I will certainly keep writing about it as we continue to move forward. This week we’ll be in the process of hiring a couple of interns. I’ll keep you posted. 🙂
Please let me know how your journey goes.
Peace,
Kate
I’ve found Mark’s concept of us ‘teaching our business systems’ incredibly useful. I’m actually enjoying implementing some of these now.
Getting my new website up and running, with integrated shopping cart & broadcast/autorespond systems, is not yet a joyful experience, on the other hand. I had a realisation today: it’s like I’m moving house and at the moment I’m homeless, with just a backpack. I can’t settle down and stretch out in my new place yet, and my old place just doesn’t feel like ‘me’ any more. The process is taking longer than I thought AND is activating old wounds that have nothing to do with websites and everything to do with asking people for help, trusting people and trusting myself. It’s also about developing patience – and what a challenge that is!
Glad you enjoyed my blog post – more since then can be found at http://www.bit.ly/CnnN
With love
Corrina
Corrina Gordon-Barnes