Episode 184 - Your Business Butts In Seats

Custom Apparel Startups

When you think of your business you may think:

• Maria does the printing
• John does the art
• Mark does the writing and website
• Etc.

But how do you manage that as you grow? or if Maria is sick?

Do you also think about how Maria does maintenance? Or how Mark answers chats on Google? Or how John posts to Facebook and answers comments?
Further, as you grow, and art goes from 5 files a day to 15 files a day, WHAT are tasks that John could take off his plate? IS there something Mark can do instead of John? Is there something you can hire a part-timer to do, or outsource to an agency?

When considering the inner workings of your business, think about all the tasks, not the people.

List EVERYTHING that the business needs to do.

• This should be anything your team can think of, and the list needs to grow over time.
• e.g. maybe Mark makes sure your website domain renews every year, but he doesn't remember that when making the initial list.

List the talents and skills of your team

• Who can do what?
• One team member does the website now, but can anyone else?
• One team member dislikes running the embroidery machine, but CAN in a pinch

List areas of potential growth & efficiency

• If we did X better we could grow
• If we did Y better we could save money

List anywhere that is close to max capabilities

• Is there an area where your team is spread thin?
• One team member does art. Some days there is more art than they can do. What if you grow 10%, can they handle that? How will you handle that if you do?

Go back to the top

• Now that you have all the above data, take a bird's eye view of it.
• What can you improve?
• Do you need redundancy in talent?
• How will certain jobs get done if someone is sick or on vacation?
• If you hired someone, what could they fill in?