Try selling a business as an asset after twenty years of operation only to find it had no value, buyers come and look but fail to put in any reasonable bid.

Your years of blood sweat and tears turn sour, your ‘nest egg’ lookslike it is failing to live up to what you wanted. So what happened? The business is still trading okay and the staff seem willing to keep it going without you at the helm. So why no buyers?

Simple, the buyers have no real way of knowing exactly how your business works. What they need is an effective way of being sure they are getting a viable business where they can get reproducible results when you are not there.

The problem can be overcome by recording many of the things you take for granted. The suppliers, the marketing strategies, how things operate (machinery) etc. This way they can walk in and know they can do it too because the ‘instructions’ are there. Simple isn’t it.

What if?
For others the systems and procedures they develop are useful to ensure the business can still run if a staff member is out of action for an extended period. The fill in person can turn to the ‘instruction manual’ for guidance when things are difficult or they need more clarification.

I suggest that these types of procedure and system development devices be kept as simple as possible, as there is nothing worse than creating a procedures manual that is never used, or worse still is out of date. The simplicity is vital so that any person that needs to know how to do something can find the information easy to follow.

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