8 Reasons to Embrace Documentation

Do you wonder if it is worth your valuable time to document everything you do?

You will find below eight reasons why documentation is well-worth your valuable time.

1. Stay on course

Once you realize what the mission for your business is, you can easily plug in long and near-term goals to make certain you stay on course. And once the goals are written you will have a path to follow for achieving your goals.

2. You have a record

Now that your long-term and short term goals have been set, a smart practice is to review your progress every six months. You must determine whether the paths you have chosen are working well, and if not, to alter them. This activity will put your business on a faster track for achievement.

3. Employees know what to do

If you currently have employees or eventually plan to have them, it is wise to document everything you do so that you may easily train them. A CPA once shared that it costs $25,000 to hire and train an employee. The more efficiently you can get your employees properly trained, the less the expenditure and the greater likelihood of their contentment and willingness to remain in your good hands.

4. Easily write a book

When you have built a successful and/or unique business, if you have all of your documentation in place, you will easily be able to write a book on how you did it. It will be a book that new business owners will want to read. The published book may well open new doors for you to expand your business.

5. License your work or franchise

Large companies franchise and small businesses license their work. If you have any thought of doing either, your documentation will make this process a natural to implement.

6. Create a product line
You have already written your book so it is now time to expand your product offerings. Reports, articles, newsletters, audio files, videos and online education are all at your fingertips now that everything is documented and in place. You are in control of where you take your business.

7. Reveal your bottom line

When you review your record as stated in step #1, you will quickly realize what your top money-makers have been. The idea is to spend more time on your top money-making activities and slowly discard the ones that have not contributed to your bottom line. This will help you achieve financial success far more quickly.

8. Grow business more quickly

Coupled with your bottom line revealed and knowing where to focus your time, the documentation has helped you to create new paths for increased growth. Your business will grow far more quickly and have people asking, How did you do that?

My Story:

In childhood, I always set goals and made certain to achieve them. By adulthood there was no need to write my goals down because I always had a plan in mind.

However running a business is quite another matter. Too many distractions pop up every day, and trying to explain what needs to get done to others is difficult without a written plan. Every marketing piece read said to document everything because there will be extended uses currently unrealized.

Those marketing materials were correct. Once I began to document my activities, ideas developed for new products and services. My business began to take on a life of its own. It became clear what potential clients needed from me and how to proceed.

One of the more recent results of my documentation is the new Entrepreneur Kit - How to GROW Your Business: mindset, strategy and implementation. The handbook is a result of everyone remarking - Your business grew at lightening speed?, and was followed by the question, How did you do it?

Luckily, everything I did was already documented. The documentation turned into a readable manual in the form of PDF or printed and bound, and MP3 files. Small businesses love it.

My recommendation is to embrace documentation.