Your Company's Guidance System, Management

The first thought that goes into the management of a business is the goal of the business. Or another way to look at it is, what do you want this business to do for you? As all motivational speakers, self help people and anyone in the business of helping people achieve success, will tell you a man or a business without a goal is like a ship without a rudder. A ship with a rudder will get to its destination, whereas a rudderless ship will be all over the place.

The craftsman/painter who has a business probably has spent little time on the organizing of the management of the business. Just as each job needs organization and thought, the business runs better when procedures and processes are established.

A big benefit of establishing the "Book" or as they say in corporate worlds, the Procedural Manual or procedure Manual or Operations Manual, is that , you and your people can fall back on this manual. What I mean is that it becomes the "bible" or " the way it is". It leaves little room for variations. Whereas a verbal order often leads to a discussion, a manual is the final authority.

And the second benefit is the establishment of a "map" of how the ship is sailed. With established procedures you can gain more time and spend less energy; because, you don't have to spend time "reinventing the wheel" every time a task is to be done.

Just as when we start a job we set up a goal, and then decide the way to accomplish this, and just as there are situations that arise that cause changes to the procedure, we can always improve or Operations Manual.

Then once we have a manual with established procedures for Sales/marketing, hiring/firing, internal or office management, external or job procedures., we can have goals and procedures within each section.

These goals then contribute to the big goal of the company. If your goal in creating this business is to make a great income and give you time to raise and spend time with your family, then all we do is work it from beginning to end in each group. Example: I want to make $200,000.00 this year, or whatever, I know in order to do that I need at least 10 to 12 painters , and these painters working 2080 hours each year, (40hrs x 52weeks) and the shop charging $65/hour for each man in order for me to achieve my personal goal. If we need painters then our hiring goals are known, and we follow the procedures for hiring. Of course, having 12 painters is the same as having a hungry monster to feed. The food is jobs. So we fall back to our sales and marketing procedure, and so forth. We also should have procedures that are set to go at certain times. Such as special marketing concerns to prepare for the winter, maybe hiring of temporary helpers for the summer.

Businesses benefit from Plans and procedures, by saving time, staying on course, and finally achieving that goal to have our business provide for us in the way that we dreamed it would.