Title RIG_The Business Playbook Text Summary.pdf ✅

A ReadinGraphics production • Copyright © 2023 Skool of Happiness Pte Ltd. • All Rights Reserved. 1 THE BUSINESS PLAYBOOK Chris Ronzio How To Document And Delegate What You Do So Your Company Can Grow Beyond You “This book is a guide and a recipe for the what, who, how, when, and why of building your company’s playbook and making it stick.” “A playbook that documents your processes, policies, and culture is the best way to get your business out of your brain and into [your team’s]. It’s hard to scale up a business if all the know-how resides in the heads of a few people. When something happens to the owner or the key personnel, the entire business comes to a standstill. This book explains how to create a Business Playbook and teach others to replicate what you do, so you can grow the business beyond you. These insights are ideal for small businesses that have a viable business model and are ready to scale up. Every business is unique. Your business playbook documents everything that makes your business what it is. It’s like a tailor- made course to teach someone how to run your business. • It must include internal knowledge and success secrets that are required to run your company smoothly. This includes 4 elements: (i) Profile: What your business is about and what makes it unique, including your vision, brand, culture, values, and history. (ii) People: Who are the people in your company and what they do. (iii) Policies: Your operating rules and standards, including office hours, dress code, vacation time, and legal matters. The Big “So What” Introduction What is a Business Playbook? KEY QUOTES
(iv) Process: Every step (from start to finish) required for completing your company’s tasks or responsibilities. • It should exclude external knowledge that can be found in the public domain, e.g. educational programs, books, and articles. A good playbook has 7 key characteristics. • It should be accessible anytime, anywhere, to anyone who needs the information. • The contents should be searchable. Choose a platform (e.g. wikis) that allows people to find information easily. • It adopts a collaborative, bottom-up approach where everyone contributes to building organization-wide knowledge. • It is instructive. A playbook isn’t just a checklist or to-do list. It imparts key concepts, skills, and processes to empower people to perform their roles independently. • It must be flexible enough to be updated frequently and easily. • It should be structured, with clear components and a logical sequence that guides people through the contents. • It must be trackable, so you can hold people accountable for updating specific sections of the playbook. Many entrepreneurs get stuck in their businesses because they must do everything personally. The more the business grows, the more overwhelmed they get. They can’t go on holidays in peace, and things fall apart if the owner or key personnel must be away for a prolonged period due to a sickness or accident. • The author, Chris Ronzio, faced similar struggles with his video production company. After experimenting with ways to document and streamline his operations, he sold the company and started to help other businesses to improve their efficiency. He eventually created Trainual, a tool that helps companies to create their playbooks and grow their businesses. This book captures the practices that Ronzio has researched, tested, and refined over the years. Benefits of a Playbook A ReadinGraphics production • Copyright © 2023 Skool of Happiness Pte Ltd. • All Rights Reserved. 2 KEY QUOTES “Learning is different from doing; your playbook should teach a set of skills that, once learned, leaves people alone to just perform them.” “Spreading ourselves too thin is the universal experience of entrepreneurs.”
A playbook can deliver several benefits: • If you’re the business owner or founder, it helps to transfer your business knowledge to your team, so they can replicate what you do (or even improve it), thus freeing you up to do whatever you wish to do. • It allows the business to achieve consistently high standards, even when there are multiple people performing the same role. • It enhances employee experience by (i) onboarding new hires effectively, (ii) facilitating shared learning, (iii) creating backups when key people are unavailable, and (iv) aligning people behind shared vision and values. • It captures your company’s shared experiences and knowledge, which are valuable assets. This increases the company’s value and makes it easier to sell the company in future if you choose to do so. This book follows the Trainual approach: Do It. Document It. Delegate It®. You must do something until you know what works. Only then can you record the best practices and train your team members to replicate it. • The insights in this book are ideal for small businesses whose owners are still actively involved in the business, but already have a viable business model with some employees or departments. It is not suitable for startups that are still testing out their business models, nor for large organizations that already have established business systems. Use these questions to assess if you’re ready for a playbook: • Is your business mature enough, with different people or departments handling various roles and responsibilities? • What’s your business priority? Is it to generate revenue, or to optimize your operations? A playbook is not a sales or marketing tool. If you’re still trying to figure out your business Is Your Company Ready For A Business Playbook? KEY QUOTES A ReadinGraphics production • Copyright © 2023 Skool of Happiness Pte Ltd. • All Rights Reserved. 3 “A playbook is your ticket to... freedom.” “The real asset of your company is the collective experience and knowledge you and your team have gained through being in business.” “Think of your playbook like a cookbook: you wouldn’t share the recipe until you’ve finished experimenting with it.” “Before you can document and scale, you need consistent, battle-tested processes.”
model and products/services, then focus on your sales and marketing plan to build something that works, before you document it. However, if you’re ready to scale up, then the playbook can help you to streamline existing operations, deliver your solutions services consistently and efficiently, free up existing talents for higher-value tasks, and grow the business. • Do you have the team’s support? The playbook will only work if everyone participates and contributes their know-how. People may resist if they see it as extra work, or if they’re afraid to lose their jobs once they record everything they know. If you’re ready for a playbook, then use these tips to launch the project properly: • Prepare people for the project. Use an all-hands meeting, video, or email, to explain what the playbook is and how it fits into your company’s plans and goals. Then, follow up with one-to- one conversations to: (i) Explain how each person can benefit from the playbook, e.g. do their best job, improve their skills, reduce mistakes and fire-fighting, progressively free themselves from existing responsibilities to take on new challenges. (ii) Allay any fears they may have. • Decide where to start. Aim to maximize the returns of investment (ROI) on valuable time and resources. To create the biggest impact, start with: (i) Things that everyone in the organization must learn/know; (ii) Things that are done the most frequently; and/or (iii) Things that are done by the most people in the organization. • Appoint a project owner who’s good at planning, defining priorities, assigning tasks and following up on them. • Here are some additional tips to keep in mind: (i) Remember: you’re just capturing what already exists in your business, not creating new things from scratch. (ii) There’s no need to document everything. A good playbook records things that are relatively consistent or static, which is likely to be 50-80% of your business. KEY QUOTES A ReadinGraphics production • Copyright © 2023 Skool of Happiness Pte Ltd. • All Rights Reserved. 4 “Starting wide helps to reinforce your team’s understanding of the value of the playbook in a way that something narrow would not.” “All small businesses can benefit from a working playbook, but too many never invest the time.”