The Self-Managing Business Checklist

Want to create a business that can thrive without you? Consider this your ultimate “to do” list:

Map the experience you want customers to have into “moments of truth,” where your customer interacts
with your company (e.g., first time they visit your website/store or site, first meeting, etc.). Draw a visual of the
journey from the moment they contact you to the moment they are consuming your product or service.
Create a Standard Operating Procedure (Get our free guide to SOPs at BuiltToSell.com/sop) for your employees
to follow to deliver each moment of truth flawlessly.
Get other people building your product or delivering your service. (If you have a lawn cutting business, hire
someone to cut the lawns.)
Assign someone to deal with customer escalations.
Give your customer escalations a minimum number. (If your customer escalations person can solve the
problem for less than your minimum number, they should not bug you.)
Hire someone (or a team) to sell your product or service.
Map out your sales and marketing process.
Create a brand standards guide showing the fonts and colors you use, how to use your logo, etc.
Create a Standard Operating Procedure (Get our free guide to SOPs at BuiltToSell.com/sop) for your
salespeople to follow to deliver each step of your sales process.
Delegate ownership of your marketing process for getting leads.
Create a set of forward-looking Key Performance Metrics (e.g., leading indicators) that reliably predict the
health of your business in the future.
Create and automate a dashboard of leading indicators.
Set up a notification for when a leading indicator is forecasting a future problem.
Create and automate a set of lagging indicators that reliably show how your business is performing.
Put your customers on a recurring billing plan where possible.
Where one-off billing is necessary, create a Standard Operating Procedure (Get our free guide to SOPs at
BuiltToSell.com/sop) for estimating, invoicing, and collecting.
Create a three-month cash flow forecast, and assign someone the responsibility of updating it daily and notifying
you if they anticipate your cash flow dipping below a threshold you set at any point in the next three months.
Delegate collections and managing accounts receivables.
Hire a general manager, president, or second-in-command.
Remove your name from your company website, and replace it with the profile of your general manager,
president or second-in-command.
Create templates for HR forms (employee contracts, policies, etc.).