System

• Structure of business ( positions in your company)

Every business will have a different structure and the smaller the business the easier it is to figure out the structure. If you are a one man operation then you are the president, salesman, secretary, etc. You do need to remember that all of the 7 major business categories need to be filled so if you aren’t doing it or if you aren’t doing it well you might want to find someone that will. Here is a list of some of the major business positions that you might want to consider.
• CEO - Chief Executive Officer
• CFO – Chief Financial Officer
• COO – Chief Operational Officer
• President
• Vice President
• Controller
• Vice President of Marketing
• Vice President of Sales

• Employees

• Applications
• Questionnaire for potential employees
• Employee files – A place to keep all the records of your employees
• Register with the EDD Employment Development Department
• I-9 Forms
• W4 Forms
• Handbook (job description) – With every employee that you hire the need to be given a job description that explains all of their duties and everything that is required of them.
• Benefits – There are many different kinds of benefits that you might want to provide for you employees, but are not obligated to do so. The good thing about providing benefits is that they have a perceived value that is usually much higher than your actual cost.
• Health Insurance
• Dental Insurance
• Vacation Days
• Sick Days
• 401 K
• IRA
• Workers Compensation Insurance

• Procedures

Your procedures are an extremely important part of your business for two major reasons; efficiency and quality control. If you are a one man show like most sole-proprietors you probably do everything as you want naturally. If you created a procedure for everything that you do then you can maximize your efficiency so that you can save some of your valuable time. If you have employees then creating a written list of procedures is important because it will give them a guideline for everything they do and make it easier for you to train them. Well written procedures will give you a very good way to evaluate how well your employees are doing their jobs.


• Software

Obviously different businesses will need different software. The most important thing to consider is what will you be getting for the software that you buy. Will it save you time, will it provide more accurate reports, or will it help with quality control. Make sure that you are not buying a piece of software just because it sounds good, but make sure it is going to have a specific purpose. Make sure you check on the service that is provided with the software. Many times you can buy what seems to be great software, but every time you need help it costs a lot of money and nobody really wants to help you.

• Customer Service

In today’s business world I believe this is one of the most overlooked items of any business. You need to decide what your customer service will be like and plan for it and teach anyone working with you how your business operates. You can be better than your competitors in this one area and your business will thrive.
A few ideas:
• Customer comment cards
• A very pleasant phone script
• Birthday card sent to customers (also can be classified as marketing)
• A thank you post card sent to customers
• 100% satisfaction guarantee
• A personal call to the customer after you finish the job to thank them