A recap, what else I'm working on, and what comes next

Hey there,

We've covered an awful lot over the last 18 months in this 'book that never ends', so I thought it was time to take stock and look back at all the processes and activities we've been through so far, then look forward to what comes next.

So in this newsletter I'm going to write about

What we've covered so far
What comes next
What else I've been working on

Here goes:

What we've covered so far

We've gone through 11 ways to stop being the bottleneck in your business and give yourself enough time to take a week away:

Stop being the only one who knows. Get everyone answering Frequently Asked Questions
Stop being the only one who can handle those tricky phone calls. Get everyone answering the phone consistently. Get everyone handling phone calls well.
Use simple automations to removing key sources of interruption and free up dozens of hours every month, without pissing off your clients.
Make sure everyone in your business can access everything they need to know to look after clients. So they don't have to keep asking you.
Maximise the chances of every day being a good day for you, your clients, your team and your business by designing how each business day starts on purpose.
Maximise the benefit of evenings and weekends off for you, your team and your business by designing how each business day ends on purpose.
Capture the processes you've just designed using simple tools that make them easy to learn, apply and change.
Train your team to run the processes you've just documented. So you can all be confident that things will go as they should while you're away.
Create the 'FedEx Sentence' for your business, so your team will know what to do if the unexpected happens, without having to call you first.
Make it easy for people to log how it goes while you're away, ready for a review when you get back.
When you get back, review how it all went, adjust the processes, then let go.

Then we tackled defining and handing over processes that are key to serving clients well, (Keeping your Promise) so that you can, with a little calendar shuffling, get yourself away for as long as a month:

Dealing with complaints:

Why you shouldn't fear getting complaints
Know (and share) your Product Profit Margins
Design a comprehensive process that takes a client from disappointed to delighted.
Turn past experiences into useful Props to support your team's autonomy.
Find out how well your new ‘Restore Customer Faith’ process actually works.
Use the same process pattern to deal with customer mistakes.

Onboarding new clients:

Make sure you have enough capacity before you take clients on.
Stop being the bottleneck for customer quotes.
Don't just onboard new clients, welcome them. And plan for a happy ending.

Keeping the money flowing:

Make sure you get paid on time, every time.
Make sure you're not paying bills from the beach.

Documenting the activities that currently only you can do, so that someone else can do them while you're away

Decide what you need to hand over.
Hand over the processes someone else can do.

Finally, we covered how to reassure yourself that all is well before you go away, so you can actually relax on that month-long break

Pre-empt common disasters, and enable your team to deal with one if it happens while you're away.
Map cash flow, so you know the bank balance will be OK.
Monitor the flow of value to your clients, so you know the business is under control (even if it's not as efficient as it could be).
Reassure yourself that your team cares just as much as you do.

That's a lot.

What comes next

I've assumed so far that as the founder of your business you're probably the person responsible for bringing in new business. If that's the case, and you want to be able to take longer than a month off, or work less than 2 or 3 days a week, you need other people to be able to do this as well as you.

So the next series of newsletters will be all about defining and handing over your Share Promise processes. Starting with making sure everyone is really clear about what that Promise actually is.

What else I'm working on

Sometimes it does feel is if I spend my life writing, but other stuff does go on outside this newsletter.

Here's what else I'm working on:

Practical Software Tools

The Disappearing Boss isn't really about making you disappear, it's about helping you turn your successful company into a self‑managing promise system - no silos, no supervisors - where your people can run end‑to‑end processes with real‑time feedback to keep customer value flowing smoothly and efficiently. The fact that you, 'the Boss' can take a break is a side-effect - a mark of progress towards that goal of a fully self-managing system that you can grow with less stress, delivers consistently great customer experiences, and gives you the freedom to take time out, recharge, or scale,

So, with my good friend Simon at Aflier Limited, I've been building software tools to help you get there. I've known Simon for more than 10 years now, so let me introduce him to you.

Simon builds bespoke software for 'Super Hero Business Owners', who are frustrated because they're missing key tools. tools that mean they can spend more time saving the world and less time on admin. He is, in effect an Alfred to your Batman - the unassuming genius behind the scenes who can produce a batarang or a batmobile to order.

Simon and his team have already built me an excellent tool (OurScore) for recording and maintaining process definitions, that enables me to create a visual 'operations manual', or 'musical score' for a business. Saving me hours of fighting with Microsoft Powerpoint and producing a much more usable result for my clients.

But it's always been my ambition to go further than this, and turn those process definitions into a live version of the 'score' that tracks exactly where prospects, clients and all the things you create for them are in your process. So you and your team can know exactly where you are with a particular client, and properly record that flow of value without creating unnecessary extra work.

So we've been building another tool (Metronome) that does just that.

It's early days, but I'm already using it for one strand of my own Share Promise process, tracking events I'm attending and the people I meet there, through to enquiry. The fact that I'm actually using it and enjoying doing so is a good sign. I'm already better at following up!

Metronome opens up huge possibilities. For example, I could sit down with a business owner for an afternoon and map out how they acquire clients. By the end of the session we can click a button to generate their own unique CRM.

We could do the same for putting together quotes, or dealing with complaints - any process you want to map and then track. This means I can give a business owner choices about how they go about building their promise system - they can work top-down, starting from the big picture, or if they prefer, build from the bottom up, process by process, with their team, learning by doing until the map of their Promise System is complete.

Following through on the 'Super Hero Business Owner' theme - Simon and I are also building what we call 'The Utility Belt', a suite of practical, single-function tools that do exactly what they say on the tin and no more, including:

ContactHeroz - quickly add new contacts to your list when networking onine or in real life.
CircleHeroz - invite contacts to a referral circle, where they can talk publicly with each other and also refer to each other. If your clients love you, there's a good chance they'll also get on with each other.
ReferralHeroz - nurture your own referrers, and track business they've passed you.
MeetingHeroz - create and send meeting agendas, record notes.
MileageHeroz - record mileage (perhaps once you've arrived at a meeting)
HolidayHeroz - manage team holidays
MailHeroz - send automated emails to contacts

The idea behind these 'Utility Belt' tools is that a small business owner can pay very little (£1 a month?) for just the functionality they need.

Each tool works on its own, and in combination with the others. For example, I could use ContactHeroz to add a prospect, then MailHeroz to send them an email sequence I define.

I already use ContactHeroz to record contacts when I'm networking. As soon as they get added, they also pop into the beginning of my Share Promise process in Metronome, so I can make sure I follow up on them and track what we do together.

So far, feedback from real business owners has been positive. If you want to know more, or you've got ideas for a tool you'd love to see in the Utility Belt, let me know.

Books

I'm recording the audio version of the book: "How to take a Week Away From Your Team Without Worry".

Finally, I'm also working on putting together the next two books: "How To Stop Hating Complaints and Start Loving Them Instead", and "How to take a Month Away From Your Team Without Misgivings".

I also had an idea for a children's book, about a cat. I'll keep you posted on that one. I've got the text, just need an illustrator.

That’s it.

Not a huge amount of 'learning' today, but it feels worthwhile to review just how much we've covered, outline where things are going next and introduce some of the exciting (to me at least) stuff that's happening beyond this newsletter.

I can't wait to get started on the next phase.

I hope you feel the same.

Thanks for reading!

The Disappearing Boss

Continuous Improvement** for customer‑focused small‑business owners - turn your successful company into a self‑managing system for making and keeping promises to customers—no silos, no supervisors—where your people can run end‑to‑end processes with real‑time feedback, and you can take breaks without breaking the business.

**The way Ohno‑san really meant it.