Your small business operations manual can keep you on the right side of the rules and regulations of running your small business.

A small business operations manual is perhaps even more important to a new franchise owner than to someone running an autonomous small business.  There is a trade off that you get when you land that big deal to open a franchise of a very popular brand name. The trade off that benefits you because when you sign that franchise agreement, you have the rights to hang that highly recognizable franchise name on your building and inherit the massive crowds of customers that will come to you because of that name.

This is not to say that you are going it alone because among the other massive documents that will flood your mailbox will be a small business operations manual that will help you understand exactly how to look, act and smell like every other franchise in the chain. That franchise operating manual  is your bible for how to make your franchise take off like a rocket to huge sales and profits.  It contains the assembled wisdom of an army of gurus who are locked in little rooms back at the franchising company headquarters cranking out documents like your small business operations manual to make you a success.

You are not expected to have been born knowing how to make that franchise a stunning success. But you are expected to read and know well every rule, regulation, guideline and suggestion in the small business operations manual that the mother ship gives you.  Don’t see this as a tedious imposition by the bosses. Instead see it as a lifesaver for your franchise because the people who know very well how to make big piles of cash are passing those insider secrets to you in exchange for your franchise fees.  That is an excellent swap.

Look to your small business operations manual to keep the legal hounds off of your back.

If all the small business operations manual will do is make you rich beyond your wildest dreams because you learned to run a hugely profitable franchise outlet, that would be plenty. But just as important are the legal tips that pop up in your small business operations manual on how to keep your franchise running squeaky clean with the law. Those legal sand traps that your small business operations manual can keep you out of include tax requirements that the city, state and federal government are very interested in seeing you live up to.  They include other quirks of the law like how to run a safe store or how to treat your employees in a way that avoids lawsuits.

These guidelines in your small business operations manual can keep the lawyers and other legal trouble makers away from your door so you can focus on the big job you have of making big money running your franchise outline. Toss in there that there are a rats nest of franchise laws that you have to live with because you signed that franchise agreement.  The franchise relationship is a legally binding marriage so the last thing you need is to have some quirk of the franchise law jump up and bite you on the toe because you did not know about it.  Know about it by making your small business operations manual your best friend in the world.

You can develop your small business operations manual to assure that the experience you develop in running your business becomes part of that document.

It is easy to overlook that a small business operations manual is just as important to a small business starting out as to a larger business with a ton of offices and all kinds of employees. As the owner and manager of a small business, your quest in life is to standardize how your business and the employees of that business deal with various aspects of what goes on each day.  If your small business is a franchise of larger organization, living inside of the restrictions of a franchise agreements just goes with the territory.

But whether you are part of a franchise or not, there are some big time values to drafting a small business operations manual as early as you can find time to do it. In fact, if you have an early draft of your small business operations manual already in place when you begin to staff up with new employees and that procedures guide is the law of the land the first day you open the doors to customers, you are way ahead of the game.

Perhaps the hardest part about putting together a small business operations manual is knowing where to start.  You actually have a fairly precise idea of how you want your business to run that you have never written down.  It is buried in your own body of experience combined with your own philosophy about how you want your business to relate to customers, to suppliers and how you want your employees to conduct themselves each day.  All you are doing when you begin to hammer out a small business operations manual is to take that significant repository of wisdom that is in your head and turning it into a document that will serve to standardize how things will be handled day in and day out in your own small business.

Getting started is half the battle in drafting your small business operations manual.

The biggest obstacle to drafting your own small business operations manual is getting started.  Sometimes all it takes to kick start the process is a structure or a format to give you a direction to go to start writing your own guide to how you want your business to operate.  The good news is that it is not difficult to find an excellent operations manual template that will provide that structure for you. By downloading a format to use as your jumping off place, you can be writing your small business operations manual in no time flat.

Once you begin to uncork the treasure trove of ideas you have inside your brain for how you want things to happen around your office and how you want to see your customers handled, it will be amazing how quickly that small business operations manual begins to take shape. An important ethic to keep in mind as you organize your first draft is to just get it all down on paper. You can refine it and edit it after you have your thoughts out of your head where they can stand on their own and be examined by others.

The second big tip to keep in mind as this first draft begins to shape up on paper is that your small business operations manual will always be a work in progress.  As you launch your growing business, you should always be ready to revise and update your small business operations manual.

In that way, anytime you resolve an issue, find a better way of doing things or learn about a new and exciting way to make your business hum, that can become part of your small business operations manual and be captured forever for everybody to benefit from. That is a small business operations manual that grows with you and with your business until before long, it is big business operations manual to serve that very successful and prosperous business of yours.

Why a great small business operations manual is a must have for your business.

To see your business explode, a solid weapon for success is a must. If there was ever some serious business weaponry, a small business operations manual is it.  In one potent document, your small business operations manual will empower you with all of working guidelines you need so that of every aspect of your business runs like a well oiled machine.

The pages of that important document are virtually overflowing with the policies that make your business tick. Match that up with procedures for dealing with sticky situations and guidelines on how to jump on a business opportunity and make it your own and that makes your small business operations manual a pretty impressive thing.

That means that job one to launch a business is to organize a small business operations manual that can’t be beat. But the job does not end there by far.  You know that your business is a dynamic and growing business entity. That means that even the best small business operations manual is going to morph and evolve to keep up with a world that jus t wont stand still.  When your small business operations is as lively as the business you run, it will always be a powerful weapon in your arsenal of business success

Putting together the perfect small business operations manual does not have to be difficult.

There is an amazing diversity of resources available to put together an eye-popping small business operations manual. So those tricks of the trade make it a snap to get started fast to compile this power-packed tool for your business.  A great place to start is an operations manual template because it can get you out of the starting block fast with the structure for what is needed for own operations manual.  This kind of tool is the perfect way to jump start the process and give you some serious momentum.

You can use these great templates for kick starting your small business operations manual to also give you the perfect checklists that you need to cover every aspect of your business. There is nothing like great examples of charts, marketing plans, tracking documents and guidelines for employee retention to give you your marching orders for creating a quality operations manual.

But don’t take a nap after getting your operations manual templates because there are rich resources still to be had. Be sure you tap the vast wells of wisdom of colloquies and experienced managers in your company for insider tips on how to organize the small business operations manual for your company.

It is good to keep in mind that this document is a reflection of what your business is all about. This is no place to cut and paste someone else’s work. Your small business operations manual will be customized and refined to reflect your business, your markets and your plans for conquest of those markets. So give this task of developing operations guidelines some tender loving care and you will find that your small business operating manual will play a vital role of your business now and for many years to come.