Is your business entirely dependent upon you to function? Could you go away for a week or a month and still have everything ticking along?
If the answer is “no”, or “maybe”, then this article is for you!
Here are my top 3 tips for transitioning from key-person reliant to intellectual property led.
- Acknowledge that having your Intellectual Property locked in your head is a risk.
- Systemise your unique Intellectual Property into visual models
- Train your team to deliver
1. Acknowledge That Having Your Intellectual Property Locked in Your Head is a Risk
If you get really sick tomorrow, is there someone on your team sufficiently well trained and knowledgeable to take on your current clients?
If the answer is “no”, you’re in a pretty risky situation.
If you’re the only one who can do the service delivery, then that means your business can’t operate without you. If it can’t operate, it’s going to struggle to make money.
And that’s the opposite of what we want.
Now, I know there’s only one you and you are irreplaceable. But that doesn’t mean someone else can’t be taught the critical information and skills to keep your business going.
Now, I’ve heard some variation of the following excuses:
It’s important to be honest with yourself. If you want to be able to scale. If you want to be able to take time off without compromising your business, it’s time to acknowledge that having your intellectual property locked inside your head is a risk.
2. Systemise Your Intellectual Property into Visual Models
Your unique way of working with clients shouldn’t be locked in your head. You need to get it out.
You might be tempted to sit down and write a massive manual. And while documentation is important, people don’t remember a wall of text.
To be effective, turn your intellectual property into VISUAL MODELS – e.g. infographics/diagrams.
There’s a phenomenon called the Picture Superiority Effect. People are more likely to remember a picture they’ve seen than something they’ve heard or read.
Use the Picture Superiority Effect phenomenon to your advantage and create visual models!
Here at Think RAPT®, we recommend 4 distinct types of Visual Models to accurately and comprehensively capture what your business does, who it’s for, how you deliver your results, and why people would want to work with you.
We call it the RAPT System, and here’s what it looks like:
Having these 4 Visual Models will make the next step a piece of cake!
3. Train Your Team to Deliver
Once you have the Intellectual Property out of your head and into visual models, it’s easy to train your team to deliver AND for them to get consistent results.
The 4 Visual Models provide a simple, effective foundation for them to understand and deliver your system.
Think of the 4 Visual Models as the cliff notes – or a mnemonic. You will still need to provide training and documentation – e.g. having them watch you do it, you do it together, and you watch them do it. But the 4 Visual Models are a neat pictorial framework to help them remember and guide them through it all.
And the benefits are:
There you have it, my 3 top tips reduce key person risk in your business using Visual Models.
