Creating a Structure that Scales
Dear Erin,
Thanks so much for calling last week - loved talking about all the fun creative projects you are working on. And, I’m so tempted to use this post to continue the conversation we started about branding. Who doesn’t love talking about personality types, colors, vibe and design? Isn’t that why people talk about the commercials even more than the football on Super Bowl Sunday?
And yet. First things first. We also talked about the digital pile of photos, videos, and (in your case) audio files that are amassing on our respective hard drives like the packets of Parmesan, red pepper seeds and soy sauce filling up our kitchen junk drawers. I believe both of us face daunting piles of digital “stuff” that needs to be put into some kind of organizational system… and both of us admitted to neglecting that particular task this past week! Time to get back on track.
Starting your business with a simple organizational structure will help you stay on top of your own information now and help you scale later. Choose a system that covers each of the primary areas of work needed to manage the business and apply that to your computer folder system, your paper filings, your note-taking system and even your schedule. I find that it is helpful to have a line of sight at all times into the key focus areas. Actually coding these activities in your schedule helps you understand where you might be spending too much time or not enough.
In fact, the photo I chose for this post is my own stack of paper planners, with tabs I’ve added for different focus areas. We can talk about why I have this many planners some other day (LOL) - regardless, I’ve found it helpful to mirror the tabs I added to my note-taking books to the folder system I use for document storage in my Google Drive. The tabs allow me to auto-organize by directly recording notes in the relevant sections, instead of paging through a chronological diary of scribbling when I’m searching for something I know we just talked about in that meeting two weeks ago. And once my mind solidifies around that organizational system, it translates well to other platforms.
I’ll also mention that when you are a big successful dance company with lots of people working for you, you may find that these focus areas align to your departments, aka your org chart. Let me give a nod to Gino Wickman’s book “Traction” which actually combines the “people” section of its EOS (Entrepreneurial Operating System), or getting the “right people in the right seats,” with organizational structure, as it assumes you have structured your organization (and the underlying processes and information) in such a way that you can easily assign whole sections of the structure to an individual person in your org chart. Finance goes to the CFO, Programs go to the Program Manager or Artistic Director, etc. I guess the point here is that each of these areas of business activity have their own place within the management hierarchy, the information filing system, resource allocation and your own management bandwidth.
So, what are the primary sections? What are the structural elements of a business that deserve their own corner in your business world? In my experience, there are six main areas for you to consider:
Products (in a nonprofit this would be Programs)
Sales (in a nonprofit this would be Fundraising, including grants)
Marketing
Finance
Admin (in a nonprofit, this includes Governance)
Community
I’ve worked with these buckets for some time, and you’ll almost always find that these work as your “Level One” top line for your organization structure. Some buckets may be bigger than others - in fact, Products / Programs are going to have a ton of sub folders to fit your business. But I can guarantee you that you want your 501c3 tax determination letter easily accessible in the Admin section and not buried in some folder where you popped all the files you needed to submit for some tiny grant you may or may not have received.
Let’s talk about each one briefly.
Products / Programs - this is what you do, why you exist. In a for-profit business it may be the products you make or the services you sell. In most nonprofits it will be the various direct service programs offered to clients. For you, it might be works you create. Or, you may want to create sub-folders such as: Classes, Performances, Choreo, Warm-ups, Lighting Design. Whatever makes sense for what you actually do.
Sales / Fundraising - for-profit or nonprofit, doesn’t mater. You need money. This is the section of your business that is either sales and customer service if you are selling products and services or it is fundraising. In the nonprofits I’ve known, the fundraising part of our business includes: fundraising events, sponsorships, campaigns, grants, donor days and gratitude plans, which is sometimes referred to as donor stewardship. “Stewardship” is to donors what “customer service” is to a for-profit’s client base.
Marketing - all things communication can go in here, at least to the extent you are talking about communication that promotes the business or its products/programs. (I wouldn’t put in this section conversations about scheduling dancers for a work you are setting). This is also where you’ll want subfolders for logos, brand standards and all that good stuff. You may want some pics and videos here, especially if they are used on your website. However, we just migrated all of our digital image files onto Dropbox because there are so many and some were pretty sizeable. Web support material goes in this section, as does a record of any email campaigns (e.g. drafts of Mailchimps or Vertical Response mass emails you’ve sent). We also store all the final copies of marketing materials we make in Canva in this folder.
Finance - budgets, financial reports, expense tracking, invoices… This feels like it doesn’t need its own section and then all of a sudden you realize it most certainly does. This is also an important one to get into your planner/notebook AND onto your schedule. If you don’t intentionally set aside time for tasks like invoicing, sending in reimbursement requests for grants you’ve received, paying bills, managing your money and balancing your checkbook, then you will quickly find you don’t have a business left to manage. This section is also worth attending to when you are small so that you build the habits and infrastructure for financial record keeping that is essential when you are large. Let me forewarn you: going into an audit without knowing where your receipts, invoices, grant letters and bank statements are is a NIGHTMARE.
Admin - here’s where you put everything required to run the business back office excluding Marketing and Finance. You’ll definitely have Human Resources and Governance (including board minutes if you are a nonprofit) here, your strategic plan, and depending on how you operate, you may have IT, Facilities Management, licensing contracts or rental agreements. I’d suggest that this is also where you store your legal organizational documents. Your call on whether filed tax returns go in Admin or Finance, but I’d suggest Admin as nonprofit tax returns are publicly available and therefore feel very much like governance.
Community - last but not least, the oft-forgotten Community section. Successful businesses operate within the context of a community and thrive when they are active members of that community. I’ll leave it to you to decide how you define your community and how you function within your community. For a small business it might include membership in the local Chamber of Commerce, support of advocacy groups that are adjacent to the services you provide, speaking engagements that establish you as a thought leader in your space, membership in an industry group or association. Remember that as good as your product/program is, business is about relationships - and relationships don’t start with the sales/fundraising funnel. Relationships are created within your communities, which is why intentionally setting aside time and place within your business to cultivate and nurture relationships is critical to ongoing success.
That’s enough to get started! And I know we’ve had a laugh talking about people who use special colors in their planners for different sections. But I have to point out that the six buckets listed above do in fact correlate to the six most widely-available colors of highlighters: yellow, orange, pink, blue, green and purple. Just thought you should know in case color-coding your google folders and matching them to colors you use on your calendar to code your meetings or time blocks is a thing :)
Good luck!
Love, Mom
Disclaimer: I am not an accountant or a lawyer! If you are reading this an you aren’t Erin, consult a professional or ask you own mom!
