Written by Nathan Havey - Corporate Caterer Team Member 
Some people call it a "Manual," some people call it the “Hit By a Bus Book,” but whatever you call it, getting organized to the point where there is a system for everything and they are all written down somewhere the staff can access, is your key to freedom. The point is to set things up in such a way that if you were suddenly unable to make it to work, things could keep running without you – at least for a few days.
If your businesses can’t run without you, then you can’t leave. If your business can run without you, the world is your oyster. That is the other HUGE reason that getting organized matters.
As we mentioned in the Your Menu section, consistency is very important for all aspects of your business. Unless you are documenting how things should be done, then you are either doing everything yourself, spending a ton of time training your staff, or you are expecting your staff to read your mind.
Michael discovered this when he noticed that he would get asked the same questions again and again and again. He knew his standards cold, but it was a lot to expect hourly employees to commit
as much memory and focus as he had. So he created a manual with the answers to all of their questions. He updated it regularly, including any new questions and procedures as he discovered better ways of doing things. Before long, the answer to every question was “look in the manual.” Soon, the questions stopped coming to him and went to the manual instead – and quality consistently met Michael’s high standards.
Michael joined an expedition to Uruguay (he left the manual behind to run things) to the site of the plane crash that inspired the book and film “Alive”. While he was hiking through the Andes Mountains on the adventure of a lifetime, his business was humming and his clients were well taken care of. Here is a shot of Michael and survivor, Eduardo Strauch, at 13,000 feet by the memorial site.
Get organized and book your next adventure.