In this solo episode of Above the Business, host Bradley Hamner stresses that sustainable growth and owner freedom hinge on rigorously documenting business systems, processes, and playbooks, then embedding them into an operating‑system‑like framework. He frames the message around a recurring theme he hears from owners: the desire for flexibility and freedom versus the need for structure. Drawing on the book The Forward by Russell Wilson and Trevor Moawad, he explains that “it takes what it takes” – the hard, often unglamorous work of creating clear SOP‑style playbooks (which he prefers to call playbooks) and organizing them into a limited set of core operating manuals (about 8‑13). He shares anecdotes of a successful business owner juggling family and growth goals, a police‑force‑trained colleague who equates playbooks to SOPs, and a client named Tyler who built a tangible three‑ring‑binder operating system, illustrating the tangible benefits of documentation. The episode also includes a sponsorship segment for Club Capital and Coach P Consulting. The overarching takeaway is that documenting processes is essential for scaling, reducing reliance on the founder’s willpower, and achieving true freedom.
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What if you could step out of the day-to-day and see your business from a whole new perspective? Welcome to Above the Business, where we empower you to rise above the daily grind and embrace a higher way of business ownership. It's time to build your business by design. Hey everyone. Well, I had a different topic that we were gonna drop this week, but I decided for this one instead because this just came up. It seems like a lot of times whenever I'm talking to some other business owners, there's this kind of recurring theme that will tend to come up. And I'm entitling this one, It Takes What It Takes. And admittedly, I got that title from a book that one of my good friends, Blair, recommended to me a couple of years ago. It's The Forward by Russell Wilson, and the author is Trevor Moawad. And unfortunately, Trevor passed away from cancer, but it really is a great book. But here's the reason why this name of this episode is called It Takes What It Takes. I was on the phone with, or on Zoom actually, talking to a business owner, very successful. And we were talking about what they wanted to accomplish in 2024. We were talking about their, like, big 4 key objectives that they wanted to accomplish. And what initially kind of started as a conversation talking around compensation and incentive plans kind of morphed into talking about objectives for the year. And as you've heard me say often, structure, process, and routine is something that oftentimes we as business owners and entrepreneurs will push hard against. We want fun and freedom and flexibility into our business. We want to do what we want to do when we want to do it with who we want to do it and have the money to do so. And that's what freedom looks like for us. And we want the flexibility to go and come. Well, the business needs structure, process, routine. Our teams need structure, process, and routine. And everything that we want— freedom and flexibility— is on the other side of that. And so what that specifically looks like is doing the hard work of documenting our systems and processes, putting those systems and processes into playbooks, and then installing those playbooks into an operating system so that the business is running not by our willpower, determination, our personality, but it's actually running on an operating system. It's running on an operating system that exists outside of us. And there has to be a philosophical shift. There has to be kind of a mindset shift to say that that is worth our time and attention. And I was on the phone yesterday with this business owner, and then I was actually ended up talking to somebody today who shared, you know, like they were really working hard on this one playbook. And they said, man, it is really hard to do that. This is not something that is easy. And I said, you're normal. You're normal for feeling that way. It's not easy to do that, but yet it takes what it takes. And for the business owner yesterday, you know, she has a successful business. She wants to be able to travel more. She has younger children that are really involved in a lot of different activities and a lot of different sports. And she wants to be able to do all of those things. She wants the business to continue to grow. She wants the team to to continue to grow and be successful. She wants the revenue to go up. She wants to, you know, hit certain incentive type things, um, that are really important to her. And yet she has to realize that it takes what it takes to be able to have it to where the business is not dependent upon her. It takes documenting.
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And really, at the end of the day, how many playbooks are we talking about? We're talking about not 47. We're talking about really like 8 to 13 really key core playbooks that the business needs to actually run on. And those playbooks need to sit inside of an organizational infrastructure, what I, I would call an operating system that the business runs on. But the really key point of this message for today is that it does take what it takes. I'm not the first person to say systems and processes. Matter of fact, part of my own journey was I got so sick and tired of hearing people say, you know, systems and processes, that's what it takes to be able to grow and scale. And oh, by the way, have a good team. And I really wanted to say, well, no crap, Sherlock. I've heard that before. I've heard that so many times ad nauseam that I'm honestly getting sick and tired of hearing about it. Nobody actually ever shows me what that actually looks like. Can somebody show me what a documented process actually needs to look like? Now, my language is processes and systems get built into playbooks and playbooks get put into an operating system. I mean, that's kind of the way that I view it. And however you viewed it, I was just actually on the phone with someone today and they said, yeah, that makes a lot of sense. You know, I was used to be in the police force and we used SOPs. And I said, yeah, it's basically the same thing. I just don't like the, the businessy term of SOPs. I'd rather call them playbooks. He goes, you know, I really, I really do get that. And he too had been very successful, had had one of the best years this year he'd ever had. And he admittedly said on that call, just 30 minutes before I'm recording this, said, But I can tell you, we just don't really have any of this stuff documented. And that worries me. That worries me because I'm not so sure if we're able to be able to continue to build upon that type of success. And I know that if I can just do the hard work and actually begin to document what are we doing, we can begin to actually truly scale the organization. And that's the part of business that's not glamorous. There's a lot of things out there that are a lot easier to be able to talk about, a lot more fun to talk about, kind of bright, shiny objects out there. But at the end of the day, it takes what it takes. And that's the thing that I needed to realize for myself. And hopefully that this resonates and lands with someone else is that it does take what it takes. And I've got a client, Tyler, has been, has had, has had a very successful career and just in the last 3 to 6 months, him building the playbooks and creating the assets in his organization has been incredible. He actually sent me a picture, uh, just recently showing me a 3-ring binder of his operating system. He actually had like 6 or 7 of them for his entire team. And I was so proud of him because one of our maxims is show me, don't tell me. And so you can tell me all day long, but until you can show me, email it, show me, take a picture, what does it actually look like? It doesn't exist. It just exists in, in in our minds. And I was so proud of him because of the effort. But he too said, man, this was hard work, but boy, it is worth it on the other side. So hopefully this lands with somebody out there today that it does take what it takes. Doing the work of documenting, like, how you do things in the organization is worth your time. It's not easy, it's not the fun glamorous things, but it takes what it takes. All right everyone, till next episode, lead well.
