Documenting your funnel so a new hire can run it without you

4 days ago
3 min read

Updated: 3 days ago

Introduction

The test of whether a business has a sales process, rather than an owner who sells, is simple: could somebody competent but new handle an enquiry from arrival to order using only what is written down? In most small businesses the answer is no, and the consequence is that growth is capped by one person's availability and the business is worth less than it should be.

Writing it down is unglamorous and it is the step that converts a personal skill into an asset. It also produces a second benefit that owners rarely anticipate, which is that the act of documenting exposes the inconsistencies and gaps that were invisible while the process lived in one person's judgement.

1. Documenting your funnel so a new hire can run it means writing the decisions, not the steps

The distinction that matters.

"Send a quote" is a step anyone can guess. "Quote from the rate card below this size, survey above it, and decline these three categories" is the decision, and that is what is actually in your head.

2. Start by recording yourself doing it

The fastest method.

Talk through three real enquiries, from arrival to outcome, explaining each choice. Transcribe it and edit. This is quicker than writing and captures the reasoning that a written attempt tends to omit.

3. Write what to do when it goes wrong

The most valuable section.

The awkward enquiry, the customer who wants a discount, the job outside your area, the one who goes quiet. New people can follow a happy path unaided; it is the exceptions that produce the questions.

4. Include the words, not just the intent

Where documentation usually stops too early.

The actual wording of the acknowledgement, the qualifying questions, the follow-up message. Templates that somebody can send and then adjust are worth more than a description of what the message should achieve.

5. Put the numbers in

The context that makes judgement possible.

Your minimum job size, your standard rates, the discount you can authorise, your response time target. Without these a new person either asks about everything or guesses about everything.

6. Say who to ask and when

The escalation map.

Which decisions they can make, which need checking, and who to check with. Ambiguity here produces either paralysis or expensive independent decisions, and both are avoidable.

7. Keep it to a handful of pages

Length determines whether it is read.

A concise document that is used beats a thorough one that is filed. Detail can live in appendices, templates and examples rather than in the main sequence.

8. Test it on somebody who does not know

The only real validation.

Give it to a person outside the sales role and ask them to process a real enquiry with no help. Every question they ask is a gap, and this finds more in an hour than reviewing it yourself finds in a week.

9. Update it when the process changes

The maintenance problem.

A document describing last year's process is worse than none, because it produces confident wrong actions. Attach the update to whoever changes the process rather than treating it as a separate task.

Be careful about documenting the process you wish you ran. If the written version differs from what actually happens, people follow the real one and the document becomes decorative — so record what you do first, then improve it deliberately.

Conclusion

Write down the decisions and the exceptions, because those are the parts that live only in your head.

Record yourself handling three real enquiries rather than writing from scratch, cover what to do when things go wrong, include the actual wording of messages as usable templates, state the numbers that make judgement possible, define what needs checking and with whom, keep it short enough to be read, validate it by giving it to somebody who does not know the job, and update it whenever the process changes.