Congratulations for reading this far. Most people won’t, because there is nothing less flashy than the idea of writing things down. Read on, and find out why documentation is the major difference between a large successful business and a small struggling one.

In my telephone answering service, Centratel, we handle emergency after-hours calls for nearly a thousand accounts across the United States: doctors, veterinarians, HVAC companies, funeral homes, hi-tech companies, etc. The answering service business is a private 9-1-1 operation, and because of the nature of the on-going transactions and the sheer variety of situations, it can be a breeding ground for chaos. For 15 years, I endured 100-hour workweeks, failing health and minimal income before I got a clue that my business problems had nothing to do with inherent challenges within the industry, my lack of a college business degree, a shortage of “good” employees, or finding proper financing.

It was literally a midnight awakening that made me a believer in documentation. This change of perspective saved my business and maybe even my life. In the process of discovering this new vantage point, I was super-energized by the realization that 99 percent of my competitors don’t do the work of thorough documentation.  Why? Very simple: It’s too hard. That’s it! It’s just too hard! Of course, that is good news for me because I overcame that “too hard” hurdle and did what I had to do. Now, I work two hours a week and make more in a month than I used to make in a year.

So if you’re the kind of person who doesn’t walk away from a problem, doesn’t finger-point, and is not afraid of hard work, read on. You may have stumbled upon the boring but true” secret that will deliver you the freedom and wealth you have been dreaming about.

Here are 10 reasons why documentations will set you free:

1. It keeps you on track. If you write down your strategy and your principles, personal emotional storms or distractions won’t throw your operation into backsliding or paralysis. You may slow down a bit when things get hard, but you will still be headed in the right direction.
2. Your employees won’t have to be mind-readers. If you want them to do things the most efficient way every time – the way you prefer – write down exact instructions for doing those processes, and then get your people to buy into the strategy. This documentation is for those workplace tasks performed over and over again. I call them “Working Procedures.” Have your people assist you in this effort, writing up your procedures in a 1-2-3-step format. Take the time to document every single recurring process.
3. Your employees won’t have to be fortune-tellers. In your documentation, you will lay out your ambitions, strengths, target markets, and how you will get there. It will all be there: no mysteries, questions or confusion.
4. Everyone in your organization will be pointed in the same direction. By outlining the what’s and how’s of your business, your group-effort will become focused and directed. By traveling in a straight line, your organization will reach goals sooner.
5. You will find yourself working on the causes of problems, not in fixing problems that occur. This is subtle but profound positioning; something that CEOs of large, successful corporations know intuitively.
6. Training time is reduced. At Centratel, we reduced our six-week osmosis-like training regimen to three days: Three days of focused study – three days in which the new employee spends his or her time alone, learning the job through our documented training procedure. They do it themselves, and our senior people are not caught up in one-on-one training of newcomers.
7. Your workweek will be shortened because your documentation will guide other people in performing the routine chores that you do now.
8. Your income will rise dramatically. Why? Because your documented procedures will make your organization dramatically more efficient. No longer will there be endless fire-killing because you will have documented all of your processes and, in doing that, described in detail how they should be done: efficiently, quickly and cost-effectively. With every system functioning super-efficiently, your overall business will be efficient and profitable. The end-result will be great bottom-line profits.
9. For your employees and your clients, your documentation will signal that you are a professional – someone who cares enough about what they do to write it down and analyze it. They will be proud to work for you.
10. You will have an entity that will be easy to sell someday. Since everything is documented, the new owner can take over the business without having to go through the learning-by-osmosis process.

Yes, boring but true: Documentation takes some initial hard work, but in the long-term, the investment pays off a thousand times over.