Your First Business Playbook Starts Like a Good Apple Pie Recipe
This year, we made a dozen apple pies in one day.
We got up Saturday morning and drove about an hour out to the apple farm. After picking our apples, we headed home. By that evening, every single pie was done and cooling on the counter.
I was so proud of us! It took a long time to get here. About 35 years, if you're counting.
Scoped out the perfect spot for picking on a beautiful, sunny day in the Shenandoah mountains.
Hubby instructing Noah on the perfect apples to pick.
Apples run in hubby's family
Apple picking started long before our kids. When hubby was a little boy, his family built a cute cabin in the Shenandoah Mountains. There were apple trees right on the property.
We think we picked Fuji this year…we weren’t able to go to our normal spot. This was very distressing to hubby!
This year we had Leo and Laila overseeing the process. They waited patiently on the chairs (not on the counter!) while we worked.
My mother-in-law even wrote an apple recipe book. So apples were a family thing before I ever joined the family.
Once our kids came along, we brought them picking every fall. Back then it was simple. We'd come home and make applesauce and a few desserts, and tuck some away in the freezer.
As the kids grew up, the day grew with them. These days I bake at least a dozen pies, and some of them are gluten-free. That many pies needs a plan.
The 24 bowls on my counter
Pie day starts with bowls.
Before anyone touches an apple, I line up about 24 bowls across the counter. Every ingredient gets measured out ahead of time. The butter is melting or softening, depending on what it's for. The oats are ready for the crumb topping, and the gluten-free batches get their own bowls so nothing gets mixed up.
Then hubby clamps the old-fashioned apple peeler onto the counter and gets cranking. While he peels and cores, I make the filling. When it's time for the crumb, everything I need is already sitting there waiting. (cue flour on every surface of my kitchen)
← Video of hubby, the apple peeling pro, and sharing his doubts about how the pies will be since we didn’t know what we picked this year - the travesty!
p.s. the pies are amazing as usual!
Setting out the bowls takes time up front. It's also the reason a dozen pies fit into one day. Nobody stops in the middle to hunt for the oats or check whether the butter is soft yet.
Speed was never the goal. I love this day! I just don't want a dozen pies to eat up a whole weekend.
Your business has bowls too
It got me to thinking. It's just like this in our business.
Think about the last time you had a big week in your business, like a launch or your busy season. How much of that week went to hunting for things? Maybe you were digging for a link you swore you saved, or writing an email that should have been done days ago.
That's cooking without the bowls. You still get pies out of it. It's just slower and a lot messier.
Your bowls are the pieces you can get ready before the busy part starts. For a launch, that might be your emails written and your links tested. When you sign a new client, it's the welcome email and the contract already waiting for them.
With the bowls out, you just reach for the next one.
To find your bowls, think back to the last time you did the thing. Where did you have to stop? What did you go looking for? Each of those stops is a bowl you could have set out ahead of time.
For a client meeting, your bowls might be the call link and your notes from last time. None of these take long on their own. The trouble comes when you're doing them in the middle, while a client is already waiting on you.
It took 35 years to get this recipe right
None of this showed up all at once. We tweaked something small each fall, and over time those small fixes added up.
Now I never worry about how the pies will turn out. I know they'll be amazing, because the recipe is nailed down.
Business processes work the same way. The first time you bring on a new client, it's clunky. Your welcome email goes out a day late, or you're hunting for the contract while they wait. That's normal. It's your first pie.
The trick is to get the recipe out of your head. After each round, jot down what worked and what didn't. Then fix the one step that tripped you up. Next time, it goes a little smoother.
It doesn't have to be fancy. After your next launch, or the next time you bring on a client, give yourself ten minutes. Ask yourself what you had to hunt for and what you forgot. Write down the answers. That's your recipe getting better, one round at a time.
In business, we call a written-down recipe a playbook.
You don't need 35 years to build one. Done is better than perfect. A recipe that's written down and a little messy will help you more than a perfect one that only lives in your head.
How to write your first business playbook
Pick one thing you do over and over in your business. It could be bringing on a new client or sending your invoices at the end of the month.
Then write it down like a recipe card:
What bowls do you need set out before you start?
What are the steps, in order?
Who owns each step?
That last question matters more than it looks. On pie day, the peeler is hubby's job and the filling is mine. He doesn't need me to tell him how to run it anymore.
In your business, the owner might be you or someone who helps you. Some steps, like an automatic welcome email, run on their own. What matters is that every step has a name next to it, so nothing falls through the cracks.
I made a recipe card to help you write your first playbook. It's one page, and you can fill it in for any process you repeat.
Once your playbook is on paper, you can make it again and again, and hand it off when you're ready. Whoever helps you in your business won't need you in the middle of every step.
A playbook is also what comes before any new tool. Down the road, you might want AI to help with some of these steps. It can only follow a recipe you've already written. Hand it a messy process and you just get messy work faster.
If you'd like help writing yours, that's what I do with my clients.
And next fall, you'll already know how it's going to turn out.
Almost all the pies done…two more were baking.
-
It's a written recipe for something you do over and over, like bringing on a new client. It shows what you need ready before you start and who owns each step.
-
Pick one thing you repeat, like bringing on new clients. Write down what you need set out before you start, then list the steps in order and who owns each one. Start with what you do today and fix it as you go.
-
No. Write down what you do today, then fix one small thing each time you use it. Done is better than perfect.