The Same Twenty Questions

Your phone buzzes at 9 PM: “Where do we keep the extra receipt paper?” On Tuesday it was “What do I tell somebody who wants a refund without a receipt?” Thursday it was “Is the delivery still coming?” Every one of those answers is short and obvious to you, and you’ve given every one of them before, either to a different person or to the same person a few weeks ago.

If you run a shop, a clinic, a studio, a practice, or a non-profit (anything with a handful of people), you know this list. It isn’t long. It’s the same 20 questions, every single week, and every one of them comes to you.

Why it all comes to you

Nobody set this up on purpose. You were there when every decision got made, so the answer was always one text away. Then there were 3 people, then 6, and the answer is still one text away for all of them, because you’re still the only place it lives.

That’s really the whole problem: you are the business’s memory, and a memory that lives in one person’s head can’t be handed to anybody else. Your staff aren’t missing something from training when they ask. They’re asking because the answer has never been written down anywhere they could look. If you’ve answered a question twice, that’s usually a sign it should be written down somewhere.

What to do this week

This takes under an hour to get started, and it doesn’t need anything you don’t already have.

1. 01

   Write down the questions.

   Tonight, make a list of the last 5 questions that came to you. Then for 1 week, add every new one that comes in (texts, the “quick question” at the register, the call on your day off). The notes app on your phone is fine. Don’t fix anything yet, just write them down.

2. 02

   Write a short answer for the ones that repeat.

   At the end of the week, read through the list. The ones that got asked twice, and the ones you can feel coming, each get a 2-sentence answer. Put those answers in one shared place the team already looks at (a pinned note in the group chat, a shared note on everyone’s phone, or a sheet taped up by the register). Keep it to one place, because if it lives in 2 places, one of them will most likely be wrong by spring.

3. 03

   Tell the team the rule, and be nice about it.

   The rule is to check the note first. Say it once, in person, and tell them why. It’s so they can get the answer after hours without waiting on you, not so they stop asking.

4. 04

   From now on, answer every question twice.

   Every question that still comes to you gets answered twice, once to the person who asked and once into the note.

That’s the whole system. There’s really nothing else to it.

What changes if you keep it up

The texts start to thin out, though not all at once. The note is short in week 2, and it takes a while to build up. But each answer you add is one you won’t have to give again.

There’s also something you probably didn’t plan for, which is that the note turns into day one of training for your next hire. Instead of 2 weeks of shadowing you, they read the answers and ask about the ones that aren’t there yet. A new person can help a customer, a client, or a supporter without having to find you first. Your customers and clients notice too, because “Let me text the owner” turns into “Yes, here’s how that works.”

And your evenings start to come back, a little at a time.

I’ve been the one answering those texts, in a store I work in today. The hardest part for me wasn’t writing the note. It was replying “check the note” the first few times instead of just typing out the answer (which is faster tonight, and slower every night after that).