Many entrepreneurial businesses start with just one person-the entrepreneur. In the initial stages of a solo practice, the business owner fulfills all of the business functions.

The metaphorical "wearer of all hats," a solo business owner is the executive decision maker, the manager, the expert and producer, the rainmaker (and sometimes, the accountant, receptionist, lackey, chief cook and bottle washer). When an entrepreneurial firm grows beyond two people, a new consideration arises: organizational structure.

Generally speaking, there are two key areas to consider when evaluating the definition of your organizational structure. The first is what you will focus on and the second is the definition of duties and responsibilities among your team.

DIVIDE AND CONQUER

A firm of one to three people has little structure. Communication is simple, and tasks are easily divided. As a firm grows and determines that more people are needed, employees are often hired, with a "little-of-this and a little-of-that" approach to defining positions.

When we audit a business to evaluate its performance relative to "best practices," we always ask each staff member a simple question: "What one thing could the firm do to improve your ability to perform your job?" Interestingly, the answer I receive about 80% of the time is, "I'd like a job description that defines exactly what I'm supposed to do."

When I share this with firm owners and managers, they are often bewildered. The question arises: How can someone who has been doing a job for some time ask for clarification about what their job is?

Often, we see firms with staff members performing duties horizontally (everyone does a little bit of everything) rather than vertically (doing those things clearly assigned to them based upon position, skills and need.) How do you divide up labor in a growing business, in order to create positions that work together and form an organized structure?

It can be difficult for a business owner to let go of tasks that he or she has done from the beginning of the business, but in a growing firm work can easily become overwhelming. In order to make a business work most effectively, the entrepreneur needs to focus on his or her areas of greatest capability within the business, or what I like to call your unique abilities.

Identifying those functions that you do that add the greatest value to your business can give you information about what you should be doing each day, and also information about what tasks need to be distributed into the job descriptions of other employees. In order to leverage your time and talent better in your business, you must define what your unique abilities are and create a model that allows you to spend most of your time on these activities. Our simple formula for measuring your success: The more successful you become, the fewer things you will do.

SORT IT OUT

In order to categorize the tasks that our clients (as an owner and/or producer) perform, we developed a simple sorting tool. As our model, we use the example of a coin sorter that sits on your desk: You drop your pocketful of change in the top, and the sorter divides up the quarters, dimes, nickels and pennies into different "value" categories.

You need to sort your daily tasks in the same way, by their values. Using the change analogy, take an activities inventory. This is a very simple exercise, but it can give you great clarity and focus as you develop a support structure for your firm. Understanding that four quarter tasks equal one dollar and that 10 dime tasks equal the same dollar, we encourage you to focus only on quarter tasks, thereby increasing focus and revenue.

To sort your tasks, take a sheet of paper and divide it into four sections. The first section will be your Quarter Inventory. In the quarter section, list activities that you are best at, enjoy the most and which generate revenue or grow the business in a way that you are uniquely good at. These are your unique abilities, your area of highest value to the firm.

The second section will be your Dime Inventory. Dime activities are activities that you are excellent or good at, but that do not directly generate revenue or grow the business. Since these are not unique abilities, they are potentially activities that can be taken over by other employees, or outsourced to a firm or independent contractor.