If you were starting your own business...

Question first and then the backstory;

If you were starting your own small business (Just you and a partner to start) what processes & procedures would you put in place from the beginning? Sales or other.

Now the TLDR;

I started a new position in September with a company that I was pretty excited about. Very small team, great trajectory and tons of potential. It was a brand new industry for me so on top of learning about our product I was burning the midnight oil learning everything I could about the industry and completing homework assignments from my onboarding. Once I was given the green light to work the phone, I was successfully bringing new clients into my funnel from day 1.

Fast forward to last week and my manager calls me to let me go. Not hugely forthcoming with details, just "not the right fit" and "we would have liked more activity" Fair enough, my head was not 100% in the game. I have a very close family member who is borderline suicidal so I've been having to leave my computer a few times a day to deal with that and try to help improve the situation around the person.

Still, I would get up at 5am to start and work as late as possible. I figure I was putting in about 50-60hrs of activity per week, and more importantly (just to me I guess) I was bringing in good solid leads. Meanwhile the base pay was low, commissions were very low and red flags were popping up like crazy with the owner/CEO.

I'm not going to shed a tear about not working for that CEO anymore even though there are some great people there that I am going to miss and wish I could have worked with longer to learn more from them. I've learned more about the culture at the company since leaving than I did when I was there. Talking with one girl in HR that I got along well with was very interesting, she had a very close family member pass away in January and in her words "work has been hell" since then. Instead of letting her have any time to grieve, when she expressed her feelings it put her under a microscope. Her activity (which was getting her good reviews before) was now being called into question constantly because they think she's distracted. Thankfully she has the cold hard numbers with her job to show that she's doing the exact same amount as before. She also told me that she sees all the company surveys, there are a lot of negative comments and the CEO's reaction is "those are from people who don't want to work hard, we don't have room for people like that here"

I'm not one of these people who says they can't work for anyone, I was actually really excited to work for this guy at the beginning because he said all the right things, but I do expect things from the leadership. I think my "demands" of leadership are simple enough; 1- Have a clear path/vision and communicate it clearly 2- set your team up for success with tools and guidance.

So I'm going to start my own business, I'm applying all the great lessons I've learned over the years whether they are good or bad and I want to be the type of leader I've always wanted.

I really wish I could get into details of what we'll do, it's consulting & training with a few other add-ons in a very very specific niche that my partner and I both have hands-on experience in. My partner is extremely knowledgeable and has a huge amount of hustle but has trouble staying organized and has never officially done a sales role before.

Right now I'm building a website, creating our sales playbook along with E flyers and templates/scripts for outreach 

PS- don't worry, I'm not going to go present myself as another "sales guru" LinkedIn has enough of those.

Now throw some advice and sage words of wisdom my way!