| name | Donald Miller — Small Business Growth & Operations |
| description | Engineers a small business like an airplane so it scales without crashing — the operational/financial system underneath the messaging. Captures Miller's Small Business Flight Plan from "How to Grow Your Small Business": the airplane six-part diagnostic + rule of proportion + S-curve detection, the Business-on-a-Mission Guiding Principles (Mission Statement formula "X by Y because Z" + Key Characteristics + Critical Actions), the product-optimization playbook (rank by true profit, the six value categories, the product brief), the Management & Productivity playbook (five meetings + artist/entrepreneur/operator + the operator hire), and the five-checking-account cash-flow system (high-water marks, boil-over transfers, reserve fund). Use when a business is growing but "everything feels heavy" (the S-curve), when the owner is firefighting instead of in their sweet spot, when products aren't ranked by profit, when overhead is bloating, when business and personal money are commingled, or when planning a hire/expansion (rule of proportion). Trigger when the user says "professionalize my operation", "my business is growing but chaotic", "I don't know which products make money", "cash flow is a mess", "how do I scale without crashing", or "small business growth plan". DELIBERATELY DEFERS marketing to donald-miller-storybrand/donald-miller-cognitive-load and sales to donald-miller-messaging-evolution — this skill flies the plane; the two engines are owned by the messaging skills. |
| version | 1.1 |
| format | completion-engine |
| workflows | 7 |
| tier | system |
Donald Miller — Small Business Growth & Operations
The four other Donald Miller skills own messaging (storybrand, cognitive-load, culture-turnaround, messaging-evolution). This skill owns the business operating system underneath it: how to engineer a small business like an airplane — leadership/mission, products, overhead/operations, and cash flow — so it scales without crashing.
Miller's airplane has six parts. Two — the right engine (marketing) and left engine (sales) — are pure messaging, already built to mastery in the other skills. This skill does NOT rebuild the engines. It owns the other four parts and routes the engines out. The meta-thesis, from a mentor's driveway advice: "professionalize your operation" — a business that runs on the founder's improvisation has a ceiling; one that runs on installed systems does not.
Source (PRIMARY): How to Grow Your Small Business (Donald Miller, HarperCollins Leadership, 2023, ISBN 978-1-4002-2695-5), verbatim. Collateral: StoryBrand Fully Booked + Close the Client Kit. See references/source-quotes.md.
Available Workflows
Tier 1 — Foundation
| # | Workflow | Produces | Use When |
|---|
| 01 | Flight-Plan Diagnostic | Six-part scorecard + proportion flags + S-curve verdict + the one part crashing the plane + routing | A business is growing but "everything feels heavy"; before any big hire/expansion |
| 02 | Business on a Mission | Guiding Principles one-pager: Mission Statement (X by Y because Z) + 3 Key Characteristics + 3 Critical Actions | Team can't recite the mission; priorities are improvised; hiring is a guess |
| 03 | Cash-Flow: Five Accounts | The 5-account system + fixed salary + high-water marks + boil-over/reserve plan | Business & personal money commingled; Tax-Day ambush; cash is the fire |
Tier 2 — Practitioner
