SOPs, or Standard Operating Procedures, are basically step-by-step instructions of how to complete a particular task or workflow in your business.
While maybe not the most glamorous or exciting part of running a business, properly documenting the way that your company completes its core functions can be the difference between a business constantly in chaos, and one that is calm and collected.
Today we’re going to talk about the best practices for creating the SOPs that can have such an enormous impact on your business.
A business without SOPs is one that is constantly reinventing the wheel, and that can be extremely unstable because it relies on people holding all of the operational knowledge.
While it’s a beautiful thing to have team members that are reliable and capable, putting all of your eggs in that basket leaves you vulnerable to emergencies and sudden changes to your team.
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The Biggest Objection to Creating SOPs
One objection to building out SOPs is that it’s time consuming, and, well, it is.
There’s not really any way around that, but it is absolutely worth it, and essential if you want your business to grow.
Not only do these documents help your team in the day-to-day, but I also like to think about it as kind of an insurance policy for your business.
You gain the peace of mind knowing that your team could continue to function even if you had a core member that had to step away suddenly (or needs to move to a new role) and that will definitely help you sleep better at night.
How to Create SOPs: Method #1 - Start with a Screenshare
Now when it comes to actually documenting systems, there’s a couple of different ways to do it.
If you’re in a rush, a great way to be able to pass knowledge off to someone else is to just take a screen share video of the task as you’re doing it.
This enables you to give a verbal play-by-play of exactly what it is that you’re doing, and you can then take that video and give it to the person who’s going to become the new owner of the task.
You can ask them to then go through the video, and to create a written step-by-step outline of exactly what you talked about in the video.
It also enables them to be able to take screenshots and add them in with the written instructions, which is really helpful, because people learn in a variety of different ways.
Some people love video, some people like to be able to read things and look at screenshots, and have it really cemented in their minds in that way.
One of the other bonuses is that having a step-by-step written account of what’s going on makes it faster when someone needs to go back and reference it later on, so they don’t have to search through an entire video for the exact answer that they’re looking for.
A big benefit that comes from this is that the person now who has fully built out the SOP takes ownership of that task, and because they’re the ones who went through and picked up a step-by-step process from the video, they have an excellent understanding of what it is that they need to do to be able to see the task through to completion.
Once they finish creating the SOP based on the video that you’ve given them, it’s really important that they come back to you as the previous task owner, and make sure that no steps were missed.
As soon as it’s been approved, don’t forget to go through and use that step-by-step process to do the task at hand, and make sure that the results that are being achieved are exactly what you’re looking for.
Method #2: Optimize Your Workflow First
If you have a little bit more margin, you have the opportunity to really optimize your workflow before documenting it.
Sit down with your process and map out, step-by-step, what needs to be done.
There’s something very interesting that happens when you actually write down all of the steps, rather than just running through them in your head.
You’ll often see that there are certain steps that maybe aren’t in alignment anymore, or could be reordered, or steps that could be removed from the process altogether because they don’t make sense overall.
Just because you’ve always done something in a particular way definitely doesn’t mean that it makes sense to keep doing it in that manner.
Taking the time to optimize pays off exponentially down the road!
Once you’ve had a chance to work through, optimize, and record your process step-by-step in written form, now give it to someone else who’s never done the task before, and see if they’re able to complete the task in the same way that you want it done.
This gives you a chance to address any concerns that come up, to be able to add clarification where it’s needed, and it really allows you to hone in to make sure that your process is as optimized as it possibly can be.
Once you know that the process is repeatable and it’s consistently yielding the result that you want, now is a great time to go through and film that step-by-step video to ensure that everything in the video is 100% accurate.
Biggest Mistakes When Creating SOPs
One mistake I see a lot of business owners make is that they’ll take the time to create SOPs, but then they don’t actually keep track of where they’re stored.
This ends up being a huge waste of time and energy, so please make sure to track them and keep them easily accessible.
If the person who created the SOP is the only one that knows where the SOP is, that really doesn’t help anyone!
The other big mistake I see is not keeping the SOPs updated. Changes are a given in business, and updates to platforms, or to your procedures can easily leave SOPs out of date, and impossible to follow.
As you create or modify your SOPs, please make sure to keep careful note of when they were made, or last updated, so your team can circle back to them on a consistent basis.
If I’ve managed to convince you of the importance of creating a bank of SOPS for your company, please check the box below this video for the link to my SOPs with Ease guide.
It covers all of the essentials that you need to create this kind of stability in your business, along with:
- The kinds of SOPs you can create
- SOP template
- Sample SOP
- SOP checklist, and
- Master SOP list where you can track the links to all of the documents, along with the date that they were last updated.
I promise you’ll never regret taking the time to get your business’s workflows dialed in!
Your team will run more smoothly, you’ll find yourself able to step away from your business, and you’ll breathe easier knowing that you’re setting your business up to grow and scale.
