How To Create Standard Operating Procedures In Your Online Business (SOP TIME SAVING TIPS!)

Does your entire business and all your systems and processes live inside your head? Are you struggling to delegate the tasks in your business effectively because of it?

In this video, you will learn why standard operating procedures (or SOPs) are so important and how to create them for your business so that you can save hours of your valuable time each week.

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When I start working with a new client, one of the very first things I do is create standard operating procedures or SOPs for them. I've created hundreds if not thousands of SOPs for my clients over the years and today I'm going to teach you how to create them in your own business.

An SOP is essentially a record documenting the step by step of how to do a specific process in your business. They are critical for all processes and systems in your business.

In this video I will help you prioritize which SOPs to start with, but why are they important? Because as soon as you decide to make the leap from solopreneur to CEO of your business, you will be delegating tasks out to other people and if all your knowledge only exists in your head, it takes double the time to delegate it later.

You have to make time not only to do the task, but also to train your team on how to do it. Then what if that person leaves or transitions to a new role without SOP is you might be training another person to do the same task, taking up even more of your valuable time.

So let's lessen the pain of delegation and turnover. Now shall we?

Oh, and make sure you stay till the end to catch my bonus tips for you to create a best in class system around SOP creation. Here are the three easy steps to creating an SOP.

First, prioritize your processes.

Start by identifying all the processes and tasks you do every day that are repetitive and repeatable. The things that anyone could do theoretically make a huge list and focused, especially on the areas of your business. That will be the first to be outsourced tasks like social media or admin work, things that fall into this list like reporting, pulling metrics, setting up a broadcast email, managing your calendar inbox, setting up automations or systems scheduling, social media posts, et cetera.

The list goes on, but I challenge you as you go through your day to ask yourself, do I really need to be doing this task? And if you know someone else could do it equally as well as you, it's time to put it on your SOP list to record yourself doing the task.

Now that you have your list, the next step is to document yourself doing the actual task.

This can be as simple as using screencast, zoom or loom to record your screen. As you talk through each step of what you're doing. You don't even have to be on camera if you don't want to.

What's a critical time saving tip here is to wait until the next time you're actually doing that task for real and just record yourself doing it and talking yourself through it. If you try to record yourself when you're not actually doing the task or waiting until you have an actual person to train, it will actually take double your time.

Plus the person you're training and will probably be less effective as a training tool cause it's it's mock data. Make sure you explain the process in a very detailed way as you walk through it. This will pay dividends when you finally delegate it and your trainee will be grateful to have all the detail without having to circle back to you to ask questions.

Comment below and let me know the very first or next things in your business that you're dying to get off your plate when you hire a new team member. I can't wait to read your responses.

Three, stay organized.

Now that you are recording videos of yourself for every task and process in your business, it is critical that you stay organized. I organize my SOPs in a couple ways. First, I create an SOP master document and a Google sheet that has a separate tab for each function or role on my team.

I have a column for the sub category of the SOP, the name and the link to either the Google doc or the SOP lives or to the screencast itself of me doing the task. If I'm storing my SOP on a Google doc, then I also create a set of folders that matches up with the tabs in my master SOP Google sheet. Again, organization is critical even if you're currently a one person team because the more organized you are now, the easier it will be when you bring your first or next team member onboard.

All right, so now for those two bonus tips to create a best in class system for SLPs.

Tip one, I mentioned this a bit in step three but I'm going to mention it again, is to also document all your SOP in writing to supplement the video.

This helps different learning styles and is just another way to more thorough way to tackle SOPs. There are also things you can add to written SOP that you can't really cover in video form. Things like linking to other relevant SOPs, linking to places where you share passwords or to existing reports or documents that are all relevant to completing that specific process or task. The video and the document compliment each other.

Also documenting the SOP is not something that you have to do. This is something you can assign to your new team member to watch the video to learn and then create the written SOP from the video. The extra bonus here is that it tests your team members understanding of the task on a new level so you can be more confident going forward that they are clear on what they're doing. Win-win all around.

Bonus tip number two, don't forget to update your SOP is on a regular basis.

Online business and its processes can change quickly and an outdated SOP is no good, so make sure you or better yet your team are revisiting your SOPs on a regular basis, either quarterly or every six months to make sure that the process is still the same as what's in the SOP.

If it's not, have the team member responsible for the task update it. You can set up reminders and your project management tool to help you with this because trust me, you do not want to bring on a new team member and then have them doing the task incorrectly.

So now you know how to create SOP in your business and why you need to have them. But what are the systems that you need to create SOP for? I've created a guide to give you more information on each of these systems, including a quick audit to help you determine which system is the most critical for you to build and grow.

Right now, the link is in the video description, or if your business is ready for an online business manager, fill out the application form linked below or sign up to my mailing list to get the most up to date tips and advice emailed directly to you. Those links are in the video description below. Also, if you liked this video, make sure to hit that like button and subscribe and share this with your friends. And don't forget to check out these related videos about systems and processes on my channel.

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