Do you feel like your business is constantly firefighting? Are you always putting out one crisis after another? If this sounds like your business, then you need to start creating Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs). 

SOPs can help make your work far less messy and make it more streamlined and who doesn’t like that! So today, we will be looking into what are SOPs, why they are important, and how to create them for your business.

What are Standard Operating Procedures?

Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) are a set of step-by-step instructions that document a process. They help you achieve consistent results every time you carry out that process. 

SOPs should be written in simple language and be easy to follow so that anyone can carry them out without any confusion. They are what’s said on the cover, standards that make performing procedures a lot easier for everyone involved. 

They optimize your work and make the entirety of your staff super-efficient.

Why do you need Standard Operating Procedures?

In a nutshell, SOPs are important because they help to ensure that your processes are carried out consistently and correctly every time. This is especially important if you have a team of people working on a process as it means that everyone will be carrying out the steps in the same way. This can help to avoid mistakes and errors, which can save your business time and money. Consistency and saving up on time and money, it’s a win all around!

SOPs can also help to improve the efficiency of your processes as they remove any ambiguity about what needs to be done, providing clear instructions and guidelines ensures that the work gets done in the best way possible and reduces the possibility of making any mistakes due to misunderstandings of any sort. So, improving not just the efficiency but the quality of the final result as well.

How to create Standard Operating Procedures

Now that we know what SOPs are and why they are important, let’s take a look at why we’re really here; SOPs are really cool. How can I create them for my business? 

Step 1: Identify the Processes That You Want to Document 

These could be processes that are essential to your business, such as your onboarding process, or they could be processes that you carry out on a daily basis, such as your social media marketing strategy.

Step 2: Gather All of the Relevant Information About Those Processes. AKA, Do Your Homework 

This includes things like who is responsible for each step, what needs to be done, and when it needs to be done. You can gather this information by speaking to the people who carry out the process on a daily basis or by carrying out the process yourself.

Once you have all of the relevant information, you need to start writing your SOPs. Start by creating a document for each process and then write out the steps involved in that process in a clear and concise way. 

Make sure to use simple language so that anyone can understand, that means no excessive use of technical jargon, and follow the SOP. In addition, include any relevant details, such as who is responsible for each step or what needs to be done.

Step 3: Testing

You need to test them to make sure that they are clear and easy to follow. You can do this by asking someone who is not familiar with the process to carry it out using the SOP. If they can do it without any confusion, then congratulations, your SOP is ready to be implemented.

Step 4:  Implementing Your SOPs

Once you have created and tested your SOPs, the next step is to implement them in your business. The best way to do this is to create a central location where all of your SOPs are stored. This could be an online document or a physical folder. You should then make sure that all of your employees have access to this location so that they can easily find and use the SOPs when needed.

BONUS Step 5: Train Your Employees

You should also provide training on how to use SOPs for your employees. You can’t just come up with an entirely new process and then throw your employees in the deep end, nope, that’s what training is for. 

Training will ensure that they are familiar with the process and know-how to carry it out correctly. In addition, you should make sure to review and update your SOPs on a regular basis. This will ensure that they are always up-to-date and relevant to your business.

One fine idea to do so is perhaps to record a video of yourself following the SOP and sharing it with your team, this can make them more responsive to the new practice instead of having them read through a document or something, some people prefer to learn through the audio-visual mediums, so, use a combination of both, have the link to the video in a document. 

And make sure all of this is super easy for them to access and find. What good is a well-written, concise and clear SOP if no one can find it, right?

Creating Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) for your business is an important way to ensure that your processes are carried out consistently and correctly. They do, however, come with some drawbacks.

Creating SOPs can be time-consuming and time is one of those things that you’re always running out of, doubly so if you’re running a business, the typical way of creating SOPs would be to do the task yourself and then just make a play-by-play of it, record a video with your voiceover and pass it on to your team.

The problem with this is, that you don’t always have the time. Between running the business and closing deals, how much time in the day you have for going over tasks, doing them yourself, writing a detailed outline, or recording a video with some voiceover. Having to do this for MULTIPLE tasks. It’s just not practical and it will cost you more than a day’s work.

It would sure be nice if you can somehow pass that burden to someone else, who can just take a look at the entire process, come up with an SOP for it, or even use a template. Wouldn’t that be great?

That’s where a virtual assistant comes in. A virtual assistant can help you with all aspects of SOP creation, from researching best practices to writing and editing the SOPs themselves. Not only will this free up your time so that you can focus on other aspects of your business, but it will also help to ensure that your SOPs are comprehensive and effective. So if you’re looking for a way to streamline your SOP creation process, consider hiring a virtual assistant. And hey, you’re in luck, because we can help with that. 

Not only can we provide you with the best trained and coolest VAs in the business but we also offer a Free Forever guarantee, if someone quits they get replaced, we just plug someone in with no trouble to you, and hey, if it somehow causes you any inconvenience we even compensate you for it. That’s a good deal and a half, isn’t it?

But hey, I get it, it’s not really an easy decision to make, so, how about a small trial? If you reach out to this email [email protected], we’ll forward you an SOP template that you can use, sure, it is better to get one specifically tailored to your business, that’s what a VA can do for you, but consider this a demonstration, how about that.

If you are pretty interested, however, you can talk to us and we’ll get you sorted with more than just a great VA but also with all you need to get your business to skyrocket!

All there is to gain and absolutely nothing to lose, take the leap!

Don’t be a stranger!