If you're ready to delegate business tasks but not sure how to write a business SOP, this episode is for you.
In this episode, we're diving into the world of delegation and how you can make it a breeze with SOPs (Standard Operating Procedures).
Remember the days of printing out MapQuest directions before smartphones? Well, just like a GPS gives you step-by-step directions, SOPs provide detailed steps for specific tasks in your business. I'll walk you through the power of SOPs and how they can transform the way you delegate.
From overcoming the fear of losing control to finding the right people, we'll uncover the challenges of delegation, how SOPs can ease those worries and the benefits of standard operating procedures.
Plus, I've got five quick and easy starter tips for writing your own SOPs and a recommendation for SOP software.
And guess what? I've got a special toolkit called the Simple SOP Toolkit which includes a masterclass called SOPs Made Easy. You can access it for free for a limited time.
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Or you can think about SOPs. You can think of it like a
Speaker:GPS for your business tasks. All right. Do
Speaker:y'all remember MapQuest and having to print out the paper
Speaker:instructions? Before you went somewhere before we
Speaker:had all of the navigation on our phones. Anybody remember that? All right.
Speaker:So just like a GPS gives you. The turn by
Speaker:turn directions to get to your destination. And
Speaker:SOP provides detailed steps to complete a
Speaker:specific task. You are now tuned in to the
Speaker:mom CEO suite podcast. I'm your host,
Speaker:Phylicia, wife, mom, and entrepreneur. In
Speaker:this podcast, I'll be sharing my mompreneur journey along with
Speaker:strategies that will help you build your online business operations
Speaker:in a sustainable way. The goal is to help you build a business that
Speaker:fits into your lifestyle as a mom who values putting family
Speaker:first. We will also hear the experiences and expertise
Speaker:of other moms with service based businesses. You'll get a peek into
Speaker:our journeys so you'll know that you aren't alone.
Speaker:Motherhood gets hard. Entrepreneurship gets hard. But
Speaker:together we can do hard things.
Speaker:Welcome to the suite.
Speaker:Hey, Fran. Welcome to another episode. Thank you so much for being here. So today
Speaker:we are talking about delegation and we're talking about this
Speaker:because this is a huge part of.
Speaker:Allowing mompreneurs to experience work-life harmony. Okay.
Speaker:Um, so before diving in, I want to give you a couple of
Speaker:resources. So, back in episode 59 of the
Speaker:podcast, I talked about 15 tasks to delegate as a
Speaker:busy mom preneur. That's the link in the show description. And then
Speaker:the harmony private podcasts. Module six
Speaker:talks about delegation and it gives a biblical framework for
Speaker:how to do it responsibly. And so if you want to access either of
Speaker:those, the link is in the show description. Okay.
Speaker:So. When they come to delegation, sometimes
Speaker:it can feel hard for some people. And for a few different
Speaker:reasons, which I'm about to get to outside of just not having resources
Speaker:to do it. Like financial resources. Um, and
Speaker:so some of the reasons might be, and I want you to
Speaker:think, does this apply to me? Am I struggling with this? When it comes
Speaker:to delegation? so fear of losing control or that
Speaker:things are not going to be done to your standard.
Speaker:All right. Fear of mistakes being made by other
Speaker:people. Maybe it's, short-term thinking that you
Speaker:have, So you see delegation as more time
Speaker:consuming in the immediate term. So you say things to
Speaker:yourself, like it'll be quicker if I do it. But if in the
Speaker:long run, if you do that in the long run, it's just taking up more
Speaker:of your time. Or maybe you see your business as
Speaker:your baby. And you don't trust anyone else with it?
Speaker:Yikes. Or maybe you just might not have
Speaker:experienced doing it, and you're not sure how to do it
Speaker:effectively. Maybe you actually want to delegate and
Speaker:you're ready. You're really not struggling with anything else besides the fact that
Speaker:you are trying to find the right people. Okay, now all feelings are
Speaker:valid. But for some of these things, in fact, many of the
Speaker:challenges that I've just mentioned. Having SOPs
Speaker:we'll make it less challenging. Okay. So what are
Speaker:SOPs? SOPs are standard operating procedures. That's
Speaker:what the letter stand for. Standard operating procedures.
Speaker:And so here's a couple of ways you can think about them.
Speaker:You can think of an SOP, like a recipe for your
Speaker:business tasks. Okay. So just like a recipe tells
Speaker:you exactly how to make. A
Speaker:particular dish. And SOP gives you the
Speaker:step-by-step instructions for a specific
Speaker:task. All right now, this way,
Speaker:anybody who is following your SOP, they know
Speaker:exactly what to do. And how to do it. And this
Speaker:ensures that. Everything is done
Speaker:consistently and correctly.
Speaker:Okay. Or you can think about SOPs.
Speaker:You can think of it like a GPS for your business tasks.
Speaker:All right. Do y'all remember MapQuest and having to print
Speaker:out the paper instructions? Before you went somewhere
Speaker:before we had all of the navigation on our phones. Anybody remember that?
Speaker:All right. So just like a GPS gives you.
Speaker:The turn by turn directions to get to your
Speaker:destination. And SOP provides detailed steps to
Speaker:complete a specific task. And again, this is ensuring
Speaker:that anybody who follows your SOP, they know
Speaker:exactly what to do and they don't get lost along the way.
Speaker:All right. So I hope that makes it a little bit more simple to
Speaker:understand. So when you have an SOP, it's just super
Speaker:handy for delegating tasks, because it really takes the
Speaker:guesswork out. And it helps to maintain.
Speaker:Quality and efficiency. All right. I talked about
Speaker:efficiency in uh, past episode, I don't remember which one, but I really explained
Speaker:what efficiency is. So going back to
Speaker:why. You might be struggling to delegate. When you have
Speaker:SOPs, you won't have to worry about things not being done to your
Speaker:standard because you have given them the standard
Speaker:and the step-by-step instructions on how to reach or create
Speaker:that standard. Right. So the SOP is the standard.
Speaker:So you don't have to worry about them. Not doing it correctly.
Speaker:When you have SOPs, you reduce the chances of
Speaker:mistakes being made. Okay. So obviously there's going to be
Speaker:human error with things. But the mistakes that are made.
Speaker:You know, just because somebody is trying to figure out a process.
Speaker:Those are going to be limited. If you have SOPs.
Speaker:When you have SOPs, you are telling people how to treat your
Speaker:business, baby. All right. You're telling
Speaker:people how to take care of it. And so for
Speaker:example, this is, More of a personal example, but
Speaker:anytime somebody watched one of my kids for the first time, Uh,
Speaker:they got a document. Okay. And this document,
Speaker:it outlined. What needs to happen? It
Speaker:outlined how it needed to happen. When it needed to
Speaker:happen in, you know, giving some tips on how they can
Speaker:make it happen. Right. So I had a quote unquote, SOP
Speaker:for taking care of my kids because I knew what worked. I knew
Speaker:what didn't work. And so same thing for your business, you
Speaker:know, what works, you know, what doesn't work. And so the person that's going to
Speaker:be quote unquote, watching your business or taking over these tasks.
Speaker:Either. And your absence for a short period, or
Speaker:you're just relieving yourself of this particular duty. Now
Speaker:they have something to go off of and they know they know what the standard
Speaker:is. And they know how to take care of and treat your, your business baby.
Speaker:So, if you're saying to yourself, you know, I don't know
Speaker:what to write in SOP for, or I don't know how
Speaker:to write an SOP. You're in the right place.
Speaker:I have a toolkit. It's called the simple SOP toolkit.
Speaker:If you're listening to this episode between July 21st and July
Speaker:31st. You can access this toolkit.
Speaker:For free through the systemizing skill bundle.
Speaker:Okay. Now in this toolkit, You actually get access
Speaker:to my. SOPs may easy masterclass.
Speaker:And in that masterclass, it's a short 30 minute masterclass. I
Speaker:break down the anatomy. Of an SOP, the
Speaker:life cycle of an SOP. And I give you some time saving strategies
Speaker:for writing SOPs. Um, and then in the
Speaker:toolkit, you also get access to.,
Speaker:Some information on some tools that will help you to.
Speaker:Create visual aids for your SOPs. And you also
Speaker:get a few chat, GPT prompts. That will
Speaker:help you create SOPs. Okay. So again, if
Speaker:you're listening to this between July 21st, 24th and the
Speaker:31st, you can access the toolkit,
Speaker:um, click the link in the show description. If it's after July 31st, the
Speaker:toolkit is still available on my website for $49. And I'll
Speaker:put that link in the description as well. Now, if you're
Speaker:listening to this after the 31st and you're like, man, I want to keep up
Speaker:with what you're doing in real time. you don't want to miss out on these
Speaker:special promotions and opportunities that you want to make sure that you join.
Speaker:The email community for the moms CEO suite.
Speaker:And you can join that by going to the mom CEO,
Speaker:suite.com/connect. The mom
Speaker:CEO, suite.com/connect. All
Speaker:right. So Mike, I mentioned in the masterclass, I do go in
Speaker:depth in how to effectively write and manage SLPs.
Speaker:But today I want to give you five quick and easy
Speaker:starter tips. For writing your SOPs, just some
Speaker:quick tips to get you started. So number
Speaker:one. Is keep it simple. Keep it very
Speaker:simple. You want to use clear,
Speaker:straightforward, clean language. Okay. This is not
Speaker:the time to. You know, use all of the industry
Speaker:jargon and be super eloquent, all those things, right. You want to
Speaker:keep your sentences short and to the point.
Speaker:Okay. So for each of these steps, I'm going to use an example. We're going
Speaker:to talk about creating, um, an SOP for client onboarding. All
Speaker:right. So an example, one of the components of an SOP is your
Speaker:title. So keeping a title, simple looks
Speaker:like. Client onboarding process. That's
Speaker:it. You don't want to say something like this is the process. for
Speaker:creating the client onboarding for XYZ business.
Speaker:No, you want to keep it very simple, very short. And to the
Speaker:point. All right. Number two is you want to
Speaker:be specific. So you want to break down your
Speaker:tasks into very small, actionable steps.
Speaker:And this is one of the reasons why I like the
Speaker:tool Komodo that I use to document.
Speaker:processes. Because sometimes we do things and we
Speaker:don't know all of the steps that we're taking to do it. And that tool
Speaker:really captures every single step. And so when it comes to your
Speaker:SOP, you want to include every detail that somebody is going to need
Speaker:to be able to complete the task correctly.
Speaker:So in example, Um, let's say you
Speaker:are sending the welcome email for your client onboarding and your
Speaker:steps look like. Log
Speaker:into your email. Client. You want to give them
Speaker:the login credentials, if they don't already have them. Right.
Speaker:Then it can say open the email template, title X, Y, Z.
Speaker:Next step personalized the template with the clients.
Speaker:Name and address. You know, or whatever your process looks like.
Speaker:Okay. So you want to break each step down into
Speaker:smaller tasks. If you just say, send welcome email.
Speaker:Then that leaves lots of room for, you
Speaker:know, mistakes. They can interpret it their
Speaker:own way. They have no guidelines So you want to give.
Speaker:Very small, actionable steps. All
Speaker:right. Number three is to use visuals and we're using
Speaker:visuals because people learn in different ways. So though you
Speaker:may have. your steps are written out. Some people are visual.
Speaker:Some people, need to see pictures. Some people need to watch a
Speaker:video. People. They just learn differently. Okay.
Speaker:So whatever you can do. To make the instructions easier
Speaker:to follow. You want to add that again? Whether it's screenshots,
Speaker:diagrams, videos. It's really going to
Speaker:help clarify something. That's going to be.
Speaker:Hard to understand in words. Okay.
Speaker:Um, next step. step. number
Speaker:four is that you want to create a template. Okay.
Speaker:So use a simple template for all of your SOPs
Speaker:to keep them consistent. And again, this is something that I talk about in the
Speaker:SOP is made easy. Masterclass is just having
Speaker:a consistent naming convention. Um, and this goes along
Speaker:with having this template. But you want your SOPs
Speaker:to be consistent. Okay. You don't want.
Speaker:Different SOPs to have different structures. This just helps to
Speaker:eliminate confusion. Throughout the process. All
Speaker:right. And then number five, you want to
Speaker:test it out? Either you can test it or you can
Speaker:have somebody else tested because they might catch something that maybe you
Speaker:won't. You want to test out links? You want to just test out the process
Speaker:to see if it makes sense. And get any feedback. So that you
Speaker:can, just improve it. For
Speaker:clarity, make sure it's as clear as possible and that it. just
Speaker:encompasses the entire process. Okay.
Speaker:So those are five tips for you to get started with writing
Speaker:your SOPs. Just a quick recap. Number one, keep it simple.
Speaker:Number two, be specific. Number three, use visuals.
Speaker:Number four, create a template and number five, test it
Speaker:out. All right, so you should be able to get started writing your SOPs with
Speaker:this, and then if you want to dig deeper, make sure you access the simple
Speaker:SOP toolkit. Either for free through the systemize and scale
Speaker:bundle, or you can get it on the website. All of the
Speaker:links are in the show description. If you have any questions about SLPs,
Speaker:feel free to shoot me a DM over on Instagram. Thank
Speaker:you so much for tuning in and I'll see you in the next episode.
Speaker:Thank you for listening to the Mom CEO Suite Podcast. If
Speaker:you enjoyed this episode, can you do us a favor? Leave a review on
Speaker:iTunes and share with other moms in business like you.
Speaker:Help us spread our message and empower others who are at this intersection
Speaker:of motherhood and entrepreneurship.