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.

LINKS & MENTIONS

• Ep 59. 15 Tasks to Delegate as a Busy Mompreneur
• Harmony Private Podcast
• Access the Simple SOP Toolkit for free July 24-31 through the Systemise & Scale Bundle
• Access the Simple SOP Toolkit for $49

RESOURCES

• SOP Software (Komodo): https://komododecks.com/?via=phylicia
• CRM: Dubsado - Get 20% off your 1st month (if paying monthly) or 1st year (if paying annually)
• Livestreaming: Streamyard - Get a $10 credit
• Website Hosting: Showit - Get 1 month free

Connect with Phylicia

FB: Phylicia Pough

IG: @phyliciapough

Connect with The Mom CEO Suite

Website: themomceosuite.com

Instagram: @themomceosuite

Join The Mom CEO Suite Email Community

This podcast uses the following third-party services for analysis:

Chartable - https://chartable.com/privacy

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Or you can think about SOPs. You can think of it like a

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GPS for your business tasks. All right. Do

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y'all remember MapQuest and having to print out the paper

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instructions? Before you went somewhere before we

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had all of the navigation on our phones. Anybody remember that? All right.

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So just like a GPS gives you. The turn by

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turn directions to get to your destination. And

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SOP provides detailed steps to complete a

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specific task. You are now tuned in to the

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mom CEO suite podcast. I'm your host,

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Phylicia, wife, mom, and entrepreneur. In

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this podcast, I'll be sharing my mompreneur journey along with

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strategies that will help you build your online business operations

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in a sustainable way. The goal is to help you build a business that

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fits into your lifestyle as a mom who values putting family

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first. We will also hear the experiences and expertise

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of other moms with service based businesses. You'll get a peek into

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our journeys so you'll know that you aren't alone.

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Motherhood gets hard. Entrepreneurship gets hard. But

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together we can do hard things.

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Welcome to the suite.

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Hey, Fran. Welcome to another episode. Thank you so much for being here. So today

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we are talking about delegation and we're talking about this

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because this is a huge part of.

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Allowing mompreneurs to experience work-life harmony. Okay.

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Um, so before diving in, I want to give you a couple of

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resources. So, back in episode 59 of the

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podcast, I talked about 15 tasks to delegate as a

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busy mom preneur. That's the link in the show description. And then

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the harmony private podcasts. Module six

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talks about delegation and it gives a biblical framework for

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how to do it responsibly. And so if you want to access either of

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those, the link is in the show description. Okay.

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So. When they come to delegation, sometimes

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it can feel hard for some people. And for a few different

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reasons, which I'm about to get to outside of just not having resources

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to do it. Like financial resources. Um, and

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so some of the reasons might be, and I want you to

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think, does this apply to me? Am I struggling with this? When it comes

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to delegation? so fear of losing control or that

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things are not going to be done to your standard.

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All right. Fear of mistakes being made by other

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people. Maybe it's, short-term thinking that you

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have, So you see delegation as more time

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consuming in the immediate term. So you say things to

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yourself, like it'll be quicker if I do it. But if in the

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long run, if you do that in the long run, it's just taking up more

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of your time. Or maybe you see your business as

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your baby. And you don't trust anyone else with it?

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Yikes. Or maybe you just might not have

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experienced doing it, and you're not sure how to do it

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effectively. Maybe you actually want to delegate and

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you're ready. You're really not struggling with anything else besides the fact that

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you are trying to find the right people. Okay, now all feelings are

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valid. But for some of these things, in fact, many of the

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challenges that I've just mentioned. Having SOPs

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we'll make it less challenging. Okay. So what are

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SOPs? SOPs are standard operating procedures. That's

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what the letter stand for. Standard operating procedures.

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And so here's a couple of ways you can think about them.

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You can think of an SOP, like a recipe for your

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business tasks. Okay. So just like a recipe tells

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you exactly how to make. A

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particular dish. And SOP gives you the

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step-by-step instructions for a specific

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task. All right now, this way,

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anybody who is following your SOP, they know

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exactly what to do. And how to do it. And this

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ensures that. Everything is done

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consistently and correctly.

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Okay. Or you can think about SOPs.

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You can think of it like a GPS for your business tasks.

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All right. Do y'all remember MapQuest and having to print

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out the paper instructions? Before you went somewhere

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before we had all of the navigation on our phones. Anybody remember that?

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All right. So just like a GPS gives you.

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The turn by turn directions to get to your

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destination. And SOP provides detailed steps to

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complete a specific task. And again, this is ensuring

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that anybody who follows your SOP, they know

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exactly what to do and they don't get lost along the way.

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All right. So I hope that makes it a little bit more simple to

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understand. So when you have an SOP, it's just super

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handy for delegating tasks, because it really takes the

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guesswork out. And it helps to maintain.

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Quality and efficiency. All right. I talked about

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efficiency in uh, past episode, I don't remember which one, but I really explained

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what efficiency is. So going back to

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why. You might be struggling to delegate. When you have

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SOPs, you won't have to worry about things not being done to your

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standard because you have given them the standard

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and the step-by-step instructions on how to reach or create

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that standard. Right. So the SOP is the standard.

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So you don't have to worry about them. Not doing it correctly.

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When you have SOPs, you reduce the chances of

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mistakes being made. Okay. So obviously there's going to be

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human error with things. But the mistakes that are made.

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You know, just because somebody is trying to figure out a process.

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Those are going to be limited. If you have SOPs.

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When you have SOPs, you are telling people how to treat your

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business, baby. All right. You're telling

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people how to take care of it. And so for

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example, this is, More of a personal example, but

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anytime somebody watched one of my kids for the first time, Uh,

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they got a document. Okay. And this document,

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it outlined. What needs to happen? It

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outlined how it needed to happen. When it needed to

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happen in, you know, giving some tips on how they can

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make it happen. Right. So I had a quote unquote, SOP

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for taking care of my kids because I knew what worked. I knew

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what didn't work. And so same thing for your business, you

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know, what works, you know, what doesn't work. And so the person that's going to

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be quote unquote, watching your business or taking over these tasks.

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Either. And your absence for a short period, or

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you're just relieving yourself of this particular duty. Now

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they have something to go off of and they know they know what the standard

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is. And they know how to take care of and treat your, your business baby.

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So, if you're saying to yourself, you know, I don't know

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what to write in SOP for, or I don't know how

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to write an SOP. You're in the right place.

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I have a toolkit. It's called the simple SOP toolkit.

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If you're listening to this episode between July 21st and July

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31st. You can access this toolkit.

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For free through the systemizing skill bundle.

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Okay. Now in this toolkit, You actually get access

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to my. SOPs may easy masterclass.

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And in that masterclass, it's a short 30 minute masterclass. I

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break down the anatomy. Of an SOP, the

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life cycle of an SOP. And I give you some time saving strategies

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for writing SOPs. Um, and then in the

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toolkit, you also get access to.,

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Some information on some tools that will help you to.

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Create visual aids for your SOPs. And you also

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get a few chat, GPT prompts. That will

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help you create SOPs. Okay. So again, if

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you're listening to this between July 21st, 24th and the

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31st, you can access the toolkit,

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um, click the link in the show description. If it's after July 31st, the

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toolkit is still available on my website for $49. And I'll

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put that link in the description as well. Now, if you're

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listening to this after the 31st and you're like, man, I want to keep up

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with what you're doing in real time. you don't want to miss out on these

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special promotions and opportunities that you want to make sure that you join.

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The email community for the moms CEO suite.

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And you can join that by going to the mom CEO,

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suite.com/connect. The mom

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CEO, suite.com/connect. All

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right. So Mike, I mentioned in the masterclass, I do go in

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depth in how to effectively write and manage SLPs.

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But today I want to give you five quick and easy

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starter tips. For writing your SOPs, just some

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quick tips to get you started. So number

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one. Is keep it simple. Keep it very

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simple. You want to use clear,

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straightforward, clean language. Okay. This is not

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the time to. You know, use all of the industry

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jargon and be super eloquent, all those things, right. You want to

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keep your sentences short and to the point.

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Okay. So for each of these steps, I'm going to use an example. We're going

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to talk about creating, um, an SOP for client onboarding. All

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right. So an example, one of the components of an SOP is your

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title. So keeping a title, simple looks

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like. Client onboarding process. That's

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it. You don't want to say something like this is the process. for

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creating the client onboarding for XYZ business.

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No, you want to keep it very simple, very short. And to the

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point. All right. Number two is you want to

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be specific. So you want to break down your

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tasks into very small, actionable steps.

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And this is one of the reasons why I like the

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tool Komodo that I use to document.

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processes. Because sometimes we do things and we

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don't know all of the steps that we're taking to do it. And that tool

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really captures every single step. And so when it comes to your

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SOP, you want to include every detail that somebody is going to need

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to be able to complete the task correctly.

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So in example, Um, let's say you

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are sending the welcome email for your client onboarding and your

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steps look like. Log

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into your email. Client. You want to give them

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the login credentials, if they don't already have them. Right.

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Then it can say open the email template, title X, Y, Z.

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Next step personalized the template with the clients.

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Name and address. You know, or whatever your process looks like.

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Okay. So you want to break each step down into

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smaller tasks. If you just say, send welcome email.

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Then that leaves lots of room for, you

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know, mistakes. They can interpret it their

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own way. They have no guidelines So you want to give.

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Very small, actionable steps. All

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right. Number three is to use visuals and we're using

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visuals because people learn in different ways. So though you

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may have. your steps are written out. Some people are visual.

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Some people, need to see pictures. Some people need to watch a

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video. People. They just learn differently. Okay.

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So whatever you can do. To make the instructions easier

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to follow. You want to add that again? Whether it's screenshots,

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diagrams, videos. It's really going to

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help clarify something. That's going to be.

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Hard to understand in words. Okay.

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Um, next step. step. number

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four is that you want to create a template. Okay.

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So use a simple template for all of your SOPs

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to keep them consistent. And again, this is something that I talk about in the

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SOP is made easy. Masterclass is just having

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a consistent naming convention. Um, and this goes along

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with having this template. But you want your SOPs

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to be consistent. Okay. You don't want.

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Different SOPs to have different structures. This just helps to

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eliminate confusion. Throughout the process. All

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right. And then number five, you want to

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test it out? Either you can test it or you can

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have somebody else tested because they might catch something that maybe you

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won't. You want to test out links? You want to just test out the process

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to see if it makes sense. And get any feedback. So that you

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can, just improve it. For

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clarity, make sure it's as clear as possible and that it. just

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encompasses the entire process. Okay.

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So those are five tips for you to get started with writing

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your SOPs. Just a quick recap. Number one, keep it simple.

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Number two, be specific. Number three, use visuals.

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Number four, create a template and number five, test it

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out. All right, so you should be able to get started writing your SOPs with

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this, and then if you want to dig deeper, make sure you access the simple

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SOP toolkit. Either for free through the systemize and scale

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bundle, or you can get it on the website. All of the

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links are in the show description. If you have any questions about SLPs,

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feel free to shoot me a DM over on Instagram. Thank

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you so much for tuning in and I'll see you in the next episode.

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Thank you for listening to the Mom CEO Suite Podcast. If

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you enjoyed this episode, can you do us a favor? Leave a review on

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iTunes and share with other moms in business like you.

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Help us spread our message and empower others who are at this intersection

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of motherhood and entrepreneurship.