Creating Sustainability and Scalability with SOPs in your Business.
As a small business owner, you probably do all! Either by yourself or with a small team. You’re responsible for everything from marketing, client experience, operations, and so much more. But as owner and CEO of a business, you likely want to continue to scale your business and bring more team members on board eventually. Change and growth are positive words in the business vocabulary!
Having standard operating procedures (SOPs) in place in your business from early on can help you streamline your operations, work efficiently, decrease potential errors, and ensure as you grow that your team members have a process to follow for the various tasks of your business functions.
If you don’t already have SOPs in your business, that’s okay! It’s never too late to start, and you can pick one task to start with and begin building from there.
What are SOPS?
SOPs are detailed step-by-step instructions that document how to perform a specific task in your business. A team member should be able to pick up this SOP and know exactly what task it’s for and all the details of how to complete it. Having this process in place makes it easier to train employees on new tasks and ensure consistent work is being delivered efficiency because basic questions can be easily answered.
What are the benefits of SOPs?
What are the benefits of having SOPs in place for your small business:
- Increased Efficiency
SOPs help you to streamline your operations by providing clear and concise instructions for task performance. Saving you time and money overall!
- Improved Accuracy
SOPs help to reduce errors by providing consistency in tasks. This can be helpful when you have more than one team member completing a task because you know all team members are following the same standardized practice. This is also important if a team member decides to take a vacation. Instead of having to pause a project until that team member returns or expecting that team member to work on vacation (because healthy boundaries and everyone deserves a vacation!), another member can step in and complete the task knowing they won’t miss any important steps because the process is documented.
- Improved Training
SOPs are a valuable tool for training new team members, especially when paired with digital tools that screen record a process step by step. By providing team members with written instructions (and bonus video recordings), you can get new members up to speed quickly on business practices and they can return to these items when questions arise.
A Few Things to Keep in Mind as you Build SOPs
As you’re building SOPs keep a few things in mind:
- Keep your SOPs consistent!
This means a standardized template, a standardized setup, and a standardized naming convention. Having consistency in your SOPs makes it easy for team members to easily find and view SOPs to gain the information they need to complete a task.
- Be Detailed!
When writing SOPs it’s sometimes helpful to imagine you’re teaching someone who has never done the task before. What resources would they need? Where is that file located? How do I get to that button you just said to click? The more detailed you are in your SOPs the easier it will be for future team members to utilize them and maintain efficiency. Including screenshots and images can be of great value to add needed details!
- Continuously Improve!
SOPs are ever-evolving. As processes are changed, SOPs should be revised regularly to include the most up-to-date information.
- Test Out SOPs
A great way to test out a SOP is to have a team member use just the SOP to complete the task and gather their feedback. What questions arise? What details need more clarification? Remember that this SOP should include all the information needed to complete the task and be easy to follow. And remember that it’s okay to go back and edit to add more details, as needed to improve.
Creating and implementing SOPs can seem like a lot, but taking the time now to document your processes will save you time and resources in the long run of your business. Start with one SOP for a task that is completed regularly and continue to build from there. It doesn’t need to all happen overnight. By implementing sustainable systems now, you can continue growing and scaling a sustainable business that runs smoothly and efficiently.