If you are a business owner you have probably seen the term SOP thrown around quite a bit. But do you know what SOP stands for? Don’t worry if you don’t, I’m going to be honest for a minute… For a good portion of my professional life, I didn’t know there was such a thing as an SOP. A colleague mentioned the term one day which inspired me to do some Googling. After spending just a few minutes researching I realized that I had actually been creating SOP’s for years without realizing they had a special name!
I am very much a detail-oriented person and writing SOP’s was just something that naturally made sense to do whenever I was creating or improving a process. It helped me to make sure I was being consistent in my execution and speed up the work because I wasn’t fumbling around each time trying to remember exactly how I did something. In addition, I learned as I trained others that it was much more efficient to have written out directions rather than solely talking someone through it. They learned faster and I ensured that I was giving them all the steps and wasn’t forgetting anything.
So keep on reading to find out exactly what an SOP is, why you need them, and some tips on creating your own!
What
SOP stands for Standard Operating Procedure. By definition, this is a step-by-step guide to completing a task. The task can be as small as sending out a welcome email to new clients all the way up to how you process payroll for employees (and anything in between). A few examples of SOP’s
Your format can vary depending on the needs of your business but traditionally an SOP is a written-out document. But with the popularity of project management software, many SOP’s are moving toward a more dynamic and interactive process.
Who
Every business! I 100% believe that every business no matter how small needs to have good SOP’s.
Why
Efficiency
You are not reinventing the wheel every time you need to accomplish a task.
Consistency
You provide your customers, clients, and audience with the best product/service each time.
Trainability
If you have brought help into your business (or dream of it) then you need to have a way of training them in your processes. You will drastically improve their chances of success if provided with clear directions.
How
How you create SOP’s depends on you and your team’s working style. In my business, I have a mix of Google Doc’s with written out instructions as well as some ClickUp templates for items that require more of a checklist format.
Step 1:
Resources. List out ALL of the resources someone will need to accomplish this task. This could include software, lists, spreadsheets, contacts, supporting documents, etc.
A tip if you are using Google Docs, you can list all of your resources as links so that each item is easily accessible!
Check out this video to see how it’s done.
Step 2:
Purpose. Decide what the purpose of this SOP is. What is your goal if someone were to follow these directions? You can be pretty specific here! I like to include descriptive words that emphasize the importance of this document.
Step 3:
Party. Who should be conducting this task. This is helpful so that as your business grows you have clear expectations among team members.
Step 4:
The process. This is the bulk of the work and will definitely take some time, so don’t rush it. Write out as much as you can in clear bulleted steps.
Don’t give up when it gets hard! Because that is the place others on your team would also likely get stuck. It can be helpful if you find a very difficult step to work through to think about how you would explain it to someone if you were training them to do this item. How would you break it down for that person? What would you want to make sure they fully understood?
- I love to use screenshots when I can to help simplify the directions and maybe cut down on the text.
Step 5:
Credits. At the end of the document make sure to include the name of who created the document as well as the date and a space for updates. This also becomes helpful as your business grows!
I hope this was helpful to understand why SOP’s are so vital to a growing business and provide a good starting point for creating your own.
Virtual Business Management 