My Top 5 Business SOPs for Systems and Procedures
I’ve preached the importance of SOPs for your online business and tips on writing SOPs before. Today, I want to talk about a few specific systems where you need business SOPs. By writing SOPs for these business systems and procedures, you’ll be more efficient in your day, help future team members, and promote business growth. I’ll also share some examples to get your creative juices flowing on how you can use SOPs in your business.
Side note – with all SOPs, you want to be as specific as possible. Generalized instructions won’t help anyone. Include links, templates, videos, specific language, etc. if needed to help someone understand your business processes, systems and procedures.
1. Operational Systems
Consider these the day-to-day administrative processes or reference information on how you manage your business. What are the tools you use to manage your business, and how do you use them? What are your guidelines for using your branding? What tools do you use, and how do you use them?
Example: A resource SOP of your brand hex codes and logos or a procedural SOP on how you manage your calendar availability.
2. Client Management Systems
This includes the steps, processes, and tasks to intake, book, onboard, fulfill, and offboard your clients. As you can imagine, this can include a lot of things! Write an SOP for each task related to client management. What’s the process before a client works with you? What does your working relationship look like? What are the expectations around deliverables?
Example: A procedural SOP on how to onboard a new client for your signature service or how to send a client a gift.
3. Marketing Systems
An SOP for your marketing systems serves as your go-to guide on how you market your service offerings. I don’t believe in using every marketing channel available to you to market your business. That just sounds exhausting. Find a few that work well for you and your audience. Then, create SOPs around how you market your services on these platforms. Explain the process of completing a marketing task. How often do you do said marketing tasks? What are the steps to complete it? Is a template needed? What tools do you use to complete each marketing task?
Example: A procedural SOP on how to create and send your weekly newsletter.
4. Financial Systems
Include all the details on how you make that money (and keep it!) Make note of when you send invoices and when they are due. Keep track of how you organize your finances, when deposits are made, when payments are made, etc. Create an SOP to explain how money comes in and how it leaves. Do you use a single platform like Quickbooks to send and receive payments? Or do you also use PayPal, Stripe, Venmo, etc? These are things to consider adding to your SOP.
Example: A procedural SOP on how you reconcile your books (assuming you don’t have a bookkeeper do it for you).
5. Team or HR Systems
Make note of the steps or tasks you have in place to onboard, manage, or offboard a team member. When onboarding, do you send them SOPs (wink, wink) or training videos? You probably have to add them to the tools you use. How do you communicate tasks? Is it through a tool like Asana, ClickUp, or Trello? How is the team member expected to use this tool? When offboarding, what do you need from them before the contract is terminated? I’m giving you these questions to guide the creation of your SOPs! I don’t need to know the answer, but you certainly do!
Example: A resource SOP of your team meeting notes template or a new hire onboarding checklist.
The purpose of SOPs is for someone to come into the business and be able to take over. God forbid you’re hit by a bus, and your bestie or spouse has to manage your business, your collection of SOPs should give them enough information to understand how you run your business. That’s how detailed they should be!
Once you have your systems in place with SOPs written, you can start to automate. Going through your systems in depth like this serves as a mini-audit. Find areas that can be improved or automated to take more tasks off your plate. Investing the time into SOPs is something you won’t regret! If you need help establishing business systems and procedures, contact me! Systems are my jam, and I’d love to help you out!
About Solution Integrators
To keep it simple, I’m Ashley, a Chief Systems Officer. I take your complex problems and find ways to simplify them. My goal isn’t just to save you time (saving you time is the easy part!) – I want to fully level up the way you interact, manage, and fulfill offers for your clients. I want to help you provide a cohesive experience. An experience that not only feels like quality but looks that way, too. From onboarding to offboarding – I want to transform each phase of interaction from lead to signed client. Let’s work together!
