Standard Operating Procedures

Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) are necessary and useful items for every business to have. An SOP is simply a written document that details all steps and activities of a process or procedure in your business.

SOPs are very easy to write. The way you can make them so easy is to start with one or two sentences about the things that you care about. Start by observing your everyday business actions and write down what you already do in one or two sentences. Once you are done, you will find that you actually do things relatively frequently in your life and in your business.

If you collect these pages together and give them to somebody else, all of a sudden they can follow what you wrote down in that manual and do what you do. By doing this you have created a rudimentary but valid system. You are potentially able to walk away, hand someone the SOP and have them run your business for you.Standard Operating Procedures

The idea is to have one or two sentences about each of the activities in your business. If you start with one or two sentences about each one of these points, in no time you will have created your standard operating procedure.

My next blog will cover some of the areas you will need to have a SOP for. By simply going down the list and writing one or two sentences, you can have a fully functional SOP for your business.