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Why You Need Standard Operating Procedures as a Solopreneur
Take the time to create documentation.
Running a solo business eliminates bogged-down procedures and red tape of working with a company. Want to make a pivot? You are the only decision-maker. Want to change a process? Go ahead and do it.
But at some point, every solo business owner starts to think about growth. That might mean bringing on a full-time hire or fractional help. At that point, you may find that you’re scrambling to explain the processes and procedures that exist only in your head to another person.
I ran into this a few months ago when I hired a virtual assistant. Within a short period of time between signing an agreement and her start date, I needed to create some standard operating procedures (SOPs). The SOPs explained the work she needed to do and also why that work was important for my business (to give her the appropriate context).
Since then, I’ve created standard operating procedures (SOPs) for other parts of my business, even those that I’m still doing myself. I don’t know what the future holds or at what point I might be passing off some of that work to other people. It’s better to create the documents now and tweak them than be in a mad scramble in the future.
Here are the steps I’m taking to create my SOPs and how I’m keeping them organized.
What Is a Standard Operating Procedure?
An SOP is a document that details exactly how a process gets done. It’s more than just what happens: it includes detailed step-by-step instructions, such as what button to click or text to enter. It may also have templates for emails or other communications.
Even my little one-person business will probably end up with hundreds of SOPs. There are so many things that I do that are specific to my process, the tools that I use, and how work happens behind the scenes.
Plus, I have another problem. I have a lot of automations running in the background, sometimes using Zapier and other times using built-in automation within a tool. Occasionally, I’ve flat-out forgotten an automation I have set up and what it’s doing. Later, I may need to tweak this automation and I can’t…
