SOP's Are Killing Your Business

As an OBM, I am no stranger to SOP’s. In fact, I am an SOP junkie and believe that one of the many keys to success in business is to have a solid foundation of SOP’s. So what are SOP’s anyway? Well SOP is short for Standard Operating Procedure, these are a list of steps needed to complete a task. Step by step instructions if you will.

Now you might think, “Melissa, why do I need SOP’s in my business. Things are running fine already!”. Maybe your business has 1, 10, or 50 people already and you are operating smoothly without these step by step instructions, but how do you intend to maintain quality and standard as you grow to a 1000 person company? Better yet, are you even sure you are maintaining quality right now?

I remember before I started my business I worked for a business finance company in their legal department. This role required I do everything a very specific way and it was done the exact same way every single time. Despite this being the case, I had no SOP’s and at the end of the day if my boss decided to just up and leave he would have taken all the SOP’s with him, because they lived in his head! The point being, this business was so reliant on my boss because of this level of knowledge that if he left it would have damn near destroyed the business. 

While it sounds great to have such a wonderful person in place who knows everything and handles it all, this is pretty much the worst position to be in as a business! Creating SOP’s in your business is a simple way to make sure that you as a business are not in a sticky situation if someone leaves, goes on vacation, or a new hire comes on. SOP’s tell people EXACTLY what to do, when to do it, and the reason why it needs to be done. 

The other blessing created by having SOP’s is that not only are people consistent, but when they aren’t, you have a measurement you can refer to. For example, if someone is to respond to client emails within 24 hours and that is not happening you can then use your SOP to remind the person in charge of this task what is expected of them. Plus if you need to let them go you can be sure they knew what the job was and how to do it (a nice protection against a lawsuit).

I highly recommend implementing SOP’s into your business for all recurring tasks. It doesn’t have to be all at once, but simply done in conjunction with the task. If you need someone to help you take this on and provide some guidance feel free to reach out to me, or schedule a call using this link HERE.