This might seem like a grim topic given the times but this is a necessary conversation because many people are not talking about it.

In life we talk about preparing for death, crisis, and mishaps constantly. We are constantly inundated with insurance commercials, medication commercials, many of us put money in a savings account or 401K but when was the last time you really thought about what would happen to your business if you died?

Now maybe you have thought about this and have thought about setting up a trust and talked to your partner about taking over in your absence. But what you might not have thought about is the fact that your partner (in business or life) probably has no idea how to do your job. Think about this for a moment, if you died tomorrow and your partner had to pick up where you left off and keep the business running, would they know your passwords? Would they know how to run your social media? Would they know who to invoice and how to do that? I...

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....