Today’s no different from any other day – yep, you guessed it, I’m still going on about SOPs! That’s because the importance of SOPs in your business is totally underrated.
I know from personal experience that navigating the online business world can be treacherous territory. But getting SOPs right can protect your business from alllll kinds of potential catastrophes along the way.
‘But what’s so great about SOPs?’, I hear you ask! Well, let me break it down for you.
SOPs help you stay organized, deliver consistency and most importantly, allow you to delegate tasks within your biz more easily. Not to mention the HUGE returns they’ll give you in the long run! They allow you to free up some of your precious time to concentrate on the important stuff, like being a visionary leader, spending time with your family and even taking that vacay you’ve been dreaming of (hell yeah!).
And hello – this is 2020! There are TONS of resources, programs, templates and apps out there that are built to help you get your sh*t together and run your biz like clockwork.
I get it – if you don’t understand how SOPs can help your biz work FOR you, it’s easy to find yourself feeling overwhelmed, totally confused or reaching for the cookie jar out of misery.
But don’t sweat it! I’ve got your back.
I want to share with you some of the invaluable tips and tricks I’ve been using to grow my business. More specifically – what I’ve done to delegate the tasks within my biz and grow my online team (the dream, right?!).
That’s why I’ve created a little slice of video gold for you to feast your eyes on. It’s all about digging into one of the most valuable tools I use everyday in my business. I’m going to show you how to easily organize those pesky SOPs once and for all!
I’m often asked what I use to house all of my documents so that everybody on my team has access and stays in the loop. And for me, that tool is Google Drive. I’ve been using GD since the very beginning when my office was my front porch (come rain or shine!). In the last couple of years, GD has also been paramount to setting up my SOPs and allowing various levels of access to my team members, so that I can delegate with ease and create consistency in my biz. Woo!
In this mini-masterclass video, I’ll be showing you what the backend of my team’s Google Drive looks like. It’s going to give you a TON of ideas and get your creative juices flowing for how you want to organize the systems in your own online business.
So let’s get this show on the road!
(P.S – You can also scroll down to catch a written breakdown of this vid to refer back at any time. You’re welcome!)
A glance into my Google Drive
We use our Master Files folder to organize expansive documents that help us track large amounts of information over long periods of time. These include client retainers, client contact details, subcontractor contact details, and mail merges.
In the SOPs folder, we house every single Sarah Noked OBM system. We break these down by category (which will be unique for every business) and each sub-folder houses the SOPs for the repeatable tasks associated with that category of the business. For example, we have a “Managing Projects” folder which houses SOPs for weekly time reporting to clients, how & when to communicate with clients, and monitoring the hours used by subcontractors on client work.
We use a separate folder for our templates and canned emails. Sometimes multiple SOPs will reference and contain a link to the same template. Keeping these templates separate and linking them within SOPs makes maintenance a breeze. If a template changes, that’s the only document we have to update.
The same goes for our Guidelines Folder. Sometimes multiple SOPs will reference and contain a link to the same Guidelines document. Keeping these guideline documents separate makes it extremely easy to keep our SOPs up to date.
There you have it! Now you can begin to organize your own SOPs like a BOSS.
And remember – every growing business should be documenting the most complete SOPs possible, so that your processes can scale with your team.
Without them, you risk providing inconsistent services and spending your valuable time cleaning up your own train wrecks.
So by starting with the right tools and detailing the processes you use every day, you’ll be on your way to a collection of foolproof SOPs to help you rock your online biz!
Now over to you: What are you using to manage your SOPs? What’s working for you? What’s not working for you? I want to know!
