How documentation grows your business while giving you freedom

Upcoming events, a new digital product, and why I desperately want you to understand the value of creating standard operating procedures in your business!

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Hey there, it’s Meighan! Welcome to ⚙️Ops+Bots, a newsletter where I share insight into technology, creating better systems, and running a business online.

Some news + housekeeping!

• This week the newsletter was featured (along with other great newsletters) on Substack. 🥰

• This has brought in a lot of new subscribers! If you are new here, hello 👋 I’m so glad you are here!

• For members, ICYMI Marie Poulin of Notion Mastery, joined us last week, we had a GREAT convo:

• My friend Dama Jue, Funnels + Automations expert joins myself and our members on April 3rd at 12pm ET to discuss creating digital products and using lead magnets to increase sales! I’ll send info about that tomorrow.

• Exclusive supporting member workshop + work session, Creating Those Dang SOPs, is happening on April 17th at 2pm ET. I’ll go over SOP best practices and share some of my favorite things to turn into SOPs and then we’ll spend some time talking about what SOPs you should have and then we’ll work on them!

• Speaking of SOPs! I just launched a new digital product 🪄 SOP Alchemy

  Your ready-to-use system for creating SOPs in minutes! It gives you everything you need to create standard operating procedures (SOPs) with the use of ChatGPT and Loom video software. And it’s just $27!!

If you’re not a supporting member you can sign up below to join us and have access to the above events!

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Since I just launched 🪄 SOP Alchemy, I thought it would be a good time to talk about how standard operating procedures (SOPs) actually improve and help our online businesses.

Let’s face it, you started your business to create your own rules because you’re really good at what you do.

The point of this wild idea was to focus on what you do well, not to be mired in busy work.

Yet, if you’ve had any level of success in your business, you’ve most likely started to see that your business became kind of overrun with admin work around the 3 year mark. (Maybe earlier, maybe later judging by your success and pain threshold 😉).

And, if you’re like most business owners at this stage, you now feel like you’re immersed in the day-to-day of your business. If you have a team, you probably feel like you’re being pulled in all different directions, and rarely have a minute to yourself.

Invoicing, contracts, social media, ad creation, marketing, email, customer service, product creation, sales pages, emails, funnels…on and on.

This, my friends, is a normal plateau for online business owners. It really is. You started your business because of what you were good at, not because you were an operational whiz that wanted to hang out in the back end of your business.

The Buzzwords You Start to See Everywhere

Usually it’s around this time that you’re at a breaking point and need some kind of relief. You most likely begin to understand that you need “new systems” or it’s time to “optimize” or create “processes.”

Yet, you’re not sure where to begin.

So you start to look into these things called standard operating procedures (SOPs). But it all feels like a lot of administrative work. Any free time you do have the last thing you want to do is spend it on something that you equate to soul sucking.

I get it, when you’re overwhelmed and have little time it’s hard to sit down to work on something that you’re not sure what the exact ROI is.

A lot of documentation looks like bureaucratic walls of text. And nobody wants to read that, let alone spend time creating it. (Btw this is exactly why I created 🪄 SOP Alchemy: Your ready-to-use system for creating SOPs in minutes!)

Reverse Engineer Your Lizard Brain

Let’s do some reverse engineering from a reward perspective. This will help us see why it’s important, and maybe trick our lizard brains into some action. 😉

Studies show that habits tend to stick when the reward outweighs the stressor of the habit. (A great book on this is The Power of Habit by Charles Duhigg)

With this in mind, I want to share with you results that can happen when SOPs are part of your business.

Trust me. Your future self will love these results.

Here are 9 results that can and will take place if you start to implement standard operating procedures in your business today.

SOPs establish routines that lead to growth

Doing things consistently in business leads to data we can extrapolate from. You’ll often hear people like myself say do X for 90 days and see what the results are.

Using and referring to SOPs to take actions successfully ensures we have all the information and resources we need. Things like remaining visible in our niche, sending weekly newsletters, posting to social media, publishing an article or podcast, emailing past clients, generating leads, etc.

It saves us time from having to remember every. little. thing.

When things are easier it leads to us showing up every day consistently which leads to results which leads to growth in your business. 

SOPs preserves knowledge while creating easy access

We need more information than ever before to run our businesses. And while it’s easy to store that in our brains, studies have started to reveal this not only drains your energy, it’s just not sustainable to help you grow your business long term.

Creating SOPs for routine tasks and large projects (like sending your newsletter or launching a course) helps capture information in one central place - what’s referred to as “the single source of truth” - making it simple to find the info you need immediately and consistently.

AND, it helps build a library of resources that not only makes your business extremely efficient, it also makes it exceptionally valuable. If you ever want to sell your business, having a library of standard operating procedures is immensely valuable as a selling point.

SOPs identify inefficiencies, pinpoint bottlenecks, and areas to Improve

Dynamic SOPs of your tasks, events, projects, etc. in your business gives you a 30k view of your processes, allowing you to see where things can be tightened up, refined, and possibly removed.

When we trace our steps out visually we get to see what’s working and what’s not, very quickly.

Once we start to use these SOPs that insight doesn’t stop. As technology changes and our businesses grow, so will our SOPs. Having our processes documented makes it so much easier to catch new changes and see areas of opportunity to level up.

SOPs boosts effectiveness

Tired of recreating the wheel every time you launch or onboard a client? This is where SOPs are the MVP.

Creating comprehensive SOPs with links to tools, templates, and resources saves you the annoying habit of interrupting your flow to go find something, or worse have to write a whole series of emails. SOPs bring all the info you need for your tasks right at your fingertips.

If you have a team, it gives them control and leaves you out of the loop. More on this below.

SOPs minimize mistakes, confusion & errors

As above, when you have an SOP that’s up to date, it’s a literal recipe to make sure you don’t make mistakes.

I was on a live workshop recently where a lot went wrong. And listen, we've all been there, it happens. But SOPs can help minimize very simple mistakes. I ended up leaving the workshop because it was so chaotic, unfortunately.

SOPs create repeatable, top-notch customer service

Incredible customer service encourages repeat customers and word of mouth marketing. It is the best marketing there is. Period.

When a customer hands over their hard earned money they want to feel confident in the product or service they’re investing in.

I’m willing to bet you don’t want to look like an amateur, right? SOPs are your lifesaver. This not only captures all of the info you need, it allows you and your team to be extremely on point, creating an awesome client experience. 

When client’s have awesome experiences, they tell their friends and hire you again. When they don’t…well, we all know what happens here too!

SOPs creates a culture or autonomy and empowerment for your team

If you have a team or work with contractors, having SOPs set expectations, helps deliver awesome experiences for everyone involved, and gets you out of the weeds.

SOPs are one of the best ways to create a culture of accountability and autonomy in your business. When people are given the tools they need to do their job well and are left alone (and not micromanaged), this leads to happier teams and better output.

And best of all? This all leads to giving you back time to focus on what you love to do and take time off uninterrupted.

SOPs help onboard new team members easily and quickly

Have you ever trained someone from memory? IT’S EXHAUSTING. So many business owners repeat this chaos every time they bring someone new into their business.

Having SOPs that inform new team members is a giant time saver, and it ensures they’re trained correctly and confidently. It also takes so much stress off of everyone involved.

But the best part? SOPs retain institutional knowledge that will help your new hire do the best job they can without you having to show them every single thing.

SOPs save time which directly translates into money

When you create SOPs in your business it does all of the above and more. The bottomline is that by capturing and storing clear directions, information, and resources allows you to become more efficient in everything you do. 

It allows your team to help you.

It offers your clients a better experience. 

At the end of day it impedes chaos and errors in your business.

All of this leads to time saved, energy saved, and money saved.

Remember these results!

I know that taking time out of your already very busy life to document something you can do in your sleep feels like a drag. I get it, I truly do.

But I truly hope the above results will help you see that this exercise in your business will set you up to exceed in the long run. And your future self enjoying a vacation will be so happy you took care of them.

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If you dread creating SOPs, I’d love to invite you to check out my digital product 🪄 SOP Alchemy. I created it because I know what a drag it is to create SOPs from scratch.