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Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs)

Giving Your Company the Ability to Grow

Issue: 17.5 (September/October 2019)
Author: Susan Fennema
Author Bio: Susan is the Chaos Eradicating Officer (CEO) of Beyond the Chaos (www.beyondthechaos.biz), a consultancy helping small business owners gain control of their lives through better processes, organization, and structure of their projects and business operations. As a graduate of Texas A&M University with a BA in journalism from Texas A&M University, she has over 30 years' experience in the software development, creative, marketing, and advertising industries. In 2016 and 2018, she spoke at XDC and enjoys being part of the Xojo community.
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Article Number: 175008
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Excerpt of article text...

You are running a small business. You diligently plan your sales, your finances, your resources and your marketing. And, you get things done. But, you are overlooking an integral area in your business as far as growth. You cannot scale your company unless you follow consistent processes by creating SOPs (standard operating procedures.)

This even applies if you are solo. It is important that you (and your team) know what to do, when to do it, and how to do it. If you can consistently repeat the same activities, you get better customer service, increased productivity, and better communication. You will retain any employees or subcontractors longer and will be able to attract better team members. It can even affect your branding if your team isn't doing and saying the same things for your customers.

Here's an example: Jeremy runs a small catering company. At first, it was just he and his wife. Ann did the sales. He did the cooking. She managed the finances. He managed the marketing. They had limited resources, working out of their home. But, they saw success fast. Their reputation was superb; their service exceed expectations and before they knew it, they needed to find a commercial kitchen and hire people to cook, serve and drive because they were getting so much business.

Building a Team

With the addition of employees, they had diligently planned the finances to make sure they always made payroll and rent. They kept up their marketing and sales. But they didn't have any processes in place. Drivers were not delivering the correct amount of flatware and glassware. They were losing these valuable resources when they didn't know the right amount to pick up. Cooks were not consistently putting out food, and servers were not answering guests' questions correctly in regard to future sales opportunities.

Initially, they started losing customers to these oversights and the couple learned quickly what the problem was. There was no way to consistently serve their customers without sharing their vision and setting up their team for success by giving them a set of operating procedures to follow.

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