Ep 79. Ready to Delegate? How to Make It Easier With SOPs

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Or you can think about SOPs. You can think of it like a

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GPS for your business tasks. All right. Do

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y'all remember MapQuest and having to print out the paper

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instructions? Before you went somewhere before we

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had all of the navigation on our phones. Anybody remember that? All right.

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So just like a GPS gives you. The turn by

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turn directions to get to your destination. And

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SOP provides detailed steps to complete a

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specific task. You are now tuned in to the

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mom CEO suite podcast. I'm your host,

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Phylicia, wife, mom, and entrepreneur. In

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this podcast, I'll be sharing my mompreneur journey along with

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strategies that will help you build your online business operations

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in a sustainable way. The goal is to help you build a business that

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fits into your lifestyle as a mom who values putting family

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first. We will also hear the experiences and expertise

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of other moms with service based businesses. You'll get a peek into

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our journeys so you'll know that you aren't alone.

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Motherhood gets hard. Entrepreneurship gets hard. But

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together we can do hard things.

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Welcome to the suite.

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Hey, Fran. Welcome to another episode. Thank you so much for being here. So today

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we are talking about delegation and we're talking about this

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because this is a huge part of.

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Allowing mompreneurs to experience work-life harmony. Okay.

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Um, so before diving in, I want to give you a couple of

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resources. So, back in episode 59 of the

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podcast, I talked about 15 tasks to delegate as a

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busy mom preneur. That's the link in the show description. And then

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the harmony private podcasts. Module six

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talks about delegation and it gives a biblical framework for

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how to do it responsibly. And so if you want to access either of

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those, the link is in the show description. Okay.

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So. When they come to delegation, sometimes

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it can feel hard for some people. And for a few different

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reasons, which I'm about to get to outside of just not having resources

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to do it. Like financial resources. Um, and

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so some of the reasons might be, and I want you to

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think, does this apply to me? Am I struggling with this? When it comes

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to delegation? so fear of losing control or that

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things are not going to be done to your standard.

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All right. Fear of mistakes being made by other

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people. Maybe it's, short-term thinking that you

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have, So you see delegation as more time

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consuming in the immediate term. So you say things to

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yourself, like it'll be quicker if I do it. But if in the

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long run, if you do that in the long run, it's just taking up more

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of your time. Or maybe you see your business as

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your baby. And you don't trust anyone else with it?

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Yikes. Or maybe you just might not have

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experienced doing it, and you're not sure how to do it

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effectively. Maybe you actually want to delegate and

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you're ready. You're really not struggling with anything else besides the fact that

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you are trying to find the right people. Okay, now all feelings are

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valid. But for some of these things, in fact, many of the

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challenges that I've just mentioned. Having SOPs

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we'll make it less challenging. Okay. So what are

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SOPs? SOPs are standard operating procedures. That's

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what the letter stand for. Standard operating procedures.

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And so here's a couple of ways you can think about them.

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You can think of an SOP, like a recipe for your

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business tasks. Okay. So just like a recipe tells

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you exactly how to make. A

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particular dish. And SOP gives you the

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step-by-step instructions for a specific

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task. All right now, this way,

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anybody who is following your SOP, they know

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exactly what to do. And how to do it. And this

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ensures that. Everything is done

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consistently and correctly.

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Okay. Or you can think about SOPs.

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You can think of it like a GPS for your business tasks.

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All right. Do y'all remember MapQuest and having to print

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out the paper instructions? Before you went somewhere

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before we had all of the navigation on our phones. Anybody remember that?

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All right. So just like a GPS gives you.

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The turn by turn directions to get to your

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destination. And SOP provides detailed steps to

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complete a specific task. And again, this is ensuring

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that anybody who follows your SOP, they know

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exactly what to do and they don't get lost along the way.

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All right. So I hope that makes it a little bit more simple to

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understand. So when you have an SOP, it's just super

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handy for delegating tasks, because it really takes the

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guesswork out. And it helps to maintain.

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Quality and efficiency. All right. I talked about

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efficiency in uh, past episode, I don't remember which one, but I really explained

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what efficiency is. So going back to

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why. You might be struggling to delegate. When you have

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SOPs, you won't have to worry about things not being done to your

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standard because you have given them the standard

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and the step-by-step instructions on how to reach or create

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that standard. Right. So the SOP is the standard.

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So you don't have to worry about them. Not doing it correctly.

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When you have SOPs, you reduce the chances of

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mistakes being made. Okay. So obviously there's going to be

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human error with things. But the mistakes that are made.

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You know, just because somebody is trying to figure out a process.

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Those are going to be limited. If you have SOPs.

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When you have SOPs, you are telling people how to treat your

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business, baby. All right. You're telling

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people how to take care of it. And so for

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example, this is, More of a personal example, but

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anytime somebody watched one of my kids for the first time, Uh,

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they got a document. Okay. And this document,

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it outlined. What needs to happen? It

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outlined how it needed to happen. When it needed to

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happen in, you know, giving some tips on how they can

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make it happen. Right. So I had a quote unquote, SOP

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for taking care of my kids because I knew what worked. I knew

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what didn't work. And so same thing for your business, you

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know, what works, you know, what doesn't work. And so the person that's going to

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be quote unquote, watching your business or taking over these tasks.

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Either. And your absence for a short period, or

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you're just relieving yourself of this particular duty. Now

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they have something to go off of and they know they know what the standard

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is. And they know how to take care of and treat your, your business baby.

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So, if you're saying to yourself, you know, I don't know

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what to write in SOP for, or I don't know how

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to write an SOP. You're in the right place.

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I have a toolkit. It's called the simple SOP toolkit.

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If you're listening to this episode between July 21st and July

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31st. You can access this toolkit.

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For free through the systemizing skill bundle.

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Okay. Now in this toolkit, You actually get access

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to my. SOPs may easy masterclass.

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And in that masterclass, it's a short 30 minute masterclass. I

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break down the anatomy. Of an SOP, the

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life cycle of an SOP. And I give you some time saving strategies

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for writing SOPs. Um, and then in the

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toolkit, you also get access to.,

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Some information on some tools that will help you to.

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Create visual aids for your SOPs. And you also

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get a few chat, GPT prompts. That will

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help you create SOPs. Okay. So again, if

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you're listening to this between July 21st, 24th and the

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31st, you can access the toolkit,

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um, click the link in the show description. If it's after July 31st, the

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toolkit is still available on my website for $49. And I'll

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put that link in the description as well. Now, if you're

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listening to this after the 31st and you're like, man, I want to keep up

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with what you're doing in real time. you don't want to miss out on these

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special promotions and opportunities that you want to make sure that you join.

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The email community for the moms CEO suite.

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And you can join that by going to the mom CEO,

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suite.com/connect. The mom

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CEO, suite.com/connect. All

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right. So Mike, I mentioned in the masterclass, I do go in

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depth in how to effectively write and manage SLPs.

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But today I want to give you five quick and easy

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starter tips. For writing your SOPs, just some

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quick tips to get you started. So number

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one. Is keep it simple. Keep it very

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simple. You want to use clear,

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straightforward, clean language. Okay. This is not

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the time to. You know, use all of the industry

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jargon and be super eloquent, all those things, right. You want to

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keep your sentences short and to the point.

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Okay. So for each of these steps, I'm going to use an example. We're going

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to talk about creating, um, an SOP for client onboarding. All

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right. So an example, one of the components of an SOP is your

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title. So keeping a title, simple looks

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like. Client onboarding process. That's

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it. You don't want to say something like this is the process. for

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creating the client onboarding for XYZ business.

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No, you want to keep it very simple, very short. And to the

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point. All right. Number two is you want to

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be specific. So you want to break down your

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tasks into very small, actionable steps.

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And this is one of the reasons why I like the

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tool Komodo that I use to document.

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processes. Because sometimes we do things and we

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don't know all of the steps that we're taking to do it. And that tool

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really captures every single step. And so when it comes to your

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SOP, you want to include every detail that somebody is going to need

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to be able to complete the task correctly.

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So in example, Um, let's say you

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are sending the welcome email for your client onboarding and your

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steps look like. Log

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into your email. Client. You want to give them

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the login credentials, if they don't already have them. Right.

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Then it can say open the email template, title X, Y, Z.

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Next step personalized the template with the clients.

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Name and address. You know, or whatever your process looks like.

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Okay. So you want to break each step down into

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smaller tasks. If you just say, send welcome email.

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Then that leaves lots of room for, you

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know, mistakes. They can interpret it their

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own way. They have no guidelines So you want to give.

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Very small, actionable steps. All

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right. Number three is to use visuals and we're using

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visuals because people learn in different ways. So though you

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may have. your steps are written out. Some people are visual.

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Some people, need to see pictures. Some people need to watch a

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video. People. They just learn differently. Okay.

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So whatever you can do. To make the instructions easier

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to follow. You want to add that again? Whether it's screenshots,

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diagrams, videos. It's really going to

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help clarify something. That's going to be.

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Hard to understand in words. Okay.

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Um, next step. step. number

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four is that you want to create a template. Okay.

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So use a simple template for all of your SOPs

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to keep them consistent. And again, this is something that I talk about in the

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SOP is made easy. Masterclass is just having

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a consistent naming convention. Um, and this goes along

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with having this template. But you want your SOPs

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to be consistent. Okay. You don't want.

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Different SOPs to have different structures. This just helps to

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eliminate confusion. Throughout the process. All

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right. And then number five, you want to

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test it out? Either you can test it or you can

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have somebody else tested because they might catch something that maybe you

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won't. You want to test out links? You want to just test out the process

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to see if it makes sense. And get any feedback. So that you

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can, just improve it. For

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clarity, make sure it's as clear as possible and that it. just

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encompasses the entire process. Okay.

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So those are five tips for you to get started with writing

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your SOPs. Just a quick recap. Number one, keep it simple.

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Number two, be specific. Number three, use visuals.

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Number four, create a template and number five, test it

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out. All right, so you should be able to get started writing your SOPs with

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this, and then if you want to dig deeper, make sure you access the simple

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SOP toolkit. Either for free through the systemize and scale

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bundle, or you can get it on the website. All of the

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links are in the show description. If you have any questions about SLPs,

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feel free to shoot me a DM over on Instagram. Thank

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you so much for tuning in and I'll see you in the next episode.

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Thank you for listening to the Mom CEO Suite Podcast. If

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