These terms get tossed around a lot, but what do they actually mean and why do we need to know about them? Let’s dive into this listener question together.
Do you have a question that you’d like to hear answered in a future episode?
What is an SOP?
A standard operating procedure shows how a task is done inside your unique business, from start to finish. Different teams will show the process using different tools such a Google Docs or Loom videos but the end goal is the same.
How can SOPs help my business?
An SOP increases the chance the task will be done quickly, efficiently, and at the same quality standard you want representing your brand. It helps the end product be the same no matter who does the task. High quality SOPs will also eliminate questions and delays and allow one team member to execute a task from start to finish with little to no assistance from others.
What are workflows?
I think of a workflow as a detailed list of steps in a process. A customer or client workflow might show where a lead is coming from, what their first touch point in your brand is, and what experiences are being offered to them after they arrive to anticipate their needs and serve them at a high level.
For some types of tasks, a workflow could feel like a checklist of steps that a team member goes through every single time a product or piece of content is created. By taking the most efficient path and using the same tech stack every time, the business assets end up stored in a way that the entire business can predict and anticipate. Work across the brand looks uniform when workflows are in place and from the outside world it often looks like only one person is running the business because everything is so smooth.
How can workflows help my business?
Some workflows can be automated through an email service provider like Flodesk, a CRM such as Dubsado, or a DM assistant like ManyChat. But it’s best practice to create, use, and refine workflows before automating them. We want to make sure a workflow is effective before repeating it and putting it on autopilot.
–> I’d love to support your business
Learn more here
–> Do you have a win-win story to share with the teacher business community?
Apply to be a guest here
–> Let’s chat business on Instagram @teacherjaniceva
Reach out on Instagram here
Read the transcript:
[00:00:00] Janice: I am back with another bonus episode. That means a listener asked a juicy question, and I’m here to share my answer.
[00:00:34] Today’s question has multiple parts. This person is looking for tips for keeping business organized SOPs and workflows, so let’s break those down. A tip for keeping business organized is to bring all of the details that live in your brain, and on paper notebooks, and post-it notes and store them in a safe
[00:00:57] digital space. My favorite place to store things is in Asana and Asana is my free project management tool that serves as the home base for everything. And I absolutely keep things in Google Drive, and I absolutely keep things in my email inbox, and I absolutely keep things in Dubsado that are client related, but all of those places
[00:01:21] link back to my master hub, which is Asana. And Asana is that bossy main office secretary that tells me exactly what to do at the beginning of my day and hands me on a silver platter of a clipboard exactly what I need to do it. And what that means is if today my job is to write a blog post, my outline for that blog post and the steps that I want to take every time I make an optimized blog post are already inside that task.
[00:01:53] And the time I’m going to do the task might also be mentioned in there too. So if it says that at 8:30 AM my daughter’s gonna leave for school and I’m gonna start working on that blog post, then it’s already gathered for me all the bits and pieces that I’m gonna need to do it. The Canva link to the project where I keep my blog images that are already sized and branded is already in there.
[00:02:18] The steps that I take, that outline, the keyword opportunity, all the login information for all the things I’m gonna need to touch to do that task are all already there. So my job is just to walk in and open the task, and go through the checklist. And so when we talk about keeping our business organized, that’s more than just having everything in a Google Drive folder.
[00:02:42] When we add the SOP, the standard operating procedure of how we like a task done, and we take that checklist out of our brain and put it into something we can see now we have a workflow. Now we have a way that business is done inside our business. This is how I write a blog post. This is the process I go through to pin something on Pinterest.
[00:03:09] This is my signature process for making a resource that goes in my store. First, I do research. Here’s what that looks like. Here’s where I go. Here’s where I put it. Here’s the specific questions I’m going out to solve. Here’s how long I’m gonna allow myself to spend on that research. Here’s how long I’m gonna spend gathering the clip art and choosing the fonts.
[00:03:33] Here’s a list of the fonts and clip art that I usually use so that things are matching and stay aligned to my brand. All of that is part of business organization. We’re thinking beyond Google Drive. We’re taking the ways that we usually do things and we’re making them a little more formal so that we have a checklist and a signature process that’s living somewhere other than your brain.
[00:04:00] And so business organization is a little bit of a spiral curriculum. We’re not going to get all of these systems and processes out of our brain in one day. We’re not gonna clean up every little digital touch point in our business in one day. But it’s something that we commit to. We’re saying my business is really important to me, and because it’s important
[00:04:23] I want to keep it organized so that I don’t lose things and I wanna be able to find things quickly because my time is of value. And I don’t wanna spend time explaining things to people over and over again when I could be writing down the process once in a way that’s digital and shareable. And I don’t wanna have to recreate a template because I can’t find the file I used last time. And I don’t want to lose a great idea I found in a past research session because I didn’t bank it in a safe space.
[00:04:56] So digital organization isn’t about winning a prize or a ribbon, it’s about honoring the business that we’ve built and thinking about it in a way where we really want it to reach its potential long term. And all the businesses that you admire are organized in some way because their CEO really cares about them deeply and the long-term health of that business is worth taking the time
[00:05:24] to keep things organized. So a very short answer to what was a very long open-ended question, but I hope that those ideas help you here how I think about digital organization and why I am so passionate about it and why I really do think it’s worth time in our busy CEO calendar. Do you have a teacher business question you’re hoping to hear answered on the podcast?
[00:05:52] I’ll leave a link for you in the show notes. Thanks for listening.
Here is a playlist of other episodes I think you will enjoy about SYSTEMS AND ORGANIZATION:
📌 Pin Digital organization, SOPs, and Workflows
