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Welcome to BE THE EXPERT! In today’s issue:

• My SOP template for delegating work
• Systemizing your online business
• Meta Tests Improved Instagram to Threads Crossposting

Delegate To Accelerate

The more we delegate, the faster we can grow our businesses.

The question is, how?

In BTE #16 – Delegating Doesn’t Mean Losing Control, I talked about our three-step process for systemizing anything, which is:

1. Figure it out
2. Write it out
3. Delegate it out

As solopreneurs, many of us remain stuck doing the same work over and over again.

We’ve figured it out, meaning we’re creating and repurposing content, building and managing funnels, creating and delivering our programs.

We’re so wrapped up in the doing that we don’t get to the delegating.

Worse, when we realize we need to delegate, many of us go straight to hiring a virtual assistant, skipping step 2, which is writing out what we need done.

Why?

Because it seems tedious, it takes time.

You pay for a virtual assistant, and you still have to burn time (and money) showing them how to do things the way you want.

Often you also still wind up having to do portions of the work yourself if they can’t, so you never get to 100% delegated.

The missing link is simple, effective, standard operating procedures (SOPs).

After you’ve figured it out, and before you can delegate it out, step 2 of systemization is writing it out: creating your SOPs.

I’m going to show you the template we use that powers ALL of ours.

But first, let us quickly cover the difference between processes and procedures.

Processes vs. Procedures

In everything we do in my agency and teach in our programs, we talk about defining your business in terms of systems, processes, and procedures.

Systems are big areas like Content, Traffic, Marketing, Sales, Support, etc.

Each system, like Content, is broken down into major processes like planning, creating, editing, repurposing, and publishing.

Then, finally, each of those has procedures (SOPs) and documentation of the steps that need to be done.

Here’s an example of what that looks like:

In our Content System, one of the processes is Repurpose Video Content.

This is after it’s been created and edited.

Within Repurpose Video Content, there are a LOT of steps.

We wouldn’t want a mile-long document with all of those steps in there.

Why?

Because they may be done by different roles, may be done at different times, and may have dependencies on eachother, etc.

So we break the process into procedures.

Examples include:

• Generate and correct the transcript
• Identify highlight segments
• Turn highlight segments into reels
• Identify quotes
• Turn quotes into image posts

Just in that short list, we assign those procedures to three different roles (an AI assistant, a VA, and an editor)

Over time, as AI tools have gotten better, we’ve been able to assign more of these tasks to AI assistants.

Breaking things down into this three-tier structure (systems, processes, procedures) allows us to change and update things quickly without rewriting a huge document any time we change a tool or role assignment.

Now that you understand our definition of a procedure, let’s take a look at our SOP template.

Simple SOP Template

Our goal with the template is to have all our SOPs follow the same format for consistency.

We assign SOPs to different team members to execute, so there needs to be enough information for them to complete the procedure on their own successfully.

Our SOPs have two major sections.

The first is metadata about the procedure itself:

SOP Metadata (context)

• Which system it belongs to (ex. Content System)
• Which procedure it belongs to (ex. Repurpose Video Content)
• Status (Idea, Draft, Done, Approved)
• Diagram (if applicable, a visual diagram of the steps)
• Who is Responsible, Accountable, Consulted, Informed (RACI)
• When it was last updated
• Who made the last update

Side note: If you aren’t familiar with RACI charts, that’s definitely a concept to check out as you think about building a team.

Marrying that to our SOPs has helped bring clarity and better results.

SOP Body (details)

Each of our SOPs follows this outline:

• Purpose
• Prerequisites
• Demonstration
• Procedure
• Quality Checks

Purpose

This section sets the context of what the SOP is all about and what the expected outcome is.

In our ongoing example, the Select Highlight Segments From A Video SOP would have a purpose section describing how it is part of our content service, helps people get more content from a given video, etc.

Prerequisites

This is the list of tools, permissions, and information the person executing the procedures needs to have to start.

Listing these ensures they don’t get halfway through and realize they can’t finish it.

Demonstration

This one is critical. We don’t want to have to write down every single step and click that needs to be done.

We record a screen share (Loom, etc.) of the entire procedure from start to finish.

This way, regardless of how much we write down, there is a full video demo that whoever the SOP is assigned to can refer to to see how its done.

After the demo section, the next section is the Procedure.

This is a bullet list of the main steps that need to be completed or a checklist, etc.

The assumption here is that the person the SOP is assigned to has the underlying basic skills needed.

This means we’re not teaching them how to use an editing tool as an example in an SOP. We would consider that training and is a separate topic.

Assuming they know the basics of the required tools, the procedure steps generally tell them what to do.

These include finding good highlights, selecting and color coding them, duplicating them into a new composition, applying a template, etc.

Quality Checks.

The final section of the template is the quality checks.

Most of the SOP templates I see leave this out entirely, but it is a key part of ours.

The quality checks are defined so both the person executing the SOP and you, as the creator of the SOP, are on the same page about expected results and how it will be checked.

On my team, we expect the person executing the SOP to go through the quality checks. Then, for many of them, we have a second person also check the work by looking at the quality checks.

In the RACI model referenced above, the person executing the SOP is the Responsible party. Then, we assign a different role, like a project manager or myself, as the Accountable party and do the quality check.

Integrating Project and Process Management

We define a project as a set of work with a start, finish, and deliverables.

We define processes as recurring activities that are executed on an ongoing basis.

The way we join these together in our work scheduling is we assign SOP as tasks.

We don’t have long, complicated tasks in our project management system.

Instead, for a given process like Repurpose Video Content we have a template that includes a task for each SOP that needs to be executed and which role each is assigned to.

In other words, ONE execution of the “Repurpose Video Content” process is a project (since it now has a start, finish, and deliverables)

The “tasks” in the project are simple: they are pointers to the SOPs that need to be executed.

This way, we can work on both projects and processes in parallel.

How To Get Started

It may sound like a lot of work, but here’s the key: you are ALREADY doing the work!

What you need to do now is just capture what you are already doing.

Record a screen share each time you do a repeat activity and describe what you are doing and why.

With just that and a Google doc, you can start making some basic SOPs using the structure I’ve described.

From there, you can add more of the details over time with step-by-step instructions, QA checks, etc.

If you commit to doing this for each activity you are doing, it doesn’t take long to build up a library of the key SOPs your business needs.

THEN, you are ready to finally delegate them.

Take Action

Delegating is essential to growing from solo to virtual CEO.

Start breaking down your business into the systems, processes, and procedures required for success.

Figure out, write out, and delegate out as much of the work as you can.

If you would like support in doing that (or even a full team to delegate to), reply to this email, and we can schedule a chat about what that can look like.

Saturday Sunday Spotlight 💡

Content Spotlight:​

In this video, I break down the exact steps you need to take to analyze, design, document, automate, and delegate your way to a fully systemized operation.

Tool Spotlight:​

Expert Business ACCELERATE – This is the suite of tools we use to establish and run a content engine AND where members of our programs run theirs.

The ​Start Your Content Engine​ program INCLUDES the ACCELERATE Suite:

• Plan and Manage Your Content Engine
• Host a YouTube Channel, Podcast, and Blog
• Record and Edit All Of Your Content
• Repurpose Your Content Into All Formats
• Schedule and Publish All Of Your Social Media Posts
• Integrated Live Tech Support 24×7

News Spotlight:​

​Meta Tests Improved Instagram to Threads Crossposting​ – Social Media Today

Threads is working on streamlined Instagram integration, which would make it easier to share your IG content direct to Threads.