One of many largest myths in entrepreneurship is that the extra concerned you might be in each a part of your small business, the extra profitable will probably be. Lies, I let you know!
Hustle tradition glorifies being “within the weeds.” However I’m gonna lay it down: if your small business can’t run with out you, you then don’t personal a enterprise. You’ve constructed your self a really demanding job.
The trail to freedom doesn’t come from working tougher. It comes from designing a enterprise that runs itself. This week, I need to offer you one instrument to begin making that shift, and it’s one thing I name the mini-SOP.
What the heck is a mini-SOP?
A mini-SOP (customary working process) is a small, streamlined technique to doc and delegate a process. It’s not a 30-page ops handbook gathering mud on a shelf. It’s fast, usable, and repeatable. It’s one thing your group will truly use and enhance.
Consider it this manner: your small business is stuffed with duties you do robotically, with out pondering. Answering a weekly electronic mail. Publishing a weblog. Posting to social media. Working payroll. What if another person might do a kind of for you, precisely the way in which you do it?
You don’t want to rent a techniques marketing consultant or construct a posh workflow instrument to get began. You simply want your telephone and three to 5 steps.
Right here’s what to do.
Your 10-minute project
Choose one easy, recurring process that you simply do each week. Ensure that it’s one thing that doesn’t require deep technique; simply clear execution.
Now, report a fast video (2–5 minutes) displaying precisely the way you do it.
- Open your display screen recording instrument or telephone digital camera.
- Discuss via the steps as when you’re educating a group member.
- Hold it easy. Suppose: “Open this instrument → Click on this tab → Paste the content material → Hit publish.”
That’s it. You simply made your first mini-SOP.
Now, hand it off.
Let your group member take it and run with it. Don’t hover. Don’t excellent. Let it’s imperfect, however out of your head. Solely revisit or enhance it as soon as the duty runs with out you.
That is how companies scale. Not with large reinvention, however with small techniques executed constantly.
And, it builds simple empowerment in your workers.
Not that: Don’t construct a giant handbook
Let me be tremendous clear right here: don’t write an operations handbook. Don’t create a giant doc stuffed with bullet factors nobody will learn.
We’ve all been there. We construct an SOP library with the perfect of intentions, solely to seek out it turns into an unused digital graveyard.
Mini-SOPs are totally different. They’re dwelling instruments, not static paperwork. They’re constructed for use and improved in actual time. Begin small. Keep sensible. Construct whereas in movement.
Why this works
While you take away duties out of your plate and cross them to your group, you’re doing greater than saving time. You’re constructing a self-sustaining machine. And it begins with one process.
Wish to see this idea in motion? Right here’s the way it ties immediately into my core techniques:
- Clockwork: In Chapter 4 (pages 71–77), we discuss concerning the Queen Bee Position—the important exercise that retains your small business thriving. Mini-SOPs assist shield that position by shifting every little thing else off your plate.
- Repair This Subsequent: Chapter 5 (pages 89–95) is all about eradicating bottlenecks. Guess who the most important bottleneck normally is? Yep—you. By documenting and delegating duties, you unencumber house and pace up progress.
- Revenue First: Methods aren’t nearly time—they’re about cash too. Chapter 9 (pages 165–171) exhibits you easy methods to create constant money movement via systematization. The extra predictable your processes, the extra steady your income.
A mini-SOP might really feel small. However that one small handoff is a giant transfer towards true enterprise freedom.
An actual-life instance
A enterprise proprietor I labored with had a bottleneck round posting her weekly publication. Each Thursday morning, she’d panic to get it written, designed, formatted, and despatched. It took two hours and a number of psychological house.
We recognized it as the primary mini-SOP alternative.
She made a display screen recording of her course of, narrated it as soon as, and handed it to her assistant. Inside one week, the duty was off her plate. Inside three weeks, her assistant had improved the method, added templates, and scheduled it out two months prematurely.
Growth. Freedom.
That is what’s doable if you doc in movement and delegate with belief.
Closing thought – Construct as soon as, run perpetually
One of the best techniques in enterprise are those that preserve working with out your fixed enter. That’s the great thing about a mini-SOP. You construct it as soon as, and it runs perpetually with another person on the wheel.
One step. One process. One video.
Then one other.
And one other.
Fairly quickly, your small business is working due to you, not solely on you.
As Michael Gerber famously stated in The E-Fable Revisited:
“Methods run the enterprise. Folks run the techniques.”
Begin your first mini-SOP at this time. Let it’s easy. Let it’s imperfect. However let it’s carried out.
You’ve bought this.
– Mike
For extra perception, try the sources right here:
The Cash Behavior: https://bookshop.org/a/4474/9781774586433
Get Totally different: https://bookshop.org/a/4474/9780593330630
Repair This Subsequent: https://bookshop.org/a/4474/9780593084410
Revenue First: https://bookshop.org/a/4474/9780735214149
Pumpkin Plan: https://bookshop.org/a/4474/9781591844884
All In: https://bookshop.org/a/4474/9780593544501
Clockwork: https://bookshop.org/a/4474/9780593538173
Cash Bunnies: https://bookshop.org/a/4474/9780578929989
Podcast: The Don’t Write THAT Ebook podcast has been serving to (and entertaining) authors and entrepreneurs alike. Give a pay attention in your favourite podcast platform at this time.
Mike Michalowicz is the writer of Get Totally different, Revenue First, Clockwork, All In, Surge, The Rest room Paper Entrepreneur, The Pumpkin Plan, and The Cash Behavior. He’s on a mission to eradicate entrepreneurial poverty and assist enterprise homeowners construct wildly profitable, radically fulfilling firms.
