Ever heard of an SOP?

It’s an acronym for ‘standard operating procedure’.

Usually, it consists of detailed, step-by-step instructions that establish a uniform method for carrying out specific tasks or processes.

I know, I know…

BIG YAWN!

You’re probably thinking that SOPs are just for established businesses to worry about.

Surely, they don’t apply to you if you just want to create courses from home!?

Well – hold on!

Bear with me for a second…

As you’re about to see, they could be one of the most powerful tools for setting up and growing your income.

It doesn’t matter what stage you are at either…

They could accelerate the process and save you a lot of time and headaches.

What’s more, they could actually make you money and help you grow an audience for your first course.

Let’s go through the 6 main benefits of an SOP…

1. Save yourself time and stress

Have you ever done a task that took some research to work out… got it right… and then (unless you have done it every day since) promptly forgotten how to do it?

It’s very common. I do it all the time.

Each time you come back to the task, you have to go through your research again.

Eventually, it becomes second nature, but for a long while, you waste time going back over the steps again and again.

Well, if you make it your habit to create a simple SOP every time you do a complex new task, then all you have to do is refer back to it.
SOPs are like a map that you create.

It will direct you, step by step, through the most essential business tasks you need to carry out.

Whenever you sit down to do something, just follow the SOP like a satnav and you’ll save a lot of time.

Plus, your brain will thank you for the reduced stress!

You see when you’re building a business for the first time, mistakes do happen.

But with solid SOPs in place, you’ll avoid a lot of them.

Certainly, you’ll never make the same mistake twice!

By following your own procedures, you’ll minimise errors and ensure that your work is consistently up to the same standard.

2. Outsource the boring and tricky stuff

I believe that – if you can – you should usually do a task first yourself to figure out what’s involved and how long it takes.

I actually often remind myself ‘learn, do, teach’ as I think it’s the best way to really understand something.

There are a few caveats to that…

For instance, you don’t necessarily need to build a website or design a logo…

But for most of the tasks in the course creation process… like designing some presentation slides, setting up an autoresponder email, or editing a video… you should know how it’s done.

However, there is no reason that you have to keep doing that task – especially if you find it boring, tricky, time-consuming, or maybe you just don’t like doing it.

Instead, you can outsource it to a freelancer!

Simply put your process into an SOP and then give that to a freelancer to follow, step by step, and you’ll get the same result as if you’d done it yourself (or even better!)

SOPs make outsourcing easy and much more reliable.

3. Free yourself from responsibilities

Have you ever felt like it’s easier to just do something yourself because things invariably go wrong when someone else does it?

It can really trap you, because you end up being responsible for every element of your business, meaning you spend far more time working than you need to.

So if you are working with business partners, contributing writers, designers or freelancers, then SOPs mean that there’s no room for confusion.

It’s basically a unified blueprint for running your business that everyone can follow.

4. Quickly scale up your income

When you have an SOP, you can start to bring in more contributors and team members to help build your business.

Usually, that requires a lot of work. It can be daunting to think of everything you’ll need to teach a new recruit to get them up to speed.

There are so many processes and systems that you take for granted that they will be clueless about.

In fact, before I created SOPs for my own business, it would take me ages to onboard new staff members – and I used to find it quite frustrating because it seemed so obvious to me.

But now I just hand them the SOPs!

With SOPs in place, you’ll be able to grow your business without breaking a sweat (or working 24/7).

5. Create alluring lead magnets…

Okay, so now it gets really interesting…

Even if you have no intention of outsourcing yet, or taking on partners and contributors, there is another very powerful way to use SOPs.

You can turn them into ‘lead magnets’ (a lead magnet is away of attracting your target audience to you).

Let’s imagine you have a course about designing artworks on Canva to sell on Etsy…

You could create SOPs about different parts of the process…

For instance, step-by-step instructions for creating a Canva account… instructions on creating different types of artworks such as logos, social media graphics, and printables… or instructions on how to upload and list artworks on Etsy.

Each of these could be an attractive lead magnet to attract potential customers.

Best of all, you’ve done the hard work already, so this is an easy one to create.

(Important: don’t give away all your SOPs for free – just concentrate on one part of the process. Your aim is that your audience will find your SOP leadmagnet helpful AND that it will encourage them to buy a course from you. If you give them all the SOPs they won’t need your course.

6. Make a PROFIT!

If saving time and frustration isn’t enough for you, then here is a final reason to create SOPs.

You can SELL them! They are the ultimate and most valuable type of swipe file.

If you have an SOP for something that took you a lot of research and hair-pulling to achieve, then think about how valuable that might be to someone else.

You’re basically offering them a proven shortcut.

This is why some SOPs could be sold as stand-alone information products.

Even better, they can be sold as part of a consulting package as a wonderful bonus add-on.

They can also create great content that forms the foundation of an online course.

Students love getting easy-to-follow instructions, which is what SOPs are, really.

So if you create a bunch of SOPs for all the things you do in your work, hobby or life role… you have effectively created the basis of a course – or multiple courses, potentially!

This is why I recommend getting into the SOP habit.

You’ll soon have a fantastic library of useful course content without much effort at all.

Anyway, I hope that’s inspired you.

But there’s more to come…

In up-and-coming emails to you I’ll show you the free tools I use that make creating SOPs super simple.

PLUS I can show you an SOP of an SOP (how meta!) so you can see exactly how to do it in the most efficient way possible.

And if you already use SOPs or create them yourself, I’d love to hear if you have a favourite process, or tools you use to create them, just comment below and let me know.