How To Build a Business That Runs Itself

In the session, our host Norm Farrar, and guest speaker Vinay Patankar talk about how to build your business to run itself and give you the much-needed break that you’re after.

We want to teach you how to create an ‘SOP,’ Standard Operating Procedure, to help you scale your business the right way. Forget the awful cycle of hiring people to help you build and scale your business only to find that you don’t have the time to train them… leading to you believing they’re not good enough to work for you.

Scaling or Stepping Away

You’d want to follow the Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) for two reasons.

1. The first is to scale your business. You’re a lone wolf wanting to grow but lacking the time and energy to train new employees.

2. You’d like to ‘step away’ and take a vacay, a day off, or just a moment to relax.

Where Do You Start?

Go to the area that is closest to the money. Vinay Patankar

What area of your business earns you the most revenue? Focus on that area first. If the money is flowing in, it means that the procedure is working. Make sure it’s a repeatable process, meaning know the step-by-step type of the system.

A perfect example is making coffee. You need a machine, supplies, and a recipe. Depending on the machine and the amount of coffee you want to make, you know how much coffee, water, creamer, and sugar you’ll need. A simple, repeatable procedure to make coffee means anyone can go to the machine and get it done.

These are the challenges we face in business. Creating a system or procedure for every part of our business is definitely not easy.

Think about the repetitive tasks like product listings, filling ads, and audits. This is the perfect situation for you to standardize and share the procedure with your team. This will help pass along the knowledge among employees and future employees.

If you’ve built your business to withstand a decent amount of revenue, that’s an already established procedure that you can document and pass along to one person. You only need to train one employee. Then they will be able to train others who will also train others, the perfect ripple effect.

This technique allows you to work on something else or take time off without worrying about your company not performing as usual.

The Anatomy of a Great SOP

You can stick to the best SOP, and it’s easy to follow and keep up with. If it becomes a maze, it will only slow things down and become a problem instead of a solution.

The least amount of information, written in the simplest way to be able to allow somebody to do the task at the quality required. Vinay Patankar

Here’s what you need to build an impactful SOP:

1. Figure out where you need to implement SOPs

2. Define the procedure, test it, and test it again (tweak if necessary).

3. Document the procedure so anyone can go through it

4. Train your team!

5. Assign the responsibility of managing and maintaining the SOP over time

Read more here: https://startup.club/how-to-build-a-business-that-runs-itself/