From Chaos to Consistency: Implementing Effective SOPs

Mastering Consistency: The Importance of Processes and Procedures in Business

In this episode of the Quality of Life podcast, host Erin Olson discusses the significance of creating consistent customer experiences, products, and services through the implementation of processes and procedures. Erin shares personal anecdotes from her experiences with Rebel Footworks and Hay Chix, illustrating the value of standard operating procedures (SOPs) in achieving uniformity and quality control. The episode provides actionable steps for documenting and implementing processes in various business areas, such as financial management, HR, operations, sales, marketing, and customer service, emphasizing the long-term benefits of time and cost savings.

00:00 Welcome to the Quality of Life Podcast
00:39 Today's Topic: Consistency in Business
01:14 Story Time: Learning from Experience
05:18 The Importance of Documenting Processes
07:05 Steps to Implementing Procedures
09:54 Common Business Processes
11:51 Conclusion and Final Thoughts

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Erin

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

Hey, guys, and thank you for coming back to the Quality of Life podcast. If you are new to the show, I want to welcome you. I hope to help get you from your business idea to big business, and I want to urge you to go to our website, the Erin Olson dot com, and sign up for our email newsletter and you will be first to hear all of our new podcast releases, all of our resources, and that way you can stay up to date with any news that we might have. Also, I now have a YouTube channel. Okay, guys, I will have that YouTube channel linked in the show notes, so I hope to see you there as well. All right, guys, today's topic is all about how to create a consistent customer experience, consistent products and services and get consistent sales and results. We are talking about processes and procedures oh, fun, right. Well, we are going to cover why you need to pay attention to them and how to implement them. Now, don't get worried, processes are just business lingo for how work gets done, steps to finishing anything in your business. So let's dive in. But first story time. So my first experience with processes and standard operating procedures, or also called SOPs, was back when I learned to trim horses' feet. Okay, I had a company named Rebel Footworks and I was learning how to do it properly, and one thing about trimming a horse's feet is that you have to do everything four times. Being able to remember exactly what steps to do was very, very important to learn. So back then I was taught how to make it so that my processes were very consistent. So if the horse misbehaved and we had to take a break or anything, I could come back and know exactly where I stopped and that I would continue on with my procedures or my steps until that horse's feet were all completely finished. And that came into play quite a few times, because you know what I don't know, if you know with my procedures or my steps until that horse's feet were all completely finished. And that came into play quite a few times, because you know what I don't know, if you know anything about horses, but if they don't want to be trimmed, they're not going to be trimmed. So sometimes you have to take a break and come back to it. So that has really come into play, especially when it was really hot and I was really tired by the time I got to like the 20th horse of the day. So fast forward to when I had Haychix.

Speaker 1: 2:33

Now in Haychix, we had outsourced all of our manufacturing for a few years, and while we did that, we noticed that there was such a high error rate on how they were making our products, so we decided to bring the manufacturing in-house, and what we learned is that, holy crap, we knew nothing about how to do it, so we developed our own processes and procedures. We never wrote them down, though, so when it came time to train somebody, depending upon who was doing the training, you might have gotten taught a different method, which then makes for different qualities of products, right, well, we didn't know that right away, but as we learned many different ways that you could finish your product, we decided that we needed to make something that was uniform and that every customer, when they opened the boxes, got the exact same product. Enter in Annette. Annette was the best employee that we ever had. She had extensive experience in creating standard operating procedures for a lot of the labs that she had worked at, and so when she decided to help us out and do this huge undertaking, she really showed us a thing or two about how to make sure that our products, even our customer service became very uniform and very consistent. So thank you, annette, I don't get to say it enough, but you are seriously one of my favorites. All right, so back to reality Now.

Speaker 1: 3:55

There are a couple of companies that are known for their procedures. One would be Ford Motor Company. Now, why would you say that everybody knows about their procedures? Well, think about the assembly line. Henry Ford invented it and he implemented it so that every car that came off of that line was exactly the same. Wow, can you imagine how boring it would be to put the same rivet in the same door every day? But hey, it made a consistent product right, and his company is known for consistency. Another company that is known for having consistent products Well, they may not be the best in the industry, but McDonald's. Now, mcdonald's prides themselves on being able to actually take any warm body, any person, and putting them in any spot behind the cashier and being able to have them open a book and see exactly in pictures and words, how to do the job that they've been hired to do, and see exactly in pictures and words how to do the job that they've been hired to do. Basically, it makes it so anybody can step into any role in the company at any given time. It makes it so smart, but unfortunately it removes a little bit of the personality, unless, of course, you are one of the ones who is at the window or at the cash register. These two companies have implemented things over the years that have increased their ability to have a consistent product right? Well, let's talk about how to get that in your product.

Speaker 1: 5:20

Why do you need to have processes documented? Well, a number of reasons For quality control to make sure that every product that comes out of your business has the exact same quality. Number two consistency. I know I touched on that, but you have to make sure that all of the products, all of the services, are done the same, because if they are not done with the same high standards, then things start to fall through the cracks. This also helps when training your employees, so that when each employee is trained, no matter who does the training, they are taught the standard procedures, what is expected of them, and makes their job so much easier.

Speaker 1: 6:00

Another reason that you need to document your processes is to help your cost of goods to be kept as low as possible. When you have standard procedures, there are way less errors that are made, because when you have your procedures written and they're followed, there are way less mistakes and your cost of goods per product or per service is going to remain pretty close to the exact same, which then helps you save across the board. It also can save you time and money. One thing that we implemented in our procedures at hey Chicks is how long a job should take. Now there is a little bit of difference in the people that would do the jobs, but them having a guideline helped them to know exactly how much speed it was going to take to do the job well before they had to push it. Then quality would suffer. And the last reason that I can think of that you need to implement procedures in your business because checklists ensure that nothing gets forgotten. And let me tell you, without a checklist, you'd be amazed how many things can get forgotten.

Speaker 1: 7:05

Okay, so where do you start? First, find a simple process that you can document from start to finish and implement rather easily Most of the time. I would start with either opening procedures or closing procedures in each area of your business. Another thing you could also do is set up the procedures for how to clean the bathroom, because that is something that is very subjective. I've been told or that I've witnessed. So the best part is that you, as the leader or the owner of the company, you get to determine how you like things done. So you get to determine what processes and procedures to implement. That way, things are done to your standard. Now what I would do to start implementing this is that I would start with the closing procedures, because it's the easiest way to watch somebody without watching like a hawk and that way nobody is alarmed that you're watching every step that they do. So I would sit for a few days, maybe a week, and see how the different people would close the building, the office, whatever, and then I would write down the steps. It's very helpful to create checklists of those steps and, once you have this, implement those steps and checklists and use them to be able to do the opening or the closing procedures for a couple of weeks.

Speaker 1: 8:23

Any additions or changes can be made. Once it works, you laminate it and then you post that and require your employees or yourself to do it. So how in-depth do you go? I guess it really depends on your business, but it's best to start with simple procedures. The more in-depth equals the more policies and the less ability. Your employee or you have to make choices. If you want nothing to be left in the individual's hands, like McDonald's, use their model, but the goal is to allow your employees to make decisions based upon the company values. And if there are changes that need to be made, they need to bring it to a meeting. Now each department or role should have its own book of procedures.

Speaker 1: 9:10

Here are some quick steps to writing those procedures. Number 1. Identify the process that you want to write Duh, right, okay. Number 2. Define the scope Now, scope is just business lingo for all the things included in this process. 3. Set boundaries for when it starts and ends. Four determine the inputs and the outputs, what is needed to complete this process and what is the outcome or the goal. Five organize those steps, like I said. And six who is involved, who's going to be the one doing this? And seven involved, who's going to be the one doing this? And seven test those steps and review them. That's it.

Speaker 1: 9:58

So in every business, different processes are needed for all sorts of different things. So I'm just going to cover a few processes that most businesses might need. First, financial this is going to be your budgeting, sales tax, your payroll, purchase orders, stuff like that. The next one, hr. If you don't have any employees, then you really don't have to worry about this yet, but if you do, then things like onboarding or hiring policies, you know handbooks and whatnot, performance reviews, how often you're going to have them and what they include off-boarding or letting go of employees that no longer fit in the big spot where procedures are needed are in operations. That is, all of the manufacturing, all of the cleaning, all of the opening and closing. There are so many jobs that can be involved in this that need their own set of procedures, and each job needs its own how-to.

Speaker 1: 10:52

Really, in sales and marketing, you're going to have all kinds of procedures that you can write for that, everything from consistency to videos, how a product is displayed, weekly posts, monthly newsletters and all your product images. This would also include customer service all your product images. This would also include customer service. Is your customer service going to be speaking off of scripts, or are they going to be trained a certain way to answer the phone, a certain way to say, hey, let me check that out for you? I don't know the answer to that, and those procedures need to be implemented for email, for notifications on social media, retail experience, like how is somebody going to be treated when they come into your store or if you're face-to-face All those kind of things should at least be discussed and written down as a standard operating procedure.

Speaker 1: 11:43

And finally, your website. Your website needs to be consistent, so you have to have a procedure for how to change it, how to update it and stuff like that. Well, guys, this is a starting place to help you implement processes to help your business grow and scale with way less work in the long run. It may be a lot of work up front, but in the long run, this is going to save you so much time, so much money and so much headache. Thank you so much, guys, for joining me today, and if you found any value from this episode, please share it and help me to help more people get from business idea to big business. I will see you next week, see ya.