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- The guide to building SOPs (101)
The guide to building SOPs (101)
The system to run your business for you
Read time: 4 min, 24 secs
Hey there - it's Brian 👋
Back in December, our business tripled.
We had so many clients buy more + refer friends that demand was overwhelming.
I worked until 11 every night. I didn't have weekends. For two months.
We got to that point because quality was amazing. I was terrified we wouldn't hit that quality.
I hired 11 people.
Then it became a full time job just to onboard, train, and build systems for the new hires.
I was the bottleneck for everything. We were building systems as fast as we could to keep quality high at scale.
Then... I got the flu.
I slept for 3 days. I didn't have the energy to stay awake.
I had nightmares that the business would fall apart. Clients would be pissed. Team wouldn't know what to do.
I got back and...
Our toughest client said she was getting the best quality she'd ever seen.
Teams kept producing as if I never left.
So what happened? Systems.
We built SOPs and process that my teams could follow, so my business ran without me.
So today I'll show you exactly what we did.
If you're sick of late nights fixing your team's mistakes...
This is for you.
P.S. at the end I'll share an AI mega prompt that you copy / paste to make these SOPs instantly.
Let's make your business an outlier: 👇
For my friends: what’s going on with Brian?
I'm writing this from Merida! In Mexico.
I’m on a mission to see all the world wonders and finally knocked another off the list.
Chichen Itzen.
It’s where the Mayans sacrificed people to make the sun gods not as mad at them.
Or something like that.
Anyway. It was stunning. (Picture below).
On the business side - our LinkedIn system is back to chugging. I had 31 calls booked this week.
Want the same done for you?
Let’s chat. I’ll put a setter in your business to take care of your lead gen.
On to building your systems 👇

Chichen Itza in Mexico
Why don’t SOPs work?
Most businesses create way 100s of SOPs…
Nobody reads SOP #74.
→ You spend hours documenting 100+ processes that sits in a folder nobody opens.
→ Your team doesn't read the SOPs and messes up the details.
→ You waste time fixing the same mistakes over and over, even though you have "documentation."
It's frustrating.
Instead focus on the steps that matter.
Most SOPs fail because they don't connect to the actual workflow of your business.
Tasks FLOW through a business. It's all interconnected.
That's why we call it a system.
But SOPs treat it like it's individual, disconnected tasks.
So to get this right we need to design how work flows through the business, and find ONLY the mission critical points to turn into SOPs.
The solution isn't MORE documentation - it's SMARTER documentation of only the critical processes.
3 steps to building processes people actually follow
Here's how: 👇
💥 Step 1: Map how tasks flow through your business
SOPs are just instructions to follow ONE step in your business.
In a few minutes you can design how work flows through your business and find the mission critical steps that you need to write instructions for.
There’s two flows you design:
1) Client acquisition
2) Client delivery
Here's an example:

How my tasks flow (in Whimsical)
Let's start with client delivery.
From the moment you receive a request:
→ In what order do tasks happen?
→ Who does them?
→ Using which tech?
That’s it!
Keep it super simple.
You can’t understand how your business works without this high level flow.
It’s legit your business in a visual.
Visualize it in a workflow.
💥 Step 2: Find ONLY the most mission critical processes
You should NOT have more than 10 - 15 SOPs.
ONLY SOPs for the most mission critical step.
How do you figure that out?
Which step in the flow adds (or destroys) the most value for your client?
Which one would break your whole client experience if it didn’t deliver?
That’s what you make SOPs for.
🎗️ Remember:
Every new SOP you make dilutes attention from the important ones.
When you only make a few your team actually follows them.
🧔🏻♂️ Brian’s nerdy side rant:
Everything that’s not covered by an SOP is covered by values.
If they complete tasks according to your values you’re in a good spot. If they don’t know how to do anything else, they can Google it.
You don’t need to prescribe everything.
Here’s our values for example:

TalentHQ Values
💥 Step 3: Make SOPs Only For Critical Processes
Okay now we get into the meat of it.
(P.S. Don’t forget… we have an AI prompt at the end to instantly fill this out for you.)
Each SOP should has these 7 sections:
1) SOP Essentials
This is just the admin stuff.
• Who owns this SOP?
• When was it last updated?
• When should someone use this process?
• What tools and access are needed before starting?
2) Business Context
This plugs the step into the big picture. It makes it a flow instead of individual steps.
Here you explain:
• The business impact of this process
• The cost of getting it wrong
• Future goals for this process
Most businesses skip this completely, but people need to know WHY they’re doing something.
3) What does success look like?
People NEED to know what good looks like (& what failure looks like) or you hit quality issues.
If you’re frustrated quality is a problem… you skipped this part.
Be clear on:
• Key performance metrics with specific targets
• Clear quality standards
• Red flags that means the process is failing
4) What’s the process?
Now we get to the actual steps.
Here you include:
• A quick overview (map the process)
• Tools used in each step
• Who performs each step
• Future improvement opportunities
I love visual maps for this. But you do you.
5) What happens when there’s mistakes?
This section keeps you from getting dragged into everything.
Include:
• Common problems and their solutions
• How to classify problems
• Who to call + when (spoiler it’s usually not you)
This section gets you your life back.
6) Training + resources
Give them the tools to figure out stuff on their own:
• In-house guides specific to your business
• External resources for general skills
• Checklists to keep things organized
• Who to ask when questions arise
And finally… the AI Mega Prompt (to fill this SOP in seconds!)
This saves you hours of documentation time. So you can focus on the vision and strategy.
Reply with "SOP PROMPT" and I'll send you the exact AI prompt that we use to make SOPs.

One part of the megaprompt
The secret isn't having MORE documentation—it's having the RIGHT documentation for the few processes that actually matter.
➟ Start by mapping your workflow
➟ Identify only ~10 critical steps
➟ Create your SOPs
When you follow this system, you'll finally have a business that runs without you.
See you next Thursday 👋
P.S. Want help finding amazing sales, marketing, & admin people in LatAm? Let’s chat
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