Most businesspersons started with their ventures, in the hope of seeking liberty. But the path wasn’t easy. Whenever you heard that entrepreneurs spent a larger portion of the day working and not indulging in any such pastime activity (at least during the initial days) – is true. To achieve ‘freedom’ in the business, the ability to delegate must be mastered. Even if it sounds great working 60-80 hours a week, it’s not human, sane or recommended! The ‘work-life balance’ can’t be forsaken, so you need to understand the value of having a life. And to achieve that, learn to make money if when you are not working yourself and taking all the stress! For delegation of tasks, the best way to move forward is creating Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) for the future. This will especially come handy if you wish to know how to manage a virtual assistant. escort sakarya
How to manage a virtual assistant using SOPs?
To get to the basics, SOPs work as step-by-step instruction manuals that help virtual assistants and employees achieve certain targets after they’ve run their specific and routine functions. You don’t need to get worked up to formulate SOPs! These are known for brevity and ease in understanding. You can supplement certain add-on documents or videos, as and when necessary, which would reflect the action points and workflows well. The primary target of SOPs is about achieving high output, efficiency and consistency in performance. Besides, they minimize confusion, miscommunication and failure of compliance with guidelines.
SOPs as ‘Freedom Recipes’
Instead of adopting the traditional style of making SOPs, it’s a good idea to consider what most entrepreneurs say – ‘Freedom Recipes’. Experts having sufficient experience in business will be able to tell you how time is a much valued commodity. Budding entrepreneurs must be able to leverage their time and thereby delegate or outsource work that would lead to sufficient delays, if they tried to do all by themselves. Making SOPs on the model of Freedom Recipes indicate the ability to escape from the daily humdrum ways of operating, and resorting to a process that would help attain complete peace of mind. The challenge lies in identifying the right people at the right time, who would be able to pull off tasks and produce repetitive success stories, effortlessly. You can hire an administrative virtual assistant in India, or elsewhere, to implement the SOPs.
Take a quick look into the prime factors that can get you ahead with ‘Freedom recipes’. sapanca escort bayan
First, they are all about Freedom. Employees might fall ill or unavoidable circumstances might have emerged. Your business can’t stop, right?
And second, focus on the word ‘recipe’. Freedom recipes are the same as cookbooks. The best way to delegate tasks on a consistent basis is by creating a well chalked out step-by-step procedure plan for the processes.
Steps to follow when creating an SOP
Frankly speaking, there is no one SOP document that will help you learn the format of writing one. Depending on what would suit your organization best, you can create an SOP likewise. Here are some important steps that you can follow when creating a standard operating procedure checklist.
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Fix an end goal
As an entrepreneur, have a clear idea about your SOP goal. This step contains no specific details, but outlines the procedures that you wish to achieve. Define the details well, if you want the SOP to accomplish the goals.
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Choose a format
Some SOPs adhere to a well-structured written document format. Some other businesspersons may resort to a video format. Talking about videos, in the last few years, these have become common. You no longer have to wait for a couple of days to record a video and then upload on YouTube. Try using a tool called ‘Loom’, which would help you to record your screen, while you explain any process. What stands interesting is how they host the video on ten servers. This way, a load of time gets saved, in regards to downloading and uploading of videos. You can try checking some SOPs made in video format, within a span of 5-6 minutes. serdivan escort bayan
For written documents, create a structure that would have a logical flow and incorporate images, diagrams, flowcharts or screenshots, to explain a process. There are 3 formatting ideas that can be applicable for written documents:
First is a simple steps format. Here, you can make a simple numbered or bulleted list, containing simple sentences, explained clearly for the readers.
Second, a hierarchical format is meant for procedures that consist of several steps to explain the decisions more lucidly. This consists of primary steps, followed by few more sub-steps.
Finally, there is the flowchart format, where procedures are explained. They might have several possible outcomes or when unpredictability issues arise, and then this one can be resorted to. taraklı escort bayan
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Seek input
At the end, your team has to follow the standard operating procedure checklist. So involve them! Besides, it will be much easier to implement the SOP, if you get inputs from members. The participation level of all members allow in better decision making and also chalking out a wise plan about how the procedures should be carried out.
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Define the scope
Your SOP might be dependent to an extent on other SOPs or teams in several departments. Carry out an analysis if it would prove adequate to refer to the other procedures, for your SOP.
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Identify the audience
Know your people well. This would help you create the most befitting and effective SOP for your workplace. Assess these 4 factors when it comes to the audience – their prior knowledge, experience, language skills, and the size of the audience.
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Formulate the SOP
Work up the draft of the SOP, with vital elements, like title of the procedure, SOP identification number, publication date, target audience and names and signatures of people who approved the procedures, outlined in the SOP. Then there comes the table of contents, specific procedures, including the step-by-step instructions.
Don’t forget to review, test, edit and repeat the process till you get a worthy SOP manual. It is only after everyone’s approval, and the documents are rendered faultless, you can implement the SOP. With that, it should be no problem learning how to manage a virtual assistant, using the SOP. söğütlü escort bayan
Conclusion
For virtual assistants, an SOP is a must. Having the documents well ahead of time helps the organization and the owner to also assess who will be the perfect fit as an assistant. You can hire an administrative virtual assistant in India, who would fit the bill. Also, your SOP would reduce employee training time, human error, maintain consistency through brands and also transfer work seamlessly between departments and individuals.
