How To Create A "System" & What Does One...

organized Hey, Moguls, Alex Pardo here, and today I want to talk about the importance of creating standard operating procedures (SOPs). We've all read the books and heard gurus and other investors talking about the importance of building a business that's based on automation and systems. And those are important, but… I think a key component that's often left out when people talk about creating systems is:

What does it mean exactly and how do you go about creating a system?

So, in this lesson, what I want to share with you is how we’ve documented tasks (a.k.a. created SOPs) over the years to systematize our business. We documented it, tested it and then turned it over to a VA or another team member and had them do it to make sure that they were able to produce the same exact output that we produced when we did it. That way, we knew it all worked.

Who’s Down with SOP? Yea, You Know, Me!

Most of you are familiar with me from previous lessons, but I want to tell you how my experience has helped me evolve to such a great organizer. Right out of college, I worked for GE in their corporate consumer finance division, where I first learned the importance of SOPs. And then, when I became an investor, I learned that SOP is just a generic term that's used across any industry and any business – yep, even REI.

I started documenting every aspect of my investing business into a standard operating procedure, and at that time, I was the one meeting with sellers, following up, sending offers, selling the properties and doing all the marketing. When you're first getting started, most people are one-man shows.

I think a big part of the reason that investors fail to get to the level that they want to achieve is because they don't scale. In other words, they don't build a business based around systems and automation using SOPs.

Steps to Creating a System

The first step is documenting everything that you do within your business. I would advise you that if you really want a business that gives you the lifestyle and income you desire (with or without you there), then what you need to do is make a list. This could be on a legal pad, it could be on Excel… just document everything that you do on a daily basis as it relates to the business.

Next, create categories. Let’s take marketing for example here… we want to explain the procedure for putting out bandit signs. Document from A to Z what that process or what that system looks like. Do the same thing for direct mail and running comps. What are the steps involved in running comps? Document the entire process and how you run comps, step by step.

bullegts It’ll help if you make an agenda and have an outline for all the different things that you need to document and create a system for. Then you can start using that as a checklist and go down your list.

Keep in mind that this is not something that's going to be done overnight. It might take you a couple of days (depending on what it is that you're documenting). It might take you a couple of weeks or maybe even over a month.

Video Documentation

What’s worked well for us is to create a video or a screen capture video. And there's a bunch of different services out there that you can use.

I know TechSmith.com works well for around $50 bucks. It's really cool software that you download to your computer. It allows you to record your screen, so that while you're doing something on your computer and as you're speaking, you can document and record exactly how you're doing it as you’re doing it.

So once I have that recorded, I'll upload that to my Google Drive, and then I'll share it with my virtual assistant in the Philippines. She'll watch the video and she'll create an SOP. So, she's the one who then creates the standard operating procedure based on everything that I covered in that video.

When she first started documenting my SOPs based on these videos, she created more of a paragraph format – something you had to really focus on and read. And then I quickly realized that when you hand over something like that to a VA or someone else on your team, instruct them to create using a bullet-point format so it can be read quickly – not long paragraphs of text. Bullets make it easily scanable and easy to follow.

Have your virtual assistant or whoever is doing the SOP take screenshots of what you're covering in the video. And then with SnagIt, have them use little red arrows and callouts and circles to highlight certain aspects of what’s being explained.

The best is to have your VA put the SOP in a bullet format with screenshots, so that when the doc is given to someone, not only do they have the SOP, but they actually also have the video.

And that's how we create systems and document our standard operating procedures in our business. Now, get organized, systematized and grow your business!