As long as you’re a small var or solution provider and you (and perhaps a partner) run the whole show, you probably don’t have to bother with creating written “standard operating procedures” that provide how-to guides for carrying out accounting, purchasing, sales, marketing, and other necessary business processes. But when it comes time to grow, you’ll find there’s value in clearly defining, standardizing, and documenting the steps involved in these processes—as opposed to letting them remain neatly tucked away within the heads of the people who are doing the work.

By making this kind of knowledge readily available across the organization, documented SOPs give growing businesses a means to get new employees up to speed quickly, and easily cross-train existing employees to perform different functions as necessary. They help avert situations in which turnover leaves the organization unable to get key tasks accomplished. SOPs also provide a basis for an organized, analytical approach to improving a company’s business processes and workflows.

And maybe best of all, they enable decision makers—people like you—to free their minds and clear their desks of some routine functions, leaving more time to apply themselves to growing their businesses, according to Rachel Clark, coaching manager/business coach with E-Myth Worldwide, a Santa Rosa, Calif.-based organization that works with small business owners.

Standardization and systemization of business processes “is all about taking a step outside of your business and looking at it objectively,” says Clark. “It’s looking at it as being completely separate from you—a piece of raw clay that you, as the creator, can shape into anything you want it to be.”

Simply put, “if you’re a one-person business or run a small shop—and you want to stay that way forever—you don’t need to write anything down,” says Brad Sugars, entrepreneur and CEO of ActionCoach, a Las Vegas-based business coaching/consulting organization. “But if a business plans on growing, standardizing processes is a necessary and valuable thing if done properly.”

Standardizing processes saves businesses large and small both time and money and helps keep customers happy, according to Susan Carter, the Minneapolis-based author of How To Make Your Business Run Without You. “Standardizing processes automates your business, which builds efficiency, eliminates redundancy, and puts the stamp of consistency on the product or service that your customers receive,” says Carter. Standardized processes provide a baseline from which to streamline operations as a business evolves, she notes, “and not only benefit your internal operations, but also [enhance] your customers’ experience.”

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