5 Important Reasons to Document Your Business Procedures

Creating business procedures for your Virtual Assistant business helps you with more than just productivity.

"The only difference between a mob and a trained army is organization." - Calvin Coolidge

When I work with Virtual Assistants to help them make their business better, we often talk about developing standard operating procedures.

Many VAs don’t have something like this in their business. They often feel that if they are the only one doing things that it’s not necessary.

But I’ve got 5 reasons that might change your mind!

1. Speeds Up Your Work

Writing out a procedure for how you do something might seem mundane if it’s something you know how to do, but it can actually help you get faster at completing that task. When you have to use brain space to think about what to do next, it can slow you down.

Okay, so it probably won’t take you an extra hour to do something without a procedure, but if you have even been distracted by something while you are mid-task, I bet you could be well served by having that process documented so you could just jump back into the step where you left off. Try it – you will be surprised!

2. Sets Standards In Your Business

Documenting what you do sets the standard for how you want it done in your business. Taking the time to write the steps out one by one when you do something the ‘right’ way ensures that you will not cut corners on the task.

Setting standards is a very professional thing to do and can set you apart from your VA colleagues. You can assure your clients that you take their work seriously and that everything will be done the same way, every time.

It’s like using a recipe when you cook. To make it the exact same way every time, you follow the recipe to a T (except for pasta dough and some bread, which depend on room humidity, but that’s another article). ??

3. Determines Billable Time

When you have the detailed actions steps on how to perform any task (without missing any steps!), you can also set a standard amount of time to each of those steps. When you do things the same way and in the same order every time, it should take you roughly the same amount of time each time you perform that task.

Then you can take your procedures and assign billable time to those tasks. This is a good way to bill your VA clients – instead of billing them by the hour you can charge them per task. That way the faster you get at something, doesn’t affect the revenue that you make to do it.

Who wants to get better at doing something and then make less money to do it? Not me!

4. Allows You to Bring in Help

When you have procedures that are set to your standards, and that you know are accurate, you can bring in help anytime you like. If you want to have subcontractors do work for you, you can provide them with the documented steps on how you want the task done, and you can tell them how long that task should take them to complete.

Procedures are very important when other Virtual Assistants are doing work for you. You have less to check when you know that they are doing things exactly the way you want them to. And you have better control over your expenses when you can tell them how long something should be taking them to complete (if they are having trouble adhering to your timing, have a conversation about it and make adjustments where necessary).

5. Helps You Take Time Off

Along the same line as getting help, you can actually take time off more easily when your business tasks are documented.

When you have your clients look after a couple of things (I always have my clients run customer payments as necessary if I’m out of the office long term), you can provide them with a detailed how-to so they can get things done. Or if you have another Virtual Assistant acting as backup for you, you can also provide your procedures to them and you will know that they are doing things the way you would if you were doing them.

So, what do you think?

As much as developing the actual procedures takes time and might seem like a boring or time-consuming task, it is really an important part of your business. It is helpful in many ways and it’s something you should really consider doing.

You can start slowly. Whatever you plan to do next, write it down as you go. Continue with the next task, and before you know it you’ll be on your way to a full fledged binder of procedures. Have fun!

For more tips on getting good business foundation in place, watch this video on Boundaries and Procedures on my YouTube channel. There are more than 40 free training videos for VAs there!