If you’ve been in business for a year or two, you may be thinking, “It’s time to hire my first assistant.” We’ve written multiple blog posts around:
- How to know when you’re ready for your first assistant.
- How to train your first assistant.
But I believe that it is CRITICALLY important to have a process to train your team! You are looking to duplicate yourself and take yourself out of certain areas of your business.
So here are a few quick tips on how to streamline your training process.
Record a video of you or someone on your team doing the task that you want to train. Talk them through the process. This shows the EXACT steps required to complete the task from start to finish. It shows you (or someone you trust) doing the task so you know that the process is done the way you want it done.
Watch the video to see if anything is missing. (Especially important if someone else is the one recording the video.)
Give the video to the person you are training and have them create the written description AND a checklist for the process. Once this is done, review the description and checklist to verify that the process is correct and complete.
Have them DO the task to see if they can follow the instructions. If not, have them revise the checklist and instructions. If so, have someone else on the team do the task to test the instructions.
THEN you have a complete SOP (standard operating procedure) for that task.
We then like to save all our SOPs into a Google Drive Folder that we share with our team. Then we create a Google Sheet with a list of all our SOPs and links to the appropriate videos and documents in the drive. This allows us to continue compiling resources and build comprehensive training systems for our team.
Good luck! Your team is such an important piece of your business growth. Great training will help save you time, money, and frustration in the future onboarding of your team!