She's That Founder
102 | 3 Standard Operating Procedures Every Founder Should Build in 30 Minutes (Using AI to Write Your SOPs)
Quick question. How many times this week have you explained the same process to your team or repeated the same process yourself?
Here's the truth that nobody wants to say. If your business only works because you remember how things work, you don't have a business. You have a full-time job with zero vacation days and a really demanding boss. Yourself.
Today I am showing you the three SOPs every founder needs to build first and how AI writes them for you in under 30 minutes, not someday this week.
Let's go.
Hey, hey, hey. You're listening to She's That Founder, the show that helps ambitious women stop drowning in decisions and start owning their CEO seat with a little AI magic. I'm Dawn Andrews, and today we're talking about getting the systems out of your head and into your business.
By the end of this episode, you'll know the exact reason why "I'll document it later" never happens. And what November timing has to do with finally fixing it. You'll learn the three specific SOPs every founder needs first, and why these three unlock everything else and the AI framework that turns your messy brain dump into professional documentation in minutes with a real example that you can use today.
So I was on a coaching call last month with a founder. Let's call her Maya, and she said something that stopped me cold. She said, Dawn, I just spent three weeks training my new hire, three full weeks, 21 days of screen shares, walkthroughs, and wait, how do we do this again? And last Friday she quit and I realized I have to start over from scratch because I didn't document anything.
Here's what that actually cost Maya. The average cost to train a new employee is $1,252 according to the Association for Talent Development. Maya just lost three weeks of her time and over a thousand dollars walking out the door because nothing was documented.
And this wasn't because Maya's a bad leader. Maya is excellent at what she does. The problem was that everything she knew lived nearly exclusively in her head. How to onboard clients, how to run projects, how to quality check deliverables. All of it was tribal knowledge that walked out the door when her employee left.
Now. Before you think, well, that's why I am not hiring yet, or why I'm slowing my hiring, let me ask you something. How many times this month have you done the same task and thought, I should probably write this down. How many times has someone asked you, wait, how do we do this again? How many processes are running on autopilot in your brain? That would take someone else weeks to figure out, and that's assuming that they could even read your mind.
Here's what's actually happening. Every undocumented process is a point of failure in your business. Every I just know how to do. This moment is a bottleneck. Every I'll document it later is keeping you stuck. There's a principle in business called the Theory of Constraints that says a bottleneck determines the capacity of your entire system.
So translation, if you are the bottleneck, your business can only grow as fast as you can personally move, and you can't scale yourself. And Q4 is when you realize you needed these systems yesterday, you're probably your limit. You're sprinting, hopefully, or possibly limping to the finish line of the end of the year, because Q1 is when you're really focusing on scale. You're rested and ready for the new year. You have your new strategic plan in place, and you're looking forward to, I hope, climbing that daunting number hill that starts again on January 1st, and you can't do either of those things if everything requires you to function.
So today we're fixing that. I'm gonna show you the three SOPs every founder needs. First, why these three matter, and how AI can help you build them fast. Okay. Y'all know that I work a lot in entertainment and I am an avid consumer of entertainment content. From TV to streaming. To movies, to memes to YouTube shorts. I am an avid entertainment consumer.
So if you've ever watched The Bear, and if you haven't, girl, yes, chef, get on it. You know that Carmi can cook like nobody's business, but the restaurant, the Bear was chaos until what? Until he started building systems. The menu system, the labeling system, the every second count system, that's what SOPs do. They take your expertise and turn it into something repeatable, something that doesn't require you to be the genius in the kitchen every day.
If we pull the bear back into it, SOPs are sexy. So, okay, here's what you need to understand. You don't need 47 SOPs to start scaling. You need three. At least and the right three first. And the right three are the ones that, one you do repeatedly. So documenting them would save you massive time. Two other people need to do those things so you can delegate or hire people to do them. And three, they directly impact your client experience so that you can maintain consistency and it doesn't have to be you doing it every single time.
That's the filter. And when you run your business operations through that filter, three SOPs, rise to the top every single time.
Let's talk about 'em. Number one, client onboarding. Because every new client should have the same professional experience. And client onboarding should not be your bottleneck because that's your pathway to revenue.
Number two, project kickoff. You need a project kickoff, SOP, because every project should start with clarity, not chaos.
And then the third, SOP is a quality check. SOP, because nothing should go out the door or through your email, half-baked.
These three SOPs are the foundation. Everything else you can build later. But these three, these unlock delegation, hiring and scale. And since we're in November, and I like to make these episodes evergreen, but I think there's something to be said for noting the time of year and in the flow of one's business.
And here's why November is a perfect time to build these. Most founders wait until they're drowning to document. They're waiting until they're hiring and realize, oh crap, I have nothing to train them with. I can't even tell you how many calls I get and how many founder sessions I've had with my SVP of marketing, my CMO starts next week, and I'm not really sure how I'm gonna onboard them.
Oh my gosh, y'all, let's do this. Okay. But you, you're ahead of the curve because you're gonna build these now in Q4, so that when Q1 of next year hits, you are ready to grow and you have the systems in place that's strategic, that is CEO level thinking.
So let's talk about how you actually use AI to write these SOPs, because here's the thing, you're not starting from scratch. You're not becoming a technical writer. You are using AI as your documentation partner.
Here's the framework. Step one, brain dump it. Tell AI what you currently do. Messy is fine. I mean, seriously, word vomit. I don't care if there are periods in your sentences. I don't care if it's spelled correctly. Just dump it. Get the process outta your head.
Step two, structure it. Ask AI to turn that brain dump into a professional SOP with specific components. Then step three, refine it. You can add those missing details, links, tools, your specific language, and then step four, implement it. you use this once yourself or use it with your team to test it and then hand it over to your team to iterate and refine it.
That's it. Four steps and the whole thing takes about 30 minutes per SOP. Once you know the framework. Translation. You're not writing these SOPs from scratch. You're having a conversation with AI and then refining what it gives you. It's as simple as that.
So here's what AI needs to include in every SOP for it to actually be useful.
I call this the sorted framework. I want your SOPs to be SORTED.
S for steps, the actual how to, what needs to get done in what order?
O for ownership, who does what?
R for resources, what tools and templates are needed?
T for timeline, when do things need to happen? Day one, day two, every 30 days, every 90 days annually.
E is for escalation. Where does someone go to get help when they need it, versus what can they handle and choose independently?
And then D, done. What does done look like? What are your quality standards?
SORTED right? Without sorted, you don't have a complete SOP, you have a vague list that still requires you to explain everything, but when your SOP is sorted, someone brand new to your business could follow it and get it right.
How amazing does that sound?
That's the difference between documentation that sits in a folder gathering dust and documentation that actually lets you delegate.
Let me show you exactly how this works. I'm gonna walk you through building one of those SOPs. Client onboarding so that you can see the framework in action. And I'm gonna show you how to make sure it's sorted. And then I'm gonna tell you where to get two other prompts, because I want you to actually build all three of those SOPs this week, not just learn about them.
So remember what the three SOPs were. These are the foundational ones. Client onboarding, project management, and quality control.
Cool. All right. You ready?
Let's build a client onboarding, SOP. And why this one first, we're starting with this because this is where most founders bleed, professionalism and time. Almost every new client asks the same questions, yet every onboarding feels like reinventing the wheel. And if you don't have this documented, nobody else can do it.
So let's do it.
Step one brain dump. Here's what you do. Open your favorite LLM AI tool chat, GPT Claude, whatever you use, and tell it your current client onboarding process. Don't edit yourself. Don't make it pretty. Just dump it out. And in fact, you can just turn on the microphone and record, like speak it directly into it as if you were describing it to one of your team members.
So for example, here's what my brain dump looked like when I did this. When a client signs, I send them a welcome email with the contracted invoice, then I send then I send them a questionnaire about their goals. Then we schedule a kickoff call. Then I set up their project in Airtable. Then I add them to our Slack workspace. Then I send them a calendar invite for our standing check-ins, and that was actually a little cleaner than most of the time I do this. Sometimes I share the steps and they are out of order. Misspellings, punctuation, et cetera. It's just a stream of consciousness, and that's fine because AI doesn't care.
Step two, asking AI to structure it. So get ready because this is gonna be like a copy paste. Grab this and use this as your own prompt. Situation. So if you're catching us on YouTube, which by the way, as of, you know, end of 2025, we're not quite there yet, but we will be. So you can get your phone out and screenshot, or if you're at the computer, you can open a note, because I'm gonna give you the exact prompt that I use. Here is the prompt. I need to create a standard operating procedure for client onboarding. Here's my current process, and then I paste the brain dump in there. Turn this into a professional SOP document that makes this sorted? The actual steps in what order? Ownership. Who does what? Resources, what tools and templates are needed, timeline when things happen, escalation, when to get help versus handle things independently. And done what? My standards are.
Cool. So use clear, simple language that someone brand new to my business could follow. Format it as a step-by-step guide with headers for each section. That's your prompt. That's what turns your brain dump into a real SOP. So what happens next? You paste all of that into your LLM and hit enter. And what comes back is a structured professional document. For me, it came back with a purpose statement explaining exactly why consistent onboarding matters, a day-to-day breakdown of every step. Links to templates, which I added after AI generated the structure, clear owner assignments, a checklist at the bottom, and the whole thing was maybe two pages when it was done. Professional, usable, done.
So we go back to those refine and implement steps next, right?
Step three is refinement. You read through what AI gave you, and you add the specifics. Does your welcome email have a template? Link it in. Do you use a specific tool? Name it, is there something that AI missed? Add it. And this takes maybe 10 minutes.
And then finally step four is the implementation. So read through the whole thing, top to bottom, once yourself to make sure that you haven't missed anything, and then you can hand it to your team and say, this is how we onboard clients now. And just note for yourself to circle back with them and iterate on it and double check that the process is working after the next two or three clients done.
And here's what happens after you've done this, like what I just described, took me about three minutes to share with you. That whole process takes 30 minutes or less. Those SOPs that you are dragging your feet on could be done. You could wake up tomorrow without that concern on your plate.
So what happens after you do this, the next time you hire someone, You don't spend a bunch of time training them on how to onboard clients. You hand them the document, they read it, they do it with other team members. You spot check their work once or twice and you're done.
The next time a client asks, what happens after I sign? Your team knows what to say because it's documented. The next time you onboard a client, you are not reinventing the wheel, you're following your own system.
See the difference? Before this, you're explaining client onboarding to every new hire for three weeks. After this, you hand them a document, they read it, they do it. And it's done.
That's the power of one documented process. Imagine what it's like once you have more.
So listen, I just walked you through client onboarding in detail so you could see the exact framework, but you do need two more SOPs at least to start the project kickoff, so every project starts with clarity instead of confusion. And you need a quality check, SOP, so your team can review work without you being the bottleneck. And I'm not gonna walk through both of those here because we'd be here for another hour.
But I have created the exact AI prompts for both of them, step-by-step instructions and real examples of what the final SOPs look like. And all of that is inside the insider experience.
So are you on the insider list yet? Because that's where I share the stuff. I don't say on the podcast. Like the AI prompts, I'm actually using with clients, the client breakthroughs that didn't make it into an episode.
The strategic moves that I'm testing before I teach them publicly. The insider experience is free, but it's where the real magic happens. So get on the list. You can find the link to the insider experience in the show notes.
Okay. So as we close this out, let's just talk about the strategic value of each of these SOPs and why they specifically matter.
So client onboarding, maybe it's obvious to you, but I just wanna revisit that client onboarding is your first impression with a new client. And if this is inconsistent, you're not building trust with that new client. If it's documented, every client has the same professional experience, whether you're onboarding them, or your newest team member is, and this helps later on down the line if you decide that there's an upsell or a resell for them.
The project kickoff, SOP is where most projects go wrong. Unclear scope, misaligned expectations, missing information, a project kickoff. SOP ensures every project starts with clarity. Your team knows what questions to ask and your clients know what to expect. There's no surprises.
The quality check. SOP is what gets you out of that bottleneck. Right now, you're probably the one reviewing everything before it goes to clients, but once you have a quality check, SOP, your team can do that, review themselves or certainly do a major first pass to reduce the amount of time that you're spent revisiting it.
They'll know what meets your standards, and you're not the single point of quality control anymore. So here's what your business may look like before these three SOPs, before you spend hours explaining the same process over and over.
New hires take weeks to train projects. Start chaotic because everyone's winging it. You're reviewing everything because it's just easier to do it myself. As I have heard in that tone so many times, you can't take a vacation without your phone because nothing is documented and scaling feels impossible because everything requires you, and that super sucks.
But after you have these three SOPs in place, your team knows how to onboard clients without asking you. New hires can ramp up in days instead of weeks. Every project starts the same way with clarity and alignment.
Your team can quality check their own work. You can actually unplug because systems run without you and scaling becomes possible because your business has a foundation. And once you have these three SOPs, you know how to create more SOPs easily. See the difference. These aren't just documents. These are the roadmap, the systems that let you grow.
And here's another little bonus. 94% of employees say they'd stay at a company longer. If it invested in their development. But what most founders don't realize is that training isn't just formal courses. It's having clear systems they can follow. Because when you build these three SOPs, you're not just documenting processes, you're creating a training infrastructure that makes your team feel supported.
Imagine how it is for them on day one with that clarity, then on day 365, with that clarity. They have now become an expert in that process for your company. Here's a quick story that happened with one of my clients. Let's call her Sarah. She built her quality check, SOP in in October, and by January she added two new team members.
And here's what she said, Dawn, I didn't have to review a single client deliverable last week. My team did it, and it was perfect. That's what one SOP does. It doesn't just save you time, it gives you your life back.
And in researching for this podcast, I found a story about a founder who sold his SaaS company for eight figures, and he said, this, acquirers don't wanna buy a business that falls apart.
The moment the founder steps away. The systems that made us less essential as founders made us more valuable to buyers. Even if you're not planning an exit, that principle matters. The less your business needs you to function, the more valuable it becomes and the more freedom you have to actually run it.
Great little story, right? I love that story. So here's what I want you to do this week, Monday or Tuesday, use the client onboarding prompt I just gave you. Build that first SOP. Get it outta your head and into a document Wednesday or Thursday. Build your project kickoff, SOP. If you're in the insider experience, you'll already get the prompt if you're not join, because that's where all the prompts live.
And on Friday, build your quality check, SOP, use it, test it, hand it to your team to iterate, and by the end of a week, you'll have three documented processes, three systems that no longer require your brain to function. That's the goal. That's what moves you from founder to CEO. So you might be thinking, girl, I don't have time to build three SOPs this week.
Real talk right back to you, girl. You don't have time not to, because every day you don't document these. Every day you don't. Write these things down is another day you're answering the same questions, training the same task of being the bottleneck in your own business. 30 minutes per SOP 90 minutes total.
That's less time than you spent this week probably explaining the things that should already be documented. So please make the time. This is the CEO work. This is what builds a business that can scale. And if this episode hit home, come join us in the insider experience, it's my private email community where I pull back the curtain on everything.
The AI workflows, the delegation frameworks, the messy middle of building a business that actually scales. You're not gonna get this depth anywhere else. It's completely free. Join. You'll find the link in the show notes and jump in before our next email goes out. All right, quickly recapping.
First, we talked about why I'll document it later, never happens, and why. Q4 is a perfect time to finally build the systems that let you start scaling in Q1.
Second, I showed you the three SOPs that every founder needs. First client onboarding so that every client has a consistent experience and you have consistent revenue. The project kickoff, SOP, so that every project starts with clarity and you watch your time and energy and your team's time and energy, and third quality check so that you stop being the bottleneck and you maintain that quality across all the things that go out. And then finally, I walked you through the exact AI framework to build client onboarding, the brain, dump the prompt, the refinement and implementation so that you can have your SOPs sorted.
So here's what you're doing this week. Action steps. One, your client onboarding, SOP, using the prompt that you got today. Two, join the insider experience. Grab the link in the show notes, and we'll send you the prompts for the project to kick off and quality check.
And three, build those SOPs in a week, then use them, test them, and hand them to your team. By the end of the week, you'll not be the single point of failure in your business anymore. You'll have systems and that's what makes scaling possible. So here's what I want you to remember.
The difference between a founder who's stuck and a founder who's scaling isn't talent. It isn't hustle, it's not even time, it's systems. And you just learned how to build the three most important systems in your business in 30 minutes each using ai.
So the only question left is, are you gonna do it?
Go build them. Get those processes outta your head and into your business because that's what lets you hire, delegate, finally step fully into the CEO role that you're meant for. This is where your business and you make a bigger difference in the world, and I know that that's what you're out to do.
You're not behind. You're right on time. Just sit down and make some SOPs.
And I'll see you on Thursday for one of our quick hit episodes. And until then, I'm Dawn Andrews and you're listening to She's That Founder. See you soon, Lovey.
