This is an adapted transcript from the Love To Lead Podcast. Listen to the full episode 3 Signs Your SOPs Are Too Vague (And How to Fix Them Without Starting Over)

If you've ever handed something off to a team member and gotten back work that was just… not quite right, this episode is for you.

So maybe the work is not wrong exactly. Just missing something. Missing the context, the nuance, the specific way you like things done. And so you go back in, you fix it, you clarify, and somewhere in the back of your mind you start to wonder if it would have just been faster to do it yourself.

Outsourcing and delegation did not fail you. But there isn’t a lot of content out there showing you what to hand off or how. So let’s just zoom into a piece of that… a big part of that comes down to your SOPs. Your standard operating procedures. The documented processes that are supposed to give your team everything they need to do the work without it coming back to you.

If your SOPs are too vague, your team will always need more from you. And today I'm going to show you exactly how to spot that and fix it without overhauling everything at once.

What Are SOPs and Why Do They Matter

Let's just make sure we're on the same page first.

An SOP is simply a documented process for how something gets done in your business. It's the step by step instructions that live somewhere your team can access so that when they do a task they know exactly what you expect, how you want it done, and what good looks like.

When SOPs are working well, things get done right the first time. Questions stop landing back on your desk. Your team feels confident. And you get to actually step back from the work instead of being pulled back in constantly.

When SOPs aren't working? Everything still runs through you. Just with extra steps.

Now let’s have just a quick roll call for our recovering control freaks… sometimes we will outline our systems for the work to funnel through us again because of our trust issues. Sometimes that is necessary, but oftentimes IF your SOP is properly set up you actually don’t need it to come back to you before it’s “good to go”. 

So just putting that out there for whoever might need to hear it.

Here's what I see most often. It's not that women business owners don't have SOPs. It's that the SOPs they have are too vague to actually do the job they're supposed to do.

Whether you do or don’t have them, all of this is still worthy information to save for when these situations come up.

Sign 1: The Output From Your Team Is Inconsistent

The first sign your SOPs are too vague is that the output from your team is inconsistent.

Sometimes it's great. Sometimes it misses the mark. And you can't quite put your finger on why because the instructions seem clear enough to you.

Here's what's actually happening. When an SOP is too broad, your team members are filling in the gaps with their own judgment. And their judgment is not your judgment. They don't have the years of context you have. They don't know your client's specific preferences. They don't know the nuances of how you like things to look or sound or feel.

So they do their best. And their best is not what you had in mind. Not because you’re a terrible leader and micromanager, there is just a gap. And it doesn't mean that anyone is terrible and failing, it’s just a gap. So let’s fill it.

I worked with a client recently who was running into exactly this. Her team was struggling to complete tasks the way she needed them done. The output just wasn't hitting the standard she expected. And when we sat down and looked at her SOPs together, the problem became really clear really fast.

The SOPs were too simple. Too broad. They covered the basic steps but they were missing all the contextual details that make the difference between okay and excellent. Things like specific client preferences. Nuances in how certain tasks should be handled. The unwritten rules that lived in her head but had never made it onto the page.

Her team already knew the general process. What they didn't have was the detail they needed to execute it the way she would.

Sign 2: Tasks Keep Coming Back To You

The second sign is that tasks keep coming back to you.

Your team starts something, hits a decision point, and instead of being able to move forward they come back and ask. And you answer. And then it happens again. And again.

This is not a team problem. This is a process problem.

When an SOP doesn't include enough detail to get someone through the full task independently, every gap becomes a question. And every question comes back to you.

Everything still runs through you. Just with a different label on it.

The goal of a good SOP is to give your team member everything they need to complete a task from start to finish without having to interrupt you. That means anticipating the decision points. That means including the context they would need to make the right call. That means thinking through not just what to do but what to do when something unexpected happens.

If your team is asking a lot of questions, your SOPs are not giving them enough to work with.

Roll call for all of my overloaded owners… Sometimes it can be very hard to see the value in slowing down long enough to provide proper information. Our brain is moving so quickly and it's holding so much that we are not able sometimes to think about all of these pieces. But it's OK to start somewhere and add context moving forward. This does not have to be a perfect process. It has to be a living and growing process. 

Sign 3: You've Been Avoiding Updating Them

The third sign is one nobody really talks about. And it's this: you already know your SOPs need updating but you keep putting it off.

And I want to be really honest about why that happens. Updating SOPs feels like a massive project on top of an already full plate.

You look at what it would take to go back through every process, add all the missing context, fill in all the gaps, and it just feels like too much. So you settle for what you have. And the output from your team stays inconsistent. And the tasks keep coming back to you. And the cycle continues.

This is exactly what happened with my client. She and her team knew the SOPs needed work. But their plates were full and the idea of going back and adding all the detail and context to every single SOP they had created felt completely overwhelming. So they kept settling for what they had.

Until we came up with a simpler system for tackling it.

How To Fix Your SOPs Without Starting Over

Here's the thing about updating your SOPs. It does not have to be a big project. And it does not have to happen all at once.

The system we used was simple. Instead of trying to rewrite everything from scratch, we identified the SOPs that were causing the most problems first. The ones where tasks were coming back. The ones where output was most inconsistent. And we started there.

And then instead of sitting down and trying to write the perfect SOP from memory, we updated them in the moment. While the task was being done. While it was fresh. Adding the context, the nuances, the specific preferences as they came up naturally in the work.

It takes very little time in the grand scheme of things. It doesn't need a whole updated SOP written from scratch in one sitting. It just needs the details added as you go.

And here is what happened. The updates started happening faster than anyone expected. Because it wasn't a separate project anymore. It was just part of doing the work.

And the output from the team? It improved. Because now they had what they actually needed.

 Real life story for you. Nothing irks me more as a mother than my children leaving their dirty dishes around the house. I am trying to remind them and train them  when they get up after eating and they're walking back into the kitchen to get their dessert, or their treat, that they bring the dirty plate back into the kitchen and put it in the sink. That simple act takes maybe 30 seconds if that and it saves me a lot of time and energy. My kids like to take turns at who is going to remember or not and they are 10 and six so we're still working on it but it's a really simple system that keeps the house picked up, which keeps Mom, more peaceful, and more fun because I'm not spending extra time picking up all the dishes. 

And the same goes for your SOPs. Don’t just make it and leave it, train your people and yourself, to update and “clean up” as you go.

Here's one more thing I want to add. We also used my SOP Machine GPT to help build some of these out. And my client said it put her previous SOPs to shame. When you give AI the right information, the right context, the specific preferences and nuances, it can help you document a process in a way that is genuinely useful. Not just a basic checklist. A real guide that someone could pick up and actually follow.

You don't need a corporate handbook and training program for your team. You just need a good quality SOP And getting there is a lot simpler than it feels sometimes.

If delegation has felt messy or like it just doesn't work for you, I want you in this free workshop I'm hosting called Find 10 Hours. We are going to look at what's actually on your plate, identify what you can start handing off, and get your first tasks packaged and ready to delegate. The systems piece, the SOP piece, that's where it all starts to come together.

It's free, it's live, and we do the work together in real time.

I want to leave you with this.

Delegation not working is not a sign that you're bad at leading. It's not a sign that your team isn't capable. It's usually a sign that the handoff wasn't set up to succeed.

When your team has what they actually need, clear context, specific details, the nuances that make your business yours, things stop coming back to you. Tasks get done right the first time. And you get to actually step back.

You're already doing the work anyway. The documentation piece is just making sure someone else can do it too.

It's simpler than it feels. I promise.

I'll see you in the next one.

Ready to start handing things off for real? Come to the Find 10 Hours workshop. It's free, it's live, and you will leave with your first tasks packaged and ready to delegate. Save your spot here. I'll see you there.

This is an adapted transcript from the Love To Lead Podcast. Listen to the full episode 3 Signs Your SOPs Are Too Vague (And How to Fix Them Without Starting Over)