SOPs That A 7-Figure Business Can’t Afford to Skip

Standard Operating Procedures aren’t about adding layers of bureaucracy. They’re about protecting the core of your business, scaling sustainably, and making sure your success doesn’t depend on you being involved in every detail.

In this episode, we walk you through the six business pillars where SOPs make the biggest difference and how to put them in place whether you’re already at seven figures or on your way there.

We cover:

• Leadership SOPs that preserve your mission, vision, and values, and plan for smooth succession
• Marketing and sales processes that attract the right customers, qualify leads, and automate effectively
• Delivery standards that guarantee a consistent client experience without sacrificing a personal touch
• Risk management, compliance, and data security procedures to protect your business from costly mistakes
• Team and performance management systems for hiring, training, and holding people accountable
• Financial SOPs that keep your margins healthy and your business prepared for any scenario

If you’ve ever felt overwhelmed by the idea of documenting your processes, this conversation will show you how to tackle it one bite at a time, starting with the areas that give you the highest return.

If you want our help building SOPs tailored to your business, check out our Thrive360 service. We’ll help you document, streamline, and systemize your operations so you can scale with confidence.

“One bite at a time. That’s how you create the systems that make a business thrive.” – Anna Angelova

Transcript for “The Non-Negotiable SOPs for a 7-Figure Business”

The transcript below was automatically generated. Please ignore any errors or inconsistencies in the text.

Anna Angelova   0:05
Hello, Hello, Hello. Happy Tuesday. This is more than just task management, your favorite daily podcast where we help you build a thriving business with me, Anna Angelova, business coach and consultant and my co-host.
Joris Minisvant, a business consultant. Hey, Joris.

Jores Minasvand   0:27
Hi Anna, happy Tuesday. Another glorious day in our beautiful lives.
What is the topic for today, Anna?

Anna Angelova   0:38
Today we have a very interesting topic and what we’ll be discussing are the non-negotiatable SO PS which are standard operating procedures for a 7, figure business and this is where like if you have a six figure business this episode.
It’s definitely for you. If you have something for business as well, I would say listen, listen to it, listen to this episode because there are most likely things that you have not thought about and you might not be doing so.
I’ll directly start the conversation and I’ll start it with when you think about the business, like there are ultimately 6 pillars of the business for for for any business, there are 6 pillars.
Starting with leadership, this is like the first pillar. And then from there we have of course marketing, sales, delivery, corporations and then we also have team and performance management.
We have um.

Jores Minasvand   1:46
Finance.

Anna Angelova   1:49
Yes, yeah, we have these six pillars of any business. So starting with the first one, leadership, what are the SO PS, the standard operating procedures there?
That you need for you to get through a 7, figure business or as a 7, figure business. Now when you think about a 7, figure business, chances are that as a 7, figure business you already have a-team that you have people, whether they work directly for you or they’re contractors or you’re outsourcing.
Forcing things like the chances are that you are managing, you’re managing people in one way or another. So leadership, it really becomes important on as as a leader, like setting the vision, setting the the course ahead really, really becomes important because it’s not just you.
You anymore. There’s so many other people that are part of this now. So the standard operating procedures in terms of leadership, like protecting the core, maintaining the core while everything else changes.
And this is where also you would start thinking about succession, like how, how do you like make sure that the company, the core of the company remains by having that succession plan?
By knowing that OK like this is who the next CEO will be like how how we determine these steps like so standard operating procedures within the leadership pillar it it’s like the first like the first one right this is this is where like you as a 7, figure.
In your business you want to have like how do you manage succession? How do you maintain the core values, the core mission, vision and then the bee hacks, right? That bee care, audacious goal.
Like all the planning around it, all the strategy, right. This is where we’re talking about strategic, like all these strategic meetings, strategic direction, like how is this set. So these are all things within the leadership.
Pillar and then moving through the marketing, of course. Now chances are that as you have a 7, figure business, you might not be personally doing marketing. Someone else could be doing marketing.
And then sales of course, like chances are other people are doing the sales for you. So Joris, I will actually give you a chance to open the floor for you to talk a little bit about like some of the SOPs when it comes to marketing and sales for seven-figure business.

Jores Minasvand   4:42
Yeah, it again it it when you get to volumes, when you get to higher.
Rate of of sales and you get to you open up the market. So the bigger markets you open yourself then you have a far farther reach your farther reach you go then it becomes different than just your own local network and working with local businesses. So one of the.
And and you probably have a version of this. That’s why you now you went from 6 digits to 7 digits. It’s lead generation channels and the qualification criteria. This is another thing. When you get to that level, you don’t want just any customer as a customer.
You want to make sure that when you’re generating this qualify, when you’re generating leads, you are able to qualify them into customers, those that follow your value, those that you want to work with and and we’ve always talked about this leadership you you.
And and still your your your values and your goals. That also applies to picking customers. The all you need like sales call meeting frameworks, closing scripts, what how do you close, what what customers you close.
Then how do you use your CRM? What are the rules and the timelines, standard discounting or pricing? Now you’re on. Now all of a sudden you’re at the level where you have a little bit of cash flow. You can maybe give use one or two percentages of your.
GM or your EBIT more like GM to apply discounts. So these are things that that you can you can use for sales and marketing and but you need to be ready for it and I think when it comes to sales and marketing part of.
SOP should be automation. You need to pay attention to automating things.

Anna Angelova   6:54
Oh yes, especially when it comes to content creation, for example, I can with a I being in the picture now, like how do you use it? Like how do you make sure that the content again aligns with your company? And where do you automate? Where do you keep things personal? Absolutely.
And then when you go after Excel, marketing and sales, of course the next thing that comes is delivery, operations and delivery and this is where.
Like 11 aspect is customer service for example, especially depending on what kind of business you have, like if if it’s more of a consumer, so B to C with consumers where and especially if it’s a consumer market where like you said you’re is there is volume.
Then then, and even if there is no volume, like even if you work with 100 clients at a time, your company works with 100 clients at the time, still like you want to have standard operating procedures around customer service, how quickly you respond, what happens depending on the different problems.
How, how like all these kind of things like how do you manage customer service and then delivery as well that the the having that consistent and high quality of delivery because in the beginning you might have been the one who delivered everything but now other people are doing things for you so.
Maintaining that consistency that regardless of who is delivering, like who is doing things behind the scenes or in front, like we working with clients directly, like it might not be behind the scenes, it might be like directly working with clients that people have consistent experience, consistent experience that aligns with.
With your brand, yes, of course there will be differences like one person to different another person. There are differences, but that core, that’s why I mentioned that core keeping the core if your core values are.
I know I mentioned kindness a lot, but let’s say kindness, responsibility, wisdom, for example, like these are three of our core values. Then every person who works with us and for us is responsible, kind and.
Has wisdom, like it’s wise. So ultimately this is core. But then some people might be a little bit more outgoing and they might be a little bit more direct. Other people might be a little bit less direct and and less outgoing, right? So there are flavors, of course, when.
Different people do the work, but your standard operating procedures when it comes to delivery like they they need to help you like they they should help you maintain that high quality, high standard and.
Based on based on the brand and based on the business that that you have and Joris you did mention something before we started talking that that’s we talked a little bit about data last week I think was it last week when we talked about or might be a couple of weeks.
Ago when we touched on protecting the customer data. So as your business grows, as you go from six to seven figures, there are different risks that come and you did mention something about this, about this kind of risk.

Jores Minasvand   10:34
It’s about, it’s all about the risk management and compliance, right? Again, the the bigger you get, the more exposed you get, the more exposure you have, the more bigger target to become for lawsuits and you need to be very careful and data security and privacy protocols, these are very important.
Especially for client data, don’t lock. We talked about this as you mentioned in one of our podcasts a while back. There are technologies that you can put in place, but also technology can be circumvented, so you need to have the policies.
Where you do not walk away from your desktop for example without blocking it. You for a very very interesting example and I’ve already recently I’ve started using it cuz I travel so much privacy screen on your phone.
You’re sitting in a hotel, in an airport, in a in a, I don’t know, a lounge, in an airplane. You’re on the road and you’re looking at an important contract or something very important on your phone if you don’t have the privacy screen, even on your laptop or desktop or Surface.
If you don’t have those privacy screens, people can see it and you you will never, you know, you never know who’s next to you, competitor, agent of a competitor. So that’s very important. So you have to have like procedures as well. It’s not you anymore. There are 40 people in your team. They all have to follow.
Those procedures, legal compliance, like a checklist for your industry or whatever industry you’re in, what are your legal compliance, personal data protection, even for your employees?
Crisis management you have, you’re very reliant on your location, but what if that location gets flooded or burnt or you lose power? How quickly are you going to be back up and running? You have payroll to pay, you have customers to pay, you have suppliers to pay. What is your procedure for emergency?
To restart your business and what time does that take for you to do that? Can you restart it in 24 hours, 24 days? In 24 days you may be bankrupt. So you need to have these all in mind and some companies push because they’re essential services, they push it to a level where.
They actually test their their emergency procedures twice a year because they have to, they’re compliant and they have to.
Report to to the regulators and the thing the last one I will stop after this is your insurance coverage, your you have insurance, you have software protection, you have all of this, you have certificates on your website, but you have no renewal policy.
What happens after a year? What happens to this? There are companies whose policies have lapsed for years. They didn’t even know about it. So these are things that you have. If you put it in a standard procedure, you will know for sure on this date you know that in one month your.
Coverage for the company is expiring and you want to look for a new company or you want to reduce the insurance rate, you need to start looking. So these are important to know.

Anna Angelova   14:06
Yeah. And even if it doesn’t, even if it doesn’t laugh, so a lot of things auto renew. So absolutely. And and this way I could we don’t even think about what’s going on. So thanks for sharing that there was a lot.
So you might actually need to listen to this episode a couple of times so you can take notes and and deep breaths. It might be overwhelming and of course it will be overwhelming. Now you have a 7 figure business or you want to get to a 7 figure business and there there are a lot of things.
But it’s all doable. Now some of the things you talked about and we’ve mentioned it already a few times, like the next pillar is ultimately team and performance management. So this is where.
Like it’s everything from hiring including like how do you write like what what should a job posting look like? What what should a for every single role actually like what what do the role look like? Responsibilities and all these kind of things like so hiring, onboarding, training, firing like.
SOP’s for all these kind of things. How do you manage the team? How do you manage performance? How do you if performance is not OK, like what are the procedures in terms of like putting people on performance improvement plan?
Firing. And I know that nowadays it’s like, oh, you can’t fire people. That’s why you want to have clear contracts, like clear expectations, clear role descriptions with clear outcomes that this is what’s expected of you. This is what are your responsibilities and accountability.
Abilities. This is what the company is responsible for and accountable for. And then it gives you a clear way to say you’re not doing your work, improve or you’re out of the door. And it might sound, especially if you are at a six figure right now and trying to get to the seven figure, just starting this thing.
It might sound harsh, but not every person should be. It’s supposed to be your your employee. Not every person should work with you. And having those SOPs when it comes to team management is so, so key. Note that the other things are not key, of course, like everything we talked about, all the pillars we focus.
They’re all important. Your team makes or breaks your business ultimately. And The thing is that even with all other areas we talked about, like the people you have, they determine and define so much like you might have those SOPs in place.
But if people are not following them, if people were not actually doing what they’re supposed to do, what’s the point? Like this is not just having things on paper. It’s not just about writing some procedures and then forgetting about it.
The the power comes from having these frameworks, having these standards, having these things well designed and people actually doing it, people actually taking these things into account, people actually following this.
So really, really important for how, who, who are the right people to hire, how you hire, like all these kind of things. And last but not least, of course, these financials.
And this is another big one. This is an especially as you grow, as your business grows, as your team grows, you need to stay on top of financials for sure, but having certain SOPs for for your financial management.
Important, important, important. And Joris, I know you mentioned before we talked, before we started the conversation, you mentioned something you want to take over.

Jores Minasvand   18:03
About finance.

Anna Angelova   18:05
Yes.

Jores Minasvand   18:07
Oh, um.
Yeah, it’s um.
So there is bare minimum on on the finances that you want to monitor, right? Basically you want procedures for revenue tracking, expense approvals and reconciliation. Those are the things that you want to.
You also want to maybe have that on a monthly, quarterly basis. And then the other thing that when you get to 7 digits, one of the things that you need to do, it’s very important is financial forecasting. One of the things that you mentioned, we talked about. So let’s say emergency happens, your revenue stops.
There’s no money coming in. How long can you sustain without letting your key people and all all of your IP and then you know without your before your business falls apart. So you need to do these financing forecasting models.
That will help you. They become very important. There are softwares that do it. I haven’t seen very good ones. People tend to do it in Excel, but but either way you need to be able to have that, you know.
In your horizon, knowing that you’re one person, 62, you’re OK. But when you’re 7, an upper 7 digit business, now you’re responsible for other people, right? So you need to know what’s coming down the pipe.
Are you on a downward trajectory? Are you on an upward trajectory? Are you staling? What’s happening? So that will also have a direct effect back into your sales, marketing and pipeline, right? Payments and collections, the bad debt.
You know the bad debt protocol, especially at that level, becomes very, very important. Do you go to partner up with a collection agency? How do you handle bad debt? And then I think the most important part is the minimum profit margin for yourself where you know that.
Know that you go from 60 to 7 digits, but your EBIT drops from 22% to 6%. Well, that’s not good as growth for the sake of growth is not good. So you need to have an idea on what is what is your profit margin and how is it scaling?
And you can do that with the forecasting models as well. So it’s important to know your where you are financially today and where you’re headed.

Anna Angelova   20:44
And having those procedures, because again, now you’re not on your own. There are other people who take care of these things. And like as you were talking and and sharing some of the things, like one thing that came to my mind was.
Within your SOP for example, when it comes to finances like get the different allocation like you said this is the minimum EBIT when we we we that we strive for. So any decision that we make it needs to be there at least and then when it comes to marketing for example, so let’s say.
You invest $1000 into marketing and it it it gets you 5000 in in revenue. Now it’s amazing, right? 5X return and then if you invest 2000.
Will you get 10,000, right? Will it be 5? Again, I could do that 5-5 because if you have something that for every dollar you put you get $5 back, how much are you willing to invest? So all these kind of things of how you allocate finances, how you move forward with these things and how you.
Manage your finances, how often you review, what is reviewed. And as you are growing your business, especially in a sustainable way, you might actually have a few people that help with your finances. You might have bookkeepers, CPA who kind of they look look at what happened like they look at the.
Past and then you might have financial advisors, ACFO even who helps looking forward like based on whatever the bookkeeper has provided like they can help you look forward and and so all these different SOPs of how things are done, what kind of financial system you’re using and one of the things that.
I’m reading a book right now that’s related to Profit First and one of the things that it’s it’s very interesting. I haven’t really gotten into that too too much to to read about it, but ultimately a lot of CPAS like they follow the the generally accepted account.
Principles gap and this one was created for ultimately for publicly traded companies. And if your company is not publicly traded, having profit first as a financial model and how you track and how you report and how things are used.
It’s our choice, right? If we don’t have to have as long as it’s a standard way and consistent way for us where every year we track the same way, we report the same way, it doesn’t have to be gap. So having standard operating procedures around this as well, so.
I know I mentioned it’s a lot and we’re not here to overwhelm you, but at the same time, like if you are in the 7, the six figure and you want to go to 7 figure business, you want to know what’s coming up. You want to know all those moving parts that you need to pay attention to.
And then if you are the seven figure business, you really want to look at your business and see, do you really have all these kind of things, how sustainable it is? Because we’re here to help you build a thriving business, a business that is sustainable, a business that can.
Thrive generation after generation, a business built to last ultimately, and that’s why we’re sharing all this with you. That’s why we also have the Thrive 360.
Service that we provide where we actually come and help you identify all these things, come and help you build all these six business pillars with the necessary SOP’s so you can actually create a thriving business.
So.
Take a deep breath. I know it’s a lot. I know we talked about quite a few things, but how do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time. So as you are looking at your own business, and this is one thing that I know I’ve mentioned before, but I I don’t think recently I’ve mentioned it, but ultimately we don’t have this.
Conversations for you to just listen to the conversation and forget about it. So action item, right? Take a look at your business. Where are you right now? Are you 6 figures, 7 figures? And then thinking about all these different business pillars, where are you with them? Do you have the SOPs for all of them? If not, they start one.
By one, start with leadership. Look where you are. What’s going on?
Create the SOPs there, then move to marketing. Create the SOPs there one by one, one bite at a time and and and you do it. And then of course if you want to accelerate the journey, we are here for you. I’ll put the link to the Drive 360 service if you want.
Contact us and want us to jump in and help you do this, accelerate, do this faster. We’re here for you.

Jores Minasvand   25:55
I was gonna say that’s one of the other things that you can actually outsource all of your SO PS and all of your standardizing your entire business. We can help with that.

Anna Angelova   26:06
Uh, yeah. Because yesterday we talked about hiring, right? So absolutely.

Jores Minasvand   26:12
All right. Great session, Anna. Thank you. Very informative. Really appreciate it.

Anna Angelova   26:18
Oh, thanks Joris. Absolutely, absolutely. And tomorrow we are back with the next conversation, which is, oh, should you use a I for content creation as a start-up?

Jores Minasvand   26:31
And my favorite. My favorite.

Anna Angelova   26:35
Yep, Yep, your favorite. Should you use A I for content creation as you’re starting? So join us tomorrow for another conversation for another insightful topic that again helps you build a sustainable business that thrives year after year.

Jores Minasvand   26:37
Um.

Anna Angelova   26:55
Decade after decade. This is why we’re here for small, mid-sized businesses are so important. We do something amazing for the economy, for our communities, for our families, for everyone. And you are already a hero and we look.
Forward to joining you back tomorrow with the AI topic of the week.

Jores Minasvand   27:23
That would be fun.

Anna Angelova   27:23
I will be fine.
It will be fun. Thanks, Joris. Bye.

Jores Minasvand   27:27
Oh.