2 surprising times to use video SOPs?

Two surprising times to use video SOPs.

First of all, what's a video SOP, a video standard operating procedure, it's a recording or screen recording where someone's recording their, their desktop or their phone and talking over the top telling you how to do something.

Am I a fan of video SOPs? Generally not? Generally not.

Why? Well, I find text to be faster, to be more easily editable to be extremely useful when I am beginning out building a system, for me, it is infinitely easier, to begin with, a broad name for the process that I'm working on.

And then fill in the main headings and then fill in the details.

And then if it is stable, SOP is a stable process, which is, unfortunately, becoming rarer and rarer.

But nonetheless, let's say that this is a relatively stable process that doesn't change much, then there is a place for that first, video, SOP.

So you have built it out.

You've built out the details, you know, it works, and it doesn't change now is a time that is appropriate to most video SOPs.

Why don't I like it so much in the beginning? Well, it's just every time something changes, you got to make a new video SOP.

And the other problem you'll run into is that there is no guarantee that the way you are doing things right now or the way that your teams are doing things is actually the most effective way of getting that done.

extremely common to go through and list out the actual full steps in a system and go, Oh, that should be there.

That would be a lot more effective and efficient if that step was moved here.

And suddenly you can see all the logical flows of this system.

But if you just record it as is and then you have to make a change, we got to record the whole thing again, let alone if it's a 12 minute SOP, no one's going to watch it.

No one will watch that video.

Now, is there a place for recording SOPs at the beginning? Yes, short, there is there actually is that you would take the work that's being done now and then transcribe it to text so you can much more easily edit, move it around, put it in the right place, and discard that original video, SOP.

So in my personal opinion, the place for one of the video SOPs is in a stable, important system.

And then my recommendation is to make them short.

Like if you've got a process with say, four major headings, then make four short videos, they might only be 1020 seconds long.

But it's long enough for someone to watch it get the value, but it's not so long, that they're like, Man, where is the information hidden? Now I get that there are tools now that will go through and provide the timestamps and all that stuff, and that's fine.

But your original problem of actually optimizing, you're documenting your systems then optimizing them.

And then finally, when they're stable, that is the first time what's the second time? Do you know, I'll give you the second time that video SOPs are pretty useful.

And that is when you're using other people's software.

They are highly likely to have made helpdesk items sometimes including videos.

And if that's the case that hey, fine link to it.

If they're any good, they've not only got the video, but they've also got the transcript.

Or ideally, they've got the video transcript, the sorry, the text, transcripts and then having the videos linking off those, just like I'm suggesting for the best practice to do SOPs in the first place.

If you have a choice.

If you're trying to decide for this.

My strong recommendation go to text once it's stable, once it's defined, once it's clear exactly what the steps are, then you can make a video.

If it changes, realize that text is so much easier to work with.

And text is a lot easier for most people to search for some part of an action step.

They're like I know how this whole thing works.

I've done it seven times before but it's been three weeks.

I'm just looking for that one link.

I'm just looking for that one step that one program that I meant to open at this point.

This is the best practice for creating SOPs.

This is the best practice for building your systems for your teams so that they can execute the work of your business consistently, quickly, effectively, and give you with any luck, good, reliable production into air creating profits.

Alright, that's all I got for you.

I'm going to date night with my wife tonight we're heading down to Mr.

Tipsy new restaurant analytics head.

Excited to see how it goes.

Hope you're having an awesome day.

Look forward to next episode as we continue this journey into the power systems to create results.

See you then.