When we started on Acquisition Ace there were no SOPs, no client success managers and no structure. Ben Kelly had a Skool program and a couple of fractional coaches.
We wrote every SOP that back end now runs on. The method below is how we get processes out of a founder's head without the founder writing documents for a month.
Why does a coaching business need SOPs?
Because you cannot hold anyone accountable to a task that has no guide. Without an SOP, a client success manager who does a check-in badly has done nothing wrong. They did it their way.
SOPs also survive people leaving. When the person who built an automation goes and nothing is written down, you restart that automation from zero. If the company runs on systems that cannot break, with SOPs that work, you made it.
How do you get a process out of your head?
Do the task once on camera, then let someone else write. Founders who sit down to write SOPs from memory skip the steps they no longer notice. A recording catches them.
- List every task you did after the sale last week. Mark the ones that repeat.
- Pick one. Record a Loom while you do it for a real client, saying why at each step.
- Give the Loom to the person who will own the task. They write the steps.
- Check their draft against the recording. Correct it; do not rewrite it.
- They run the task with the SOP open. You check the outcome, not the person.
- Put an owner and a date on it and file it in one SOP library everyone can reach.
We use the same recording method for training content. For Laundry Profits, Diego recorded a context Loom for each training video, and Cami shot the video from it. The founder gives the knowledge once; somebody else turns it into the asset.
It was a classic coaching offer: a Skool program, a couple of fractional coaches, and that was it. No SOPs, no client success managers, no structure, just a pile of information. We rebuilt the video training, hired the client success managers, wrote all the SOPs and structured the whole client path. We built everything, because there was nothing.
What goes on an SOP page?
Eight fields, and most fit on one screen. The example column uses the day-3 check-in, one of the first SOPs we write in any program.
| Field | What goes in it | Example: day-3 check-in |
|---|---|---|
| Name | The task, in the words the team uses | Day-3 check-in |
| Trigger | What starts it | Client reaches day 3 after purchase |
| Steps | Numbered, one action each | Open the client on the board, send a voice message, log the reply |
| Links | Templates, the board, the training | Message template, board view, onboarding video |
| Done means | The check that it worked | Reply logged and next step noted on the board |
| Escalate to | Who, and when | The coach, if the client is stuck on the training |
| Owner | One name | The client's client success manager |
| Last updated | A date | The date the steps last changed |
Which SOPs do you write first?
The ones clients feel every day. Onboarding, chat and support triage, the check-ins, the overdue list and the refund call come before anything internal. A broken expense process annoys the team; a broken onboarding loses clients in the first 72 hours.
Then the milestone proof request and the renewal conversation, because they bring in proof and revenue. Internal SOPs, like tool access and offboarding a team member, come last.
How do you keep SOPs from going stale?
Update the SOP the day the task changes, and have the owner do it. A date on every page shows what nobody has touched in months. Video training goes stale the same way; after two years in a program, most of it is outdated.
Keep the messages inside SOPs short. Client success managers who send long messages and make things complicated usually copied a long template. Write templates like a friend would, professional, with a link instead of a paragraph.
Watch out. An SOP library nobody opens is a folder. Link each SOP from the place the task happens: the board column, the chat pinned message, the call booking page.
Diego Miescher
