The SOP Prompt Kit

You are a senior operations consultant who has helped hundreds of small businesses, both service-based and brick-and-mortar, build their internal systems from the ground up.

I am a business owner and I need your help mapping the foundation of my business before we build any SOPs.

Do not assume anything about my business. Ask me questions one section at a time, wait for my answers, and do not move to the next section until I have answered. Do not generate a final map until you have asked all of the following.

SECTION 1 - THE BASICS
1. What does my business do, in one or two sentences?
2. Is this a service-based business, a brick-and-mortar business, or both?
3. How long have I been in business?
4. How many people currently work in the business, including me, and what does each person do?

SECTION 2 - WHERE I'M AT
5. Which of these best describes where I'm at right now, and why:
 a) Foundation stage - the business is new, I have products or services but no written systems at all
 b) Rebuilding stage - I have systems, but they live in my head, in scattered tutorials, or are done differently every time
 c) Scaling stage - I have systems, but we are high-volume with a lot of moving parts and I am not sure they still hold up
6. What is the single task that, if I disappeared for two weeks, would break first?

SECTION 3 - THE DEPARTMENTS
Here is a universal list of business departments. Go through it with me one at a time and ask me: does this exist in my business, what do I call it, and roughly how much of my week does it take up.
- Sales / Client Acquisition
- Service Delivery / Fulfillment (whatever we actually get paid to do)
- Client Experience / Customer Service
- Marketing
- Finance / Bookkeeping
- HR / Team & Hiring
- Operations / Admin / Tools & Systems
- Owner-Only Tasks (things only I currently do that should eventually be handed off)

Once you have all my answers, give me:
1. My customized department list, renamed in my own words, with anything that does not apply to my business removed
2. My stage (Foundation, Rebuilding, or Scaling) and one paragraph on what that means for how detailed and how fast I should build my SOPs
3. A priority order for which department to document first, second, third, and so on, based on what would hurt the business most if it broke or if I disappeared
4. A recommended pace (for example, one department every two weeks) based on my team size and stage

Keep your language plain. No corporate jargon. Ask before you assume anything.

You are helping me capture everything I actually do in one department of my business so we can turn it into a step-by-step SOP later. Do not write an SOP yet. Your only job right now is to pull the process out of my head through questions, the way a skilled consultant interviews an expert.

The department we are documenting is: [NAME THE DEPARTMENT]
My stage from the Business Foundation Map is: [FOUNDATION / REBUILDING / SCALING]

I may answer by typing directly, or by pasting in a transcript of me, or whoever actually does this job, narrating the real process out loud while doing it. Treat either format the same way.

Adjust your questions based on my stage:
- If I am Foundation stage, help me first decide what this department SHOULD look like, since it may not exist in practice yet.
- If I am Rebuilding stage, ask me to walk through what I currently do, even if it is inconsistent or different every time, and help me spot where the inconsistency is.
- If I am Scaling stage, ask me to walk through the current process AND where it tends to break down or where different team members do it differently.

Interview me using this structure, one question at a time, and do not move on until I have answered. Push back if my answer is vague. For example, if I say "I just handle it," ask me exactly what "handling it" involves, step by step.

1. What is the end result this department needs to produce, and how do I know when it is done correctly?
2. Walk me through everything that happens from the very first trigger (an email, a booking, a new lead, whatever starts it) to the very end, in the exact order it happens. Talk to me like you are training a brand new employee who has never done this before and knows nothing about my business.
3. What tools, logins, software, or physical materials are needed at each step?
4. Who is involved at each step, and what happens if that person is unavailable?
5. What decisions come up during this process, and what determines which way I go (if X happens, do Y; if Z happens, do this instead)?
6. What are the most common mistakes that happen in this process, and what causes them?
7. What would a brand new hire not know that I take completely for granted?
8. Is there anything that only I know how to do, or only I am allowed to do, in this process? Why?
9. Is this department subject to any regulation, licensing requirement, or required disclosure? If yes, tell me exactly what it requires and at what point in the process it applies.

Once you have detailed answers to all of these, summarize what you've captured back to me in plain language and ask me to confirm it is accurate before we move to building the actual SOP. Do not add any step I did not tell you. If something is unclear, tell me it is unclear instead of guessing.

Using everything I just told you in this conversation about the [DEPARTMENT NAME] department, write me a complete Standard Operating Procedure. This SOP needs to be detailed enough that a total stranger, someone with zero prior knowledge of my business, could follow it start to finish and get the job done correctly without asking me a single question.

Rules you must follow:
- Do not invent, assume, or add any step, tool, or detail I did not actually tell you. If something is missing or unclear, do not guess. Instead, list it under a section called "NEEDS MY INPUT" at the end, so I can fill the gap.
- Use plain, simple language. No jargon, no corporate buzzwords.
- Every step should be one single action. If a step has more than one action in it, break it into separate steps.
- Number every step.
- Assume the reader has no prior knowledge of my business, my industry, or my tools.
- If I told you about any regulation, licensing requirement, or required disclosure for this process, do not put it in a separate compliance section. Build it directly into the exact numbered step where it applies, so whoever follows this SOP does it automatically as part of the workflow, not as a separate thing to remember.
- Flag, but do not create, any step where a screenshot, photo, or short video would communicate something a sentence can't. List these separately, don't just mention them inline.

Format the SOP exactly like this:
TITLE: [Name of the process]
PURPOSE: [One or two sentences on why this process exists and what it accomplishes]
WHO OWNS THIS: [Role or title responsible for doing this]
WHEN TO USE THIS: [What triggers this process to start]
TOOLS AND ACCESS NEEDED: [Every login, software, physical item, or material required]
BEFORE YOU START: [Anything that must be true or ready before beginning]
STEP-BY-STEP INSTRUCTIONS: [Numbered steps, one action each, in exact order]
DECISION POINTS: [Any "if this, then that" branches, clearly labeled]
COMMON MISTAKES TO AVOID: [What goes wrong and why]
HOW TO KNOW YOU DID IT RIGHT: [The specific, observable way to confirm the task is complete and correct]
WHO TO ASK IF YOU'RE STUCK: [Who to escalate to and how]
VISUALS TO ADD: [Which specific steps would benefit from a screenshot, photo, or video, and why]
NEEDS MY INPUT: [Anything you were missing information on]

After you generate this, I will review it, fill in anything under "NEEDS MY INPUT," and ask you to regenerate the final clean version.

Here is the SOP we are testing:
[PASTE THE FULL SOP]

Here is exactly where my tester got stuck, confused, guessed, or did something wrong while following it, step by step:
[PASTE YOUR NOTES, BY STEP NUMBER]

Fix the SOP so each of these specific points is no longer a problem. Do not remove or water down any existing detail that already worked. If one of these confusion points exists because I'm missing information you'd need to fix it correctly, do not guess, ask me for it instead.

Give me the corrected, complete SOP using the same format as before.

I want you to help me audit an existing SOP to see if it is still accurate and catch anything that has drifted out of date. This is not a rewrite from scratch, it is a check-up.

Here is the current SOP:
[PASTE THE FULL SOP HERE]

Ask me the following questions one at a time before you tell me anything:
1. Has anything about the tools, software, or logins used in this process changed since this SOP was written?
2. Has the person responsible for this process changed?
3. Has anything gone wrong, been missed, or caused a complaint since this SOP was last used? Walk me through what happened.
4. Are there any steps in the current SOP that we no longer actually do, or that we now do differently?
5. Has the volume or frequency of this task changed enough that the process needs to change (for example, doing it five times a week now instead of five times a month)?

Based on my answers, give me:
1. A list of exactly what in the current SOP is out of date, broken into "small fixes" and "needs a full rewrite"
2. An updated version of the SOP with those changes made, using the same format as before (TITLE, PURPOSE, WHO OWNS THIS, WHEN TO USE THIS, TOOLS AND ACCESS NEEDED, BEFORE YOU START, STEP-BY-STEP INSTRUCTIONS, DECISION POINTS, COMMON MISTAKES TO AVOID, HOW TO KNOW YOU DID IT RIGHT, WHO TO ASK IF YOU'RE STUCK)
3. The date of this review, so I can track when it was last checked

Do not add anything I have not confirmed with you in this conversation.