A Business That Lives in Your Head, Dies in Your Head.
Standard Operating Procedures aren't corporate baggage—they're the key to a scalable, stress-free creator business.
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Systems work. Here’s my personal proof.
You’re overlooking the “puddles” that make money. This will help.
Your business is not a special snowflake.
I hear it all the time. “My process is creative, it can’t be documented.”
That’s an excuse for chaos. You're burning hours reinventing your publishing workflow every single week. That nagging stress isn’t creative pressure. It’s the friction of a business with no backbone.
After spending years fixing processes, I learned an essential truth.
We don’t run on genius; we run on checklists.
When I first started creating, I thought my art was different. I was wrong. I just built a prison where I was the only one who knew how to do anything.
A business that only exists in your head cannot grow.
You can't hire help. You can’t even take a vacation without everything falling apart. Without documentation, you don’t have a business; you have a high-stress job you will abandon due to burnout.
The gurus sell “freedom,” but they don’t tell you it’s built on boring, repeatable steps. Real freedom isn't chaos. It's a business that runs without your constant input.
Use the "If-This-Then-That" method. If This (Trigger): a new client pays. Then That (Action Steps): 1. Send welcome email. 2. Create client folder. 3. Add to project board.
Open a blank doc now.
Title it "Client Onboarding SOP." List the five things you always do for a new client. That is a real business asset.
Stop treating your business like art.
Start building it like a machine that makes art possible.
Ready to turn your hobby into a business? Reach out today. Can you afford not to?
"But my business is different" is such an easy excuse for doing hard work.
I won't lie, I do it too because my business is different...but people aren't.
Good words, Joe!