Turn What the Owner Knows Into SOPs: A Practical Guide to Ending "Only Sharma Ji Knows"
Every business has someone whose head holds the real process. Here's a step-by-step way to get that knowledge out — with voice notes, five questions and one review pass — and into a form a Company Brain can use.
By Garvit Jain, Vardhan AI
Most SOPs never get written because writing them feels like a project. The person who knows the process is busy running the business, and "document everything" is too big to start. The way through is to stop writing and start talking. (For the bigger picture on why this matters, read “Only Sharma Ji Knows”; this post is the practical how-to.)
Step 1: list the tasks, not the documents
Don't start with "what documents do we need?" Start with "what do people keep asking the owner?" Write a list of the repeated tasks: quoting a new client, handling a late delivery, approving a discount, onboarding a supplier. Aim for 10, and pick the 3 that cause the most interruptions.
Step 2: record, don't write
For each task, ask the person who knows it best to explain it out loud, as if training a new hire, while a voice recorder or phone runs. Ten minutes per task is plenty. Explaining is far faster than writing, and it captures the reasoning ("we never give more than 10% without checking with me, because…") that a written checklist leaves out.
Step 3: ask the same five questions every time
- What triggers this task, and who does it?
- What are the steps, in order?
- What decisions come up, and what's the rule for each?
- What usually goes wrong, and what do you do then?
- When should this go to a senior person, and who?
The last two are where the real value sits. Exceptions and escalation rules are exactly what a new employee — or an AI — would otherwise get wrong. (Our guide to documenting your business in an hour with AI shows one way to turn the recordings into drafts quickly.)
Step 4: turn the recording into a draft
Transcribe the recording and have AI reshape it into a simple format: purpose, trigger, steps, decisions and rules, common problems, escalation. Don't polish the language. A plain step list beats a beautiful document nobody finishes.
Step 5: one review pass by the person who knows
This is the step that matters. Give the draft back to the person whose knowledge it is and ask two things: "What's wrong?" and "What's missing?" Ten minutes of correction turns a rough draft into something trustworthy. Add a date and an owner.
Step 6: put it where the Brain can use it
An SOP in a folder helps whoever finds it. An SOP in the Company Brain helps everyone who asks. Once loaded, a new hire can ask "how do we handle a late delivery?" and get the owner's actual process, not a guess. Owners often notice something else: the questions they used to field all day start going to the Brain instead.
Keep the habit going: whenever the owner answers the same question a third time, that's the next SOP. Want help capturing the first three? Talk to us →.