WEEKLY DEEP DIVE | SOPs & Documented Processes

Hey community! This week we get practical. Really practical.

We're talking about the single biggest operational upgrade you can make to your events business in 2026: building SOPs and documented processes using AI.

Tired of answering the same question from a team member for the fourteenth time. Recreating the same document from memory for the ninth client in a row. Training someone new and realizing you have nothing written down?

SOPs aren't bureaucracy. They're freedom. And AI makes them faster to build than you ever thought possible.

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1. WHAT AN SOP ACTUALLY IS AND WHY OUR INDUSTRY AVOIDS THEM

A Standard Operating Procedure is simply a documented, step-by-step description of how a task gets done in your business. That's it.

The reason hospitality and events professionals rarely have them comes down to two things: time and pace. Our industry moves fast, our seasons are intense, and writing down how we do things always feels less urgent than actually doing them.

But here's the trap: every time you don't document a process, you're committing to doing it manually forever. Or to explaining it verbally every single time. Or to your quality varying depending on who's executing it that day.

AI removes the time barrier. You can now describe a process in rough notes and have AI shape it into a clean, structured SOP in minutes. The excuse of "I don't have time to document this" no longer holds.

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2. SOME EVENT PLANNING TASKS YOU CAN BUILD SOPs FOR RIGHT NOW

Client onboarding - from first enquiry to signed contract
Venue sourcing and site visit checklist
Supplier briefing and confirmation process
Run-of-show creation and distribution
Pre-event team briefing procedure
On-site setup and logistics management
Post-event debrief and client follow-up
Invoice and payment tracking workflow
Social media content capture during events
Hotel room block management and attrition tracking
Vendor payment and reconciliation process
Emergency and contingency protocols

Every single one of these can become a written, repeatable, shareable document and AI can help you build the first draft of any of them in under 10 minutes.

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3. HOW TO ACTUALLY USE AI TO BUILD AN SOP. HERE'S A REAL EXAMPLE

Here is a prompt you can use right now. Open ChatGPT or Claude and type:

"I run an event planning business. Help me create a step-by-step SOP for my client onboarding process. It should cover everything from the moment a new enquiry comes in to the point where a contract is signed and the planning officially begins. Use clear headings, numbered steps, and include notes on who is responsible for each step. Write it in a professional but approachable tone."

Read what comes back. You'll get a structured, logical framework in seconds, one that would have taken you an afternoon to write on your own. Then personalize it. The AI gives you the skeleton; you bring it to life with your experience.

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4. THE THREE BUSINESS PROBLEMS SOPs SOLVE IMMEDIATELY

PROBLEM 1: You are the bottleneck. When processes only exist in your head, every question comes to you. SOPs move the knowledge out of your head and into a document anyone can reference.

PROBLEM 2: Quality is inconsistent. Without documented processes, quality depends on your energy and memory. With SOPs, your best work becomes the standard, not the exception.

PROBLEM 3 — Onboarding takes forever. Training someone new when nothing is written down is exhausting. SOPs turn onboarding from a weeks-long verbal marathon into a structured, self-guided process.

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5. HOW TO PRIORITIZE | WHERE TO START

Ask yourself these three questions:

What task do I explain to someone new every single time?
What process, if it went wrong, would cause the most damage to a client relationship?
What part of my business do I dread because it's always chaotic?

Your answers are your SOP priority list. Pick the top one. Build it this week using AI. Within a month of consistent effort, you'll have a documented operations library that most events businesses never build in years.

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6. MAKING YOUR SOPs LIVING DOCUMENTS

A messy, slightly outdated SOP is still better than no SOP. Build the habit of reviewing them after each event initially and then quarterly. Use AI to update them quickly when your process changes. Keep them somewhere your team can access easily - a shared Google Drive folder, a Notion workspace, or pinned inside this community.

The goal isn't a perfect document library. It's a functional one that keeps your operation moving without everything running through you.

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7. THIS WEEK'S COMMUNITY CHALLENGE + QUESTION

CHALLENGE: Pick ONE process from the list in point 2. Use the prompt from point 3 to build a first-draft SOP using AI. It should take less than 15 minutes.

Then come back here and tell us:

Which process did you pick and what surprised you about the AI's draft?

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