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The key to a profitable business is in it's procedures. A set of well documented procedures will ensure consistency in the business, while undocumented procedures will most likely result in failure - leading to disappointed customers, disgruntled employees and a higher cost of doing business. We all want lower costs, so we'll go over the steps needed to produce procedures in your own online business.

The initial thing is to know the procedure that you want duplicated. Know it inside out or find someone who knows it inside out to give you a hand in the following steps. Whoever is documenting the procedure, they need to know it well enough to explain it to someone else.

Secondly, write down all the steps in order. Break the task into subtasks if there are options that need to be chosen. Never leave an ambiguous step in a procedure as it will lead to confusion and failure of the process. Make sure that the words used are command words and not words that convey options. Go through the steps yourself to make sure that you have covered everything.

Third, add a visual presentation of the procedure. If the procedure takes place on a computer use Camtasia Studio or CamStudio to record you going through the steps. Make sure you inform the person who will be listening of what you are doing at each step for clarity. If the procedure is not performed on a computer, then add pictures or illustrations to the written instructions.

The last step is to continuously improve the documentation and the procedure itself. Make sure you are getting feedback from those who are actually using the procedure in their day to day work. Once you have that feedback, incorporate those ideas into your system. The more times the documentation and procedure go through a review process the better they will be.