Ask ten business owners how they keep their company running, and you’ll probably get ten different answers. Some will tell you everything lives in their head. Others will point to a handful of spreadsheets or sticky notes. A few will admit that most of their “system” is just texting people when something goes wrong.

The truth is, a lot of businesses run this way for a long time. But sooner or later, the wheels start to shake. People leave, deadlines get missed, and the founder ends up working nights just to keep the lights on. That’s where playbooks come in.

We build playbooks for clients because they bring order to the chaos. They make roles, responsibilities, and rhythms clear enough that the business doesn’t collapse if one person steps away. And they do it without locking every little thing into rigid instructions that no one wants to read.

SOPs vs. Playbooks: Clearing Up the Confusion

Most teams already have some kind of SOPs. Standard Operating Procedures are useful, but they’re also limited. An SOP is like a recipe card: turn on the oven, measure the flour, bake for twenty minutes. It’s step-by-step and usually tied to a single task.

Playbooks work differently. They don’t show you how to bake the bread. They explain why you’re baking it in the first place, who’s in charge of the kitchen, and when it should be served. A Finance Playbook, for instance, doesn’t teach you how to submit payroll. It explains who owns payroll, what approvals are needed, how expenses flow, and when reviews should happen. Then it points you toward the supporting SOPs for the finer details.

The simplest way to think about it is this: SOPs tell you “how.” Playbooks tell you “who” and “why.” You need both. Too much focus on SOPs, and you drown in instructions. Too much focus on playbooks, and no one knows how to actually do the work.

 

Why Bother With Playbooks?

Here’s why we spend so much time building them for clients.

First, they make roles obvious. Nothing kills momentum like three people all assuming someone else is responsible. Playbooks put names beside responsibilities so there’s no gray area.

Second, they make the business consistent. If every leader runs meetings their own way, you end up with silos. Playbooks set standard cadences, agendas, and ways of making decisions.

Third, they protect the founder. Most companies rely too heavily on the person at the top. When everything needs their sign-off, growth slows down. A playbook creates systems that let decisions move forward without waiting for the founder to weigh in on every little thing.

Fourth, they prepare the business to scale. Growth creates strain. If you don’t have playbooks, the cracks widen fast. A solid system makes it easier to add people and still deliver consistently.

Finally, they reinforce culture. A People & Culture Playbook isn’t just about hiring steps. It’s about making sure the way you give feedback or recognize performance matches the values you want in your company.

 

What Do Playbooks Actually Look Like?

A playbook isn’t one big binder you throw on a shelf. It’s a set of focused guides, each one tackling a core part of the business. Some of the common ones include:

Leadership & Organizational Structure: Who reports to whom, what meetings exist, how decisions get made.

Operations: The day-to-day workflows, project management, and handoffs that keep things moving.

Finance: Bookkeeping, payroll, approvals, forecasting, and who owns what.

Sales & Revenue: The full journey from lead intake to signed contract, plus how the handoff to delivery works.

Marketing: Campaign planning, content calendars, and tracking what’s actually driving leads.

People & Culture: Hiring, onboarding, performance reviews, and cultural rituals.

Client Experience: How clients are onboarded, supported, and eventually offboarded.

Legal & Compliance: Contracts, data security, and insurance requirements.

Exit Readiness: Preparing the business to function without the founder and, eventually, to be sold or handed down.

Inside each playbook you’ll find deep-dive questions, gaps we uncover, recommendations, and references to SOPs. The goal is to see the bigger system, not just the individual steps.

 

Where Do You Start?

This is usually the part where leaders feel overwhelmed. Nine playbooks? Hundreds of SOPs? It sounds like a mountain of work. But it doesn’t need to start that way. Here’s a practical path.

Pick one area that hurts the most. If finance approvals are slowing everything down, start there. If sales handoffs are a mess, begin with the Sales Playbook. Don’t try to fix everything at once.

Ask tough questions. For leadership, that might sound like: “Who actually has the authority to make this decision?” or “Why are we waiting three weeks for an answer?” For finance: “Who approves spending?” or “When was the last time we did a real budget review?” The gaps usually show up fast when you dig.

Write down the system. Capture roles, responsibilities, meeting rhythms, and escalation paths. Then link to SOPs where you already have them, or make a list of the ones you still need. Keep it high-level. A playbook is a map, not a set of marching orders.

Once you do this for one area, the process gets easier. You’ll start noticing patterns. Maybe approvals pile up at the same person’s desk. Maybe key processes only exist in one employee’s head. Those patterns are your early wins.

 

The Payoff

It’s tempting to treat playbooks as “extra documentation” that you’ll get to someday. But the businesses that invest in them are the ones that stop running on panic mode.

Without playbooks, you risk burning out your best people, losing momentum every time someone leaves, and keeping your founder chained to the business. With them, you build a company that can grow, adapt, and last.

And maybe the most overlooked part: they give peace of mind. When you know the structure is documented, when you trust that people can make decisions without you, when the next hire can step into a system instead of chaos, you get to breathe.

 

That’s why we build playbooks. Not because documentation is fun, but because freedom is.

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