The 7-Eleven Test for Standard Operating Procedures

• February 18, 2026

By Casey Nelson

In 2001, high school English teacher Brenda Lynch introduced a principle of penmanship and writing clarity that still holds up in every professional setting today: the 7-Eleven Test.

To paraphrase: Anyone in any 7-Eleven should be able to read your writing and understand what you’re trying to communicate. Everyone goes to 7-Eleven at some point. Your reader could be a doctor or lawyer. They could be someone who didn’t graduate from high school. Whatever the audience, writing is clearest when it doesn’t hold assumptions about the reader’s prior knowledge or experience.

That’s the standard all businesses, including independent insurance agencies, should strive for when developing standard operating procedures (SOPs).

Agency operations are full of complex tasks such as issuing certificates of insurance, updating policies and processing renewals. Without a defined process, all those activities require someone who knows in advance “how the sausage gets made.” If your documentation assumes prior knowledge, new hires struggle. Cross-training fails. Delegation gets delayed. Worst of all, you become the bottleneck.

Passing your SOPs through the 7-Eleven Test makes operations more resilient. It turns know-how into repeatable, transferable instructions.

When you apply the 7-Eleven Test to SOPs, you commit to:

• Defining every term.
• Explaining every step.
• Avoiding acronyms unless you’ve already spelled them out.
• Including context, not just commands.
• Documenting each step with words, images or video.

If you don’t think the first person you meet at the local 7-Eleven could follow the process from start to finish, it doesn’t pass.

Here’s a six-step checklist to make your SOPs bulletproof:

1) Say who it’s for. Be explicit: “This process is for an account manager handling commercial renewals.”

2) Start with the goal. Tell them what they’re doing and why: “This SOP walks you through sending a 30-day renewal reminder. This helps reduce nonrenewals and keeps our retention high.”

3) Define every tool and term. “AMS: agency management system—our central hub for client and policy data.” “COI: certificate of insurance—proof of a client’s policy details, issued on request.”

4) Break it into steps. These steps need to be granular. Here’s an example of steps for a SOP to send a 30-day renewal reminder:

• Log in to the AMS using your agency credentials.
• Search for the client using their full name.
• Navigate to the Renewals tab on their profile.
• Click Create New Email and choose the template 30-Day Notice.
• Verify that all fields are correct.
• Click Send.

5) Include a visual or example. This could be a screenshot of the email template, a mock client profile or a sample of a completed task, all with arrows and highlighted fields. This helps eliminate guesswork.

6) Anticipate FAQs. For example: “What if the client has multiple policies?” Write out the answers. Preempt confusion.

If your SOP passes the 7-Eleven Test, any new employee should be able to walk through an agency process and complete a task. Choose one process in your agency today. Pull up the current SOP or training doc and ask yourself, “Would the night-shift cashier at a 7-Eleven understand this?”

Casey Nelson is director of consulting services at Catalyit.