5 Ways to Automate Your Small Business
Starting a business can be equal parts exciting and terrifying! I started Redesignia a couple of years ago and I’ve learned so much in the process! The roller coaster ride of entrepreneurship is real. One thing that will help any business owner from newbie to decades of experience is saving time with automations. Learn the 5 ways you can automate your small business.
Use automated email campaigns
One of the easiest ways to save time is by scheduling your emails and creating automated funnels that take your subscribers through an email sequence without having to keep track of sending these out manually.
Email marketing automations can be used in so many different ways!
Emails are set up to be triggered based on an action like signing up for your webinar or scheduling a consult call. By creating this email flow you make sure that these important details are sent to people who opted in for these services.
Delivering content like a lead magnet and keeping track of leads by group or interest. It’s also a good idea when someone first joins your email list to have a welcome sequence triggered after delivering your lead magnet.
Automate repetitive tasks
This is what every business owner wants. More time spent on money generating tasks that move your business forward instead of feeling stuck doing easy and repetitive tasks. What is a busy business owner to do?
Those little simple tasks you do all the time are another area you can automate. If content marketing is a part of your marketing plan for your business using automations for your social media posts is a must. Use a social media scheduler for managing content and posting across multiple platforms. A few social media scheduling apps are Planoly, SocialBee and Buffer.
Other software to try and use across multiple platforms and apps is Zapier to perform these repetitive tasks for you in the background.
Automate your sales process
This is another area where using a funnel or email sequence can help save you time. There are so many ways you can automate your sales. First you’ll need to figure out the steps involved to build out your sales process for your business since this is so custom to each business owner. One task to consider is prequalifying your leads so only people who are ready to invest in you and your services will be in your sales process.
Once you build your email marketing automation system or drip campaign for your services or products you’ll need to do lead generating activities, create traffic to your website or lead magnet to get these qualified leads into your CRM and emails system.
Another plus with using an automated selling process with your email system is you can schedule follow ups also. This is where many busy business owners who forget to follow up manually won’t send these crucial emails. Don’t miss out on possible sales because you forgot to follow up.
Use a task management system
Are you trying to use a million to do lists instead of having one central place for all this information and your tasks? I used to be the queen of post it notes and scribbling on any scrap of paper I could find. I was afraid to throw them away in case I needed the valuable information on it again. This led to a messy desk and the clutter on top of all the tasks made me feel overwhelmed!
Creating a central information and task hub makes things so much simpler. Like a lot of designers I really like Notion because the user interface is so clean and easy to customize. There’s lots of different choices out there from Asana, ClickUp and Trello. Pick your favorite and stop searching for scattered notes. This is especially helpful if you have other team members who need access to this information too.
Make scheduling meetings easier
Gone are the days when you need to email or send messages back and forth looking for a good time to meet or schedule a call. Using a scheduling tool like Acuity or Calendly makes the process so much smoother. When I schedule coffee chats for networking or consult calls for potential clients I know the process is so much more streamlined and easy. This makes the experience better for me and everyone else.
Ready to save more time and money in your business this year?
Check out the free Savvy Site Challenge and add time saving automations to your website in 3 days!
