When you run a business, time is your most precious resource. There just never seems to be enough of it, and when it’s in short supply, it becomes even more valuable.
To reclaim your time as a business owner, it’s important to know when to delegate, eliminate, and automate. Anything simple and repetitive but error-prone is ripe for an automated solution. When it comes to key business processes and complex tasks that require a human touch, remember that if it can be done, it can be taught.
Let’s look at six easy ways to make your business more efficient, from streamlined task management to the best automated accounts payable solution and beyond.
- Automate Your Bookkeeping
The bigger your business grows, the more vendors you’ll work with. If you’ve grown to the point that you’re handling dozens of invoices per week, it’s time to upgrade to accounts payable automation. Nothing will make your accounting department happier than saving time, streamlining the invoicing process, and eliminating errors. This will give you scope to have your human employees work on higher-level tasks that could open up new opportunities for your business.
- Project Management Software
Project management software has made it so that you don’t have to spend hours in meetings, hashing out details and assigning tasks. Project management software like Monday.com, Trello, or Clickup can help you track progress and keep your teams and projects organized.
- Scheduled Messages
As a business owner, you know that putting in late night hours or 10-hour days on the weekend isn’t unusual. However, it’s crucial to accept that your team doesn’t want to hear from you on their days off. They need and deserve some rest – and so do you!
Instead of firing off an email or a Slack message Sunday night at 8 pm, schedule your messages in advance for a more reasonable time. Also, remember to utilize email autoresponders. For an automated approach for social media direct messages, consider MessageDesk, SlickText, or Tidio.
- Calendar Synching
There’s nothing worse than double-booking or missing out on a critical appointment. Ensuring all calendars are synced will eliminate this concern. While we love our biometric time clocks, sharing calendars across team members is another way to reduce poor attendance. As a bonus, it also keeps communication lines open.
Some CRM software will automatically sync your calendars, or you can opt for calendar-specific apps such as Calendar Bridge.
- Email Drip Campaigns
Email automation software allows you to automate your organic marketing campaigns and stay in touch with your audience without having to do so manually. Options like Active Campaign, HubSpot, and MailChimp allow you to organize and market to your existing email contacts. You can segment contacts into different lists based on how you collected their information or send an updated campaign only to people who opened the previous one.
These platforms also allow you to send targeted information based on the contact’s placement in your sales funnel. Any new contacts, for example, could receive a series of three to five emails, while contacts that have been with you for a longer period of time may only get occasional company updates or promotional messages.
- Evergreen Funnels
Evergreen funnels are the industry term for marketing and content that’s always relevant. Evergreen indicates that this content will never go out of style, whether that is topically or strategically. Setting up evergreen funnels in Go High Level, ClickFunnels, or Samcart will allow you to keep marketing to your ideal audience without having to constantly create new products or new offers.
Start saving time today! What will you automate first?
