Raise your hand if you feel that your plate is running over and you just don’t have time to do anything productive to help your business grow. I will assume a majority raised your hand while reading this and trust me I completely understand why you feel that way about your business. Most new and existing business owners have control issue and rather be stressed out then allow someone else to work on their baby. Honestly, I don’t think its the cost that bothers them but relinquishing control to someone else. Today, lets talk about several small investments that can help you automate your business.
Finances
Money management is not the favorite aspect of running a small business for a lot of people. For a very long time it was my least favorite things then I learned how to automate several aspects of my business. For instance all my client invoices are sent on recurring status. Meaning they are automatically sent out monthly until their contract is over. If you are a service based business look into setting up recurring invoices for your long term clients. The reminder emails are even set up for me. Now, late fees I still need to apply myself. These are some accounting and bookkeeping softwares you can use.
- Freshbooks
- Go Daddy Bookkeeping
- Wave Apps
- Quickbooks
Automation of your bills is very important. For a very long time all my bills were due on random days on the month. Finally, three years ago I decided all my bills would be set for the same day for a due date or I would simply pay it on that day. On the first, I pay out all the bills for my company. I don’t want no one to feel as they have to chase me for their money. It is my biggest pet peeve to remind people to pay invoices so I make sure no one has to do it for me. Make sure you automate automatic debt from your account or say on the 1st at 5pm I will go pay all my bills online. Get it done.
Social Media
We all know social media can be automated but so many small business are not investing the money into actually doing it. Social media is the king of finding customers or clients all over the world. Yes, I believe in growing your brand locally, but sometimes global reach is important too. Knowing I have customers all over the global is amazing and all possible because of social media. Invest in one of these social media automation tools
- Meet Edgar
- Coschedule
- Hootsuite
- Buffer
- Pinviral – Pinterest
- Schedugram – Instagram
Emails
One of the best things that ever came to my business was the knowledge of canned emails, automate responder and an assistant. Yes, all three of those things are essential to getting your inbox to zero. I might be the only business owner who never worries about the emails in my inbox, they are not flooding me or worried about getting to zero. A couple years ago, I implemented the two minute rule. If I can respond within two minutes without back to back correspondence I respond. If not, it goes to bottom of the list which means at 5pm I respond to so many emails. No, emails are answered on weekends.
I have created over 35 canned email responses that help answer questions that future clients or customers might have. Setting up an auto responder is a great tool to answer questions and let people know “hey I got to your email and I will get back to you soon.” Finally, adding an assistant to your business. This might seem like a lot money that is about to go out the door but having someone who can answer emails, handle invoices and set appointments is amazing. You can find a good virtual assistant online for $10 an hour. Think if the person works 40 hours a month they are freeing up 40+ hours for you to do what you love and your expense is $400 a month.
These are just three types of small investments you can make to help automate your business to run a lot smoother. Its all about fine tuning whats going on and making it work for you. Investing money smart is how you grow and scale your company.
