Do you have enough time to manage day-to-day activities, as well as search for new clients? Do you want to know how to get more time to do these things?
One of the biggest struggles that we hear all the time from the self-employed small businesses is they struggle with feeling like they never have enough time to get everything done.
They feel stressed; they have a hard time balancing between things like work and spending time with their family.
A lot of small businesses have totally been there, and have struggled with it for years.
And that is exactly why today, we’re going to be sharing five ways for you to automate your business activities, so you have more time to do other things, like seeking out new clients.
So, grab your pen and notepad, settle down in a comfortable position and continue reading.
What is automation anyways?
Automation refers to you setting up systems and processes that basically do tasks for you. It is either when you create a system that does the work for you, or you create a system that reduces the amount of time and steps that you actually have to do.
This could be using tools, or using software, or using different apps that are really going to allow you to leverage your time.
So, you are working so much because you’ve got a lot of stuff going on. How can you find the balance between all the sections of your life?
Creating F.A.Qs
The abbreviation FAQ stands for ‘frequently asked questions’. Chances are, you get asked a lot of the same questions over and over, whether it be from prospects, whether it be from customers, whether it be from clients.
There will be a point where you will hear the same questions over and over. And you will find yourself repeating yourself constantly. It is time-consuming having to constantly explain the same thing over and over and over and over again.
So, what we would recommend doing is when you get a question and if you find that you’re getting a specific question more than once is you would just jot it down, pull up a Word document, and start creating an FAQ page.
Now if you have a website, or if you have a blog, you can even put this page on your website, and you can continue adding those type of questions to that page on your website.
When people have a question, instead of being the one to answer it you can just send them the link they can go to that page and check it out. Or, you can even create a document if you have like a private Facebook group you can put a file inside of your Facebook group.
And it does the same thing, and the good thing is you can continually add to those FAQs. This is a huge way that you can automate and save yourself a ton of time. So, for example, if people asked you questions like ‘how do I set up an email list?’ or ‘how do I put out content’?
You can just just send them to the video, instead of me being the one going in and replying and typing up a whole response, you know, again, FAQ page, or you’ll send them to a video.
So, that is the very first way that you can start automating your business activities to save you more time and increase your productivity. There is more, so continue reading.
Building An Email List
The second thing that you can do to automate your business activities, and this is huge, is to build an email list. Some of you would have neglected this for years and kind of want to go back and punch yourself in the face. It’s a huge time saver and that is to start building your email list.
We are sure you’ve heard the fortune is in the follow up and that most people have to see something or be exposed to an offer 7 times to 12 times before they might even make a buying decision.
And so, one thing that you may be doing is to keep a list and you would go and you would follow up with all these people consistently. We’re sure you would kind of just got to a point where you felt like a stalker who wants to sit here and follow up with the same person over and over in their inbox and you feel kind of like a psycho.
Instead of doing that, which can be ultra-time consuming, and you can feel annoyed, build an email list. Building an email list is going to allow you to basically have something in place where you can send an email out automatically.
So, when you want to send an email out, you would go to your email list. And instead of trying to message thousands of people, you would create one single email. You would email this article out to thousands of people at one time.
For example: you’ve got a promotion going on and you want to update your customers. Instead of you doing it individually, what you can do is create an email in your email list. And you know you can send it out to all of your customers with a single click of a button.
This is super, super powerful. If you haven’t set up your email list or you don’t know how to do it, something I would highly recommend doing is making it a priority.
Understand, this is a foundational piece in your business like super, super foundational.
Documenting Your Process
The third way to automate your business activities is to document your process and start creating videos in regards to your workflow. Whether you’re a number one or outsourcing anything right now, this is a great way.
One of the biggest and most common mistakes that I hear people saying when it comes to outsourcing is they feel like they don’t have the time to sit here and train somebody else to do work for them.
And so, one great thing that you can do to start automating that process is to start recording yourself doing specific tasks. So, whether or not you want to outsource it now or whether you’re thinking about outsourcing something in your business later, you’re already doing it anyway, so why not start to document your workflow and start recording videos?
If you’re doing something on the computer, just record yourself doing it, talking through how to do it that way. Again, if you decide that you want to hire somebody out later to do it for you, the video would be there to share easily.
You can shoot them a video and it would not be a case that you’re sitting there being the one having to explain everything. That extra time can be used elsewhere.
What else can be done? We implore you to read on.
Automate Your Onboarding Process
Photo byJacob Miller on Unsplash
The fourth and final way we bring to you is to automate your onboarding process. Now this could be whether you are in a network marketing company or whether you take on specific clients, or you have team members that are doing something.
There was a point back when you first started; you started out solely in network marketing. You didn’t have any other income streams.
One of the biggest issues that you would have had when you would bring on new customers or new members to your team is that you were getting on calls, and you would be on calls forever, spending so much time trying to explain everything to people.
You can create a series of videos that walk people through exactly how to get started; you can create checklists, so people know exactly what to do in the right order.
It could be several things; again, this is going to save you a ton of time.
Final Comments
There you have it, readers. Being able to automate any day-to-day business activities will save you much more time than traditional methods. This also saves you more money and provides potential customers in the long run.
In this article, we looked at what business activities can become automated, so one can have more time to seek out clients.
We pointed out: creating FAQs, building an emailing list, documenting your process and automating your onboarding process.
We are sure that with these ideas being implemented, you can get to seek out more clients, but there are other things it opens the door for. You can now visit that beach you always wanted to. You can lay in bed and reax as much as possible.
You can learn something new. Or, you can spend that time focusing on other areas of your business that needs the attention.