As a business owner, there’s no telling what type of issues you might run into in a day. From an employee quitting on the fly to equipment failures, numerous issues could potentially disrupt your process. It’s tedious, time-consuming, and mind-numbing. In looking at all the roadblocks I might face, I decided that in order to make my work day easier I had to start letting technology do the job for me.
The world of automation is quickly taking over a lot of the once mundane tasks of our workflow and I started looking into how it could help my small business. The result? I can now cut the clutter and start focusing on what’s important. This empowers me not only to be more productive and efficient but has helped increase my success too. That’s why I’ve compiled a few helpful tips to help your business thrive via automation as .
Letting logistics take care of themselves
One of the biggest things that was eating away at my productivity was taking care of logistical tasks. It was just too time-consuming to handle every single day, and hiring someone along to take care of it was a crapshoot regarding the quality they could have brought in. However, this also one area where automation has started to reign supreme.
While I knew that the technology was readily available for tasks that everyone has to deal with, it was just a matter of finding the right fit. For payroll, I’ve been using Deluxe Payroll Services. Not only have they been great at taking care of the basics like taxes, insurance, and whatnot, but they additionally have an awesome support staff that lets me know about changes going on, saving me time and money on research. Additionally, having my payroll handled by them gives me a sense of security while providing accessibility as well.
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I use other helpful tools like Quickbooks to keep track of my mileage. While there’s numerous services out there that can do this, I prefer the ability to have everything aggregated into one place. Doing so makes my job much, much easier.
Do the dirty work upfront
While it’s something people tend to overlook, taking care of a hefty amount of legwork upfront for a lot of tasks will save you an incredible amount of time in the long run. For example, managing creative tasks like social media and email campaigns early in the week helps me not have to worry about coming up with new content throughout the week. Plus, this also is a smart way to coordinate your marketing efforts to coincide with new releases, as well as to send out materials at the most effective times.
For marketing, I tend to use VerticalResponse, which allows me to set up all of my posts and whatnot ahead of time. Additionally, I can set up personalized messages for my customers, such as when it’s their birthday or anniversary of a purchase. Tools like Buffer can also be helpful for non-product related social content, allowing me to schedule out the posts I write for our blog, as well as for our events page.
I’ll note that setting up your content ahead of time can be a little bit stressful at first, but if you learn to find your process and workflow, your efforts will become routine in no time.
Embracing innovation
While a lot of new technologies can come with a hefty price tag, the benefit of using them can far exceed the cost. All it takes is the foresight into what you’re buying, how you’re going to use it, and how much time will it take you to learn versus estimated use.
For example, one piece of technology I’ve been using for leads lately is Leadcrunch – an AI based lead generation platform for B2B sales. Looking for leads is a painstaking process that can leave you feeling burnt out and frustrated, products like Leadcrunch help me cut out the clutter. This leaves me with a quality list I can start reaching out to rather than coming through to see who’s worth the effort and who’s not.
Whatever your industry is, take a look around at the different innovations going on and ask yourself how much they might help. Granted, a lot of this stuff might take on a learning curve at first. However, the amount of money you could save in the long run is immense. Remember, technology is supposed to help us make our lives easier, and isn’t that what we’re all after?
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