Nothing is more harmful to small business than having to repeat the same processes over and over and over again. Nothing. And yet, all too often, you don’t realise just how much repetition, waste, and unnecessary bureaucracy is slowing down your business and wreaking havoc on your efficiency.
And it’s true. With a billion and one things to do each and every day, the best thing any entrepreneur or business leader can do is focus on ways to automate the processes and procedures within their business, saving time everywhere they can. So, if you don’t know what CRM stands for already, that’s your first step. Always. Why? Because it’s a system that’s geared toward automating every aspect of your business processes, developing your operations and increasing revenue. Of course, while this is the most proven method, it’s not the only one.
- File Collaboration
When you add up all the time, sending documents back and forth via emails is a terrible waste of time. It makes much more sense to save time and effort with Google Docs. Sharing these through Google Drive means they can be accessed with ease among everyone in a team, with edits easy to make and share.
- Remote Meetings
With more and more businesses hiring people remotely, one of the most important tools you can use is a remote conferencing tool. By hosting meetings online, whether that be with members of your team or clients, you will be saving yourself tons of time, money and effort because, let’s be honest, arranging face-to-face meetings is a hassle we could all do without.
- Simplify Your Invoicing
Getting paid takes more time than it should. Fact. Thankfully, there are a growing number of invoicing tools that can take care of all your invoicing requirements simply and securely. Take Invoicely as a prime example. Not only does it manage your invoicing needs, but it also tracks time, expenses, mileage and other billable tasks.
- Social Media Content
The reason you need to be active on social media is simple: your customers are hanging out there. The problem is, keeping your social media channels active is time-consuming. To overcome this hurdle and continue to grow both your business’s social reach and customer engagement, download some software that automates your social postings. From images to blog distribution, it’s the easiest way to keep your channels active.
- Tweak Your Team
While most of the strategies we’ve mentioned all rely on some form of tech, one of the best ways to automate your business is to adjust your management style so that you’re neither micromanaging or worrying. As such, automation can simply mean you build the most efficient team around you, and that’s done by having a core team and then outsourcing your more specific tasks to contractors, getting better experts for less money. What’s more, they’re freelance, so they’ll complete each task to a higher standard in less time.
Whatever you choose, from CRM to hiring contractors, the smartest thing you can do is automate.
