This article was written by Michelle Weger.
So, you’ve decided you want to experience the magic of automation and get back 13 hours of time every week.
You’re excited and ready to let technology take care of all the mundane tasks you do each and every day so you can spend more of your time doing what you love, but there’s one little problem.
How do you figure out what you can automate in your business?
Automation is wonderful, but not everything can – or should – be automated. In the vast list of tasks that you complete daily, how do you figure out which ones are good candidates for automation?
It’s simpler than you think.
Everything repeatable is automatable.
Imagine you’re going on vacation.
Would you be able to write a step-by-step list for someone to take over for you while you were gone? Probably not for every aspect of your job, but you likely could create a list like this for many of the tasks you do.
If you can write a step-by-step list that is always accurate for a task, that is a task you should be automating.
An easy example that you can implement yourself right away is an autoresponder.
Let’s say someone emails you while you’re on that vacation, or even on a regular day outside of your usual work hours. An autoresponder can send an email to thank the person for contacting you and let them know when to expect a response. Now they know that you’re away, but that you’ve received their message and will get back to them. Or, if it’s really important, you might leave an alternate contact method right in your response.
If you don’t have an autoresponder, two things are likely to happen:
- Your vacation, day off, or evening away from work turns into you constantly checking your phone to see if someone’s emailed you and determining whether or not they need a response right away, or:
- Your loyal customer, new lead, or business prospect doesn’t hear back from you in a timely manner, so walks away feeling undervalued, making them a great target for your competition.
By leveraging automation and setting up an autoresponder, you’re making the entire exchange more personal, because you’ve managed your client’s expectations.
However, there is one very important thing to remember when it comes to automation.
Automation is only as good as the people on the other side.
If your auto-responder said you would email someone back within 48 hours, you need to send an email back to them within 48 hours. Automation may be magic, but it’s not a replacement for people – someone has to wield the wand.
Letting automation focus on the easy, mundane parts of your business means you can spend more time focusing on the high-value, high-contact parts.
Still not sure if it can be automated?
Figuring out if something can be automated is something I live for. Get in touch with us to find out what we can do to implement automation in your business.
Are you ready to get back nearly a third of your time by automating the mundane?
(And yes, that’s automated!)
