Business overwhelm? What to automate first!
These are my top three tips for automating and simplifying your business processes to help you regain control over your time and energy. I'm also covering the importance of tracking where you lose time and my favorite tools, like scheduling software and client relationship management systems to streamline your operations.
Let me know you plan to start with, whether it's scheduling, content, client onboarding, or project management?
Transcript below!
Resources I mentioned:
Dubsado
Asana
Later Social Media scheduler
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00:00 Hey, welcome back. My name is Ellie. I am the founder, CEO, whatever else titles you want to give me of Calibrated Concepts and around here, we specialize in making your business simple through technology, software, automation, good websites, and so much more.
00:19 So if your to do list feels like you want. Hide in bed, run away to somewhere where there's no wifi or that you really need to be on a beach somewhere, you're not alone.
00:39 So let's find a way to tackle it, starting with the top. What do you tackle when you already feel really overwhelmed?
00:48 How do you add something to the pile to help actually you in the long run? Where do you start to start automating and simplifying when you feel like you cannot do one more thing?
01:03 You feel this way, not because you're lazy, obviously. You have to do this 20 miles long, but it's really because you're stuck in manual mode.
01:10 You're doing everything all the time. On your own, or with a small team, but you're constantly context-witching, chasing tasks, repeating yourself, uhm, and you're not really being efficient with your time, your energy, or your team's time and energy if you have one.
01:28 You didn't start your business to feel- You this way. You started your business for some type of flexibility, whether that be time, freedom, um, location independence, spending more time with your kids.
01:41 It's so easy to let it suck up everything, to let your small business suck up everything you have, unless you put really strict boundaries and really good systems in place.
01:51 Let's talk about how to do that. I tell my clients all the time. Start with where you feel like you're losing the most time.
02:02 So usually what I do is make people actually track their time. I will have my clients for a day, a week, whatever they feel like I can commit to, use a free tool called toggle, and I have them track their time, and what people- what I didn't realize when I started my business is how much- Thank time
02:19 I'm spending on business admin, how much time I'm spending on marketing the business, and knowing those things really helped me up my pricing so that I had- I could pay myself for the time that it took me to do those things, right?
02:32 And so think about where you're losing the most time. Things that you do so frequently that if you could automate or systemize, it would make a massive impact in your business.
02:42 So I'm thinking- speaking. Client onboarding, um, scheduling, follow-up emails, or emailing in general, um, weekly admin tasks, monthly admin tasks, those kinds of things.
02:54 Automation should feel like buying back your brain space, not just setting up tools that you'll never use. My Favorite quick win to recommend to people with their just getting started is almost always a scheduler.
03:09 So there's a load of these out there. I use the one in Dipsato because I use that as my CRM.
03:13 Um, but there's other really great ones out there, like Calenly, Acuity, Google Calendar actually has its own scheduler. there's more out there, but those are probably the big hitters.
03:24 What I love about it is if you can spend an hour setting this up, it can save you days of time, right?
03:31 how many times Have you gone back and forth, back and forth with somebody about what time you can meet? Only to have someone schedule change the last minute.
03:38 How often are you fielding cancellation emails or rescheduling emails? Um, I can't- find the Zoom link emails, those kinds of things.
03:50 So having that all be automated, you just pop in your availability for an appointment type, how long the appointment is, how often you want to be able to take that appointment or how far in advance you want someone to book, how the cancellation works or rescheduling works, and then all you have to do
04:06 is send people a link, or in my case I have my- my link for my consultation directly embedded on my website, and that all just ticks over.
04:17 It also has forms, so people who book a consultation call with me also have to give me a little bit of information, so I can show up to the call prepared to make the most of our time.
04:29 And same with my client calls, um, there's a bit of admin that goes into that. They also get automated reminders, and if they have to reschedule, there's a link right there that says, hey, if you need to cancel their schedule, here's a link that saves everybody time, headache, energy.
04:46 So that is my, like, number one win. If you are feeling overwhelmed, and you're feeling bogged down in admin, get yourself a scheduling tool.
04:57 My number two- Thank Win would be to start simplifying your client onboarding. When I first started, I've always tried to have really slick systems, but before I could really pay for the software for release slick systems, or before I felt like maybe I was ready to pay for the software of release slick
05:14 systems, I kind of had them all cobbled together with a lot of free or very cheap tools, and that worked- We'll take a for the clients.
05:21 It looked really nice. I had it set up in really good email templates, and it didn't probably feel as clunky for them as it felt for me in the back end.
05:29 But when I was onboarding a client back in those days, it took me well over an hour, um, of, you know, getting them, um, an email folder and a Google, um, drive folder and making sure that they got all the emails they needed and sent- they were added to my- email newsletter software for clients, um,
05:48 not just for marketing because that's illegal. And that they were, um, getting their contracts, their invoicing, um, any onboarding forms or questionnaires they needed.
05:59 Like that all just took so much out of me. Eventually, I outsourced that. I got a VA, and they handled that, but it still took them so much time.
06:08 So I eventually moved over to a client relationship management software. Um, there's so many out there, Debsato, Honeybook, 17 hats.
06:15 Um, depending on how big your hub spot's obviously a really big one. And that manages all those things I just talked about and more.
06:24 It manages my e-mail templates. It manages my contracts invoices, welcome and onboarding e-mails. Um, it just handles everything all the f reminders, all the homework.
06:35 And it just makes it feel like I literally go in and I said, they chose this package. They're having this payment plan.
06:41 Usually it's thirds. And here's the date of their project. Done. And I click a button and it sends and fires off all of the things that they need to do because I've taken the time to set this up now.
06:54 Unlike. Unlike. like so. Setting up the first thing we talked about scheduling which might take you an hour or two to get it all set up right.
07:01 Setting up a CRM. Doing well so it's going to really be robust and help you. Is not the easiest thing.
07:09 Um, I have really good tools on in my shop. There are a lot of really good service providers. I can help you out if you're feeling overwhelmed.
07:18 But. You really want to Take your time with it. Me setting up a dipsato from scratch. If I had every single email, every single like I knew exactly how their workflows worked and it just took everything.
07:30 I could probably do it in eight to ten hours. Um, just because every single canned email, every single package, every single and then building out of the workflows.
07:39 It doesn't. It's not a short process. Um, but. Dupsato is really good. And I'm using Dupsato as an example. I assume they're- they're all competitive with each other.
07:49 So I assume they're all very good. Um, Dupsato is really great about having templates. So they have templates in all of these sections of things.
07:56 So you can kind of get an idea of what you need and you're not having to create everything from scratch.
08:04 Alright. The third win that I would say and the third system that I really recommend to people that are feeling overwhelmed is a project management software.
08:15 Um, there's some really good ones out there. There's Moxie or Asana, but probably the two that my clients use the most are Asana and ClickUp.
08:24 Mostly Asana. I think Asana walks the line between being robust enough and not overcomplicated. Um, and has- as a really kick ass free plan.
08:34 So that's something that I want. I want you to use it not as a task management system as I find a lot of people use Asana just to manage their tasks.
08:42 But as a- this is where my business's brain is, right? Here's all of my upcoming goals, my quarterly projects, my client tasks, all the admin, and then as you f- grow, you can put your team to any of those tasks.
08:58 So I put in standard operating procedures in the form of loom videos typically. I, um, set recurring tasks and recurrences based on how often we need to do something.
09:11 If I- this video is assigned to me in Asana along with every sub task that it takes to get this into post production and out to my- blog and out to YouTube and out to the podcast.
09:21 And that is something that gets passed off to my virtual assistant. It- it's not sexy, but if you take the time to put in all these things and treat it like it's not a one and done, you're constantly updating it, you're constantly evolving it.
09:34 Umm, as your business evolves, And your own processes evolve. And as the tasks you do in your work evolve. And I have a load of templates, also in my shop, but also in my business I have templates that I use for every client project.
09:49 Um, et cetera. That means that it is not something I have to build out from scratch. It is a repeatable process.
09:59 That is. Is the three quick ones. We're going to talk about a bonus thing. Um, something that I talk about a lot is automating your content workflows.
10:08 Obviously you really need your content to sound and be authentic to who you are, what you know, um, your expertise.
10:17 But there are things you can do to make it feel less arduous. The first is creating templates, personal templates. So my newsletter is templated.
10:26 It has a certain formula that it follows every time. The content that's different. It's always handwritten. My newsletter is something that I never use AI for.
10:34 Um, it's just me. And, um, then I can feed it in AI for other things to create content quicker. Um, but if you can sit down and batch and schedule, so this video will become a podcast episode.
10:49 It'll become some social media posts. It will go be fed into my next newsletter. Um, it will go on, yeah, several different places, right?
10:58 I'll create a reel that's a short version of this. And creating that big, meaty piece and letting it turn into lots of other pieces is one of the just magical things of creating one long form piece of content.
11:11 Scheduling is another big one, especially for social media. So I would schedule, if I am creating some sort of promotion, I would schedule lots of emails in advance, right?
11:22 Um, or maybe I would batch together a few YouTube videos and drip them out over a specific time. I do this especially if I'm getting ready to go on vacation.
11:31 Um, but because I only create one video every other week, I don't have to have such a rigorous posting schedule that I feel like I need to get that far ahead of it.
11:39 Um, but the thing I do batch and schedule religiously is my social media posts, specifically my LinkedIn and Facebook posts because my reels, um, sometimes I schedule those as well.
11:54 I'll create five or six of them and have them all sitting there and draft ready to post out or schedule them in the Instagram app.
11:59 Umm, but I take pieces of all the other content I'm creating, my newsletter, these videos, and put them on LinkedIn and Facebook and I schedule them out in later.
12:12 I've been using Later for ever, like probably six plus years. I love how visual it is. I love how clean it is.
12:19 Umm, and I love that you just have this big, never-ending, pot of all of your content. I like that you can pull it in from other places, but mostly I just drop in photos, umm, monthly, and then I just- and then I go through and categorize them so I can categorize them on, like, pictures of me versus
12:37 pictures of my dog, purses, food pictures, or travel pictures, and versus Canva-created- graphics, and be able to just drag and drop them into my calendar, and it's- it's wonderful.
12:51 Alright, so that is my three tips plus a content bonus. Uhm, what you shouldn't automate when you're just getting started.
13:00 I would say over complicated zaps and integrations, feeling like you need to try all the tools, don't do it. Like, talk to us a few business friends, see what they're recommending, try that, and go start small.
13:13 I wouldn't automate anything that you haven't already nailed manually, that you don't know, like, this is how we do this.
13:20 If you're just guessing, and you haven't found your process, don't automate it yet. And I wouldn't, uh, automate anything. That feels like it's going to add to the confusion, rather than adding more space, boundaries, and clarity.
13:34 Alright. So, what are you starting with? Are you gonna start with scheduling? Are you gonna start with content? Are you gonna start with client onboarding?
13:42 Or with a project management tool? Let me know in the comments. I really wanna hear. Umm, and if you have questions- Question.
13:51 I have lots more content around how to do these various systems, but I'm always here if you're just, like, get stuck in one place, let me know.
14:00 Umm, I love answering this kind of stuff. I get so geeky about it. Alright. Thank you. Have a good day.
14:10 Oh. One more thing. Can you, like, share, subscribe if this video is helpful? For you or this podcast will help with you wherever you are hanging out with me.
14:19 Thank you.
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