What do you think of when you hear automation? Do you fear that your job will be replaced by a robot or that it costs a lot of money? The truth is that you are probably using some automation tools already.
Automation can help you to streamline your processes in your business. By analysing data quickly and giving you reports, automation can free up your time to focus on business growth opportunities. It can also ensure that jobs which are repetitive and tedious are done with fewer mistakes as computers are very good at doing repetitive tasks.
Four ways to automate your business
1. Streamline your sales pipeline
Every business has certain steps it takes to close a deal. The main steps are qualification, meeting, proposal and closing. With an automation product, you can create emails which can be sent to your customers at the early stages of lead qualification which helps identify those customers who want to meet and hear about your product.
Potential software to use: Hubspot’s Pipeline management software.
2. Get a bot to help with FAQs
Is your team tired of answering the same questions every day about opening times or the price of a product? You can get a chatbot which can concentrate on FAQs while your customer service team focuses on questions which need more attention and a personal touch.
There are a wide variety of FAQ bots available which can help with this function.
3. Schedule your social media posts
Social media can be a rabbit hole you may never get out of but with a social media scheduling platform, you can schedule your posts for the month and get analytics without going into your social media pages. This will help you save time and ensure you are still present on social media.
4. Automate your invoicing
Invoicing is a crucial part of your business and sending out late invoices can cause delayed payments as your customers rack their brains to remember what the invoice is for. If your business relies on you being paid per hour then you should ensure you have a time-tracking module which integrates with your accounting software. This will make it more accurate and quicker to generate an invoice.
These are a few ways in which you can automate your small business. By doing this you will ensure you use your time wisely and grow your enterprise to be the legendary business you always dreamed of.
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