God Bless technology!  The word of 2020 should be Automation.

In order to become and remain as productive as possible, it means that you need to physically touch LESS things.  Sounds a little counter intuitive, I know.  The truth is you should only be working on items within your great zone.  More to come on that as we explore the top 20 tips in 20 days.  It’s number 17 if you want to jump directly to it later.

In order to physically touch less, you need to do two things: #1 delegate (see tip #17) and #2 automate.

I love automation because it means more things happen without you remembering to do them or adding even more things on your to do list.  No one wants more on their to do list!

So, what do you automate?

 

Here are a few things and ways in which to do them:

1. Scheduling: Build tools digitally that allow people to make an appointment with you without having to speak to you and sync calendars. So much time is wasted sending emails trying to sync calendars.  Here’s an example of how this works.   Let’s say you found me on Facebook and you’re thinking, this is awesome and you need more of this in your life and your business and want to schedule a consultation with me or a team member at Larek Point, you can do that right from Facebook and it will only show you times that I’ve set on my calendar that I deem ‘open’ for consultations.   It’s pretty cool. Give it a try:  facebook.com/larekpointconsulting
   Then click the ‘book now’ button.
2. Follow-up Emails: You can actually schedule follow-up emails several ways.  Here are a couple of my favorites:The first way is through your email service.  You can create templates or ‘canned’ responses.  This will keep you from having to type the same email over and over.  The one thing that most email services will not do for you is to automate the flow of emails.  So you can’t tell it, when I get an email titled ‘consultation’ to send the follow-up email titled ‘thanks, see you Monday at 8AM’.  You still have to remember to send the emails.
3. Customer Relationship Manager (CRM): Another way is through your CRM tool.  This is the most effective way but does require quite a bit of time to set up in on the front end.  Trust me, it’s worth it though.  Here’s how it works.  You create categories for your contacts and a series of communications for each category.  You also set the timeframe for each category.   Let’s say that someone reaches out to you for a consultation.  You have the consultation but then crickets.  You can set that new contact into a workflow within your CRM tool so that they receive a series of emails from you within a designated timeframe.   Remember that every no, is not a no forever.  Some no’s are more like, no, not now.  Don’t lose the not now contacts.  You want to remain in contact with them. Check on them.  Nurture the relationship with them.  Continue to share valuable content that will help them to grow their business.  Remind them why you are an expert.  All of this can be set up so that once you input a contact into a category, they get a series of emails that you don’t physically have to send.

Are you starting to see how by utilize technology to automate actions, you are now doing more but physically touching less?  It’s amazing.  Give it a try and watch your productivity increase. ​​

Need More?

 

Need a little more guidance planning for the success of your business? I'll let you in on a secret - I need guidance all the time!  Really!  The absolute best thing I have ever done for my business was to decide not to do it all alone.

That's why I built the DoverDrive Experience.  I know what it's like to carry the weight of a growing business on your shoulders and feel the pressure of having to know everything at all times.  It's exhausting and impossible.

Inside the DoverDrive Experience, you're getting learning/doing content shared with you EVERY week.  That means you create a cycle of business development.

You see, the biggest mistake that business owners make is that they only work ON their business when something isn't going right or when they don't have enough business to meet financial goals.  The truth is, if you work on yourbusiness continuously, you'd have less problems and less periods of feast or famine.

Join us inside the DoverDrive Experience and let's get started GROWING your business.