How I Automated 50% of My Tasks and Scaled My Business

Working a advertising and marketing company isn’t any stroll within the park. It requires repetitive, time-consuming duties. With the consumer record rising, the handbook workload will increase to some extent the place you want at the very least one — if no more — workers to sort out the strain.

I noticed this to the bone as repetitive duties and manual work piled up. The primary blow was that it grew to become more durable for our workers to execute duties on time. Additionally, it steadily brought on burnout or fatigue that interfered with the standard of our work.

To deal with this, the primary and quick answer that got here to my thoughts was hiring a number of workers. However that wasn’t possible, as recruiting extra workers would require extra administration and enhance overhead prices.

So, after re-evaluating some workable choices, I lastly discovered a greater solution to streamline my operations — automation. Regardless of the skepticism, I made a decision to present it a shot and began automating my enterprise processes. The outcome? I used to be capable of offload 50% of my enterprise duties.

Here is my entire journey, from switching to automation to attaining sustainable development with out hiring further workers.

Associated: Smart Entrepreneurs Use Automation to Become More Efficient. Here Are 6 Ways to Adopt It.

Figuring out the time-consuming duties

Earlier than diving into my automation methods, let me spotlight the duties that slowed me down and have become the most important bottlenecks in my workflow:

1. Handbook lead technology

Initially, I spent half my enterprise days simply nurturing qualified leads. I needed to goal firms that wanted optimization for buyer acquisition and funnel administration, which took a substantial amount of time.

Even after sifting by way of numerous web sites, social media profiles and directories, I hardly discovered companies that wanted scalable advertising and marketing methods and development methods.

And the outcome? I progressively began to overlook alternatives.

2. Buyer help overload

As I inspected additional, I came upon that the customer support representatives of my firm had to answer each inquiry, handle complaints and supply options — all manually.

As you may think about, with the rising variety of buyer help requests, it grew to become more durable to maintain up, leading to slower response instances. The worst half was that the repetitive queries consumed an excessive amount of time, leaving little scope for them to deal with critical buyer points.

3. Monetary monitoring and reporting

Processing invoices, reconciling accounts and producing monetary studies have been greater than a time drain for my group. Manually monitoring funds led to miscalculations and inaccurate studies. The inefficient administration made future earnings predictions and finances planning a terrific impediment, because it all resulted in errors and misplaced income.

4. Shopper onboarding and communication

The following massive problem I confronted was managing client onboarding and communication. Every consumer required personalised consideration, contract processing and documentation.

So, it consumed a big portion of our workweek to maintain observe of each interplay, deal with queries and guarantee a clean onboarding expertise. The shortage of a structured system impacted our consumer satisfaction and retention.

5. Assembly scheduling and follow-ups

Environment friendly communication and well timed follow-ups are important for my group, particularly when executing the Consideration, Curiosity, Want and Motion (AIDA) framework. Nevertheless, the handbook processes, together with scheduling meetings, became a significant roadblock.

Plus, we needed to coordinate assembly instances throughout completely different time zones and make countless back-and-forth emails, which impacted the precision of that framework. At its worst, we have been susceptible to potential consumer drop-offs.

Associated: From Mundane to Magic: The Incredible Benefits of Automation for Small Business Owners

Choosing particular options

That mentioned, after noting down the problems, I noticed that many of the time-consuming duties might be labored round utilizing automation. And here is how I did it:

1. LinkedIn Gross sales Navigator and Apollo.io for automated lead technology

I built-in LinkedIn Sales Navigator and Apollo.io to remove my handbook lead technology drain. These superior instruments are designed for extremely focused searches primarily based on particular standards comparable to trade, service or firm measurement.

Apollo.io’s e-mail finder and verification options have been a lifesaver, considerably decreasing the time I spent on handbook analysis.

Greater than that, we might attain our target market in minimal time. We narrowed down our search with LinkedIn Gross sales Navigator and because of this, our firm additionally witnessed as much as a 17% increased win price on common.

2. AI-powered chatbots for buyer help

First, I attempted addressing buyer overload points by implementing an AI-powered chatbot on my web site CRM. It was programmed to deal with buyer queries and supply fundamental troubleshooting.

After testing a number of chatbot designs, I made a decision to evaluation one and join it with our CRM. It was successfully linked with HubSpot to entry buyer information, observe conversations and replace buyer information.

This ensured personalised assist and diminished our workload by as much as 40%. The effectivity allowed my group to offer 24/7 customer support with improved response time.

3. QuickBooks On-line for monetary monitoring and reporting

For monetary monitoring and reporting, I discovered QuickBooks On-line, which integrates with our cost gateways and financial institution accounts.

This superior software program successfully automated our bill technology, cost processing and financial reporting. Additionally, I built-in a devoted reporting and enterprise intelligence software, Fathom, with QuickBooks and ensured seamless monetary reporting.

Because of this, I witnessed an elevated accuracy of my reporting by almost 95% and was capable of scale back the reporting time by 75%.

4. HubSpot for consumer onboarding and communication

I used HubSpot’s sturdy suite of automation instruments to handle our shoppers’ onboarding and communication processes. The highly effective workflow automation builders of Hubspot helped to automate contract signing by way of an built-in e-signature software.

It automated our doc assortment through file request workflows, and the sequence software allowed us to ship personalised and focused emails to shoppers. We might simply monitor consumer interactions and progress by way of onboarding levels and establish points.

Total, we turned a sophisticated course of right into a time-saving, clean system and ensured a streamlined client engagement by 50%. We might additionally observe our advertising and marketing success and modify the plan accordingly. Nevertheless, the important thing profit was decreasing our onboarding time by 20%.

5. HubSpot and Calendly for assembly scheduling and follow-ups

To enhance follow-ups and deploy the AIDA framework, I carried out HubSpot. With HubSpot, my group successfully manages follow-up emails, reminders and duties primarily based on particular actions and timelines. We have been capable of enhance our junk mail automation and retargeting consistency by 90%.

I used Calendly — one of many in style scheduling instruments — to automate our scheduling. It was built-in with my group’s work schedule, and we might set the assembly instances accordingly.

This helped my group massive time as a few of the repetitive duties like including new leads, sending alerts and syncing information have been accomplished very quickly.

In spite of everything that automation, I efficiently streamlined handbook duties and boosted effectivity by a whopping 50%. The outcome was clear: My group grew to become extra productive, consumer satisfaction improved, and the general high quality of our work elevated — with none additional employment. Automating the processes not solely saved my priceless time but additionally helped my group scale back errors, enhance accuracy and concentrate on what’s most essential.

Associated: 3 Things to Consider When Automating Your Workflows

Professional ideas

Although automation processes will be game-changers, you should sort out them properly. Right here is my tackle it:

Dos:

• As an alternative of making an attempt too many instruments without delay, it is higher to automate one course of at a time and measure its affect.

• Coaching group members on methods to use the brand new automation instruments and processes helps guarantee one of the best outcomes.

• It is obligatory to recurrently evaluation automation course of outcomes and discover new methods to enhance effectivity.

Don’ts:

• Maintain the automation course of so simple as doable to extend the group’s experience and buyer satisfaction.

• Irrespective of the instruments used, they have to be secure and adjust to data privacy laws.