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

Operating a advertising and marketing company isn’t any stroll within the park. It requires repetitive, time-consuming duties. With the consumer checklist rising, the guide workload will increase to a degree the place you want at the very least one — if no more — staff to deal with the stress.

I noticed this to the bone as repetitive duties and manual work piled up. The primary blow was that it turned tougher for our staff to execute duties on time. Additionally, it ceaselessly triggered burnout or fatigue that interfered with the standard of our work.

To handle this, the primary and rapid answer that got here to my thoughts was hiring a number of staff. However that wasn’t possible, as recruiting extra staff 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 offer it a shot and began automating my enterprise processes. The consequence? I used to be capable of offload 50% of my enterprise duties.

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

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 largest bottlenecks in my workflow:

1. Guide 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 programs and development methods.

And the consequence? I regularly began to overlook alternatives.

2. Buyer help overload

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

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

3. Monetary monitoring and reporting

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

4. Shopper onboarding and communication

The following huge problem I confronted was managing client onboarding and communication. Every consumer required customized 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 staff, particularly when executing the Consideration, Curiosity, Need and Motion (AIDA) framework. Nevertheless, the guide processes, together with scheduling meetings, was a significant roadblock.

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

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

Choosing particular options

That stated, after noting down the problems, I noticed that a lot of the time-consuming duties may very well be labored round utilizing automation. And this 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 get rid of my guide lead technology drain. These superior instruments are designed for extremely focused searches primarily based on particular standards similar to business, service or firm dimension.

Apollo.io’s e-mail finder and verification options had been a lifesaver, considerably lowering the time I spent on guide analysis.

Greater than that, we may attain our audience 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% greater win fee 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 knowledge, observe conversations and replace buyer information.

This ensured customized assist and lowered our workload by as much as 40%. The effectivity allowed my staff to supply 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 device, Fathom, with QuickBooks and ensured seamless monetary reporting.

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

4. HubSpot for consumer onboarding and communication

I used HubSpot’s strong suite of automation instruments to handle our purchasers’ 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 device.

It automated our doc assortment by way of file request workflows, and the sequence device allowed us to ship customized and focused emails to purchasers. We may simply monitor consumer interactions and progress by way of onboarding levels and determine points.

General, we turned a sophisticated course of right into a time-saving, clean system and ensured a streamlined client engagement by 50%. We may additionally observe our advertising and marketing success and alter the plan accordingly. Nevertheless, the important thing profit was lowering 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 applied HubSpot. With HubSpot, my staff successfully manages follow-up emails, reminders and duties primarily based on particular actions and timelines. We had been capable of enhance our unsolicited mail automation and retargeting consistency by 90%.

I used Calendly — one of many fashionable scheduling instruments — to automate our scheduling. It was built-in with my staff’s work schedule, and we may set the assembly occasions accordingly.

This helped my staff huge time as a number of the repetitive duties like including new leads, sending alerts and syncing knowledge had been accomplished very quickly.

In any case that automation, I efficiently streamlined guide duties and boosted effectivity by a whopping 50%. The consequence was clear: My staff turned 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 worthwhile time but in addition helped my staff scale back errors, enhance accuracy and deal with what’s most necessary.

Associated: 3 Things to Consider When Automating Your Workflows

Professional ideas

Although automation processes might be game-changers, you might want to deal with them correctly. Right here is my tackle it:

Dos:

• As an alternative of attempting too many instruments directly, it is higher to automate one course of at a time and measure its impression.

• Coaching staff members on learn how to use the brand new automation instruments and processes helps guarantee the most effective outcomes.

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

Don’ts:

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

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