Streamline your business with automation

Every business has repetitive tasks. And those tasks can happen at all levels, even up to the CEO. But they cost your business time, money, and opportunity — so you know you should do something about it.

The challenge: knowing where to start. 

There are a zillion tech companies out there promising to automate your business from top to bottom. But aside from a tiny niche of online services, that’s not really possible.

The better approach is to automate one step at a time, judging by what’s most important for your business today.

Here’s a step-by-step guide to identify where to start.

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Step 1. Define your automation goals.

Figure out what you want to achieve with automation. Are you trying to reduce human error? Speed up response times? Improve customer service? 

Consider what your business’s most pressing need is right now, then dig a little deeper. 

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Step 2. List out your processes

You can’t automate what you haven’t identified! Get your team together and make a list of all your business operations.

The key to success here is to get specific. Don’t write down something like “customer followup” — break it down to the concrete jobs, e.g. “responding to Google reviews,” “sending 1-week checkup emails”, etc.

Once you’ve got a list, highlight items that meet one or more of these criteria:

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Step 3. Prioritize

The highlighted items become your shortlist.

Rank each one by how complex the task is, and the potential benefit from automating it. You know I love a 2x2 matrix — here’s one you can use.

If you’re not sure how to measure the benefit, take a look at this Automation Cost-Benefit Calculator — just enter a few parameters (like how long it takes, the hourly rate of the person doing it, task frequency) and it will give you an estimated cost savings over the year.

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Step 4. Implement in stages

By now, you have a prioritized list of the highest-impact tasks to automate. 

Don’t try to do it all at once. Start small with your most urgent priorities, and keep a close eye on the time, effort, and resources used during the implementation phase. 

As you gain confidence and see savings, gradually move down the priority list to automate additional processes.

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Step 5. Monitor and adjust

Once you’ve set up an automation, ensure it's working as expected. Continuously collect data on time saved and improvements in efficiency, and audit to make sure the output is correct.

It’s worth a few extra hours of monitoring up front for the time savings in the long run.

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Then rinse and repeat until you work your way through the list!

A few other pieces of advice:

That’s it for today!