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

Operating a advertising 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 no less than one — if no more — staff to sort out the strain.

I spotted 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 staff to execute duties on time. Additionally, it regularly precipitated 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 improve overhead prices.

So, after re-evaluating some workable choices, I lastly discovered a greater technique 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 outcome? I used to be in a position to offload 50% of my enterprise duties.

Here is my complete journey, from switching to automation to attaining sustainable development with out hiring additional 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. Handbook lead technology

Initially, I spent half my enterprise days simply nurturing qualified leads. I needed to goal corporations 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 methods and development methods.

And the outcome? I steadily began to overlook alternatives.

2. Buyer assist overload

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

As you’ll be able to think about, with the rising variety of buyer assist requests, it grew to become more durable 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 critical buyer points.

3. Monetary monitoring and reporting

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

4. Shopper onboarding and communication

The subsequent large 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, tackle 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, Need and Motion (AIDA) framework. Nevertheless, the guide processes, together with scheduling meetings, changed into a significant roadblock.

Plus, we needed to coordinate assembly occasions throughout totally different time zones and make limitless back-and-forth emails, which impacted the precision of that framework. At its worst, we had 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 spotted that a lot of the time-consuming duties might 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 based mostly on particular standards reminiscent of business, service or firm measurement.

Apollo.io’s electronic mail finder and verification options had been a lifesaver, considerably decreasing 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 in consequence, our firm additionally witnessed as much as a 17% increased win fee on common.

2. AI-powered chatbots for buyer assist

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 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 fee gateways and financial institution accounts.

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

In consequence, I witnessed an elevated accuracy of my reporting by almost 95% and was in a position to 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 instrument.

It automated our doc assortment by way of file request workflows, and the sequence instrument allowed us to ship personalised and focused emails to shoppers. We may simply monitor consumer interactions and progress by way of onboarding phases 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 may additionally observe our advertising 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 applied HubSpot. With HubSpot, my group successfully manages follow-up emails, reminders and duties based mostly on particular actions and timelines. We had been in a position to enhance our unsolicited mail automation and retargeting consistency by 90%.

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

This helped my group large 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 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 worthwhile 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 suggestions

Although automation processes might be game-changers, you must sort out them correctly. Right here is my tackle it:

Dos:

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

• Coaching group members on use the brand new automation instruments and processes helps guarantee the perfect outcomes.

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

Don’ts:

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

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