When it comes to running a small business, it seems like there are never enough hours in the day. Instead of shrinking your to-do list every day, it grows and grows. That’s why automation matters more now than ever.
What Is Automation?
Automation means making the tools at your disposal do the work for you. Just like the assembly line streamlined the auto industry, automation can streamline your business.
The difference today is that we’re not talking about machines. We’re talking about software tools that make your job easier and get work done faster.
How Do I Know What to Automate?
It makes no sense to automate something you do once or twice a year. Automation doesn’t help much there.
Look for repetitive processes in your work. Find things you do two or three times a week or two or three times a day. Talk to your employees. Figure out what repetitive tasks they handle daily or weekly. Work from there.
For example, some businesses send an order confirmation for every online purchase. Does it make sense for an employee to draft and send that confirmation every time, or should that process run automatically?
Here are some areas worth looking at.
Social Media
You should not work your schedule around your social media. Work your social media around your schedule. Do not be the CEO who finishes a phone call and immediately jumps on social media to post your latest blog.
Schedule your posts ahead of time. Tools like HootSuite, Buffer, CoSchedule, and BuzzSumo post to Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and LinkedIn at the same time. Spend 30 minutes scheduling your posts for the week and you’ll be amazed at how you feel afterward.
First Contact with a Sales Lead
When someone messages your company through your website or generic email address, set up an automated response. All it needs to say is something like “Thank you for contacting us. Someone will respond within 24 hours.” This tells the person you received their message and sets a reasonable expectation for a reply.
Win at Phone Tag
Always win at phone tag. The idea is simple. If you leave a voicemail with a potential client, set your automation software to send that client an email that says “I left you a voicemail, I’ll try again tomorrow.” When that email goes out, an alert drops onto your calendar reminding you to call back the next day.
This approach shows clients you’re attentive, and that goes a long way toward making the sale.
Follow Up After Networking
When you attend a conference or a Zoom meeting, you make connections you want to build on. It’s easy to lose track of those people. Even when you remember, writing a personal email to each one takes real time.
Automation software handles this for you. You create the message you want to send to new contacts. Once you add those contacts to a database, the software sends a “great meeting you” message to all of them. You can personalize it so it reads like you sent it yourself. That makes the potential client feel valued and saves you significant time, especially if your business runs on networking.
Follow Up with Warm Leads
Most business owners have an email list. That list includes frequent clients, one-time buyers you want to bring back, and warm leads you haven’t closed yet.
Those warm leads are easy to let slip. Automated emails make sure you follow up with them monthly or quarterly with a quick hello or check-in. Let them know they’re still on your radar and you’d love to talk about what’s new since your last conversation.
Set up your automation correctly and you’ll also see which warm leads open your emails and which ones ignore them. That tells you where to focus your energy.
Set Up Reminder Emails
Reminder emails are one of the best ways to keep repeat customers coming back, especially if you sell consumable goods.
Say you supply paper goods to small businesses. A customer reorders toilet paper every four weeks like clockwork. Do you send a reminder email a week before they normally reorder, or do you risk them running out and heading to the nearest store? The answer is obvious. Reminder emails keep your recurring customers recurring.
Outsource the Rest
One of the best ways to automate your business is to make certain things someone else’s problem. Not the business itself, but the stuff you don’t like doing.
In a podcast with Intentionally Inspirational, Steve Gordon of the Unstoppable CEO said business owners should do a quarterly review of their tasks and break them into things they like, things they’re neutral about, and things they can’t stand.
When you automate the repetitive tasks and hand off the ones you dislike, you get back your time and your energy. You end up doing more of the work that actually moves the needle, and that makes you a more effective business owner.
Did you enjoy this? Here are three ways to go deeper:
🎙 Listen to the Intentional AI Daily Podcast — 3 to 5 minute daily episodes on practical AI for entrepreneurs. Listen here.
📋 Grab the Intentional Growth Framework — A free resource that helps you identify exactly where your marketing and automation have room to improve. Get it here.
📅 Book a Discovery Call — Ready to talk through what this looks like in your business? Grab a time here.