Things to Automate for Coaches, Consultants & Service Providers
So at this point, you might be wondering..
Should I really take the time to come and learn to automate my business?
Well, let me ask you..
Are you currently a one woman/man band?
And if so, you're probably wearing ALL the hats when it comes to getting things done?
You're the business admin person..
You're the finance manager..
You're the customer support person..
You're the bookkeeper..
You're the sales person..
You're the landing page builder..
You're the product creator..
You're the service deliverer
You're the social media person
And the list goes on and on..
There are in fact 9 main areas of tasks in a business that need to be performed almost daily, namely ..
1. Finance - ensuring there is enough money coming in daily
2. Bookkeeping - ensuring the business stays compliant for tax purposes
3. Human Resources - ensuring that if you have staff they are being treated well and paid correctly
4. Purchasing - buying materials to be able to sell your products or services
5. Production - producing the product or providing the service
6. Customer Service - providing back-up or support for your product or service
7. Marketing - The most important part of your tasks to attract your ideal client
8. IT - making sure that your technology, hardware and software are in optimal working order
9. Networking - This has become a necessity for every business leader and should be part of your Weekly Business lifestyle.
The sad part is that in most businesses only 1 or 2 tasks at most are revenue generating and the rest are a cost to the business and those costs eat into your hard working efforts and profits.
So why would you as the most expensive person in the business at your hourly charge out rate of for example $150 per hour do your own bookkeeping when you can outsource your bookkeeping to an external bookkeeper for much, much less?
So would it be worth it for you to automate or outsource some or even all of these tasks?
Would it be worth it to you to get back 1, 2 or even 3 days per week so you can finally free yourself from being chained to your desk doing non-revenue generating tasks and concentrate on what you do well..
- To impact and serve more clients..
- And to give you your life back to enjoy true freedom from your business, in and out of your office?
But.. When I first committed to breaking down every task in my business I wanted to delegate or automate..
It was pretty overwhelming to say the least.
The thought of giving up control was causing me to almost having a panic attack.
Also, the overwhelm of where to even start?
It felt like everything was the ‘most important thing’ to automate or delegate..
And yet I never had the time to actually just knuckle down and do it!
There were always too many other important tasks on my to-do list.
Amidst manually finding new clients, selling to them, loving them up, nurturing them, and actually making an impact..
That “automate my tasks” to-do list was rescheduled daily.
Don’t get me wrong, I understood that time freedom was sitting right in front of me and if I could just automate a small piece of the puzzle I would be able to claw back some valuable time one small puzzle peace at a time.
If I could automate my products being delivered or automate part of the service delivery process, or the process to loving-up my clients once they’ve purchased my products or services..
I could cut down my time in my email in and out boxes to just 30 minutes a day.
That simple shift could save me 4.. 8.. even 12 hours a week! FREE time back out of my busy schedule.
If I could automate my consult booking process, if I could automate my consult payment process, if I could avoid having to travel to a client and have an online face to face meeting instead, I could avoid spending an extra hour per client..
If I could avoid having to manually remind them to show up for the meeting, rescheduling cancellations, and processing their consult payments.
That meant I could almost double the amount of consults I held each day..
And add extra income to my bank really fast by getting paid before I even do the consult!
That’s what I mean by giving you freedom.
More time in your day to perform revenue generating tasks, more capacity to scale and grow your business without having to add any team members, more sales, more personal life back into my day.
BUT..
I couldn’t find the time to actually start.
I knew the manual way of doing things was running me into the ground..
But what can you do when that email has to be sent out.. that payment has to be processed.. that consult has to be entered into my calendar?
When I was looking at a 5-minute manual task versus a 1 hour plus automation job..
The 5 minutes task won over every time.
And before I knew it, I was falling back into the same old patterns I had been in before..
Waiting for something to change.. waiting for free time to open up.. waiting for the tasks to not be so many and so hard..
And gradually falling further behind with my dream of growing my income and business and going nuts in the process.
Does all of this sound familiar at all? Is this scenario resonating with you?
Do you ever just wish that the roller coaster you are on will stop.. just for an HOUR or TWO..
So you can jump off and catch your breath?
I get it, I really do! I was there living it daily!
I was making every excuse in the book as to why I wasn’t moving forward in my business.. I was scared to give up control, because I was scared that nobody could do the job as well as I could.
Until one Friday evening, when I had literally been working for 12 hours straight and I had very little chargeable time on my timesheet and I had not even made a dent in my inbox yet. I knew that something had to change and that change had to START WITH ME!
As I was shutting down my laptop a familiar wave of overwhelm rushed over me.
The excitement of the impending weekend was tainted by the knowledge that I still had a heck of a lot of work to do to actually fulfill what I’d promised my clients.
There went my weekend
The feeling of stress, doubt, and overwhelm knotted in my stomach..
realised something simple, but quite profound.
I was never going to “make the time” to automate my business. We all have the same amount of time in our day! You can’t make more time.
I was never going to get to 3pm and go, “Wow, I don’t have anything important to do right now. I guess I’ll spend the rest of the day automating my calendar booking system!”
It’s just not going to happen.
I needed to make time in my business day and my life if I was going to have a chance of anything changing.
It’s a hard truth to hear, but it’s true for you too.
You’re never going to find time, you’re truly going to have to make it happen by sacrificing other things for the short term, so that you can experience that long-term freedom of a business with automated processes?
Every single person on this planet has just 168 hours in their week.
Automation can buy you back the valuable hours you’ve been wasting on things that can be automated or outsourced at a fraction of the cost of your time..
By automating or outsourcing it will help you use those hours you have each day doing the things only you can do.
So, where do we start in navigating this transition online and to the automation journey?
How do we make time in our business, and how do we know what things we need to automate first?
Well, we need a plan!
A guide that can help us stay focused, structured and strategic..
And to help us avoid pivoting towards low-value or minimum benefit tasks to automate.
Your roadmap should include:
-Client Acquisition
-Client onboarding
-Product/Service Delivery
-Customer Support/Success
Erika Williams
I am very curious by nature and love discovering new things. I hate time wasters and I hate wasting time because it is so precious and once lost cannot be recovered.
TIME is the NEW CURRENCY.
I have made it my mission to find easier and faster ways of doing business.
I would love the opportunity to share some of my knowledge with YOU!
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About this blog
In this Blog you will discover everything you need to know about turning your education, passion, skill, talent or hobbies into a BUSINESS and anything else I am involved in and thought might be of interest to YOU!
Starting a business can be very scary when you don't know what you are doing. Lucky for you I have turned what I have learnt about starting, growing and scaling a business into a business!
My Business is helping YOU Build Your Own Business
Erika Williams 2023 © systeme.io
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