Tag: Business Building

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Tools and Tips to Help You Automate Email Marketing

There aren’t many business owners today who aren’t aware of automated email marketing technology that uses autoresponders. If you’re not sure, autoresponder software like Aweber.com will send out messages to your list members based on either your schedule or a behavioral trigger that you set up and define.

email marketing

Two ways to automate your email marketing:

 

  1. Trigger Based Email Messages
  2. Drip-Fed Scheduled Messages

 

A trigger-based email message is set up to be sent to the subscriber based on something they do. For example, if your customer downloads a free report, or clicks through to read a specific blog post, or even if they simply open a particular email, you can set up your autoresponder to automatically deliver specific messages to them based on what they did.

 

A drip-fed email message is simply set up to deliver based on the schedule you choose in a specific order. Usually, the messages are a sequence and often referred to as your “autoresponder sequence.” For example, if you offer a free report about a specific problem that you solve, the customer downloads the report, which puts them on that list, which triggers the system to start the drip schedule.

 

Besides these two ways you can automate, you can also use the automation features inside your software to segment based on new information you obtain from your customer such as demographics data, and product purchased, product not purchased, how they learned about your solutions, and more. Frankly, if you can think it up, you can create a segmentation trigger.

 

When you automate your email marketing in this way, you can create more targeted and personalized messaging, create customized landing pages, and even use split testing for your emails to create better results from your email marketing. You can also use the native software to examine delivery rates, view rates, open rates, click-through rates, conversion rates, and more to make it all work better together – mostly automatically.

 

The trick for getting this right is to choose the right software for your needs. Some small business owners using a combination of Aweber.com and a WordPress site will work fine, but for some others, they may need a more robust platform to work with, such as Ontraport.com or Clickfunnels.com.

 

Write down the functions you’d like to have now and in the future. Choose your software based on longevity, functionality, and growth – but of course, also consider your budget. Fortunately, most email marketing software choices have options that can grow with you based on your usage. You can find solutions for as little as $20 to start and on up to thousands of dollars, depending on how you’re using it. The main thing is to do your due diligence checking out the software you want to use to ensure that it works for your needs. For example, some autoresponder software expressly forbids affiliate marketing – if you want to build an affiliate marketing business, you don’t want to start with that choice.

 

 

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Tools and Tips to Help You Automate HR Management

From time tracking to expense management, automating your human resource management will save time and money.  Anything that happens on a recurring basis is ripe for automation. Tasks like data collecting, file creation, document sharing, form filling, and more can all be done using the software in a way that eliminates the need for an HR person to do these tasks and frees you up to do more.

 

  • Contractor and Employee Onboarding – When you bring on a team member, they need to have access to information about your company, including branding information, document templates, and more. If it’s important that your people comply with a particular thing, it needs to be in the onboarding process.

 

  • Offboarding – When someone leaves your company and moves on with another, it’s a good idea to survey them about why so that you can improve. Use your HR system to send an automated exist interview via email that they can do on their own before they leave. Plus, once they fill out the exit survey, they can also be automatically sent other information such as COBRA info.

 

  • Vacation Requests – If you have employees, they may want to leave, even contractors, if you rely on them to do regular tasks on a long-term contract, offering a way for them to let you know they’re going away is always going to make everyone’s life easier.

 

  • Expense Claims – If you reimburse your people for expenses related to the work you do, letting them automatically enter a request for expenses is a lot simpler when done via computer technology and reduces the paperwork and time needed to process such requests.

 

  • Payroll – Allowing your employees to enter their own time in a system that creates the paychecks is a great way to cut down on your need to do data entry. All you have to do is approve the time, and the check or direct deposit for their pay happens automatically.

 

  • Training – Whether employees or contractors offering company training is helpful to them and can improve their work. You can offer branding information and train them on using all your systems without having to do it individually for each person you bring on board.

 

  • Time Management – Let your contractors and employees keep track of their own time using the software.

 

  • Benefits Management – Let your contractors or employees take advantage of their benefits on their own. Self-serve, saving lots of time.

 

  • Tax Forms and Filing – Most bookkeeping software and systems automatically offer tax forms and filing options depending on your needs.

 

Even if you don’t have a bunch of employees and only work with contractors having everything together in a centralized place organized according to the laws and regulations where you live is going to free up your time and help avoid issues in the future.

 

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Home Office Automation Tips

When thinking of automation, you may forget that the work you do in your office is also a place that you can start automating. Yes, you want to automate as much as you can outside the office, too but one of the first places you can streamline your efforts is via office automation. There is more to office automation than going paperless. It’s about removing the human component or at least your need to act to get something done.

 

  • Design Your Workflow – For every project, you do in your office, there is a process that ensures successful completion. Design a workflow for each project so that you know the full process. You cannot automate anything if you don’t know each step that it takes to get to finished properly.

 

  • Notice Anything You Do Repeatedly – If you do it again and again, chances are it can be automated. For example, if you always need to transfer data from one place to another to get started with your work, can that task be automated using IFTTT.com?

 

  • Ensure Your Office is Compatible with Your Real Life – Most people who work for themselves need their office to travel with them. You’ll want to avoid using any system that is not compatible with mobile devices and systems. You should not have to go to your PC to get it done. The more mobile your tools are, the more likely you are to be able to use automation software too.

 

  • Check Compatibility with Your Existing Software and Systems – When you choose new tools to use for your business to enhance automation, it needs to work seamlessly with the software and systems you already use to be worthwhile. Of course, the one exception is if you’ve been stubborn about upgrading and using the best tools due to the cost of investment. If you are using older free tools cobbled together, you will have more issues making automation work than if you bite the bullet and invest.

 

  • Always Test the Results – Each tool that you use has native analytics and reports that you can use to determine if you’re getting the results that you wanted. If you’re not, don’t keep doing the same thing. Use the metrics to inform your next steps. Always make data-centric choices for your business.

 

  • The Small Stuff Does Matter – Even the smallest thing can change your entire workday. For example, what if you automated your office so that when you walk into your office, the light turns on, and so does your computer? Anything you can reasonably do to cut down on the steps will make you more productive and save tons of time, your most valuable resource.

 

Automating your office, whether it’s designed to turn on your computer, make you a pot of coffee, or turn on the lights, or it’s using software to let artificial intelligence do the task for you, will all help to make your days go much more smoothly. You’ll save time and be able to stay on top of the important stuff that needs your personal touch.

 

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Tools and Tips to Help You Automate Your Marketing

One of the best things to start automating as soon as you can is your marketing. Automating is a lot easier and less expensive than it was just five years ago. Today, even a one-person business can implement marketing automation that assists in exploding their business and taking it to new heights never considered in the past.

 

These tools and tips will help you get marketing automation right:

 

  • Understand Your Sales Process – You should easily be able to describe the journey your customer takes from awareness through to delight. Because when you know what your customer’s intent is, you can put the right tools and information in front of them.

 

  • Know Who the Customer Is – Of course, part of understanding your customer’s journey is also simply knowing who exactly your ideal customer is. You must be able to describe who they are in detail if you want to know how to market to them. This fact never changes whether you are doing things yourself, using automation, or letting a contractor do it.

 

  • Create, Plan, and Publish Content in Advance – All marketing starts with content. Before you even start using automation, you need to have content for each level of the buyer’s journey to get their attention.

 

  • Pick the Right Software – For example, software like Hootsuite is helpful to manage the social media platforms all in one place. In contrast, software like SocialOomph.com can automate your content distribution by prepopulating content. Know what the point of the software is before you buy it and use it.

 

  • Focus on List Building – Whether you are marketing using automation or doing it yourself, the main focus you should have is on list building. Building your list with hungry customers is your first priority for any marketing you do.

 

  • Know What You Want – If you don’t know what you want, it’s hard to find the software. One issue with automation is you may not realize how much you can automate, so you don’t even know that you want it because you don’t know it exists. For this reason, educate yourself on various ways others use automation because the truth is if you can think it up and it’s repeatable, you can probably automate it.

 

  • Focus on The Basics First – When you first begin implementing automation, focus on the easy things you do now. For example, automating your sales pages to deliver a freebie, sign your lead up to your list, and then deliver automated nurturing messages is the first place you should consider automating.

 

Take a look at what you already are doing in your business, and then look up whether or not you can automate that. Posting to social media, sending new content to your email list, and offering self-help customer service are some simple but powerful ways that you can start automating your marketing.

 

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The Ultimate Boost in Productivity: Automation and Outsourcing

Being productive is an essential element in any business owner’s life. Business owners are busy and need to use every moment given to them as fruitfully as possible. Most business owners continually research ideas that will boost their productivity. They research organizing so that they can be more productive, but the truth is the ultimate boost in productivity will come from a combination of automation and outsourcing.

 

  • Inexpensive – Automation is very inexpensive, and outsourcing is less expensive than hiring someone in house to do the same thing. Using automation where you can, and outsourcing everywhere else is inexpensive and offers an amazing ROI.

 

  • Easy to Get Started – It’s not as hard as you might think to get started with either automation or outsourcing. Learn how it works by reading the software website and the manuals. For example, if you join Zapier.com, you can learn about applets, or zaps, that other people have already created and simply copy theirs. When you outsource today, you can go to a platform like upwork.com or even Fiverr.com to find qualified people.

 

  • Increases Capabilities – Even if you don’t have a skill, you can find it in software or find it in an individual or company. This means that a one-person business can perform like a larger business due to increased capabilities.

 

  • Better Quality – Believe it or not, the work you produce will be much better when you work with technology and contractors to see your vision come to reality.

 

  • Contributes to Lean Practices – Most businesses these days need to run as lean as possible, whether it’s the busy season or not. Automation and outsourcing give you flexibility when it comes to your budget.

 

  • Get More Done – You’re simply going to get more done when you have more help. If you can automate most things, outsource the few remaining tasks, that means you have that much more time to do more of what matters to you.

 

  • Reduce Mistakes – If you don’t know how to do something, you’re going to make mistakes as you learn. But if you hire an expert, they’re going to make fewer mistakes. If you use technology and set it up right, there will be no mistakes.

 

  • Develop Improvable Business Processes – When you want to outsource or automate something, you will need to write down the process so that you can visualize every single step, including the impact of the steps. This is going to create a situation where you improve every single process you have.

 

  • Make Better Decisions – When you have better facts, you can make better choices and decisions for your business needs. Setting up automatic reports that appear in your Dropbox the moment you need to review them will blow your mind, but it will help you make better decisions since you won’t be fishing for the info at the last minute.

 

  • Creates New Opportunities – When you have more time to judge how your business is performing, and you’ve developed each process to be the most efficient possible, you’re going to have more doors open for you just when you need them.

 

To set up more outsourcing and automation, you’ll need to know what your business goals are, understand your core business, audit your internal processes, and learn how you can integrate what you already own with new technology that can help you with automation and outsourcing.

 

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3 Reasons to Automate and Outsource

As a business owner, it’s important to understand what your expertise is. If you’re spending time in areas that you lack skills or information, you may be making mistakes that you don’t even realize you’re making while sacrificing what you are good at doing.

 

When you understand the core business, you will know what you sell, who you’re selling it to, where your buyers are, and how to find them. You’ll also know how you’re going to distribute the product or serve the customer. Additionally, you know how you stand out from the competition, and you use that to your advantage by differentiating yourself in the marketplace.

 

Remove Bottlenecks

 

When you start to automate and outsource tasks in your business as you develop each process, you’ll start to notice that bottlenecks are a thing of the past. Because the truth is, in most small businesses, especially those run by people starting them from home with no business experience, the bottleneck is the business owner.

 

Sometimes lack of skill causes the roadblock. Sometimes they just lack desire or energy because everything becomes so overwhelming. But whatever the reason, if you are engaged in organizing and planning as business owners should do and focused on automating and outsourcing, ensuring that others are responsible for doing, you’re going to get more done.

 

Reduce Errors and Mistakes

 

When you work with software, fewer mistakes will happen once you set it up correctly. Even outsourcing to an expert will ensure that mistakes and errors are less likely to happen. The main reason is that you’re going to use software that is tried and tested, and you’re going to hire people who are experts.

 

The truth is, hiring experts or using automation software can reduce your errors and mistakes so much that the cost will produce an amazing return on investment. You’d probably spend a lot more time worrying over the issue than your customer service expert or the automation software will. But you’ll get superior results in the end.

Setting Boundaries: It’s Not Selfish to Go After What You Want

Spend Time on Higher Value Projects

 

This is the biggest reason of all to automate and outsource. Focus on your primary business, which is the core of your businesses’ existence. As a business owner, while you may need to do things in your business as a job, once you reach specific benchmarks, you should hand those tasks off to machines or to experts so that you can spend time on projects that produce a much higher value for yourself such as business planning and idea generation which is the key to business growth.

You live in an amazing time to be a business owner. You can find plenty of technology to implement in your automation plan and plenty of people to hire in your outsourcing plan. Figure out what you want to do, set your goals for doing it, and then follow through.

 

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How to Do More with Less

Many folks in western society have been taught by word and deed that being busy makes them a good person. The truth is, being busy does not mean that you are productive. You can be busy doing the wrong things. Getting more done with less implies that the impact you make is more significant than your effort.

 

Some ways to get more done with less:

 

  • Understand your key objectives – For any task, what is the point of doing it? Does this task actually impact any of your critical business objectives or the objective of the one task?
  • Automate – If you can document the steps you do for a task, you can likely automate a lot of it. From using macros within your documentation to implementing new automation tech, there is likely a way to do it.
  • Outsource – If you cannot automate it, you can likely get someone else to do it for you. As a business owner, you should actually make it your goal to outsource or automate almost every task in your business, with few exceptions.
  • Batch tasks – Once you’ve figured out what tasks you really do need to do, batch things together that make sense. The fewer steps you can take, the better. For example, if you need to do bookkeeping, save all your booking entries to do one day a week instead of doing it daily.
  • Avoid multitasking – When you are doing a task, do that task. Don’t do anything else that will take away your focus. No human really can multitask anyway.
  • Create realistic schedules – When you write your tasks into your calendar, it should make sense. If a task takes four hours, you need to ensure you really have four hours and not one. For example, include set up time, drive time, and all the time needed to finish the task as scheduled completely.
  • Do the hard things first – If there is one thing on your list you really don’t want to do, but you cannot eliminate it, automate it, or outsource it, get that out of the way first thing.
  • Track your time – When you first start doing things, it helps to track your time so that you stay mindful of how you’re spending it and so that you know how long any given thing really takes you.
  • Focus on money-making tasks – Note which tasks you do that generate invoicing or money in your pocket. These need to be done first thing.
  • Cut distractions – Set up your workspace to eliminate distractions and interruptions. Turn off notifications, your phone, the TV, or anything that can take your mind off what you are doing.
  • Use the right tools – Don’t skimp on investing in the tools of your trade. If a tool exists to use that helps streamline your business and eliminate busywork, you need it.
  • Know your top five – Everyone has off days, but if you create a list of the top five money-making must-dos for a basic day, then even when you have issues, you can focus on those top five tasks.

 

Remember that being organized in your business is part of what a business owner does. Business owners reduce risk in their business by organizing, planning, and generating new ideas that create new opportunities.

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What’s Your Customer’s Buying Journey

 

One of the first things you need to learn about your business is your customer’s buying journey based on the sales funnel. Big businesses like to call this their customer relationship management pipeline. They tend to use a few basic pipeline structures that follow their customer’s buying journey from awareness to delight.

 

The truth is that no matter what type of business you have, the basic sales funnel is the same and defines the buyer’s journey.

 

  • Awareness
  • Interest
  • Consideration
  • Decision
  • Delight

 

Map your customer’s potential journey so that you can visualize where you need to place touchpoints. For example:

 

  • Awareness – Sync your favorite apps such as Google Sheets, Aweber.com, and other apps using software like Automate.io or Zapier.com to deliver the right content at the right time based on the customer’s behavior.

 

  • Interest – Automatically deliver email subscribers content that teaches them about the products and services you offer via your email software as well as your website using auto sequences and conversational chatbots.

 

  • Consideration – This is when the buyer really wants what you have to offer, and it’s your sale to lose or gain. You can automate content delivery that asks for the sale, such as delivering a free webinar to them. Using the right software, such as offered by HubSpot Automation and others, you can even let the software generate new one time offers based on their behavior.

 

  • Decision – Depending upon the type of business structure you have, whether it’s a course or a physical product or not, you’ll want to help them make the choice to buy by setting up automated discovery call appointments. You can synchronize your website with scheduling software like Acuityscheduling.com to let your customers schedule their own call.

 

  • Delight – Finally, you can create a whole new funnel to use during the post-purchase stage in order to elicit customer delight. When you delight your customers, they’re going to make more purchases and recommend others to you. One way to do this is to automate the onboarding of new customers so that they receive enough information to want to stick with you.

 

People add different steps along the way to each of their funnels based on the path the buyer likes to travel on their buying journey. Each step is a chance to streamline and automate part of the process. To make your customer’s buying journey successful, you’ll hopefully lead them through the entire process past the point they decide to buy your product to include customer delight, loyalty, and advocacy when it’s appropriate.

 

 

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What’s Your Business Type?

 

Do you have a store where people purchase products, or do you offer a service like coaching?

Maybe you offer courses and classes, or you provide customer support or something else entirely? Whatever you offer, how you have structured your business is vital to determine before you start your automation plans.

3 step plan

If you have an online store that people come to in order to purchase products from you, the way you automate and run your business will be very different from the way someone who offers courses or one-on-one personal services does.

 

So, consider what your business type is.

 

Online Store

 

If you sell any type of product, whether it’s physical or digital, with a shopping cart, you have an online store. You may be selling books, content, and even courses if you’re selling them as a product without your extra coaching and input. Essentially if you sell anything online in a shopping cart, you have an online store and can use a lot of automation tips for online stores.

 

Virtual Services

 

If you sell any type of service, administrative, one-on-one coaching, and so forth that you perform at a distance, using your website as your storefront, you are a service-based business. As a service-based business, you’ll organize your business and market yourself differently from an online store where you don’t speak to the customers directly yourself and sell products directly.

 

Virtual Support and Consulting

 

You may also offer only virtual support and consulting without offering direct service. For example, you may coach your clients to create a sales page, set up a freebie, set up a discovery call, but you don’t do it yourself, you simply advise them on what to do, and the client with their team does it. This is an entirely different business structure than a business that does the services directly or delivers the product directly.

 

Virtual Training

 

If you offer classes and “how-to” information to your customers via courses, classes, and content, you have a business that provides classes either self-paced or teacher-led this is a training business. A training business sometimes needs more personal input and engagement than a storefront that just sells the complete self-paced course.

 

There are numerous opportunities for automation in each of these business structures. But first, you need to write it down. What does the composition of your business look like? What do you do for customers and clients, and how do you do it? Is it hands-off or hands-on, or a combination of both? The more you can document how your business works, the easier it will be to find ways to automate and outsource.

 

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8 TIPS TO BRAVE THE WEATHER WHEN WALKING

 

The thing that often puts roadblocks in people’s way when it comes to establishing a firm walking routine is the weather. These tips will help you navigate and plan for that happening – because it will happen. That way, nothing gets in your way. Remember, if you have a plan you can implement it.

 

It’s Raining

 

When it’s raining and wet outside, it’s tempting to say you’re not going to walk out there. Certainly, you don’t have to – you can walk in a mall, at a gym, and in other indoor areas if you want to. However, walking in the rain isn’t generally unsafe.

 

It’s essential, like any other time, that you dress for the weather. If it’s raining, wear rain gear for walkers so that you can still use your hands to protect yourself from a fall. You might be surprised that walking in a gentle rain when it’s above 60 degrees F outside can be fun.

It’s Snowing

 

One issue with snow is the cold and the potential for ice. Check the weather to ensure it’s not too cold, and there are no warnings about dangerous cold. Even if it’s at freezing doesn’t mean you cannot walk if you have the right clothing and shoes on.

 

Take shorter, smaller steps to avoid slipping, and wear the right gear to protect you – including the correct type of shoes and outerwear to protect against wind and wetness in order to keep your body safe.

 

There’s Ice Out There

 

One of the times you might want to consider skipping walking outside is if there is ice or there is a significant wind chill factor. If you do find yourself walking on ice, it’s important to take smaller steps that are more like marching than walking normally. This will help you avoid slipping.

It’s Hot as Heck

When it’s hot outside, you can still walk. However, it is important to understand that there are times that it’s best to stay out of the heat. The main thing about heat is to ensure you wear the right clothing as protection, are drinking enough water to stay hydrated, and that you protect your skin and head from the heat.

It’s So Humid

 

Walking when it’s humid will make it feel much hotter and less comfortable, but you can still do it. You may need to walk slower, drink more water, and take more breaks. Wear thin cotton clothing so that it helps wick away the moisture from your body so that you can avoid chafing and blisters on your feet. Consider taking a change or two of socks for a longer walk.

 

There Is No Humidity

 

While it’s always more comfortable outside even in hot weather when there is low or little humidity (as in the desert), drinking enough water is even more important. You should wear clothing to cover your entire body and your head to keep cool, plus plan on taking at least a gallon of water with you for each hour you plan to walk. You need way more than the eight glasses a day in this type of climate; in fact, you may need up to 30 cups of water.

 

It’s Cold Outside

If it’s cold but not snowing or raining, walking is a good thing to do. If it’s not too cold to be outside safely (look at your local weather information), you can walk like you usually do even if it’s down as low as freezing if it’s not too windy or bad weather. Dress appropriately and you’ll be fine.

It’s Just Not Safe Outside 

 

If you have determined it’s just not safe for you to walk outside, or you simply don’t want to due to the bad weather, you don’t have to. You can go to a gym with an indoor track, the local indoor mall, and other indoor areas to walk, including a treadmill in your home when needed.

 

Walking in inclement weather is not hard to do. You simply need to dress accordingly and take enough water with you to keep yourself hydrated and healthy. If it’s too uncomfortable, you can do just as much walking inside if you prefer.