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PRESENTS

Small Business Automation

Reduce Cost and Increase Productivity with Automated

Business Processes

By: Steve Haviland


Automation is taking the business community by storm. Thanks to a new breed of technology small business

organizations can leverage automation to solve repetitive paper-based business tasks.

In Small Business Automation, I will guide you through a simple five (5) step approach that will enable you to identify

and automate repetitive costly tasks within your organization. My goal is to dramatically reduce cost and increase the

productivity within your Small Business organization.

Step 1: Choosing Tasks to Automate

Choose the right tasks to automate. While this sounds obvious, this is where most small business make mistakes.

First, understanding how automation works and what it is capable of helps you to identify what you should automate

verses what you shouldn’t. There are tons of tools for automating translation, web design, content writing and

everything else you could do as a marketer or business owner – but most of them fall way short of the mark.

Translation technology, for example, is basically useless for most business purposes and it’s difficult to know whether

the technology will ever be able to replicate the complex cognitive processes human translators are capable of.

So what kind of tasks should you be automating? Well, you want to automate tasks that are repetitive, time-consuming and easy for algorithms to handle 100%

accurately without your input.

Tasks like:

Creating and Maintaining Dashboards and Analytics (organizational metrics)

Human Resources Processes (employee and volunteer recruitment, onboarding, training and term.)

Marketing and Fundraising Processes (Press Releases, Email, Social Media, Websites, and Donor Management)

Financial Processes (From Budgeting and Expenditures to Employee and Volunteer Timesheets)

Integrations between software solutions.

What you don’t want to try and automate are tasks that require creative thinking and a lot of human input – ie: content

creation, design processes or problem solving. Start simple by connecting platforms together with software integrations

like Zapier or IFTTT and aim to take out as many repetitive tasks out of your workflow as possible.

For example, do you really need to import spreadsheets between Excel and Google Sheets six times a day when you

could automate this process?

Once you get a feel for what automation can or can’t do, you’ll start to come up with some more ambitious strategies

that don’t save you time and money but transform your business entirely.

Reduce cost and increase productivity within your non-profit organization.


In the box below, make a list of tasks that you want to automate.

Step 2: Choose Your Automation Tools

Once you have a handle on which task you want to automate, it’s time to think about what tools you are going to use to

make the automation happen. There are many automation tools and platforms to choose from, so it’s difficult to know

exactly where to begin.

Here are some recommendations for common small business automation task.

Sales and Marketing: Small Business organizations have the same challenges other types of organizations have. They must find people who

want their product or service, and sell to them. These challenges include:

How do we find more clients?

How do we communicate with them regularly?

How do we make sure that they stay passionate about our company and our products?

Most importantly, how do we systematize this process, and automate as much as possible?


Our Recommendation: ActiveCampaign for Small Businesss

For an all-in-one marketing and sales automation tool, ActiveCampaign is the place to start transforming your small

business.

Bring your marketing and fundraising teams together, cut out repetitive tasks and manage your donors as they navigate

their way through different stages of the funding/giving process.

Social Media Automation Social media posting is one of the first marketing tasks you should automate for your small business. Now I am not

recommending that you automate everything. You still need to be engaged for creative efforts, videos, and one-on-one

interactions. However, tasks like email collection, publishing posts, scheduling and reposting should all be automated.

Our Recommendation: Edgar or Buffer

Simply put Edgar and Buffer are the only two tools you need for this type of automation.

Business Process Automation Business process automation covers a wide gamut of processes from finance to human resources and everything in

between. There are so many tasks that can be work-flowed so that they add process, reduce time, and are handled

efficiently. This is perhaps the largest single area where most businesses can realize significant benefits from

automation.

Our Recommendation: Kissflow

Kissflow is business process management software that lets you create an unlimited number of automated business

applications. In fact, there are over 45 business process applications that are prebuilt using industry best practices you

can instantly leverage to drive automation. Some of the automation tasks that Kissflow will help you solve are employee

onboarding and offboarding, vacation request, purchase request, mileage tracking, and travel.

Basic Automations If you have ever struggled with syncing a calendar between a desktop computer and a cell phone, then you know how

much of a headache moving data between two different systems can be. All organizations struggle with this problem,

and it creates duplicate work and frustration. So how do we solve this problem?

Our Recommendation: Zapier

Zapier moves data easily between online applications. Need the data in ActiveCampaign to connect with Quickbooks?

No problem. Connect all of your online applications so that you can reduce effort and work more effectively.

https://www.activecampaign.com/blog/crm-for-non-profits/

https://www.ventureharbour.com/recommends/active-campaign/

https://meetedgar.com/

https://buffer.com/

https://kissflow.com/

https://zapier.com/


Step 3: Set Your Automation Targets

It’s no good spending money on automation tools and investing time in creating new workflows if they don’t reduce cost

and increase productivity within your organization. Before you put any workflows in place, make sure you set specific

targets you can use to gauge success and refine your processes.

In some cases, your goal might be to simply match the performance of your team and then use that time elsewhere. For

example, you may automate your social posts so that blog articles are automatically published on Twitter three times

per day for a week. If your team is already doing this, automating this workflow isn’t going to improve results, it’s simply

going to free up time that you can spend on other things.

The question is: what are you going to do with this time that adds value to your business? The goal of this automation is

to allow you to do something else – so what is it? Define your goal and make sure it’s measurable so you can see the

impact of even minor automations like these (they all add up).

For other workflows, setting goals will happen naturally. For example, when you’re creating an automated donor lead

generation process, you’ll set a target number of leads and other KPIs while your fundraising automation will set targets

for collecting more revenue.

Be specific, set targets for each quarter and use these as a benchmark to gauge success.


What are your automation targets?


Step 4: Track Results and Refine the Process

Without setting targets and choosing the right KPIs, you’ll struggle to measure how much of a positive impact

automation is having on your business. More importantly, you won’t be able to pinpoint opportunities to refine your

automations and improve results.

When automation allows you to multiply tasks almost infinitely, a simple tweak to your workflow can dramatically

increase your productivity and your small business’s bottom line. As an example, CDS Monarch provides people with

intellectual and developmental disabilities and their families, support and opportunities needed to build independent

and fulfilling lives. By using automation for their payment processes, the organization was able to reduce their payment

processing cost by 20%.

That’s just one small automation strategy involving payroll that has made a serious impact on revenue. Without tracking

results and refining the workflows, you will have no idea how much automation is really impacting and helping your

organization.

What results will you track to refine your automation processes?


Step 5: Create a Culture of Automation in Your Organization Once you get to grips with automation, you’ll realize it’s a state of mind as much as a technology. You’ll look at

everything and think can we automate that? and you’ll look at every existing automation you’re running and think how

can we improve that?

This is the kind of automation culture you want to build in your business, and across your entire team. This mindset is all

about efficiency, making the most of your resources and maximizing results with what you have – everything you want

your team to be thinking about when they’re completing tasks.

You want your team members to recognize when they’re repeating the same tasks over and again, tasks that could be

automated and free up more time for ones that can’t. This kind of mindset doesn’t come automatically (how ironic) so

make this a constant presence in your Small Business and reward your team for turning automation into better results.

Final Words Automation and workflows are a major challenge for most organizations. First, you have to get over the resistance of

doing things a new and different way. Second, you have to have a deep understanding of the technology. Third, while

you are implementing all of the automation, you still have to do your day job.

My team and I at Think of IT want to help businesses to leverage automation to improve their organizations and advance

their missions. We are dedicated to helping Small Business organizations to leverage affordable technology solutions. If

you need help, feel free to reach out for a no-obligation consultation. We can speak about automation, or any other

technology related issue.

In Service,

Steve Haviland, CEO of Think of IT

940-692-1119

[email protected]


Here’s What A Few Of Our Clients Have Said:

Working With Think of IT Computer Services

If you are ready to stop being the computer repair person at your office, if you want to concentrate on your business goals, and have confidence that your systems will work, then we can help. Call Think of IT Computer Services today at 940-692-1119 and like the clients above, we will show you how I.T. can go from being a frustration to a business enablement tool that will accelerate your business.


About Think of IT Computer Services

Think of IT Computer Services began in 2009 as a small business. Located in Wichita Falls, we specialize in aiding organizations with their technology challenges. We provide services that allow our clients to focus on their primary objectives, not their technology. We strive to proactively resolve issues prior to them becoming a problem; thus, reducing risk and aiding future planning efforts. Our Capabilities Include:

Cloud Servers and Workspaces Cybersecurity Virtual Chief Information Officer (IT

Leadership) IT Department Augmentation IT Training Custom Voice and Data Cabling Network Design Local (LAN) and Wide-Area (WAN) Networking Customized VoIP Telecommunication Systems Network Maintenance Equipment Replacement Timelines (Failure Risks) Data Management / Backups Network / Data Resiliency Disaster Recovery Solutions Telecommunication and Data Network Documentation Network Implementation Managed Service Provider (MSP) Custom IT Policies and Procedures

For More Information about Think of IT Computer Services, call us at 940-692-1119 or visit us online at http://thinkof.it.

http://thinkof.it/

small business automation - thinkofitwichitafalls.com · our recommendation: kissflow kissflow is...

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