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Saving time is one of the few things that seem very elusive to business owners. While most business owners understand the concept of saving time, the actual process of where they can save time and how to do it is where they need help the most. In this piece, we’re going to show you eight ways to save time and put your business on autopilot. It might be easier than you think and you may have already had some of these pieces in place, but here you learn how they all can interact with each other to create a seamless business that allows you to do what you love.

Hire Competent Employees

In the early 2000s, there was a book released by Tim Ferriss called The 4-Hour Work Week. It set the business world ablaze with the idea that you could use a virtual assistant to help do almost any task and only have to work directly in your company or business for four hours a week. While the author did acknowledge that this process may not work for every type of leader across all business industries, it did open up the eyes of executives and CEOs into what they could better delegate and to whom. When you have the right staff supporting you, it will put your business on a path to growth with ease. Employees who are well-versed in their specific role of support and are competent in the processes that they follow in order to achieve the results of the business are worth their weight in gold. Not only will these employees help your business succeed, but they will also find ways to be more efficient and put daily processes that are repetitive on autopilot, saving the entire company and team both time and money. These are the people that you need to attract and retain.

Improve Training

This is a pivotal part of your business’s process that should be automated in order to efficiently train new employees or train current employees on new systems, products, or services. And according to Jolt, when you automate the training process, you’re able to effortlessly train more than one person at a time. This works well because if anyone has any questions, they can ask their colleagues to get clarification before needing to take that question to any of the higher-ups. A lot of times simple questions can be clarified by conversation. If you need help overhauling your training, there are some awesome companies that can provide help, including Phoenix Leadership Solutions.

Build a Loyal Customer Base

Experienced seven-figure business owner, Amy Porterfield, says often that your money is where your mailing list is. Whether you are a brick-and-mortar company or an online business, building a consistent and loyal customer base is key to being able to save time in your business. Customers return to brands that they’ve worked with and trust. According to Smile.io, when a customer has purchased from you three times, they are 54 percent more likely to purchase from you continuously after that point. When you consistently communicate with customers, especially those who’ve already purchased from you, you are increasing the ability for your business to announce a new product or service and have people snapping it up right away.

Use Marketing Tools

This is one of the easiest tasks to put on autopilot in your business and it will not only save you time, but it will also save your team time. When you sit down with your marketing team, see where they can automate tasks that they do on a daily or weekly basis. For managing the social media presence of your business, use a scheduling tool like Later or Tailwind to post your content without anyone having to be tied to their computer. While they aren’t yet mobile, my favorite social media tool, by far, is PromoRepublic. For customer relationship management, marketing tools like Mailchimp let you automate the process of sending out messages to your customers by email. Sit down with your marketing and content team to plan out the month or quarter and have them input your promotional material into an email sequence that will be sent according to the schedule that your marketing department sets. The key here is collaborations. Your marketing people are professionals just like you. Be sure to listen to what they say and implement it.

Use CRM Tools

Just like you should be automating your social media and email marketing, you should also be utilizing client resource management tools to automate the follow-up process of customers or clients who have expressed interest in working with your business. There are a number of CRM tools available to your business. The key is finding one that can grow with the changes in technology and the way that people prefer to respond and interact with your business. For example, one thing you need in a CRM is text messaging capability. This feature is important because it helps you follow up with your potential clients. Because text messaging has become so common, many customers read and respond to business messages that they get by way of text. One study shows that 85 percent of the time clients prefer to get a text from a business for follow up.

Schedule IT Audits

With the increase in data breaches and hackers trying to gain access to the internal workings of your business, IT audits should be a regular thing that is scheduled for your business. Straight Edge IT points out that letting other people manage your IT issues allows you to focus on the parts of your business you know best. Schedule your backups and also pre-schedule your hardware IT appointments. Then, set your reminders in your phone or calendar so you’re not in the middle of a major project when IT support shows up. You don’t have to be present for the IT audit and you can even ask to have the report sent to you via email so that you can review it on your own time and message back the support person any questions you may have later.

Create Scalable Systems

The key to being able to save time in your business and put it on autopilot is to create scalable systems. Before you go to automate any of your processes, have a meeting with your team and be certain that you have systems and processes in place that each person knows how they run and the steps that they take to make them work. If the answer is affirmative, then look at the process of automating your business and allowing you to free up your time.

Trust the Process

Once control is taken out of the hands of the CEO, it’s normal to get nervous and a little bit scared at how the process will go. But trusting the process can lead to success if you have the right people around you. Because you’ve met with your team, trust that the automation you’ve put in place can be supported by the systems and people that you’ve brought on board.

Allowing the tasks in your business to become more auto-piloted can be scary. Your business is important to you and it’s anxiety-inducing to think of passing off certain aspects to other people. However, doing this will let your business run smoother and get you more profits. Try the tips shared in this article and see where you and your company can go.

For more ways to make your business run smoother, read more about it here!