We all have the same amount of hours in one day, so how is it that some of us are able to produce so much and make it look easy, while others feel that there’s never enough time in a day to catch up on their endless to-do lists?
The answer lies in time management. Managing your time effectively means prioritizing the important things: the things that add the most value to your life. Your priorities might be personal, spending time with family or working on a passion project, or they might be professional, advancing in your career or growing your business, but they’re probably a little bit of both.
Time management is important because it keeps you from wasting your time (and your life) focused on things that don’t necessarily require your attention and could easily be done by someone else, or, better yet, automated.
Repetitive Tasks: the Sneaky Time-Wasters
What catches most of us up and sneakily sucks away our time are the little things. The repetitive tasks that you do every day, sometimes without even realizing how much time you actually spend focused on them…instead of on your priorities.
It’s so important to spend your time and focus your attention on the things that will have the greatest impact on your life and your business. Why fritter away your precious time doing repetitive tasks like responding to emails or chasing down leads when you don’t have to?
Try this exercise: Map out your day according to the activities that you do most often during your work hours. These activities might include responding to emails or information queries, managing invoices or payments, composing and sending follow-up emails, or data entry.
Now imagine what you could be doing if you weren’t committed to personally taking care of those tasks.
How Automation Can Help You Take Your Time Back
With automation, you can set up the management of repetitive tasks once, and then forget about it and focus on what matters most to you instead.
Invoices and Payments
Using Customer Relationship Management (CRM) software streamlines your payments and makes sure you get paid on time. You can connect your bank account directly to your CRM, allowing clients to pay for your services with credit cards.
A good CRM will also enable you to upload your logo, enter line items, and add due dates, as well as choosing who to bill through your contacts.
Managing Appointments
Forget about wasting time setting up appointments on an individual basis. Automation allows customers to schedule appointments on their own time via an online link that directs them to available time slots. Automatic appointment reminders help you to save even more time by sending reminder emails to customers and decreasing time lost to last-minute cancellations.
Email Follow-Ups
Marketing automation enables you to create targeted email campaigns that are activated when your customers take certain actions, such as signing up for a newsletter or booking an appointment. You no longer have to worry about responding to every email you receive, saving you time and energy.
Sales Automation
Using CRM helps to keep all of your customers’ information easily accessible and safely in one place. Your CRM will keep a record of all of your customer interactions, so you don’t have to try to keep track of them yourself.
You don’t have to spend time figuring out what to do with your collection of leads, either; building campaigns and running promotions and sales can be done automatically, with no input from you necessary.
With new advances in technology and more reliable software than ever before, there’s no reason not to use sales and marketing automation to scale your business. Automating repetitive tasks frees up your time for what is important in life, and saves you from paying someone else to do those chores.
If you’re interested in learning more ways to grow your business, book a call with Don Creative Group today and let us show you how to expand!
Time is our greatest resource, stop wasting it!
