SYS 059: Don’t Automate Your Business!

Automation tools, used correctly, can revolutionize parts of your business, streamline your operation, reduce errors and save costs in terms of time and wages. However, used inappropriately or incorrectly they can be a substantial drain on your time and resources. Steve is here to denote correct application of these tools to help you avoid the pitfalls.   KEY TAKEAWAYS    Apps such as Zapier or Integromat are web based app that allow two or more different apps to talk to each other. For instance, someone submitting a form into your system could trigger a range of actions in different apps, such as informing a staff member, disseminating the data into your database, sending marketing emails or creating a time slot in your calendar.  They do take a long time to set up, however, and need maintenance regularly and are not error free. If you have high frequency repeated tasks in your operation such as repeated purchases or high volume communications they are invaluable.   Only look to automate processes and tasks that are already tried and tested. Once something is automated it cannot be improved so any intrinsic error present in the process will be repeated ad infinitum until you intervene. Make sure you are not replicating something in an automation tool that can be easily actioned elsewhere. You may spend time setting up an automation that can manually be completed once a month in five minutes.  These apps require a fair amount of IT knowledge and skill to get the most out of them, but are accessible immediately to new users. If you want comprehensive usage, you will need to be, or source someone tech savvy. Bear in mind, with complicated automations, your specialist staff member could leave the company and you have no information on how the automation works. Zapier has good training backup, so train internally and then get your trained staff to document their automations.      BEST MOMENTS    ‘Anything that’s prone to human error or time consuming, like moving files around or creating documents or templates, all that sort of thing. Anything that’s really repetitive and doesn’t require a brain to think of subjective things, just following a very strict process, that’s the sort of stuff that is really good.’ ‘I had a client the other day and we were speaking about setting up a Zapier. The idea was simple. Every time somebody booked into accommodation he would pull that data from the website and put it into a spreadsheet so he could than total up revenue for all his properties and split it out by property etc.’ ‘That is the problem with setting up automation, it’s set and forget, out of sight out of mind, you’ve got to keep that forefront of your mind.‘ ‘Sometimes automation is just because you can, it doesn’t mean you should. Sense check before you start to automate.’    VALUABLE RESOURCES Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/SystemsAndOutsourcing/  Website: https://systemsandoutsourcing.com/welcome-1  YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/drsteveday    The RIGHT Assistants For Your Business by Dr Steve Day  http://bit.ly/sys-10   ABOUT THE HOST Steve used to be a slave to his business but when he moved to Sweden in 2015, he was forced to change the way he worked. He switched to running his businesses remotely and after totally nailing this concept he decided to spend his time helping other small business owners do the same. Steve’s been investing in property since 2002, has a degree in Computing, and worked as a doctor in the NHS before quitting to focus full-time on sharing his systems and outsourcing Methodology with the world. He now lives in Sweden and runs his UK-based businesses remotely with the help of his team of Filipino and UK-based Virtual Assistants. Most business owners are overwhelmed because they don't know how to create systems or get the right help. Our systems and outsourcing Courses and coaching programme will help you automate your business and work effectively with affordable virtual assistants. That way, you will stop feeling overwhelmed and start making more money.