How To Automate Your Business And Take Control Of Your Life

Running an online business can be a lot of work.

There is so much that you want to do that sometimes it can be hard to fit everything into your daily tasks without burning out.

Especially when you are the CEO, the personal assistant, customer service, etc. Sometimes there is too much to handle.

Let us not talk about those work from home mommas or pappas.

I mean it can be really overwhelming when housework needs to be done or you have to tend to the kids AND run a business??

That is why automating your business is paramount and is key to helping you save your sanity.

What Exactly Is Automation?  

Automation in an online business is Superman – it saves your day!!

If there was a definition that is exactly what I would call it in a nutshell.

But all jokes aside, automation is using tools to perform tasks that you would otherwise do yourself.

Kind of like freeing up your time and delegating the task to a robot.

Men in Black comes to mind. LOL

Why Would You Want To Automate Your Business?   

There are some really great reasons why automating your business will be a good thing for you.

• Better time management. If on a given day you have 10 tasks that you must absolutely do, but find it hard to manage your time so that the important tasks get done first, well you automate your business to take some of those tasks off your plate and focus on the ones that require more time.This will help you to free up your time and manage it better.
• Time to be present. Do you feel like more time should be spent with the family instead of head down in your computer? It is great for the mind to have a break now and then, when you can just unwind.Family time is precious and should never be lost for business sake. Automating your business will help you to balance your life and even tip the scale in favour of spending more hours with the family, knowing that your business is still working for you.
• Faster growth. When you automate your business you have more time to focus on the important things like creating content or driving traffic to your website, blog or sales funnel. Prioritising these tasks will eventually help you to grow faster because you can then reach more people with more content.
• Channel your energy to be more creative. When you are not thinking of the mundane tasks which can be automated, you have more time to actually sit and think of more creative ideas that can help your business. Because your mind is not so busy, your energy can go towards improving your business or client relations.

So let us get to the good stuff!!

How To Automate Your Business And Take Control Of Your Life

#1 Acquire Customers/Clients Automation

The model for any online business is one where you display your product or offer to an audience, capture interested persons’ information and follow up with them so as to close the sale.

Every business needs customers to make money right?

If you have a website offering a service or product for sale, that is one piece of the puzzle.

You will never really get to capture every prospect who visits your website and follow up with them if you do not have the right tools in place.

So this is where lead magnets play a part.

You may hear other terms like, capture page, squeeze page, landing page. THEY ARE ALL THE SAME!

I use LeadPages to easily build a lead magnet for my websites.

A lead magnet is simply a stand alone website that helps you to capture your visitors’ contact details.

So when your prospect visits your webpage you can offer them something for free in exchange for their contact details and then add them to your newsletter email sequence to follow up with them.

What I love about this tool is that I can build as many capture pages as I want for various offers.

I can also build my email list easily with their built-in autoresponder.

I did a full review of this tool here.

There is also Clickfunnels.

Clickfunnels is a very snazzy piece of equipment but the good thing is, it gets the job done!

With these two systems, you can set it up to automatically capture prospects’ information, lead them through a sales funnel and close the sale with email follow ups.

Everything is customisable just the way you want it and there are tons of templates that you can use to add that personal touch.

#2 Follow-Up Automation

Do you want to contact every single prospect that lands on your website or would you rather someone or SOMETHING do it for you?

I mean we are talking about hundreds even hundreds of thousands of people landing on your website every single day!

That would absolutely be brain fry and even total waste of time if you were to take on this mountain task.

That is why I have to say thank goodness for Aweber or GetResponse.

These two tools allow you to deliver pre-written emails to your prospects on your behalf.

So whatever content you want your prospects to receive to build that relationship with them, then let Aweber or GetResponse do the work for you.

I like that I can actually see how many of my prospects are engaging with me and how many of them have clicked on a link within the email.

It gives me really helpful stats that I can use to improve the interaction that I have with my prospects.

Think about how this beauty can free up some of your time so you can focus on other things to help your business grow.

#3 Social Media Schedule Automation

We are all on social media and it is HUGE for our business.

But I know the feeling when sometimes you just do not care to “show up”.

All you want to do is lay in bed, watch some TV and just Netflix and chill!

Well with social media automation tools you can still “show up” and make it seem like you are there. Cool huh?!

An excellent tool for most social media outlets is Hootsuite.

This lets you schedule and post effective content automatically in very little time.

There is a free plan for Hootsuite which gives permission to one user and connects to three different social media networks. If you want to manage more networks than that, then their professional plan allows you to connect to ten social media networks at $19 a month.

You can use Hootsuite to schedule Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, LinkedIn and Tumblr posts.

Other social media management tools include:

• Buffer
• IFTTT
• Social Oomph
• TweetDeck
• Social Flow
• CrowdBooster

I have not used any of these tools myself but you can head on over to Dashburst who breaks it down for you. (UPDATE: This link no longer works so I have removed it.)

Are there any other tools that you have used that have made your social media planning just AWESOME? I would LOVE to hear from you. Leave me a comment in the comment section below.

#4 Complete Business Automation

A home where you can sell yourself and your business.

And no I am not speaking about your company’s landing or sales page, you network marketers!

You want a place where you can brand yourself and give more information about the services or products that you offer, BUT most importantly YOU!

After all we build relationships with each other right?

Since I started blogging, I have been able to share a wealth of information about my brand and myself to people who are looking for a source of help with their online business.

Now think about this, would you not prefer to provide a library of information to your prospects, without you really having to lift a finger?

Front load the work in the beginning then let your blog work for you. Genius right?!

If you have not started a blog yet and you should really get right to it, you will see how this tool helps to make your life easier.

It is one of the things that has enabled me to take vacations when I want to, without worrying whether my business will be at a stand-still.

#5 Presentation Webinars

If you are in network marketing or a business where you need to tell more people about your business, then webinars are the real deal.

People are also using Facebook lives to showcase their content but if you strategically set up these webinars, you can share it with a lot more people than just your friends list.

No more are the days when you have to do home parties. Especially if you have a busy day and you just want to curl up at night, why throw parties when you can easily do it online?

For webinars I love Clickfunnels.

They allow you to integrate Google Live Hangouts and have chat box facilities so you can easily address your attendees’ questions and interact with them.

#6 Traffic Automation

So can we agree that no business can survive without an audience?

In other words, you need visitors to your business to have the best chance at obtaining leads for your offer or product.

The best way to get these visitors is through an advertising platform.

When it comes to advertising, there are many many sources available on the internet that you can utilise.

However my best places to go for quality leads for my niche are Udimi Solo Ads and MLM Leads. I have also mentioned a few others here.

If you want to get more customers to your own business then try Facebook Ads, Google Ads or Bing Ads.

I mean who would like a steady stream of visitors to your website, without you talking to them?

These advertising platforms will send the right people to your business, then your capture page will help to filter out only those who are interested thereby getting you more targeted prospects to your business.

Right so there is a nice round up of tools that you can start using in your own business to automate it. These tools can work for ANY business to help you take control of your life.

Cheers,

P.S Will you give any of these a try? Is there any tool that you use to automate that you think I’ll love? Share it with me in the comments! I wanna here the deets.

P.P.S Hey, have you followed me on my YouTube Channel yet? I give away more free tips over there.