We start a business full of drive, keen to be of service, and eager to make our dreams come true. Yet you can soon find yourself working in all areas of your business and those dreams never materialise. It is time consuming, overwhelming, and can lead to burn out.
Working in your business means you are unable to grow your business. And the best way to get out of this cycle is to spend some time working on your business – by setting up systems that will allow you to sustainably scale and give you time back in your genius zone.
Here are three systems to take your business from overwhelm to scaleable:
1. Customer Relationship Manager (CRM)
This is a way of managing all clients – leads, current, and previous – so you can keep track of who has been interacting with your business. Having this information captured correctly can allow you to monitor hot and cold leads, the revenue you make from each client, and in which products/services they are interested.
CRM software will give you options of what information you have access to, which will provide you with more accurate data than what you can track for yourself using an Excel spreadsheet.
CRM options: Dubsado (free for up to three clients); Hubspot (from $15 per user/month); Monday (from $16 USD monthly).
Start now tip!
Look at your business over the last 6 months and calculate how many leads came through each day or week. This will give you a better idea of which CRM is going to best manage the number of leads you can expect over the next 6 months and beyond.
2. Project Management (PM)
There are dozens of tasks that you must regularly complete in your business. Rather than having post-its all over your desk or trying to keep everything in your head, get all your tasks into a project management software that can monitor your progress and give you a clear idea each day of what you actually have to finish.
This is also the most efficient way to collaborate with your team/contractors as you can assign tasks, set deadlines, and monitor the progress of your projects and see, immediately, all progress in your business operations.
PM options: Asana (free); ClickUp (from $7 USD per user/month); Notion (from $10 USD per seat/month).
Start now tip!
Most software options have trials and/or free options. Look through some of the options and find one that works best for you and your team (e.g. Notion is creative and ClickUp is robust). Sign up to a trial or the free option and spend some time seeing how it works before committing.
3. Automations
The next level to scaling your business is having your different software options speaking to each other. Having the correct automations set up allows most processes of your business to run smoothly without you needing to be “hands on”, such as your client onboarding and chatting to your warm leads in their DMs.
Like AI, automations are constantly evolving and there are many different ways you can use them across your different software. Think of automations like your own personal assistant running your business 24/7.
Automation options: Zapier (free); Make (from $9 per month); Manychat (from $15 per month).
Start now tip!
When you have decided which CRM and PM software you want to use, check to see which automation software integrates best with them to make setting up your automations even easier.
Note: Pricing correct at time of publication. Some fees may be charged in USD.
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