8 Tactics to Automate Your Business for Increased Productivity

Automating your business processes for increased productivity is a great way to ensure that you are performing at optimum levels.

When you have certain business possibilities that you’d like to explore, but your time to delivery or lead time is too high because of manual inputs, you lose out on key opportunities.

All too often, you find companies that simply waste away because of too much focus on micromanagement and not enough emphasis on automation and increasing productivity.

There are myriad of examples of companies that have been wiped clean because their competitors could offer a better service because of automation.

Here are the top 10 automation tactics to boost your productivity –

#1 Introduce advanced algorithmic solutions

Have AI and Machine Learning be a core component of how you do business.

You can convert a lot of your business metrics into data points that convert into sales after insights are driven. There are many startups that focus on introducing AI-driven decision making and incorporating AI and advanced algorithms is a good idea.

Being familiar with AI is one thing, implementing cloud, automation tools, and sales funnel automation is another.

You can gain all the benefits of automation if you add on AI and ML into your business processes.

#2 Self-Managed Sales-Cycle

When you develop sales cycles that last longer than 6-8 months, you sometimes run into problems with management, lead efficiency and follow-up time.

In this deoptimized process, companies can lose a lot of revenue because of increased manual inputs and decreased automation of processes.

Develop a strong sales-cycle that cuts down the time to conversion and becomes leaner. With key process like content marketing, online advertising and social media, you can develop a more automated machine for your sales cycle.

#3 Repetition and Redundancies

When you spot repetition of any kind, you need to automate it to some degree.

For example - - Do you notice a conversational theme in 80% of your digital conversations? Then you might want to consider a chat bot. It may make sense.

Executives can rarely execute on the monotonous, day-to-day tasks. That's why outsourcing  and automation continues to  grow in importance around the globe.

Want to REALLY increase productivity?

1 - Outsource and automate your weaknesses.

2 - Double down on your strengths.

Learn how to do those things, and you'll win. It's just how the world works.

#4 Nuclear Teams and Contractors

One of the best ways to automate your business is to hire contractors and nuclear teams to take over when you have a larger workload. You can hire Ninja contractors for specific tasks like social media and digital marketing, which you don’t want to take in-house.

You can manage them over and above their resources and build a more automated approach to your business.

In the 4-hour week, Tim Ferris’ go to mantra is automation and contractors. He recommends that businesses focus on delivering value through automation.

#5 Work Lesser Every Day

I know, I know. We live in a hustling world. Everyone has a side job or a network marketing team. It's all about working hard.

While I'm a proponent, many can succeed from an opposite approach… At least in terms of productivity.

When you can work less, the power of enhanced growth unlocks.

By reducing the time you take to work, you can start to realize the possibilities of automation and how vast the field is for you. When you first start off, you end up spending a lot of time on doing everything for your business.

Right from keeping notes to call sheets, you end up wearing a lot of hats.

Then you gradually replace yourself and try to automate the non-core activities that you do.

That frees up your time to start working lesser and focus more on growth and meetings.

#6 Streamline most tasks –

When you streamline your tasks and make them process-oriented, you get the most out of the job in less time. This automates the core and develops a sense of unrivalled progress.

Breaking down larger tasks into smaller chunks helps empower all members of the value chain to perform better than before.

When you use online tools to streamline tasks and meetings, and manage elements of your business through a process oriented way – execution becomes a breeze and you have more time to focus on the things that matter in your business.

#7 The 5-step Plan –

The 5-step plan is a robust one for all entrepreneurs that are looking to increase their productivity through automation.

The first step is to learn everything yourself.

This includes small things like web design, marketing and networking.

When you start to learn the ins and outs of the most critical parts of your business, you can start to replace yourself and focus on other things. Second, don’t spend money that you don’t have.

Instead, spend only what you have in the bank. Third, know your weaknesses and invest wisely. If you’re not strong on a certain domain, hire a partner. Fourth, understand the needs of your business and hire accordingly. Lastly, trust others to do the job. This will help ease mental strain and allow you to focus on business development.

#8 Be patient and focus on the non-scalable –

Often in business we like to focus on scaling up as soon as possible.

What actually happens is that we end up ignoring the things that don’t scale. That ends up crippling our business and we can’t grow. Therefore, we must be patient with the things that don’t scale and focus on the things that can be automated.

E.g. human interaction, training and relationship management are some of the many things that can’t be automated.

Thus, focusing on these things and not trying to automate them works better for your brand.

Conclusion

Automation is a great way to ensure that your business is performing at its peak and has all the right tools to deliver high value and constant delight.

By offering automation to your employees, you can free up resources and allow them to focus on creativity, innovation and overall business success.

While automation may not be for everyone, there are certain principles and keys that are helpful to all companies of all sizes.