• Mar 15, 2021
• Melinda Avellino
• 0

All entrepreneurs and small business owners know that time is money, however, a lot of them get caught up in the more routine and mundane of tasks to keep their businesses going. And once you’re in the “keeping it going” mode, a lot of your business growth and entrepreneurial spirit get pushed aside.

Potential for Workflow Automation

Studies have analyzed the potential of automation in the workplace and reached some surprising conclusions. According to McKinsey’s analysis:

Out of 2000 work activities (across 800 professions), 45% could be automated, including processing sales transactions, demonstrating product features, and answering product questions

Among business processes, 60% of occupations could save up to 30% of their time with automation, including the review and approval of paperwork, generating sales leads, and processing large documents. Automation can surface content that is particularly relevant, meaningful, or exceptional, so that professionals are free to focus only on situations that require their expertise and intelligence

Nearly 20% of CEOs’ time is spent on work that could be automated. Automatable tasks include reviewing status reports, preparing staff assignments, and analyzing operational data

Finally, just 4% of common workplace activities involve human creativity, and only 29% require a human ability to sense and respond to emotion

McKinsey points out that automation represents a tremendous opportunity to bring creativity and meaning to the workplace by replacing mundane and repetitive tasks with ones that require innovation and emotion.

The potential to free up 20-30% of every single work day for tasks that require intelligence, expertise, creativity, or sensitivity cannot be underrated. Companies that utilize automation are enabling their employees to work at a higher level every day, and this advanced competency and creativity of the workforce influences every decision in their daily function. These companies are able to be more competitive, more effective, and connect more deeply with their product and their customer, or services and their clients.

That is why Workflow Automation is so important to the success of your business. Once you get these repetitive and draining tasks off your plate, you’ll find that you can focus on the what’s important to you in your business and its future success.

How to Automate Your Workflow?

So I am sure you are asking yourself, what actually is Workflow Automation? Well, it can be defined as automating anything that you do repetitively through using tools and software to do it for you. There are so many software tools out there today that can automate just about anything you can think of.

Some of the more simpler ones are appointment schedulers which can save time and money on having prospective customers or existing customers scheduling appointments with you. Then there are social media schedulers that will post your blog articles to all your social media channels. Next there are email drip campaigns that send emails to your email list on a schedule in the hopes of catching their attention to one of your services or products.  Lead capture can also bring you prospective leads from different sources to help you grow your business.

A more complex area is project management. There are many project management tools out there to streamline your internal and client projects with teams ensuring you not miss a task or step and ultimately allowing you to come in on time and on budget.

Even more complex are the CRMs (customer relationship management) tools that enable you to keep close tabs on your prospective and current customers or clients, reminding you of follow up whether it be through sending them emails or making a call. They can even go as far as handling your entire operational workflow from scheduling your initial consultation, sending out the proposal, signing contracts, and eventually invoicing them per project or on a recurring basis.

How Will You Automate Your Workflow?

So think about how much time would be freed up during the day if you and your employees implemented even one of these automations in your daily workflow. It may be time for you to examine and evaluate your business process workflow and how you can streamline any of the processes to benefit your business’ ultimate success and the potential to get your freedom back so all those creative juices can start flowing again.   Make your business work for you, instead of you working for your business.

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About the Author

Melinda Avellino is a Virtual Administrator and Project Management and Workflow Systems Consultant, supporting entrepreneurs, professionals, and small business owners with valuable services that, in return, afford them freedom to focus on growing their businesses.

Offering a wide range of essential services from administrative support to project management, workflow management, email marketing, social media management, web design and maintenance, and more. For more information, visit Versatile VA and book your Free Consultation.

Melinda Avellino

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