As a small business owner, the urge to do it all yourself can be SO real. However, if you are hoping to maintain any form of work-life balance, then you are going to need some help! Before you go and hire a team, there might be another way to regain control over your to-do list. Automation! Overwhelming? Sometimes. But I’m here to share some of my top tools for automation.

Whether you are a brand new business, or you have a few years under your belt, setting up automation can free up hours of your time. I don’t want to be dramatic, but I might call automating my business my favourite way to spend a Friday night.

Dubsado

Now listen, there are tons of great CRM’s and I firmly believe that you should have one from the moment you start your business! This might even be the first big splurge for your sprouting business to be. Seriously, you should have one from day one!

That being said, Dubsado has some of the more robust automation capabilities, so if you are looking to ditch some of your workload, it is worth the steep learning curve!

So what can you automate with Dubsado? Scheduling appointments, signing contracts, sending invoices, receiving payments, sending emails, creating to-do’s and the list goes on and on!

Trello

Trello is the reason that I was (finally) able to switch to digital to-do lists! The days of forgetting my notebook at home and not being able to write things down are gone with the wind. Thank goodness.

With Trello automation you can create:

• Rules that instantly run a set of actions when triggered by a defined action.
• Buttons that run an action on a card or across an entire board in a single click.
• Due date commands that run in relation to approaching or past due dates.
• Calendar commands that run at set calendar intervals.

 

Zapier

Zapier is probably my all-time favourite automation tool! You can use Zapier to connect your other platforms creating a bridge between Dubsado and Google Drive, or Honeybook and Trello, or Flodesk and Interact, or the list goes on and on! Truly, this platform is so expansive and can take SO much off your plate.

Recently, I used Zapier to create new client folders in Google Drive upon the signing of their contract. I also use it to add to-do’s to my Trello boards at certain times during the client journey! These are all things that I used to do manually but with the power of automation, I no longer need to!

If you are a small business owner, utilizing some tools for automation is a great way to set yourself up for success! Even if you are just starting out, building your automations out now will help you scale faster and more effectively.