What is business automation?

Business automation, also known as workflow automation, involves using technology to eliminate repetitive, manual tasks, freeing up your team’s time for higher-level tasks. It encompasses four categories of automation:

• Marketing automation
• Sales automation
• Service automation
• Operations automation

If your small business is like most we’ve seen, then as the business grows, you and your team will likely become overwhelmed with all the tasks you need to complete to keep up: Following up with new leads, closing deals, fulfilling orders, ensuring bills are paid, and on and on.

The systems you created in the startup phase begin to crack under the strain. Hiring new employees to keep up adds to overhead costs, which requires more leads and sales to cover the additional expense, which in turn generates more work for the team. And that’s assuming the team can even find the time to hire as they tackle the heavy day-to-day workload.

Automating manual, repetitive tasks allows businesses to get more done without hiring more team members right away. This allows for revenue growth before having to hire, and frees up the team to hire smart rather than in a rush.

Automation also creates a more organized, consistent experience throughout the customer lifecycle. This leads to prospects and customers having a positive perception of the company’s brand, and brings peace of mind to teams as they’re able to work more effectively with less stress.

Last but not least, implementing small business automation frees teams to focus on higher-value tasks. For example:

• Salespeople can spend more time meeting with prospects (not sending repetitive emails)
• Operations managers can focus on improving systems (not performing recurring tasks)
• Finance team members have more time to analyze data (not follow up on past-due invoices)
• Service providers can do more billable work (not administrative tasks)
• Business owners can spend more time on strategy (not putting out fires)

The end result is more growth and profit for the business, a better experience for customers and employees, and freedom for the business owner.

To better understand how business automation works, it’s helpful to break it down into the four categories we mentioned above:

1. Marketing automation
2. Sales automation
3. Service automation
4. Operations automation

The first three align to the prospect and customer experience, and the fourth aligns to the employee experience. Let’s dive into each one.

Marketing automation involves automating the processes for collecting information on new leads, adding those leads automatically to the small business CRM, following up right away and moving them forward in the sales process.

At this stage, leads may be segmented and automatically sent through an email and text nurture series, helping your business develop a relationship with them. They may purchase directly from the automated communications, or be put in touch with a sales representative.

Examples of marketing automation include:

• Direct sales track: Collect new lead information on a web page, send an immediate follow-up email, and assign a salesperson with a task to call them
• Webinar track: Promote a webinar, collect registrations, send confirmations and reminders, and follow up after the event
• Walk-in track: Collect information from walk-in customers using a form on an iPad that creates a CRM record and automates follow-up based on selections made on the form (our customer Amit has a great example of this tactic)
• Event track: Scan business cards at a networking event or vendor booth, which adds them to the CRM, and then add notes and tag them for the appropriate type of automatic follow-up

Learn more about marketing automation.

Sales automation is the automation of business processes involved in converting leads and prospects into clients. The goal is to eliminate repetitive tasks for the sales team members so they can spend more time working directly with prospects.

When the existing sales staff is free to work more leads, the business enjoys more conversions, revenue, and profits. This type of automation also tends to lead to a happier sales team because they get to spend more of their time doing what they do best: Talking to people and closing the deal.

Examples of sales automation include:

• Fast follow-ups: As soon as a lead takes an action, like filling out a form or signing up for an event, an automated email can go out faster than a salesperson would be able to send it manually. This is critical in industries where speed-to-lead can make the difference between a win or a loss.
• Appointment scheduling: Salespeople no longer have to spend time going back and forth with prospects to set up appointments. They simply send a booking link for their calendar and the prospect selects a time. The automation also sends reminders before the appointment starts, which reduces no-shows.
• Repeated check-ins: In many cases, it can take six or more touch points before a prospect is ready to buy… or even to talk. When done manually, most salespeople aren’t able to follow up as many times as necessary and long-term prospects are lost. With automation, every lead gets the recurring follow-up and the salesperson only gets involved when someone responds.
• Sales pipeline: When using automation software like Keap, which includes a sales pipeline, you can automate certain tasks and messages when a person moves from one stage to the next. For example, if you have a free consultation or demo, the “Demo Completed” stage could trigger an email from the CEO, thanking the prospect for their time and welcoming feedback about the conversation with the sales rep.
• Quote and invoice creation and follow-up: If a prospect hasn’t responded to a quote you sent, or hasn’t yet paid their invoice, the system can automatically follow up with a reminder.
• Promotional offers: You can send an offer to a certain segment of contacts with a series of broadcast emails and text messages, collect payment via an online checkout page, and automate delivery of the product. This is especially effective for digital products but can also be modified to drive to a call with a salesperson.

Learn more about sales automation.

One of the most powerful yet overlooked types of automation is service automation, which involves automating customer onboarding, product or service delivery, asking for reviews and referrals, and generating repeat business from existing customers.

Examples of service automation include:

• New customer onboarding and fulfillment: Automating new customer onboarding and service delivery helps your fulfillment team work more efficiently. Consistent delivery also leads to a better client experience, a more positive perception of your business, and overall satisfaction.
• Reviews and referrals: Asking for reviews and referrals can feel awkward or be easily forgotten, which means that it often doesn’t get done at all. Automating these requests ensures every happy customer gets asked for a review and/or referral. This helps create a loyal fanbase and a lead source you don’t have to pay for.
• Repeat sales, upsells and cross-sells: Selling to existing customers is far more cost-effective than marketing to new leads, so there’s great potential for growing revenue and profits when you automate sales campaigns to your current client base.
• Subscription management: Use automation to easily manage access to your online course or membership site, recurring billing, meeting reminders, expiration notices and more.
• Special date reminders: Automatically send personal outreach for special occasions such as birthdays, anniversaries, renewals reminders, etc.

Operations automation is the automation of repetitive internal (not customer-facing) tasks. By streamlining internal processes and taking mundane tasks off your team’s plates, they’re able to get more done and get better results with less stress.

Examples of operations automation include:

• Data entry: Create internal forms for collecting the right data at the right moment, such as when taking information over the phone or gathering feedback from an employee survey.
• Task management: Trigger tasks to be assigned to certain team members when a process is started, such as a new hire, or at milestone point, such as the anniversary of a client.
• Employee hiring and onboarding: Make hiring easier by automating application collection, requesting document signatures, task assignments, appointment setting, delivering key information consistently, etc.
• Client and employee offboarding: The process of closing out a relationship can be just as important as onboarding, but is often overlooked. Automate key tasks like sending final paperwork, scheduling exit interviews, assigning tasks to remove access, etc.
• Staff management: Use automation for staff reminders, internal surveys, and much more.
• Billing: Automate mundane tasks such as following up on expiring credit cards and processing returns and refunds.

With sophisticated business automation software like Keap, automations can be completely customized to the unique needs of your business. Rather than feeling impersonal to your leads and clients, automation actually allows for greater personalization, at scale, thanks to features like custom fields, segmentation and custom nurture sequences.

Business automation empowers you to serve more customers, have a greater impact, and grow your business to seven figures and beyond, without losing the personal touch that got you this far.

Implementing small business automation is an ongoing process that takes serious commitment to a long-term strategy, but you can start seeing results fairly quickly by finding the low-hanging fruit of processes to automate in your business.

Not sure how to get started? Sign up for your free Growth and Freedom Playbook, and our business automation experts will schedule a free consultation to identify the three biggest automation opportunities in your business.