10 Small Business Productivity Time Savers

10 Small Business Productivity Time Savers

Hello My Charmed Ones!

As someone who has been running their business online for almost 8 years full time as a solopreneur- I know a thing or two about setting up systems in your business to help save your time and energy. It’s what I’ve relied on for nearly a decade to keep my business consistent, growing and converting sales.

Implementing any one of these hacks is going to make running your business so much easier, but if you can get to a place where you have all ten of these tips in place in your business, you’re going to start realizing how easy business can be when things are well organized into systems.

So, review this list, decide what you may need to put in place first, and then work your way through this to bring your business to the next level!

#1: Save Links to Your Products, Sales Pages & Opt-ins

This will help you keep your links organized so you can easily access them, even from a mobile device, making selling and sharing about your work easier!

Save links into folders in your web browser, a Google Doc and/or a notes app that syncs across your devices.

The syncing aspect is key because you want to be able to access this information quickly from any device, instead of having to search for links or log-into the back end of websites or applications to find this information.

#2: Create an FAQ Page

An FAQ, or frequently asked questions, page will help cut down on inquiries and drive potential followers and customers to the information they are looking for!

Set up a page on your website, blog, shop, or if you don’t have a website, you could collect this information in a Google Doc to share with followers.

Collect the questions you are repeatedly asked about and lay them out with their answers on the page. 

When you are first getting started and don’t have many questions yet, I recommend researching similar business’ and seeing the the types of information they have on their FAQ pages to help you craft your first page.

Your FAQ Page is a living document that you will want to keep updated often and the better the answers on the page are, the more engagement and sales you will have, while minimizing unnecessary emails, DMs and comments.

#3: Set Up an Email Autoresponder

An email Auto-Responder is an automatic message that is sent to anyone who emails your business email, and can be a great customer service tool that sets expectations with your customers while also helping them at the same time.

All major email platforms allow for auto-responders (think out of office email reply) so you can likely find a set of directions for setting yours up quickly by doing a google search.

The email auto-responder should be a welcoming message that helps your customer understand when they can reasonably expect to hear back from you, and provides them some insight to help direct them in the meantime.

Example: Thank you so much for your email! Please know that your email has been received and your inquiry is important to us! Due to the volume of messages we receive, you can expect a response within 48 hours outside of weekends. We do monitor for and prioritize more urgent customer service requests, but your patience and understanding is greatly appreciated. In the meantime, the answer to your inquiry may be one of our frequently asked questions, so we encourage you to click here to review our FAQ page for a more immediate resolution.

#4: Use Canned Responses

Canned responses are pre-written emails or message templates that can be used to quickly compose a reply to a customer email or message. They are usually based on frequently asked questions, but are great for making sales when a customer needs a recommendation, guiding an assistant who may be helping with emails and messages, and can help prevent PR nightmares when you are asked triggering questions or dealing with a particularly unhappy customer.

Populating answers onto your FAQ page is a great way to help minimize customer emails and messages, however, when you do receive a message from a customer, it is not always appropriate to send them a link to the FAQ page and send them on their way (not if you want to do good customer service) and it dismisses a key point of contact where you could be making a sale or driving engagement to a platform/content/opt-in.

As you reply to customers messages, get into the habit of saving your good responses to their questions and organizing them in a Google Doc, or a notes app- again, something that syncs across devices is preferable.

Adjust your original message into a template by removing customer specific information and giving the message a more general but clearly actionable response. That way you can easily copy and paste the message for a future customer message.

#5: Use an Editorial Calendar

An editorial calendar is plan for what content is to be published on specific days by platform. It helps take the guess work out of what to post when, and helps you easily bulk create content.

To create your editorial calendar, first choose the duration of time you want to plan for. One month to one quarter at a time is pretty standard, but you could plan as far in advance as a year if that works for you.

Next, define the schedule you will be working on per platform: so what days/times will you be posting content across a week.

Then brainstorm your content ideas and assign them to the schedule so you have a clear publishing plan created.
Finally, schedule specific time to bulk create content on a regular basis. This could be one day a week where you create all your content and set it to publish on schedule for the next week.

#6: Use Social Media Scheduling Software

Social media scheduling software like Meet Edgar, Hootsuite, and Planoly help you to schedule and promote your content across platforms.

One of the biggest mistakes business owners make with their content marketing is that they don’t continue to promote content once it’s been published to a platform- and then they wonder why the content isn’t getting much engagement and continue to create more and more content in an attempt to drive traffic.

It’s much easier to create one piece of content and push it out to other platforms to increase the reach and impact of the content.

Social Media Scheduling Software helps you to automate this process by uploading the content once and then setting the content to publish across various platforms, and can even continue to promote the content on a recurring basis so it’s not getting lost in a stagnant feed.

#7: Use a Marketing Calendar

If an editorial calendar is the plan for what content will be published at what time, your marketing calendar is the plan for what promotions, launches and sales you will be marketing across your year.

A business that isn’t continually marketing itself in some form or another is one that isn’t generating much revenue!
At the start of the year (or right now!) it’s a good idea to map out the different promotions and marketing you will do across the year so you always know what you are selling at any given time and can better organize your efforts to get the maximum results.

This doesn’t have to be complicated, simply choose how often you feel comfortable running marketing campaigns, and start filling in your calendar with marketing ideas that make sense. Make sure you give yourself enough time between campaigns to prepare for the next one.

#8: Theme Your Work Days

Theming your work days means that you will set aside specific days or blocks of time on certain days to do specific work for your business.

Themed work days help you to work more efficiently by remaining focused on specific tasks, and helps you to fit all your tasks and obligations into your schedule across the week so you know you have time to get everything done.

In order to effectively theme your work days, I recommend keeping track of all the different activities you do for your business on a recurring basis over the period of a few weeks to a month, and then grouping like items together and creating daily themes or work blocks on a specific schedule to ensure you have the time set aside to complete those tasks.

#9: Systematize Everything!

A system is a codified process for how you reach an end result so that you have an easy to follow list of tasks to help you achieve a similar result every time you go to complete that objective. For example, a recipe is a great example of a system. It’s a specific process for how you get a specific result, a meal you are trying to prepare and the steps to follow to make it.

All of the recurring work you do for your business should be turned into a system to help you take the guess work out of planning how you will complete a specific action in the future and creating the system gives you the opportunity to perfect exactly what your process is so you spend less time and effort but get a greater result each time.

So, every time you do a task in your business, start tracking the steps on a project page. When the task is complete, review your steps and what you learned from that recent experience to create the ideal step by step plan for completing that activity in the future. Write the final draft of the plan on a project or system planning page and refer to it every time you need to do that task so you don’t have to waste mental time and energy thinking about how to do it.

#10: Get Help

Getting help so that you can more effectively run your business can take many forms, some of which don’t require you to spend money, hire an employee or to delegate business related to tasks to others.

The first level at which you can get help is within your own family. If you have a partner or children old enough to delegate home life tasks to, reach out to them first to ease your daily work burden so that you have more time to focus on your business tasks.

The second level at which you can get help is to hire out home related tasks in the form of a cleaning service, baby sitter, meal prep service, dog walker, task rabbit etc- again to take home burdens off your plate so that you have more time available for business work.

Next, consider how you may be able to use your network of other small business professionals to do a service swap where you take on work that you are skilled at for another business owner, and that business owner takes care of some work for you that they are more skilled at.

The final level at which you can get help is to hire virtual assistants, contractors or employees to complete specific work for your business.

Start Your Money Making Business!

Hey Small Business Owner!

Everyday hundreds of great, creative, and innovative new online businesses are formed around the world, and then close their doors after a matter of weeks or months due to a lack of clear purpose or profit.

That does NOT have to be your business story!

After 8 years running an online business myself and working with hundreds of women in my community to get their business visions off the ground, I know first hand what it takes to lay the right foundation for a business that reflects your passions and fills your bank account.

Let me guide you through some simple activities that will help clarify your business vision and work you through early stage market research so you can move forward with confidence knowing that you have laid the foundation for a Money Making Business!

Watch the Video on YouTube

I hope these 10 tips help save you time and energy in starting, building and growing your own online business!

xoxo,