The 5 tasks every entrepreneur should automate first

When you are an entrepreneur, there is no dedicated department: you are the salesperson, the communicator, the accountant and the assistant. The lack of time almost always comes from the same places.

According to a Slack and Talker Research survey of about 2,000 small business owners in the United States, respondents lose around 96 minutes a day on unproductive tasks, about 3 weeks a year. It is an American benchmark, not a truth for everyone, but it speaks to many of us. Here are the 5 areas where I start with my clients.

The 5 tasks

• The inbox: sorting, filing, answering the questions that keep coming back.
• Finding clients: tracking prospects, following up those who have not replied.
• Content: finding ideas, writing drafts, scheduling posts.
• Invoices and payment reminders.
• Scheduling appointments and a first sort of requests.

What about branding?

Branding cannot be automated, but it is what makes the rest useful. A blurry message, automated, stays blurry. Before automating your content or your prospecting, take an hour to write in 3 sentences: who you talk to, what you do for them, what sets you apart.

How to choose the first one

Ask yourself 3 questions. How many times a week? How many minutes each time? What happens if I forget it? The task that costs you the most time overall, and that you forget the most often, goes first.

The free checklist at the bottom of the page gives you a grid ready to fill in, designed for entrepreneurs.

A concrete example

A request arrives through your form. Without automation, you copy it into a spreadsheet, reply by hand and sometimes forget to follow up. With automation, the request creates a record in your CRM, sends an acknowledgement, alerts you and schedules a follow-up. You touch nothing.

The mistakes I see most often

• Automating before clarifying your message.
• Planning no alert when something fails.
• Trying to do everything at once instead of one thing at a time.
• Removing every human from where judgement is needed.

What next

Measure the time saved for a few weeks before moving on to the next one. One automation that works beats five half-finished ones.