5 automation opportunities for exhausted small business owners

If you haven’t heard about automation yet, where have you been? It’s probably the hottest conversation topic in the business community right now, thanks to the stunning opportunities that it offers. 

Imagine being able to walk into the work in the morning and get machines to do all your boring, dull tasks for you. It would be bliss, right? 

Most SME executives believe that automation is a pipe dream. And even if it does exist, it’s the preserve of much larger organizations with bigger budgets. It’s not for small-time players. 

This belief, however, is corrupting your opinion about what’s possible. You’re in a kind of mental rut, thinking that there’s nothing you can do to improve your current situation, even though that couldn’t be further from the truth. 

Think about why you started your business in the first place. It wasn’t so that you could perform the same menial tasks over and over again. It was so that you could make a difference in the world. It was supposed to be fun. 

Remember, menial tasks aren’t just a chore; they can actually grind you down. You can find yourself wondering why you ever started this whole business project in the first place. Surely, there’s a better way to live!

Automation helps you get around issues like these. It frees up your time (and that of your staff), totally changing the atmosphere in your enterprise. It’s quite remarkable. 

In this post, we take a look at five automation opportunities for small business owners. Check them out below.

Cart Abandonment Reminders

Any small business that isn’t yet automating cart abandonment reminders is missing a trick. 

Remember, around two-thirds of customers will abandon their carts at some point during the checkout process. And there are all kinds of reasons for this. 

The most obvious is that the checkout process is too complicated or requires too many fields. They may also have become bored or could be wondering whether they can actually afford to buy from you. 

Whatever it is, reminding them that they have items waiting in their carts can help a great deal. It’s like a form of remarketing, encouraging them to return to the checkout. 

What’s more, you don’t have to send reminders by hand. Just set up a system that sends out automated emails to addresses in your list. It’s that simple. 

Hiring Automation

Hiring is a necessary part of practically every business venture. Try as you might, you can’t do it all by yourself. You need the help of others. 

The hiring process, however, can take up a massive amount of your time. Sifting through CVs and interviewing candidates could require a day of your week or more. It’s a massive drain. 

It turns out, though, that there are now a range of tools you can use to streamline the process. 

One idea is to use a human resource management system. This software allows you to automatically track and filter applicants according to your criteria, cutting down on manual sifting. You can also use automated tests and questionnaires to weed out people who don’t have the skills you’re looking for. 

You can also use hiring automation on the outreach side of your operation. For instance, many apps will now automatically alert you if a candidate matching your job opening signs up to the platform. There’s no need to conduct manual searches. 

Process Automation

Perhaps the most exciting aspect of the current technological revolution is that it will enable full-scale process automation, cutting out many of the tasks that businesses once had to do by hand. 

What’s more, because you can sell automation parts back to vendors, the risks are low. If systems don’t work out, there’s always a way to recoup your losses and move on. 

Process automation is being made possible because of leaps and bounds in cognitive technologies. A couple of decades ago, the idea that a machine could reliably tell the difference between a dog and a cat seemed pretty far-fetched. Computers just weren’t able to do that sort of thing. That was the domain of conscious beings only. 

But fast forward to the present, and that’s all changed. Now everyone is used to the idea that machines can recognise objects in their environment. And it’s opening up a host of commercial applications. 

Robots might not have consciousness yet, but that doesn’t detract from their ability to perform basic tasks in your operation. How you deploy them is very industry-specific. You could get them to collect objects off shelves or place parts on circuit boards. Whatever you do, just be aware that there are options available and that they’re coming down in price all the time. 

Auditing Automation

Imagine being able to go through all your accounts and quickly spot errors without having to do it all yourself. 

Well, with auditing automation, it’s becoming a possibility. 

Recoiling accounts is the bane of small business owners. You’d love to pass the task over to an accountant, but they can’t always afford it. 

But once you automate the process, you can spend your time worrying about other things. 

What does auditing automation look like? 

For the most part, you’ll need to buy specialist software from B2B providers and get it installed on your systems. Once it’s in place, it will flag issues for your attention. You then have a choice of dealing with them yourself or forwarding them to a professional accountant. Either way, this software cuts down on how much time you have to spend following paper trails. 

Employee Performance Automation

These days, it can be difficult to keep track of employee performance, especially if you operate a knowledge-based business. Going through somebody’s work and evaluating it takes a lot of time – and often it doesn’t enlighten you any further about the value they’re bringing your organization. 

Automating employee analytics, however, changes the setup completely. Metrics track employee tasks, allowing you to quickly flag and respond to issues before they cause more serious problems for your enterprise.

Have any thoughts on this? Let us know down below in the comments or carry the discussion over to our Twitter or Facebook.

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