“Failing to plan is planning to fail”– one of my absolutely favourite motivational quotes.
I’m a true believer setting yourself up for success means thinking about the BIG things, and automating the little things so you don’t have to spend your precious time and resources on them.
In a personal sense, automation for me would be things such as payments, scheduling gym classes and keeping a digital calendar of upcoming events so I stay organised with gifts etc and don’t double book. Filing important paperwork in a systematical manner and putting things away where I know I can quickly and easily find and access them again are other examples of how I apply automation in both a tech and non tech sense.
On a professional or business level, the opportunities for automation today are endless. If your organisation doesn’t yet have a Customer Relationship Management System (CRM) then I highly recommend you look at this right now!
Customer data and touchpoints are becoming increasingly important as we are able to gather and have access to incredible consumer data. The way we interact with customers is changing and when you know what you are dealing with, a variety of methods can be applied to how and when you communicate with them. The technology exists – so why not get on board!
Many CRM’s have inbuilt automation tools to create and nurture the relationship between your organisation and current and future clients and customers. The data that can be obtained and utilised can mean the difference between operating a successful business, and operating an incredibly successful business.
This type of technology is creating opportunity. While some major companies have custom built CRM’s, there are now so many CRM’s on the market that there is likely to be one developed especially for your industry. Once you have it in place, it’s then about learning how to utilise and optimise the product to get the very best value from it.
Centralising your customer data and automating communication can ensure you get to focus on business development and bigger picture strategy. With some simple planning in place, the rate of failure diminishes considerably!