I’ll admit it: Being a solopreneur is HARD WORK! The past two years of figuring out how to run a successful social business have seen a few wins, but even more misses.
I’m constantly asking:
- What can I do myself?
- Can automation be used for a social business? It is wise? Will it hurt more than it helps?
- What can I delegate when I have a small — or no — staff?
Large holes to fill, no?
Where The Problem Lies
When I sat down and started to outline my problem areas, I realized many of my problems revolved around:
- Tracking things
- Creating sales & marketing processes that were repeatable
- Figuring out how (and what!) to automate things to save me precious time
- Finding the right tools to automate things
- Finding tools that didn’t take a PhD to understand
- Being able to do the above on limited budget
Sound familiar?
We decided to go with Infusionsoft to help with automation with our:
- Emails
- Lead nurturing & scoring
- Marketing campaigns
- eCommerce
The only problem is that we’re finding it takes a PhD to figure out the system, AND it costs a small fortune.
We’re lucky enough to have the kind of clientele that allows us to justify this expense. But this still leaves a gaping hole for my small business friends – whether they’re in social media or any other type business.
My goal is to help ANYONE decide whether automation is right for them/their business.
Ask The Right Automation Questions
While there are a million questions you should ask when you’re shopping around for a customer relationship management system (CRM) or an automation tool, there are three that are the most important (in my opinion):
1. Who will manage your system?
I think this is the most critical question. Sure, other peeps might tell you that budget should come first, but budget — no matter how big or small — pales in comparison to WHO will be entering your data.
If you don’t have all of the pertinent details, your “oh-so-amazing” CRM or automation system will do you no good. Zilch. Nada. ZERO on your return on investment.
2. How will using this software save me/my team time?
Once you know you have someone who can manage your CRM or automation software, THEN you can start to explore if it’s right for you. Think about the processes you have the most trouble with (like the ones I listed early on in this post).
Other questions to ask yourself:
- Are we shuffling a lot of paper/reports around to one another?
- Do I spend a ton of time looking for (whether a client or lead):
- Contant information?
- Contact notes?
- Contact click behavior and/or open rates?
- Contact files?
- Pairing contacts with companies and competitors?
- Do I have a plethora of spreadsheets managing an array of data on my clients/would-be clients?
- Does our business rely heavily on email marketing?
- Does our business rely heavily on social media marketing?
- Are we spending too much time on mundane or routine tasks?
If you answered yes to any of the above questions, a CRM or automation platform may be exactly what you need to get to the next level of business.
3. How will using this software make/save my business money?
It always has to come back to money, right?
If you can find a system that fits in with your business AND will save or make you money, there’s no question that you should implement some sort of software to get you “there.”
A New, Slick Way To Stop Wasting Time & Start Making Money
As I mentioned, we’ve been using Infusionsoft for two years now. It’s not user friendly, the learning curve is huge, and the pricing is a bit steep.
Luckily, I’ve been introduced to a new way of doing things, and in a short amount of time I’ve come up with some incredible “fixes” for those process problems I mentioned before.
If you’re a small business and you need help with:
- How to nurture prospects so they become better customers
- How to automate marketing tasks in under two minutes
- How to leverage social media without the time suck
- How to understand where your business is coming from
then you should try Salesformics.
What about you? How you do automate your systems or manage your CRM? I’d love to know in the comments section below.
Click here to download our cheat sheet > 32Tools To Take The Headache Out Of Running Your Small Business
See you in the social sphere!
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6 Comments. Leave new
Your last webinar was AWESOME! Seat is reserved and can’t wait for this one!!
Woo hoo! Thank you so much for the kind words, Michael! I’ll “see” you in a few weeks. 🙂
I’m so much looking forward to this Brooke. Thanks for sharing your learning curve and for organising this webinar. I’ve had this question in my mind for quite some time now: In the light of decreased Facebook reach and a more crowded Social Media news feed environment, do we succumb to automation for content curation and scheduling and increase the frequency?? Or do we strive for tailor made content that responds to the natural fluctuations in the audience and the natural availability of news/content to share without being too repetitive or structured? After all, we’re all human beings, both the provider of content/info and the recipient. Can we always fit into a pattern? I lean towards no. Would love your thoughts on this – or we can wait until the webinar! Cheers dear!
Me too, Veronica – and thanks!
To answer your question:
For us personally (us = me and the B2 clients) we have not increased or decreased. We’ve always strived for a certain amount of posts for each platform (based on what our audiences can handle). I would consider an increase if we started seeing significant drops in metrics, but I would not decrease, only because the noisier it gets the less of chance your content has of getting seen (unless it’s unusually GOOD).
We can’t fit into a pattern but the message I’d give (and the one I’ve been hearing over and over again at SMWNYC) is that content marketing IS the future of social. It has to be original, relevant, timely AND be top-notch. I really think many people will start getting weeded out with this shift. It will be very difficult to keep up the pace (and maintain quality). More blog posts coming about that! 🙂
“See” you soon on the webinar! 🙂
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