Automate & Simplify your business using Small Business Productivity Tools and Software.

It's a dream of every small business owner to be able to have dozens of employees, who do all the dirty work for cheap or even for free. That would leave him free to focus on building the business itself. Back end jobs are not very productive or profitable to a small home business, but it needs to be done, and somebody has to do it.

That's why it's a wise move for any small business owner to try and automate his business as much as possible. I personally don't believe that anyone can, or should, set their business to run 100% on auto-pilot.

Sure, there are many productivity tools and software you can use to automate the non-productive parts of your business. However, it is also important to remember that as a small business owner, your main advantage over large, multinational corporations is the personal touch with your customers.

Automation tools should be used together with personal touch to get it's maximum effect. You have to fill the gaps between all this high tech software with your personality, charisma and knowledge.

Productivity Task No 1 - Automate Follow-up With Potential Customers

Many business owners don't like the hassle of following up with their customers, especially if the customer does not show any intention of buying their product or service at first contact. How I usually do this is to follow-up via e-mail.

E-mail is fast, effective, and cheap. You can follow up with hundreds of customers (if you have that many) in seconds. E-mail marketing is one of the most powerful tools one the web, and can be used for anything from initial promotion to follow-ups or just keeping in touch with customers.

Its been proven that it takes an average of 7 follow-ups to successfully close a sale. That's pretty easy to do when you have 10 customers, but what if you want 1000 customers?

Smart Autoresponders such as the one from GetResponse allows you to customize messages so that each e-mail will greet thousands of customers by their first name, talk to them like old friends, and build up a strong relationship with them, by only writing the e-mail once. It cost around $17.95 for unlimited amounts of responders, and is a worthwhile investment for any business.

Simply sending e-mails alone is not enough, if you do not follow up on the initial contact. Customers are more likely to buy after they have heard from you several times and begin to trust you as a honest business person. Simple e-mail programs like Outlook or free e-mail like Yahoo simple don't do the job.

With a good e-mail follow up system in place, you can occasionally call customers (who are already willing to talk to you), and ask them if they have received your e-mail, and if they have any questions. Then you try to answer their questions, and provide examples of how your products or service can help them.

Sale.

Productivity Task No 2 - Automate Tracking of Advertising Results

Nobody wants to spend money on advertising that does not work. Advertising, especially on the internet, can burn a big hole in you pocket if you're not aware of what works, and what does not, especially if you are using paid advertising like sponsored links, pay per click and url listing for your online store. There are some software on the market that will track you advertising for you, and gives a complete report on the results. That way you can decide where to put your advertising dollars.

Good tracking software like the HyperTracker allows you to analyze all of your marketing campaigns, show which ones are producing the most traffic and profits, and which ones are just burning holes in your pockets. You can use it to determine where most of your sales or traffic is coming from, and work to improve them.

There are also other good software around, so look around a little for what suits your business and budget the best.

Productivity Task No 3 - Automate back end accounting, processing and tax reporting work.

Did those three words send a shiver through your spine? It still does for me. I hate these three things, above everything else a business owner has to do.

Membership to our home business association gives you access to hundreds of productivity tools to automate these things. Naturally the best solution would be to hire someone to do it. Paying someone may not sound like a good idea for new business owners, but there will come a time when you have to, or risk the possibility of having to take time off your business to do it yourself. When these unproductive but necessary tasks get in the way, your business could be on a downward spiral that's difficult to stop.

As a rule of thumb, I take the lowest month in gross profits to decide how much I am willing to pay someone, just to be on the safe side. Sometimes it's also better to hire some temporary workers as per need basis.

With those 3 automation tasks behind you, you can now focus on getting more customers, thinking of better methods to promote your business, keeping an eye on the competition, and counting all the money made from improved sales.

That last part is my favorite.