4 Fundamentals to Reduce Your Business Systems and Tech Overwhelm

This is a discussion I’ve been having with one of my clients of late. They’re a solo business owner, have been in business for a while and doing everything (and I mean everything) themselves up until the time they came across me and decided that enough was enough and it was time to get some help in.

In theory, business owners know these four things but are too busy doing the do and just let them slide. But I want to give you a little loving nudge as a reminder because they’re four key areas that if you keep in place with your business administration your day-to-day life becomes oh so much more stress-free.

These are concepts you can apply to any system or process you have within your business – this isn’t aimed towards any particular piece of software or application. And it’s the key areas that I look at pinpointing with any new client I work with and get these four areas running smoothly.

1. Consistency

For your administration systems and processes to work well, you need to be consistent with the tasks. If you have a CRM, trying to input 12 months of information from the rogue business cards you have floating around the place isn’t going to be a simple task. If you consistently block out 30 minutes to an hour each week to review and update your CRM then you’re much more likely to have success in using it to its full ability.

2. Structure

Structure very heavily works alongside consistency. I’ll be honest, I’ve been a little off my game with my own structure of late – and it very quickly becomes noticeable. I have clients who are immensely creative people and have ideas flowing all over the place – but most of the time they come to me to help them to build the structure around how to deliver their creative ideas. You need that place of structure to be able to actually deliver.

3. Simplicity

Some systems are incredibly complex – and if your brain can get around them, then that’s great, and once you do simplicity does come into play because everything will be working and flowing smoothly. However, if your brain can’t cope with the complexity, then don’t go out and buy the app or subscription just because you’ve seen it spruiked in a Facebook Group as being the bee’s knees – sometimes the simplest solutions are the best. Some of my clients use Google Sheets to manage their customer care funnel – not a huge automation system that they can’t understand. And that’s completely ok, because my clients feel comfortable using it and the information in there is consistently kept up to date.

4. Automation

If there are opportunities for you to automate some processes in your business – take them. Again, there’s the big shiny fully automate your business software out there, but sometimes trying to do everything at once breaks the system for you as the business owner. If there’s a moment where you go I really don’t like doing this small task but I could add in this app to automate it, then winning.

I hope this little pep talk helped and if you have any questions or would like some help to structure your business administration feel free to reach out.

If you use Gmail and would like a free online course to use the tools built in to automate some small parts of organising your inbox check out my free Skillshare course – https://skl.sh/2StAjaz