Liberate Yourself from the Daily Grind
For many entrepreneurs, making money comes easily. However, the responsibilities that come with the cash flow can often impede the creative process, which is what makes you successful. Today, I am going to talk about the three primary strategies that I use to automate and delegate myself out of repetitive tasks in order to focus on the things that I am the best at.
Did you know that liberation from the daily grind begins in the mind? My personal phrase “do it, automate it, delegate it, ditch it” is the base from which my liberation has been achieved. In my opinion, everything stems from your ability to make that principle a reality. An automated email marketing system, or CRM, is a good place to begin. There are many CRM platforms available, however, not all of these are created equal. A major determining factor in your ability to automate repetitive tasks, and thus liberate yourself from the daily grind, is your CRM platform. If your business is heavily geared towards sales reps, then salesforce.com may be your best choice. However, if you, like me, would like to keep human resources to a minimum while expanding your business, Infusionsoft is a better choice.
[There is another evolving player in this CRM field that I have a close eye on: SendPepper.com (aka OfficeAutopilot) has put a very versatile system together. For a limited, but growing amount of small businesses, OfficeAutopilot is a better choice.]
The reason I like using Infusionsoft is that their primary focus is on automated follow up. It is worth mentioning that a CRM platform, unlike an email marketing system, centralizes the majority of the tools that you need to manage your business. This includes email marketing, contact management, tasks & calendars, fulfillment, web forms, auto forms & shopping cart (including automated reoccurring billing), affiliates, and more. I like to think of Infusionsoft as my headquarters.
Along with the CRM system, video is another powerful liberation tool. Have you ever done a presentation more than once? Most likely your answer to that question is yes. Also, I am sure you can sit down and write a list of questions you are asked frequently via email and phone. You may or may not already have canned [reusable] responses to these questions. Regardless, imagine the impact you would get from your prospects and clients if you responded to these questions with a video. Bear in mind that you would only have to record one video per question and then you would be able to reuse it over and over again. Take a moment to contemplate the value of following up on an initial phone call from a new prospect with a personalized video reiterating the benefits of your products and/or services.
Another component of my liberation methodology is a blog. As a bonus, the least expensive and most effective way to increase your website’s ranking within the search engines is a blog. A blog is, in essence, a self serve portal to nurture the relationship you have with your prospects and clients. Aside from authoring the content, a blog is very low maintenance; you could almost say it is an ecosystem for your business. Also, since I launched the jiveSYSTEMS Blog, calls and emails to our customer support team have significantly reduced. This has greatly increased the profitability of our business and allows us to train, and pay, our people better.
Using a CRM system, video, and a blog is the basis for my tried and tested liberation methodology. If you would like to learn more about Infusionsoft, I highly recommend that you watch this short instructional demo>> If you are not already using video, you could sign up for a 30 day free test drive of jiveSYSTEMS>> Lastly, thanks to a handful of suggestions and requests from jiveSYSTEMS members, and my coaching clients, I have launched a blogging platform and mentoring program.
I do get a small affiliate commission for referring people to Infusionsoft. I also generate revenue by helping businesses deploy and migrate to Infusionsoft CRM platform. I also own jiveSYSTEMS, and thus have a vested interest in recommending our service. Regardless, the proof is in the pudding. The very fact that you are reading this blog post should be all the proof that you need for our blogging platform and coaching program. This is after all a blog, and you are reading it, right? As far as jiveSYSTEMS goes, I could rant and rave about the value proposition of our company and the near-immediate and positive effect our service and coaching will have on your business. However, our members are already doing that for me. This is because of our constant and continuous effort to take our members from concept to profit with video. Take a moment to listen to some of the success stories we have amassed so far>>
Thank you very much for reading this blog post. Please feel free to leave a comment about which advice you found the most useful in this blog post. After all, I am here to serve you.
About the Author:
Will Franco is the CEO/Founder of jiveSYSTEMS (a video email marketing software and training company). He also runs an online community / membership group called AskFlywheel, in which he teaches cutting-edge online marketing strategies. His mantra at work is "Think-Automate: Do it, Automate it, Delegate it, or Ditch it"
