Shiny new gadgets and tools are indeed luring. We don’t live in a time of too few options. No, it’s a time of plenty. There are many options to automation out there that can meet your business needs.
If you travel at all, you know the convenience of downloading an app quickly to solve a problem on your iPhone. We have come to expect some kind of solution quickly. It’s made us expectant of convenience.
And in the business of building systems, a software likely exists to help you sell new customers, service with projects and manage your operations. If it’s not one software, it’s a combination of integrated pieces that make a solution.
Just because there are many options on the shelf does not mean it’s sane to grab everything and head to the checkout. There is such a thing as misusing the automation available to us.
There’s a cost to adding what is superfluous to your business:
- New systems have to be managed. When you implement systems, they need oversight and consistent, daily work to align the people that put the data in and use it.
- It may not work. You may start with a vision of the ideal. But what if your team or your customers don’t value or use a perfectly designed system as you like? Are you ready to pivot and pull it? Otherwise, it may limp along without full value.
- Your interactions can be less human. Your inbox likely has a lot of automated messages from businesses that may or may not have permission to connect with you. If it’s not personal, you, like everyone else, have become numb to the marketing. You learn to block it out. But personalized and human messages get through. Automation may not be a fit if you’re trying to get through.
You can go faster with less cost and less effort. That’s the beauty of building businesses today. The barriers are much lower.
However, you can also create a lot of drag by not paying attention to what actually works.
Just because the subscription is cheap doesn’t mean it’s advantageous to run your business like a consumer. If you want to create lift, then you have to stick to a disciplined approach of:
Design
Implement
Test
Evaluate
Prune
You keep your business clean and can tap into that compounding effect that automation can promise.
Where do you need to pull automation that is limping along?