How Automating this One Thing Makes you Money
Increase your Productivity and Gain More Free Time
I’m seeing a trend at several of the Denver area tap houses. The bartenders won’t serve water. Instead, they direct you to a self-service water cooler with disposable cups. You simply obtain and refill your water cup as often as you wish. No server comes to your table with a water pitcher at periodic intervals – you are on your own.
At first, I was a bit annoyed that I had to get my own water. Then I thought, this is actually brilliant and highly productive. Why waste an employee’s time pouring water that doesn’t produce any revenue? Let the customers self-serve their water, and keep the staff focused on making sales serving paid drinks.
Upon further thought, I realized this is no different than McDonalds providing trash cans throughout their restaurants so customers clean and bus their own tables. Patrons do the work of an employee, and that keeps McDonald’s costs low.
Imagine the benefits of adding just one system to your company
What one action in your business can you shift to your prospects and customers to free up your time for revenue producing activities? I’m a huge fan of delegating to employees and contractors, and this is even better because there is no cost to you.
You can start with appointment reminders. My dentist has a near 0% no-show rate due to his reminder system. It’s a combination of automated phone calls, emails, and texts that keep arriving until I respond by confirming my appointment. It’s borderline annoying, but highly effective. The onus is on me to respond, or the reminders will keep coming. The best part is that everything is automated, so his employees spend time on revenue producing activities instead of making phone calls.
Or, try an online scheduling system where your prospects and clients self-select a time to meet with you (in person or by phone) instead of emailing back and forth to coordinate schedules. Because the tool automatically integrates with your Gmail/Outlook calendars, there is no involvement on your part in setting up the meetings. You just provide the online scheduling link and let the other party select their preferred time.
I like and use ScheduleOnce as my online scheduling tool for a variety of reasons. First, I can create separate links depending on the location of the meeting – in-person or by phone. For the in-person meetings, I always meet at the same coffee location. That address gets pre-populated in the scheduling link so I can set it and forget it. For phone calls, the scheduling link gets pre-populated with the conference line information so I don’t have to re-enter that for each person.
Second, I like that ScheduleOnce integrates with my CRM system. (Check out my previous blog: How to reclaim at least 500 hours in your Business). For example, when I have coaching clients who make recurring phone appointments with me, ScheduleOnce pre-populates their contact information from my Infusionsoft CRM so they don’t have to enter it every time.
Third, I find it awesome that ScheduleOnce has a widget feature that pops up on my website inviting visitors to book a Power Call with me on the spot. This feature alone has increased my sales conversion rate substantially. I just set it up one time, and it works forever.
ScheduleOnce – a top performing employee for under $50/month
When it comes to my day, I live by my calendar. If it’s not on my calendar, it doesn’t happen. Letting a tool manage my appointments is super productive and allows me to make money instead of spending time on administrative tasks.
If you feel you are working too hard in your business, invest in an online scheduling tool that takes on some of the heavy lifting for you. When you get your business to produce more, you create free time to do what you want – every day. Want more tools to help you take back your time? Download the guide: Best Free Productivity Tools.
Please share which online scheduling tool you use (or will use) by leaving a comment. I’d love to hear about your success!
