Time is money right?

I don’t think anyone who runs a business disagrees with that. Yet it never ceases to amaze me when I get chatting at networking events how many small business owners haven’t focussed on streamlining their workflow that would help them get more things done in their working day!

Right from the get go of establishing my voiceover business this made sense to me but I’ve come to realise it’s not a natural approach for everyone. So, I thought I’d share my office mantra with you which is…..Do it once, great! …Twice? automate or Twice? template – whichever applies! And it’s templates I wanted to share with you today.

I assumed everyone used them but it would appear not!

We’re so lucky these days to have a great choice of technology to automate many of our day-to-day business tasks – invoicing, CRM, project management for example. As a result these are perhaps more obvious for people to use to save time. But surprisingly it’s those seemingly smaller tasks that are overlooked. How much time do you spend constructing an email? Do you create a new one from scratch every time? If you do, you’re not only likely to be wasting valuable time, but you’re perhaps in danger of being inconsistent too. And the fix is templates!

My most frequently used templates are for emails. Responding to initial contacts and quote requests, marketing, invoice chasing and thank you’s to name but a few. I have a whole bank of them and they’re all there to pull off the shelf and be tailored as necessary. They save me time, keeping me efficient and as an added bonus make sure I’m being consistent. Consistency is an important one too in my book by the way. So my top tip is as simple as (if you don’t do this already that is) …..schedule in some time to pull together a tonne of templates. You’ll reap the benefits I promise you!

There are of course so many other areas of work that templates can be used – perhaps you do already as they’re so much more obvious (agreements, newsletters etc). But if you find yourself repeating the thought process for a particular task then ask yourself….could I template or automate this? You’ll be streamlined in no time you’ll see.

I’ll perhaps share some other tools I use in a future Blog but in the meantime if you’re interested in ‘doing more in less time’ I’d warmly recommend you check out SHARP Podcast who focus on just that!

Head over to SHARP Podcast to learn all about how you can listen in.

And good luck with the streamlining if I’ve inspired you to have a go. Any questions do give me a shout – any top tips of your own please share!