Why Your Automations Aren’t Working
I want to take a couple of minutes today to chat about automation with you all.
How often have you all heard that you should automate as much as possible – or build your automation/workflow/funnel, things along those lines?
Those things are in all of our feeds.
And, I’m sure that every coach, guru, and platform out there is saying close to the same thing: automation is the next holy grail for your business.
To be clear, automating your repetitive processes can save you a ton of time and money – and these are usually the types of tasks you can automate.
Rather than go into all of the reasons you should automate, let’s talk about the reasons you might be struggling with automation.
At first, automation can seem amorphous.
You may be wondering what automation is, if you need a tool or platform, or whether it’s in the cloud.
That’s the first big sticking point for a lot of business owners: not understanding it. They don’t understand the concept of automation, what you can automate, and what you can’t automate.
Automating just one small part of your process can be straightforward but immensely helpful.
That small part can be within your marketing process and might be automating your email or email list.
There are a ton of tools with this capability.
Here’s what you have to watch out for though:
If you automate your emails without understanding the context of where your emails flow, how they connect with the next step within your process and funnel – or if you simply don’t have a clear idea of how everything fits together – you may find it incredibly difficult to implement automation.
What’s the full picture of what you’re automating?
Here’s what often happens to small business owners dabbling in automation: they’ll automate a small piece here, another small piece there, and so forth.
Then before long, there’s a ton of automation.
But it doesn’t sync.
And, it all leads to a bigger mess because there’s no alignment between the tools.
This is why automation is such a challenge in the first place.
If you’ve moved past that and you’ve started automating something, the next step is figuring out the why.
People often find it difficult to get the resources or collateral together required for automation.
They think that it’s all about going into their tool, whether Infusionsoft, Weber, or some email marketing platform, and piling together templates. Without any help, they’ll be off and saving time and money almost immediately.
I’ve seen the frustration often – a business owner gets into the weeds of building an automation sequence and is essentially flying blind.
I know I’ve been there myself, and maybe you have too.
When you get into it and don’t know what materials you need, why you’re doing it, or how it fits into the scope of everything… it becomes more than just a two-hour project.
Sometimes, it becomes an all-day thing that consumes your life – or something that you start but leaving in the back burner while you get back to the usual operation of your business.
So, again, there are two reasons why this kind of automation doesn’t stick.
- First, you don’t understand it conceptually.
- Second, you haven’t built out the full scope of the project.
And because you don’t have the full scope of what you’re automating, you also don’t have the collateral materials required to make it quick and efficient.
Then, when you layer in the complexities of learning a new platform, learning how to automate and trying to figure out what your process is along the way… it’s a recipe for disaster.
If you’re at a place now in your business where you feel you need help or feedback – whether in your workflow or with automation – feel free to reach out to me.
I play in this area every day and would be more than happy to help you. Grab a quick call on my calendar so that we can talk about it directly.
Let’s get you automated quickly and easily and with as little stress as possible.
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