Ep 83. Maximizing Your Time: Organize and Automate Your Business Successfully as a Mompreneur

In this episode, we’re diving into the nitty-gritty of organizing and automating your business.

As a fellow mompreneur, I know how challenging it can be to juggle family, home, and business responsibilities. That’s why I’m sharing six simple but powerful strategies to help you streamline your business operations and reclaim precious time.

First, we’ll explore three ways to get your business organized. Then, we’ll tackle three time-saving automation techniques.

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Transcript
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You are now tuned in to the mom CEO suite podcast.

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I'm your host, Felicia, wife, mom, and

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entrepreneur. In this podcast, I'll be sharing my mompreneur

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journey along with strategies that will help you build your online

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business operations in a sustainable way. The goal is

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to help you build a business that fits into your lifestyle as a mom who

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values putting family first. We will also hear the

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experiences and expertise of other moms with service

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based businesses. You'll get a peek into our journeys so you'll

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know that you aren't alone. Motherhood gets hard.

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Entrepreneurship gets hard. But together we can

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do hard things. Welcome to the suite.

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Hey, Fran. Welcome to another episode. Thank you so much for being here. So

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today I want to get into six ways.

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To organize and automate your business.

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And I'm going to break this up into two different parts. So first I'm

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going to talk about three ways that you can organize. And then I'm going to

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talk about three ways that you can automate. But why is this even

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important? Right? The whole point of this organization and

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automation. Is so that you, as a busy mom in business,

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you can maximize your time. Right? we're

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already kind of strapped for time between trying to run the

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business, managing things in the household, taking care of

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the children. Right. And so we don't want

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to waste time. In our business getting

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lost in the chaos and the messiness of an organization And then when

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we automate, we're able to save time because we're not

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manually, you know, performing specific tasks in our

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business. And so this is all about saving time for you

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as a busy mom in business. Okay. So the first thing let's talk

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about organizing. The first. Area that you

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can organize with the first way that you can organize is

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by creating a business hub. And

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when I say business hub, this is just like an area.

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This can be in your project management tool. I have mine and click up,

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you know, you can do it in a Sinai Trello, wherever you can just have

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a Google doc, but this is a business hub that really

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houses. All of your important business

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information and links. And so based on what your

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business is, you can decide what you actually put in there.

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Um, you know, if you have landing pages for all of your

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offers, you can put them in this hub. You know, if you

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have links to your social media

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accounts, You can put them in this hub, just so things are.

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Easily accessible. And when you need them,

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you know where to go to find them. And you're not scrolling

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through a bunch of different random folders. Or you're not

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scrolling through., a bunch of links.

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trying to remember what the link for something is. You

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go to your hub, you find the category that you're looking for and

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you grab the information that you need. Okay. So the hub that I

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have, actually, I'm a part of a, uh, like operational

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membership called the workflow studio. but she

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has lots of templates. And so in

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my. Hub. There's a category for

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sales and landing page. There's social media, um,

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appointment schedulers, lead magnets, affiliates, website links, client

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links. So whatever makes sense for you and your business, whatever those things

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are that you always are needing to grab. The

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information you want to create categories for that.

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Okay. The next, uh, area or the next way that you

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can organize is by having a press

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folder. Okay, this is super helpful.

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If you are participating in things like.

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bundles summits. If you are pitching yourself to be

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a guest on podcast, if you are doing guest blogging,

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any type of collaboration, this press folder will

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come in handy. And what you're putting in the press folder.

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Are your Bibles, so you can have different versions of your

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bio, like a short bio along by yo.

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Um, you can have. Your approved

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photos that people can use in promotional materials.

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You just have that all in the folder instead of again, If

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somebody asks you for this information, instead of having to

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scroll through all of the downloads on your computer, or,

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you know, trying to find the most recent version of your bio,

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it's already just in one place is in this press folder.

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And you can just send the link to that folder, to someone.

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Um, if they request your information, Or you

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can actually have this as a page on your website.

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And this will save you lots of time. Okay. Um,

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the next area that you can organize. Are your

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SLPs. Or a standard operating procedures.

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And you guys have heard me talk about SLPs here on the podcast.

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And so if you are in a place where you're needing to jumpstart,

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getting your SLPs created, you definitely want to check out

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my simple SLP toolkit that will be linked in the show

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description. But when it comes to your SLPs,

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Um, you definitely want to have some type of database and

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my database again, I use click up to kind of as my business

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up, like a mix between click up and, um,

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Google drive. And so.

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With my SLPs. Let me see if I can actually pull it up

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here. I have like there's a master list

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and. the master lists kind of just has all

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of the SLPs in one place. And then there's

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different categories and subcategories. It lists

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out. Um, Like the due date for when it

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needs to be updated. The last time it was updated who the

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process owner is, and then links to the actual like

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SOP document. And if you have any other

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accompanying, um, You know,

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documentation or support like video or screenshots or anything like

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that. But if I am. You know,

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looking for a particular SOP in the business, I know to come

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to the SOP master list, right? So instead of

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them just kind of, again, being in a bunch of different random places,

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your SLPs are in one central location is easily

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accessible and this is going to be super important. when you are.

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beginning to, or you might already be delegating

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tasks. Hiring contractors, hiring employees,

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having SLPs and having them organized in a central location is

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going to be very important and helping you in

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saving and maximizing your time. All right. So

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those are the areas that you can organize.

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and this wasn't on my list, but one of the things that I did recently,

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I organized by, um, My

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Google drive. And so again, this is

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another area that can get really cluttered really quickly,

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especially if you just create documents.

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And you forget to name them. I had a bunch of untitled documents.

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but it's really helpful if you create folders.

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For again, different categories based on the types of

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documents that you have creating different folders that

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will help just to keep your, your information. Just

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organized and in one place. So when it comes

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to automating. All right.

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There's tons of things that you can do. With automating

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your, your business, but I just want to talk about three quick

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things today. So number one now I

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know flow desk is super late to the party with this

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one. I use flow desk as my email marketing.

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Tool and they just, uh, released the

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feature. Not too long ago, link actions. So

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basically what link actions does is you

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can, uh, put a particular link in your email. And

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if someone clicks that link behind the scenes, specific

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actions can take place. So if somebody clicks a link, you can

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add them to a particular segment. the first time I

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used it, I, uh, announced.

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What was it? Oh, the prayer and connect call that I was

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thinking about doing. For moms and business. And

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so I sent an email to the list and I said, if you are

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interested, in this prayer and connect call, just click

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here. That's all you have to do. And once I

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decide what I'm going to do with this, you'll be the first to know.

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So what happened on the back end is that once they clicked Yvette

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particular link, There's an automation set up.

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Where their edit to a specific segment

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in my, um, email marketing. Uh, software.

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And so they didn't have to do anything once they clicked

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the link, though it redirected them. I created a page on my

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website. Um, which was a thank you page and,

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and then, I put the, podcast player on there.

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And so you can do this. For your

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business. If you already have people on your email list and you

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don't want them to. Have to sign up

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again, like fill out a form to sign up for something, right? This

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is reducing the friction.

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And getting a sale or a sign up. Okay. It's, it's

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less steps for, the people that's when your email list, all they have to

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do is click a button. You can add them to a particular segment

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or add them to a particular list and then redirect them

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to a thank you page. And you know, this could be, if you're having a

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webinar, Um, or, you know, you just have some

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other freebie. Or it's just some, something else of interest

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to them instead of having them sign up. Putting in their

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name, putting in their email address, they can just click a link. Okay.

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And then of course, you know, once someone is added to a particular segment in

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your email list, then from there, you can create a whole another set of

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workflows based on that segment. All right. So that's the first thing,

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link actions. If you want to try out flow desk.

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There will be a link in the show description. for you to receive

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50% off your first, uh, it's either your first

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month or your first year. but the details will be in the show description.

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The second way that you can automate in your business is to

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send. Automated surveys. And I

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included this one because. I've seen a

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lot of social media people. Forget this

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part in there. Client experience,

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right? You can, when you are off boarding your client, you

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can. just based on whenever their

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project date closes, you can set up some type of workflow.

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Or an automation that. However many days,

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right? Based on your preference, it could be three days. It could be a week.

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It could be the next day. Um, however many days after their

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project ends, you are sending them some type

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of survey or it could be. That it's included

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in the, um, you know, the final delivery email,

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or you can put this through. Wow. It doesn't have to be an offboarding. It

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could be. in the middle of the project at one of the,

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milestones. But you can

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automatically get feedback from people. You can embed that in your

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client experience. instead of just later on

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you know, six months after the project has ended going back

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and asking them for their feedback, right. You can just

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automatically include it. And receive the information, create a

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form. They can easily fill it out and you'll have that information when you

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need it. Okay. And then finally, I

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want to talk about Zapier.

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So Zapier, if you're not familiar, it is a.

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Tool. Um, so on my tool. That

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connects different apps to each other. And so.

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Through Zapier, you can connect things like Google drive and your

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email marketing software. Um, it's pretty much like if this, then

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that. So, for example, with the harmony private podcast,

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That is through, my podcast, host captivate.

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And so in order for people to actually get the emails,

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to get access to it and all of these things. Um,

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it's a paid product. So when people are paying through flow

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desk and so I have an automation set up through

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Zapier that says If somebody is added to this segment and the segment

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is attached to that particular paid product.

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Then add them to the, private

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podcast in captivate, and then that will trigger them to

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get access to the private podcast. Okay again.

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Instead of me having to manually see, oh, this person signed up or

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this person paid, let me go in and manually add them to

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the private podcast so they can listen. No, it's all automatically done

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through Zapier. And so there's tons, tons of things that you

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can do. through Zapier. I use it a lot. Um, connecting,

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dub cyto and click up. I use it a lot for my Podcast guests

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management workflow. I've talked about that already before previously here on the

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podcast. But as an example, what are some things that you

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can do? Um, with Zapier.

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So. Let's just say you are a service

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provider, you can do something like, when a new project

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is created in your CRM. Right. Or if a

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contract is signed in your CRM. Then you can create

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a task. In click up

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or whatever your project management tool is. Okay.

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And so for me, for example, in click up.

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There's also automations within click up. itself

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that if a task is created, then you can do something like apply

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a template to a particular task. When a task is created in a specific

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list. And one of the templates that I have is like a checklist

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for, my podcast production. So anytime I create a

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task for a new episode. The

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Ms. Checklist is automatically added. And so now I know

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for each episode, all the things that I need to do well, you can do

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the same thing for your clients, right? Once you get a new

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client, then you can have a checklist of all of the things that need to

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happen for that particular client and automatically apply

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that to the task in your project management tool.

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Okay. Um, And then you can

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take a step further if you really want to get advanced. And

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once that task is created in your project management tool.

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Thing, you can create a Google folder,

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right. And that is done through Zapier. So lots of

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connections, lots of things that you can do

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through that tool. And I would really encourage you to just sign

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up for a free. Um, a free plan there's

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limitations on the free. plan, but that's the plan that I'm using

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right now. And it does what I needed to do. There's a few

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things that I'm able to do. On the free plan.

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And so just go set up a free plan and test and play with things

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and see what the possibilities are. I know they've added like

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this AI feature. Where you can just kind of type in what you

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want to do, and it will create the zap.

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Uh, for you and then you can test it out.

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Just right there instead of you having to like already know what the

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zap is that you need to do. All right. So.

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Again, Just wanted to give you some quick ways that

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you can organize. Or automate your business.

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Um, with the ultimate goal of saving and

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maximizing your time. So just to do a quick, just to

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do a quick recap, if you want to organize. Um, you can create

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a biz hub. You can create a press folder. Or you can create

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SLPs. And if you want to automate. Some of the

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automations that you can implement are link actions,

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sending automated surveys or using Zapier to connect

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your different apps. So I would love to hear

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if you are doing any of these things. If so

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DME on Instagram, let me know what you're doing. And if not,

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I still want to hear from you. I want to know which ones are you.

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Most intrigued by which ones do you want to

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implement? Okay. So shoot me a message on Instagram.

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I look forward to hearing from you. And I will see you in the

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next episode. Thank you for listening to the Mom CEO

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Suite Podcast. If you enjoyed this episode, can you do us a

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favor? Leave a review on iTunes and share with other

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moms in business like you. Help us spread our message and empower

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others who are at this intersection of motherhood and

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entrepreneurship.

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