EPISODE 127: The easy way to automate your business

Links mentioned:

• Click here to check out Systeme.io
• Click here to book a free Discovery Call
• Click here to access Passive Profit Plan
• Click here to visit website

Are you feeling stretched thin by client work, content creation, and a never-ending to-do list?

In this episode of Online Business Uncovered, I’m diving into one of the biggest game-changers for online entrepreneurs… automation.

I’ll walk you through 5 key areas of your business you can automate right now, from lead generation and sales to client onboarding, course delivery, and content repurposing. I’ll also share my go-to tools and show you how to set up simple systems that save time, boost consistency, and create space for you to focus on what really matters.

Automation isn’t about removing the human touch, it’s about building a business that works for you, even while you sleep.

If you’re ready to reclaim your time and grow with ease, hit play and let’s get started!

Transcript

Karen [00:00:01]:
Hello and welcome to Online Business Uncovered. This is episode 127 and in today's episode, I'm talking about the easiest way to automate your business so you can get your time back. So let's jump right in and let's get started. Welcome to Online Business Uncovered, the show that lifts the lid on what it really takes to turn your brilliance into digital products, passive income and time freedom. 

I am your host, Karen, an online business strategist, course creation expert and your go to for building a business that works for you and not the other way around. If you are an ambitious entrepreneur, feeling overwhelmed, burnt out, or maybe you're just ready for a smarter, more sustainable way to grow, then you're in the right place. Because each week I'll be bringing you inspiring conversations, practical strategies and step by step guidance to help you create scalable, repeatable digital products that sell even while you sleep. 

So if you're ready to stop trading your time for money, reclaim your time and finally build a business that gives you the freedom that you deserve, hit, subscribe and tune in every Thursday.

Karen [00:01:17]:
Let's uncover what's truly possible for you, starting now. Hello and welcome to Online Business Uncovered, the show that helps you turn your expertise into digital products, passive income and time freedom. I am your host, Karen and I really appreciate you hitting the play button to listen to another episode. Now today I am diving into one of the most powerful questions that you can ask as a digital entrepreneur. How do I automate my business in the easiest way so that it doesn't overwhelm me and and I get my time back? Because this is something that I know a lot of entrepreneurs struggle with, especially if they haven't done this before. So if you are juggling client work, maybe you're creating content, maybe you're managing your inbox, or maybe you are trying to grow your audience online or even launch something new. Then this episode is going to help you to get started. Because Autom is not about turning your business into a robot.

Karen [00:02:36]:
Far from it. It's about building a smarter system that ultimately gives you your time back. And we want to get our time back because our time is precious, it's limited and we can be doing things like making sales and growing our income instead of getting lost in the weeds of having to do repetitive tasks that we can set up on auto. So today I'm breaking it down and we're gonna dive into what that looks like. So first I just want to start with why this matters. Now, automation isn't about being cold or Impersonal. So if you are thinking, well if I set up automation in my business, then it's going to remove me and then things are gonna seem really impersonal to my customers or my clients, then you couldn't be further from the truth because when it's, it actually allows you to serve your audience better because it's going to create consistency. And it means that somebody can discover you at 2am in the morning in a different time zone and they can join your email list, they can buy one of your products or they can even feel supported without you having to lift a finger in that very moment.

Karen [00:04:00]:
So it means that when you're away from your desk, you can be doing what you want to be doing, spending time with your favorite people and you have these things going on in the background. Now I remember the first time that I woke up to a sale of one of my digital products and it was such an amazing feeling because I didn't need to be there in order to sell it. So I didn't need to go and do the thing to support that client in order for them to get a result. They bought one of my products and they, and so I had the sale, which was brilliant and they were able to get a result just simply by purchasing the thing that I'd created. And I think in that moment I realized that for me as an entrepreneur this makes absolute sense because I do have limited time and I don't want to constantly be at the mercy of clients. But what was great about it is that I'd set it up so I'd set up the checkout, I'd set up the funnel, I set up the automation and everything was working like clockwork in the background whilst I was in bed. So amazing feeling because that person had literally gone through my, my funnel. They'd obviously loved what it is that they saw and then they bought my low ticket offer my product without me having to lift a finger.

Karen [00:05:43]:
So it's really powerful when you can get your business running like that because you can start getting those sales in on auto. And I think automation isn't necessarily about doing less, it's more about doing things once and then letting them letting it do its thing. It's about doing it once, doing it really well and then letting your systems carry it forward so you don't have to be there. So I want to just break down what automation actually looks like because I know this is something when I speak to my clients about can feel quite overwhelming and actually really quite confusing. Like what is it that what do we automate? What can we set up to make our lives easy? So I just want to very briefly break this down for you. So five things essentially that you can automate in your business. So the first thing is lead generation and email nurture. So if you are growing your email list, you are growing your audience.

Karen [00:07:03]:
So maybe you may have a freebie or a lead magnet and then when somebody signs up to that freebie or lead magnet, it then triggers a welcome sequence and then after that there's some follow up email sequence. So when somebody downloads something in that moment, it triggers automation, things that you have set up. So things can go to that person that you have set up in advance. So you do not need to do anything about it. All you need to do at the very beginning is make sure you've got a high value freebie that is going to be of value to your audience. Then you set up the automation so making sure that once the freebie has been downloaded, then the right things are being triggered and setting up the welcome email so that as soon as they download that freebie they receive a email from you and then thereafter they may have an email sequence that goes out to them as well. So there are a few things there to do. But once you've set it up, all you need to do is promote that freebie because you've set everything up in place.

Karen [00:08:26]:
I know for myself I have many freebies that I've set up over the years and I will get people signing up randomly like it will be. I will wake up in the morning and maybe I've had a handful of downloads on a freebie because where I've promoted it, somebody's come across it, they've signed up for the freebie and then it's triggered everything else and then they've gone into my email list. So I'm growing my audience whilst I sleep. And that's where you want to get to. You want to set this stuff up on auto to make your life better. And of course there is work up front, but you are setting it up, setting it up at the beginning so that you don't have to think about it going forward. That's going to give you your time back. So you do not need to respond to every single person that signs up for your freebie.

Karen [00:09:24]:
So number two is your sales process. So if you have a process like a tripwire offer or an evergreen funnel, or maybe you've got automated checkout pages set up, then you can set this up on auto. So again, the moment somebody purchases it will trigger some automated responses. So for example, say your freebie has a tripwire offer attached to it. What I mean by that is when somebody downloads your freebie, the next page that then appears is a low cost offer. So you are presenting a sales page for a product that you have created. Now that will be set up on auto. You do not need to be there sending them the link to get access to that product.

Karen [00:10:25]:
It will be done automatically. Now once once somebody signs up to that low cost offer, it will then trigger some automations. So it might be that you add a tag to that contact. So I tag everybody coming into my email list so that I know where they've come in from. So somebod purchases my passive profit plan, which is one of my low cost offers, then they will be tagged in my email list with the passive profit plan. So because then I know that they have purchased that product, it also allows me to see my sales and how many units I've sold of that product. So it gives me data around those sales. The other thing that you may do a bit like the freebie is you may want to send them a welcome email with all the details on on how they can then access that product.

Karen [00:11:28]:
And then after that you may also have an email sequence which is designed to nurture that customer. Again, all of this is set up on auto. Number three is your client onboarding process. So if you work with clients on a 1:1 basis, then again you can set this up to work on auto so you can create an intake form that as soon as they agree to work with you that could be sent out on auto. You can create maybe a calendar booking link so that they can sign up for their first meeting with you for an onboarding meeting. Again that can be set up on auto and even the contract and a welcome package. There are lots of different tools out there that are really great for this. I have experience using Dubsado.

Karen [00:12:27]:
Dubsado is brilliant. It's a CRM system and all of that, those automated steps you can set up in Dubsado. There's also Honeybook if you're in the us. I'm not entirely sure you can use that in the UK market. I think it is a US product. Or you can even use other tools like Calendly or even Google Forms to do the job. But the idea is that you set it up on auto so that you don't have to be there every single time. Number four is your online course or your membership delivery.

Karen [00:13:07]:
So platforms like Teachable Kunjabi or Even System IO will help you to automatically deliver your online course, to track progress and to handle things like login details without you even needing to be there. You just need to set it up ahead of time so that every time somebody pays and joins, it's done on auto. And then number five is content repurposing. So this is semi automation, so it's not fully automated, but you can use tools like Repurpose IO, Descript, or you can even set up notion templates that can help you take your podcast or your blog and turn it into emails, Instagram posts, Pinterest pins, and if any, content, really with minimal effort. I use a platform called Cast Magic, which helps me take this podcast and repurpose it into a blog post. And then from there I can then create Instagram posts, I can create LinkedIn posts, and I can even create threads and lots of different things. Pins, Twitter, X, all of those sort of content pieces that I can then schedule using a social media scheduler, and then I can set those up on auto. Yes, there's a little bit of work involved, but essentially a lot of the heavy lifting is done.

Karen [00:14:50]:
I'm not having to be there to actually write things out from scratch. I can just take one piece of content and repurpose it into many different forms and it gives me my time back. It saves me so much time every single week, especially if you are trying to be visible. Consistency, I think, is one of the hardest things to be with social, with marketing. But you have to make the effort to be consistent in order to get results. And these tools are designed to help you with that. So I just want to share with you some tools that I'm using at the moment that I find really helpful. So with email automation, I use a platform called System Stem IO.

Karen [00:15:41]:
I love it in my membership. I train on this, in this platform because I just think it does everything that an online business entrepreneur needs. You can do so many different things with it, from growing your audience to growing your email list, to creating landing pages, to creating sales pages, to setting up checkouts, creating your online course, creating membership, setting up community, lots of different things. You can even create affiliate setup so that you could have your students or your members promote your product. And you can have an affiliate scheme, I guess, set up so that they get paid every time they send you a referral. So it's very comprehensive, very useful. And the great thing about system, it's not expensive. You can get started at like, nothing.

Karen [00:16:48]:
There is a free plan. It's very, very generous. And then Even if you exceed that free plan, then you're looking at $17, which I think equates to about 12 pound in English money. So really cheap. And. And then after that the next tier is $49, which I think is about 38 pound. I use Kunjabi for about three years. I loved Kunjabi and then I decided that for what I was getting it was really expensive.

Karen [00:17:24]:
So I moved platforms. I think System is just as good, if not better than Kunjabi. So I really like it and I'm always promoting it because I think for anybody starting out online, you need a really great tool that will grow with you as you grow your business. So I highly recommend Systeme IO. I will put the link to this platform in the show notes, go and check it out. It's completely free. The other tools that I use is for my calendar booking. I've now gone on to Systeme IO but before I was using Dubsado and like say for a CRM system.

Karen [00:18:10]:
That's great. I've also used a product called Tidy and I know you can get lifetime access to Tidy Cow for, I think it's like 25 quid or something. It's not a lot. And then what you can do is you can connect Tidy Cow to the other tools. So it's a great tool to use. And then I tend to store all of my social media content in Notion. And again, I absolutely love Notion. It is designed as a project management tool but it's so versatile and agile for what you need.

Karen [00:18:53]:
So I mean for me I have everything stored on Notion. It is my business. I have a business dashboard and then I have everything that steps off that. So I've got a marketing area, I've got a business area, I've got a product area, I've got a launch area. And what's great about Notion that is that you can nest pages so you can have a page and a page and a page and you can also set up things like tables and galleries and lists and Kanban style tables and all of that stuff. So if you like using Trello or ClickUp or Monday or Asana or any of those platforms, Notion is a combination of them all, but it's, it's really flexible and again it's completely free. So I would recommend if you are, if you are delivering content on social media and you need a place to plan your content, then I highly recommend Notion. It's not about having a really big tech stack that you end up feeling overwhelmed by. It's about being intentional with achieving your goal.

Karen [00:20:52]:
So what I would recommend is that once you get clear on what it is that you're trying to do, choose the right tool that's going to support you with that. Now, of course, there are lots of mistakes that can get made on the way, so the idea is to avoid those traps. So if your business isn't clear, you don't know what you're trying to achieve, then you're not going to be setting up automation because you just don't know what it is you're trying to solve. So first get clear on what you want to do and then build the system. The other thing, the other mistake that is very common is over complicating it. You don't need a 97 step funnel. Start simple. Create one freebie with one offer and one welcome sequence.

Karen [00:21:48]:
And that's all you need. Another mistake to avoid is forgetting to put the human touch in what you're trying to do. Just because it's automated, it doesn't mean it has to sound robotic. So when you're writing your emails and your thank you pages and you're sending your products to your customers, make sure that you are putting you in the copy and the content because you still want to make sure that they are connect. 

So if you've been asking yourself, how do I automate my business, how do I get my time back and make things easy, then here is your action plan. Firstly, pick one area to start with. Maybe it might be your emails, maybe it might be a sales process, maybe it's your client onboarding whatever feels the heaviest right now. Focus on that.

Karen [00:22:49]:
Then I want you to map out your steps manually. So before we build automation online, we want to create a process map in our workbooks or on a piece of paper so that that we can get really clear on what steps are involved and then you can look for the tools that are going to help you automate those steps. 

If you are ready to get started with creating your first passive income product, then I've got the perfect thing for you. Because my product, the Passive Profit plan has been designed to help you get started, to make this as easy as possible so that you can actually create income in your business on auto. 

To get access to this plan for only £27, head on over to my website www.sellyourbrillianceonline.com or you can click on the link in the Show Notes which will take you straight to the product. 

If you have found this episode of value, then why not share it with your business bestie or even take a screenshot of this episode and tag me on Instagram at Karen_DigitalCoach because I love seeing what episodes land for you so that I can create more of what you find useful so that I can create more episodes to help you achieve your goals thank you so much for tuning into today's episode. I hope it gave you some clarity and has sparked some new ideas on how you can automate your business. 

If you have found it helpful, then please go ahead and share it with a friend or even a fellow entrepreneur who's building their online business because it might just be the thing that they need to hear today.

Karen [00:24:50]:
And if today's episode has you thinking that you are now ready to create income from your expertise, then make sure to check out my free training three steps to turn your expertise into an online income stream. Just head on over to my my website www.sellyourbrillianceonline.com because it's the perfect place to begin if you're ready to move from burnout to build something scalable. I will be back next week with another episode, but until then, have a great rest of your week. Thanks for tuning in to today's episode of Online Business Uncovered. 

If today's conversation has sparked an idea or gave you a dose of clarity, then please make sure to ch out the show notes for all the links and resources mentioned. New episodes land every Thursday, so hit, follow or subscribe to stay in the loop. 

And if you're loving the show, a quick rating or review goes a long way in helping more brilliant entrepreneurs like you find this show. Until next time, keep showing up, keep sharing your brilliance and remember, freedom in business is possible and it starts with taking the next right step Sat.