The Savvy Entrepreneur

As you know, I’m working through Step 2 of my Office Organization Venture — Contact Management (following Tracey Lawton’s The Complete Office Organization System).

If I’ve been a little quiet lately, it’s because I’m working long and hard hours on this one. This second step may prove to be the most time-consuming of all four, seeing as I’m practically starting from scratch (other than Outlook and iContact for my newsletter, I’ve never taken the time and effort to put in place a reliable, automatic and regular contact management system — now I know why!).

I spent all of last and some of this week just setting up an automated Complimentary Coaching Session scheduling procedure. Here’s how the process is broken down (completed actions steps are crossed out):

1. A potential client who checks out my web site and is interested in experiencing my no-nonsense coaching style signs up for a Complimentary Coaching Session by filling out a form.
   Action: Create sign up form in iContact.
   Action: Create Complimentary Coaching Session web page.
2. The person soon receives a “Welcome to Complimentary Coaching Session” email with scheduling instructions. They must click the link in that message to access my online scheduling program. Once there, they select an available date and time slot for our call.
   Action: Create appointment type, schedule time slots, Thank You message, and reminders in Web-appointments.com.
3. After filling out and submitting the scheduling form, the program displays (and sends an email with) a Thank You message confirming our scheduled time, calling instructions and a link to a short Pre-Session Questionnaire.
   Action: Create Pre-Session Questionnaire in iContact.
4. After answering and submitting the short Pre-Session Questionnaire — that’s it. At the scheduled time, we each dial in to my teleconference bridge line and I do the rest manually (send a thank you email with link to recording of call).
   Action: Create and set up follow-up auto responder messages in iContact.
   Action: Make Complimentary Coaching Session web page live on my site and let the calls begin!!

Isn’t that a lot of work? Not only that, each step requires testing to ensure a smooth transition to the next.

Why am I adding so many steps to this particular process? It’s simply my way of filtering serious potential clients from the not-so-serious (those just looking for a freebie coaching session). Entrepreneurs who are serious about achieving their goals, want an accountability partner and are ready to go places they haven’t before will take the time to go through each step.

What’s next in Contact Management? I’m not sure it’s ever done, especially as I make more products available to you.

With the impending arrival of baby #3 this July, I’m motivated and determined to automate as many processes as possible. That means clearly outlining a marketing funnel and setting up more auto responders.

If only there was a way to automate the article-writing process for my monthly newsletter… then (most of) my woes would be a thing of the past!

How have you automated your business? What tools have been a Godsend? What would you do differently? What systems are you working on?