Time-Saving Hacks for Small Businesses
As a business owner, your time is valuable. From admin and emails to customer-facing roles and product testing, there are tons of jobs that can sap your time. However, if you want to focus your energy on the right tasks, you need to save time in other areas.
Undoubtedly, running a business takes a lot of work. Since time is your most valuable resource, it’s important to maximise it through efficient scheduling and planning.
Consider this your ultimate guide to time-saving for SMEs.
Scheduling Payments with B2Bpay
A UK study found that, on average, SMEs spend 3.6 hours per week manually reconciling their payments. This is almost four hours that business owners could spend on growing their organisation.
Payment providers like B2Bpay make it easier than ever to schedule your payments. Whether it’s a one-off future-dated payment or frequent bulk payments, B2Bpay allows you to tick these items off your to-do list ahead of time, removing the need for constant reminders and post-it notes.
Not only does payment scheduling free up more time, but it also has other benefits, including strengthening business relationships. By sending payments on time without even having to think about it, you can forge and maintain solid relationships with your vendors and suppliers.
B2Bpay provides a convenient way to save time, and it even lets you earn Qantas Points in the process.
Social Media Management
In 2023, having a social media presence for your business is imperative. 83% of Australia’s population use social media and a huge proportion use it to influence their buying decisions, which makes it an incredible place to reach your target audience and boost your business.
Other benefits include:
- Generating brand awareness
- Making sales through social media shop features
- Driving site traffic
It’s no wonder that 53% of Australian SMEs are planning to increase their social media spending in 2023. However, this might feel like adding another task to your to-do list.
Fortunately, there are quick and time-saving ways to produce social media content quickly. With a detailed content plan, you can save time in the ideas phase and start to produce content quickly. Bulk-creating social content also saves time by ensuring you are fully focused on the task at hand.
Finally, there are plenty of ways to schedule social media content so that you can stay organised. You can create a simple content calendar using a spreadsheet, detailing what content you have in the pipeline and when to post it.
Even with a minimal budget, you can invest in scheduling software such as Hootsuite, Buffer, or Sprout Social. They post your content for you, automating yet another task and saving you time.
Efficient Team Meeting Scheduling
Scheduling meetings can be a complicated process. Whether you’re setting up meetings with suppliers, clients, or other members of your team, the process of going back and forth trying to find a time that suits everyone can be complex.
Software is here to save the day yet again, with programs like Calendly and Doodle making it easy to schedule meetings by showing others when you’re free. All you need to do is set it up, and then people can make a quick appointment with you without all the emails piling up in your inbox.
Even after a meeting is set, you need to know how to ensure the meeting is efficient and productive – after all, an estimated 25-50% of meeting time is wasted. Try the following tips:
- Set an agenda
- Designate a meeting leader to keep everyone on task
- Set ground rules to prevent interruptions, or ask that everyone hold their questions until the end
- Invite feedback for improvement at the next meeting
Automated Communication with Email Software
It might seem daunting to use automated emailing software. What if something goes wrong and you have to spend time rectifying errors? What if it seems impersonal or lacks personalisation?
Fortunately, technology has come a long way, and platforms like Klaviyo can save you huge amounts of time. You can set email templates to save thinking time when writing common emails, send automated emails to customers, and more.
In particular, automated emails can have brilliant effects on your customer engagement and sales. Sending automatic emails when a customer takes a particular action can create a personalised, engaging experience, such as sending welcome emails when they subscribe or thank you emails when they place an order.
Using Klaviyo, health and beauty brand Current Body capitalised on abandoned cart revenue by sending automatic emails to customers with products in their baskets. They boosted abandoned cart revenue by 50%, reaching an 8.7% conversion rate.
Prioritising Self Care
All too often, small business owners neglect self-care. It’s too easy to get lost in your long list of tasks, or swamped by the desire to keep your business going. If you feel stressed about your business at all, you’re likely to neglect self-care even more.
However, taking regular breaks at work can improve your focus when you get back to your tasks. The result is better productivity, resulting in more time to focus on other things.
Self-care and time management feed into one another. By prioritising yourself and your mental well-being, you can increase productivity and free up time for additional business tasks. On the other hand, good time management means that you have ample time to focus on self-care.
If you’re an organised person that thrives on scheduling, set time aside for self-care. Designate specific breaks and put them in your calendar to make sure you take them. You can also designate time outside of work hours to switch off and take a break from work entirely.
Additional Time-Saving Solutions
These are just some of the ways to save time as a small business owner. Other options include the following:
- Batch tasks: Multitasking can actually waste time. Improve your productivity by organising your tasks into batches.
- Delegate: If you know how to effectively delegate or outsource non-core activities, you can free up significant amounts of time.
- Use workflows and cloud storage: Enhance collaboration among your team with workflow and cloud software that ensures everyone is on the same page.
Eliminate distractions: If you often find yourself procrastinating or getting distracted, make sure you eliminate distractions and put your phone on Do Not Disturb while you work.
Streamline Your Business and Save Time
Effective scheduling can empower small businesses by freeing up time for SME owners and giving them more hours to focus on the things that really matter. By leveraging software in the right way, you can achieve more in less time.
Want to improve your payment processing? Get started with B2Bpay and give yourself more time today.
