There are several steps that you must take to set up a business that can run without you. Here are a few that can be crucial.

Automating your business

A lot of business operations can essentially be broken down into a step-by-step process. When this is done, it is possible to create automation rules that can handle these operations without a lot of human intervention.

Take the example of your sales process. In a typical setup, SDRs (Sales Development Representatives) in your organization pull out a prospective list of clients from various third-party sources, pull out their email address, verify them and finally reach out to them over email. Usually, these SDRs send multiple follow-ups before hearing from prospects. The process of extracting a list and sending out emails and follow-ups can take several hours every week.

Automating this step could bring down the time spent on outreach dramatically. Make use of tools like Zapier that ties up with the APIs offered by the lead databases, email validation services, and email delivery tools to automate the process of pulling contacts from third party databases, verifying them, and sending out emails at predefined intervals.

If you run an online business, you may already have been working on building an email list that you send newsletters to. This process of capturing email addresses and sending newsletters can also be easily replaced with email automation.

Document every step of your business

Hiring can have a huge impact on the way you run business. The right employees can allow you to not worry about the daily grind and can thus allow you to think of the big picture and plan for the long-term. However, most small businesses struggle with finding the right people to hire. The reason for this is more often poor onboarding practices rather than the quality of the employees themselves.

Documenting every step of your business process can thus be crucial. Giving employees a template to follow in their new role can make a big difference in their productivity and output.

Move your company virtual

Making your business run without you does not necessarily mean taking yourself off completely. You may still be required for a few hours each week to guide and motivate your team. For this, establishing a good virtual office infrastructure is vital since this allows you to log in without having to physically be there with your team. This also allows anyone in the team to run their tasks without having to be physically present.

Make use of online collaboration tools to run various projects since this allows employees and yourself to log in from anywhere to check on the status. Invest in good video conferencing applications to conduct daily or weekly standup meetings.

Author: MicroStartups