We live and die by our calendars and our automated project workflows.
Without these essential tools, we wouldn’t have the efficiency necessary to operate a business or keep up with our family’s busy life.
Recently, we attended an AI learning lab to explore its uses for marketing and growth initiatives. The discoveries were really interesting by different groups as they experimented with AI for branding, proposals, marketing campaigns and competitive analysis.
Conclusion?
With any new technology, the promises are big and the realities are, well, phased in until you start to see some real, positive impacts. If you really want to delegate, automate and escape some of those time-consuming marketing or growth tasks, here is what we recommend for now:
DELEGATE
Identify what you can reasonably outsource and then budget for it… or find a more cost-effective way to start the process. Just remember, if you don’t budget for delegation, you will spend more time in the trenches and less time on strategy… which sacrifices your growth.
In our experience, the hierarchy of lower to higher cost and higher to lower time for training and launch includes:
a. Hiring your own kids
b. Exploring interns
c. Engaging virtual assistants
d. Outsourcing to the right specialists
e. Hiring an employee
All of these options have their pros and cons. It’s important to explore how your organization operates best and how you prefer to delegate and manage your ‘team.’ At the end of the day, you do need a team if you want to grow, but your team should fit you and your business goals.
AUTOMATE
There are so many great tools available now to create templates, automate workflow, share and edit documents, schedule campaigns and reduce the labor of manual processes. The challenge is to pick the right tools that you will actually use and train your team to use them.
Start with the free version and work with it for a while. Then make sure that customer service is very accessible before you upgrade. Choose tools that help you with:
a. Project management/workflow
b. Proposals
c. Email marketing
d. Social media scheduling
e. Design templates and tailoring
f. Pursuit management
If you want to know what we use and what my clients use for these needs, let’s talk! We can sure shorten the time required for you to identify the right tools and technologies.
ESCAPE
There are things on your plate right now that someone else or something else could do better. If only you had the time to sort it all out! If not now, then when?
Here are common items that we see senior marketers and growth professionals (yes, and business owners) handling themselves that they could delegate, automate and escape.
a. Email networking and follow-up
b. Social media creation and scheduling
c. Event communications
d. Press releases and general PR
e. Proposal writing and design
f. Website analytics and digital advertising
Source: Gemini
What’s dragging you down? It may be these things or something else that is preventing you from being strategic and free! We are here to consult with you.
