Here's a little secret most people don't figure out for years.
The key to running a successful online business without exhausting and enslaving yourself is to have systems in place for everything. You'll be surprised how much time you will save each week and how productive you'll be once they are in place.
Let's take a look at a few different types of systems you may want to implement in your business.
Document your systems and create checklists for them as you start to create them (or you can use some of ours in the shop). They will come in handy over the coming months and years.
Product Creation
Your systems for product creating will depend on what your products are and how you will deliver them, but some of the things you may want to document in the form of a checklist are:
Additionally, it's a good idea to create a template you can use for all your short reports and ebooks to make sure they look consistent. This will also make your job a lot easier when it comes time to format your product.
Content Creation
Templates and calendars will make your life so much easier when it comes to content creation. Spend a little time each month creating an editorial calendar for your blog. Figure out how often you want to blog and what topics you want to cover. With that in place, you will never sit down at your desk with no idea what to write about.
Having templates in place is also helpful. Look at what content you create on a regular basis. Is it a newsletter, short reports, eBooks? Make templates for them. Most of your formatting will be taken care of and you won't have to start with a blank page.
Social Media
Make your social media interactions faster by putting a system in place.
Figure out how often you want to post and during what times. When will you post your own content, when will you ask a question or make an observation and when will you share other people's posts?
Having a schedule allows you to work ahead when you need to and just like the blog schedule, it helps you get things done faster if you know what you are writing or sharing ahead of time.
Website Maintenance And Security
Here's a must-have. How are you keeping your site safe and secure? If you are using a CMS (Client Management System) like WordPress to run your site, you want to make sure it's updated regularly. Backups are also a must. Schedule both on a monthly basis and review your sites regularly to make sure everything is safe and secure. Set an alert on your phone or add the task to your calendar each month.
Customer Service
Do you have systems in place for handling customer service requests?
Having a page with Frequently Asked Questions (and your responses of course) is always helpful. You can point customers to the page and be done.
A list of responses to common questions will also save you a lot of time. Personalize them as needed, but have the bulk of it ready to copy and paste.
Having these systems in place also makes it much easier to outsource customer service down the road.
Having systems in place helps you run your online business more productively, but there's a huge added bonus to getting them in place.
Once you have a system set up, it makes it easy to outsource that portion of your business to a Virtual Assistant.
As you grow and there's more work to be done than hours in your day, you will appreciate that your systems are already in place so someone else can come in and help you.
P.S. Check out the 'Templates & Planners' section in our store and be sure to look into our C.O.G.S In the Machine Coaching Program (Completely Organized General Systems) to have it all given to you, ready to go.
