Comment “me” if you sometimes feel like you’ve created too much work for yourself with your side hustle!
I see this all the time, it’s a delicate balance in the side hustle space. Luckily, in this digital age, there are so many ways we can optimize our time and energy into the tasks that really help grow our business.
In the beginning, you’ll want to invest some money into your side hustle. For example, a great bookkeeping platform or maybe even a simple website. But there are so many great tools you can use with no cost that will save you time and sanity.
Enter, automation for the win!
Email templates to work smarter not harder!
Chances are you’re writing a lot of the same emails in your business. Whether you’re reaching out initially, or onboarding a client, you end up writing the same thing over and over.
Creating email templates in google docs to easily pull when you’re contacting a potential client or creating a series of onboarding emails can save you serious time. You don’t have to pay for it and you can copy, paste, and schedule those emails in your Gmail account.
Social Media Automation all day!
Spending so much time on a content schedule can feel like a lot of work and then yield not a lot of return on your invested time. Not to mention the moments we get stuck in the scroll of it all. Optimizing your side hustle looks a lot like time management, and spending too much time on social media can be counterproductive and draining.
You can batch content and use the free version of Later.com, Hootsuite, or schedule right on Facebook. You can schedule all your content for the week in a couple of hours on one day and save so much time you can use getting more clients or completing tasks that grow your business.
Bonus! You also get analytics to see what’s working for your business all in one place when you use social media scheduling platforms.
Scheduling Appointments without the back and forth!
Your calendar is crazy, sometimes you forget appointments until 10 min before or you double book. Or you have to send like 50 emails to set up a time with someone that works for both of you. When you have a side hustle, every minute counts.
Calendly and Acuity are scheduling apps that give time slots that you set and blocks out times as your availability changes. Brilliant, right?! No more double booking or ging back and forth, and they both have free versions.
You can give clients and potential clients their choice of availability with one click of a link! BONUS! You can also add forms to the appointment so you can gather the info you might need before the call.
Client Checklist FTW!
You get a new client and then you have to send them all the things. It takes time, energy, and sometimes you forget to send the contract or the invoice. Creating your own client checklists saves you time and hassle.
Someday you’ll get that amazing client portal system, but for now, create a free Asana account and make a new client process checklist. Then you can copy that checklist every time you get a new client or project.
EXAMPLE of Checklist
- Send contract
- Send invoice
- Send intake form
- Collect social logins
- Schedule First Call
- Follow up on first call tasks
You can get so much out of the free version of Asana. You won’t forget things again, and you’ll streamline the process.
Automation is your new business bestie and will save you loads of time to do the work that’s really fulfilling your soul and bringing in the money.
The next step is making sure you have the right side hustle! And that’s why I’ve created a training on how I built a successful side hustle!
[optin-monster-shortcode id=”lzp8qjqunlcwy6siga8f”]And for more tips, make sure to follow me on Facebook and Instagram!
Until next time… stay ambitious.
