This post may contain affiliate links. Which means if you make a purchase through them, I may receive a small commission at no extra cost to you!

Okay it’s no secret that you need systems in your business to keep from going crazy, right?

Without them, you’d be spending all of your time working on things like sending emails to clients, creating invoices, sending contracts, blah, blah, blah.

Now, all of that is important. But I don’t want you spending any more time on that than necessary. You have way more important things to do…like working with your amazing clients!

So, this blog posts breaks down my favorite tools to automate your business so you can spend less time working ON your business and more time on money-making activities and working with your clients

This is for you if…

You’re just getting started in business and shiny object syndrome is distracting you from what you actually need right now
You’ve been in business a while but are looking to streamline your processes into the most necessary ones and cut back on what’s not needed
You want to make sure your current systems and processes are set up the most efficient way possible

Why You Need Systems

Maybe this seems obvious, but let’s touch on it for a minute. Because it’s super easy, especially in the beginning of your business, to think “Oh, I can handle everything manually. It’s really not a big deal.”

But, that’s really not sustainable.

As your business grows, you’re going to want to automate pieces of it. Now, the fear here tends to be losing authenticity or connection with your audience. I totally get that. But that’s not what we’re going for here.

When I say “automation” I mean simply setting up some systems, so you don’t have to touch every little thing in your business all the time.

For example, let’s say you’ve just signed a new client. Yay! Maybe you’ve already had a call with them and now you need to send a contract, invoice, and maybe a link to schedule their time to work with you.

You can send all that out one at a time, manually if you want. But imagine you’re taking on 5-6 clients per month. Now you’re completing all those tasks 5 or 6 times a month.

But if you set up a simple system, you can click one button and trigger all of those things to send automatically. No connection with your new client lost. But tons of time saved so you can actually serve them better! Win!

The Online Business Systems You Need

Email Marketing System

This is one of the key systems you need. So I’m going to start with it. I don’t care where you connect most with your audience. If it’s Facebook or Instagram, that’s great.

You 👏🏻still 👏🏻 need 👏🏻 an 👏🏻email 👏🏻 list 👏🏻

Because as it’s been preached non-stop by everyone out there, you don’t own your audience on Facebook or Instagram. Facebook does. So if they shut down one day (not likely but go with me here), BAM. Your audinece is GONE. And so is your business.

But…

Your email list is yours. YOURS. So if you have all those followers also on your email list, you can stay in contact with them if Facebook or Instagram vanishes.

…or more realistically, if they have crazy outages. Which has been known to happen. 😏

Okay, now that we know why we need one, which one should we use?

My favorite email marketing platform is ConvertKit. Hands down. I’ve used several and this one remains my favorite.

You can create an unlimited amount of forms and sequences here which is perfect for your marketing funnel. Once you set up your sequence, it can run on autopilot.

Another great thing about ConvertKit is a new feature they recently released that allows you to sell digital products and services. It’s a perfect additional feature especially if you’re just getting started. You don’t need another platform or app to generate sales through. You can do it all with ConvertKit.

CRM

Now that you’ve got some clients from the amazing emails you’ve sent out. You need a client relationship management tool to manage your projects.

My favorite tool in this department is Dubsado. Dubsado lets you create automations that handles most of the work of on-boarding new clients for you. Capture their information, take payments, and send emails at the touch of a button.

You can even trigger those actions based on someone filling out a form which is great because you don’t need to be watching your inbox for those new leads 24/7. They can fill out the form and receive more information about your product/services immediately without you having to do a thing.

Then of course, you can jump in for that personal touch any time you want. But think about all the time you’ll save by having any invoices, contracts, and questionnaires sent out automatically. No more spending time on backend office work. You can give your clients all of your attention.

Productivity

Now, that your projects are rolling in and you don’t have to spend a ton of time setting them up on the backend, it’s time to make sure you’re making the most of your project time. I’m talking about productivity.

For that, Asana is the way to go. There are tons of productivity apps out there but this one is my favorite because no matter how your brain works, Asana has a format that will work for you.

Personally, I like the checklist style. I love a good todo list and checking things off. So I manage all my projects in this style.

But if you prefer more of a Kanban style system (like Trello), Asana does that too!

I also love that I can share projects with my clients. So if I have an ongoing client, she can add tasks for me directly to the project with a due date. This alone saves TONS of back and forth time trying to get all the details. Everything is right there for me.

For project based clients, they can check in and see where I’m at with the project by seeing which tasks have already been completed!

I’m telling you, productivity game-changer!

Organization

Google Workspace, hands down is my favorite organization tool. Essentially, Workspace is the business version of Google Drive, so it is paid. Which gives you your own personalized business email address.

Along with that, you get Google Drive space which is amazing for organizing every single thing in your business.

I use it to save blog posts, email copy, sales page copy, and any other important information I want to keep safe.

But perhaps my favorite thing about Google Workspace is being able to share content and folders with others. So for my clients, I create a folder that we both share so we can share content as needed without having to email a bunch of stuff back and forth because let’s face it, emails can get lost.

Workspace is absolutely a must have.

Accounting

Okay for this section I actually have two recommendations.

The first one is Quickbooks Self Employed. If you’re a sole-proprietor or single member LLC, this is a great accounting app to use to help you determine how much your quarterly taxes are going to be and pay them.

Just log your income and your expenses and it will give you the estimated amount owed. Then each quarter, simply send your payment over. When it’s tax season, you can send all your income and expense data over to TurboTax, which saves a TON of time. Or you can print the reports for your tax preparer.

The second app is YNAB (You Need A Budget) and I love this app for both personal and business budgeting. This app uses zero-based budgeting. So essentially, you “spend” your money as soon as you get it by dividing it up between your different expense categories.

The magic here is that you ensure you always have enough money for your expenses by “paying” for them first before deciding what to do with any left over money. This app alone has changed my finances personally and for my business. I would never, ever, go without it again.

Appointment Scheduling

Last but certainly not least is appointment scheduling. For that I live by Acuity Scheduling. Once you get the backend set up, Acuity has the most intuitive interface for users. Which means, it’s super easy for your clients to schedule appointments with you.

If you have different types of appointments that you offer, like consult calls and client calls, you can create separate calendars for these so you can set specific days or times for each type of call.

For example, my VIP Intensive days are only on Tuesdays. So if you book one of those, you’ll see Tuesday time slots available. For consult calls, you can schedule on Monday or Wednesday. So that calendar shows open times only on those two days. This really allows you to make the most of your schedule.

You can also use Acuity to take payments or deposits for appointments, clients can cancel or reschedule appointments without having to contact you first, and you can connect your Google or iCal calendars so times are automatically blocked off based on any personal or other appointments you have.

It’s absolutely a must-have and time saver!

Recap

You need to automate your business because you are one person who needs to focus on revenue generating activities, not spend day after day only taking care of the “office tasks”
Email marketing is probably the first system you need to implement because you need an email list, like today
CRM and appointment scheduling are the two key systems you need to onboard your new clients (you know, after they sign up for your offer from the emails you sent them 😉)
Productivity and organization systems keep your projects organized once those clients start rolling in. Track your project progress and keep your files organized!
Accounting systems keep your money in check. This is a hard learned lesson if you don’t start from the beginning. Keep track of your income and your taxes and budget your operating expenses… don’t just spend money for the sake of spending money!

If you’re looking for more info on the systems and tools I used to start my virtual assistant business, I invite you to check out my Virtual Assistant Content Library.

This free library gives you access to the tools and processes I used to start my business when I had no idea what I was doing! 😉I’ve taken some of the guesswork out for you so you can get started today.