Ask The Entrepreneurs is a regular series where members of the Young Entrepreneur Council are asked a single question that aims to help Lifehack readers level up their own lives, whether in a area of management, communication, business or life in general.
Here’s the question posed in this edition of Ask The Entrepreneurs:
What task isn’t automated (yet!) that you wish would be in your business?
1. Industry Research
A significant portion of my day involves researching what is going on in my industry, as well as what the competition is writing about. I wish there was a way to automate this process. I know of a few apps that help with this, but I’ve yet to incorporate them into my workday.– Andrew Schrage, Money Crashers Personal Finance
2. Meetings
– Sharam Fouladgar-Mercer, AirPR
3. Partnerships
Right now we run partnerships in a completely manual way, and it takes up quite a lot of our time to investigate them, explore possible avenues and run pilots with possibly companies. I would love to automate this process, but since it’s so dependent upon people, I don’t see how we could figure this out while still respecting the fantastic companies that contact us to work together.4. Searchable Libraries of Content
– Alexandra Levit, Inspiration at Work
5. Hiring
Hiring good people takes a significant amount of time. I’m not sure if you could ever automate the process of finding the perfect person for a role, but I’d love it if the right candidate magically appeared in an automated fashion.– Brett Farmiloe, Digital Marketing Agency
6. Inventory Management
– Aaron Schwartz, Modify Watches
7. Reports and Proposals
One of the most tedious tasks for our business is creating unique, enticing proposals with valuable insights. It would be extremely advantageous to have an all-inclusive reporting solution — an all-in-one tool that provides all the insights we need instead of having to use multiple tracking tools, chart generators, image editors, document layout tools, etc. to generate reports.– Phil Laboon, Eyeflow Internet Marketing
8. Client Background Research
– Patrick Conley, Automation Heroes
9. Follow-up Reminders
I wish there would be a reliable tool for automated reminders to follow up with clients and partners. Right now, I use Boomerang and other email plugins to set reminders, but it’s not fully automated, so it takes time to set up. An automated system would free up time for setting up reminders and enable us to focus on just doing the follow-ups that drive business value.10. Task Management