As a freelancer, we get involved in tasks like budgeting, scheduling meetings, promoting personal brands, and onboarding new clients. With so much happening, saving even an hour is gold dust.
There are a lot of tasks that are repetitive in nature. For example, sending the same portfolio email to the new prospects.
What if we can automate these repetitive client management tasks through automation?
In this article, we help you understand the 9 things you should do as a freelancer to automate repetitive tasks.
How can Automation help Freelancers?
Any process that is repetitive and can be done through menial work most probably can be automated.
Say you are managing multiple projects and you need to update your client on the progress, how about sending an automated email every week with the progress details?
In simple words, automation can help a freelancer regain time that he can put in activities that give 10x results. End of the day, who doesn’t want to increase productivity and profits?!
9 Things Freelancers Can do to Automate Repetitive Tasks
Create Automated Proposals
Finding new clients is essential to maintaining your freelance business.
But creating a proposal could be a monotonous task, which substantially eats away your productivity.
Still, it is almost impossible to overlook it because it is crucial for growth.
Using a proposal tool can instantly generate proposals by using fill-in-the-blank templates. In addition, you can also have a track proposal opens and clicks.
Manage Projects & Tasks
For freelancers, time is money. The first thing is to determine whether you are giving enough attention to important tasks or not each day.
If you track the entire process manually, you may end up losing a lot of your time. And that’s why project management is important to keep track of ongoing projects and tasks.
Project management software helps identify tasks that consume too much of your time, allowing you to manage your time in the best way possible.
Even if you have a team of freelancers, this software can track the time other members spend on projects, improving productivity and track time for hourly payments.
Use Integromat to Automate Creating Tasks
Creating tasks can be time-consuming but highly critical for a freelancer.
Plutio helps you automate creating tasks using its Integromat integration. For example, you can add new Google contacts to Pluto as tasks.
Every time, when a new contact is added in Google contacts, Integromat will automatically create a new task in Plutio.
In addition, this Integromat integration also allows you to create tasks in Plutio for new HubSpot deals, new Typeform submissions, etc.
Manage Documents
Freelancers get a bucket full of documents, including contract details, outlines, client data, etc., making it difficult for them to manage everything.
Also, one cannot afford to give his clients a chance to back off from the deal due to his carelessness.
However, sending, receiving, and filing away your documents can take up a lot of your time if done manually.
In addition, manual documentation can also lead to errors or misplacement of documents.
An automated document management system can save time by managing all your crucial documents, change requests and versions in one place. Platforms like Google Drive, Dropbox, and DocuSign give you the ability to send, receive, organize, and store your files securely in the cloud storage.
So, it is always better to automate repetitive tasks to save more free time for yourself. “To achieve a high degree of automation, it often makes sense to rely on AI-based integrations. However, with advanced annotation tools, your AI model can be trained on actual data and deliver more accurate results in automation.
Mailing and Tracking Invoices
Getting paid for doing something that you love is one of the reasons why you chose freelancing. But have you ever faced problems managing different invoices?
If yes, you might have thought of becoming a finance expert or bill collector for managing invoices.
There are various automation software tools available online, which can simplify invoice management for you. With these finance automation tools, you can easily create and send invoices.
In addition, the software also helps you track each dispatched invoice, enabling you to see which have been opened and paid or left pending past the due date.
If you don't receive the payment within the due date, an automated email will be sent to the client, reminding him of the past due date.
Forming Contracts
We have already discussed ways to send an automated proposal to a potential client.
Fortunately, the client liked your work and wanted to close the deal. But it takes a lot of time crafting the content of a new contract.
On the other hand, automation software can help you generate contracts using inbuilt templates.
Opposing the manual way of filling up the content, all you need to do is fill in the blanks.
Of course, you can tweak the language of contracts, depending upon the nature of the client you are dealing with.
Maintaining presence in Social Media.
Social media is an irresistible power for every freelancer looking for growth.
Although there are different benefits of being active on social media, it requires a lot of time for surfing, relationship building, and networking.
Eventually, all this can consume a large piece of your time every day.
Rather than interrupting your day to publish updates on each of your social platforms, you can use various automation softwares to automate your work.
The automation software enables you to plan and schedule everything in advance so that you can get back to other tasks.
Analyze Financial Health
A clear understanding of income and expenditure can help you sustain or eliminate certain things from your schedule.
Although hiring a financial consultant or advisor to dive into your records to provide insights can look easy but expensive.
On the other hand, an automation software tool can do the same work for you in just a few bucks.
You can generate a financial report with automation financial analytical software from your dashboard.
In addition, you will have every detail about your cash flow in the financial report. This way, it will be easier to identify the loopholes causing expenses.
Moreover, you will also know about your current investment sources to conclude whether to continue or stop.
Automated Tax Filing
You are responsible for managing all of your cash flows. It doesn’t mean you also need to file your taxes manually.
It's understandable that you wouldn't like to file taxes automatically, at least you can start with automated tax reports which are ready to be filed.
In addition, if you miss any essential financial record, it will create difficulty in the latter stages of taxation.
Therefore, freelancers should use automation software tools to track their income and expenses.
Set Reminders
Although you can remind yourself of important tasks through sticky notes or other manual methods, it is not always possible to remember every important thing.
However, you can find good task management software to help you cultivate leads, manage renewals, capture notes, generate an invoice, or book a follow-up meeting.
Promote your brand
Marketing is the essence of your freelancing business. Promotion creates leads, nurtures clients, and links ventures.
And you don't want to lose your grip over marketing. But sometimes, you have to relinquish promotional activities due to lack of time.
With the help of automation, you need not skip it again.
There are automation software tools available online that help freelancers manage their online ad campaigns, post schedules, and other marketing activities in one place.
So, there will be a constant marketing flow from your end, even if you are unavailable.
Why Should Freelancers Automate Their Tasks?
Time is a crucial factor for every freelancer. And utilizing it most constructively is one of the traits of a good freelancer.
So, if you are also wondering why you should start to automate repetitive tasks, we have listed some benefits below.
Increases Free Time
When you automate your tasks, you get more free time.
For instance, scheduling a meeting can consume a lot of time, whereas you can save that time through automation.
So, it is always better to automate repetitive tasks to save more free time for yourself.
Enhances Productivity
As a freelancer, you should prioritize important tasks to enhance the productivity and efficiency of your freelancing business. You can become more productive by automating repetitive tasks.
Relieves Stress
Managing many tasks like emailing, scheduling, etc., can be overwhelming sometimes, which leads to stress. By automating these tasks, you can release excessive stress.
Reduces Errors
If you need to send a similar message to different people every day, manual typing can make errors.
So, it would be helpful to get the help of an automated system to do that task more efficiently and without error.
Conclusion
Lastly, freelancers should use the benefits of automation software tools in their freelancing business.
These tools are a great way to cut some extra time from tedious activities and utilize the same on essential things.
Overall, these tools provoke productivity, leading to a fruitful freelancing career.
Although, if you are starting with the automation tools for the first time, you need to learn some functions to run that software.
Once you have accomplished the task, the sky has no limit.
You can expand your freelance business, pitch more clients, close more deals, and earn more income.
