19 systems you can build to help your small business grow

1

Create a consistent brand

Brand guidelines ensure consistency across all your assets and touchpoints. They’re also a big time saver because they reduce the need for decision-making around style, voice, and design every time you create content.

Consider defining brand guidelines and building them into all your document templates. You’ll save time with every piece of content you produce.

2

Plan your content

Content marketing can be time consuming. Creating your content in batches can help you save time. It starts with planning your content topics well in advance, so that you’re not agonizing over what to write about when you face my blank page.

Creating a content calendar lets you map out your content plan well ahead of time. And if you work with a team, you can use your content calendar to assign responsibilities, set due dates, and send out email reminders to keep the process flowing smoothly.

I use SmartSheet for my content calendar, but you could also use one of many off-the-shelf tools, WordPress plugins, or even a simple spreadsheet.

3

Research your content

Once you’ve decided what content to produce, you’ll start collecting ideas for the posts. Sometimes, the ideas will come to you when you’re doing other things. You need an easy way to capture those ideas when they strike.

I use Evernote to create a virtual notebook for each of the articles I’ll be writing. If I come across interesting quotes, stats, and perspectives related to my topic, I slip them into my notebook so that they’re handy when I’m ready to research and write my post.

Evernote is just my preference. You could just as easily use file folders or, like Andy Crestodina of Orbit Media, a spreadsheet. (Check out point number 3 in this post on 7 Habits of Highly Effective Content Marketers to see how Andy captures content ideas quickly.)

4

Promote your content (checklist)

Creating quality content is only the beginning. If you don’t want that content to live and die in obscurity, there’s some work to do to get it seen—from SEO, to conversion optimization, to social sharing, to influencer outreach.

There are 27 steps—yes, 27—I follow every time I write a post. Here is a checklist I used for years to make sure that I didn’t skip a step. You can too:

5

Promote your content (Tasks)

My content checklist works very well for the tasks I can do in advance of publishing a new posts. But there are many tasks I can tackle only after the post is live.

How do I make sure I get those done? The answer rests on the very happy marriage of two of my favourite productivity tools:

• IFTTT (short for If This Then That)
• My beloved 2Do app

Every time I hit publish on a WordPress post, IFTTT gets busy. First, it sends me an email to remind me the post is live. Then, it communicates with 2Do (the To Do app without which I would surely die) to automatically add these tasks to my list:

1. Inspect the post URL on Google Search Console.
2. Add a pop-up with a relevant lead magnet to the post.
3. Add internal links to this post from other relevant posts on my blog.
4. Schedule the post to be shared on social media.
5. Answer relevant questions on Quora with a link to the post.
6. Reach out to anyone I cited in my post.
7. Reach to influencers who’ve shared similar content.
8. Syndicate the article on Medium with a Rel Canonical tag to avoid duplicate content issues.

6

Create your social images

Visuals make your content more shareable on social media. But it can take time to create social images that are consistent with your brand guidelines, not to mention correctly proportioned for each platform.

You can speed up the task and ensure it’s done well by using templates that are already correctly sized and loaded up with your go-to colours and fonts.

I’ve built my own templates in Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator, complete with Adobe Scripts and Actions to automate the process. But if you don’t have the software or inclination, don’t worry: A Canva Pro membership lets you create a brand kit to ensure consistency, and magically resizes your social images.

7

Share your content on social media

You could, if you wanted to, share each of your posts on each of your social media platforms one at a time. But why would you, when there are so many great tools (like Hootsuite, Buffer, and Edgar to name a few) that can help you schedule each post to all your platforms in one go?

I use SmarterQueue to schedule my social posts. In addition to letting me share my content to all my networks at once, SmarterQueue also lets me re-share my evergreen content on rotation and over time.

8

Reach out to influencers

What do you do to promote your content when you don’t yet have your own social following? Look for people who:

1. Have a social following
2. Have an interest in the topic you’ve written about
3. Have a good track record for sharing other people’s content

Then, reach out to those people and tell them about your content. The process can be very time consuming but it can deliver real results if you do it right. I’ve outlined the process I use to automate my influencer outreach, using BuzzSumo and SmarterQueue. Here’s a quick visual summary:

9

Win more subscribers

Up until now, we’ve been talking about systems to help you attract visitors to your site. But that isn’t your end goal. What you really want is to turn your site visitors into customers.

But what about the visitors who don’t convert to customers on the first visit? You can sign them up to your email list and nurture your relationship with them by email until they’re ready to buy.

Every piece of content you produce should be part of a larger system, that goes something like this:

1. Someone visits your site to read your quality article.
2. She sees a pop-up or link to download a free resource that delivers even more value on the topic that brought her to your site in the first place.
3. She gives you her email address so that you can send her the resource, which she loves and which makes her trust you more.
4. You maintain regular contact with her by sending her quality content in her inbox, nurturing your relationship with her until she is ready to become your customer.

Need more guidance on turning visitors into subscribers? Click here.

10

Schedule meetings

Have you ever tried to set up a call with a prodpect, and have to back and forth several times to find a window that works for everyone? I know I have.

Your answer might be a free online appointment scheduling software like Calendly, which allows your prospects to pick a suitable time from your available slots.

11

Price out your offerings

Pricing decisions are exhausting. There are so many factors to consider—from your costs, to the perceived value of your offering, to what your competition is charging. Making the wrong decision, in the heat of contract discussions, can lead to inconsistent pricing and—worse yet—to losing proposals that you could have won.

Try creating price lists ahead of time for your different products or services. If your pricing is highly customized to each sale, consider creating a pricing calculator that factors in your different costing variables. It will make it easier and faster to issue proposals that you can be confident in.

And speaking of proposals…

12

Create winning proposals

Preparing proposals can be very time consuming when you start from scratch every time. Next time you prepare a winning proposal, create a template from it.

You can use that template as a starting point when a similar opportunity comes along. It will save you time and ensure you cover important points.

You could also use a service like Bidsketch to create professional proposals in less time, and receive notification when clients view your proposal.

13

Welcome new customers

The way you welcome new customers can create a great first impression and to set expectations for what is to come.

Consider drafting a standard welcome message that outlines some basic information about what your customers can expect from working with you. Make the message easy to customize for each client.

For Exaltus, I’ve created a special whiteboard video to welcome each new client. Most of the video is pre-made, but I’ve made certain parts easily customizable for each new client. (If you want to see it, you’ll have to become a customer. 😉)

14

Gather information from new customers

When you start working with a new customer, is there information you need from them in order to get started? Consider preparing a standardized discovery questionnaire that includes all the questions you need answered in order to do your work.

A discovery questionnaire will ensure that you remember to collect all relevant information without constantly peppering your customer with questions.

And if your questions are complex and require a discussion, a discovery questionnaire can still be useful. You can fill it out with your customer during your meeting, or even fill it in by yourself afterward to keep as a reference and to share with other project members.

Here’s an example of a discovery questionnaire we use with customers at the start of a new website project:

15

Onboard your customers

The start of a new project can be unsettling for a new customer who has just committed to you and isn’t quite sure what to expect. Mishandling your customers at this stage can lead to buyer’s remorse and stain the rest of your relationship.

To ensure a consistently positive onboarding experience, I use TextExpander to send a series of onboarding emails to my clients—from the very first welcome message, through to key stages of the project. All it ever takes is a few keystrokes.

16

Provide on-demand status updates

Checking in regularly with clients during a longer-term project can contribute to a feeling of confidence and stability. (By contrast, nothing creates more uncertainty than a supplier who suddenly goes dark for long periods of time.)

I like to provide a very visual map of the project status that customers can consult at their convenience. Here is an example:

17

Collect feedback from customers

The end of a successful mandate is a great opportunity to ask for feedback and testimonials, and to let your client know about other ways to do business with you.

I created my own invoicing application in Microsft Excel with VBA. Here’s how it works:

1. When I invoice a client, the system asks me if this will be the last invoice.
2. If I answer ‘yes’ Excel automatically prepares a client email asking them to complete a satisfaction survey and letting them know about my other services.
3. The survey asks clients if they’d be willing to provide a testimonial.

Here is a sample of the letter that goes out to clients at the end of a mandate:

18

Reactivate past customers

Do you have customers that you loved to work with, but that you haven’t spoken to in a long time? What would it take to bring them back?

Use your CRM to systematically reengage past customers, tell them about your new offerings, and share special offers or discounts.

19

Optimize your website traffic

However well your business is running today, you could probably be doing better. One good place to find improvements is your website. Is it optimized to attract droves of qualified visitors to your site and turn them into customers, or does it need a tune-up?

Create a Google Analytics dashboard to keep your finger on the pulse of your website traffic and to drive regular improvement.

For Exaltus and several clients, I’ve built a monthly dashboard that monitors my website activity, flags major problems and opportunities, and automatically suggests areas for improvements. Here’s a sample from the dashboard: