What I’ve learned from a mastermind with autopreneurs
Last month, I was on a mastermind with fellow entrepreneurs. We all had 1 thing in common: we made money, literally, while hiking and having fun.
Our businesses never stopped.
Yours truly during an amazing morning hike with fellow entrepreneurs.
Automation = Time Freedom!
Now, making my business keep running and making money is credited to one thing and one thing only: automation. It’s really the key to setting yourself up for time freedom without losing any of your valuable income potential.
And, if you’re after that, you should really look into it.
I would rather live a life where I can enjoy my time while making sure everything goes according to plan and scaling never stops than have to work for every “billable” hour in my life. You know, life’s short. Time is limited.
🍿 Highly recommend watching this vlog of mine, where I’m sharing more about how I work with systems and automation:
How do I automate?
In this post, I wanted to give you 3 examples of systems I created that are making sure I can grow my business by just spending a couple of hours a day.
Also, don’t forget to grab my free Solopreneur Starters Kit course and my free Solopreneur Tool Kit Notion Template :)
I’ve shared it before, but this is literally my calendar:
1. Content Automation
So, if you’ve been following me, you probably seen me post a lot of content across my social media channels such as YouTube, Instagram, LinkedIn, and Twitter.
And most of the content is designed because of systems I created in just 2 or 3 hours of deep work each week and then automated by tools.
System
In my Notion, I created an advanced system that starts out with an “idea” which then turns into a Tweet/LinkedIn post, then into a short-form video, newsletter, and eventually this blog post.
My Notion System.
This system helps me store my new content ideas, write the actual content, and to then schedule and outline the strategy of posting.
Automation
But, writing is one thing, we have to make sure it actually gets posted.
This is where automation comes in, and, for my content creation, I’m using 2 tools called Buffer and Hypefury.
With these tools, I schedule all of my content for the upcoming weeks or even months.
As you can see, I currently have more than 60 (!) posts scheduled into the future.
Because of this system and automation, I can post to and grow my social media accounts on autopilot with minimum effort.
And yes, theoretically, I could use ChatGPT to generate the content as well, which would make it fully automated, but I don’t know; call me old-fashioned; I just like to write myself. It feels good, more natural, and keeps me authentic.
2. Customer Support
So, another thing I “automate” is customer support for all of my different businesses such as my SaaS product Upvoty.
System
The system for this one is pretty simple: it’s using a chat service like Crisp, which is set up to collect customer support requests aSync. Meaning: I can answer whenever I’m ready and available.
The little Crisp chat bubble is visible everywhere: from our marketing site to within our software, making it possible for our prospects and users to contact support anytime they need.
Automation
Now, the fun begins with its automation. With tools like Crisp, you can easily automate stuff by setting up a chatbot for basic questions like “How can I log in?” where it’ll just answer and give the user the correct URL, for example.
However, you can do more complex automation as well, such as assigning a co-worker based on keywords and topic, or, in case of an emergency, I can be pinged on my phone and/or email, and I know I have to jump straight in.
Working with aSync with a customer support tool makes it easier to have time freedom but also to provide great support.
I’d also highly recommend working Async with your team using tools like Loom, Slack, and Spendspark.
3. Automate Recurring tasks
One of the things I always recommend to my SaaS coaching clients is automating every manual and recurring task. You can do this perfectly with Zapier or TaskMagic.
I literally automate the sh*t out of all manual and recurring tasks.
Automating the small recurring manual tasks will immediately free up your time and make either time to work on more important and complex stuff, or, do things like me and go to masterminds, hikes, traveling, and whatnot :).
Work 24/7 to get things up and running.
— Mike Strives (@mikestrives) June 10, 2024
Then automate.
Shift your mindset from being an “entrepreneur” to an “autopreneur”
Hopefully, my article helps you shift your mindset from being an “entrepreneur” to being an “autopreneur.” Because that’s really how you need to think, especially when being a solopreneur and running your business solely, like I do.