Tech Tools for Small Business: 5 Things to Automate Before You Hire

If you’re successfully growing a creative or small business, often around year 2, you’ll tip over the edge of overwhelm. People will give you all sorts of advice and someone (probably a man) will counsel you to hire an assistant. But I’m going to be bold and make the blanket statement: don’t listen. This advice is outdated; it’s not for 2025. You may temporarily stop the bleed, but you won’t repair the wound. For in this day and age, before you hire, you should be using the many tech tools at your small business disposal.

In the past, administrative assistants did tasks like managing scheduling, invoicing, handling email requests, and follow-ups. But today’s technology can handle rote work with automation, ease, and more accuracy than a person. By leveraging the right tech tools for small business, you can streamline your processes and free your time for high-value work before you hire. This saves you money; and it also ensures that when you do hire help, your future employee or contractor truly adds value. And I realize that this raises societal concerns about tech replacing jobs, but I’m steadfast in my stance: this is good for everyone. It creates real growth opportunities for people’s careers.

Before we dig into some specific examples, I want to share something I learned in a 2002 Honors MIS class (do you hear that, Dave Sellers? I was in an honors technology class!). It’s a philosophy that’s shaped the view I share with you today. The prof said,

If you have a repetitive computing task, Excel can do it for you and better than you.

Over two decades later, this statement holds true with a big update: computing power is exponentially better than 23 years ago. And it’s not just Excel at our fingertips; we now have thousands (millions?) of tech tools that can do any repetitive thing we can dream of. Implemented well, it will free our human brains for more critical thinking and more creative work.

Here are 5 tasks you should automate before you hire (and the tech tool for small business that we used), to get you started:

1. Automate Scheduling – Calendly

Booking meetings, prospect and client calls, and Business Development 1-1s is a time and energy drain, not to mention a pointless distraction. You’ve heard me talk about the power of Calendly. And its functionality keeps getting better and better.

Using a scheduling tool eliminates unnecessary back-and-forth emails. With a simple link, people internally and externally can choose an available time that fits both your and their schedule. The system hooks into your email provider and automatically sends invites, confirmations, and reminders. And if someone needs to reschedule, they can self-serve and reschedule themselves, without sending you an email. The customization capabilities run deep: you can have multiple types of meetings, all with different parameters. A scheduling tool will protect you from, well… yourself.

Here’s an example of one of my rule sets:

• I batch my client meetings on Tuesdays and Thursdays.
• These meetings are 75 minutes.
• I require a 15-minute break between them.
• I restrict myself to 3 per day, so that my brain stays fresh and high-functioning.
• I start at 9a, and my last one is no later than 3:30p.
• Clients receive a 48-hour reminder of the meeting, and a poke to complete and upload their CEO [Home]work.

I have programmed these requirements into Calendly, and she’s my gatekeeper (mostly from myself). And of course: there are times to make exceptions, so I override the rules when it’s warranted. But 80% of the time, the tech can and should manage this for me.

2. Streamline Invoicing & Payments – Bill.com

No one likes to create, receive, or issue payment for an invoice. It’s not fun for the provider, and it’s not fun for the receiver. Five or six years ago, at Ellevated Outcomes, we moved from invoicing through PayPal to Bill.com. And as the one who’s in charge of our business’s finances, I’m not sure there’s another tech tool I’m more thankful for.

Yes, invoicing is a task and one that (can) require one’s time and effort. But I’ve found that for many of our clients, especially creatives, invoicing and collecting money requires emotional effort too. Especially when you have to follow-up for payments, charge late fees, etc.

For a client to work with us, we require they agree to automatic debit. We outline the terms, pricing, and expectations with complete clarity upfront so that there are no surprises. We bill clients annually or monthly, and we set it and forget it with Bill.com. It creates an easeful experience for us and for them.

Our business doesn’t have much AP, but if we did, this tech could manage that side of the accounting department too. In addition, it syncs with QuickBooks (and other accounting platforms). Because of Bill.com, a firm of our size and efficiency doesn’t need an outsourced bookkeeper, saving us $10K-$25K per year. This process is so streamlined that I organize and complete our monthly finances in 90 minutes, once per month.

3. Follow-Up / Accountability – Text Delay

This is so, so simple – but it’s a recent upgrade in the Apple universe that has me over the moon (and I’m told that in Android-verse it’s old hat): text delay.

One of the most powerful ways you can stand out with clients, vendors, partners, and your internal team or boss, is by having impeccable follow-up. When you say you’re going to do something or follow-up on a later date, do it. Believe me: you will stand out from the pack, if you do. 95% of people don’t follow-through.

In the old days (read: a few months ago), if I told someone I’d follow-up with them on xx date, I set a suspense – either in my trusty planner or in my reminder app. But now, I eliminate that step. I write the follow-up when I commit to it, then I “Send Later” at the future date and time.

I do this for client anniversaries, accountability check-ins, and I recently used it on a larger scale for my annual Random Act of Kindness Day text blitz. February 17th fell on a holiday, so I composed my personalized texts to each client, employee, and partner ahead of time, then scheduled them to send while I was out of the office.

4. Streamline Contracts & Workflows – Dubsado

Having a process for prospecting, proposals/orders, and client fulfillment is key. Even if you are and want to remain a solopreneur forever, streamlining and automating the flow of your client-kickoff will give you capacity. Here’s a client example, where streamlining this process decreased a maker’s proposal/order process time, by 98%.

We use Dubsado to onboard clients with automated lead questionnaires, info capture, and contracts. Each of these milestones is automatically triggered by a set of rules and workflow actions, ensuring a consistent Ellevated Outcomes onboarding experience.

Truthfully, Dubsado isn’t as tech-flexible as I’d like it to be; but for our business it’s a pretty good option that handles a lot. Eventually, we may move to something more technically sophisticated and multi-variate, but it’s very, very good for “the 80%.”

And this raises an important point about selecting tech tools too: let tech do the 80%. Don’t hold out for 100%; if you can secure a tool that does 80% of the thing you’re trying to do, don’t hire. Use tech.

5. Better Email Management – Delay Send, Templates, & Filters

Would you believe me if I told you that across 2024, I spent 42 hours on email? For the whole year. <1 hour per week; that is the power of tech tools for small business.

Here are the email functions that I use again and again, and they’re in both Microsoft & Google suite:

• Delay Send (used in the same way I described text “Send Later”),
• Templates, and
• Filters.

Templates are a simple solution to emails you write repeatedly. Here’s a rule of thumb:

Anything you’ve written 3 times, needs a template.

Here are a few examples of my Outlook templates, ready to go at the click of a button:

• My OOO message and OOO heads-up to clients;
• Expectations for milestone client meetings (first meeting, mid-way goal review, and last meeting);
• Scheduling Bus Dev 1-1s (of course including that Calendly link); and
• Internal, repeat emails: like quarterly notifications to the team of their retirement deposits.

And lastly, filters. Many of us receive dozens (hundreds?) of emails per day, most of which have no added value. Applying automated tagging or filters clears the clutter, while keeping your digital filing cabinets organized and ensuring things get to the right place or person. In my email, recurring charge emails (like for said tech systems) are automatically forwarded to Quickbooks, then filed in the right Outlook folder. They’re in my “filing cabinet,” but I never lay eyes on them. Other email boxes I’m responsible for have rules set, so that only emails that meet certain requirements come directly to me. Others are filtered and filed.

In a client example, Erin Wolff did an organization deep dive with a client who runs a high-transaction professional services business. She helped him set up an email, phone, and text filter system that, in his words, is “doing a really good job of protecting me. It’s given so much time and energy back.” He estimates this has cut his call and email volume by 50-80%.

Before You Hire, Set up Systems and Automate with Tech Tools

Before you hire someone (especially an admin), invest in tech that frees up your time, creative energy, and money. By setting up strategic systems for scheduling, invoicing, follow-ups, client onboarding, and email management, you can focus on value-adding, creative growth.

Then, when you’re really ready to hire, you’ll invest in someone whose career you can advance, while ensuring your business gets the most value from them. You’ll run a more efficient and and more creative business, stay in control, and your next hire will really count.