How to Automate Your Business: An Approach from the 90s That Actually Works

I think now is the best time ever for small and medium companies to get into automation. Here’s why. 

Everyone’s talking about business automation these days. And for good reason – we’re witnessing nothing short of an AI revolution. This isn’t just clickbait or marketing hype; it’s a fundamental shift in what computers can do. We’re seeing a serious breakthrough in computer cognitive capabilities, where machines are now doing tasks that were once the exclusive domain of humans.

Think about it – computers have learned to recognize images, interpret emotions, and even mimic human behavior remarkably well, especially in text and voice interactions. They’ve become incredibly proficient at creating video content too. I believe we’re entering a golden age of automation for small and medium-sized businesses.

Here’s what I’m seeing in the tech world: Big companies are struggling with their huge, complex systems, while smaller businesses are winning by using simple, specialized tools. Modern tools are becoming smaller, easier to use, and better at connecting with other tools. This shift, combined with rapid AI advances, gives smaller companies a real advantage – they can move fast and adapt while big players get stuck in endless meetings.

These tools are becoming increasingly accessible to small businesses. You can simply subscribe for $10, $20, $30, or $40 a month and start extracting value that multiplies your investment by tenfold – and I’m being conservative here. We’re often seeing returns of 100x, 300x, or even 400x on these investments.

This brings us to the crucial questions: How do you achieve this? What should you automate? How should you approach automation? The answer is actually quite straightforward, and we don’t need to reinvent the wheel. In my nine years of consulting experience, I’ve learned that back in the late 90s, consulting companies developed a set of questions, methodologies, and approaches that perfectly work today, even in the era of AI.

In this article, I want to share these insights with you. Let’s explore how you can transform your business through smart automation, making it more efficient while maintaining what makes it unique and freeing up your hands for more creative work. Oh, and did I mention that it’s an incredibly pleasing process that keeps you involved and passionate about your business!

What is Business Automation? 

To understand business automation, we first need to grasp what a business process is. I recently wrote an article explaining business processes, and I highly recommend reading it for a deeper understanding. But assuming you’re already familiar with the concept, let’s dive into what business automation really means.

At its core, business automation is the automation of business processes. These processes come in three distinct types: operational, supportive, and managerial. Each of these types is fundamentally different and requires a different approach to automation.

What do we mean by automation? Simply put, automation means something happens without your active involvement. Think about it this way: a business process is a sequence of actions that generates value for your customer, either directly or indirectly. Automation allows these actions to occur without human intervention.

Let me give you a practical example: order processing. In a traditional setup, a customer might call your office, send an email, or message you through chat. They say, “I want to order this and that.” The active human involvement happens when your company’s sales representative or customer support agent opens a form – whether it’s in Excel, your CRM system, or ERP system – and manually enters the order information, clicks a button, and starts the processing.

Now, automation of this process means the order processing happens without human intervention. The customer visits a system, adds items to their cart, or submits a request that the computer system automatically recognizes as an order. That’s automation in action.

Let’s talk about the levels of automation. In today’s world, we can identify five distinct degrees:

1. Fully Manual Process. These are rare nowadays, but think of a farmer selling produce at a market for cash – that’s a completely manual transaction.
2. Mostly Manual. Same scenario, but now the farmer uses a cash register or card payment system. The payment process is partially automated.
3. Improved Workflow. This is where AI has pushed many processes recently. It’s still mainly manual but with significant computer assistance. Think of writing product descriptions – you might use AI to generate ideas and drafts, but you still need human oversight.
4. Automatic with Human Inputs. This is where it gets interesting. For example, a client portal where customers can configure their products, but a human reviews the configuration before final approval.
5. Fully Automatic. Think Amazon – from order placement to robotic warehouse picking, automatic packaging, and potentially even drone delivery. The entire process runs without human intervention.

Let me share an example of management automation from Amazon. Imagine five people in Bavaria, Germany, all viewing a page for an iPhone 16 with 256GB storage. Amazon doesn’t have this iPhone model in their regional warehouse, and these people haven’t made any purchases – they’ve just viewed the page. Amazon’s automated system will actually make a management decision to move this phone model to that warehouse because, statistically, if five people view a product, at least one will buy it in the next few days. To ensure excellent customer service, they automatically trigger this inventory transfer. That’s a pure management decision being handled by automation.

This kind of management process automation is something that large companies like Amazon can attempt. Theoretically, you could automate your entire business chain, right up to management decisions. But let’s be realistic – for most small and medium businesses with 25, 100, or 200 employees, that’s neither practical nor necessary. Today, we’ll focus on processes that you can realistically automate with reasonable resources.

This approach to automation isn’t just about implementing technology. It’s about strategically choosing where automation can create the most value while maintaining the human elements that make your business unique. In my experience working with various clients, understanding these levels and choosing the right degree of automation for each process is crucial for successful business transformation.

How to Identify Processes Suitable for Automation

Let me share with you how to identify the right processes for automation in your business. When clients come to me wanting to automate their business, I always start with three crucial questions. These questions have consistently helped avoid expensive mistakes and find the real automation gold mines. Let me break them down for you.

Question 1: How many people will use this feature?

This might seem obvious, but it’s incredible how often it gets overlooked. I remember a client who wanted to automate a complex reporting process that, as it turned out, only one person used once a month. The impact just wasn’t there! The answer to this question helps me understand the potential impact on your company and your people. It’s like a compass that points us toward processes that will make a real difference.

Question 2: How often will this be used?

Let me share a real story that perfectly illustrates this. Back when I worked in a window and door sales company, we faced an interesting challenge. We were used to handling large projects – minimum $100,000 deals – but then started working with a distributor bringing in smaller, $10,000 projects. 

To maintain the same level of business, we couldn’t just create 10 times more quotes – we actually needed 25-30 times more! Here’s why: With our large projects, we had an impressively high conversion rate. Out of every three detailed quotes we prepared, we’d typically land one project – about a 33% conversion rate (I’m simplifying the numbers to illustrate the concept).

But when we began working with smaller contractors and projects, the dynamics completely changed. We found we needed to create about 10 quotes to win a single project. Our conversion rate dropped dramatically. 

So to generate the same revenue (though the profit margins were actually better), we suddenly needed to produce an exponentially higher volume of quotes. Our traditional, manual quote-generation process just couldn’t handle this change. We needed to go from creating 1-2 detailed quotes per day to 20-30-40 quotes daily.

This realization led us to develop an automated quoting tool. Now, it wasn’t perfect – the automated tool was less precise than our manual engineering calculations. But what we lost in precision, we gained in speed and volume. We could now generate dozens of quotes daily, which completely transformed our business approach.

This example shows why understanding frequency is so crucial. Sometimes, automation isn’t about doing the exact same thing faster – it’s about creating new capabilities that weren’t previously possible. The quality-versus-quantity tradeoff made perfect business sense in this context. We discovered a competitive advantage through automation that allowed us to serve a market segment we couldn’t effectively reach before.

When evaluating your own processes, ask yourself: “Would automation allow us to do something at a scale that’s currently impossible?” Sometimes the value of automation isn’t just efficiency – it’s enabling entirely new business capabilities. 

Question 3: What’s the cost versus what we’ll get in return?

Now, here’s where it gets interesting. Sometimes this isn’t just about numbers on a spreadsheet. How do you put a price tag on customer happiness? On better service quality? I often find myself making decisions that are part data, part intuition – and that’s okay! Sometimes you need to trust your gut while keeping an eye on the metrics.

From these questions, I’ve developed three main criteria for finding processes ripe for automation:

1. Number of Executions. This is your pure numbers play. Look for those high-frequency processes that happen over and over. They’re often hiding in plain sight! The more frequently something happens, the more impact automation will have.
2. Number of People Involved: Here’s a truth bomb: where there are people, there’s inefficiency. It’s not a criticism – it’s just reality. The more people involved in a process, the more opportunity there is for automation to make a significant impact. I see this as a 100% guaranteed rule. 
3. Cost of Execution or Added Value: Look for processes that directly touch your customers – order processing, support responses, quote generation. The speed of your response often equals the quality of customer experience. I’ve seen businesses transform their customer satisfaction just by automating these high-value touchpoints.

But here’s a crucial tip I’ve learned the hard way: don’t start with management processes! It’s a common mistake I see, especially in ambitious companies. Management processes are the most complex to automate. Only giants like Amazon can effectively do this – like their system that automatically moves inventory based on just five people viewing a product page! 

For small and medium businesses, the sweet spot is in operational processes. Start simple, start with what directly impacts your customers, and build from there. 

Key Tips for Automation

Let me share some tips that I’ve learned through working with clients.

First, and this might surprise you – don’t try to be original. I know, in business we often hear about innovation and thinking outside the box, but when it comes to automation, being a smart copycat can be your best strategy. Your industry is likely filled with companies that have already paved the way. Look at your competitors, look at adjacent industries, and shamelessly copy what works. When I started helping businesses with automation, I noticed that those who tried to reinvent the wheel often struggled, while those who adapted proven solutions moved forward faster.

Second tip – and this is something I’m particularly passionate about – be frugal. I’ve seen too many companies pour massive resources into complex automation solutions right from the start. Instead, what I always advise is to build your first version from “sticks and stones.” Make it super cheap, super simple, but functional. Think of it as your proof of concept. I remember working with a retail client who wanted to build a sophisticated inventory management system. Instead, we started with a basic spreadsheet automation that cost almost nothing – and guess what? It worked so well they kept using it for months. I think they still use it nowadays.

And finally, don’t try to find a system in all of this. Don’t attempt to plan your “digital strategy” for five years ahead. Many consultants will try to sell you their version of a “digital strategy” – they’ll promise to figure out your direction and create a comprehensive plan. But often what they’re really selling is just a basic roadmap of what to automate and in what sequence. 

Digital strategy isn’t actually about this – that’s a topic for another article. Your task is simply to find those frequently used processes with the most people involved that generate the highest value, then reduce their cost to nearly zero while increasing their efficiency. That’s it. Three things. No need to overcomplicate it. 

Instead, focus on what I call the “high-value quick wins.” These are processes that happen frequently and deliver immediate value to your business. Look for tasks that your team does repeatedly throughout the day. For instance, if your sales team spends two hours daily copying data between systems, that’s a perfect candidate for automation. It’s frequent, it’s time-consuming, and fixing it brings immediate value.

The key is to stay practical and focused on real business value. Don’t get distracted by shiny new technologies or complex strategies. Start small, learn from others, keep it simple, and focus on what matters most to your business operations. 

Remember, successful automation isn’t about having the most sophisticated system. It’s about having the right system that solves your specific business challenges effectively. This brings us to the next topic in today’s conversation – What software should you use for automation?

What Software to Use for Automation

When people ask me about software for automation, I always tell them there are three main domains you need to know about: CRM, ERP, and specialized industry systems. Let me break these down in a way that actually matters for your business.

First, let’s talk about CRM – your Customer Relationship Management system. A CRM is absolutely your foundation for all client-facing processes. Remember those high-value operational processes I mentioned earlier? The ones that generate the most value for your business? That’s where your CRM shines. It’s not just about storing customer contacts anymore. It’s where you manage your sales, handle customer service, and fulfill your commitments to clients. 

Think about it this way: if you’re in consulting, like me, your CRM is where you’re selling your intellectual capital. It’s housing your knowledge bases, managing your troubleshooting processes, and coordinating your project management. It’s the engine that powers your customer interactions.

Next up is ERP – Enterprise Resource Planning. While ERPs often handle what we call “supporting processes” like accounting, they can also be crucial for your core operations. If you’re in manufacturing, for instance, your ERP is where all your production processes live. It’s where those complex calculations happen – like figuring out the cost of producing a sophisticated mechanical component. While these systems might seem less exciting than CRMs, they’re the backbone of your operational efficiency.

Finally, we have industry-specific systems. These are the specialized tools that make your particular business tick. If you’re in logistics, you’ll need a TMS (Transportation Management System). Banks need their core banking systems for processing electronic transactions.

But here’s what I’ve learned after years in the field – your highest-value processes, the ones that really move the needle for your business, typically get automated through your CRM. Why? Because that’s where your customer interaction happens, and in today’s world, customer experience is everything.

The beauty of understanding these three domains is that it helps you make better decisions about where to invest your automation efforts. You don’t need to automate everything at once. You just need to know where your most important processes belong and start there.

Remember, these aren’t just abstract systems. They’re tools that should make your business run better. Choose them wisely, and they’ll become the foundation of your company’s growth. Get it wrong, and you’ll find yourself fighting with technology instead of having it work for you.

Implementation Strategies

Let me address a critical question that often comes up when businesses start their automation journey: who should actually handle the automation implementation? Personally, I see three main approaches, and choosing the right one can make or break your automation success.

Let’s break down your options. First, you could build an internal team – hiring developers, system architects, and administrators to handle everything in-house. Second, you could outsource the whole thing to a consulting company or technology partner. Third – and this is often the most practical approach – you could take a hybrid path, starting with outsourcing and gradually building your internal capabilities.

For small companies, especially those without massive resources, I have a very specific recommendation based on what I’ve seen work time and time again. Start by partnering with a small consulting company –  and yes, this is where I’ll do a quick plug for my own company, but hear me out on why this matters. 

Don’t go for the big consulting corporations. Why? When you’re one of a thousand clients, you’re just not going to get the attention and care your project needs. What you want is a hungry, motivated team that’s genuinely invested in your success. In my experience, companies with around 50 people or fewer tend to deliver the best results. They’re large enough to have deep expertise but small enough to really care about your success. 

But here’s the critical next step that many businesses miss – while working with your consulting partner, plan to bring at least one person in-house. This person will be your system administrator, your internal champion. They’ll handle the day-to-day operations – user management, data migrations, small configuration changes – all the things that shouldn’t require an external consultant.

I’ve seen this hybrid approach work beautifully across different industries. The external team brings expertise and best practices, while your internal admin ensures you’re not completely dependent on outside help.

This approach gives you the best of both worlds: expert guidance when you need it and internal capability for long-term sustainability. And in my experience, it’s the most cost-effective way for small businesses to build lasting automation success.

Common Concerns

Let me address some common concerns I hear when talking about automation.

First, let’s tackle the elephant in the room – what if you’re not tech-savvy? I hear this concern all the time, and my answer is refreshingly simple: you don’t have to be. The solution is straightforward – surround yourself with people who understand technology. You don’t need to be a tech expert yourself, but you do need to build relationships with people who can help automate your business effectively.

Now, here’s another concern that keeps coming up: “Won’t automation make my business feel impersonal?” This is where I see large companies often get it wrong, but here’s the truth – businesses don’t become impersonal because of automation. They become impersonal because they choose to be. Large corporations often feel cold and bureaucratic even without automation.

The solution? Don’t let your business become cold and bureaucratic in the first place. Here’s a practical example: if you’re implementing a chatbot for customer support, train it using transcripts from your best customer service representatives. Let their personality and problem-solving approach inform how your automated systems interact with customers. If the chatbot detects that a customer is frustrated – and yes, modern AI can recognize emotions – have it smoothly transfer them to a human representative.

Remember my golden rule: Don’t be an asshole. It’s that simple. Use automation to enhance human interaction, not replace it entirely.

The key is finding the right balance between automation and human touch. Automation should handle repetitive tasks, freeing up your team to focus on what humans do best – building relationships, solving complex problems, and adding that personal touch that makes your business special. 

Think of automation as a tool to amplify your human capabilities, not replace them. When implemented thoughtfully, it actually allows your team to be more personal and attentive in their interactions because they’re not bogged down by routine tasks.

Conclusion

Business automation is no longer a luxury. It’s a necessity for small and medium businesses that want to stay competitive in the age of AI. Throughout this article, we’ve covered:

• What automation really means and how it applies to operational, supportive, and managerial processes.
• The five levels of automation, from fully manual to fully automatic.
• How to identify the right processes using three key questions: How many people use it? How often is it used? What’s the cost vs. return?
• The core systems that matter – CRM, ERP, and industry-specific tools.
• Implementation strategies that balance external expertise with in-house ownership for long-term success.
• Common concerns about automation, and how to ensure it strengthens rather than weakens human relationships.

The key takeaway: automation works best when it’s practical, simple, and focused on processes that bring the most value.

If you’re ready to explore business automation for your company, reach out to us. We’ll take a close look at your processes, identify the highest-value opportunities, and help you automate in a way that’s effective, scalable, and tailored to your business!