Save time and improve quality with templates

As a solopreneur, using your time well is one of the most important things you can do.  Anywhere you can be more efficient while maintaining quality will help you have a more profitable and fulfilling business.  When you wear all the hats in your business, every single thing you do has to have a purpose and somehow help your bottom line.

One of my favorite efficiency techniques is using templates.  A template helps you to do tasks more quickly by giving you a place to start or often a complete version of the end result.  You can create templates for a variety of purposes such as:

• Social media updates
• Answers to questions you are asked often
• Initial contact with a new person
• Emails for various purposes
• Promotional copy for specific events

If you have a task you know you’ll be doing again and again, begin creating your template the very first time you do the task.  Revise it each time until you have the best possible version you can create.  Be sure to test your template to make sure it works.  Here are a few ideas to test your templates and see how well they are working:

• When you answer a question, does it resolve the issue for the other person or do you get more questions?
• Does the person take the action you direct them to take?
• If you are asking for something such as information in your template, do you get what you need?
• What kind of feedback are you getting?

Templates can be stored in a variety of ways depending on how and where you use them.  Social media tools such as Hootsuite let you save drafts right inside them.  Anything written can be stored in a plain text editor or word processing document.  Any initial contact can be done via a form designed for the specific person using it (e.g. a potential customer, a vendor, a strategic partner, etc).

Start using templates as soon as you can.  They will save you time and allow you to do better quality work.  The people you deal with will get more consistent action from you and you’ll have more time to do creative and innovative work.

Templates are just one of the bonus strategies I cover in my book The Solopreneur’s Success Strategy: Automate Your Grunt Work.  In the book I teach you 9 automation strategies so you can spend less time doing repetitive boring tasks.  I also give you 3 bonus strategies (including how to use templates) that are related to automation.  Grab the book on Kindle at the link below (you don’t need a Kindle device, scroll below the link for more information):

The Solopreneur’s Success Strategy: Automate Your Grunt Work

Note: You do not need a Kindle device to read Kindle books.  You can get a free tablet or phone app or use the Kindle desktop reader.  Click the book link above and explore the options in the Kindle store.