Skip to main content
Ownly

Eight jobs your business is probably still doing by hand

What each one looks like when it is not being done by a person any more, and the detail that decides whether it actually works. No sales pitch and no price, because the price depends on your business and that is a conversation.

What is in it

  1. Chasing unpaid invoices
  2. Writing quotes and estimates
  3. Booking people in
  4. Taking money at the right moment
  5. Typing the same thing into two places
  6. Answering where are you up to
  7. Getting information out of a new customer
  8. Working out where the business is up to

Cloudflare is running a quick check to filter out bots. It usually takes a second or two.

We use your address to send this and nothing else unless you tick the box above. See our privacy policy.

The guide

8 jobs · first part free

Chasing unpaid invoices

Somebody works out who has not paid, writes the awkward email, and forgets the second one. The people who ignore the first reminder mostly get away with it, because nobody has the appetite to send a third.

3 more parts in the guide

Writing quotes and estimates

Rebuilding more or less the same document every time, usually in the evening, because the day was for doing the work. Then wondering whether they opened it.

3 more parts in the guide

Booking people in

A phone call or a thread going back and forth to find a slot, writing it down somewhere, then remembering to remind them, then rearranging it when they cannot make it.

3 more parts in the guide

Taking money at the right moment

The work is agreed, then invoiced later, then chased. The gap between somebody saying yes and any money moving is measured in weeks, and some of them change their mind inside it.

3 more parts in the guide

Typing the same thing into two places

The same customer, job or invoice keyed into a second system, because the two do not talk to each other. Then a third place, because somebody keeps a spreadsheet nobody admits to.

3 more parts in the guide

Answering where are you up to

The same three questions, all day. Where are you up to, when are you coming, can you send that again. Each one is a small interruption to something that needed concentration.

3 more parts in the guide

Getting information out of a new customer

Asking for the same details by email, getting half of them, asking again, then finding the rest in a thread three weeks later when you need them.

3 more parts in the guide

Working out where the business is up to

Pulling numbers into a spreadsheet to answer the questions you ask every week: what is owed, what is booked, what is worth chasing, whether this month is better than last.

3 more parts in the guide

That is the problem. The guide is the fix.

You have read what each job costs you. What it looks like when it is handled, what actually changes, and the part worth knowing before you pay anyone to build it are the rest. Put your address in and it opens here straight away, as well as landing in your inbox to keep.

Send it to me