The average SMB employee spends 3 to 5 hours per week on repetitive tasks that could be automated. Across a team of 10, that's 30 to 50 hours per week — or the equivalent of a full-time employee doing nothing but manual data entry and copying information between systems. Here are the five automation workflows that deliver the most impact for our clients.
1. New Lead to CRM with Instant Notification
When a new enquiry comes in through your website, this workflow automatically creates a contact in your CRM, sends a Slack or WhatsApp notification to your sales team, and triggers a personalised welcome email to the lead. Response time drops from hours to minutes, and no lead falls through the cracks.
2. Social Media Content Scheduling Pipeline
Our clients maintain an editorial spreadsheet or Notion database. When a content piece is marked 'approved,' the automation formats it for each platform (Instagram, LinkedIn, Facebook), schedules it through Buffer or Hootsuite, and creates a tracking entry for performance monitoring. What used to take 2 hours per day now takes 15 minutes per week.
3. Order Confirmation and Status Updates
For e-commerce and manufacturing clients, this workflow triggers at each stage of the order lifecycle. When an order is placed, the customer gets a branded confirmation email. When it ships, they get tracking details. When it's delivered, they get a feedback request. The client's team never touches the notification system — it's fully automated from their order management tool.
4. Invoice Generation and Payment Reminders
When a project is marked as complete in the management system, an invoice is automatically generated in the accounting software, sent to the client, and scheduled for follow-up reminders at 7, 14, and 30 days if unpaid. This eliminates the awkward 'chasing payment' conversations and ensures consistent cash flow.
5. Weekly Report Compilation and Distribution
Every Monday morning, this workflow pulls data from Google Analytics, social media platforms, CRM, and project management tools, compiles it into a formatted report, and emails it to the relevant stakeholders. The entire report generation process — which typically takes someone 3 to 4 hours — happens automatically while the team sleeps.
The Tools We Use
Most of these workflows are built using Zapier, Make (formerly Integromat), or n8n — depending on the client's existing tech stack and complexity requirements. For simpler automations, Zapier is quickest. For complex multi-step workflows with conditional logic, Make or n8n provides more power and better pricing at scale.
Automation setup and maintenance is included in our Full-Stack and Enterprise subscription plans. Tell us which repetitive tasks are eating your team's time, and we'll build the workflows to eliminate them.