Small business

For an owner with no IT department, limited time, and a real question about what to do on Monday.

1. Start with the writing you resent

   Quotes, proposals, job ads, policies, follow-up emails, the same explanation for the fortieth time. This is where the time goes and where the tools are genuinely good. Do not start with anything customer-facing and automated.

   What good looks like: Two hours a week back, within a fortnight.

2. Pay for one tool, not five

   One paid subscription on the business account, used properly, beats five free tools used occasionally. Paid tiers also generally come with a commitment not to train on your material, which the free ones often do not. Budget twenty to fifty dollars a month per person who will actually use it.

   What good looks like: One tool, on the business account, that you open daily.

3. Write down what never goes in

   Customer personal details, anything you have been given in confidence, bank and payment information, staff records. A single sheet on the wall, agreed with everyone. This is a five-minute job that prevents the only category of problem here that is genuinely expensive.

   What good looks like: Everyone can name three things that never get pasted in.

4. Check anything that leaves the building

   Quotes, contracts, anything with a number, anything with a name, anything going to a customer or a regulator. The output is fluent and confident whether or not it is right, and fluency is exactly what stops people checking.

   What good looks like: A habit, not a policy.

5. Automate only after you have done it by hand for a month

   Build the automation once you know the shape of the work and where it goes wrong. Automating a process you have not yet understood mostly automates the mistakes, faster and at scale.

   What good looks like: One automated thing that you would notice if it stopped.

6. Tell customers when it is a machine

   If something answers customers directly, say so. The reputational cost of being caught is much larger than the cost of disclosure, and disclosure turns out to bother people far less than businesses expect.

   What good looks like: A line on the page that you are comfortable with.

Reviewed 2026-09-20 · All playbooks