Six jobs, with example figures
Example figures for a made up sole trader. Not a promise.
| Job | By hand, example | Once it runs on its own | Time back each month, example |
|---|---|---|---|
| Replying to new enquiries | 10 a week, about 5 minutes each typing the same answers | An automatic reply goes at once, and a ready made answer takes a minute to check and send | About 2 hours 40 minutes |
| Appointment reminders | 10 a week, about 3 minutes each to text or ring | Your booking tool sends a reminder before each one | About 2 hours |
| Following up quotes | 5 a week, about 5 minutes each to find who is waiting and write to them | A tracker shows which quotes need a follow up, and a ready made follow up takes a minute | About 1 hour 20 minutes |
| Chasing unpaid invoices | 1 a week, about 15 minutes to look it up and write a polite reminder | Your invoicing program sends the reminder when it is overdue | About 1 hour |
| Typing enquiries into a spreadsheet | 10 a week, about 3 minutes each | Your enquiry form saves the details to your sheet | About 2 hours |
| Asking for reviews | 10 jobs a week, about 2 minutes each, when you remember | One friendly message goes to every customer after each job | About 1 hour 20 minutes |
| Example total | About 10 hours 20 minutes a month |
In this example that is about 10 hours 20 minutes a month, or about 2 hours 35 minutes a week. For someone who does the admin after tea, that is most of one evening, every week.
Automatic replies, reminders, review requests and forms that fill in your sheet are Business automation. If you would rather have a person draft your enquiry replies and invoice reminders, that is Help with admin. The quote tracker that shows who needs a follow up is Spreadsheets sorted.
Put in your own numbers. A rough guess is fine.
The example figures are already filled in. Change any box to match your week.
An estimate from the numbers above. Nothing you type is saved or sent by this page.
Email us your numbersYour email opens with these figures already written in, ready to send.
Want a firmer figure? Time it next week.
You only need your phone and one normal week.
- Pick the job that annoys you most.
- Count how many times you do it in a normal week, and time one with the stopwatch on your phone. Most people guess low.
- Multiply the times a week by the minutes each, then by four. That is your minutes each month.
- Take off the minute or so it would still take you, then divide by 60 to get hours.
A worked example. Say you ring 8 customers a week to remind them about their appointment, and each call takes about 4 minutes. 8 calls at 4 minutes is 32 minutes a week. Four weeks makes 128 minutes, a little over 2 hours. If your booking tool sent the reminders instead, that is about 2 hours a month back.
Do the same for the next job, and add them up. Then keep the parts customers like hearing from you, such as the real answer to their question, and hand over the typing.
About the figures
Your week will be different from this example, which is why your own count matters more than ours.
They leave out the time it takes to set things up, and the odd minute checking that things still work. We count a month as four weeks to keep the sums simple, so a real month comes out a little higher.
Some jobs give back very little. If one of yours cannot be done well with the programs you already use, we say so before any work starts. Sometimes the answer is a better ready made email, not a new app.
Tell us your numbers. Send us the jobs you counted and roughly how long each one takes. A rough guess is fine. Someone will get back to you within 48 hours with what we would take on first and a fixed price, or a question. If a job is not worth paying us for, we will say so.
Jobs start from £120, with the price agreed before we start and one round of changes included. If the same jobs come round every month, monthly support gives you a regular slot, 5 hours from £150 a month or 10 hours from £300 a month. Hours do not roll over, so we use your numbers to suggest the right amount of time.
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- Five jobs a small business can stop doing by hand. What can take each job over, often with tools you already pay for.
- Try a working enquiry system. Send a test enquiry and watch it saved to a sheet, answered and passed on, all on its own.