How To Find Your First Automation Quick Win

If you have ever thought, ‘There has to be a better way than this,’ but have no idea where to start with automation, you are not alone.​

Most managers are surrounded by tools, subscriptions and half-built workflows, but still feel stuck doing too much by hand.​ The good news: there usually is a better way. And the even better news is you probably already know where to start.​

Start with the friction

When people say, “I don’t know where to start with automation,” they usually mean, “I don’t know which tools to connect, which triggers to use, or how to wire up the workflow without breaking anything.”

So, they go looking for tool tutorials, comparison videos and endless lists of automation ideas. That is the wrong place to start.

The first decision is not which tool to use. It is where automation will make the biggest difference in your business.

Forget the tools for a moment and look at the friction in your week. Ask yourself:

  • Where do I feel the most friction?
  • Where am I copy-pasting data between tools that should already talk to each other?
  • Which broken process frustrates me the most, the one that only works when I remember every step?

That is your starting point.

What this looks like

These are the kinds of starting points we see again and again:

  • New leads arrive in your inbox but never make it into your CRM unless someone copies them over.
  • Proposals go out, but no follow-up task is created, so the next step depends on memory.
  • A deal is marked as won, but the invoice is still created manually days later, and the client record must be updated in three places.
  • A client books a call, but nothing updates your internal pipeline, so nobody has a clear view of what is coming next.

None of these are advanced automation projects. They are simple, repeatable processes that leak time and revenue when they rely on manual effort.

Build a problem list

If you are still thinking, “I don’t know where to start with automation,” treat this next week as data collection, not decision-making. Instead of brainstorming ideas, build a simple problem list from the way your business already works.

This approach is inspired by Layla Pomper, founder of ProcessDriven, who discussed on TropicalMBA how small teams need simple ways to spot mistakes and improve how they work day to day.

Step 1: Capture problems as they happen

Keep one place open all week where you can jot things down quickly. Use a Google Doc, a note on your phone, a shared sheet or a notepad. The tool does not matter. What matters is that everything goes in one place.

At the top of the page, write: “Annoying tasks we did this week.”

Every time you hit something repetitive, fragile, or annoying, write it down in one line. For example:

  • Copied new lead details from email into HubSpot.
  • Created invoice in Xero after marking deal as won in Pipedrive.
  • Checked three tools to see if client had paid.

Step 2: Do it for a full week

Do this for five working days. By the end of the week, you will have a list of real problems. Patterns will start to show up:

  • The same action gets repeated.
  • The same information gets moved around.
  • The same ‘if X happens, I need to remember Y’ moment keeps appearing.

That is exactly where automation helps.

Step 3: Tag each item fast

At the end of the week, spend 15 minutes tagging each line with two things:

  • Effort: H, M, or L (High, Medium or Low)
  • Frequency: a rough number for how many times it happened that week

For example:

  • Copied new lead details from email into HubSpot, H, 18
  • Created invoice in Xero after marking deal as won in Pipedrive, M, 5
  • Checked three tools to see if client had paid, H, 12

Step 4: Run it across the team

This works even better when the whole team does it. Ask each person involved in sales, operations, delivery or finance to keep their own list for the week using the same format.

At the end of the week, bring the lists together. You will usually find the same task showing up in multiple roles, hidden busywork that nobody realised others were doing, and a handful of tasks with high total frequency across the team.

Those are strong candidates for automation because one fix saves time for several people at once.

Step 5: Pick one quick win

Now look for tasks that score high on both effort and frequency. Do not pick the cleverest idea. Pick the one that happens often, wastes time, and would make the week noticeably easier if it just worked.

That is your quick win.

Bring us the list

At this point, you have already done the hard part. You have captured how your business really works, and where it is currently held together by copy-paste, memory and good intentions.

Bring us the list and we will help you:

  • Choose the right quick win to start with.
  • Map out what should happen, step by step.
  • Build the workflow in the tools you already use.

You do not need to know how to wire it all together. You just need to know where it hurts. We will build the automation to fix it.

Ready to choose a quick win?

Book a free 30-min call and we will help you choose one quick win, map the workflow, and show you what should be automated first.