Think of this as your master automation list. Work through it in order, since the items up top give you the most for the least effort. You don't need to tackle all 20 in one go. Add one a week, and by month five you'll have a business that mostly runs itself.
All of these can be built with Make.com's free plan unless noted.
Customer Communication (Do These First)
1. New Lead Welcome Email — 30 min setup, saves 1 hr/week
When someone fills out your contact form, they get a professional welcome email within 60 seconds. No more manually following up or letting leads go cold. This single automation has the highest ROI of anything on this list.
Tools: Make + Gmail + your contact form
2. Appointment Reminders — 20 min setup, saves 2 hrs/week
Automatic reminders 24 hours and 1 hour before every appointment. Reduces no-shows by 40-80% depending on your industry. Calendly handles this natively — if you're not using Calendly, start there.
Tools: Calendly (built-in) or Make + your calendar
3. Post-Visit/Purchase Thank You — 30 min setup, saves 30 min/week
24 hours after a completed appointment or purchase, your customer gets a personal thank you email. Builds loyalty, increases return visits, and creates the perfect moment to ask for a review.
Tools: Make + your booking/POS system + Gmail
4. Review Request — 30 min setup, saves 1 hr/week
7 days after a purchase or service completion, an automated review request goes out with a direct link to your Google Business profile. This alone can double your monthly review count.
Tools: Make + Gmail or your CRM
5. Lead Follow-Up Sequence — 1 hr setup, saves 3 hrs/week
Leads who don't respond get a follow-up at day 3, day 7, and day 14. Studies consistently show that 80% of sales require 5+ follow-ups, yet most businesses stop at 1. Automate the follow-up and close more deals.
Tools: Make + Gmail + HubSpot CRM
Finance & Admin
6. Invoice on Project Completion — 45 min setup, saves 1 hr/week
When you mark a job complete in your project tool, the invoice generates and sends automatically. Cash flow improves because invoices go out the moment work is done.
Tools: Make + Notion/Asana + QuickBooks
7. Payment Reminders — 30 min setup, saves 1 hr/week
Overdue invoice at day 3? Polite reminder. Day 7? Firmer reminder. Day 14? Final notice and task created for you. Collecting payment becomes hands-off.
Tools: Make + QuickBooks + Gmail
8. Weekly Revenue Summary — 30 min setup, saves 30 min/week
Every Monday morning, an email lands in your inbox with last week's revenue, outstanding invoices, and any overdue accounts. You start every week knowing your financial position.
Tools: Make + QuickBooks + Gmail
9. Expense Receipt Capture — 1 hr setup, saves 1 hr/week
Forward any receipt email to a special address. AI extracts the vendor, amount, and date, and logs it in QuickBooks automatically. Bookkeeping becomes a forward button.
Tools: Make + Gmail + QuickBooks + OpenAI
10. New Hire Onboarding — 2 hrs setup, saves 3 hrs per new hire
Add a new employee to a spreadsheet → they get a welcome email, their accounts get created, they're added to Slack, and their onboarding checklist appears in your project tool. Every new hire gets the same perfect first day.
Tools: Make + Google Sheets + Gmail + Slack + Notion
Sales & Lead Management
11. Lead Form → CRM — 30 min setup, saves 2 hrs/week
Website contact form → Make → HubSpot CRM. Every lead captured automatically. Never manually enter a contact again. This one's the bare minimum: if you've got any web form and any CRM, connect them today.
Tools: Make + your form + HubSpot (free)
12. Calendly → CRM — 20 min setup, saves 1 hr/week
When someone books a call, they automatically appear as a contact in your CRM with their details, meeting type, and scheduled time. Your calendar and CRM stay in sync without any manual entry.
Tools: Make + Calendly + HubSpot
13. Proposal Follow-Up — 45 min setup, saves 1 hr/week
Sent a proposal? If it's not signed in 3 days, a follow-up goes out automatically. If still unsigned at day 7, another one. Closes 20-30% more proposals with zero additional effort.
Tools: Make + your proposal tool + Gmail
14. Win/Loss Tracking — 30 min setup, saves 30 min/week
When a deal is won or lost in your CRM, Make automatically: logs the outcome, sends a win notification to your team, or triggers a loss analysis email to yourself asking what you'd do differently.
Tools: Make + HubSpot + Slack/Gmail
Marketing
15. Blog Post → Social Media — 30 min setup, saves 1 hr/week
Publish an article → it automatically posts to LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter/X within 15 minutes. Your content reaches every platform without any manual sharing.
Tools: Make + WordPress RSS + Buffer
16. Content Recycling — 1 hr setup, saves 3 hrs/week
Your best old content gets reshared on rotation. Build a content library in Google Sheets, and Make picks a random post every day and schedules it. Your social media posts daily without daily effort.
Tools: Make + Google Sheets + Buffer
17. New Subscriber Welcome Sequence — 1 hr setup, saves 1 hr/week
Someone joins your email list → a 5-7 email welcome sequence delivers automatically over 2 weeks. They learn about you, see your best content, and are primed to buy — all without any manual work.
Tools: ConvertKit or your email platform (built-in sequences)
18. Google Review → Facebook Post — 1.5 hr setup, saves 30 min/week
New 5-star Google review → formatted and posted to Facebook with a thank you caption. Social proof circulates automatically across platforms.
Tools: Make + Google Places API + Facebook Pages
Operations
19. Weekly Team Digest — 45 min setup, saves 30 min/week
Every Monday at 9am, a digest goes to your team (or just you) with: tasks completed last week, tasks due this week, any overdue items. Your team starts every week aligned.
Tools: Make + Asana/Notion + Slack or Gmail
20. Client Project Status Updates — 1 hr setup, saves 1 hr/week
Every Friday, clients automatically receive an update on their project status pulled from your project management tool. They feel informed, you get fewer "how's it going?" emails.
Tools: Make + Notion/Asana + Gmail
Where to Start
If you're new to automation: do items 1, 2, and 11 this week. They take under 90 minutes total and save hours every week. Then add one more per week.
If you already have some automations: pick whichever item on this list would have the biggest immediate impact on your business and build that next.
Start automating with Make — free account →
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