This is your master automation list. Work through it in order — the top items have the highest impact and the fastest setup times. You don't need to do all 20 at once. Add one per week and by month 5 you'll have a business that largely 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 is table stakes — if you have 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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