When people think "automation," they imagine flashy AI agents doing complex reasoning. But for small teams, the real money is in the boring stuff.
The top 5 automations for small teams
1. Lead follow-up triggers
When someone fills out a form, the follow-up should go in 60 seconds, not 4 hours.
2. Meeting note summarization
Record the meeting, run it through a prompt that extracts action items.
3. Status report automation
Pull data from your tools, format it into a weekly update automatically.
4. Content repurposing
One long-form piece → Twitter thread → LinkedIn post → newsletter.
5. Invoice follow-up sequences
7-day follow-up → 14-day follow-up → final notice. Pure logic.
The pattern
All five are: repetitive, measurable, and boring (no AI required).