A recent survey from the SBE Council, an advocacy, research, and education organization based in Washington, DC, revealed that small business owners save a median of 5 hours per week personally, and their employees save a median of 11.5 hours per employee. The benefits of AI are well documented, especially its time-saving appeal.

The same survey found that two-thirds of Small Business Owners have reported revenue gains from the deployment of AI, and 22% have seen a 10% increase in revenue. However, 29% have reported no revenue increase at all, which raises a question for small business owners using AI. The question for small business owners is: how will you spend the extra time that AI creates for you to grow your business?

There are four growth levers you can pull to accelerate your business’s revenue.

Focus on Improving Your Customer Relationships

In a business world filled with chatbots, auto-response agents, and virtual receptionists, it is key that your customers don’t feel like you are automating your personal relationship with them. Spend time contacting your customers by phone or text to see how their latest purchase or service experience went. Get feedback from them directly so you can adjust how you deliver services or make purchases in the future. Use your time to build referral programs for your business so you can establish a pipeline of free or low-cost leads from existing customers who sign your praises.

Referral programs can help to collapse your marketing spend while skyrocketing your revenue from warm prospects who want to buy what your business sells. Assess areas of your business where you can add more of a personal touch, even if they were previously deprioritized due to a lack of time.

Consumers trust word of mouth more than any other form of advertising. According to Nielsen’s Global Trust in Advertising study, 92% of customers are willing to refer a business when they are satisfied with the experience. Focusing on customer relationships will have a profound impact on your revenue and client lifetime value.

Reinvest In Competitiveness

The best way to remain competitive is to focus on cash flow. Cash flow is king in a business because it allows you to invest in efficiencies that drive better margins and higher productivity. With more time on your hands, spend it investigating better tools and equipment you can implement in your business to continue to make your workflow better throughout your firm. Join industry associations and keep up to date on what the best in the business use in their companies to gain a competitive edge.

The consulting firm McKinsey found that top-performing companies, defined as those with 15% or more organic growth and 15% annual EBIT growth over three years, are 2.5x more likely to be aligned on their competitive advantage. This shows that companies that perform best are keenly focused on strategy and ensuring they are maximally competitive in their industry. As a small business owner who has more time to focus on strategy, you should reassess your company’s competitive advantage every six to twelve months and make adjustments immediately.

In the SBE Council survey, 34% of small business owners with more time on their hands used it to explore adding a new market segment or new offer. Willingness to adapt in business is a key characteristic of successful entrepreneurs, and seeking ways to better serve your customers with adjacent products, services, or offerings may help you build a more robust revenue pipeline and create scalability where opportunities were previously limited.

If a business is not growing, it’s contracting. This is because the cost of money, inventory, and operations change every year, so business owners must find ways to grow revenue in diverse ways that move the needle. Some ways to diversify revenue include adding a service line to your product line, adding a complementary product or service that bolsters your primary service, or finding a strategic partner where your product or service helps them provide a better customer experience for their customers or stakeholders.

Reinvest In Yourself As The Owner

One of the most damaging aspects of being a business owner with limited time is that you don’t reinvest in educating yourself and learning. There are aspects of running a business that, when focused on, must be fine-tuned to prevent the business from suffering. Many business owners lack leadership development training, which shows in increased employee turnover, poor customer experience, and bad financial management. Another way to reinvest in yourself is to move out of the low-value work that a part-time admin or virtual assistant can do. Removing yourself from these low-value tasks will help you take a global view of your business and its challenges. It will help you recognize bottlenecks and where to advance more profitable business initiatives.

Pull one of these four levers this quarter and don’t let idle time rob you of growing your business.