How To Use Your First Automation Tools

(00:00):

Hi everybody - it’s Jen Kilbourne Obermeier - welcome to our vlogcast!

And yes, I did give this a name and I decided it's going to be called a vlogcast, which is a combination of video blog and podcast all in one.

<laugh> It's unlike anything that I have ever done before, for sure.

Maybe you, don't typically listen to podcasts that are done recorded live, but this gives me a way to interact with you guys and then push it to a podcast, which, if you're watching live, we are going to have ready pretty shortly in short order.

And then we'll also have the videos reposted to YouTube.

Very similar to what we've been talking about over the past few weeks, as you guys are creating your content and we talked about sharing it in all different kinds of places.

I am, I am modeling that for you.

(00:55):

And also showing you that it doesn't have to be perfect <laugh> in order to keep pushing it out there.

So again, welcome we are doing, we're going to, I'm going to try to keep this to just under an hour tonight.

My children get to do game night, an online game night with their friends tonight.

So they're really excited, and that's at six o'clock Eastern.

So we are going to do a quick chat about basic automation tools.

And if you're here yesterday, you know that I did a lengthy discussion about productivity, and how to differentiate between tasks that, really are super high priority in your business because they make money right now, or because when you're creating systems in your business, that is a one time investment in setting up something that is going to continue to pay off a long time down the road.

(01:48):

So this is a continuation of that specific part of our discussion yesterday, when you're talking about creating systems, that is where things automation tools start to become really interesting and something that you want to spend a little time getting tech savvy with, so that you can bring those into your business at the right time.

Now, what is the right time, from the very beginning?

Probably if you are aware of some of these things, which is why I'm sharing it, now you can go ahead and set them up so that, as you're moving forward with growing your business, that things are just easier.

So as many things as where you can cut out repeated tasks that are either on you to deliver or potentially on an assistant or a team mate to deliver, if you can automate them, it's going to save you guys a lot of labor costs in the long run.

And in some cases, depending on what type of business you're doing, you can also, Hey, Kari's there. Hey girl.

You can also almost set up so many automations for an online business that it is - you don't even have to hire an assistant for a while because there are so many things that are just done automatically for you.

(02:59):

This is going to be the "101" version of automations, just so you guys have a very broad overview of what all is available out there.

So I'm going to assume that you are totally brand new to all things related to email lists and automated posting of social media, that type of thing.

So, in, the future, definitely let me know if this was interesting to you and if you want to know more about a specific area of your business, and what tools you should use or how to know when is the right time to upgrade from a free tool to a potentially a paid tool.

So again, if you're here, definitely leave a comment because I don't know that you're there, unless you write something, say, hello, let me know how you're doing, because I know we're getting we're at the end of another very long week in our lives.

(03:44):

To me it still feels a Friday, which I'm not exactly sure why, because there are, there are no plans we're not going out and we don't really have anything planned for the weekend either, but I, feel we should all be at happy hour together.

Kelly's here. Hey girl.

She said, thank you for all you do. You are so welcome. It is my joy to share this.

So I appreciate you guys logging on and let me know what questions you have as we go through.

So as I was thinking about this topic one framework that I want to share with you guys, and this doesn't have anything to do with automations necessarily, but a, resource or a book that I have probably brought up four or five times already in past videos on this page is called clockwork your business, or Run Your Business Like Clockwork.

I just refer to it as "the clockwork book".

Suzette says it's world party day.

Is that a new thing or is that suddenly world party day? Because that seems an appropriate time to do it. Why not?

So "the clockwork book" is a book by a guy named Mike Michalowicz - sorry, probably butchered that - he has written several books that I consider game changing for all entrepreneurs.

Run Your Business Like Clockwork is one of his that is relatively new.

(05:07):

And so if you're familiar with a book called Profit First, he wrote that and Pumpkin Plan.

He wrote that - I'm not sure what the other popular titles were beforehand, but every single one of those books was life changing for me.

So the clockwork book became a program where they created a course program for you to sign up and walk through with them as a group.

It was not one-on-one consulting about your business, but they did create a course and I somehow magically saw it at just the right time on the last day before they closed enrollment about a year ago.

Yeah, it was probably about a year ago or a little, a little more than a year ago.

And Shamita said she read, she read Profit First because of me.

Yes. So same guy, if you like the way he thinks, I think you'll really this.

(05:57):

The entire premise of the book is about creating efficiency in your business and identifying where the gaps are in your business that really matter.

So, whether that's attracting enough customers or converting enough customers or retaining enough customers, no matter what type of business you're in and definitely this applies, everything I'm talking about today definitely applies even if you're in a service business, but it's all that much more important if you're creating an online business because you have the potential, wow.

That earring fell out immediately.

I'm not, these are my, this is my Friday night "get up". I moved to a whole different spot and put earrings in.

<laugh>

Trying to keep it together here.

So, as I was saying, as I was saying the the clockwork framework is about identifying where your business has loopholes in it.

(06:53):

So automation is definitely something that they talk about.

It's a major part of their, their - what's the word their recommendations for how to fix certain things is to not rely on YouTube.

For example, remember to call back a customer, there needs to be an automated system in place.

We talked about this a little bit yesterday when we were talking about productivity, even things that are as simple as setting up recurring calendar items that are reminders for you about things that have to happen, even in your personal life, that's as basic automation so that you don't have to depend on your brain.

What you want to do is depend on your brain as little as possible, for as much as possible.

So I was trying to get at, I signed up for the clockwork course a little over a year ago.

(07:44):

And as a bonus, they said, Hey, bring along one of your employees, to go through the program with you because a lot of it if you have, if you have any size team, is about creating a culture of efficiency, not just for you as a person, but for your entire business.

And so Brie who, has worked with me forever at this point.

She went through it or with me, which was awesome because she was experiencing firsthand some of the things where I was not automating things that I could have.

I was selfishly holding on to certain tasks that I just thought oh, well I can do this faster.

I can do this better.

And that was not necessarily true.

And she was able to be a second pair of eyes that was looking at the entire analysis of how our business was running.

(08:38):

So one framework that I learned from clockwork, and I'm sure that I'm going to refer to this again in future videos.

So I wanted to go ahead and share it and I will definitely post a link for the clockwork book, because if you are looking for a really good book to read about business, this is the one, because I just, I love the way that they break things down.

So there are four major areas of your business to, analyze and then look for, and we're going to talk about this potential to automate.

So this is definitely applicable, whether you are starting a business or whether you already have one and you want to break things down and focus on certain areas that need help.

So they have this acronym ACDC and it stands for attract, convert, deliver, and collect: And attract is all of the things that your business does to market and to bring in new leads or new potentially interested customers - while convert is whatever you do to actually, to make the sale.

(09:45):

So that would be for example, if you're in a service business, maybe that's a consultation where you're leading a customer through a process and then at the end you are asking for the sale and they're deciding to sign on, but that co that consultation would be your convert area or your conversion area.

Delivery means actually the delivery of the service or the delivery of the product if you're selling a product based business or, if you're doing an online business and you are selling coaching a course, a group coaching program, an ebook, how do you, how do you physically, or how do you actually get what you've promised into your customer's hands?

And then collect is everything that has to do with, I mean maybe it's obvious, but collecting payment.

So this doesn't have anything to do with how you make the sale.

(10:34):

It means how do you actually bring the money into your business?

And then anything that is on the admin side, would also fall into that area.

So attraction, conversion, delivery and collection, and your job as an entrepreneur is not to be the one who does every single one of those things.

Because as you can imagine, if that entire lifespan of your customer from the first time they heard about you all the way through the completion of their purchase and them being a happy customer and client and referring you to all their friends, if, every single one of those things relies on your effort or your memory, or you sending them an email, or you sending him a text, are you showing up for a meeting in person with them?

You personally, you can serve maybe four or five clients a year, but definitely not at a time.

(11:28):

And definitely when we're talking about online business, you have the potential with an online business to scale it much larger than you would, if you were doing something that was a very high touch, customized, service business that was either local, or what have you.

So the, need for automation for certain aspects of an online business is so much greater than it would be for other types of businesses.

So I'll just make that blanket statement and then we can come back to it if you have questions.

Okay, so let's discuss this. Let me let's talk about the attraction area.

I want to just talk about a few ideas or at least things that I want you to be aware of when we're talking about attracting new visitors to your website, new consumers of your content.

We have been talking on this vlogcast <laugh> about, attraction, about creating content, about where to post it online so that the people who are looking for you can find you, we've been talking about a lot of those things.

(12:33):

What I want to touch on are a few things that I want you to know are available for, automating certain parts of it.

And of course there are always a type of automation where you "automate it" by just outsourcing it and saying, Hey, I'm just going to have an assistant, do all of this stuff, but I promise you that he or she is also going to be looking for ways to cut be more efficient and to cut time out of, the, hopefully if they're being nice to you, that they're trying to not to bill you for too many hours.

So they're going to be looking for ways to automate things.

And so they're the ones who are going to need to know this too.

So when it comes to, when it comes to creating automations for the attraction area, automated social media posting is a big deal.

(13:17):

Being able to pre schedule social media posts is, available to you on Facebook, on Instagram, on Pinterest, on YouTube.

And, by that, I mean just batch creating your content and then scheduling it for it to be posted throughout the month.

Not to mention there are also certain types of tools that, Rachel said, she's listening while she's driving home.

Hey, Rachel, hope you had a great week. Hope your Friday is ending on a good note.

There are also tools that are available to help you consistently cycle through content on all of your social media without having to schedule new things all of the time.

I am putting that even in the basic category of automations, because if you are creating a lot of content you are going to reach a point where you're do I have to keep coming up with brand new, unique ideas all the time?
 
(14:17):

No, you don't.

So, there are tools that for example, will, recycle your old Facebook post, your old Twitter tweets.

I don't even use Twitter.

So I feel a old lady by even talking about that, it will pull old blog post from your blog and, push them out again to your Facebook feed, to other social media accounts and platforms.

Pinterest has its own category of, automated tools.

One that we use in the, in my business for Pro Organizer Studio is called Tailwind.

And you can set that up so it recycles your pins constantly so that we spend a couple of hours a month, making sure that the right content is being fed into it, but then we're not having to sit there every single day.

(15:08):

And this is super overwhelming for almost every person who does digital marketing at all for any type of business is oh, I have to think of an Instagram post today.

I have to think of something to share on my Facebook.

I have to think of, some pins to pin on Pinterest.

And I have to make sure that I'm promoting my own stuff too.

No.

One of the first areas that you want to focus on some level of automation is first of all, creating a batch of content, let's say, you're going to do two posts a week on Facebook, three posts a week on Instagram, 10 pins per day on Pinterest.

You, you're going to have to decide what this is for you, but just decide what your level is.

And then go ahead and create all that content or, back fill, your Pinterest scheduler with pins and, then schedule it all out for the month.

(16:02):

So that, way, you're not having to think about what is going to be posted on your social media, which is going to be shared on your Insta, on your Instagram.

Like you have it all already decided because one of the things that will burn you out so fast is sitting there and thinking oh, I got to, I got to create an Instagram post today.

Don't do that.

So much I can say about all things about social media.

So I'm sure that will come up in another video, but the, attraction side of your business is very important because as we've talked about in past videos, you want to be, you want to make sure that you are posting your content, for example, on YouTube, on Pinterest places where people search a search engine, you want, it's good for the algorithm, the search results.

(16:49):

Like you want to be in the search results, and it's good for your visibility in those search results.

If you're posting on a regular basis.

So you don't want to create all this amazing content and then not continuously promote it.

And it doesn't always have to be brand new stuff.

I know for example, I have a marketing mentor who says that she doesn't really have more than three months of purely original content at any given time.

She just continuously promotes old things.

So that's some food for thought that is something that, I know a lot of people are I'm not good at this.

I don't enjoy this.

I don't want to sit in front of a computer.

That's the, that is the first place to automate my friends!

So, also in the attraction, I just, I'm going to breeze over this very quickly, but in the, in the attraction category of automations, Facebook ads are another way to automate getting traffic to whatever it is that you're doing.

(17:45):

So you can run Facebook ads.

Again, this takes, it's not a set it and forget it type of thing.

It takes some education on your part, but once you understand how to use them, that's essentially a very lucrative automation because you are continuously feeding new pools of people who you think are probably likely to be interested in your stuff.

You are promoting your content in front of them.

And so it's always fresh.

You're not waiting until they are searching for it on YouTube.

So that's also in the automation for attraction.

Second category is conversion.

Now this is, I would say for, service based entrepreneurs.

And again, this, vlogcast is very focused on online businesses.

So for service based entrepreneurs, the conversion part of, your business is probably one of the hardest things to truly automate.

(18:41):

You can definitely have it down to a science, but it really still relies on you to show up for a consultation or show up for a call.

In online business, there are ways to automate conversion and it looks one of a few things.

One, thing that you guys have probably seen before is okay, when you are opting in to somebody's email list, you get an automated email series or email sequence.

And again, we talked about this in the email list building 101 video.

And for sure, this is an automation too.

I wasn't really sure where to bring this up.

That wouldn't really be an attraction.

I think this would be part of conversion because you nurturing your lead.

Once they have opted into your email list or opted into whatever it is that you're offering, nurturing that lead through automated emails is definitely part of your conversion phase of business.

(19:38):

Obviously not everybody's going to buy, but that's normal.

You're giving them the content that they need in order to help them make a decision is your course what they need or is your coaching what they need or maybe they decide that now's not the right time, but they definitely want to stay and be on your email list to get updates about your podcast or whatever that looks like.

So, the email, so the email automations, I will put in this conversion category.

So let's say when we're talking about conversion and truly making a sale, you guys have probably had the experience of opting into somebody's email list.

You get an automated email sequence of some kind.

And then at the end of that sequence that maybe they're offering you Hey, if you enjoyed this, we're doing here's a $97 workshop that we're doing about this exact topic.

(20:25):

And click here to go to a sales page to read more about it and decide if you want to, if you want to buy it essentially.

So that is an automated conversion process in that it did not rely on that business owner to personally send those emails.

Definitely not.

They were not personally sending those emails.

They were not personally having a conversation with you, about making the sale.

They have a sales page that is doing that job.

And then once you click the button to buy, their payment processor and back end is the one doing the job automatically of enrolling you into their course or their workshop, or maybe even potentially you're checking out, even if you're buying potentially a one-on-one coaching package, the conversion process, the sales process itself did not involve you necessarily having a conversation with that person.

(21:23):

So those are the kinds of things you guys would want to be thinking about when it comes to the conversion, because there are definitely, I've seen it in online businesses.

There are people who are attracting huge audiences through some of the methods that we talked about, but then their call to action is still:

"If you want to discuss how we can work together, click here to book a phone call."

Now, if you're still having phone calls to sell anything, if you're still, if a phone call is what is standing between you and the money that you'd be making from your audience, then your conversion process is not yet automated.

And it, this is not to say that the whole thing SHOULD necessarily be automated or that they should not have any contact with you before making the sale.

Definitely you need to give them lots of time to get to know you.

(22:10):

So that nurture process is really important.

But it doesn't always have to rely on your actual effort and you being in the mood to have a sales conversation.

And I know we probably have all been there if you're selling, if you currently sell or have ever sold any service, you're okay, I need to be at my best for this phone call.

And this is really I'm nervous and how's this going to go?

 And I had, I've had really great calls lately, but maybe this one, I don't know.

So it's you, once you have that part automated as best as possible, then maybe it looks them getting on the phone with you if they have questions.

But for the most part, they're going through your, nurture sequence and your sales material on their own and making the decision.

(22:57):

Okay, give me a thumbs up or a comment if, this is making sense, which I hope that it is, I will, I will go in more to platforms for how you sell things.

I alluded to the fact that every platform that you sell something through, whether it's even a PayPal checkout page where you're selling a coaching call, there are things that you would call automations that are working behind the scenes, as far as the PayPal manages, taking their payment and sending you the money.

But let's call that basic automation we'll call that the nitty gritty behind the scenes.

You don't have to do anything to set that up.

That's just a part of you using the platform.

So, we talked about attraction conversion.

Now delivery can look a lot of different ways if you are doing a coaching, if coaching is your offer, you can't automate that necessarily.

(23:59):

What you can do is you can automate things like reminder emails, confirm, well, first of all, confirmation emails - "Hey, so excited that you booked, I'm looking forward to our call."

"Here's a download for you or here's what you need to do before we meet for the first time that email can and should be automated as part of your sales system."

So, anything that's a reminder email, say maybe you sold a coaching series of six calls.

Now all of those calls, you still, you're responsible for showing up for in person and that's what they paid for.

You don't want THAT to be automated, but the reminders can be automated.

The follow up can be automated.

The email that you're sending saying "Hey, I have loved working with you.

And if you feel inclined to leave me a testimonial at this link..." - all of that can be automated.

(24:49):

So a lot of the communication with clients that tends to not really vary from one client to another, even if you're doing a one-on-one service, all of those things can definitely be pulled from a template.

So that you don't have to remember to send a reminder before every call or what have you like.

That is definitely an easy thing to set up even from the very beginning, even while you're building your business.

So from there, if you are selling any type of product, that is the delivery of the product does not actually rely on you to show up at a certain place in time.

For example, if you're selling a course or if you're selling a, or if you're selling any product, an ebook, you're selling stock photos, maybe you're a photographer and lately you're well maybe all the wedding photography gigs are pretty much going to be canceled for a few months.

(25:44):

So why don't I try my hand at selling stock photo packs, that's another online business, the delivery of the stock photos that the person bought, the delivery of the ebook that the person bought, the delivery of the course that the person enrolled in, all of that is automated through the specific platform that you chose to sell the thing.

Again, we'll save that for another time, but, that's a really beautiful part of having an online business is that you don't have to physically send an email that says I'm so glad you're here.

Thank you for enrolling. Here's your login link.

So just in case, that's the first time you've ever heard that is another reason why an online business is so attractive, is that even though, even if you don't have something where you have hundreds of customers, you are able to, give them an instant gratification experience of buying the thing that you made and they can consume it at their convenience on their own time when they're ready, it doesn't rely on you guys going back and forth, about you delivering, the service that they asked for.

(26:58):

Suzette's question said mostly through CRM and, Suzette, tell me if I'm right.

I think what you're referring to was back when I said about automated client communication, because if so, yes, it would be through, there are a couple of different things that you could do, but yes, for example, let's say if you are someone who's doing one-on-one coaching with a client through, let's say you're using a CRM system, which is by the way, that stands for customer relationship manager.

There are many different options.

You don't have to use one that is paid necessarily, but let me give an example.

A lot of people a program called Dubsado, which is an auto, it, is a CRM system that has a lot of automation built into it, which is why it's so attractive, because let's say you sign up somebody for a coaching package over three months and you guys are going to meet every two weeks.

(28:04):

You can go in and set up the entire workflow from the time that the person enrolls in your coaching package all the way through when they're done.

So their client onboarding call, all of their email reminders in between your calls, the follow up call at the end, the three months after email that says Hey, how are you doing?

I would love, fill out this survey or, whatever your call to action is, all of that can be set up in advance through a CRM system like Dubsado.

And then, the beauty is - while that is a total pain in the butt to do for one person to set all that up, because it's not easy now, every single client that you have, you can reuse that same exact system that you've automated for them in advance.

(28:57):

So, Rachel, said, and, this is also on the CRM topic.

Rachel said that she loves HubSpot and HubSpot is a free one.

All I was going to say that let me use a word that I don't think I've used before all tools, all of the tools that we're talking about, they often have integrations that are built into them so that they can talk to other tools that you might be using.

And this is a major pillar of automations, even though it's not something that maybe non-technically savvy people ever think about.

But let's say that you have let's say you're me, <laugh> let's pretend you're me.

Let's say that you have a course that you sell, which I do, but your course platform, you use a different email system than you use.

Your email system is separate from your course platform.

(29:58):

The two of those tools, even though they're not owned by the same people and they are not connected at all.

You can still connect them through integrations.

So either the tool itself will say, Hey, if you want to connect this tool with your email system, just enter in your credentials here.

And it will connect both of them for you so that you don't have to keep transferring information back and forth either that, or what you want to look into is a service called Zapier it rhymes with happier, but it starts with a Z.

And it doesn't have two pS. It just has one.

So, Zapier is a  third party service that creates integrations between tools that don't have them built in.

I'm not sure if that was in the basic category or not, but I just wanted you guys to know that was available.

(30:49):

if you are, for example, if you're using a CRM system, for again, customer relationship management and all this can get very detailed because there are so many different tools that do so many different things, but if you're selling a one-on-one service, Suzette was asking, your automations for follow up can go through your CRM tool.

Like something Dubsado, which is a paid tool, because it gives you a lot of flexibility or even something like HubSpot where the person pops up on your reminders list automatically.

And even though you may not be able to send automated emails in advance, the system is reminding you Hey, here's somebody that you need to connect with because you're the one who set up the parameter, or the schedule of how often this person should be...

(31:43):

What's the word - serviced? - touched? I don't know.

This sounds bad, but how often that person needs to be top of mind for you.

Veronica said she's here. Hey girl.

So, breeze through that.

I hope that was easy enough to understand, but if you do have more questions, I want to hear them because we could talk about this for weeks probably.

So we talked about attraction, conversion and delivery, the delivery of a pre-made or one and done product.

Like we were talking about the package of stock photos or the ebook.

That's going to be the easiest part of your business.

If you're not doing a service coaching or any type of customized work, the easiest part is going to be that they buy it and they get sent their product.

And the next morning you wake up and you're you got an email and there is money in your bank account.

(32:34):

Pretty amazing.

And that is probably obviously the appeal of having an online business is because it didn't rely on you, and your physical labor to make all of that happen.

So the really in an online business, the majority of your attention should be going to the front end.

Like the top of the funnel, of you creating the content.

You deciding the direction of your messaging of your business and who this is for and who this is not for, gets your highest attention.

Once you have a lot of this stuff automated, focus on showing up for free because if you have your whole system automated, where people who are consuming your free content, then they get into your conversion system, whether that's a nurture sequence and then they are able to buy your product without having to talk to you personally, no matter what that product is, the conversion is automated and then potentially even the delivery is automated.

(33:38):

And not everybody wants to have a completely automated business because they feel that's a little bit impersonal and that is completely understandable, completely understandable if you're selling something that is at a higher price point, coaching or consulting.

But if your whole goal is to sell an ebook, you don't need to get on the phone to sell an ebook.

Like you guys probably can tell that intuitively.

Then the last category, ooh, I'm doing good on my time.

I know you guys are ready to have Friday night off with the family dinner.

What are you guys excited about for this weekend? I would love to know.

I don't just, I just don't have any plans that are different from any other day, so I'm pretty sure I'm just going to work and do what I've been doing.

(34:22):

So last one, not least is I said ACDC, that's the framework from clockwork.

The last category is collect, which is how do, how do I actually receive payment into the bank account?

Because let's say you have a system where you're selling a consulting service or something and everything we talked about, you're online, they're finding you online, all that's automated.

But then when it gets to the actual invoicing, you've converted them back in step two, you've converted them into becoming a customer.

But let's say that your invoicing is still manual.

Now that is also going to become a bottleneck in your business very quickly, because either you are going to have to be the one who manually sends the invoice and wait for them to pay and <laugh> follows up with them if they don't pay and sends them to a collections agency if they continue not to pay.

(35:29):

I don't know, but it's not good obviously to be in a scenario where you think that you've sold a certain level of services, but the money is not, I'm not saying you have to have the entire amount in your bank account, but that the process of getting that money in your bank account is manual.

You don't want to be in that situation.

So what you can do is you can set up, let's say for example, actually just not to, I don't know, I'm just giving this as an example.

I actually, I recently got a really big coaching client and I am genuinely excited about it, so I just couldn't help it.

I don't know.

And they are paying for, $3,000 of coaching over a certain period of time.

They are not paying me that entire $3,000 up front, but their assumption was Hey, just invoice me.

(36:20):

And I'm oh, I'll do you one better.

I'll have you enroll in the coaching program.

I have this set up in Kajabi. This is my platform that I use for most, of my things.

I'll have you set up in Kajabi so that you enter in your payment information and you're paying a thousand dollars today.

And then in the terms of their contract, it says you will be billed on or around this time of month for the next two months for the other thousand dollars and thousand dollars.

And then you can of course adjust that to whatever time frame that you have.

So that's, an example of automating your collection, because you don't want to be having that conversation where you're "...Hey, it's that time again?"

 And it's just nobody feels comfortable about that.

(37:06):

But if you are super professional about the way that you're selling your services and this is true, whether you're doing coaching or whether you're selling a course of some kind, or an ebook or whatever, you don't have them sign up and pay later.

Like you have them put in their payment information so that the system is the one that builds them on a recurring basis.

Like maybe you have a membership site or something like that.

There is no reason I think in this day and age that you should not have all of that completely automated.

And then as we said, as I said in the beginning, anything that has to do with collection, in that collection category is not just how you receive money into your bank account into your business bank account of course, but then everything that has to do with the admin side of your business finances, maybe you, for example, if you do follow that Profit First model, which is again, same guy, different book, Mike is awesome.

(38:03):

If you do follow that Profit First model, then he gives a framework for every time dollars come into your business.

Here's a percentage that goes into operating expenses into, owners' compensation, operating expenses, taxes set aside for taxes and then profit.

He has a five bank account system and the fifth bank account is the one that the money comes into.

So that's just called an income account.

So every time money comes into that income account, you split it up into a certain percentage as an automated rule.

And now you can set this up to be an automation probably, but this would be more just for your own knowledge, because you or your accountant or somebody connected your business is likely to be the one doing this where you say, okay, here's the rule.

 
(38:57):

Here's the automation: every time any amount of money comes into the income account, 20% is going to operating expenses.

30 percent's going to - anyway, I'm totally making numbers up anyway, but you can decide what that is in advance so that you're not sitting there every month going, oh, where should this money go?

What should I do with it?

Automating some of your financial decisions is probably a good idea.

That's a little bit off topic of what we're talking about with tools, but if you have a rule for how you handle certain things that can be considered an automation, for sure.

(39:31):

And then last but not least, there are definitely things out there just so you know, just so you're aware, there are definitely some automation tools out there that for example, can recover failed payments, say that you're selling a membership, a membership site and, your they're signing up for $99 a month for, until they cancel.

Or maybe they have signed up for a year contracts in your membership site and they're going to be billed for $99 a month for that entire year.

It's not a membership, it's a payment plan.

Now let's say that person drops off after the fifth payment.

You certainly, you are a customer service person can definitely gently reach out to them and ask them if they want to update their card information.

But if all else fails, there are automated payment collections, tools that can be implemented, which were awesome.

(40:32):

Kelly was commenting back on the money collection.

She said that should be the easy part.

She said she loves her bank because every deposit is automatically distributed into the separate accounts for taxes, owners, draw profit, et cetera.

That is awesome. You're doing a good job.

Kelly, what bank do you use? Because I feel even though I know you're in Texas, I'm sure that there are people who are always, looking for good bank recommendations.

I do have the five bank accounts set up, but I don't automate how I spent where I put, I don't do the Profit First model perfectly, but I do use an online bank, which is Spark Business.

Where was I? I was talking about, I was talking about having payment collections.

I was talking about financials, customer service.

Here's another thing.

This is not exactly a one and done automation, but this is doing some of the work in advance for you.

(41:27):

Like if you find yourself answering a lot of questions let's say in your email, a lot of your customers or your potential customers even have similar types of questions.

If you find, as they say, "if you find yourself, repeating yourself, record yourself and replace yourself", that saying is meant to talk about creating videos, but also create an FAQ page on your website so that you are directing people to where all the information is.

There is no reason why you should be answering the same questions over and over again.

But also, another thing you can do is create template emails inside your email in Gmail, this is called canned replies.

Which sounds impersonal, but really it's not -- because all you do is you have a one click canned reply.

But you can still customize it based on the person or obviously make it sound more personal and friendly.

(42:25):

And, this is not just for dealing with tough customer situations.

This is also for dealing with anything that just tends to recur on a regular basis.

Basically, if anything ever happens twice or three times in your business, you need to think, how could I, make this easier?

How can I make a template out of this?

How can I outsource this?

Is there a tool out there that manages this automatically?

It's, something that needs to be on your list and going back to what we talked about yesterday, there are gold star tasks in your business and life that are about slowing down.

And I know it's painful because we want to just keep moving, but slowing down and creating a system for something so that you're now saving yourself tons of time in the future, because even those few minutes add up in the long run.

(43:15):

So could not recommend enough if you are interested in this topic Run Like Clockwork is the book, Profit First is the other book, mentioned that a few times.

And then I will also post links, I'll update the description for this chat and post some links of some of the things I mentioned, Zapier, Kajabi, some of the social media scheduling tools.

Those are really good.

And what else, how you accept payments, I'll put in a link for Dubsado.

That's one of the, I would say more well known all in one tools.

Again, some of these things are not free but they are investments in your business.

And it's replacing having an assistant for now, especially if you don't have a team, and you have to really get smart about how you're using your time.

(44:09):

So I really hope that all of this was helpful.

<laugh> Again, this is something we can talk more about and dive deeper into, even if all we did was just talk about just automating your marketing or just automating the delivery of your product, as just a placeholder or a bookmark, be thinking about this, because one of the ways to automate the delivery, if you are doing a one-on-one service, and I know this is not possible in every scenario, but if you are doing a one-on-one service, any type of coaching, and if you're a professional organizer, I definitely count you in the coaching realm.

Especially if you're doing it virtually, as you, as you grow your coaching client base, and you may want to continue doing one on one coaching for a long time.

This is not to say that you have to give it up.

(45:02):

But as you work with a few people and grow your client base, that is when you will start to realize what are the commonalities of all these people that I'm working with.

One on one, is there an opportunity to create a framework for what I am doing, what I am doing for these clients?

What I am tending to talk about with these clients, what are the milestones that they need to move through to get from where they are to where they want to be?

That's how you identify..

How can I create a course or how can I create a book or how can I create one of those automated delivery options of my brain and how I like to help people - it doesn't mean that you have to give up coaching, but it can be an option that is actually cheaper for your audience than working with you on-on-one.

(45:48):

So I want to just plant that seed because we'll talk about that again in the future about creating courses and writing your book that tells your secret sauce to the world, and you can make money from the book, and then you can get more coaching clients from the book, and then you can create a course out of the book.

There are a lot of different ways to leverage how good you are at what you do.

So, yay. Kelly said, this is exactly what she is doing while she has some downtime at home for a little while.

And girl, I could not tell you, I think that's the smartest thing that any business owner could be working on, while they are not out of work.

But you said, just, you have downtime. You have time to actually think about this stuff.

(46:32):

So it's really important.

Dana said this was super helpful. I'm so glad that you were here. Suzette said it was a helpful framework.

Good. Have you guys enjoyed?!

 I can't believe I got done in less than an hour, but I completed my mission.

I will be uploading a video tomorrow.

I already have that plan.

I'm uploading an older live video that's really good.

Especially if you were thinking about doing a blog, making money from a blog, making money from affiliate products.

That is one of the options we've been touching on over the past few weeks.

So I have a video about that and then I'll be back, live on Sunday.

Ladies and gentlemen. Thank you again. Bye!