0:00

I'm so pumped for this episode today,

0:00

because this is a conversation that I

0:04

see a lot in the industry that a lot

0:04

of people get really overwhelmed about

0:07

and just don't know where to start and

0:07

just have a lot of questions about.

0:10

And so today I just really felt pulled

0:10

to talking about workflow automation and

0:15

the tools and strategies that you can put

0:15

into place for yourself that are really

0:19

going to help you to get things moving a

0:19

little bit faster, moving without you and

0:23

your team, constantly having to do it.

0:25

And that is through the

0:25

lovely tools of automation.

0:29

So I'm gonna. To talk a lot about Zapier and today's

0:29

episodes, if you're not sure what

0:32

Zapier at it is, essentially it's

0:32

a third party app that can connect

0:35

between softwares to help you automate

0:35

certain things within your business.

0:39

We're also going to be talking through

0:39

a process mapping and why it's so

0:42

important to be documenting your

0:42

processes and also mapping them out.

0:46

So that way you can further automate

0:46

and further C and I identify when steps

0:50

are redundant or when you need to fix

0:50

things and I'm going to be sharing

0:54

some cool tips and tricks along the

0:54

way about workflows and automation.

0:58

So I hope you enjoy today's. Day's episode. So I'm super pumped to talk about this

1:56

topic today because we're really going

1:58

to be diving into workflow automation

1:58

and some key tools and strategies

2:03

that I might have, you know, in my

2:03

tool belt that I'm willing to kind of

2:05

share with you guys and really talk

2:05

through today in today's episode.

2:09

So I just wanted to like start off with

2:09

the preface of like, what is automation?

2:13

Because I think a lot of people. Look at automation, different

2:15

ways inside the industry.

2:17

And so I just wanted to like, kind

2:17

of lay it out in the eyes of what

2:20

I see automation being and how

2:20

it can help you and your firm.

2:23

And so automation essentially is any

2:23

tool or technique system process like it.

2:28

A lot of it's going to be in tech and software. That can allow for something to

2:31

trigger off or something to happen

2:34

when something else happens. And so, for example, if you

2:35

know, a client signs, a contract.

2:39

Then do this, like then send out

2:39

the email, welcoming them, or

2:44

then add them to a slack channel,

2:44

whatever that looks like for you.

2:47

And so automation, I feel like is going

2:47

to be the bane of a lot of people's

2:51

existence, listening to this episode. for those of you, who've tried to automate

2:53

things or don't even know where to start.

2:56

Don't worry. This episode is totally for you.

2:59

It is very overwhelming. It's you didn't get into your business

3:00

thinking that you're always gonna have

3:03

to learn all this tech and learn how to

3:03

automate things and make things easier.

3:07

Sure. Can your business still

3:07

run without automation? Absolutely.

3:10

I mean, how many people have been running

3:10

their firm for many, many, many years

3:13

before automation was even a thing. Who are now learning how to automate

3:15

or still continue to not even have

3:19

to automate and still operate in a

3:19

different way of doing things no matter

3:23

what, whatever way that you're running

3:23

your business is the right way for you.

3:27

And so just remember that and don't

3:27

think that just because everybody

3:29

else is doing things, or even if I say

3:29

automation is key, I think it makes

3:34

you more efficient go with what feels

3:34

good for you and what gives you least

3:37

form of resistance for showing up

3:37

every single day in your business and

3:41

showing up and serving your clients. So for me, automation works in so

3:43

many different ways at my firm.

3:46

And even here at this company, workflow

3:46

queen too, we have a lot of triggers and

3:50

things set up that like when something

3:50

happens, something else happens.

3:54

And we can either do that through a

3:54

third-party apps, like such as Zapier.

3:58

Or we do it directly within the app. So like for example, within

4:00

the piece of software.

4:03

So, notion for example, they recently

4:03

came out with their own versions

4:07

of automations, which like you can

4:07

add them to databases, which is

4:11

their way of saying like really

4:11

Excel versions of spreadsheets.

4:14

Inside of notion. There's a lot of different pieces

4:16

of tech and software that will have

4:19

built in automations and workflows.

4:21

Another great example is Dubsado. So if you've ever used Dubsado, then you

4:23

know, that there's a lot of different

4:26

workflows that they set up in automations.

4:28

and they live within the piece of

4:28

tech and the piece of software.

4:30

So nowadays it's pretty normal for a

4:30

lot of the different pieces of tech

4:35

that you're using in your firm to

4:35

have some sort of built in automation.

4:39

If it's not built into the system that

4:39

you're using the most likely or not, you

4:44

can connect it to something called Zapier.

4:46

So if you're unfamiliar with

4:46

Zapier, is the Z a P I E R.

4:50

Zapier has been such a game

4:50

changer for me, to be honest, I

4:53

think I was introduced to Zapier. Oh, my God, probably in like 2019

4:56

was when I was introduced to Zapier.

5:00

And man, like when I first heard

5:00

about Zapier and try to use it for

5:04

myself, I was really overwhelmed and

5:04

like, and I really used it for them

5:07

in the most basic ways possible. And I think that's because.

5:12

I didn't know how to use it properly.

5:14

And there's not a lot of trainings online. The cool part is if you ever used

5:16

apiary ever interested in using

5:19

Zapier, they do have what they call it. Zapier university and Zapier

5:21

university is actually hosted

5:25

directly from Zapier itself. From their system.

5:29

And so essentially the university

5:29

will help you understand,

5:32

like, what is this app? How does it work?

5:35

And I would say that it's really good

5:35

for like basic knowledge for Zapier,

5:38

but there's not really anything out

5:38

there specific to the accounting space.

5:41

That's really going to show

5:41

you like specific automations

5:44

directly related to the industry. And I'm going to explain why, because if

5:46

you really look and do a lot of research

5:50

on Zapier and try to find a program

5:50

or try to find resources on it, It's

5:54

really hard to find those resources.

5:56

And I think the reason why. Is because.

5:59

Everybody's tech setup. Everybody's softwares everybody's systems,

6:01

even if we're in the same industry

6:06

are wildly different from each other.

6:08

And so, for example, My onboarding

6:08

might include things like Dubsado

6:12

might include Google drive. It could probably also include things

6:14

like slack and adding channels and all

6:18

these different pieces of the tech. Well, for you listening, maybe you

6:19

use something like anchor and then

6:23

maybe instead of Google drive, you're

6:23

also using share file because of this.

6:28

I think there's a, not a lot of teaching

6:28

specific to the industry on Zapier.

6:32

On really understanding the

6:32

core functionality of it and

6:36

also how to utilize it in the

6:36

different tech and softwares.

6:39

and that's mostly the reason why is

6:39

because everybody uses different tech.

6:43

And so it becomes really hard

6:43

and cumbersome to actually teach.

6:47

Ask me how I know. Zapier in this space because.

6:51

Everybody literally uses

6:51

so many different things.

6:53

I could create templates all day,

6:53

every day, inside a Zapier and

6:56

hand them off to my students. that's what we do inside a breakthrough.

6:58

So in my group coaching program,

6:58

breakthrough, we have segments

7:02

like inside of our, we have like a

7:02

bonus module and inside of there,

7:05

we have like a Zapier bonus module. Anytime I've ever shared

7:07

a zap from my own firm.

7:10

I go in there and I fill myself on video.

7:12

How I set it up, why I'm setting it

7:12

up the way I am, why it would function

7:16

the way it needs to function, what

7:16

are the triggers that are happening?

7:19

And essentially I go through this video

7:19

showing them how to set everything up.

7:22

And the reason I show up with a video for

7:22

my students is because it makes it easier

7:25

for them to be able to be like, okay, I

7:25

could swap out my piece of tech for the

7:30

one that Alyssa's using on her screen. And so what I do is like, as I'm

7:31

building my own zaps for my own

7:35

firm, I share them only exclusively

7:35

with my breakthrough students.

7:39

and so if you're inside of breakthrough, just make sure you go to the bonus module and the Zapier.

7:43

Area and inside of there you'll

7:43

find any of the zaps that

7:45

I've shared with you guys. which include the step-by-step

7:46

video of how I'm actually setting

7:49

it up, what it's used for. And so even then, like with me, showing

7:51

me like walking this through on screen,

7:56

they're still going to be hiccups. People are still going to run into

7:57

problems because every piece of

8:00

tech that's connected To Zapier. That helps you to automate things.

8:04

Only has so many options

8:04

of what you can do with it.

8:07

So for example, Dubsado has

8:07

been, you know, connected to

8:11

Zapier for quite some time. Now there's a lot of different options.

8:15

If you go to zapier.com and you

8:15

look up the Dubsado integrations,

8:18

it might be like when a contract

8:18

is signed, you could then do this.

8:22

Or when, you know, I don't know,

8:22

invoices sent out, then do this.

8:26

There's a lot more opportunities of what

8:26

you can automate with a software that.

8:31

Zapier has been working with for

8:31

quite some time versus anchor.

8:35

Let's just use anchor as an example,

8:35

because anchor has started to be a

8:38

big, proposal system that a lot of

8:38

people in the industry have started to.

8:42

Kind of have an eye on. And like I mentioned in prior podcast

8:43

episodes, I have no intentions of

8:46

switching from Dubsado my proposal

8:46

system over to something like anchor,

8:51

because I just refuse to like go

8:51

with the shiny object syndrome.

8:54

I already know that Dubsado

8:54

is solving all of our problems

8:56

when it comes to proposals. So there's no point in me getting

8:58

distracted, looking at another system.

9:01

But the reason I'm bring up anchors

9:01

because I'm inside of Zapier, it's

9:05

going to be a little bit more limited. With newer softwares that are just

9:07

like barely up and coming because

9:10

they might barely be opening up. The opportunity for Zapier

9:12

to connect with them.

9:15

And so every software that you use

9:15

with the automation tools is going

9:20

to be like maybe not available.

9:23

So for example, Google drive has a

9:23

lot of options of what you can work

9:26

with, versus if you try to use share

9:26

file is going to be way different.

9:29

I actually don't even know if Zapier

9:29

has options to work with share file.

9:33

But then there's also limitations of Zapier, right? So Zapier can't work with

9:35

things like last pass.

9:37

Which it would be so nice if

9:37

they could, because in our

9:40

onboarding it'd be really cool. If Zapier can go and create that

9:41

when someone signed up proposal and

9:45

Dubsado, it could create a folder

9:45

inside of last pass for that client.

9:48

That would be really cool, but it's not possible. And that's because of security reasons.

9:52

So that's why WhatsApp. You're like, you're not gonna

9:53

be able to like transfer money

9:55

from like chase bank account to

9:55

a different bank account because.

9:59

Zapier is a third party application that

9:59

needs access and permission from both

10:04

softwares to be able to work together.

10:06

And so not every piece of tech

10:06

and not every software and

10:09

not every thing is automated. And even when you think it's, the, had

10:11

the ability to automate it, you might run

10:14

into even more errors with filters and

10:14

the ways that you are setting things up.

10:18

So I wanted to really like,

10:18

just dive into some Zapier.

10:21

I think a lot of people get

10:21

confused and overwhelmed.

10:23

And then I wanted to talk through. Some of the tips and things that

10:25

you can be creating with Zapier.

10:28

And like I said, really, a Zapier

10:28

university is just one of those big

10:33

options that I recommend to just

10:33

check out, to really understand.

10:36

You know, what is Zapier, how it

10:36

works, but it's not really going

10:40

to teach you the technicalities

10:40

of what you're trying to automate.

10:43

My recommendation. This goes to like, even my students in

10:44

break here, because we do touch on some

10:47

of the Zapier stuff is you really have

10:47

to start from square one to really.

10:52

Understand what needs

10:52

to be automated later.

10:55

So, what I mean by that is if you

10:55

are, don't even understand your

10:58

own process and you don't even

10:58

have a process in place, and you're

11:02

just kind of Willy nilly ING it. And, and like winging it every single

11:03

day that you're like running your firm.

11:07

Then you're not going to be able to

11:07

automate as successfully as someone

11:10

who understands our full process. He knows what they need

11:12

and knows the outcome.

11:14

And the reason I say that is because. I think, I find a lot of people in

11:16

this industry try so hard to automate

11:20

things, whether it's automated

11:20

directly within their softwares or

11:23

using third-party apps like Zapier. I think a lot of people get so

11:25

overwhelmed because they just

11:28

tried to automate things like one

11:28

little tiny thing, which is great.

11:32

And I think it's amazing if you have

11:32

one zap, I'm so proud of you, but

11:35

what I'm trying to say here is that. A lot of people are trying to do all these

11:38

automations and they want this thing.

11:42

But yet they're not willing to

11:42

put in the work to document their

11:44

full process from start to finish. You need your firm to be able to

11:47

rely without all of those different

11:51

automations before you try to automate.

11:53

And I think that this is where the big mistake is. Everyone wants the end

11:55

result, but nobody's willing to walk through the journey.

11:58

And so my recommendation is to do

11:58

what I like to call process mapping

12:02

if you're not sure of what this term

12:02

means I'll just kind of do my best

12:05

to break it down in a high level. So process mapping essentially

12:06

is when, like you take a step

12:09

back and you're looking at. what steps do you have in place for

12:11

each core process of the business?

12:14

So a couple of core processes that come

12:14

to mind as I'm talking here is your

12:18

onboarding process, your cleanup process.

12:21

Your monthly bookkeeping process.

12:23

Like that's a whole different process

12:23

than like your cleanup, right?

12:26

it could be your payroll process. It could be your offboarding

12:28

process for your clients.

12:32

It could be onboarding for your

12:32

team members or even hiring.

12:35

So there's different core processes

12:35

that everybody has within their firm.

12:39

And so my recommendation

12:39

is to take a step back.

12:41

And pause. And pick one process per quarter.

12:45

This will seriously change the game for you. One process per quarter to focus on.

12:49

And I know you're probably like

12:49

if you're like me and you're super

12:51

ambitious and you're just like, I can

12:51

get so many processes done in like,

12:55

more than one in three months I get it.

12:57

But I promise you there's a lot to it

12:57

because what you're going to do is pause.

13:02

You're going to start to document,

13:02

what do you do to execute

13:05

that whole entire process? Pick one process, come over to

13:07

Instagram at workflow queen and

13:10

tell me what process did you pick? For example, let's just use

13:12

onboarding as a process.

13:14

The only reason I'm using onboarding

13:14

as a process is because recently.

13:18

My firm really focused the past

13:18

quarter on onboarding stuff.

13:21

And so what that meant was we first

13:21

picked onboarding as the process, and

13:26

then we took a step back and said,

13:26

what is it that we actually do as of

13:29

right now in order to onboard a client?

13:31

in all its capacity. So first we brain dumped is one

13:33

of the best terms I like to use.

13:36

We brain dumped everything that

13:36

we did for our onboarding process.

13:40

Then what we did was we went

13:40

back and actually looked at

13:43

how did we actually do it? What that was based off memory or

13:44

based off tasks that we have in

13:47

Asana or just documented information.

13:49

We tried to take ourselves through

13:49

the journey that the client went

13:52

through when we onboarded them. And so as we did that, it just

13:55

gave us the opportunity to kind of

13:57

document everything that we needed to.

15:06

Then, what we did is that we took

15:06

a software it's called Miro that's

15:09

M I R O I fricking love Miro.

15:13

I will put a link below the video. It is an affiliate link.

15:16

If you ever want to sign up for them. I'm obsessed.

15:18

I've been using them

15:18

for quite some time now.

15:20

And so essentially Miro, we're able to

15:20

essentially map out in a visual format.

15:25

That exact process that we

15:25

now have written out is now

15:28

in this beautiful process map. And the reason why we have it in this

15:30

beautiful process map is because from that

15:34

process map, we're able to color code it,

15:34

add little mini, virtual sticky notes.

15:38

Like we collaborate with the team on it.

15:40

And so we get, we gathered

15:40

together as the team.

15:42

And if you don't have a team,

15:42

don't worry, could do this to solo.

15:45

And we actually changed the color. Like we put boxes per step in the process.

15:49

We will change the steps in the

15:49

process that we visually mapped

15:53

out on this, like on through Miro.

15:56

And we go in and we actually color

15:56

anything that we think we think.

16:00

Key word here think can

16:00

be automated as yellow.

16:04

And the reason we do that is because

16:04

Zapier is like orange, it's yellow.

16:07

So that's the only reason I've done that. There's no other correlation to it.

16:10

so I go in, we change that box cause

16:10

we're like, maybe there's a way.

16:13

That when someone signs the contract

16:13

and Dubsado, we no longer have to create

16:17

the Google drive folder for the client. What if instead of us having to manually

16:19

create the slack channel for our teams to

16:23

communicate about that specific client?

16:26

We no longer have to do that. Is there a way to automate it?

16:29

So we go in and we actually like

16:29

color each of those steps, yellow.

16:33

And then that tells us that like,

16:33

there's a possibility that we

16:36

think if we can automate it through

16:36

something like Zapier, or maybe even

16:40

not through Zapier, it doesn't need

16:40

to be through the third-party app.

16:44

It could literally be a trigger

16:44

within your own software tech that

16:47

you're already using that can help

16:47

you create those automations as well.

16:52

And so we color them yellow. And then once we're done, we're kind

16:53

of take a step back and say, okay, now

16:56

let's do the research to see if there's

16:56

a way that we could make this faster.

17:00

Also when we're process mapping, we're

17:00

also finding a lot of redundant steps

17:04

or repetitive things or unnecessary

17:04

things, and this is pretty normal.

17:09

It goes back to like, have you ever like

17:09

done something in your life where you're

17:12

just like, and someone asks you about it

17:12

and they question you and you're kind of

17:15

like, I just do it because I just do it.

17:17

Like, I'm not really that you don't

17:17

even know how to answer the question.

17:20

Cause you've always just done it. It's the same in your business that

17:22

throughout the years you'll find that

17:26

you'll just accumulate reasons why you do

17:26

things and then you just do them and you

17:29

don't even know why you do them anymore. And so like process mapping it

17:30

out, allows you to see high level.

17:34

Like, what the hell is this? Like, why do we do this?

17:36

Like, this is unnecessary step. We don't need to be adding this.

17:39

Like, it doesn't do anything

17:39

for anybody or this step here.

17:42

Like, it's just repetitive

17:42

of like the step over here.

17:45

And so it helps us to really

17:45

clean up that process.

17:48

So it helps us like overall holistically.

17:50

So if you haven't taken the

17:50

time to like document a process

17:53

and then like map it out, then

17:53

seriously, it's such a game changer.

17:56

If you're a listener and

17:56

you're in breakthrough, we talk

17:58

you through all of process. Mapping, we even show you all

18:00

the examples inside of Miro.

18:03

how to actually process, map things out. And I even give you sample process maps

18:05

down to like the hiring process map.

18:09

So if you're interested in breakthrough

18:09

and you really need support in this arena,

18:12

then breakthrough is perfect for you. If you are a scaling firm,

18:14

you are not a newbie.

18:16

Unfortunately we only take people

18:16

at the scaling phase in their firm.

18:20

And then also you need to have

18:20

some sort of a PM system in place.

18:23

That's a project management system. It does not need to be perfect

18:24

and it does not need to be.

18:26

My trainings or my systems. You just need to not be using pen and

18:28

paper because we need people past that.

18:32

And just like a desire to really

18:32

change your firm and remove

18:36

yourself from the day-to-day work. Or maybe you're just drowning if

18:37

you're not sure if breakthrough is

18:40

right for you and you want to just

18:40

have that conversation with me.

18:43

I will tell you straight up, if

18:43

it's not the right fit for you

18:46

right now, I will I'll even give

18:46

you action items of what you need

18:49

to do to get ready for breakthrough. And so my recommendation is just,

18:50

check out our page, which I'll

18:54

link below for you to go check out. And if you need to just hop on a consult

18:56

call, which will drop a link below as

18:59

well, but typically you could go to work

18:59

folk weed.com backslash consult dash call.

19:04

Or you can Instagram me

19:04

@workflowqueen or send us an email at

19:07

support@workflowqueen.com and we'll get

19:07

you that link to get on a call because

19:11

I'm more than happy to support you. If this is a problem area for you,

19:13

like the process mapping, I swear to

19:16

you will change the way like your mind

19:16

will be open about so many different

19:20

things inside of like the business. So once you've processed map this thing

19:22

out, you've color coded it to say,

19:25

maybe this is possible to automate. You've cleaned up your processes.

19:28

And based off of just maybe collaboration

19:28

with your team or if it's just, you.

19:33

You just looking back to see

19:33

how you've done it before.

19:35

This is where the world

19:35

work will start to happen.

19:37

So this is where you're going to be. Maybe documenting SOP is for the

19:39

different steps in your process.

19:42

So that way you can finally outsource

19:42

the work and finally let go of the

19:45

information to another team member. This is where you're also

19:47

going to start researching.

19:49

Can you actually automate things? And so, for example, this is where

19:50

you're either looking through Zapier

19:54

to say, you know, if this happens in So

19:54

if a contract is signed, end Dubsado.

19:59

Is it possible that Dampier can

19:59

create a slack channel for us inside

20:03

of slack named the client's name? Which I could tell you is possible?

20:06

Our onboarding zap is actually 75 steps.

20:09

It is very, very thorough

20:09

and it automates.

20:12

**** ton and yes, that's a word guys. It's a measurement.

20:15

I promise. Literally it automates

20:16

so many things for us.

20:19

In the onboarding. It's so impressive. We had moments where every time

20:21

we were onboarding new clients,

20:24

There were some hiccups that we

20:24

experienced, which is normal.

20:27

So I want to warn you, like, just

20:27

because your zap or just because your

20:30

automation doesn't work doesn't mean

20:30

that it's never going to work forever.

20:33

It's just, maybe it needs to be

20:33

tweaked or maybe needs to be fixed.

20:36

And this is why I say you

20:36

want to take three months.

20:39

AKA one quarter to be able

20:39

to focus on a process.

20:41

That way you can test it. You could tweak it.

20:44

You could fix it until it works like a charm. And so essentially inside of, Zapier,

20:46

we're just like researching stuff.

20:50

If it's not Zapier, we're doing the

20:50

direct automation within the system.

20:53

So for example, in Dubsado,

20:53

we could set up workflows and

20:56

automations directly through their. Which is really cool.

20:59

So my recommendation is you start

20:59

to do that research, and then this

21:02

is where you're going to feel really

21:02

overwhelmed with Zapier, because you

21:05

are going to go down a rabbit hole

21:05

and things aren't going to work.

21:07

It's not going to connect. It's going to say it's failed. And this is really normal.

21:11

And this is where I really recommend

21:11

looking at Zapier university

21:14

because the university will like,

21:14

at least give you some high levels

21:16

of like, how to use their system. Like I said, it's not going to

21:18

be specific to this industry.

21:20

It's not going to be specific to the

21:20

tech that you're using, but it can

21:23

give you a really good foundation. And then what I would do is

21:25

now you're going to start to

21:27

actually do the automations. And like I said, you're

21:28

gonna start testing things. You're going to make sure that

21:30

whatever you set up and whatever

21:32

you're doing is actually working. And so for us, we have someone assigned to

21:34

the team that is in charge of making sure

21:38

all of our automations are going through. And so if you ever want to like,

21:40

not risk that, like it's not going

21:43

to do everything that you set

21:43

it up to do for the automation.

21:46

Like, for example, in our onboarding, we

21:46

have like an onboarding project in Asana.

21:50

Yes, we have a lot of things automated,

21:50

but there's still some things that

21:53

we can not automate in any capacity.

21:56

It's just not possible. And so as of right now, and so we have a

21:57

task inside of her onboarding that when

22:01

someone signs a contract end Dubsado, it

22:01

creates a task that says to double-check

22:06

that the automation went through. And that allows for us to like, remember

22:07

to go in to make sure that the automations

22:12

worked because sometimes it'll.

22:15

This hasn't happened to

22:15

us in a very long time.

22:17

Since now, the automation is

22:17

working really well, but before.

22:20

At one time, like didn't trigger

22:20

off the content snare requests.

22:23

It didn't trigger off a

22:23

certain folder in Google drive.

22:25

And so we were able to go through it and

22:25

double-checked it actually go through.

22:29

That's how we found problems and mistakes. And I think that's another thing that

22:30

people get overwhelmed with Zapier for.

22:34

Is that they're like, oh my God, all this

22:34

automation, how can I trust these tools?

22:37

We'll like just have

22:37

someone watching over it.

22:39

It's really as simple as that. And I think a lot of people's minds

22:41

get blown when I tell them, like,

22:44

all you gotta do is assign someone

22:44

to pay attention to this apps.

22:47

And that's really as

22:47

simple it, as it, as it is.

22:50

If it is just you and you

22:50

don't have a team in place.

22:53

Then, obviously that person watching

22:53

over it's going to be you, but you could

22:57

create yourself a task, like maybe once

22:57

a week to just go check on your zaps and

23:01

your automations within your softwares. Just to double check that they're

23:03

working and it's really like, that's.

23:06

Straight forward. But to be honest, like when it comes

23:07

to these things, like I said, I

23:10

would try not to automate, unless

23:10

you really understand your process.

23:13

Another big reason why too

23:13

is like for just in case.

23:16

Something goes wrong with all

23:16

these pieces of software and tech.

23:18

I think. documenting your process and documenting

23:19

your like process mapping, everything.

23:23

Really helps you to be able

23:23

to pivot really easily.

23:26

I always joke that like, if

23:26

Asana were to crash today, I

23:28

could easily move to click up. And that's where I would go.

23:31

I would not go to keeper. I would not go to Xanax.

23:33

I use Cenex, but I'm not going

23:33

to use it for project management

23:36

as a project management system. It's not what it's built for.

23:38

And so for me, I would go to a

23:38

true project management system.

23:41

I would move to click

23:41

up and I would be okay.

23:44

Like, yeah, the functionality would change. Yeah.

23:46

We have to use a new piece of

23:46

software and piece of tech.

23:48

But we have the core processes

23:48

documented to the point where like,

23:52

we don't need the specific software.

23:55

Is it helping us in the current time? Absolutely.

23:57

But if you don't understand your process

23:57

and you'll never know what you need,

24:02

or what tech or software that you're

24:02

going to need to replace a certain step,

24:06

if that ever comes into the picture.

24:09

And so the whole goal of this episode

24:09

here is really just to give you some

24:13

ideas of where Zapier can fit in. How can you can use process mapping and

24:15

documenting your process to really help

24:19

you to level things up and to automate.

24:22

And like I said, if you're interested

24:22

in learning how to process, map,

24:24

how to document your processes and

24:24

Zapier and automation tools and how

24:28

to be more efficient in your firm,

24:28

then breakthrough is going to be an

24:31

amazing program for you to check out. You can go to breakthrough

24:33

dot a breakthrough with

24:36

systems.com backslash join. And what you could do is

24:38

you can also click the link.

24:40

That's going to be added below. We are going to be doing

24:42

something super special coming up.

24:45

This is currently February

24:45

as I'm recording this.

24:47

But near the end of February, beginning

24:47

of March, we are going to be doing a

24:51

special sale and that's March of 2024.

24:55

And so we will be releasing details, make

24:55

sure that you're on our subscriber list.

24:59

I will drop a link below. For you to get on the subscriber list,

25:00

to keep a lookout for something that

25:04

we have going on with breakthrough. So if something that you've been

25:05

interested in quite some time, Then

25:08

in beginning of March 2024, if you

25:08

get on our subscriber list, you'll

25:11

get an email about something super

25:11

special we're doing for breakthrough.

25:14

And I can't wait. To support you in any capacity.

25:17

And if you have any questions you're

25:17

overwhelmed or stuck on automation, or

25:20

you just want to like, kind of jam on it. I love voice noting over on

25:22

Instagram at workflow queen.

25:25

I'd love to see what things you're automating. So come share them with me.

25:28

Let me know, like, how are you automating things? What issues have you ran

25:30

into and so on and so forth.

25:33

And I hope you enjoy today's episode.