Latest / Founder Unfiltered - What Founders Think But Never Say / Automations That Save 20 Hours / Month and Give You Your Life Back As a Solo Business Owner

Transcript

Automations That Save 20 Hours / Month and Give You Your Life Back As a Solo Business Owner · Founder Unfiltered - What Founders Think But Never Say

• 0:00
  Welcome to another episode of 6 Figure Secrets for Fractional
• 0:04
  Experts. My name is Bradley Jacobs.
• 0:06
  I'm your host, founder, and CEO of Mylance.
• 0:10
  Today, I'm really excited to talk about getting your time
• 0:13
  back in your business through automations.
• 0:16
  The end of the day, there's so much you get to do for your
• 0:19
  business that frankly, you just have to do.
• 0:23
  But maybe you don't love doing it, or frankly, it's below your
• 0:26
  pay grade. So your time is so much better
• 0:29
  off doing client work, doing proper business development.
• 0:32
  And these are things that your business just has to have done,
• 0:36
  but you can automate so much of. And we're going to break them
• 0:39
  down into buckets. And I'm going to talk about how
• 0:41
  simply you can set these up. And I'm really excited to help
• 0:45
  you buy your time back. Before we jump in, I just want
• 0:48
  to quick plug our Mylan's LinkedIn thought leadership
• 0:51
  tool. We're continuing to add new
• 0:53
  features every day. Our beta customers are loving
• 0:55
  it. It's helping them show up with
• 0:58
  authority, genuine, authentic content on LinkedIn that's
• 1:01
  attracting clients. And people are closing clients
• 1:03
  and getting tons of sales calls. And it's really exciting and
• 1:06
  cool. And I get to use it myself,
• 1:07
  which has been amazing. I frankly made it for myself and
• 1:10
  you guys are the lucky beneficiaries of it.
• 1:13
  All right, let's get into the the episode.
• 1:15
  So I'm going to go through 20 automations.
• 1:18
  They're really simple. Some of them are going to take
• 1:21
  more time to set up than others. So what I would do as you listen
• 1:25
  to this, maybe take some notes. Maybe you only take two or three
• 1:28
  of these. And then you you can come back
• 1:31
  to this episode and add more overtime, but add the ones that
• 1:34
  make sense and throw out the ones that don't, right?
• 1:37
  It's not like you have to do all of them.
• 1:39
  So let's just start with my favorite and most simple one is
• 1:44
  an automation that helps you with client and sales.
• 1:48
  In fact, this whole first bucket is going to be about clients and
• 1:50
  sales. So I have AAI note taker Fathom
• 1:55
  join me on every call. So this is number 1 and
• 1:59
  basically my automation summarizes the call in a follow
• 2:04
  up e-mail. So it takes the transcript it
• 2:06
  sends it to open AII have AAI agent just a prompt that drafts
• 2:13
  the response summarizing what we talked about and any action
• 2:17
  items or takeaways and it drafts the inbox.
• 2:20
  Sorry. It drafts the e-mail in my inbox
• 2:23
  so that you know within 60 seconds after every call,
• 2:27
  there's a draft fall of my inbox.
• 2:29
  I can clean it up and I can send it.
• 2:31
  Saves me so much time. The second one is every single
• 2:35
  time a client books a call with me, I have an automation that
• 2:41
  creates A Notion page with the countly information from that
• 2:45
  call and puts it in a database. So when my calls come up for the
• 2:49
  day, I actually can just go to the database, look at the date
• 2:52
  and find the name, and then I have a Notion page with the
• 2:55
  information, the relevant information, the customers,
• 2:58
  LinkedIn, the information they shared ready to go.
• 3:01
  That's number two #3 is every morning I have my Zapier send me
• 3:08
  a summary of my calendar events for the day, including the
• 3:12
  relevant link. So I actually have it send it to
• 3:14
  me in Slack. So I just go to my Slack
• 3:17
  instance, I check my summary for the day, and anytime I have a
• 3:20
  call, I get the proper Notion page and again, the LinkedIn
• 3:23
  information is right there and I have a quick summary ready to go
• 3:28
  #4 Is a basic CRM that I set up is basically any single time
• 3:33
  someone books a call with me, I have an air table where it adds
• 3:36
  their information to the air table.
• 3:38
  It adds the date that we have the call, and then it sends me
• 3:41
  follow up reminders. If there's anything I need to
• 3:44
  do, especially if it's a sales call and they said they were
• 3:46
  going to buy. I can update the status after
• 3:49
  the call and it will send a reminder to me to follow up with
• 3:53
  them if they haven't purchased yet.
• 3:55
  The next automation is really about keeping track of all of
• 3:59
  the analytics for the top of funnel.
• 4:01
  So every week I have automations that run that show me the
• 4:05
  relevant analytics that I want to see for my business.
• 4:08
  So for me, that looks like website visitors, how many
• 4:12
  people booked a call, how many people gave us their e-mail
• 4:16
  address, and how many new subscriptions do we have?
• 4:18
  So I can kind of get a little funnel going of what are the
• 4:21
  conversion rates look like? And I just have this beautiful
• 4:24
  simple dashboard that's populated every single week with
• 4:28
  the automation of just bringing in the analytics, including from
• 4:32
  Google Analytics, so I don't have to go check it.
• 4:34
  And it's basically this simple dashboard that I then have it
• 4:36
  emailed to me every single Monday morning.
• 4:39
  So I can just like look at the dashboard real quick and just
• 4:42
  like see what's working, see what's not working, you know,
• 4:44
  check in on anything that might look broken, anything like that.
• 4:48
  All right, I'm going to throw a random bonus in here.
• 4:50
  It's not quite aligned with this bucket, but we'll, we'll cap
• 4:54
  this bucket with this bonus of text expander.
• 4:57
  So the one I use, I use on a Mac, it's called a text,
• 5:00
  literally the letter a text. It's I think it was 399 one
• 5:04
  time. And it's essentially a text
• 5:06
  expander tool. So what I do is I have all of
• 5:10
  these shortcuts. Let's say it's like semi colon
• 5:12
  zoom and it types out my zoom link or I have like follow up 1.
• 5:17
  So or like follow up LinkedIn 1 and it sends this like beautiful
• 5:21
  follow up for anyone that has a, you know, response to my
• 5:25
  connection West and they are like, oh, nice to connect with
• 5:29
  you. And then I have a follow up.
• 5:31
  And so I just have it a beautiful typed out note that I
• 5:34
  typed out one time. But then when I put like Li F1,
• 5:39
  semi colon, Li F1, it types up this beautiful thing so I don't
• 5:42
  have to type it every time. And I have hundreds of these.
• 5:46
  I have hundreds of these. So, so many times I'm repeating
• 5:50
  saying something or a link like the Zoom link.
• 5:52
  I just have the text expander and it saves me tons and tons
• 5:56
  and tons of time. OK, the next bucket is really
• 5:59
  about content and marketing. This might be my favorite bucket
• 6:02
  because I'm so happy with what I created and you can create
• 6:06
  something really similar to what I created that works for your
• 6:08
  business. So what I have is I basically
• 6:10
  have a a relatively large air table instance and every single
• 6:15
  time I record a new podcast, including this one, I make a new
• 6:19
  row and I add the title of the podcast and then I click go.
• 6:24
  And what happens is all these automations run in the
• 6:27
  background. A all these folders are created,
• 6:31
  dock links are created. And So what happens is I finish
• 6:35
  the podcast and then I take the transcript and I throw it into
• 6:39
  one document and the, and the dock link was created in that
• 6:43
  air table and sent to that row. And then from there, all these
• 6:47
  automations are triggered that turn the podcast transcript into
• 6:50
  a blog, a newsletter, LinkedIn post and tweets.
• 6:54
  So from one piece of content, I'm I'm immediately creating
• 6:58
  these different docks and automations that make the
• 7:01
  honestly, like the rest of my content, really simple.
• 7:04
  And then for video episodes, I take the the video link and I it
• 7:09
  actually emails it over to my podcast producer and then he
• 7:13
  gets a notification, OK, that he is now ready to edit that
• 7:16
  podcast. And I have him basically
• 7:18
  entering the rest into the air table itself.
• 7:21
  So there's some manual pieces there where I've hired someone
• 7:24
  to support me in the podcast production and podcast editing.
• 7:28
  But all of the automations are set up that make the rest of the
• 7:32
  content editing and production and posting incredibly simple.
• 7:37
  So you can decide what that looks like for you.
• 7:39
  Maybe you don't have a podcast, maybe you do, depending on, you
• 7:42
  know, you could even, I have an automation setup as well where
• 7:45
  it takes my side of sales calls, just what I've said, and turns
• 7:50
  it into content drafts for LinkedIn because I'm kind of
• 7:54
  answering the same questions every time, right?
• 7:56
  So it makes a lot of sense. It's already in my voice, it's
• 7:58
  already conversationally spoken, so it can draft it.
• 8:01
  I almost always clean it up. But that's another automation
• 8:04
  that you could do along these same lines, that's taking what
• 8:07
  you're already doing, like having client calls and turning
• 8:10
  it into content that showcases your expertise.
• 8:13
  If you don't want to do that, you could have something like
• 8:15
  you record a voice note and then there's an automation where you
• 8:19
  put the voice note into into that automation and then it
• 8:22
  posts it suggests LinkedIn, drafts, LinkedIn content.
• 8:26
  It's a good idea as well. The next bucket of automations
• 8:31
  is really about client management.
• 8:33
  So anytime you kick off with a new client, there's a bunch of
• 8:36
  things that you get to do right, whether it's invoicing,
• 8:40
  collecting feedback, starting a case study, remembering to renew
• 8:46
  the contract, all those kinds of things.
• 8:48
  And So what I've done in the past is, again, I've set up a
• 8:51
  beautiful air table where all of these things will happen once I
• 8:55
  start with a new client and I can kind of put the date that
• 8:59
  that client starts. So basically for, you know,
• 9:02
  simplicity's sake, we can talk about, there's a few things that
• 9:06
  need to happen with a new client.
• 9:07
  We need to get paid, we need to use it as a case study, we need
• 9:11
  to get feedback and we need to renew that client as much as
• 9:15
  possible. So let's talk about getting
• 9:18
  paid, right? Pretty simple.
• 9:19
  I can put the date there, I can have it trigger the invoice and
• 9:23
  I can have it trigger a draft e-mail on the cadence that I
• 9:27
  need. So if I'm getting paid, you
• 9:28
  know, monthly, maybe 7 days before the month, I trigger
• 9:33
  these things to happen and they just show up in my inbox and
• 9:35
  sends me an e-mail reminder, something like that.
• 9:38
  Then maybe 60 days in or 30 days in, you can decide the cadence.
• 9:41
  Let's say it's 30 days. I send myself a reminder, hey,
• 9:45
  ask for feedback and I draft the e-mail in my inbox.
• 9:48
  I have the automation do this and I say like, hey, we've been
• 9:52
  working together for 30 days. You'd love your feedback.
• 9:54
  Please fill out this form. By the way, I found the only way
• 9:57
  to get real feedback is to ask written in a form.
• 10:00
  If you just say like, how am I doing?
• 10:01
  They're gonna be like, you're doing great and like, that's it.
• 10:03
  It's not really that helpful. Also, when a client starts, you
• 10:06
  can start the production of a case study.
• 10:08
  So maybe as part of this new client automation, you trigger
• 10:12
  case study creation and it starts at Google Doc and you
• 10:15
  start, you know, you track the metrics that you want to track
• 10:18
  and you set a cadence for yourself every two weeks, every
• 10:20
  four weeks to track those metrics and remind yourself, you
• 10:24
  know, set aside 30 minutes to add some more context and build
• 10:27
  up this case study. I mean, if you were to do this
• 10:29
  for every client, you know, 5 clients in, you have like a
• 10:32
  stack of case studies that's going to benefit your business
• 10:35
  forever. It's like, it's such a low
• 10:37
  hanging fruit, but something that's just not obvious to
• 10:39
  people and they don't remember to do it.
• 10:42
  And then of course, you can have the automation where maybe 30 or
• 10:47
  45 days before the contract ends, you can send yourself a
• 10:51
  reminder of, hey, like start the conversation to renew and get
• 10:56
  feedback and see where you can add more value so that you're
• 10:58
  not getting to the end of a contract.
• 11:00
  For me, like, oh damn, I completely forgot to like start
• 11:03
  this conversation. Another great thing you can do
• 11:07
  for your business is a financial snapshot.
• 11:10
  Maybe monthly. You can set up automations that
• 11:13
  sends you a financial report of how much money did you make this
• 11:16
  month? How does it compare to last
• 11:17
  month? How are you tracking year to
• 11:19
  date? If you were to forecast this for
• 11:21
  the next X months, what would you end up with for the year?
• 11:24
  What were your expenses like? You can set your set, set
• 11:27
  yourself up for like a basic financial report that sends to
• 11:30
  you every month because again, like that takes time and energy.
• 11:33
  And it's like, these are all the kinds of things where you're
• 11:37
  going to pay your dues upfront. It's going to take a little bit
• 11:40
  more time to get them in place. But once you do, you save
• 11:43
  yourself so much time down the line.
• 11:46
  OK, some more productivity ones that might be really helpful.
• 11:50
  One is the Sunday reset. So maybe Sunday afternoon at
• 11:54
  5:00 PM, you trigger an e-mail to yourself with the planning
• 11:58
  for the week and you send yourself the Notion dock where
• 12:01
  you set your priorities for the week.
• 12:03
  You look at how you did last week, it's one of the most
• 12:06
  effective things I've ever done for my business is this Sunday
• 12:09
  planning session where I look at how the week went in the past.
• 12:12
  Last week went and set my priorities for the future week
• 12:15
  while I don't actually have to execute on them.
• 12:18
  So I can really think about my business and what's going to
• 12:21
  move the needle with a clear mind.
• 12:23
  I'd also highly recommend doing quarterly check insurance with
• 12:26
  yourself. So when you're a one person
• 12:28
  business, you don't have those like quarterly business reviews,
• 12:31
  right? So how can you basically set
• 12:33
  yourself up for success to really operate like a real
• 12:36
  business? And what do you want those check
• 12:38
  insurance quarterly to look like?
• 12:39
  Right? You can, you can give yourself
• 12:41
  an evaluation like where am I doing?
• 12:42
  Well, where could I be doing better?
• 12:44
  Like where, where do I need to do fewer things?
• 12:47
  Like where, where are the biggest areas for feedback for
• 12:49
  myself? And you can really look at the
• 12:50
  business holistically. But if you don't set those
• 12:53
  reminders, you're often just going to forget to do it And
• 12:56
  you're going to be an autopilot. A year is going to go by and
• 12:58
  you're like, oh damn, I never like really took a step back to
• 13:01
  see how I'm truly doing. Another automation that I have
• 13:04
  running that I love so much is pretty much anytime anything
• 13:09
  good happens in my business, I have a Slack message come
• 13:13
  through in a channel that tells me about it.
• 13:16
  So that could mean that we got collected a new e-mail, we got a
• 13:20
  new subscriber, a user used their tool in the way we want
• 13:23
  them to. And I'm basically letting myself
• 13:26
  and the whole Mylan's team know like this just happened,
• 13:29
  including like getting paid, right?
• 13:31
  Like when a new subscription or a subscription just renews, we
• 13:35
  say like Bradley Jacobs just paid XYZ for this product.
• 13:39
  It's just a reminder of like, hey, good things are happening
• 13:42
  in the business. Like we're making money,
• 13:44
  customers are happy, we're collecting new emails, there's
• 13:47
  new website visitors like on down the line.
• 13:48
  It's just a great way to kind of keep the momentum going because
• 13:52
  business is challenging. And like having those reminders,
• 13:54
  frankly, is never going to hurt. And that's all for today's
• 13:58
  episode. I actually lost count.
• 14:00
  So I'm not sure we got to 20, but we're right up there.
• 14:03
  And if you were to implement only 5 or 6 of the ones that I
• 14:07
  talked about here today, you will save yourself so much time
• 14:11
  in your business. And I can't wait to hear from
• 14:13
  you what you think about these, if you were able to implement
• 14:16
  any. Then if you already have them
• 14:18
  running like shoot me a note on LinkedIn, I would love to hear
• 14:20
  from you. With that, we're going to wrap.
• 14:23
  If you're interested in becoming this thought leader on LinkedIn,
• 14:27
  using it properly, organically, genuinely, authentically, come
• 14:31
  talk to us. We're I'm really patched.
• 14:33
  I think every single business owner should be on LinkedIn.
• 14:36
  It's a goldmine. There's low hanging fruit.
• 14:39
  You don't need to come across as spammy or cringy or self promote
• 14:43
  at all. Can be really genuine and
• 14:45
  authentic. So come check us out mylance.co,
• 14:48
  shoot me a note on LinkedIn. I'm happy to chat with you about
• 14:51
  it and see if it's a fit. Otherwise, have an amazing day.
• 14:54
  If you got some value out of this podcast, come let me know.
• 14:57
  It means the world when I get your messages which have been
• 14:59
  coming in more frequently. This podcast is definitely
• 15:01
  growing and it's beautiful to see.
• 15:03
  So have an amazing day. Talk soon.
• 15:06
  See you in the community.