Automation Strategies for Scale for Non-Marketing Processes feat. Irit Levi

Narrator 0:00
You’re listening to the all systems go podcast, the show that teaches you everything you need to know to put your business on autopilot. Learn how to deploy automated marketing and sale systems in your business the right way with your host, the professor of automation himself and founder of automation bridge, Chris Davis.

Chris 0:31
Welcome everyone to another episode of The all systems go podcast. I’m your host, Chris L. Davis. And I, I’m spoiled, everybody should know this, I’m spoiled, I get to connect an interview with some of the sharpest minds in the space. And here’s what I’ll say. I make it my business. To search out the mind. Regardless of the platform, see many people, they go out and look for the person who’s speaking the loudest on the loudest platform. And that’s not always the best mind to tap into. So I was on LinkedIn. And I don’t know how this happened. But we I got connected with our guests today. And trust me when I say you all are in for a treat. I want to introduce you all to Irit Levy, she helps coaches, creators and consultants scale their businesses with process strategy, software, and automation. So do you see how immediately when I read her bio said, Wait a minute, I need to know this person. She has provided watch this everybody she’s provided 13,697 and counting software recommendations over the years, but her core, but at her core, she is about scalability, not software. How many times? How many times have you all heard me say the strategy is greater than the software? But but let’s just pause look at the specificity 13,697 I just I love it. I love it. Okay, and her approach is different because she believes technology is just a tool. It’s only as valuable as it is helpful. I read welcome to the podcast. Thank you for joining us. How are you doing? Oh, thank

Irit Levi 2:30
you so much for having me, Chris. And now I’m just blushing and okay. My day is perfect. I don’t need to do anything else today. That’s it. The other day? Yes.

Chris 2:41
And I have to. I mentioned it a course just a few minutes ago. But I don’t recall how I got connected. I just You just know like, sometimes LinkedIn algorithm actually does work. It says, Hey, I found somebody that talks about stuff that you talk about. And here’s here’s what was so refreshing about your LinkedIn feed. It was so personable and real. It did not feel Listen, everybody is starting to have their radar up for like those chat GPT created posts. Oh, it had no no inkling of Chechi Beatty. And the comments, people were so responsive and you are so conversational. And um, but but that’s not it. That’s not it. Everybody, I haven’t even told I read this. So this is live on the podcast. I went in as my nosy Self does often as I opted into your list, and opted in under a secret email. So you couldn’t you could modify my, my journey. I don’t honestly, listen, you sent some emails that were so well written and resonated so strongly. Just talking about, hey, what tool should you be looking at? Hey, how about not focus on tools focus on this, like, value is all I’ll say just continual value. So I was excited to have you on so that we could discuss automation beyond just marketing. Right? What are the other areas that people can start to expand their expectations and what to expect with that, but I just wanted to share, share that insight to you and in our in our listeners, that I’ve really enjoyed how you practice what you preach and how you put it on display. In a way that’s very authentic.

Irit Levi 4:36
Thank you. So I’ll be honest with you, I don’t use chat TPT I don’t use AI at all. I do have an email strategist. Her name is Val Ackerman. She is the best and she teaches me so much about ethical marketing and and just are so in tuned about that. But I don’t I don’t use AI. I think AI has its place. But if you You cannot talk about what you do passionately without the help of AI. Are you in the right space? That’s just that’s just me.

Chris 5:10
That’s a good one. And I think that you also have to be mindful that with mass adoption comes mass abuse. Right. So yeah. So now, as it’s becoming more common, and just like, hey, use Chat GPT for this Claude this and that. And I always know things are becoming more mainstream by the people who are using them. So when non techies are really talking about AI and everything, you know, that is reaching mass mass adoption. And with that is not to be negative or derogatory, but a brainless approach at times, just hey, let me do this up my brain Chat GPT in Oh, wow, that’s nice. That’s better than I would ever wrote it, then put it in there. And it just lacks so much human element and connectivity. So yeah, yeah, yeah. A

Irit Levi 6:06
few people that teach how to use it. And I think it’s a tool again, like any tool, if you’re using it to enhance your capabilities, if you’re using it to improve your efficiency, your productivity, and it’s serving you in the best possible ways, and it’s the right tool for you. But if you’re not, and this is true of any tool AI is no different. If it’s making you sound robotic. If it’s making you sound like the masses, then maybe it’s not the right tool for you, or you need to learn how to use it better. One or the other. Yep,

Chris 6:36
I agree. And I’ll say this is my main. Everybody. This is not even an AI podcast. But just let me say this, my main use case that continues to serve me well is for brainstorming. You know, like, hey, come up with some ideas. But I don’t like to let it flesh out the ideas. And because it usually does not go in a way that I that I would go. And I just shared this on LinkedIn. I read, I was saying, I’m more of the antagonists to Chat GPT, like, I want you to tell me something. And then I want to write an article that’s totally opposite. In that.

Irit Levi 7:13
It really, and by the way, there, there are tools that are better than judge GPT. Even before you use Microsoft, copilot, use perplexity AI, like there are tools out there today, they can give you so much more than the page at GPT 4.0. Yeah, yeah, we’ll just use what everybody else is using because their neighbors, sisters, dogs child likes it. I don’t know, whatever it is, find the tool that’s right for you. Yes.

Chris 7:40
So. So in that, I before I jumped too deep in this, I want you to give our listeners a bird’s eye view of your journey to where you’re at right now. And where you’re at, in my estimation, and just from us meeting is somebody who comes into a business, and really helps with process improvement. Whether it be through recommending new software, or getting more out of the software that you’re currently using. It’s all about do you have the proper setup to scale at whatever level you want? Now, but how did you get there was this like, as a child, you grew up thinking, I just want to make processes better? My little girl, right? Was that my way

Irit Levi 8:35
to be a doctor that I saw blood? So a doctor was out of doctor, he came out of the question very early. So yeah. So about five years before COVID hit, I was working for a startup. I was a product owner there. And I discovered automations. I was an instructional design writer before so like I knew how to organize data always. That’s a God given gift. But I didn’t really know where it was going. And then about a year, a year and a month before before COVID hit. I gave him my final notice. For know, a month before COVID Hit sorry, a month before COVID hit. I gave my final notice my last day of work was February 12 2020. February 15. The world stopped. Now I have a government employee, husband and family. Nobody thought of entrepreneurship. I mean, who does? Right? Yeah, but I was like, Yeah, nobody’s gonna hire now. We’re all remote like zoom was just starting the technology wasn’t where it is today. Four years later. Yeah. And so my husband said, Okay, fine, go for it. I had $100 as my opening budget to give to my accountant. And I just started testing software and talking about it. Talking about how much I love it, how much you know how it can change the world. Interestingly enough, I was talking about a piece of software and how much I hate it. it. And I was comparing it to other pieces of software and I found one that I loved. And then somebody wrote a post saying, who knows, x piece of software that shall remain nameless, that I don’t like, and six people tagged me. Now I hate it, but I know it. That was the first doll I earned. And, you know, it’s we never know where it’s coming from. And then as I grew, I realized, you know, it’s not about the tools. There are a lot of software automation experts out there. But most of them will focus on a tool they’re really good at click up, they’re really good at Air table. They’re really [email protected], or they’re HubSpot experts or Salesforce experts. Now, some tools require an expert like Salesforce like HubSpot, because they’re monsters. But you go to them when you know that that’s the tool, finding the tool, finding the tool that’s right for you is not based on whatever the specialist tells you. It’s based on what your needs are. So if you go to a click up specialist, they’re gonna tell you Oh, click up can do it. That doesn’t mean that that’s the right tool for you. Yes, yes. And that’s where I sort of diverge from doing just no code, low code, tools, setup, and focused more on the workflow, understanding how it works, analyzing what you do, and then reassessing it. And giving tips from proven tips are not necessarily technological, they can be just, oh, let’s just improve communication here. In a small spot.

Chris 11:32
Yeah. So so in the instructional design, prior to this, this was really about crafting the that educational that learning experience. And I would imagine, you started to get some light, UI UX mixed with some human behavior and data and analytics, you started to kind of see all of that come together. And that you’ve, I can feel it now. And it makes sense when I can ingest your content, I can see that it’s, it’s, you’re very responsible, you’re very responsible in how you communicate to not give somebody a false positive, or just spray what the industry is saying, you know,

Irit Levi 12:23
oh, the industry says how many things that are, everybody’s going to tool X right now shall remain nameless, another tool that will remain nameless, because they have such huge advertising, very invasive advertising. They’re talking at conferences, they’re promoting them, they’re sponsoring them. And so everybody’s converting to that tool. I tested the tool, it’s not that great. You know, it’s not great for a lot of case studies. People also only think short term, it’s cheap, now, they can cover what I need. Now. I’ll work with it. But they’re not thinking what happens in two years time when I have to scale and I have to hire four more people, or even two more people at the cost that it’s going to cost me. And some of these tools are modular in their pricing. So you’re paying another $5, for this $5 For that, all of a sudden, it adds up to $50 a month. And if you’re hiring three more people, that’s another few $150 a month.

Chris 13:18
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And I think looking at software, through the scalability lens, it’s a different skill. Because each one you have to have experienced scale, to even know at what points does this software no longer work. And then to it is kind of tricky, a REIT, like, matching the software with the skill of the current client or and or their team. So it’s like, you know, this tool will be perfect for you. But you would be lost if I took my hands off this thing. And so therefore, let’s use this tool. So it can be very, very challenging. Let me ask you this, because I do want to talk about some processes that you’ve seen at with high level of effectiveness just outside of marketing. But what I’ve seen, and I’m curious to see if this has been your observation is that usually, you’ll hear me say false positive a lot of times, but it’s this small victory, that is an maybe unintentionally looked at as a big victory in tech. And that is like the tech founder, or the person who can do tech. And they think that that’s as good as it gets. Right. They’re like, Oh, yeah, I set up my webinar, and oh, yeah, I’ve done this. And I ran a podcast a few weeks back to set my done. Sure done, and it’s the essential experts play, right. It’s like, hey, look, you can go and brush your teeth, but You’re not going to be as good as the dentist, but you could be good, like you want to walk around with plaque. So what I’m witnessing is that people are now settling for, just get it done, instead of getting it done at a level that’s sustainable and scalable. Has that been your experience? Or are you have you seen something different in the marketplace from from your vantage point.

Irit Levi 15:25
So I’ve had quite a few clients come to me with processes or tech already in place that just wasn’t working for them, and they paid a lot of money for it. And it was like, you know, it, it didn’t answer their needs, it was based off of, you know, they took an expert in X tool. And, and so they put them in that tool, but they didn’t really think of the customer experience. And I say Customer Quotes, because it’s the employee experience, the employees are the customers of the tech that you’re using within your business. And, you know, there are three P’s, when we come to automate people is one of them. People are super important if you have an employee that cannot use the tech. And that tech is all set up to automate and to go and to run, but they’re not using it, then what you know that okay, then then it’s worthless. What that company had was just gonna dive right into this case study, because it’s super interesting. Because this was this was a their marketing, e commerce marketing agency. And their project management was set up in clickup. And they had different different tasks at different frequencies, but they were repetitive. So some were daily tasks. Some were monthly tasks, bi weekly tasks, bi monthly tasks. Some were always on the first of the month, Summer, always on the 15th, right. And in click up, it always said daily tasks. So they had tons of tasks that were like daily tasks, daily tasks, daily tasks, daily tasks, you had to go into it to see the checkbox. And then when you go in and click up, you don’t really see you need to know where to look to see what client this is for. The team wasn’t using it. Obviously, it wasn’t giving them what they needed, they weren’t looking at, when I looked at my daily tasks, all I saw was daily tasks. I didn’t see what I had to do. So the idea is to find a setup, whether within that tool or out of it, we try and set within the tool, obviously first because we don’t want to shake the system too much. But find a setup that works in a way that okay, it’s a daily task. So we have a column for frequency. It’s just a task name. So they know what it is they’re doing. There’s a lot of data, what tool are they using to perform the task, how long it to take all this information that we want to give them when they’re doing the task. And then when they mark it as done? We want a new one to be created for the next day.

Chris 17:57
Instead of just a list?

Irit Levi 17:59
Yeah, because if they didn’t do it yesterday, why is it gonna help me that now they have it twice? If it automatically creates it? That’s not going to help me?

Chris 18:09
I read. So let’s just slow down. Let me let me pause, because you’re saying things that are that are so good. First off, let me just reiterate, everybody did you hear I read, say, your employees are the customer of the software that you’re using in your business, please write that down, quote it, tweet it whatever the case is. Because this is not just leads, not just leads. And then this, this seems so simple, but this just talks to the sharp mind that knows what they’re doing, which again, everybody, this is why this podcast exists. I want to introduce you all to the sharpest minds to strategies, ways of getting things done that you wouldn’t have even thought, yes, the mere mortal would just have all the daily tasks. And then maybe because it’s a date, you can go to the calendar view and maybe that does something. But listen to what I read this she said, Well listen, how about you just focus on the task at hand. And once you complete that Vin will spin up the next day’s tasks. I can’t, we can’t over and we can’t underestimate the power of that. Because that one task undone or maybe there’s some overwhelm in though it may have taken five minutes, that five minutes compounds. Over time when that person is not consistent. They’re not focused. So anytime that you can insert something that creates just a little bit of efficiency, a little bit of focus, reduce a little bit more of human error. Maybe they clicked on the wrong one. I read. Sometimes these tasks lists are not spaced out. So maybe they thought they clicked on today and it was the next day and then today’s never got done but they did tomorrow’s these This, this is real stuff. And it’s those little bitty things that just something as simple as having an expert like yourself come through and say, hey, look, how about we just do one and then let automation feed the next one? And the next one in the next one. So love it. I love that. We’ll keep going. Keep going. Yeah,

Irit Levi 20:18
so it was interesting. And I just want to build on what you said is, it takes five minutes, you’re right, it takes them five minutes to say, Oh, this is not the right task, let’s go into the other one. But five minutes times five employees, with each employee having 40 companies that they deal with, and they want their success, you do the math, that’s a lot of time that you’re wasting. And that’s just one example. So you know, and we made it easy for them. And I think this is what a lot of businesses miss, because when I talked to them, and I asked them for their process, they’ll tell you, they’ll tell me, you know, step one, step two, step three, step four, I’ll go back to step one. And I said, Okay, break it down further, and then break it down even more, and break it down even more. And that’s where businesses, most businesses get stuck. Without working with an expert. I’m not saying me, I’m saying any expert, any expert, someone, even a coach, you know, even a business coach that will help you delve deep into your process and understand the minut steps. We’re not talking about marketing today, but in sales, how are your inbound leads coming to you? Because the first step is outreach. Okay? You have cold outreach, you have inbound, and then inbound, how are they coming to you? They could be coming to you from your website, they could be coming to you from LinkedIn, they could be coming to you from other social media, maybe WhatsApp, maybe email, maybe text messages, how are you dealing with all of these, you have to go in deeper to understand your processes? And I think that’s where people miss, you know, with, with their analysis of their own process, have their own workflow, what’s not working?

Chris 21:50
Yeah. And I, we have a mutual friend, Brian, Brian, we’re gonna have puzzle app. And he was on the podcast, he was just on the podcast recently. And we talked about that, that ability to really understand what is in that process? What is it actually doing? And of course, he has software to help help map it, and everything, but it becomes, you know what it is? It’s the fact that if you don’t know the space, you don’t even know what to ask. Right? So you don’t even know to stop and say, Tell me more. Wait, wait that step? Where are they coming from? Okay, what will wait a minute, if they’re coming from Facebook? How are they seeing it? Oh, it’s opposed. What? What will a post where? Oh, I just post on my Facebook page everyday did? Okay, hold on. I’m just trying to track like, literally slowing their brain down and understanding the process. Because it’s it’s the that’s where the improvement takes place. Right? It’s in the nuance. It’s well, more established businesses is more nuanced. But the starters they need everything. As

Irit Levi 23:04
you’re growing, sorry. But as you’re growing, and you want to delegate to people or to tool, you have to know those nuances, because how are you going to train someone or a tool? If you don’t know what those nuances are?

Chris 23:15
Yeah, yeah, yeah, absolutely.

Irit Levi 23:18
I’ll give you I’ll give you an example. I was working with another example. I was working with a recruiting agency. And they had proprietary CRM, a customer relationship management system that was developed sort of for them. I mean, it had other uses, but it was mainly for them. And when we spoke to the team, it turned out that they were exporting and doing most of the work in Excel, and then copying and pasting it back. And I like you paid for this piece of software, they developed it for you. And you’re still working in Excel. Something is wrong, you have to understand like, it was only until I started talking to each one of the different they had three main parts to the process. And I spoke to the head of the departments of each of those three processes. And I saw how each one of them was working in Excel differently. The CRM was functioning for the first department 80% for the second department, let’s say 70%. And then for the third department, which is the most important it was functioning at 40 to 50%. Of what they needed. So we redefined the workflow, and then we rewrote a specification document for the development team. I didn’t actually do the development. I just did the tracking of the development. And I explained it to the dev team because this was proper coding. This is like above my paygrade Yeah, not where I want to go. Yeah, but but there was a process to doing that as well, obviously. And the idea was to keep them within the tool maximize the capabilities will because if if your employees are jumping from one tool to the next because you have a CRM and a project management tool, and another tool for tracking data and another tool for tracking something else Add another tool for scheduling and, and you’re not connecting them in any way. And they’re doing a lot of copying and pasting and data input. A lot of time is being wasted. And you know, efficiency is far from maximum.

Chris 25:12
Yeah, absolutely. And the the data input from a human is really the the key breakdown. And I think, again, we’re talking about scalability, right? I read, it’s easy to get, again, that false positive that says, okay, to spreadsheets, just copy and paste this, although I’ll get nervous just with that. But

Irit Levi 25:38
you know, better because you know, better.

Chris 25:40
Yes, yes. And you know what, I can say this, because it’s you and I on this on this podcast, the true power of automation, is the integrity that is maintained. When data is passed, and or handled. Right. That’s, we, I read, we can do this, because as you and I right now. Right?

Irit Levi 26:06
Nobody else does it, y’all don’t listen to us now. Don’t

Chris 26:09
mind us. The industry says, automate your marketing and sales and make millions This isn’t it. But at its core, the value is that it’s handling your data at a level of integrity, no human being can. And when you value that, and honor that, you’ll start to see how that unlocks things, because I’ve seen those big Salesforce enterprise applications, where you do have a spreadsheet. And guess what I read, because it’s so technical, there can be a space, an extra space in a sale, that throws all of the data off a human, I can’t even see it. People when they highlight stuff and hit copy, my eye is trained to say up, there’s an extra space there. Right. But the average person did just go in through Go ahead. Yes,

Irit Levi 27:03
right. Right. Now the automation will catch that. So a good automation specialist, when they’re setting you up with an automation for data, they’re gonna go, Okay, wait, sometimes this is going to be with a space, sometimes it’s going to be without, let’s trim it first extra spaces. And then boom, we’re done. It’s, it’s understanding that and that’s, I think the difference between DIY, like having someone do it themselves and doing it for someone, when you hire a specialist, they know those errors can happen, there can be that extra space. Yeah. And especially naming conventions. Because naming conventions are super important in automations. And well, in workflow in general. My first job, I’ll have to tell you the story. My first job out of college, was an assistant to an administrative assistant. Like, that’s how she was busy. I learned so much from her. She told me all about naming conventions. And I mean, I’m 50. So you can imagine how far back this is. This is before the web, right? This is years and years ago. So this is someone who taught me the power of having a good naming convention, just for organizational sake, add automation and tech to that. It’s a game changer. If you don’t have like, an simple naming convention that everyone listening today can start implementing use the date in either four or six dates running backwards. Now you in the US, you guys have a problem, because you write the date completely wrong. No offense, you guys write month day year, which doesn’t work. But if you write it, you know, year, year, month, month, day day, and you sort it, you’re always gonna get the newest on the top or on the bottom, depending on how you sorted, that’s true. And it’s always the date is always going to be relevant. And then if you have multiple on that date, add other variables to the naming convention, add an underscore with the initials add an underscore with whatever is unique to that file. Understanding the power of a good naming convention means that you can then easily automate.

Chris 29:07
Absolutely, I’ll say this, I’ve from my coding and Developer Days of old is when you really learn how to value a naming convention. But even with that, I read out, let me raise my hand and let everyone know, I have not always known which naming convention I want to use. I haven’t all sometimes I’ll start off with one and then I’ll names another custom field something else and say, Hey, I like that. Now. I’m looking at the previous 30 that don’t follow. Follow that convention. And I’m like, do I update this? But that in itself speaks to the journey, right? Yeah. It’s it’s a living mechanism, the systems that we build and the things that we do. So even yesterday, it may have made sense but we’ve got new information. And now Oh, I see that these leads are actually need to be when I sort them. This is the information I want to see. So let me change that. Right? Yeah. This is the belly of the beast here. This is the nature of it. And if you don’t have somebody that knows how to do that, what you end up doing is spinning a ton of dollars to the people who can sell themselves really well with low skill. And then you’ll hit your frustration. And then you’ll come to somebody with high skill, and you’ll try to sell them low. And it’s like, no,

Irit Levi 30:36
that’s not going to work. I’m sorry, these are my prices. And I’m proud of my prices. It took me a while to get here, but I know the value. And someone who’s been burned should know the value as well. I’ll just give you a take your example. If you want to change your naming convention, if done right to begin with, the naming field is a formula field that’s pulling in different values from different fields. And then when you change the naming convention from field a to field B, all you’re doing is changing the formula.

Chris 31:06
Yeah, yep. Yes. I love Now, you mentioned formula. So in my head, I went straight to air table, which now mentor land a mentor land. So yes, I feel like I couldn’t have this podcast or ended without asking you. We’ve we’ve talked about process flow and improvement outside of marketing, just little pointers, everyone. And if you if you’re thinking, Oh, well adding a task after once completed, that’s easy. You’re missing it, you’re missing the theory, the approach to it, the approach is Hey, show one thing once that one thing is finished show the next. Now, where else can I apply that in my business? Right? naming convention? Where else can I apply this in my business? This is why we have these conversations. But I have to ask, I’m going to keep it tame for today. And okay, as of now, so I’m gonna help you out because I’m not gonna say all time ever greatest. As of right now, today in recording, what would you say your top three favorite tools are that you just find yourself in. It’s almost like you log in. You’re like, Oh, I’m in the tool. Again. I didn’t even realize I clicked I’m always in here. Like

Irit Levi 32:32
what are those? Tables gotta be number one for me right now. It used to be Asana, by the way before a table got as good as it did because I love Asana. But air table is number one. Got it. They have different uses. Your table is good enough for my business in my size. More businesses should look at Asana for project management. I say that with a caveat. It really depends on your needs. So just because I love a tool doesn’t mean that you have to love it. And just because it’s right for my business doesn’t mean it’s going to be right for yours. It integrates really well it has a lot of native integration. Which brings me to my second favorite tool, which is Zapier because this is this is how I look at Zapier, do you know the baby game where it’s a box and at the top of the box on the cover, it has different shapes. So one is the star one square and one is a circle, you have to take different bags, put them into the tape. But when two pieces of software are speaking to each other, it’s a round peg in a square hole or a star into a triangle. It’s not going to work. What Zapier does is it takes that square peg and it converts it into a language that sap your understands. And Zapier will that push it into the circle hole. And so it makes two pieces of software speak together. I think it is one of my all time favorite tools. And I started working with Zapier six, seven years ago when they just had like, to Hootsuite, it was like to publish to publish content on social media that you know, it’s such a great tool and I have to say to their benefit that they’ve recently changed their pricing model. And they’re coming towards their you know, they’re approaching their customers in a different angle. They realized that they couldn’t compete with what Mike was offering in terms of pricing. Although they they take them hands down in terms of quality. And my third favorite tool my third favorite tool, the CES, this is going to sound really weird, but it is my Gmail

Chris 34:34
huh oh, I didn’t see

Irit Levi 34:38
love Gmail. In general, the G Suite package. I don’t pay for it. By the way. I do pay. I pay for it for Google, but I don’t have a G Suite package with everything that it entails because I don’t need it. But sharing documents sharing files via the ease of integration With everything, you know, if somebody reaches out to you via email with a click of a button, you can push it to an automation to push it into your CRM, just so simply. And it’s so much easier than we think. Plus there are tools that sit on Gmail that I’m not a fan of. But they work for some of my clients like streak, which is a really great CRM that sits on Gmail. And so some people live in tasks. And so streak gives you like, advanced tasks, but you’re still living in Gmail. And I find myself in Gmail all the time. My calendar is there, my email is there. It integrates with everything so easily. Sounds weird, because it’s like a no brainer tool. But

Chris 35:39
yeah. Great lists, great lineup. I feel like it speaks to the seniority you have in the space. And I would, I think I can go with your top three easily, because I don’t know where I would be without Google Suite, workplace, whatever they call it. You know, my frustration, I keep changing the name. And yeah, I can’t google it. Make up your mind, Google. But I have everybody listening knows I’m a huge fan of air table. I slow down just a few days ago, we were talking about to some in my membership community. And we were on a call and I said, I pay more for air table than I pay for my CRM software. And I don’t even care

Irit Levi 36:31
that I use, I use air table as my CRM software. That’s how much I don’t care. I like Pipedrive. I like copper streak is a nice tool. I’ve used close. I’ve integrated with Salesforce and with HubSpot, but audit and Zoho don’t get me started on Zoho. But you know, can I just say one thing, please. All that is holy stay away from all in one tools. Sorry, I had to get that off my chest. And all in one tool is never going to be as good as a specific tool. And having said that, I don’t have a specific CRM because I don’t need to track emails. My my filing system in my Gmail is so advanced and so set up in a way that works for me that I don’t need all the emails coming into my CRM, I don’t need all the communications, I don’t have a team of five to 10 salespeople or more that everybody needs to catch up on where everyone else is. It’s it’s a team of three. So you know, we can we manage, and it’s mostly me doing the sales right now anyway. And if anybody needs access, they have access. So any important information is within air table for my CRM. And it integrates so seamlessly with everything

Chris 37:51
I read everything. Yes.

Irit Levi 37:56
And if you think about it, you’re at the end of the call, you fill out a form an air table form, with the details of the lead that you just talked to, you hit submit, it pushes all the data into the CRM, you know, what your offer is how much you want to charge, if there’s an automated price, there’s a manual price, a discount, whatever you want to put in there, the name the company, name, everything. And then you press a button, and it sends the variables to a Google Doc. And it creates a proposal or a contract for you. I mean, I’ve just done a proposal in like three minutes after the meeting, and that sends an email. I don’t need any other tools,

Chris 38:34
lists. Everybody, okay? Everybody’s my witness. I’m trying to like, slowly segue my way out. But look at what look at, can I reach this open? I have to say, Do you realize that she just scaled your proposal process? If you were listening as a sole salesperson in your business, I think it’s it’s easy to say the proposal is the bottleneck. Right? I haven’t. I haven’t even myself haven’t met somebody who’s who’s if they have a complaint themselves, it’s usually spinning up the proposal. Now, I read just said she could after the call where everything is fresh on your mind, by the way, everything is fresh. You just enter it in some of you may have the form up while you’re on the call entering it in right here right now, afterwards, maybe you doctor up a little a little bit and you hit a button. That button. Don’t worry about how it’d be too advanced right now. Automation magic goes in since the variables because what I read has done is she’s created a template because she streamlined her proposal process. So we can’t even get there. Everyone if I read is giving Custom proposals per sales call per person every time.

Irit Levi 40:06
Great, although having said that, you can leave a lot of room for personalization. Yes. So it looks like a custom proposal, even though it’s a template, because you can say, okay, my opening paragraph, I want that to write that on the spot. Why you would want to do that? I don’t know. But that’s a different discussion. But you know, again, there are ways to personalize it. Yes, you just have to think about it. And and most people don’t realize it, because they’re afraid to let go of that control. Yeah, they’re afraid to hand it over to tech. But what if, okay, then don’t use the system for that case. Go back to the old way, or create a second template and then choose which template to use from the drop down. And that’ll trigger the automation differently. Again, there’s so many ways you can you can enhance on this. Yeah, I

Chris 40:57
love it. And here’s what I’ll say to my my automation experts out there, who are just drooling at everything that we’re talking about. Do not in this, I always recommend this, don’t try to build the whole system. Okay, just build it for your single use case right now. And improve it, you’ll you’ll be able to keep adding to it over time I read, I can probably say your proposal template, your process is it probably looks totally different than version one. Right? But if I even myself, if I were to jump in and say, All right, I see everything I REITs doing. I do things different. Right? There may be one thing that you’re doing that I don’t so yes, get the big ideas. Everyone I read said use a form after your sales call, hit a button, let it generate a template, your proposal is done for you. Okay, that’s the skeleton, we got to put some meat on the bones and everything else. But this is what you know, connecting with you members, my membership and things like that. Speaking of which, a little birdie told me that there’s something that you’re working on. And I feel like it would be the best way to kind of close us out. People have been listening to you. And they’re like, oh, my gosh, she knows what she’s talking about. Where has she been? My life. So if that is the case, and people just want to connect, get to know more about you what you’re working on? Where can they go.

Irit Levi 42:31
So if you want to know what I’m working on the best place is LinkedIn. But if you want to see my work, and what it is that I’m working on right now, it’s actually a lot about that sales pipeline. It’s, I’m launching my sales pipeline accelerator group in 10 days, 11 days. And we teach the things that we talked about today, we teach how to define the process. We don’t touch tech for three weeks, we do major pre work, we talk about your offer, we talk about your pricing, we help with these things. We talk about templates. And then in week three, we start discussing software, I don’t force a piece of software on you, if you like a piece of software, you use what you like, because if you use what I like, you’re not going to use it, use what you like, definitely, you’re not gonna use it. Software has to work for you. But the idea is we work through the different steps in the sales pipeline from that initial outreach until the client is one or you know, God forbid last happens to the best of us. We work through proposals and contracts and follow up emails. And around week six, we start talking about automations and integrations. We don’t touch it beforehand. And their bonus sessions we teach a little bit about our table. We’ve talked about Zapier, we talked about scheduling tools. And I have a Bonus Session on that. We talk about Google Docs and how to create variables in a Google Doc. And the idea of a group program is the recordings of the sessions are you get them at the beginning of the week. But then every week, there’s a live q&a Hour, which sometimes lasts longer. Let’s be honest, it’s more than an hour. But it gives you accountability. And there’s a Slack group that gives you that community and you have to share your work on the slack group and you don’t have to but you can. So you get feedback from the group, which is not just me, it’s it’s brilliant minds of people like you. And there’s a DIY version, which is just the recording. But the feedback that I’ve gotten for people who have done both is basically that accountability and the group feedback is just invaluable because we don’t spend enough time working on our business. And now’s the time summers coming things slow down. Now’s the time to work on your business.

Chris 44:48
Yeah, yeah, that’s that’s really good. I just recently was talking with some friends of mine and was really expounding on the on an end And then what on looks like versus in and things of that nature? Because it kind of got, like, just broadly talked about now is like work on your business, not in it and nobody really goes to differentiate. I read, when is your your accelerator launching? And how how would one get access to it? Do they you want them to connect with you on LinkedIn? Or is there a path for me. So

Irit Levi 45:24
the launch is May 27. It’s an application only because I only choose the people that are fit. There are 10 spots. And I think I had a couple applications come in. So I haven’t really done but you know, like, first come first person to apply for us person to get accepted. Because we want very specific people. If you go to my website, day dash bi dash day, dot biz, there’s a blue banner at the top with an orange button, just click on that. And it’ll take you to the page that describes the program more in depth. And you can see the rest of my work as well. Yes,

Chris 46:01
absolutely. Which I recommend. Everybody The link is in the show notes right now, as you’re listening, you can go to that link. And don’t worry, if you missed out on those initial 10. I read I’m pretty, pretty sure there’s probably a waitlist and then you get in contact with the next cohorts ready? Yeah, yeah,

Irit Levi 46:19
yeah. Yeah, of course. You know, me, of course, there’s gonna be a waitlist. I mean, seriously?

Chris 46:26
Yes. Well, listen, I read I can’t thank you enough for for jumping on and discussing automation and process improvement beyond just marketing. Because you’re you’re helping, you’re helping give a holistic, realistic view, which should shape the approach, and just get people off to the right start faster, you know, which is my heart, I just want to help as many people as possible. I don’t think people are making mistakes, because they want to, they’re just trying to be in business, the best way that they know how. So we’re introducing a better way, especially when it comes to your process processes, and the scalability of your company. I read you been extremely, extremely powerful, and helpful in that in that extent. Thank you so much for joining today. I am 100% pleased with how things have gone. Well,

Irit Levi 47:24
thank you so much for having me. I had so much fun, I can talk to you for hours.

Chris 47:27
I know, I know, we could go on. And I bet listeners I bet you can listen to little while longer, right? But hey, as all good things, they must come to an end. And I want to thank each and every one of you all for tuning in today. And listening those live on YouTube. Thanks for for getting the early access to this and your comments and feedback. And listen, everyone. As my shirt says, responsible automation is the destination. Okay? We don’t want you to just put some tools together and start sending out emails and things of that nature. We want you to have a calculated approach to scalability to whatever that looks like for you. Whatever the right software is for you and your team so that tech can no longer be a frustration point or a heavy burden, but actually be something that you look forward to you’re excited about. And just imagine what the saw what if you had a sales process similar to Irie afterwards, you fill out a form and the proposal is spinning up. And some of you may be like well I don’t do so what if your salesperson what what level of improvement would you get on your sales and the sales cycle shortening that so anyways, I read. Thank you again, listeners. Thank you all. As as always, until next time, I see you all online. Automate responsibly, my friends. Thank you for tuning in to this episode of The all systems go podcast. If you enjoyed it, make sure that you’re subscribed at the time of recording the all systems go podcast is free to subscribe to and it can be found in Apple podcasts, Google podcasts, YouTube, or wherever you get your podcasts new episodes are released every Thursday. So make sure you’re subscribed so that you don’t miss out and while you’re at it, please leave us a five star rating and review to show some love but also to help future listeners more easily find the podcast so they can experience the value of goodness as well. We’ve compiled all resources mentioned on the podcast, as well as other resources that are extremely valuable and effective at helping you grow your marketing automation skills quickly and you can access them all at all systems go podcast.com Thanks again for listening and until next time, I see You online Atomy responsibly my friends

Narrator 0:00
You’re listening to the all systems go podcast, the show that teaches you everything you need to know to put your business on autopilot. Learn how to deploy automated marketing and sale systems in your business the right way with your host, the professor of automation himself and founder of automation bridge, Chris Davis.

Chris 0:31
Welcome everyone to another episode of The all systems go podcast. I’m your host, Chris L. Davis. And I, I’m spoiled, everybody should know this, I’m spoiled, I get to connect an interview with some of the sharpest minds in the space. And here’s what I’ll say. I make it my business. To search out the mind. Regardless of the platform, see many people, they go out and look for the person who’s speaking the loudest on the loudest platform. And that’s not always the best mind to tap into. So I was on LinkedIn. And I don’t know how this happened. But we I got connected with our guests today. And trust me when I say you all are in for a treat. I want to introduce you all to Irit Levy, she helps coaches, creators and consultants scale their businesses with process strategy, software, and automation. So do you see how immediately when I read her bio said, Wait a minute, I need to know this person. She has provided watch this everybody she’s provided 13,697 and counting software recommendations over the years, but her core, but at her core, she is about scalability, not software. How many times? How many times have you all heard me say the strategy is greater than the software? But but let’s just pause look at the specificity 13,697 I just I love it. I love it. Okay, and her approach is different because she believes technology is just a tool. It’s only as valuable as it is helpful. I read welcome to the podcast. Thank you for joining us. How are you doing? Oh, thank

Irit Levi 2:30
you so much for having me, Chris. And now I’m just blushing and okay. My day is perfect. I don’t need to do anything else today. That’s it. The other day? Yes.

Chris 2:41
And I have to. I mentioned it a course just a few minutes ago. But I don’t recall how I got connected. I just You just know like, sometimes LinkedIn algorithm actually does work. It says, Hey, I found somebody that talks about stuff that you talk about. And here’s here’s what was so refreshing about your LinkedIn feed. It was so personable and real. It did not feel Listen, everybody is starting to have their radar up for like those chat GPT created posts. Oh, it had no no inkling of Chechi Beatty. And the comments, people were so responsive and you are so conversational. And um, but but that’s not it. That’s not it. Everybody, I haven’t even told I read this. So this is live on the podcast. I went in as my nosy Self does often as I opted into your list, and opted in under a secret email. So you couldn’t you could modify my, my journey. I don’t honestly, listen, you sent some emails that were so well written and resonated so strongly. Just talking about, hey, what tool should you be looking at? Hey, how about not focus on tools focus on this, like, value is all I’ll say just continual value. So I was excited to have you on so that we could discuss automation beyond just marketing. Right? What are the other areas that people can start to expand their expectations and what to expect with that, but I just wanted to share, share that insight to you and in our in our listeners, that I’ve really enjoyed how you practice what you preach and how you put it on display. In a way that’s very authentic.

Irit Levi 4:36
Thank you. So I’ll be honest with you, I don’t use chat TPT I don’t use AI at all. I do have an email strategist. Her name is Val Ackerman. She is the best and she teaches me so much about ethical marketing and and just are so in tuned about that. But I don’t I don’t use AI. I think AI has its place. But if you You cannot talk about what you do passionately without the help of AI. Are you in the right space? That’s just that’s just me.

Chris 5:10
That’s a good one. And I think that you also have to be mindful that with mass adoption comes mass abuse. Right. So yeah. So now, as it’s becoming more common, and just like, hey, use Chat GPT for this Claude this and that. And I always know things are becoming more mainstream by the people who are using them. So when non techies are really talking about AI and everything, you know, that is reaching mass mass adoption. And with that is not to be negative or derogatory, but a brainless approach at times, just hey, let me do this up my brain Chat GPT in Oh, wow, that’s nice. That’s better than I would ever wrote it, then put it in there. And it just lacks so much human element and connectivity. So yeah, yeah, yeah. A

Irit Levi 6:06
few people that teach how to use it. And I think it’s a tool again, like any tool, if you’re using it to enhance your capabilities, if you’re using it to improve your efficiency, your productivity, and it’s serving you in the best possible ways, and it’s the right tool for you. But if you’re not, and this is true of any tool AI is no different. If it’s making you sound robotic. If it’s making you sound like the masses, then maybe it’s not the right tool for you, or you need to learn how to use it better. One or the other. Yep,

Chris 6:36
I agree. And I’ll say this is my main. Everybody. This is not even an AI podcast. But just let me say this, my main use case that continues to serve me well is for brainstorming. You know, like, hey, come up with some ideas. But I don’t like to let it flesh out the ideas. And because it usually does not go in a way that I that I would go. And I just shared this on LinkedIn. I read, I was saying, I’m more of the antagonists to Chat GPT, like, I want you to tell me something. And then I want to write an article that’s totally opposite. In that.

Irit Levi 7:13
It really, and by the way, there, there are tools that are better than judge GPT. Even before you use Microsoft, copilot, use perplexity AI, like there are tools out there today, they can give you so much more than the page at GPT 4.0. Yeah, yeah, we’ll just use what everybody else is using because their neighbors, sisters, dogs child likes it. I don’t know, whatever it is, find the tool that’s right for you. Yes.

Chris 7:40
So. So in that, I before I jumped too deep in this, I want you to give our listeners a bird’s eye view of your journey to where you’re at right now. And where you’re at, in my estimation, and just from us meeting is somebody who comes into a business, and really helps with process improvement. Whether it be through recommending new software, or getting more out of the software that you’re currently using. It’s all about do you have the proper setup to scale at whatever level you want? Now, but how did you get there was this like, as a child, you grew up thinking, I just want to make processes better? My little girl, right? Was that my way

Irit Levi 8:35
to be a doctor that I saw blood? So a doctor was out of doctor, he came out of the question very early. So yeah. So about five years before COVID hit, I was working for a startup. I was a product owner there. And I discovered automations. I was an instructional design writer before so like I knew how to organize data always. That’s a God given gift. But I didn’t really know where it was going. And then about a year, a year and a month before before COVID hit. I gave him my final notice. For know, a month before COVID Hit sorry, a month before COVID hit. I gave my final notice my last day of work was February 12 2020. February 15. The world stopped. Now I have a government employee, husband and family. Nobody thought of entrepreneurship. I mean, who does? Right? Yeah, but I was like, Yeah, nobody’s gonna hire now. We’re all remote like zoom was just starting the technology wasn’t where it is today. Four years later. Yeah. And so my husband said, Okay, fine, go for it. I had $100 as my opening budget to give to my accountant. And I just started testing software and talking about it. Talking about how much I love it, how much you know how it can change the world. Interestingly enough, I was talking about a piece of software and how much I hate it. it. And I was comparing it to other pieces of software and I found one that I loved. And then somebody wrote a post saying, who knows, x piece of software that shall remain nameless, that I don’t like, and six people tagged me. Now I hate it, but I know it. That was the first doll I earned. And, you know, it’s we never know where it’s coming from. And then as I grew, I realized, you know, it’s not about the tools. There are a lot of software automation experts out there. But most of them will focus on a tool they’re really good at click up, they’re really good at Air table. They’re really [email protected], or they’re HubSpot experts or Salesforce experts. Now, some tools require an expert like Salesforce like HubSpot, because they’re monsters. But you go to them when you know that that’s the tool, finding the tool, finding the tool that’s right for you is not based on whatever the specialist tells you. It’s based on what your needs are. So if you go to a click up specialist, they’re gonna tell you Oh, click up can do it. That doesn’t mean that that’s the right tool for you. Yes, yes. And that’s where I sort of diverge from doing just no code, low code, tools, setup, and focused more on the workflow, understanding how it works, analyzing what you do, and then reassessing it. And giving tips from proven tips are not necessarily technological, they can be just, oh, let’s just improve communication here. In a small spot.

Chris 11:32
Yeah. So so in the instructional design, prior to this, this was really about crafting the that educational that learning experience. And I would imagine, you started to get some light, UI UX mixed with some human behavior and data and analytics, you started to kind of see all of that come together. And that you’ve, I can feel it now. And it makes sense when I can ingest your content, I can see that it’s, it’s, you’re very responsible, you’re very responsible in how you communicate to not give somebody a false positive, or just spray what the industry is saying, you know,

Irit Levi 12:23
oh, the industry says how many things that are, everybody’s going to tool X right now shall remain nameless, another tool that will remain nameless, because they have such huge advertising, very invasive advertising. They’re talking at conferences, they’re promoting them, they’re sponsoring them. And so everybody’s converting to that tool. I tested the tool, it’s not that great. You know, it’s not great for a lot of case studies. People also only think short term, it’s cheap, now, they can cover what I need. Now. I’ll work with it. But they’re not thinking what happens in two years time when I have to scale and I have to hire four more people, or even two more people at the cost that it’s going to cost me. And some of these tools are modular in their pricing. So you’re paying another $5, for this $5 For that, all of a sudden, it adds up to $50 a month. And if you’re hiring three more people, that’s another few $150 a month.

Chris 13:18
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And I think looking at software, through the scalability lens, it’s a different skill. Because each one you have to have experienced scale, to even know at what points does this software no longer work. And then to it is kind of tricky, a REIT, like, matching the software with the skill of the current client or and or their team. So it’s like, you know, this tool will be perfect for you. But you would be lost if I took my hands off this thing. And so therefore, let’s use this tool. So it can be very, very challenging. Let me ask you this, because I do want to talk about some processes that you’ve seen at with high level of effectiveness just outside of marketing. But what I’ve seen, and I’m curious to see if this has been your observation is that usually, you’ll hear me say false positive a lot of times, but it’s this small victory, that is an maybe unintentionally looked at as a big victory in tech. And that is like the tech founder, or the person who can do tech. And they think that that’s as good as it gets. Right. They’re like, Oh, yeah, I set up my webinar, and oh, yeah, I’ve done this. And I ran a podcast a few weeks back to set my done. Sure done, and it’s the essential experts play, right. It’s like, hey, look, you can go and brush your teeth, but You’re not going to be as good as the dentist, but you could be good, like you want to walk around with plaque. So what I’m witnessing is that people are now settling for, just get it done, instead of getting it done at a level that’s sustainable and scalable. Has that been your experience? Or are you have you seen something different in the marketplace from from your vantage point.

Irit Levi 15:25
So I’ve had quite a few clients come to me with processes or tech already in place that just wasn’t working for them, and they paid a lot of money for it. And it was like, you know, it, it didn’t answer their needs, it was based off of, you know, they took an expert in X tool. And, and so they put them in that tool, but they didn’t really think of the customer experience. And I say Customer Quotes, because it’s the employee experience, the employees are the customers of the tech that you’re using within your business. And, you know, there are three P’s, when we come to automate people is one of them. People are super important if you have an employee that cannot use the tech. And that tech is all set up to automate and to go and to run, but they’re not using it, then what you know that okay, then then it’s worthless. What that company had was just gonna dive right into this case study, because it’s super interesting. Because this was this was a their marketing, e commerce marketing agency. And their project management was set up in clickup. And they had different different tasks at different frequencies, but they were repetitive. So some were daily tasks. Some were monthly tasks, bi weekly tasks, bi monthly tasks. Some were always on the first of the month, Summer, always on the 15th, right. And in click up, it always said daily tasks. So they had tons of tasks that were like daily tasks, daily tasks, daily tasks, daily tasks, you had to go into it to see the checkbox. And then when you go in and click up, you don’t really see you need to know where to look to see what client this is for. The team wasn’t using it. Obviously, it wasn’t giving them what they needed, they weren’t looking at, when I looked at my daily tasks, all I saw was daily tasks. I didn’t see what I had to do. So the idea is to find a setup, whether within that tool or out of it, we try and set within the tool, obviously first because we don’t want to shake the system too much. But find a setup that works in a way that okay, it’s a daily task. So we have a column for frequency. It’s just a task name. So they know what it is they’re doing. There’s a lot of data, what tool are they using to perform the task, how long it to take all this information that we want to give them when they’re doing the task. And then when they mark it as done? We want a new one to be created for the next day.

Chris 17:57
Instead of just a list?

Irit Levi 17:59
Yeah, because if they didn’t do it yesterday, why is it gonna help me that now they have it twice? If it automatically creates it? That’s not going to help me?

Chris 18:09
I read. So let’s just slow down. Let me let me pause, because you’re saying things that are that are so good. First off, let me just reiterate, everybody did you hear I read, say, your employees are the customer of the software that you’re using in your business, please write that down, quote it, tweet it whatever the case is. Because this is not just leads, not just leads. And then this, this seems so simple, but this just talks to the sharp mind that knows what they’re doing, which again, everybody, this is why this podcast exists. I want to introduce you all to the sharpest minds to strategies, ways of getting things done that you wouldn’t have even thought, yes, the mere mortal would just have all the daily tasks. And then maybe because it’s a date, you can go to the calendar view and maybe that does something. But listen to what I read this she said, Well listen, how about you just focus on the task at hand. And once you complete that Vin will spin up the next day’s tasks. I can’t, we can’t over and we can’t underestimate the power of that. Because that one task undone or maybe there’s some overwhelm in though it may have taken five minutes, that five minutes compounds. Over time when that person is not consistent. They’re not focused. So anytime that you can insert something that creates just a little bit of efficiency, a little bit of focus, reduce a little bit more of human error. Maybe they clicked on the wrong one. I read. Sometimes these tasks lists are not spaced out. So maybe they thought they clicked on today and it was the next day and then today’s never got done but they did tomorrow’s these This, this is real stuff. And it’s those little bitty things that just something as simple as having an expert like yourself come through and say, hey, look, how about we just do one and then let automation feed the next one? And the next one in the next one. So love it. I love that. We’ll keep going. Keep going. Yeah,

Irit Levi 20:18
so it was interesting. And I just want to build on what you said is, it takes five minutes, you’re right, it takes them five minutes to say, Oh, this is not the right task, let’s go into the other one. But five minutes times five employees, with each employee having 40 companies that they deal with, and they want their success, you do the math, that’s a lot of time that you’re wasting. And that’s just one example. So you know, and we made it easy for them. And I think this is what a lot of businesses miss, because when I talked to them, and I asked them for their process, they’ll tell you, they’ll tell me, you know, step one, step two, step three, step four, I’ll go back to step one. And I said, Okay, break it down further, and then break it down even more, and break it down even more. And that’s where businesses, most businesses get stuck. Without working with an expert. I’m not saying me, I’m saying any expert, any expert, someone, even a coach, you know, even a business coach that will help you delve deep into your process and understand the minut steps. We’re not talking about marketing today, but in sales, how are your inbound leads coming to you? Because the first step is outreach. Okay? You have cold outreach, you have inbound, and then inbound, how are they coming to you? They could be coming to you from your website, they could be coming to you from LinkedIn, they could be coming to you from other social media, maybe WhatsApp, maybe email, maybe text messages, how are you dealing with all of these, you have to go in deeper to understand your processes? And I think that’s where people miss, you know, with, with their analysis of their own process, have their own workflow, what’s not working?

Chris 21:50
Yeah. And I, we have a mutual friend, Brian, Brian, we’re gonna have puzzle app. And he was on the podcast, he was just on the podcast recently. And we talked about that, that ability to really understand what is in that process? What is it actually doing? And of course, he has software to help help map it, and everything, but it becomes, you know what it is? It’s the fact that if you don’t know the space, you don’t even know what to ask. Right? So you don’t even know to stop and say, Tell me more. Wait, wait that step? Where are they coming from? Okay, what will wait a minute, if they’re coming from Facebook? How are they seeing it? Oh, it’s opposed. What? What will a post where? Oh, I just post on my Facebook page everyday did? Okay, hold on. I’m just trying to track like, literally slowing their brain down and understanding the process. Because it’s it’s the that’s where the improvement takes place. Right? It’s in the nuance. It’s well, more established businesses is more nuanced. But the starters they need everything. As

Irit Levi 23:04
you’re growing, sorry. But as you’re growing, and you want to delegate to people or to tool, you have to know those nuances, because how are you going to train someone or a tool? If you don’t know what those nuances are?

Chris 23:15
Yeah, yeah, yeah, absolutely.

Irit Levi 23:18
I’ll give you I’ll give you an example. I was working with another example. I was working with a recruiting agency. And they had proprietary CRM, a customer relationship management system that was developed sort of for them. I mean, it had other uses, but it was mainly for them. And when we spoke to the team, it turned out that they were exporting and doing most of the work in Excel, and then copying and pasting it back. And I like you paid for this piece of software, they developed it for you. And you’re still working in Excel. Something is wrong, you have to understand like, it was only until I started talking to each one of the different they had three main parts to the process. And I spoke to the head of the departments of each of those three processes. And I saw how each one of them was working in Excel differently. The CRM was functioning for the first department 80% for the second department, let’s say 70%. And then for the third department, which is the most important it was functioning at 40 to 50%. Of what they needed. So we redefined the workflow, and then we rewrote a specification document for the development team. I didn’t actually do the development. I just did the tracking of the development. And I explained it to the dev team because this was proper coding. This is like above my paygrade Yeah, not where I want to go. Yeah, but but there was a process to doing that as well, obviously. And the idea was to keep them within the tool maximize the capabilities will because if if your employees are jumping from one tool to the next because you have a CRM and a project management tool, and another tool for tracking data and another tool for tracking something else Add another tool for scheduling and, and you’re not connecting them in any way. And they’re doing a lot of copying and pasting and data input. A lot of time is being wasted. And you know, efficiency is far from maximum.

Chris 25:12
Yeah, absolutely. And the the data input from a human is really the the key breakdown. And I think, again, we’re talking about scalability, right? I read, it’s easy to get, again, that false positive that says, okay, to spreadsheets, just copy and paste this, although I’ll get nervous just with that. But

Irit Levi 25:38
you know, better because you know, better.

Chris 25:40
Yes, yes. And you know what, I can say this, because it’s you and I on this on this podcast, the true power of automation, is the integrity that is maintained. When data is passed, and or handled. Right. That’s, we, I read, we can do this, because as you and I right now. Right?

Irit Levi 26:06
Nobody else does it, y’all don’t listen to us now. Don’t

Chris 26:09
mind us. The industry says, automate your marketing and sales and make millions This isn’t it. But at its core, the value is that it’s handling your data at a level of integrity, no human being can. And when you value that, and honor that, you’ll start to see how that unlocks things, because I’ve seen those big Salesforce enterprise applications, where you do have a spreadsheet. And guess what I read, because it’s so technical, there can be a space, an extra space in a sale, that throws all of the data off a human, I can’t even see it. People when they highlight stuff and hit copy, my eye is trained to say up, there’s an extra space there. Right. But the average person did just go in through Go ahead. Yes,

Irit Levi 27:03
right. Right. Now the automation will catch that. So a good automation specialist, when they’re setting you up with an automation for data, they’re gonna go, Okay, wait, sometimes this is going to be with a space, sometimes it’s going to be without, let’s trim it first extra spaces. And then boom, we’re done. It’s, it’s understanding that and that’s, I think the difference between DIY, like having someone do it themselves and doing it for someone, when you hire a specialist, they know those errors can happen, there can be that extra space. Yeah. And especially naming conventions. Because naming conventions are super important in automations. And well, in workflow in general. My first job, I’ll have to tell you the story. My first job out of college, was an assistant to an administrative assistant. Like, that’s how she was busy. I learned so much from her. She told me all about naming conventions. And I mean, I’m 50. So you can imagine how far back this is. This is before the web, right? This is years and years ago. So this is someone who taught me the power of having a good naming convention, just for organizational sake, add automation and tech to that. It’s a game changer. If you don’t have like, an simple naming convention that everyone listening today can start implementing use the date in either four or six dates running backwards. Now you in the US, you guys have a problem, because you write the date completely wrong. No offense, you guys write month day year, which doesn’t work. But if you write it, you know, year, year, month, month, day day, and you sort it, you’re always gonna get the newest on the top or on the bottom, depending on how you sorted, that’s true. And it’s always the date is always going to be relevant. And then if you have multiple on that date, add other variables to the naming convention, add an underscore with the initials add an underscore with whatever is unique to that file. Understanding the power of a good naming convention means that you can then easily automate.

Chris 29:07
Absolutely, I’ll say this, I’ve from my coding and Developer Days of old is when you really learn how to value a naming convention. But even with that, I read out, let me raise my hand and let everyone know, I have not always known which naming convention I want to use. I haven’t all sometimes I’ll start off with one and then I’ll names another custom field something else and say, Hey, I like that. Now. I’m looking at the previous 30 that don’t follow. Follow that convention. And I’m like, do I update this? But that in itself speaks to the journey, right? Yeah. It’s it’s a living mechanism, the systems that we build and the things that we do. So even yesterday, it may have made sense but we’ve got new information. And now Oh, I see that these leads are actually need to be when I sort them. This is the information I want to see. So let me change that. Right? Yeah. This is the belly of the beast here. This is the nature of it. And if you don’t have somebody that knows how to do that, what you end up doing is spinning a ton of dollars to the people who can sell themselves really well with low skill. And then you’ll hit your frustration. And then you’ll come to somebody with high skill, and you’ll try to sell them low. And it’s like, no,

Irit Levi 30:36
that’s not going to work. I’m sorry, these are my prices. And I’m proud of my prices. It took me a while to get here, but I know the value. And someone who’s been burned should know the value as well. I’ll just give you a take your example. If you want to change your naming convention, if done right to begin with, the naming field is a formula field that’s pulling in different values from different fields. And then when you change the naming convention from field a to field B, all you’re doing is changing the formula.

Chris 31:06
Yeah, yep. Yes. I love Now, you mentioned formula. So in my head, I went straight to air table, which now mentor land a mentor land. So yes, I feel like I couldn’t have this podcast or ended without asking you. We’ve we’ve talked about process flow and improvement outside of marketing, just little pointers, everyone. And if you if you’re thinking, Oh, well adding a task after once completed, that’s easy. You’re missing it, you’re missing the theory, the approach to it, the approach is Hey, show one thing once that one thing is finished show the next. Now, where else can I apply that in my business? Right? naming convention? Where else can I apply this in my business? This is why we have these conversations. But I have to ask, I’m going to keep it tame for today. And okay, as of now, so I’m gonna help you out because I’m not gonna say all time ever greatest. As of right now, today in recording, what would you say your top three favorite tools are that you just find yourself in. It’s almost like you log in. You’re like, Oh, I’m in the tool. Again. I didn’t even realize I clicked I’m always in here. Like

Irit Levi 32:32
what are those? Tables gotta be number one for me right now. It used to be Asana, by the way before a table got as good as it did because I love Asana. But air table is number one. Got it. They have different uses. Your table is good enough for my business in my size. More businesses should look at Asana for project management. I say that with a caveat. It really depends on your needs. So just because I love a tool doesn’t mean that you have to love it. And just because it’s right for my business doesn’t mean it’s going to be right for yours. It integrates really well it has a lot of native integration. Which brings me to my second favorite tool, which is Zapier because this is this is how I look at Zapier, do you know the baby game where it’s a box and at the top of the box on the cover, it has different shapes. So one is the star one square and one is a circle, you have to take different bags, put them into the tape. But when two pieces of software are speaking to each other, it’s a round peg in a square hole or a star into a triangle. It’s not going to work. What Zapier does is it takes that square peg and it converts it into a language that sap your understands. And Zapier will that push it into the circle hole. And so it makes two pieces of software speak together. I think it is one of my all time favorite tools. And I started working with Zapier six, seven years ago when they just had like, to Hootsuite, it was like to publish to publish content on social media that you know, it’s such a great tool and I have to say to their benefit that they’ve recently changed their pricing model. And they’re coming towards their you know, they’re approaching their customers in a different angle. They realized that they couldn’t compete with what Mike was offering in terms of pricing. Although they they take them hands down in terms of quality. And my third favorite tool my third favorite tool, the CES, this is going to sound really weird, but it is my Gmail

Chris 34:34
huh oh, I didn’t see

Irit Levi 34:38
love Gmail. In general, the G Suite package. I don’t pay for it. By the way. I do pay. I pay for it for Google, but I don’t have a G Suite package with everything that it entails because I don’t need it. But sharing documents sharing files via the ease of integration With everything, you know, if somebody reaches out to you via email with a click of a button, you can push it to an automation to push it into your CRM, just so simply. And it’s so much easier than we think. Plus there are tools that sit on Gmail that I’m not a fan of. But they work for some of my clients like streak, which is a really great CRM that sits on Gmail. And so some people live in tasks. And so streak gives you like, advanced tasks, but you’re still living in Gmail. And I find myself in Gmail all the time. My calendar is there, my email is there. It integrates with everything so easily. Sounds weird, because it’s like a no brainer tool. But

Chris 35:39
yeah. Great lists, great lineup. I feel like it speaks to the seniority you have in the space. And I would, I think I can go with your top three easily, because I don’t know where I would be without Google Suite, workplace, whatever they call it. You know, my frustration, I keep changing the name. And yeah, I can’t google it. Make up your mind, Google. But I have everybody listening knows I’m a huge fan of air table. I slow down just a few days ago, we were talking about to some in my membership community. And we were on a call and I said, I pay more for air table than I pay for my CRM software. And I don’t even care

Irit Levi 36:31
that I use, I use air table as my CRM software. That’s how much I don’t care. I like Pipedrive. I like copper streak is a nice tool. I’ve used close. I’ve integrated with Salesforce and with HubSpot, but audit and Zoho don’t get me started on Zoho. But you know, can I just say one thing, please. All that is holy stay away from all in one tools. Sorry, I had to get that off my chest. And all in one tool is never going to be as good as a specific tool. And having said that, I don’t have a specific CRM because I don’t need to track emails. My my filing system in my Gmail is so advanced and so set up in a way that works for me that I don’t need all the emails coming into my CRM, I don’t need all the communications, I don’t have a team of five to 10 salespeople or more that everybody needs to catch up on where everyone else is. It’s it’s a team of three. So you know, we can we manage, and it’s mostly me doing the sales right now anyway. And if anybody needs access, they have access. So any important information is within air table for my CRM. And it integrates so seamlessly with everything

Chris 37:51
I read everything. Yes.

Irit Levi 37:56
And if you think about it, you’re at the end of the call, you fill out a form an air table form, with the details of the lead that you just talked to, you hit submit, it pushes all the data into the CRM, you know, what your offer is how much you want to charge, if there’s an automated price, there’s a manual price, a discount, whatever you want to put in there, the name the company, name, everything. And then you press a button, and it sends the variables to a Google Doc. And it creates a proposal or a contract for you. I mean, I’ve just done a proposal in like three minutes after the meeting, and that sends an email. I don’t need any other tools,

Chris 38:34
lists. Everybody, okay? Everybody’s my witness. I’m trying to like, slowly segue my way out. But look at what look at, can I reach this open? I have to say, Do you realize that she just scaled your proposal process? If you were listening as a sole salesperson in your business, I think it’s it’s easy to say the proposal is the bottleneck. Right? I haven’t. I haven’t even myself haven’t met somebody who’s who’s if they have a complaint themselves, it’s usually spinning up the proposal. Now, I read just said she could after the call where everything is fresh on your mind, by the way, everything is fresh. You just enter it in some of you may have the form up while you’re on the call entering it in right here right now, afterwards, maybe you doctor up a little a little bit and you hit a button. That button. Don’t worry about how it’d be too advanced right now. Automation magic goes in since the variables because what I read has done is she’s created a template because she streamlined her proposal process. So we can’t even get there. Everyone if I read is giving Custom proposals per sales call per person every time.

Irit Levi 40:06
Great, although having said that, you can leave a lot of room for personalization. Yes. So it looks like a custom proposal, even though it’s a template, because you can say, okay, my opening paragraph, I want that to write that on the spot. Why you would want to do that? I don’t know. But that’s a different discussion. But you know, again, there are ways to personalize it. Yes, you just have to think about it. And and most people don’t realize it, because they’re afraid to let go of that control. Yeah, they’re afraid to hand it over to tech. But what if, okay, then don’t use the system for that case. Go back to the old way, or create a second template and then choose which template to use from the drop down. And that’ll trigger the automation differently. Again, there’s so many ways you can you can enhance on this. Yeah, I

Chris 40:57
love it. And here’s what I’ll say to my my automation experts out there, who are just drooling at everything that we’re talking about. Do not in this, I always recommend this, don’t try to build the whole system. Okay, just build it for your single use case right now. And improve it, you’ll you’ll be able to keep adding to it over time I read, I can probably say your proposal template, your process is it probably looks totally different than version one. Right? But if I even myself, if I were to jump in and say, All right, I see everything I REITs doing. I do things different. Right? There may be one thing that you’re doing that I don’t so yes, get the big ideas. Everyone I read said use a form after your sales call, hit a button, let it generate a template, your proposal is done for you. Okay, that’s the skeleton, we got to put some meat on the bones and everything else. But this is what you know, connecting with you members, my membership and things like that. Speaking of which, a little birdie told me that there’s something that you’re working on. And I feel like it would be the best way to kind of close us out. People have been listening to you. And they’re like, oh, my gosh, she knows what she’s talking about. Where has she been? My life. So if that is the case, and people just want to connect, get to know more about you what you’re working on? Where can they go.

Irit Levi 42:31
So if you want to know what I’m working on the best place is LinkedIn. But if you want to see my work, and what it is that I’m working on right now, it’s actually a lot about that sales pipeline. It’s, I’m launching my sales pipeline accelerator group in 10 days, 11 days. And we teach the things that we talked about today, we teach how to define the process. We don’t touch tech for three weeks, we do major pre work, we talk about your offer, we talk about your pricing, we help with these things. We talk about templates. And then in week three, we start discussing software, I don’t force a piece of software on you, if you like a piece of software, you use what you like, because if you use what I like, you’re not going to use it, use what you like, definitely, you’re not gonna use it. Software has to work for you. But the idea is we work through the different steps in the sales pipeline from that initial outreach until the client is one or you know, God forbid last happens to the best of us. We work through proposals and contracts and follow up emails. And around week six, we start talking about automations and integrations. We don’t touch it beforehand. And their bonus sessions we teach a little bit about our table. We’ve talked about Zapier, we talked about scheduling tools. And I have a Bonus Session on that. We talk about Google Docs and how to create variables in a Google Doc. And the idea of a group program is the recordings of the sessions are you get them at the beginning of the week. But then every week, there’s a live q&a Hour, which sometimes lasts longer. Let’s be honest, it’s more than an hour. But it gives you accountability. And there’s a Slack group that gives you that community and you have to share your work on the slack group and you don’t have to but you can. So you get feedback from the group, which is not just me, it’s it’s brilliant minds of people like you. And there’s a DIY version, which is just the recording. But the feedback that I’ve gotten for people who have done both is basically that accountability and the group feedback is just invaluable because we don’t spend enough time working on our business. And now’s the time summers coming things slow down. Now’s the time to work on your business.

Chris 44:48
Yeah, yeah, that’s that’s really good. I just recently was talking with some friends of mine and was really expounding on the on an end And then what on looks like versus in and things of that nature? Because it kind of got, like, just broadly talked about now is like work on your business, not in it and nobody really goes to differentiate. I read, when is your your accelerator launching? And how how would one get access to it? Do they you want them to connect with you on LinkedIn? Or is there a path for me. So

Irit Levi 45:24
the launch is May 27. It’s an application only because I only choose the people that are fit. There are 10 spots. And I think I had a couple applications come in. So I haven’t really done but you know, like, first come first person to apply for us person to get accepted. Because we want very specific people. If you go to my website, day dash bi dash day, dot biz, there’s a blue banner at the top with an orange button, just click on that. And it’ll take you to the page that describes the program more in depth. And you can see the rest of my work as well. Yes,

Chris 46:01
absolutely. Which I recommend. Everybody The link is in the show notes right now, as you’re listening, you can go to that link. And don’t worry, if you missed out on those initial 10. I read I’m pretty, pretty sure there’s probably a waitlist and then you get in contact with the next cohorts ready? Yeah, yeah,

Irit Levi 46:19
yeah. Yeah, of course. You know, me, of course, there’s gonna be a waitlist. I mean, seriously?

Chris 46:26
Yes. Well, listen, I read I can’t thank you enough for for jumping on and discussing automation and process improvement beyond just marketing. Because you’re you’re helping, you’re helping give a holistic, realistic view, which should shape the approach, and just get people off to the right start faster, you know, which is my heart, I just want to help as many people as possible. I don’t think people are making mistakes, because they want to, they’re just trying to be in business, the best way that they know how. So we’re introducing a better way, especially when it comes to your process processes, and the scalability of your company. I read you been extremely, extremely powerful, and helpful in that in that extent. Thank you so much for joining today. I am 100% pleased with how things have gone. Well,

Irit Levi 47:24
thank you so much for having me. I had so much fun, I can talk to you for hours.

Chris 47:27
I know, I know, we could go on. And I bet listeners I bet you can listen to little while longer, right? But hey, as all good things, they must come to an end. And I want to thank each and every one of you all for tuning in today. And listening those live on YouTube. Thanks for for getting the early access to this and your comments and feedback. And listen, everyone. As my shirt says, responsible automation is the destination. Okay? We don’t want you to just put some tools together and start sending out emails and things of that nature. We want you to have a calculated approach to scalability to whatever that looks like for you. Whatever the right software is for you and your team so that tech can no longer be a frustration point or a heavy burden, but actually be something that you look forward to you’re excited about. And just imagine what the saw what if you had a sales process similar to Irie afterwards, you fill out a form and the proposal is spinning up. And some of you may be like well I don’t do so what if your salesperson what what level of improvement would you get on your sales and the sales cycle shortening that so anyways, I read. Thank you again, listeners. Thank you all. As as always, until next time, I see you all online. Automate responsibly, my friends. Thank you for tuning in to this episode of The all systems go podcast. If you enjoyed it, make sure that you’re subscribed at the time of recording the all systems go podcast is free to subscribe to and it can be found in Apple podcasts, Google podcasts, YouTube, or wherever you get your podcasts new episodes are released every Thursday. So make sure you’re subscribed so that you don’t miss out and while you’re at it, please leave us a five star rating and review to show some love but also to help future listeners more easily find the podcast so they can experience the value of goodness as well. We’ve compiled all resources mentioned on the podcast, as well as other resources that are extremely valuable and effective at helping you grow your marketing automation skills quickly and you can access them all at all systems go podcast.com Thanks again for listening and until next time, I see You online Atomy responsibly my friends