When Your Best Isn’t Good Enough

​​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 sales systems in your business the right way with your host, the professor of automation himself and founder of automation bridge, Chris Davis,

Chris 0:32
welcome everybody to another episode of The all systems go podcast. I’m your host. Chris L Davis, and I wanted to do a little story time. Everyone. I wanted to do a little story time. And it’s, it’s a, it’s really a follow up to the episode. Let me get the number Episode 185, so about 10 or 11 episodes ago, when I said, you’re done, doesn’t equal my done. And it was essentially saying experts are experts for a reason, and though you may be able to go change, change that tire, fix that toilet, lay that concrete, some things are just better left to the experts. And to further illustrate that, I’ve got a story everyone, and it’s a story I want to share because I find it so common, so common, and it was recent, and it was on my mind, and it the results were amazing. And, yeah, I just wanted to talk about it today. So today I posed the question, what happens when your best isn’t good enough? What do you do when all that you could do isn’t good enough to do what you needed it to do? And that’s a that’s an interesting statement, because some people don’t even know that their best is not good enough until they until they see, good enough, right? You write an email and it’s the best email that you can write, and you’re like, All right, that’s good. No, no grammatical errors, great. The links work. I’m sending it out, right? And that’s the best. It’s best. That’s you you could do. And then someone shows you, hey, look, here’s how I could, here’s how I would have improved that email. And they bring things to your awareness that you didn’t know existed. You’re like, oh, wow, I didn’t know you could do that. Oh, that is that. What that is, pre head, I was wondering how it’s different from the first sentence in an email, right? Like you start to realize best or better. So better is always relative to your experience. And when I say when your best isn’t good enough, how do you know it’s not good enough if you haven’t experienced better, right? Part of it is just learning, being an active listener to, you know, experts in the space and doing your homework and your due diligence. But the other part is you just have to experience better. And it just is one of those things. It’s part of the human existence. Man, this food was good until you this burger was good until I had a better one. Ooh, it’s the best burger till I had a better one, right? So there’s this, there’s always improvement. There’s always improvement to be made. And I know I made. I drew parallels in the previous podcast about marriage and how at some point you got to take you got to just appreciate what you have, because there’s always something more out there, somebody more this, unless that and doesn’t do this and do that. So anyway, I’m not going down the relationship path today. Everyone. All right, I want to share a story, and this is a story of a friend, a friend who I am connected with through a group of high level, high level marketers. Excuse me not, high level marketers, high level business owners, and somebody that I respect because of how they’re doing their business, how they built their business, and some of the intentionality behind the business, okay, some of the heart to give back to the community what the business stands for in itself. All that to say, respect it. Respect the founder. Savvy, savvy, savvy founder. And got has some technical chops. So it didn’t surprise me when I can’t remember. I wish I could remember what the the reasoning of us getting together, but we ended up getting together. Perhaps some buzzwords were spoken in a meeting that we were in, and I was like, Hey, wait a minute. Let me, let me look under the hood and see what you got. Just because I know people are usually terrible at Tech, and that’s not being negative everyone. I think that’s safe to say, on average, you’re going to experience a terrible technician before a good one. It’s just the nature. Of it. There’s so many things that can go right and wrong. There’s so many considerations. I understand it. I don’t judge people for being a terrible technician. I’ve been a terrible technician before. So I know the word terrible is a little jarring, but it’s appropriate and it’s accurate. So anyways, I said, let me just take a peek, and that’s what I did. That’s what I did before we got to it, by the way, tool of execution the CRM software was HubSpot. All right, I am familiar with HubSpot. My years of being familiar with HubSpot span back almost 10 years, and they’ve made so many updates. I’m familiar with the ecosystem, per se, but a lot of the nuanced updates and things that they’ve done since I’m not in it day to day, you know, little rusty, but that’s okay, because I wasn’t going to do anything. I was just going to assess and perhaps instruct. Well, guess what? Before we could even get into a HubSpot, he pulls up a flow chart. Now, imagine my surprise when the founder pulls up a flow chart. My first question is, who created this? My first expectation is some agency, or somebody that just drew a whole bunch of boxes and arrows together to impress you, because that’s what it looked like. It looked I mean, it didn’t really have any rhyme or reason. It was just boxes and arrows and cloud shapes and everything. I could see the effort, and I could appreciate the effort, but it was very difficult to follow. Upon. Further questioning, I found out the founder did it, so because the founder did it, I had a different level of respect, if it was an agency or another. Marketing provider, automation service provider, martech, marketer, freelancer, whatever you want to call yourself, if it was that, if it was them, I would, I would be highly disappointed, because the flow chart was not easy to follow, and that’s rule number one with flow charting, is that it must be easy to follow for you, for future you, and then for the owner of the company. I shouldn’t say the owner of the company, the owner of the department and or process. Okay, it’s got to meet those three criteria in order for it to be a good flow chart. And this one did not meet any of them. I mean, I am very savvy at flowcharts. Let me give you all some some context. I used to have to interpret logical charts, graphs and schematics from people almost twice my age when I got into engineering, because the new technology could not run on the old the new technology required a new language. So I was the translator between this, these old guys, legacy code, and their schematics and everything, I had to translate that into language for new chips as an engineer. So I know confusing, and that’s engineering, so there ain’t no boxes, and all that is, it’s voltage, resistors, capacitors. I mean, it’s it’s different. Everyone is different. So because I have that skill, though, I’m not easily overwhelmed. Now, I am easily overwhelmed with things that don’t make sense, regardless of the industry and whatnot. And this just simply did not make sense. Again, it’s the founder. I give them credit for taking the time to map it out before building. So the founder I’m looking at like, Wow, great job again. However, if this was a automation service provider, Digital Marketer, martech marketer, Freelancer agency, I’m highly disappointed, because you should know better. You should know better. So what’s the first step? What’s the first thing that I did everyone I had to make sense out of what didn’t make sense. I went through, and I’m familiar with the flow chart software, so I went through, and I just, you know, the temptation is often to just let me move some stuff around and make this thing make sense, the young me would have tried that new me, the new mature marketer. I’m not touching that. I’m not touching that. Matter of fact, here, let me just create my own space, and I’ll refer to this and try to comprehend what you were trying to say. So, long story short. Now this took me about I would say two sittings, two one hour sittings. Because the first hour I mapped it out away, and then the next day, I was like, Oh no. Actually, that doesn’t make sense, and I mapped it out another way, real quick. Anybody else,

Chris 9:55
when you do something so a lot of times when I map things out, or I build on. I I record a loom video with me walking through it, and then I usually send that, instead of just the raw file, right? And it’s these are selective scenarios, because I don’t like to show flow charts to really anybody who doesn’t have the capacity to understand, plus they don’t care. But anyways, in this aspect, there are times where I will record a loom. Am I the only one that it’s not till you hit record on on like loom, or whatever record screen, screen recording software you’re using that you start seeing errors. I mean, I look at this thing, and then the minute I start recording, I’m like, Oh, actually, that’s not supposed to be there, right? So perhaps that’s a good hack for some of you. Is when you’re done building record ILLUM about it, and you’d be surprised at how many things jump out to you. So I It happens to me all the time with support tickets. If I have issues with support tickets, issue with the software, and I need to create a support ticket, and I’m recording what’s going on half the time. Me just recording it solves the problem. And I’m like, Look, your software’s not working, because when I click this button, it doesn’t, oh, I don’t have it hooked up there, right it? I don’t know if that happens to anybody else, but it happens to me frequently. I’m okay to admit that. Anyways, so where was I? We were in the story where I told you I’m not touching that. So I go, good job trying to understand what they were trying to do. Took two days because the second sitting and after recording loom things came to me that didn’t come to me before I ended up if you I can’t show you all, I would have to anonymize the data, or I don’t anyways, just just think of it like this. Boxes, arrows, all over the place. When I was done with the first version, it was a pipe it was pipeline automation. Everybody B to B, pipeline automation. And when I was done with the first stage, it was a nice linear progression. Just it. It was so simple that you would have thought I missed something like, This guy isn’t who he said he is. He clearly he doesn’t know what he’s doing. Now, I did all of this without even looking in HubSpot. I did not even look at the HubSpot workflows. Everyone did not look at them. Simply the flow chart that was the founder’s brain saying, These are the things that I need to get done. Now in this process, what did i What did I have to take into account? He doesn’t know the possibilities. So what he’s saying he wants to get done is from his own understanding, right? So I have some agency to move and create new possibilities, or debunk existing ones. I did not have to stay within the confines. And maybe that’s important for you all to hear, is that sometimes inheriting someone’s baby is tough. You just say, Hey, you keep that baby. I’m gonna go create my own baby and see if you want to change. Like it’s not real life. We can actually exchange babies. You could take mine, I’ll take yours, and I’ll just go throw it away. No lives lost. It’s just figuratively speaking, right? So I went and created my own baby, something that I could understand, and I knew if I understood it, it usually should be understood by the masses. Now, in doing so, guess what? Another aspect of this was I was mapping this thing out with implementation in mind, not platform, not platform. I’m not thinking about the platform who cares. I’m mapping the process out with keeping things in mind how platforms work, things like goals, things like moving deals from stage to stage, creating stages tasks, how they’re used in the CRM, softwares and things of that nature. I’ve got domain and software knowledge that is guiding my mapping, all right, so I end up producing the map. Okay, let me be honest. It’s the podcast. I want to be honest with you. On the podcast, I produced the map, and I looked at it, and it looks so simple, even I questioned it. So I’m not judging somebody who would say, Oh, that’s too simple. I was thinking, like, man, before it was like, 50 boxes, I’ve only got eight. Did I miss something? So I had to keep looking at it anyways. Recorded a loom, sent it over. Hey, hey, we need to talk. And of course, that was there was no exclamation mark or anything that can give any indicator that you’re excited or or what, but the fact that you want to talk means that maybe I got it right. Maybe I missed the mark. This is me. Listen, everyone. Did you hear what I just said? Some of you are like, Chris, you’re the expert of all experts. Surely you never worry, sure. Surely you’re always confident. That’s true. But I’m I’m never so far ahead. Ahead of myself, so confident that I’m not aware of the reality that I too, can make a mistake. I can overlook something. My best can be better. I understand that we would. It’s called humility, honestly, and it’s needed. So when he responded, I had to humble and not get defensive, because defensiveness comes when you don’t Humble yourself. Had to humble and say, I may have got it wrong. I may have understood this thing in a way that did not work, and I just sent him something that was totally left right. Could have jumped on a call. Couldn’t have been further from the truth. Hey, hey, I just this is, uh, it almost seems too good to be true, right? He’s like, is this the same thing, or did you just create something new? And I’m like, both, and it is the same thing created in a new way, right? So I was to be truthful here. I Well, I’m always truthful to be transparent. How about that? How about that? I was intending on offering to train his team andor the agency that did it. I don’t care. I understand that there’s pride in there. Maybe the agency says, Hey, who are you to tell us what to do? But listen, everybody, I did not have access to the HubSpot workflow, so I’m kind of limited in my understanding, because perhaps also, humbly speaking, maybe, maybe, maybe, they took the map that the founder created and they did the same thing I did, simplified it and created something that was built for execution and just didn’t show him, and then they built it in HubSpot. And the work is already done right now, there’s humility and there’s a little bit of false hope too, because experience has shown me that’s never the case. It’s never the case. But you know, if I want to say past performance is not an indicator of future performance, I couldn’t make that statement here, because past performance shows that these agencies, marketers and just freelancers in general, are real lazy with their approach. So I finally get access to the HubSpot workflow everyone and what I saw, what I saw over complicated, over complicated. It just it. My new terminology is they try to be Spider Man. They try to create a web that them, and only them could jump around and understand this world wide web that they’ve created in the workflow this workflow web, right? And I mean, you got to zoom out. HubSpot is not even really built for too many if else branches and all that, their workflow builder really breaks down when you start to have too many of those. So you got to zoom all the way out. By that time, all you see is just arrows and boxes. You can’t read any text. Then you got to zoom in, zoom out, zoom in. That’s your first sign everyone that you’ve overcomplicated a workflow. You got to keep zooming in, zooming out. I’m talking specifically to automation builders in CRM software for marketing automation, other tools like Miro puzzle app was on the podcast. You know, other other, other mapping software, zooming in and zooming out is perfectly acceptable. That should not be the case with building out automated workflows and CRM software, because it’s too confusing. Everybody. It’s too confusing. If any, there are times where you do need to zoom out just because the builder itself may have if else branching. That just causes you to so if you have a radio button with like five outputs, that’s five if else branches, depending on your software and Active Campaign, it’s the waterfall. But if we go into something like go high level, which I believe gets it right? You could just have multiple branches all on the same level and name the branches. What so and Zapier does that as well. Anyways,

Chris 19:12
get back to the story, Chris. All I’m saying is, even with that in mind, they didn’t use any of it. They didn’t use any of it because HubSpot, you can have multiple branches. Name the branches, none of that. And if they did, it was very confusing. We open it up, we’re on a zoom call, and we’re trying to follow it. I see glaze over the founder’s eyes. He It was early in the morning, so I knew this is a immediate headache if we try to understand this. So I made an executive decision, and I said, Hey, look, how about we not look at that? How about let’s just make sure you understand, you know, the flow chart, and this, this and that, right? But the the thing that, okay, so we did that. Now, his response again, this is a friend. This is not. This is not like a working meeting. I’m not saying, Hey, you’re on the clock. I’m just trying to help. I’m really trying to help a friend out. And I didn’t know what to expect, so I was prepared to say, hey, look, let I’ll just work with your team. I’ll tell them how to do it, and we’ll give you the finished product. Well, to my surprise, the founder wanted to jump into the software and start building it out himself. So now I’m curious. I’m like, Okay, let’s just see. See your tech chops here. I didn’t touch anything. I didn’t touch anything. He gets in, and he starts to build it out. And, you know, he doesn’t know where the weight one day is when it goes to create a task he’s looking at, like integrating with Trello, or, you know, like a project management solver, which makes I understand where your mind goes with that. But that brings the next point. Not only was the workflow over complicated, but even him himself, he didn’t understand the ecosystem of the software that he was using. I was like, hey, no no, when I say, create a task, let’s not do that like we’re not we don’t need an integration. We’re talking about a task inside of HubSpot that will populate for the owner of the contact. Oh, right. So that’s the other thing. And then, and then lastly, because I want to get, get through with it all, because I can, this is a really good story, but I don’t want to bore you all with the details. But as we’re building it out, first off, I’m seeing the glaze be removed from his eyes, and he’s starting to understand. He’s like, Oh. And then this, this that, then he makes a statement. He’s like, but what? Whoa, whoa, whoa, we need some if elses, because if they don’t do something, what happens if they do? I said, no, no. How we built this is dummy proof. They’re only in this workflow if they don’t take the action that we want them to take. The minute they take the action, they’re removed from this workflow. I said, So this entire workflow is the no branch. And it clicked, y’all. He was like, Oh, I get it again. You got to understand the ecosystem. You have to understand how marketing software works. Goals. Remove, stop process. Start this one. You get what I’m saying. So that whole process was very educational, and at the end of the day, working from the map that I created, he essentially built out his first stage follow up, he was able to build it out. Now, listen, I’m just a silent partner on the Zoom call watching. I’m instructing like, hey, look right. Here is where I think you should personalize the task. So for instance, here’s another thing that that amateur, amateur builders would do by default, a task, and everything has a name. So in HubSpot, you add a task, and it’s just like you categorize that as a phone call, and it just says phone call, and you just keep going. I said, whoa. Slow down. I said, I think you should go back and personalize that tag. I mean that that that task, because if you’ve got 10 deals and all coming through around the same time, all you’re gonna have is phone call, phone call, phone call as names of tasks to do today. How about you say call, insert first name. He was like, Oh my gosh, that’s so good. I said, Yes, we want to build this thing to where you can be stupid and be successful. This, this is, I’m not knocking you. This is actually an achievement. It’s an achievement of mine. If somebody stupid can be successful and by stupid, I’m not saying that’s your identity. That’s not descriptive to your intellect. What I’m saying is what is required to get the job done is very low intellect. It’s easy to just say stupid, right? So stupid processes scale. So I tell I said stupid processes skill you need to make this thing so dummy proof that when someone is here, they don’t have to think about anything. They can click a box, they can do a thing, and that’s it, right? And that type of language and approach really resonated. He started to see who’s like, oh my gosh, this is so good. This is Yes, I can see it. Now, guess how much time it took me? This took less than 60 minutes. Now let’s add it all up, two hours to map, 60 minutes to get the first thing, first version of the first stage, built. That’s three hours. Again. This is a friend, no charge, no harm, no foul. Don’t do it often, but I’m honored to be able to do it when the situation fits, because I love giving back to my friends, to people who are doing business in a good way. Deserve to win three hours. Can you imagine I didn’t ask. I didn’t ask. Can you imagine what he paid an agency, how much time it took, and we already know the quality of the deliverable. That is what I mean by when your best isn’t good enough, you went You did your best. To hire the best agency to do the best work for you, and none of it was good enough. Forget good enough. It wasn’t even functional. It wasn’t even functional. And one of the things that I told him when I was looking at this spiderweb workflow, I said this would be impossible to maintain, which is another thing. Expert builders build with maintenance in mind. And you’re building with the software ecosystem in mind. I shouldn’t necessarily say the software ecosystem, but you’re keeping in mind that this is going into software, so it needs to be built and instructional in a way. And for me, I’m also factoring in that other people, other team, people, a marketing team, needs to be able to understand this quickly. So now we got a side by side when it’s done. I mean, he’s smiling and everything. Remember, this was early in the morning, gloom and doom in the beginning, looking at the web workflow. Now we got a nice linear path, easy to follow. He’s like, I get it, this is super easy. Then the the agency, the autonomy, I’ll say that the autonomy started to take place where now he’s renaming stuff. He got it, it clicked, y’all, it clicked, right? So this was a, this was a win. And here’s the summary. Here’s what I told him. I said, Listen, you, as a founder, have the desire to log in to your dashboard, see the task, do the task, get out your dashboard. I said, here’s the problem. If you have Microsoft Office, all you can do in Microsoft Office is what the UI provides you. You can’t go into the back code in HubSpot and a lot of these other marketing tools, you can go into the back code. What’s the back code? Everybody, properties, workflows, email, builders, that’s all code. If I can get you all to understand that’s the back end code. There are certain people that should never be back there in the code. So that’s what I was saying. The problem is that these marketing platforms expose the code and you, and because it’s a simplified version of code blocks and everything you feel like you need to be back there. No, you don’t. This thing needs to be built for you to be able to make quick decisions that don’t take a whole lot of thought and get the deal moving, keep the deal moving. And it made sense. He was like, Oh my gosh. Then when you say it like that, it makes perfect sense. Yes, I don’t want to be in the code. I just want the code to work. Yes. So that’s why you have people who specialize in automation and marketing technology to build it out so that all you have to do is go to a contact record, go to a pipeline, move a card, click a box, you know, things of that nature. But it comes with experience everyone. It comes with experience. For my marketers out there, my automation service providers and my martech marketers out there, it takes time. Don’t Don’t beat yourself up. It takes time and experience. Don’t beat yourself up too bad, and don’t feel like you have to sell yourself more than what you can actually do if you did a small amount really well. Is better than doing a whole bunch sloppy. Okay, so there’s nothing wrong with with simplifying and saying, Hey, look, this is my stack for now. I don’t use those tools. I can learn it communicate that that’s fine. Now they at least know what they’re getting right. But we want to keep things simple. They, you know, they say it kiss, right? Keep it simple. Stupid. Just keep it stupid.

Chris 28:45
I forget simple, not make it stupid. Make it make it so where a five year old can go, on the screen, the task is generated. The task shouldn’t just, just say, call it. Should have some description. Hey, look, yesterday, we sent this email and they didn’t respond, which is why we gave them when you call, make sure you have that in mind. You can put that in the notes of the task and how I framed it to the to the founders, I said, this is automated conversations. This is what you would tell them anyway, if you’re sitting in front of them, put it in the note. Now, the notes telling them every single time it’s generated, right? But these are small things that make a huge difference, and you don’t even look at it, you don’t even know it, unless you understand how this all comes together. And that’s that’s the biggest reward for me, is again, seeing the light bulbs come on. And when I say, when your best isn’t good enough, that’s a good thing. That means there’s better. That just means there’s better. There’s there’s another level you can achieve. That’s the P if there’s a zone of genius I exist in, that’s it just being better. Yeah. To simplify it, I’m just better, again, not in an arrogant way, in a workflow focused way, that workflow can be better. And by better, I mean it could be so simple that the dumbest person on your team could look like a genius, if you could put and again, I’m using kind of jarring language. I don’t think anybody’s a dummy. Well, people aren’t dummies, and most people but what I’m saying is this, if the person with the least amount of intellect can show up as if they have the most amount of intellect, my job is done. That’s what I want, everybody. If you guys saw some of the automation in my business, I am very descriptive with Slack notifications, tasks that are generated everything. It’s like, hey, look, this person just did this. Here’s Active Campaign. Link, link, go make sure they have these tags. If they do have these tags, go here and make sure you update the record once you’ve done that, like very descriptive, extremely descriptive, because I’m not just thinking about the stupidity of others. I’m thinking about the stupidity of my own, the future me, the future me. Future Chris is not as smart as current Chris. And I’m saying that because I’m not going to remember what current Chris did. So inherently I become stupid in that respect. I can’t count the amount of times I’ve gone to a process I’ve set up and been scratching my head like, what was I even with notes? Y’all even with notes? It just is what it is current brain and future brain don’t always sync up in a line. Now, when I build it so simple, yes, I can go back and be like, Oh yeah, I remember what I was doing. So usually what’s missing when I’m confused is not just the documentation, it’s the complexity of it. It really is. So I am against complex, complex workflows. I haven’t seen many cases where they’re needed big corporations all the way down to the little bitty solopreneur but it takes expertise to be able to condense and make things concise and clear, and that’s what I was able to do. So so I want that to be true for you. Now, in this case, to this day, the founder had time and the desire to go in and build. That’s not going to be the case as deal flow starts being produced. You see what I’m saying? Like you’re going to need to be able to execute this thing. Forget you, though not you. You’re going to need to be able to quickly onboard people and put them in a place that they can just click buttons and do a thing and do their job. Well, no long onboarding required, right? Hey, when you log in, go to this dashboard has all your tasks, all your stuff. As long as you do that, your job is done for the day. Right. Now, I could have owners of stages. I could have owners at of particular tasks. I can really start to make this system to what I needed to be. In closing, I’ll say this. One of the other cardinal sins that I don’t want you all to make is trying to do too much too soon as I started to simplify, the founder’s brain started to ideate and imagine again, which is great, which is great because it was hindered by complexity. And what ended up happening was he started to see possibilities. Whenever you see you gotta be real careful with possibilities, right? But he’s Oh, yeah, and then I can do integrate this calling software to send a voicemail. And this, I said, Yep, or you do all that once we get the foundation in place, once we get the foundation in place. So, so you see, I’m able to I didn’t kill his dream. I just tapered it. Tapered the expectations a bit. Right? Say, Hey, not right now. Yes, it’s possible, but not right now. That’s all with claim management and, you know, under understanding people and managing expectations and keeping hope alive, kill the possibility for now, but keep hope alive, right? That’s an art everyone. Um, anyways, I just, I just felt like I wanted to share that story and then give you a little more insight, even with me and my approach and process, and hopefully that helps you all. My goal is to not blast these agencies or marketers that are doing this type of work. Is to highlight the work and mention that it can be done better. It can be done better. The question is, are you connected to the appropriate people and resources that can make it better, right? That’s the big question, and that’s the desire. You know, we’re always working on fine tuning and evolving our community to achieve just that. So there is a place for it. There is a place for it, but I hope you all enjoy. That and enjoyed that story. And again, a reminder that congratulations for doing the best that you can with the tools that you’ve had. Congratulations, and guess what? It can be better. So 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 and 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, automate 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 sales systems in your business the right way with your host, the professor of automation himself and founder of automation bridge, Chris Davis,

Chris 0:32
welcome everybody to another episode of The all systems go podcast. I’m your host. Chris L Davis, and I wanted to do a little story time. Everyone. I wanted to do a little story time. And it’s, it’s a, it’s really a follow up to the episode. Let me get the number Episode 185, so about 10 or 11 episodes ago, when I said, you’re done, doesn’t equal my done. And it was essentially saying experts are experts for a reason, and though you may be able to go change, change that tire, fix that toilet, lay that concrete, some things are just better left to the experts. And to further illustrate that, I’ve got a story everyone, and it’s a story I want to share because I find it so common, so common, and it was recent, and it was on my mind, and it the results were amazing. And, yeah, I just wanted to talk about it today. So today I posed the question, what happens when your best isn’t good enough? What do you do when all that you could do isn’t good enough to do what you needed it to do? And that’s a that’s an interesting statement, because some people don’t even know that their best is not good enough until they until they see, good enough, right? You write an email and it’s the best email that you can write, and you’re like, All right, that’s good. No, no grammatical errors, great. The links work. I’m sending it out, right? And that’s the best. It’s best. That’s you you could do. And then someone shows you, hey, look, here’s how I could, here’s how I would have improved that email. And they bring things to your awareness that you didn’t know existed. You’re like, oh, wow, I didn’t know you could do that. Oh, that is that. What that is, pre head, I was wondering how it’s different from the first sentence in an email, right? Like you start to realize best or better. So better is always relative to your experience. And when I say when your best isn’t good enough, how do you know it’s not good enough if you haven’t experienced better, right? Part of it is just learning, being an active listener to, you know, experts in the space and doing your homework and your due diligence. But the other part is you just have to experience better. And it just is one of those things. It’s part of the human existence. Man, this food was good until you this burger was good until I had a better one. Ooh, it’s the best burger till I had a better one, right? So there’s this, there’s always improvement. There’s always improvement to be made. And I know I made. I drew parallels in the previous podcast about marriage and how at some point you got to take you got to just appreciate what you have, because there’s always something more out there, somebody more this, unless that and doesn’t do this and do that. So anyway, I’m not going down the relationship path today. Everyone. All right, I want to share a story, and this is a story of a friend, a friend who I am connected with through a group of high level, high level marketers. Excuse me not, high level marketers, high level business owners, and somebody that I respect because of how they’re doing their business, how they built their business, and some of the intentionality behind the business, okay, some of the heart to give back to the community what the business stands for in itself. All that to say, respect it. Respect the founder. Savvy, savvy, savvy founder. And got has some technical chops. So it didn’t surprise me when I can’t remember. I wish I could remember what the the reasoning of us getting together, but we ended up getting together. Perhaps some buzzwords were spoken in a meeting that we were in, and I was like, Hey, wait a minute. Let me, let me look under the hood and see what you got. Just because I know people are usually terrible at Tech, and that’s not being negative everyone. I think that’s safe to say, on average, you’re going to experience a terrible technician before a good one. It’s just the nature. Of it. There’s so many things that can go right and wrong. There’s so many considerations. I understand it. I don’t judge people for being a terrible technician. I’ve been a terrible technician before. So I know the word terrible is a little jarring, but it’s appropriate and it’s accurate. So anyways, I said, let me just take a peek, and that’s what I did. That’s what I did before we got to it, by the way, tool of execution the CRM software was HubSpot. All right, I am familiar with HubSpot. My years of being familiar with HubSpot span back almost 10 years, and they’ve made so many updates. I’m familiar with the ecosystem, per se, but a lot of the nuanced updates and things that they’ve done since I’m not in it day to day, you know, little rusty, but that’s okay, because I wasn’t going to do anything. I was just going to assess and perhaps instruct. Well, guess what? Before we could even get into a HubSpot, he pulls up a flow chart. Now, imagine my surprise when the founder pulls up a flow chart. My first question is, who created this? My first expectation is some agency, or somebody that just drew a whole bunch of boxes and arrows together to impress you, because that’s what it looked like. It looked I mean, it didn’t really have any rhyme or reason. It was just boxes and arrows and cloud shapes and everything. I could see the effort, and I could appreciate the effort, but it was very difficult to follow. Upon. Further questioning, I found out the founder did it, so because the founder did it, I had a different level of respect, if it was an agency or another. Marketing provider, automation service provider, martech, marketer, freelancer, whatever you want to call yourself, if it was that, if it was them, I would, I would be highly disappointed, because the flow chart was not easy to follow, and that’s rule number one with flow charting, is that it must be easy to follow for you, for future you, and then for the owner of the company. I shouldn’t say the owner of the company, the owner of the department and or process. Okay, it’s got to meet those three criteria in order for it to be a good flow chart. And this one did not meet any of them. I mean, I am very savvy at flowcharts. Let me give you all some some context. I used to have to interpret logical charts, graphs and schematics from people almost twice my age when I got into engineering, because the new technology could not run on the old the new technology required a new language. So I was the translator between this, these old guys, legacy code, and their schematics and everything, I had to translate that into language for new chips as an engineer. So I know confusing, and that’s engineering, so there ain’t no boxes, and all that is, it’s voltage, resistors, capacitors. I mean, it’s it’s different. Everyone is different. So because I have that skill, though, I’m not easily overwhelmed. Now, I am easily overwhelmed with things that don’t make sense, regardless of the industry and whatnot. And this just simply did not make sense. Again, it’s the founder. I give them credit for taking the time to map it out before building. So the founder I’m looking at like, Wow, great job again. However, if this was a automation service provider, Digital Marketer, martech marketer, Freelancer agency, I’m highly disappointed, because you should know better. You should know better. So what’s the first step? What’s the first thing that I did everyone I had to make sense out of what didn’t make sense. I went through, and I’m familiar with the flow chart software, so I went through, and I just, you know, the temptation is often to just let me move some stuff around and make this thing make sense, the young me would have tried that new me, the new mature marketer. I’m not touching that. I’m not touching that. Matter of fact, here, let me just create my own space, and I’ll refer to this and try to comprehend what you were trying to say. So, long story short. Now this took me about I would say two sittings, two one hour sittings. Because the first hour I mapped it out away, and then the next day, I was like, Oh no. Actually, that doesn’t make sense, and I mapped it out another way, real quick. Anybody else,

Chris 9:55
when you do something so a lot of times when I map things out, or I build on. I I record a loom video with me walking through it, and then I usually send that, instead of just the raw file, right? And it’s these are selective scenarios, because I don’t like to show flow charts to really anybody who doesn’t have the capacity to understand, plus they don’t care. But anyways, in this aspect, there are times where I will record a loom. Am I the only one that it’s not till you hit record on on like loom, or whatever record screen, screen recording software you’re using that you start seeing errors. I mean, I look at this thing, and then the minute I start recording, I’m like, Oh, actually, that’s not supposed to be there, right? So perhaps that’s a good hack for some of you. Is when you’re done building record ILLUM about it, and you’d be surprised at how many things jump out to you. So I It happens to me all the time with support tickets. If I have issues with support tickets, issue with the software, and I need to create a support ticket, and I’m recording what’s going on half the time. Me just recording it solves the problem. And I’m like, Look, your software’s not working, because when I click this button, it doesn’t, oh, I don’t have it hooked up there, right it? I don’t know if that happens to anybody else, but it happens to me frequently. I’m okay to admit that. Anyways, so where was I? We were in the story where I told you I’m not touching that. So I go, good job trying to understand what they were trying to do. Took two days because the second sitting and after recording loom things came to me that didn’t come to me before I ended up if you I can’t show you all, I would have to anonymize the data, or I don’t anyways, just just think of it like this. Boxes, arrows, all over the place. When I was done with the first version, it was a pipe it was pipeline automation. Everybody B to B, pipeline automation. And when I was done with the first stage, it was a nice linear progression. Just it. It was so simple that you would have thought I missed something like, This guy isn’t who he said he is. He clearly he doesn’t know what he’s doing. Now, I did all of this without even looking in HubSpot. I did not even look at the HubSpot workflows. Everyone did not look at them. Simply the flow chart that was the founder’s brain saying, These are the things that I need to get done. Now in this process, what did i What did I have to take into account? He doesn’t know the possibilities. So what he’s saying he wants to get done is from his own understanding, right? So I have some agency to move and create new possibilities, or debunk existing ones. I did not have to stay within the confines. And maybe that’s important for you all to hear, is that sometimes inheriting someone’s baby is tough. You just say, Hey, you keep that baby. I’m gonna go create my own baby and see if you want to change. Like it’s not real life. We can actually exchange babies. You could take mine, I’ll take yours, and I’ll just go throw it away. No lives lost. It’s just figuratively speaking, right? So I went and created my own baby, something that I could understand, and I knew if I understood it, it usually should be understood by the masses. Now, in doing so, guess what? Another aspect of this was I was mapping this thing out with implementation in mind, not platform, not platform. I’m not thinking about the platform who cares. I’m mapping the process out with keeping things in mind how platforms work, things like goals, things like moving deals from stage to stage, creating stages tasks, how they’re used in the CRM, softwares and things of that nature. I’ve got domain and software knowledge that is guiding my mapping, all right, so I end up producing the map. Okay, let me be honest. It’s the podcast. I want to be honest with you. On the podcast, I produced the map, and I looked at it, and it looks so simple, even I questioned it. So I’m not judging somebody who would say, Oh, that’s too simple. I was thinking, like, man, before it was like, 50 boxes, I’ve only got eight. Did I miss something? So I had to keep looking at it anyways. Recorded a loom, sent it over. Hey, hey, we need to talk. And of course, that was there was no exclamation mark or anything that can give any indicator that you’re excited or or what, but the fact that you want to talk means that maybe I got it right. Maybe I missed the mark. This is me. Listen, everyone. Did you hear what I just said? Some of you are like, Chris, you’re the expert of all experts. Surely you never worry, sure. Surely you’re always confident. That’s true. But I’m I’m never so far ahead. Ahead of myself, so confident that I’m not aware of the reality that I too, can make a mistake. I can overlook something. My best can be better. I understand that we would. It’s called humility, honestly, and it’s needed. So when he responded, I had to humble and not get defensive, because defensiveness comes when you don’t Humble yourself. Had to humble and say, I may have got it wrong. I may have understood this thing in a way that did not work, and I just sent him something that was totally left right. Could have jumped on a call. Couldn’t have been further from the truth. Hey, hey, I just this is, uh, it almost seems too good to be true, right? He’s like, is this the same thing, or did you just create something new? And I’m like, both, and it is the same thing created in a new way, right? So I was to be truthful here. I Well, I’m always truthful to be transparent. How about that? How about that? I was intending on offering to train his team andor the agency that did it. I don’t care. I understand that there’s pride in there. Maybe the agency says, Hey, who are you to tell us what to do? But listen, everybody, I did not have access to the HubSpot workflow, so I’m kind of limited in my understanding, because perhaps also, humbly speaking, maybe, maybe, maybe, they took the map that the founder created and they did the same thing I did, simplified it and created something that was built for execution and just didn’t show him, and then they built it in HubSpot. And the work is already done right now, there’s humility and there’s a little bit of false hope too, because experience has shown me that’s never the case. It’s never the case. But you know, if I want to say past performance is not an indicator of future performance, I couldn’t make that statement here, because past performance shows that these agencies, marketers and just freelancers in general, are real lazy with their approach. So I finally get access to the HubSpot workflow everyone and what I saw, what I saw over complicated, over complicated. It just it. My new terminology is they try to be Spider Man. They try to create a web that them, and only them could jump around and understand this world wide web that they’ve created in the workflow this workflow web, right? And I mean, you got to zoom out. HubSpot is not even really built for too many if else branches and all that, their workflow builder really breaks down when you start to have too many of those. So you got to zoom all the way out. By that time, all you see is just arrows and boxes. You can’t read any text. Then you got to zoom in, zoom out, zoom in. That’s your first sign everyone that you’ve overcomplicated a workflow. You got to keep zooming in, zooming out. I’m talking specifically to automation builders in CRM software for marketing automation, other tools like Miro puzzle app was on the podcast. You know, other other, other mapping software, zooming in and zooming out is perfectly acceptable. That should not be the case with building out automated workflows and CRM software, because it’s too confusing. Everybody. It’s too confusing. If any, there are times where you do need to zoom out just because the builder itself may have if else branching. That just causes you to so if you have a radio button with like five outputs, that’s five if else branches, depending on your software and Active Campaign, it’s the waterfall. But if we go into something like go high level, which I believe gets it right? You could just have multiple branches all on the same level and name the branches. What so and Zapier does that as well. Anyways,

Chris 19:12
get back to the story, Chris. All I’m saying is, even with that in mind, they didn’t use any of it. They didn’t use any of it because HubSpot, you can have multiple branches. Name the branches, none of that. And if they did, it was very confusing. We open it up, we’re on a zoom call, and we’re trying to follow it. I see glaze over the founder’s eyes. He It was early in the morning, so I knew this is a immediate headache if we try to understand this. So I made an executive decision, and I said, Hey, look, how about we not look at that? How about let’s just make sure you understand, you know, the flow chart, and this, this and that, right? But the the thing that, okay, so we did that. Now, his response again, this is a friend. This is not. This is not like a working meeting. I’m not saying, Hey, you’re on the clock. I’m just trying to help. I’m really trying to help a friend out. And I didn’t know what to expect, so I was prepared to say, hey, look, let I’ll just work with your team. I’ll tell them how to do it, and we’ll give you the finished product. Well, to my surprise, the founder wanted to jump into the software and start building it out himself. So now I’m curious. I’m like, Okay, let’s just see. See your tech chops here. I didn’t touch anything. I didn’t touch anything. He gets in, and he starts to build it out. And, you know, he doesn’t know where the weight one day is when it goes to create a task he’s looking at, like integrating with Trello, or, you know, like a project management solver, which makes I understand where your mind goes with that. But that brings the next point. Not only was the workflow over complicated, but even him himself, he didn’t understand the ecosystem of the software that he was using. I was like, hey, no no, when I say, create a task, let’s not do that like we’re not we don’t need an integration. We’re talking about a task inside of HubSpot that will populate for the owner of the contact. Oh, right. So that’s the other thing. And then, and then lastly, because I want to get, get through with it all, because I can, this is a really good story, but I don’t want to bore you all with the details. But as we’re building it out, first off, I’m seeing the glaze be removed from his eyes, and he’s starting to understand. He’s like, Oh. And then this, this that, then he makes a statement. He’s like, but what? Whoa, whoa, whoa, we need some if elses, because if they don’t do something, what happens if they do? I said, no, no. How we built this is dummy proof. They’re only in this workflow if they don’t take the action that we want them to take. The minute they take the action, they’re removed from this workflow. I said, So this entire workflow is the no branch. And it clicked, y’all. He was like, Oh, I get it again. You got to understand the ecosystem. You have to understand how marketing software works. Goals. Remove, stop process. Start this one. You get what I’m saying. So that whole process was very educational, and at the end of the day, working from the map that I created, he essentially built out his first stage follow up, he was able to build it out. Now, listen, I’m just a silent partner on the Zoom call watching. I’m instructing like, hey, look right. Here is where I think you should personalize the task. So for instance, here’s another thing that that amateur, amateur builders would do by default, a task, and everything has a name. So in HubSpot, you add a task, and it’s just like you categorize that as a phone call, and it just says phone call, and you just keep going. I said, whoa. Slow down. I said, I think you should go back and personalize that tag. I mean that that that task, because if you’ve got 10 deals and all coming through around the same time, all you’re gonna have is phone call, phone call, phone call as names of tasks to do today. How about you say call, insert first name. He was like, Oh my gosh, that’s so good. I said, Yes, we want to build this thing to where you can be stupid and be successful. This, this is, I’m not knocking you. This is actually an achievement. It’s an achievement of mine. If somebody stupid can be successful and by stupid, I’m not saying that’s your identity. That’s not descriptive to your intellect. What I’m saying is what is required to get the job done is very low intellect. It’s easy to just say stupid, right? So stupid processes scale. So I tell I said stupid processes skill you need to make this thing so dummy proof that when someone is here, they don’t have to think about anything. They can click a box, they can do a thing, and that’s it, right? And that type of language and approach really resonated. He started to see who’s like, oh my gosh, this is so good. This is Yes, I can see it. Now, guess how much time it took me? This took less than 60 minutes. Now let’s add it all up, two hours to map, 60 minutes to get the first thing, first version of the first stage, built. That’s three hours. Again. This is a friend, no charge, no harm, no foul. Don’t do it often, but I’m honored to be able to do it when the situation fits, because I love giving back to my friends, to people who are doing business in a good way. Deserve to win three hours. Can you imagine I didn’t ask. I didn’t ask. Can you imagine what he paid an agency, how much time it took, and we already know the quality of the deliverable. That is what I mean by when your best isn’t good enough, you went You did your best. To hire the best agency to do the best work for you, and none of it was good enough. Forget good enough. It wasn’t even functional. It wasn’t even functional. And one of the things that I told him when I was looking at this spiderweb workflow, I said this would be impossible to maintain, which is another thing. Expert builders build with maintenance in mind. And you’re building with the software ecosystem in mind. I shouldn’t necessarily say the software ecosystem, but you’re keeping in mind that this is going into software, so it needs to be built and instructional in a way. And for me, I’m also factoring in that other people, other team, people, a marketing team, needs to be able to understand this quickly. So now we got a side by side when it’s done. I mean, he’s smiling and everything. Remember, this was early in the morning, gloom and doom in the beginning, looking at the web workflow. Now we got a nice linear path, easy to follow. He’s like, I get it, this is super easy. Then the the agency, the autonomy, I’ll say that the autonomy started to take place where now he’s renaming stuff. He got it, it clicked, y’all, it clicked, right? So this was a, this was a win. And here’s the summary. Here’s what I told him. I said, Listen, you, as a founder, have the desire to log in to your dashboard, see the task, do the task, get out your dashboard. I said, here’s the problem. If you have Microsoft Office, all you can do in Microsoft Office is what the UI provides you. You can’t go into the back code in HubSpot and a lot of these other marketing tools, you can go into the back code. What’s the back code? Everybody, properties, workflows, email, builders, that’s all code. If I can get you all to understand that’s the back end code. There are certain people that should never be back there in the code. So that’s what I was saying. The problem is that these marketing platforms expose the code and you, and because it’s a simplified version of code blocks and everything you feel like you need to be back there. No, you don’t. This thing needs to be built for you to be able to make quick decisions that don’t take a whole lot of thought and get the deal moving, keep the deal moving. And it made sense. He was like, Oh my gosh. Then when you say it like that, it makes perfect sense. Yes, I don’t want to be in the code. I just want the code to work. Yes. So that’s why you have people who specialize in automation and marketing technology to build it out so that all you have to do is go to a contact record, go to a pipeline, move a card, click a box, you know, things of that nature. But it comes with experience everyone. It comes with experience. For my marketers out there, my automation service providers and my martech marketers out there, it takes time. Don’t Don’t beat yourself up. It takes time and experience. Don’t beat yourself up too bad, and don’t feel like you have to sell yourself more than what you can actually do if you did a small amount really well. Is better than doing a whole bunch sloppy. Okay, so there’s nothing wrong with with simplifying and saying, Hey, look, this is my stack for now. I don’t use those tools. I can learn it communicate that that’s fine. Now they at least know what they’re getting right. But we want to keep things simple. They, you know, they say it kiss, right? Keep it simple. Stupid. Just keep it stupid.

Chris 28:45
I forget simple, not make it stupid. Make it make it so where a five year old can go, on the screen, the task is generated. The task shouldn’t just, just say, call it. Should have some description. Hey, look, yesterday, we sent this email and they didn’t respond, which is why we gave them when you call, make sure you have that in mind. You can put that in the notes of the task and how I framed it to the to the founders, I said, this is automated conversations. This is what you would tell them anyway, if you’re sitting in front of them, put it in the note. Now, the notes telling them every single time it’s generated, right? But these are small things that make a huge difference, and you don’t even look at it, you don’t even know it, unless you understand how this all comes together. And that’s that’s the biggest reward for me, is again, seeing the light bulbs come on. And when I say, when your best isn’t good enough, that’s a good thing. That means there’s better. That just means there’s better. There’s there’s another level you can achieve. That’s the P if there’s a zone of genius I exist in, that’s it just being better. Yeah. To simplify it, I’m just better, again, not in an arrogant way, in a workflow focused way, that workflow can be better. And by better, I mean it could be so simple that the dumbest person on your team could look like a genius, if you could put and again, I’m using kind of jarring language. I don’t think anybody’s a dummy. Well, people aren’t dummies, and most people but what I’m saying is this, if the person with the least amount of intellect can show up as if they have the most amount of intellect, my job is done. That’s what I want, everybody. If you guys saw some of the automation in my business, I am very descriptive with Slack notifications, tasks that are generated everything. It’s like, hey, look, this person just did this. Here’s Active Campaign. Link, link, go make sure they have these tags. If they do have these tags, go here and make sure you update the record once you’ve done that, like very descriptive, extremely descriptive, because I’m not just thinking about the stupidity of others. I’m thinking about the stupidity of my own, the future me, the future me. Future Chris is not as smart as current Chris. And I’m saying that because I’m not going to remember what current Chris did. So inherently I become stupid in that respect. I can’t count the amount of times I’ve gone to a process I’ve set up and been scratching my head like, what was I even with notes? Y’all even with notes? It just is what it is current brain and future brain don’t always sync up in a line. Now, when I build it so simple, yes, I can go back and be like, Oh yeah, I remember what I was doing. So usually what’s missing when I’m confused is not just the documentation, it’s the complexity of it. It really is. So I am against complex, complex workflows. I haven’t seen many cases where they’re needed big corporations all the way down to the little bitty solopreneur but it takes expertise to be able to condense and make things concise and clear, and that’s what I was able to do. So so I want that to be true for you. Now, in this case, to this day, the founder had time and the desire to go in and build. That’s not going to be the case as deal flow starts being produced. You see what I’m saying? Like you’re going to need to be able to execute this thing. Forget you, though not you. You’re going to need to be able to quickly onboard people and put them in a place that they can just click buttons and do a thing and do their job. Well, no long onboarding required, right? Hey, when you log in, go to this dashboard has all your tasks, all your stuff. As long as you do that, your job is done for the day. Right. Now, I could have owners of stages. I could have owners at of particular tasks. I can really start to make this system to what I needed to be. In closing, I’ll say this. One of the other cardinal sins that I don’t want you all to make is trying to do too much too soon as I started to simplify, the founder’s brain started to ideate and imagine again, which is great, which is great because it was hindered by complexity. And what ended up happening was he started to see possibilities. Whenever you see you gotta be real careful with possibilities, right? But he’s Oh, yeah, and then I can do integrate this calling software to send a voicemail. And this, I said, Yep, or you do all that once we get the foundation in place, once we get the foundation in place. So, so you see, I’m able to I didn’t kill his dream. I just tapered it. Tapered the expectations a bit. Right? Say, Hey, not right now. Yes, it’s possible, but not right now. That’s all with claim management and, you know, under understanding people and managing expectations and keeping hope alive, kill the possibility for now, but keep hope alive, right? That’s an art everyone. Um, anyways, I just, I just felt like I wanted to share that story and then give you a little more insight, even with me and my approach and process, and hopefully that helps you all. My goal is to not blast these agencies or marketers that are doing this type of work. Is to highlight the work and mention that it can be done better. It can be done better. The question is, are you connected to the appropriate people and resources that can make it better, right? That’s the big question, and that’s the desire. You know, we’re always working on fine tuning and evolving our community to achieve just that. So there is a place for it. There is a place for it, but I hope you all enjoy. That and enjoyed that story. And again, a reminder that congratulations for doing the best that you can with the tools that you’ve had. Congratulations, and guess what? It can be better. So 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 and 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, automate responsibly, my friends.