Avoid This Automation Trap at All Costs

ASG 068 – Avoid This Automation Trap at All Costs

Chris Davis: [00:00:00] 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 Davis: [00:00:32] Welcome to the All Systems Go podcast. I’m your host, Chris Davis, the founder of Automation Bridge, an online resource, a Web site for small business automation, where we focus on turning digital marketing professionals into automation service providers in this episode. I want to discuss a trap, and I have to be the first to say I have fallen victim too many times. And many of you listening, listening more than likely have as well. And I want to expose both the trap and the cheese so you can avoid this pitfall and keep getting the most out of your automation before we jump into it. Let me just say, if you’re new to the podcast, welcome, welcome, welcome, welcome. Welcome home. In fact, and what I want you to do is listen to this episode in its entirety. At the end, if you find value, which I’m sure you will make sure you subscribe, leave a five star rating and review. For those of you who are listeners to the podcast, first off, thank you for your continual listenership. And if you haven’t subscribed already, please make sure you subscribe to the All Systems Go podcast. We’re in Apple podcast, Google podcasts. You can subscribe on YouTube and anywhere where you get your podcasts while you’re at it, you’re five star rating and review is greatly appreciated. If, for whatever reason, you can’t figure out how to leave a review. We’ve made it simple for you. You can go to automation, bridge dotcom for review and leave a review there. All right. On to the topic at hand. OK, I, I talk a lot about keeping things simple and not automating too early. Don’t all over automate all of these things.

Chris Davis: [00:02:15] Right. Have been themes on the podcast and achieving functional automation for any business requires a delicate balance. OK, if you’re if you’re not clear on where to start, maybe you’re trying to identify what can be automated and what shouldn’t be, along with balancing out who to hire to do. What should you do? What should you hire someone else to do it? What’s the time cost in training someone else? OK, I’ll just jump in and do it myself. Wait a minute. How do I do it? Right. And if you’re not careful, you’ll you’ll find yourself thinking that you can and you’ll end up trying to automate everything right. Or at least more than you should. It’s very common when you don’t understand how to properly leverage automation. It’s very easy for you to abuse automation, right. If you don’t know how to use it, it’s easier for you to abuse it because you don’t understand the boundaries and how to operate within those boundaries healthily. So instead of achieving a nice balance of human and automation, you end up erring on extremities, right? So on one end, you just like, look, it doesn’t work. I’m doing no automation. On the other. On the other end, you’re like, let’s automate everything. Let’s do this. Can we even automate that? Can we automate a conversation? Right. And it’s it’s this erroneous approach to business automation that leads people down an unfortunate path of a failure for automation. And it’s common to hear myself and select others. Very few select others talk about the danger of over automating your business. Right. Trying to figure out how to have technology do everything. Why you just sit back and collect a check, and I would submit to you, you know, if that’s something that you want to do, you really should reevaluate the type of business that you’re building.

Chris Davis: [00:04:09] Right. Like, if you don’t want to have anything to do with it, not to say there’s anything wrong with that. Some of you like like the thrill of building a business and it generating it, you’re doing nothing. That’s fine. But for most small businesses that I meet, small business owners, there’s some type of passion. You get some some thrill from the impact that your business makes. So in that in that realm, why are you trying to have nothing to do with it? Right. The focus is really on how you want to operate in it. Right. So by now, you already know that, hey, automate everything and sit back on the beach with your pina colada in cash, a check every day of the week. Right. You already know that’s a pipe dream. And those who can do that, by the way, I have met people who who literally can do that. But guess what? They also have people on staff, right? They’ve got systems in place. They’ve got years of legacy to processes. Right. That have proven time and time again. So is it possible? Yeah, but there’s a there’s a asterisks by that. There’s a lot going on behind the scenes. OK, and remember this. I never want you to forget this. And if this is your first time hearing it, remember it from this time on, one of the primary goals of automation is to provide you with the choice of how you want to operate in or on your business.

Chris Davis: [00:05:31] That’s the goal, that is the goal, right, I’m putting these systems in place, these automated systems in place so I can have the free will and free choice to say, you know what, today I want to do this in my business. Today, I want to do this on my business. But never today I have to write, you know, and and I slouched over when I said I have to, because sometimes that’s how it feels. It feels like the job. Your business is just another job. So automation is here to to free you from that.

Chris Davis: [00:06:06] So people will you know, again, we talk about over automation, but people often over automate in a few ways. And I’m going to go through a few of them. And one is is is what I want to focus on for this podcast. I want to focus on one in particular. So starting with the first one, what what what is the first way that the first thing that causes people to over automate premature processes, that’s the first one. You don’t know what needs to be done or how. But, you know, you want it automated, right? I cannot count to you how many times somebody without any any kind of Web presence and any kind of experience online says, hey, look, I need to I need to learn this automation thing. You know, you want something automated, but you don’t know what it is. You don’t you don’t know your needs, you know, so you have the I say premature process. But the these are like nonexistent processes, honestly. Right. So, you know that you want automation, but you don’t know what you need or how to do it per say because you haven’t done it. That out of automating should not be on your your list of things to do.

Chris Davis: [00:07:20] Another one is too much technology. We’ve talked about this. Oh, my goodness. What about the last what about the last podcast episode? I hope that one drove it home. But in this respect you have a tool for everything, yet nothing is working. I can’t count the amount of people who are out here buying software for their business. They have no right. And then when they tell you about their they’re excited about all the good deals that they have and you see all kind of overlap. Like you realize you just bought three elements, tools. They’re just named differently. You didn’t you didn’t get that. Yeah, just got fresh elements. Then I got learners. Learners online course. And then I got this. And it’s like, what are you going to do with three Elam’s systems, like, I should say three Islamicist? What are you going to do with that? And they have no idea. They just paid three times for the same thing. Right. So you have you have a tool for everything. And that’s on the person who doesn’t understand technology. I’m not going to let you off the hook.

Chris Davis: [00:08:22] Those of us who are those of you who are tech savvy because you’ve got all of this technology you love playing with the latest tech. Right. But you love playing with the latest tech more than you love getting results. And you can build beautiful stuff on a drop of a dime, but when someone puts you on the spot to actually produce something, you need to start knocking. Sweat starts, your forehead starts precipitating. So that’s number two.

Chris Davis: [00:08:57] Number three is what I call crystal ball in trying to cover every case and possibility of the future with automation. OK, this is the term that we are going to use on all systems. Go back as is crystal ball. OK, and I want to focus on that. The crystal ball, that is the trap to automation. And and and here’s what I mean. And I can’t remember I may have shared this on the podcast before, but when I was learning how to program in college, I was learning JavaScript. No, no, no, I’m sorry. I was learning Java, the object oriented language Java. And we were given a task at in our final to create a game. And what I didn’t understand code at the time, I didn’t understand object oriented modules passing variables between objects and really how code does how code is supposed to do the majority of the thinking and heavy lifting for you. Right. So I was sitting here and it was maybe eight by eight square grid for this game that I was creating and I was trying to code for every pattern. OK, if they go up one over two, I need to write code for that. What if they go up three over one? What if they go up four over one? And before you know it, I have pages and pages of code and it took me to go talk to talk to my friend HINH.

Chris Davis: [00:10:25] And he was looking at this. He looked at my code and looked at me. And if there were ever a look on a person’s face that said, you’ve got to be the dumbest person I know, you don’t you should not go burn your computer. His looks at all of that. He said not one word, but he looked at my code and looked at me and I felt about as small as a little and but you know what? He and he gave me some grace and walked me through. He said, Chris, this is to me anyways. He showed me that I needed to approach it differently. So that’s what I did. And I approached I started to build it to where the software could calculate the pattern. So if it was on the edge, don’t let it go to the edge. Right. And if it’s over here, let it let it move. Plus one in whatever direction. And it really it changed. I don’t know the terminology for it, but it changed my entire approach. And I realized like, oh my gosh, my my code went from like 20 pages to like two. No joke. It was clean, it was effective. It was easy to follow. And perhaps that’s why I am the way that I am now with automation and documentation and in modularity, in building. So what what if you think about it, this is where Easter eggs and glitches and software games come from, right.

Chris Davis: [00:11:45] Where you can do a particular pattern that is unaccounted for and and get something that you weren’t supposed to get. Right, I think now the gamer’s call it cheese, I get it, they call them Jesus or whatever the terminology is now, we just call them cheaters back. And when I when I was playing video games, but I think now was cheese. When you figure out how to abuse the system, well, why is that? The reality is, remember, we’re talking about crystal ball in here. You cannot you can’t account for every step someone will or can’t take ever in life, let alone in technology. How many times have you seen somebody using a tool away that you were like, oh, I guess you could use a presentation platform to write, email, copy and then put it in your honor responder I. I would have never thought to do that, but OK. Right. Like people use technology and things that they don’t understand in ways that you wouldn’t imagine. And then you’ve got the people who are literally trying to find holes in your stuff. Right. Whether it be a video game, your funnel, online software, whatever the case is. Right. People like to push the limits. So if you can’t account for every step someone will or can’t take, this is why crystal balling becomes a trap. Because what we start to think that, OK, I’ve got this much automation in place.

Chris Davis: [00:13:18] Let me let me take it further than me. There will be nothing that they can do. And let me say this. Let me say this. I am a proponent of having of being proactive in building out the journey before the contact goes through it. I’m on record for saying there should be no unanticipated step that someone can take in the customer throughout the customer journey. For every action, there should be an automated reaction or an intentional manual reaction. I’m on the record for saying that. And that’s why I felt like today was so important, because all the time that I was saying that, I knew there was an asterisk to it, but I never spoke to someone who spoke. I want to speak to it now, OK? And what I want to do is help you approach the engineering and building of the customer journey by way of automation in a way that doesn’t that you don’t fall into this trap. OK, so the Parado Principle does apply here. OK, that’s the 80 20 rule. Right. So your goal from here on out everybody is to focus on ensuring up to key word. Up to 80 percent of the journey is automated. That’s the max where where we never were. But if you needed a specific number, you’re not trying to automate 100 percent of the journey. At best, you’ll be at 80 percent. Rule of thumb, everybody.

Chris Davis: [00:14:40] Just a rule of thumb. OK, the other 20 percent, sometimes less, will encompass the outliers. OK, so we’re getting close to the trap in the cheese, everybody. So so we’ve got the trap, right. Trying to forecast out and plan for every every output, every pathway, everything that somebody can do and match that with automation. That’s the trap. Where’s the cheese? The outliers. People who find holes along the journey. So you just built out a process. You feel good about it. It’s been running. Then you get it. Email. Hey, why did I get this email or hey, I clicked this link or hey, this hey that right. And these are holes. Right. And I’m using air quotes when I say holes because these holes can either be oversight’s it could be something that you like. Oh I thank you. I forgot to do that. Right. The holes could be that right. Or and most of the time they come from steps taken multiple times and or out of sequence. And we talked about the one question to ask to make your automation building stronger. And that is what happens if they go through this again. Right. What what happens if they opt in again? That repeated path is what we look at. So a lot of times that repeat a path can be an oversight or simply just something that we’re just like we can’t account for somebody downloading one Lee magnet ten times.

Chris Davis: [00:16:17] Right. Or people just going out of sequence. You’ve registered. What about this, everybody? When someone joins your, let’s say, your free membership area or paid membership area and all of the resources that they need for your business are in that membership area, yet they go and register for your webinar, they download your leave magnet. Right. And it’s just like it’s these cases that were always the cheese everybody. And it’s never ending and they’re always going to be outliers, OK? It’s these outliers that provide the cheese for the trap that many fall victim to your it’s a pipe you’re chasing something you can’t catch. You’re not going to be able to encompass every single output. OK, so. So maybe maybe let me just pause. Is that is that does that give you a form of relief? You know, like maybe you were thinking maybe you’re beating yourself down because these outliers keep showing their head and you’re thinking like, OK, wait a minute, now let’s just go in and add this flow or at this action. Right. And I just keep what is that whack a mole. It just keep popping their heads up. You know, you’re going to be able to get some of them. But some of those. Yeah, you can’t you’re not perfect. Right. And it’s easy to think these outliers are indicators of areas we need to apply more automation to. I told you.

Chris Davis: [00:17:50] Trapping the cheese. We can easily get sucked into this, especially if our funnels and processes and customer journey are exemplary in our industry. I’m I’m at no, nobody has to tell me. I know there are people that go to my Web site and they just want to opt in. And, you know, I could tell by the email address that they submit they want to see the thank you page. What happens next? You know, just nosy, which is fine. I’m nosy to marketing. Online is public marketing. It’s for everybody to to see. Right. So I get it, however, how ever me doing that or, you know, just spying, that is not an indicator that somebody needs to to put more automation in place to to handle people who are coming by that just want to look and not be right. At some point. You just have to take a step back and say, you know what, I’m not going to be able to to to cater to everybody. Right. And as exemplary as I am in business where I know people are coming in and looking and saying, oh, well, he doesn’t have this, oh, what if somebody does that? I’m very aware there is there is not a whole lot that somebody can tell me that I’m not fully aware of. And if you thought I wasn’t, perhaps you’re not giving me the credit of intentionality with everything on my website.

Chris Davis: [00:19:19] There’s a reason why there are certain links in the header and ones are not. Right, there’s certain resources that you cannot easily come across. Do you think this was just a major oversight on my behalf? No is very intentional, right. But with that being said, even with with an understanding that no one will figure it, I’m an example that people follow. I’m still not going to be able to handle the outliers with automation. It’s just not real. And what I want what I want you to do is I want to prevent you from the temptation of doing it and and show you how. OK, so we’ve identified the challenges. Let’s see how how we can never fall victim to it. Right. And there’s a few considerations that will help you, OK? One is think about how often this happens and if you foresee it being an issue going forward. Right. Sometimes things seem big, big now.

Chris Davis: [00:20:21] And that’s the temptation, that outlier. They say, you know what, it is us. Let me let me say people who are automation prone are just ready to build automation. We love outliers because outliers just give us another reason to build. It’s like a hammer and a nail or another nail. Let me go grab a hammer. Right. There is an element to that. The outliers like, oh, hold let me go patch that.

Chris Davis: [00:20:48] You know, but you have to you have to pause and say, OK, how often has this happened right up until now? How often has it happened? And what what were what went into creating this? And do I see it as an ongoing issue?

Chris Davis: [00:21:06] Right. So that’s one consideration.

Chris Davis: [00:21:10] And taking a step back and asking those questions and thinking through, you know, you’ll be able to pause to say, OK, let me wait until a pattern. Evolves, right, like, let me make sure that before I take an action on applying some automation, let me just make sure that there’s a pattern here. Maybe this is an outlier. Maybe it happens one or two times a year. OK, no harm, no foul. Right. Next, I want you to consider what’s the FAA required for someone to take care of it? And by someone, I mean a human, I’m not talking about technology in the terms of a person. What’s that effort, because guess what? Sometimes things these outliers seem big and they’re attempting to automate. But then when you think through, like, OK, let me just have my VA, let me have my assistant, let me have my X, Y, Z handle this, it becomes really small. It’s it’s interesting. It’s just like ideas and thoughts and all of those. They seem much bigger in our head until we start writing them out. It could feel like you’re walking around with all of these ideas and all of these things to do when it gets so weighty and like, man, I’ve got like a million things to do. Let me let me start writing them down and you write them down and you get to the fifth one and you’re like, where’s the other nine hundred ninety nine thousand nine hundred ninety five thousand. Right. I thought I had a million it felt like.

Chris Davis: [00:22:36] But the reality is it was bigger in your head than it existed outside of it. So when we have these outliers and we say, OK, let me have somebody do it, what it does is it takes it removes the the size of it from our head and it makes it real. And then when we start to say, OK, my my manager would have to do this, this and that. Oh, that’s just an email. Right. Like just update an email. We don’t need an entire process for that, right? I should say an entire automated process for that. I just need to let them know when this happens to do that. I is it right. Which brings me to the last consideration is is. Is.

Chris Davis: [00:23:24] Is that automation, really, and I’ve got really like when I say really, if I could illustrated like really will be in bold and like all caps, right? Is that automation really just an easy update? And this is where we have to be honest with ourselves, because I’m going to tell you to answer. Don’t worry, you don’t even have to answer this one. It’s not very rarely does the outlier pop up. That’s not a whole like something that like I just say that’s not an oversight.

Chris Davis: [00:23:55] I’m not talking about the oversights because the oversight here you go in and you patch that hole. I’m talking about out of sequence, out of the process. They found an Easter egg in your in your system. Right. The more complex their system is, the less that automation is just an easy update. OK, and you have to be honest with yourself, because that automation is tied to a whole lot. And guess what? To update it, you’ve got to go visit now. I’m going to talk to those who are responsible. You’ve got to go visit your map to see what is connected to what it does before and after. Right. Then go into the automation and update it. Then you got to test it and try to test it in the context in which people will be flowing through it. So it’s not it’s not that easy to update. And one change to a functional system can propagate throughout that system and have unforeseen, unforeseen issues and impacts. And this is why it’s a trap, because a is so tempting to look at those outliers as it like, oh, God, got update, right? And then it’s even more easy to think that that automation or that automated flow is just an easy update. Something else is going to break somewhere else. It’s just the nature of it. So what I like to do and what I’ve done in the past, that that has saved me time and time again. Everybody, I cannot count how many times this is save me is those outliers can be handled with an internal system that reminds or assigns.

Chris Davis: [00:25:45] Team members on what to do.

Chris Davis: [00:25:49] Ok, that way you’re still using automation, but you’re not you’re not you’re not modifying the process, you’re modifying the how people go through the process. So one of my favorite things to do is when I see an outlier and I don’t know, it’s not a it’s it’s not an oversight, but I don’t know if this is a pattern or not. You know what I’ll do everybody output action in my automation to send a notification. Now, I have a gauge, depending on how many notifications I get, it’s like, look, we need to, OK, we need to revisit this process and put something in place because I’m getting like 10 notifications a week. That means this is not an outlier. It is now an oversight. Right, but imagine if you put that in place and you only got one or two emails or notifications every quarter. Is it really worth building out some some risking that you can modify a working system for something that’s only happened in a few times, just training somebody on your team? Hey, look, I’m going to start sending these notifications to you. And when it happens, when you get this notification, do this. And the reason why I like that is because you can even be descriptive in the notification. We’ve talked about this in the podcast before, but. Right. You can write a mini S.O.P in the notification. Right. And now is being taken care of, but what what if there’s anything I want you all to hear is when you get to the point where your systems are 80 percent operational. It should be hands off not to show off, like, look what I can do, it should be hands off because at 80 percent operational and producing profit, you do not want to be messing and tinkering with that system. I’m telling you all, once the system is running and working, leave it alone.

Chris Davis: [00:27:57] Leave it alone. You don’t start out at 80 percent.

Chris Davis: [00:28:02] So it’s still true to don’t set it and forget it or you will regret it too early, right? Once you get up to 80 percent operational, like 80 percent of your processes and operations, you know, up to.

Chris Davis: [00:28:16] Whatever that threshold is, once you get there, leave it alone. Don’t touch it. Oh, my goodness. Don’t touch it. OK.

Chris Davis: [00:28:27] A lot of times what I found is that when systems are built and functioning really powerfully, you don’t need to adjust the system for optimization.

Chris Davis: [00:28:38] You need to adjust the input. Optimize the input.

Chris Davis: [00:28:44] Ok, so I hope this helped frame frame this trap, because, again, I don’t need anybody I don’t need anybody to raise their hand and say, Chris, this is me, because my hand has been up practically this whole podcast. If there’s one thing that I have done more consistent than others, it’s this, and the reason for me is I always treated those outliers as an opportunity to build out another system. And that’s fine if I’m in exploratory mode and I’m bringing that knowledge back to the community and sharing, hey, this happened because an outlier in one business could very much be a hole in another. So I’m always in this dichotomy of I can do it for other people’s businesses, but don’t do it for your business. Right. So I can look at outliers in other people’s businesses and and build automation for those and then bring it to someone else’s business, like, oh my gosh, this solved a problem. But I’ve got to be very disciplined to not fall into that trap for myself, and I don’t want you to fall into that trap easy either. So it does require some expertise to get operational. It requires some skill to know what you’re doing, but it also requires some discipline to say, you know what, let’s wait. Let’s see if a pattern evolves here. Let’s see let’s see if this is a thing.

Chris Davis: [00:30:12] Because if not, you know, we’ll just move on.

Chris Davis: [00:30:16] Ok, we’ll put that notification in place now, let’s see how many times we get the notification. Right, we get the notifications, all right. That’s the indicator that we probably need to revisit this time. And that’s it, that’s it, that’s if we’re not seeing results from the notification being handled by a person. It’s like, well, wait a minute, that’s working. Wow. Why would I risk that, right? Because remember that last 20 percent, you know, those of you who are trying to automate everything that last 20 percent I can make or break you, that’s where you’re getting into the overall automation piece and things can get so confusing and so hard to follow. Right, when you keep building automation and keep adding to it, I’m telling you all I’m guilty. I’ve had automation is where they have all of these if elss even modular. I’m trying to. OK, but what if they buy this and then two months later they don’t, but then they do this and you build out the animation for that one spus highly specific case? It does nothing. It does nothing but attempt to solve that one case. And guess what? That one case is only happening once or twice every three or four months. But now I’ve just made that automation that much harder to follow for the people who are going through it 98 percent of the time.

Chris Davis: [00:31:45] So you have to be very careful, everybody. OK.

Chris Davis: [00:31:49] So I hope this warning and education and insight was valuable to you. OK, tell me this. Go, get go, go. Think of your fellow marketer, your fellow digital marketer and or advertiser and the ones who have their their fingernails. They’ve got digital dirt under their fingernails. OK, they’re the builders. They’re the ones feet to the ground. Right. Think of that person that you know. They built landing pages and email.

Chris Davis: [00:32:21] They write copy all of those things, share this with them, especially if they’re on your team, share this with them. It is going to make their life easier. If you’re listening to this and somebody shared it, make sure you take heed to this, because it’s going to make your performance on your job or for your client stronger. It will it will eliminate the confusion. There’s a lot of times where consultants come in and see another consultants work. And that’s threatening. Right, because it’s like, wait a minute, why is the CEO bringing someone else in? And then you start hoping they don’t see the holes or that it all makes sense. You start getting defensive. Listen, follow the follow the tutelage that you’re getting in this podcast. You’ll be just fine. You’ll be just fine. OK, so if you found today’s episode valuable and this is your first time, this is this is my official invitation to you. Welcome to the family of listeners to the All Systems Go podcast. There’s a seat at the table and it is now time for you to sit down. How do you sit down by submitting a five star rating and review and subscribing. That is how you claim a seat at the all systems go table. So this is my invitation to you to do that. Here at Automation Bridge, we’re dedicated to training digital marketing professionals to become automation service providers.

Chris Davis: [00:33:41] These are these are people who are savvy with automation. They don’t automate prematurely. They don’t over automate and they definitely don’t prescribe technology before defining defining your strategy. They do automation the right way in small businesses and enterprises, they’re in dire need of these types of marketers. That can navigate both the technology and marketing space for the effective deployment of automated systems for rapid growth. So if that’s you, if that’s you, if when I said that and why you’re listening to this, you’re like, oh my God, this is gold. If you’re thinking that like, oh, my gosh, this is so good. Right? And again, you’ve got the digital dirt under your fingernails. This is for you. I want to invite you to go to AutomationBridge.com/ASP. Asp stands for automation service provider. OK, automationbridge.com/ASP. On that page, I want you to take the next steps to schedule some time to talk with someone, myself or someone on my team to assess if you would be a good fit for one of our upcoming programs. OK, where you get the training you need to to to provide you your shortcut to success in automation, learn proven practices on how to do it the right way, get the support, accountability, exposure and ongoing coaching and training that you need.

Chris Davis: [00:35:17] So go to automationbridge.com/asp . Let’s see if you’re a good fit for one of the programs that we offer. And the time is now and in the need has never been greater. OK, I’m seeing it with my own eyes. I’ve got a community of the knowledge, share the knowledge, share in the community right now is at an all time high and I don’t anticipate it dropping any time, any time soon. I’m really excited about that. So if you like to be a guest on the podcast or you have a guest you would like to refer, please visit automationbridge.com/guest and submit your or their information for them to come on the podcast. I am going to do the best that I can to ask the questions that will extract the most amount of information for you all. Got great feedback on the previous episode of with with Mike, where we talked about Amazon and it was just like, man, so much that I learned, well, I’ll do my due diligence. If you send somebody to be a guest on the podcast, trust me, I’m going to ask the right questions because I have you in mind and I want to extract from their brain processes, strategies, things that’s working for your good.

Chris Davis: [00:36:36] All right, all the show notes and podcasts are accessible at automationbridge.com/podcast. You can subscribe there to listen to other episodes at your leisure and you can also get access to anything, any of the resources mentioned, any, any, any anything that we’ve mentioned in terms of somewhere to go, a tool to use or just a resource.

Chris Davis: [00:37:03] It’s all there. Automationbridge.com/podcast. So until next time I see you online automate responsibly my friend

ASG 068 – Avoid This Automation Trap at All Costs

Chris Davis: [00:00:00] 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 Davis: [00:00:32] Welcome to the All Systems Go podcast. I’m your host, Chris Davis, the founder of Automation Bridge, an online resource, a Web site for small business automation, where we focus on turning digital marketing professionals into automation service providers in this episode. I want to discuss a trap, and I have to be the first to say I have fallen victim too many times. And many of you listening, listening more than likely have as well. And I want to expose both the trap and the cheese so you can avoid this pitfall and keep getting the most out of your automation before we jump into it. Let me just say, if you’re new to the podcast, welcome, welcome, welcome, welcome. Welcome home. In fact, and what I want you to do is listen to this episode in its entirety. At the end, if you find value, which I’m sure you will make sure you subscribe, leave a five star rating and review. For those of you who are listeners to the podcast, first off, thank you for your continual listenership. And if you haven’t subscribed already, please make sure you subscribe to the All Systems Go podcast. We’re in Apple podcast, Google podcasts. You can subscribe on YouTube and anywhere where you get your podcasts while you’re at it, you’re five star rating and review is greatly appreciated. If, for whatever reason, you can’t figure out how to leave a review. We’ve made it simple for you. You can go to automation, bridge dotcom for review and leave a review there. All right. On to the topic at hand. OK, I, I talk a lot about keeping things simple and not automating too early. Don’t all over automate all of these things.

Chris Davis: [00:02:15] Right. Have been themes on the podcast and achieving functional automation for any business requires a delicate balance. OK, if you’re if you’re not clear on where to start, maybe you’re trying to identify what can be automated and what shouldn’t be, along with balancing out who to hire to do. What should you do? What should you hire someone else to do it? What’s the time cost in training someone else? OK, I’ll just jump in and do it myself. Wait a minute. How do I do it? Right. And if you’re not careful, you’ll you’ll find yourself thinking that you can and you’ll end up trying to automate everything right. Or at least more than you should. It’s very common when you don’t understand how to properly leverage automation. It’s very easy for you to abuse automation, right. If you don’t know how to use it, it’s easier for you to abuse it because you don’t understand the boundaries and how to operate within those boundaries healthily. So instead of achieving a nice balance of human and automation, you end up erring on extremities, right? So on one end, you just like, look, it doesn’t work. I’m doing no automation. On the other. On the other end, you’re like, let’s automate everything. Let’s do this. Can we even automate that? Can we automate a conversation? Right. And it’s it’s this erroneous approach to business automation that leads people down an unfortunate path of a failure for automation. And it’s common to hear myself and select others. Very few select others talk about the danger of over automating your business. Right. Trying to figure out how to have technology do everything. Why you just sit back and collect a check, and I would submit to you, you know, if that’s something that you want to do, you really should reevaluate the type of business that you’re building.

Chris Davis: [00:04:09] Right. Like, if you don’t want to have anything to do with it, not to say there’s anything wrong with that. Some of you like like the thrill of building a business and it generating it, you’re doing nothing. That’s fine. But for most small businesses that I meet, small business owners, there’s some type of passion. You get some some thrill from the impact that your business makes. So in that in that realm, why are you trying to have nothing to do with it? Right. The focus is really on how you want to operate in it. Right. So by now, you already know that, hey, automate everything and sit back on the beach with your pina colada in cash, a check every day of the week. Right. You already know that’s a pipe dream. And those who can do that, by the way, I have met people who who literally can do that. But guess what? They also have people on staff, right? They’ve got systems in place. They’ve got years of legacy to processes. Right. That have proven time and time again. So is it possible? Yeah, but there’s a there’s a asterisks by that. There’s a lot going on behind the scenes. OK, and remember this. I never want you to forget this. And if this is your first time hearing it, remember it from this time on, one of the primary goals of automation is to provide you with the choice of how you want to operate in or on your business.

Chris Davis: [00:05:31] That’s the goal, that is the goal, right, I’m putting these systems in place, these automated systems in place so I can have the free will and free choice to say, you know what, today I want to do this in my business. Today, I want to do this on my business. But never today I have to write, you know, and and I slouched over when I said I have to, because sometimes that’s how it feels. It feels like the job. Your business is just another job. So automation is here to to free you from that.

Chris Davis: [00:06:06] So people will you know, again, we talk about over automation, but people often over automate in a few ways. And I’m going to go through a few of them. And one is is is what I want to focus on for this podcast. I want to focus on one in particular. So starting with the first one, what what what is the first way that the first thing that causes people to over automate premature processes, that’s the first one. You don’t know what needs to be done or how. But, you know, you want it automated, right? I cannot count to you how many times somebody without any any kind of Web presence and any kind of experience online says, hey, look, I need to I need to learn this automation thing. You know, you want something automated, but you don’t know what it is. You don’t you don’t know your needs, you know, so you have the I say premature process. But the these are like nonexistent processes, honestly. Right. So, you know that you want automation, but you don’t know what you need or how to do it per say because you haven’t done it. That out of automating should not be on your your list of things to do.

Chris Davis: [00:07:20] Another one is too much technology. We’ve talked about this. Oh, my goodness. What about the last what about the last podcast episode? I hope that one drove it home. But in this respect you have a tool for everything, yet nothing is working. I can’t count the amount of people who are out here buying software for their business. They have no right. And then when they tell you about their they’re excited about all the good deals that they have and you see all kind of overlap. Like you realize you just bought three elements, tools. They’re just named differently. You didn’t you didn’t get that. Yeah, just got fresh elements. Then I got learners. Learners online course. And then I got this. And it’s like, what are you going to do with three Elam’s systems, like, I should say three Islamicist? What are you going to do with that? And they have no idea. They just paid three times for the same thing. Right. So you have you have a tool for everything. And that’s on the person who doesn’t understand technology. I’m not going to let you off the hook.

Chris Davis: [00:08:22] Those of us who are those of you who are tech savvy because you’ve got all of this technology you love playing with the latest tech. Right. But you love playing with the latest tech more than you love getting results. And you can build beautiful stuff on a drop of a dime, but when someone puts you on the spot to actually produce something, you need to start knocking. Sweat starts, your forehead starts precipitating. So that’s number two.

Chris Davis: [00:08:57] Number three is what I call crystal ball in trying to cover every case and possibility of the future with automation. OK, this is the term that we are going to use on all systems. Go back as is crystal ball. OK, and I want to focus on that. The crystal ball, that is the trap to automation. And and and here’s what I mean. And I can’t remember I may have shared this on the podcast before, but when I was learning how to program in college, I was learning JavaScript. No, no, no, I’m sorry. I was learning Java, the object oriented language Java. And we were given a task at in our final to create a game. And what I didn’t understand code at the time, I didn’t understand object oriented modules passing variables between objects and really how code does how code is supposed to do the majority of the thinking and heavy lifting for you. Right. So I was sitting here and it was maybe eight by eight square grid for this game that I was creating and I was trying to code for every pattern. OK, if they go up one over two, I need to write code for that. What if they go up three over one? What if they go up four over one? And before you know it, I have pages and pages of code and it took me to go talk to talk to my friend HINH.

Chris Davis: [00:10:25] And he was looking at this. He looked at my code and looked at me. And if there were ever a look on a person’s face that said, you’ve got to be the dumbest person I know, you don’t you should not go burn your computer. His looks at all of that. He said not one word, but he looked at my code and looked at me and I felt about as small as a little and but you know what? He and he gave me some grace and walked me through. He said, Chris, this is to me anyways. He showed me that I needed to approach it differently. So that’s what I did. And I approached I started to build it to where the software could calculate the pattern. So if it was on the edge, don’t let it go to the edge. Right. And if it’s over here, let it let it move. Plus one in whatever direction. And it really it changed. I don’t know the terminology for it, but it changed my entire approach. And I realized like, oh my gosh, my my code went from like 20 pages to like two. No joke. It was clean, it was effective. It was easy to follow. And perhaps that’s why I am the way that I am now with automation and documentation and in modularity, in building. So what what if you think about it, this is where Easter eggs and glitches and software games come from, right.

Chris Davis: [00:11:45] Where you can do a particular pattern that is unaccounted for and and get something that you weren’t supposed to get. Right, I think now the gamer’s call it cheese, I get it, they call them Jesus or whatever the terminology is now, we just call them cheaters back. And when I when I was playing video games, but I think now was cheese. When you figure out how to abuse the system, well, why is that? The reality is, remember, we’re talking about crystal ball in here. You cannot you can’t account for every step someone will or can’t take ever in life, let alone in technology. How many times have you seen somebody using a tool away that you were like, oh, I guess you could use a presentation platform to write, email, copy and then put it in your honor responder I. I would have never thought to do that, but OK. Right. Like people use technology and things that they don’t understand in ways that you wouldn’t imagine. And then you’ve got the people who are literally trying to find holes in your stuff. Right. Whether it be a video game, your funnel, online software, whatever the case is. Right. People like to push the limits. So if you can’t account for every step someone will or can’t take, this is why crystal balling becomes a trap. Because what we start to think that, OK, I’ve got this much automation in place.

Chris Davis: [00:13:18] Let me let me take it further than me. There will be nothing that they can do. And let me say this. Let me say this. I am a proponent of having of being proactive in building out the journey before the contact goes through it. I’m on record for saying there should be no unanticipated step that someone can take in the customer throughout the customer journey. For every action, there should be an automated reaction or an intentional manual reaction. I’m on the record for saying that. And that’s why I felt like today was so important, because all the time that I was saying that, I knew there was an asterisk to it, but I never spoke to someone who spoke. I want to speak to it now, OK? And what I want to do is help you approach the engineering and building of the customer journey by way of automation in a way that doesn’t that you don’t fall into this trap. OK, so the Parado Principle does apply here. OK, that’s the 80 20 rule. Right. So your goal from here on out everybody is to focus on ensuring up to key word. Up to 80 percent of the journey is automated. That’s the max where where we never were. But if you needed a specific number, you’re not trying to automate 100 percent of the journey. At best, you’ll be at 80 percent. Rule of thumb, everybody.

Chris Davis: [00:14:40] Just a rule of thumb. OK, the other 20 percent, sometimes less, will encompass the outliers. OK, so we’re getting close to the trap in the cheese, everybody. So so we’ve got the trap, right. Trying to forecast out and plan for every every output, every pathway, everything that somebody can do and match that with automation. That’s the trap. Where’s the cheese? The outliers. People who find holes along the journey. So you just built out a process. You feel good about it. It’s been running. Then you get it. Email. Hey, why did I get this email or hey, I clicked this link or hey, this hey that right. And these are holes. Right. And I’m using air quotes when I say holes because these holes can either be oversight’s it could be something that you like. Oh I thank you. I forgot to do that. Right. The holes could be that right. Or and most of the time they come from steps taken multiple times and or out of sequence. And we talked about the one question to ask to make your automation building stronger. And that is what happens if they go through this again. Right. What what happens if they opt in again? That repeated path is what we look at. So a lot of times that repeat a path can be an oversight or simply just something that we’re just like we can’t account for somebody downloading one Lee magnet ten times.

Chris Davis: [00:16:17] Right. Or people just going out of sequence. You’ve registered. What about this, everybody? When someone joins your, let’s say, your free membership area or paid membership area and all of the resources that they need for your business are in that membership area, yet they go and register for your webinar, they download your leave magnet. Right. And it’s just like it’s these cases that were always the cheese everybody. And it’s never ending and they’re always going to be outliers, OK? It’s these outliers that provide the cheese for the trap that many fall victim to your it’s a pipe you’re chasing something you can’t catch. You’re not going to be able to encompass every single output. OK, so. So maybe maybe let me just pause. Is that is that does that give you a form of relief? You know, like maybe you were thinking maybe you’re beating yourself down because these outliers keep showing their head and you’re thinking like, OK, wait a minute, now let’s just go in and add this flow or at this action. Right. And I just keep what is that whack a mole. It just keep popping their heads up. You know, you’re going to be able to get some of them. But some of those. Yeah, you can’t you’re not perfect. Right. And it’s easy to think these outliers are indicators of areas we need to apply more automation to. I told you.

Chris Davis: [00:17:50] Trapping the cheese. We can easily get sucked into this, especially if our funnels and processes and customer journey are exemplary in our industry. I’m I’m at no, nobody has to tell me. I know there are people that go to my Web site and they just want to opt in. And, you know, I could tell by the email address that they submit they want to see the thank you page. What happens next? You know, just nosy, which is fine. I’m nosy to marketing. Online is public marketing. It’s for everybody to to see. Right. So I get it, however, how ever me doing that or, you know, just spying, that is not an indicator that somebody needs to to put more automation in place to to handle people who are coming by that just want to look and not be right. At some point. You just have to take a step back and say, you know what, I’m not going to be able to to to cater to everybody. Right. And as exemplary as I am in business where I know people are coming in and looking and saying, oh, well, he doesn’t have this, oh, what if somebody does that? I’m very aware there is there is not a whole lot that somebody can tell me that I’m not fully aware of. And if you thought I wasn’t, perhaps you’re not giving me the credit of intentionality with everything on my website.

Chris Davis: [00:19:19] There’s a reason why there are certain links in the header and ones are not. Right, there’s certain resources that you cannot easily come across. Do you think this was just a major oversight on my behalf? No is very intentional, right. But with that being said, even with with an understanding that no one will figure it, I’m an example that people follow. I’m still not going to be able to handle the outliers with automation. It’s just not real. And what I want what I want you to do is I want to prevent you from the temptation of doing it and and show you how. OK, so we’ve identified the challenges. Let’s see how how we can never fall victim to it. Right. And there’s a few considerations that will help you, OK? One is think about how often this happens and if you foresee it being an issue going forward. Right. Sometimes things seem big, big now.

Chris Davis: [00:20:21] And that’s the temptation, that outlier. They say, you know what, it is us. Let me let me say people who are automation prone are just ready to build automation. We love outliers because outliers just give us another reason to build. It’s like a hammer and a nail or another nail. Let me go grab a hammer. Right. There is an element to that. The outliers like, oh, hold let me go patch that.

Chris Davis: [00:20:48] You know, but you have to you have to pause and say, OK, how often has this happened right up until now? How often has it happened? And what what were what went into creating this? And do I see it as an ongoing issue?

Chris Davis: [00:21:06] Right. So that’s one consideration.

Chris Davis: [00:21:10] And taking a step back and asking those questions and thinking through, you know, you’ll be able to pause to say, OK, let me wait until a pattern. Evolves, right, like, let me make sure that before I take an action on applying some automation, let me just make sure that there’s a pattern here. Maybe this is an outlier. Maybe it happens one or two times a year. OK, no harm, no foul. Right. Next, I want you to consider what’s the FAA required for someone to take care of it? And by someone, I mean a human, I’m not talking about technology in the terms of a person. What’s that effort, because guess what? Sometimes things these outliers seem big and they’re attempting to automate. But then when you think through, like, OK, let me just have my VA, let me have my assistant, let me have my X, Y, Z handle this, it becomes really small. It’s it’s interesting. It’s just like ideas and thoughts and all of those. They seem much bigger in our head until we start writing them out. It could feel like you’re walking around with all of these ideas and all of these things to do when it gets so weighty and like, man, I’ve got like a million things to do. Let me let me start writing them down and you write them down and you get to the fifth one and you’re like, where’s the other nine hundred ninety nine thousand nine hundred ninety five thousand. Right. I thought I had a million it felt like.

Chris Davis: [00:22:36] But the reality is it was bigger in your head than it existed outside of it. So when we have these outliers and we say, OK, let me have somebody do it, what it does is it takes it removes the the size of it from our head and it makes it real. And then when we start to say, OK, my my manager would have to do this, this and that. Oh, that’s just an email. Right. Like just update an email. We don’t need an entire process for that, right? I should say an entire automated process for that. I just need to let them know when this happens to do that. I is it right. Which brings me to the last consideration is is. Is.

Chris Davis: [00:23:24] Is that automation, really, and I’ve got really like when I say really, if I could illustrated like really will be in bold and like all caps, right? Is that automation really just an easy update? And this is where we have to be honest with ourselves, because I’m going to tell you to answer. Don’t worry, you don’t even have to answer this one. It’s not very rarely does the outlier pop up. That’s not a whole like something that like I just say that’s not an oversight.

Chris Davis: [00:23:55] I’m not talking about the oversights because the oversight here you go in and you patch that hole. I’m talking about out of sequence, out of the process. They found an Easter egg in your in your system. Right. The more complex their system is, the less that automation is just an easy update. OK, and you have to be honest with yourself, because that automation is tied to a whole lot. And guess what? To update it, you’ve got to go visit now. I’m going to talk to those who are responsible. You’ve got to go visit your map to see what is connected to what it does before and after. Right. Then go into the automation and update it. Then you got to test it and try to test it in the context in which people will be flowing through it. So it’s not it’s not that easy to update. And one change to a functional system can propagate throughout that system and have unforeseen, unforeseen issues and impacts. And this is why it’s a trap, because a is so tempting to look at those outliers as it like, oh, God, got update, right? And then it’s even more easy to think that that automation or that automated flow is just an easy update. Something else is going to break somewhere else. It’s just the nature of it. So what I like to do and what I’ve done in the past, that that has saved me time and time again. Everybody, I cannot count how many times this is save me is those outliers can be handled with an internal system that reminds or assigns.

Chris Davis: [00:25:45] Team members on what to do.

Chris Davis: [00:25:49] Ok, that way you’re still using automation, but you’re not you’re not you’re not modifying the process, you’re modifying the how people go through the process. So one of my favorite things to do is when I see an outlier and I don’t know, it’s not a it’s it’s not an oversight, but I don’t know if this is a pattern or not. You know what I’ll do everybody output action in my automation to send a notification. Now, I have a gauge, depending on how many notifications I get, it’s like, look, we need to, OK, we need to revisit this process and put something in place because I’m getting like 10 notifications a week. That means this is not an outlier. It is now an oversight. Right, but imagine if you put that in place and you only got one or two emails or notifications every quarter. Is it really worth building out some some risking that you can modify a working system for something that’s only happened in a few times, just training somebody on your team? Hey, look, I’m going to start sending these notifications to you. And when it happens, when you get this notification, do this. And the reason why I like that is because you can even be descriptive in the notification. We’ve talked about this in the podcast before, but. Right. You can write a mini S.O.P in the notification. Right. And now is being taken care of, but what what if there’s anything I want you all to hear is when you get to the point where your systems are 80 percent operational. It should be hands off not to show off, like, look what I can do, it should be hands off because at 80 percent operational and producing profit, you do not want to be messing and tinkering with that system. I’m telling you all, once the system is running and working, leave it alone.

Chris Davis: [00:27:57] Leave it alone. You don’t start out at 80 percent.

Chris Davis: [00:28:02] So it’s still true to don’t set it and forget it or you will regret it too early, right? Once you get up to 80 percent operational, like 80 percent of your processes and operations, you know, up to.

Chris Davis: [00:28:16] Whatever that threshold is, once you get there, leave it alone. Don’t touch it. Oh, my goodness. Don’t touch it. OK.

Chris Davis: [00:28:27] A lot of times what I found is that when systems are built and functioning really powerfully, you don’t need to adjust the system for optimization.

Chris Davis: [00:28:38] You need to adjust the input. Optimize the input.

Chris Davis: [00:28:44] Ok, so I hope this helped frame frame this trap, because, again, I don’t need anybody I don’t need anybody to raise their hand and say, Chris, this is me, because my hand has been up practically this whole podcast. If there’s one thing that I have done more consistent than others, it’s this, and the reason for me is I always treated those outliers as an opportunity to build out another system. And that’s fine if I’m in exploratory mode and I’m bringing that knowledge back to the community and sharing, hey, this happened because an outlier in one business could very much be a hole in another. So I’m always in this dichotomy of I can do it for other people’s businesses, but don’t do it for your business. Right. So I can look at outliers in other people’s businesses and and build automation for those and then bring it to someone else’s business, like, oh my gosh, this solved a problem. But I’ve got to be very disciplined to not fall into that trap for myself, and I don’t want you to fall into that trap easy either. So it does require some expertise to get operational. It requires some skill to know what you’re doing, but it also requires some discipline to say, you know what, let’s wait. Let’s see if a pattern evolves here. Let’s see let’s see if this is a thing.

Chris Davis: [00:30:12] Because if not, you know, we’ll just move on.

Chris Davis: [00:30:16] Ok, we’ll put that notification in place now, let’s see how many times we get the notification. Right, we get the notifications, all right. That’s the indicator that we probably need to revisit this time. And that’s it, that’s it, that’s if we’re not seeing results from the notification being handled by a person. It’s like, well, wait a minute, that’s working. Wow. Why would I risk that, right? Because remember that last 20 percent, you know, those of you who are trying to automate everything that last 20 percent I can make or break you, that’s where you’re getting into the overall automation piece and things can get so confusing and so hard to follow. Right, when you keep building automation and keep adding to it, I’m telling you all I’m guilty. I’ve had automation is where they have all of these if elss even modular. I’m trying to. OK, but what if they buy this and then two months later they don’t, but then they do this and you build out the animation for that one spus highly specific case? It does nothing. It does nothing but attempt to solve that one case. And guess what? That one case is only happening once or twice every three or four months. But now I’ve just made that automation that much harder to follow for the people who are going through it 98 percent of the time.

Chris Davis: [00:31:45] So you have to be very careful, everybody. OK.

Chris Davis: [00:31:49] So I hope this warning and education and insight was valuable to you. OK, tell me this. Go, get go, go. Think of your fellow marketer, your fellow digital marketer and or advertiser and the ones who have their their fingernails. They’ve got digital dirt under their fingernails. OK, they’re the builders. They’re the ones feet to the ground. Right. Think of that person that you know. They built landing pages and email.

Chris Davis: [00:32:21] They write copy all of those things, share this with them, especially if they’re on your team, share this with them. It is going to make their life easier. If you’re listening to this and somebody shared it, make sure you take heed to this, because it’s going to make your performance on your job or for your client stronger. It will it will eliminate the confusion. There’s a lot of times where consultants come in and see another consultants work. And that’s threatening. Right, because it’s like, wait a minute, why is the CEO bringing someone else in? And then you start hoping they don’t see the holes or that it all makes sense. You start getting defensive. Listen, follow the follow the tutelage that you’re getting in this podcast. You’ll be just fine. You’ll be just fine. OK, so if you found today’s episode valuable and this is your first time, this is this is my official invitation to you. Welcome to the family of listeners to the All Systems Go podcast. There’s a seat at the table and it is now time for you to sit down. How do you sit down by submitting a five star rating and review and subscribing. That is how you claim a seat at the all systems go table. So this is my invitation to you to do that. Here at Automation Bridge, we’re dedicated to training digital marketing professionals to become automation service providers.

Chris Davis: [00:33:41] These are these are people who are savvy with automation. They don’t automate prematurely. They don’t over automate and they definitely don’t prescribe technology before defining defining your strategy. They do automation the right way in small businesses and enterprises, they’re in dire need of these types of marketers. That can navigate both the technology and marketing space for the effective deployment of automated systems for rapid growth. So if that’s you, if that’s you, if when I said that and why you’re listening to this, you’re like, oh my God, this is gold. If you’re thinking that like, oh, my gosh, this is so good. Right? And again, you’ve got the digital dirt under your fingernails. This is for you. I want to invite you to go to AutomationBridge.com/ASP. Asp stands for automation service provider. OK, automationbridge.com/ASP. On that page, I want you to take the next steps to schedule some time to talk with someone, myself or someone on my team to assess if you would be a good fit for one of our upcoming programs. OK, where you get the training you need to to to provide you your shortcut to success in automation, learn proven practices on how to do it the right way, get the support, accountability, exposure and ongoing coaching and training that you need.

Chris Davis: [00:35:17] So go to automationbridge.com/asp . Let’s see if you’re a good fit for one of the programs that we offer. And the time is now and in the need has never been greater. OK, I’m seeing it with my own eyes. I’ve got a community of the knowledge, share the knowledge, share in the community right now is at an all time high and I don’t anticipate it dropping any time, any time soon. I’m really excited about that. So if you like to be a guest on the podcast or you have a guest you would like to refer, please visit automationbridge.com/guest and submit your or their information for them to come on the podcast. I am going to do the best that I can to ask the questions that will extract the most amount of information for you all. Got great feedback on the previous episode of with with Mike, where we talked about Amazon and it was just like, man, so much that I learned, well, I’ll do my due diligence. If you send somebody to be a guest on the podcast, trust me, I’m going to ask the right questions because I have you in mind and I want to extract from their brain processes, strategies, things that’s working for your good.

Chris Davis: [00:36:36] All right, all the show notes and podcasts are accessible at automationbridge.com/podcast. You can subscribe there to listen to other episodes at your leisure and you can also get access to anything, any of the resources mentioned, any, any, any anything that we’ve mentioned in terms of somewhere to go, a tool to use or just a resource.

Chris Davis: [00:37:03] It’s all there. Automationbridge.com/podcast. So until next time I see you online automate responsibly my friend