5 - Automation

All right, so in today's training, I'm going to be walking you through the last piece of the puzzle. So once you have amazing systems in place, you're ready to take things to the next level. You're ready to start introducing automation to the lean and effective operating systems that you've created for not only your business, but also for your life. So as I said again, once you have

effective systems in place, automation will take things to the next level. So we've already at this point, we've created the machine. You've built the machine and everything is starting to come together. Now with automation, you can make things run even smoother. You can eliminate even more brain power. You can eliminate even more decision making. So let's dive in to some of the systems that I'm going to

be walking you through how to automate. All right, so here are some of the core operating systems that you can and should automate. Once you have already created the structure and documentation for them. So for your agency, the internal job assignment process, and what that includes is how you deliver your creative briefs, how your projects and tasks get tracked and visualized. Next, we have client requests. So

you're going to want to automate this process so that any time a client sends through a request, it goes through a system that is automated and it only alerts you or the person responsible at the most important times. It only alerts them at the points in which they need to take action. And then next, for your life, you're daily, weekly, and quarterly reviews. These are things that

you absolutely should automate and also your daily value. So again, at the end of the day, you are going to be tracking and calculating the value that you generated for that specific day. And I'm going to show you exactly how you can automate this process. So let's dive in. This is going to be fun. All right, so the internal job assignment process. So before you automate it,

here's what you need to do. You need to build your creative brief on Google forums. And this is going to vary slightly from agency to agency because some of us are offering social media. Some of us are offering growth hacking. Some of us are offering web design and development. But the core structure, the core template of your creative brief is going to look something like this. And

I'm going to provide a template to complement this training as well. But you're going to have the deliverable, right? So what is the deliverable that you're creating this brief for? Next, what is the deadline? Simple. Next, what is the budget? Next, what are the instructions? So this is the most important part. How do you deliver on this creative brief? What are the reference files? So more than

likely, you're going to need to include some reference files. Some external sources of inspiration. Maybe some external project specs documents, that sort of thing. So once you have that, you are ready to automate this process. So here's how you do it. The first step of this automation, the trigger, which is step number one, is that this creative brief gets submitted on Google forums. Maybe that's going to

be you, the business owner in the early stages, and then later on a project manager or a director of operations. But the trigger is that this creative brief gets submitted. So once that trigger is activated, what happens next is a card is created based on that brief submission in Trello. And I'm, again, going to walk you through exactly how to structure this. So after that happens, a

brief submission, it triggers a message in your team Slack channel, which gets linked back to the Trello card. So this is going to say something like, hey guys, a new website development job is needed. Here is a link to more information. So this will provide a link to that Trello card so that your team members will be able to quickly and easily understand what this job is

going to entail. Then next, your brief submission, it's going to trigger a message to your operations director or your project manager. And it's just going to let them know that we have a new job that we need to assign a team member for. Okay? So now let me walk you through. All right. So here is a creative brief request that I will tell you. And again, I'm

going to include a download of this template that you can use and customize and all that good stuff. All right. So what deliverables required? Very straightforward. What's the internal team deadline until when should the assigned team member be available for requested revisions? What is the budget? Please share instructions to deliver. Reference file number one, two, three, four, etc. And then please share any other relevant information. And

then a link to the project dashboard. That's just a document that we use to basically include everything at a high level for a specific project. Okay? So once that gets submitted, now I'm going to show you the Zapier recipe. Okay? All right. So the brief gets submitted. And as I said, a Trello card gets created. So let's go in and look at what this looks like. All

right. So you're going to assign what board this new card goes under, what list it goes under. So for me, it's going to go into the pending team member needed list, of course. You're going to set the title of the card. So basically my title is new, followed by the deliverables. So it'll be something like new wireframe or new web design or new logo. Okay? And then

this is what's included on the actual card itself. So brief specs for deliverable. Then we have the instructions, then we have the reference files, then we have the additional info, the deadline, the other revision deadline, and then the budget. All right? So again, super straightforward. You can include which team member to tag if you'd like. So for me, I'm tagging my director of operations, Shubham. And you

can also assign this due date. So again, this due date is coming directly from the Google form. All right. So let's go ahead and test this out so you can see what this looks like. So boom. Here you go. So we pull that up. You can see brief specs for website copy instructions. They're the cut. There are the imaginary instructions and followed by the reference files. An

additional info, deadline, et cetera, et cetera. So guys, look at how streamlined this is. But it doesn't stop there. So let's go back to Zapier. And let me show you the messages that get triggered within Slack. All right. So again, once this card is created, I'm going to have a message sent to my team on Slack. So here you see at channel. So it's paying everybody new

project team member needed. We need a team member to deliver the deliverable by this date and be available until this date for revisions. The budget for this task is blank. Please find the brief and details for this task here. So you include the URL to your Trello card. And again, this is a very simple setup process. You just have to click on this button and navigate to

which trigger you want to pull the data from. So here you can see the Trello card, all that data, and then the brief submission. Super straightforward. All right. So now let's test this out. All right. So now let's navigate over to the Slack channel. So boom. There you go. How beautiful is this, guys? I hope you can already feel the overwhelm and the extra brain cells and

the extra brain power that you're going to be saving with these sorts of automation. So look, we need a team member to deliver website copy by July 12th and be available until July 14th for requested revisions. The budget for this task is 400. Please find the brief and details for this task here. So any interested team members will go here. So again, we're pulling up that website

copy right here. Guys, this is so beautiful. I know. So again, you know, this is customized to my workflow. You know, for some of you guys, you're maybe already going to have a team member assigned by the time that you deliver this brief. So in that case, you would probably just skip this step and go to the next step, which would be alerting your operations director. So

let me show you what that looks like here. So basically, if you already assigned team members, basically before the brief stage, then you can just skip this step. And set it so that your ops director or project manager gets alerted. And again, here in the operations channel, we have the same message. It just says, please ensure that this new job gets assigned to a team member. So

again, this is customized to my agency. It'll be slightly different based on your guys agency. But I hope that you can already see how freaking awesome this automation is. Alright, so now let's dive in to the next automation. Alright, so the client requests system. And here's what you need to do before you automate it. So build out your request form on Google Forms. Guys, I hope you

can see that Google Forms is just the best. It's great for automation. And it's great for just centrally capturing all necessary information for different types of requests and forms and surveys, briefs, feedback, whatever. Alright, so here's what you're going to include. Client name and email. So next, you want to identify what type of request the client is sending through, right? Is this going to be a request

for a revision, a new project, a question, et cetera. And then based on that request type, you're going to have a form that is customized based on the type of request, right? So again, this is just a suggestion and I'll walk you through my setup, but feel free to customize. So if it's a request for a new revision, then you're going to want to identify which deliverables

are involved. If it's a new project, which services are needed? If it's a question, then just have them input their question there. Super straightforward. And then any other additional info. Alright, so now, once we've done that, we're ready to automate this bad boy, okay? So first what we're going to do, the trigger, again, is the client request is submitted on Google Forms. And what I recommend doing,

guys, is sending through a templated message in Slack that basically just says, any time you have a request or want to request a revision or a new project, just click this form and submit your request there. And then you can pin that message. I'll include a template for that as well. So next, that submission creates a card that alerts your operations director in Trello, right? Because whoever

is going to be managing your client requests, maybe it's you, maybe it's your ops director or your project manager, you want to make sure that they get alerted of that new request, and that they can then triage and delegate that request out accordingly. This is super important because you want to make sure that the customer knows that they are being heard. So once they submit this client

request, they're going to get an email sent to them confirming their request, alerting them of expected delivery. And this will be a templated message, something like, please allow 24 hours for us to get back to you to confirm your request and discuss next steps, something like that, right? And again, this is all stuff that you're going to include within your onboarding document. And then lastly, that submission,

it triggers a message in Slack to your ops director or whoever is managing this, alerting them of the client request, and it also links out to that card in Trello. So now let me show you what this looks like. Alright, so here is the client request form. So I'm just going to go ahead and fill this out and provide you with a live example. Alright, so let's

just say I have a question. Alright, so again, once they've submitted that, you can see that I've customized this submission text, you know, a different hungry team member will be in touch shortly to confirm your request and discuss next steps. That's something I probably have to improve because shortly it's pretty big, so I'm probably going to say something like, we'll be in touch within 24 hours. So

now let's go into Zapier and walk you through this setup. Alright, so the client submits a request, okay? Alright, so next, a Trello card gets created. So again, when this Trello card gets created, it follows a very similar structure to the previous creative brief delivery. Because again, it's a request, but this one is coming from a client, so we want to be very clear that we have

24 hours to confirm their request, right? So we just have that information broken out right here, okay? So let's go ahead and test this step out. Alright, so let's navigate over to Trello, and then boom, here we go. New request, alright, so please review the information below and delete the relevant fields, then delegate accordingly, and reply to client via Slack within 24 hours to confirm their request

and discuss next step. So guys, look at how clear and descriptive this automated Trello card is. This is the type of clarity and specificity that you want across all of your operations for your agency. It's so, so important, okay? So let's go back to Zapier and look at the next steps here, alright? So next, again, we want to have this email get sent out. So here you

can see the email that gets sent to the client as their receipt, which again is just letting them know that their request has been received. So this is going to the email that they've listed in Google Forms, already automated, alright? It's coming from operations at different hunger. From name, you can change that to like customer support or client success, whatever. And then the subject, super simple, your

request has been received. Here's the body of the message. We wanted to let you know that your request to blank was received at blank. We will be in touch within 24 hours on the next business day to confirm your request and discuss next steps. So guys, this is some super advanced stuff, right? You know, this is completely automated and it's just making you and your business look

like a fucking machine, which it is, right? So let's dive into what this actually looks like, alright? Alright, so we're going to test this out and I'm going to go to my inbox and just show you what this looks like, alright? So let's go to my inbox. Alright, so here you can see the message that your client is going to receive after they send through that request.

Hey, we wanted to let you know that your request to blank was received at blank. This is just test text that you can remove or it will be removed once your zap is live. And it just says, you know, look, we'll be in touch within 24 hours on the next business day to confirm your request and discuss next steps. Speak soon, the different hunger media team. So

that is how you automate the client request process. Alright, so let's dive back in to the rest of the training. Alright, so for your personal productivity and management system, you're going to want to automate all of your reviews, especially your daily and weekly reviews. Okay, so before you do that, here's what you need to do. You need to build out your reviews with, yep, you guessed it,

Google Forms. So spend some time, it'll probably take you anywhere from 20 to 30 minutes to fully build out the daily and weekly review forms. Then set up your Google form to collect all of those form responses in a central spreadsheet. So you want to make sure that all of your form responses are being collected in a single location. Alright, now once that's done, you're ready to

set up your automation. And the guys, this is a beautiful, beautiful automation that has saved me so much time every single day. So here's what you do. Set up a time-based trigger to have the link to your daily, weekly or quarterly reviews delivered to your inbox. So this is going to be for your daily reviews, daily at 4 p.m. or whenever the end of your day is.

Okay, so every day at 4 p.m. you're going to get a link to complete your daily review in your inbox. So guys, really that's it. It's that simple. It saves you probably 5 to 10 clicks. You don't have to navigate through anywhere. It's just right in your inbox every single day exactly when you need it. But if you want to take things to the next level, which

of course, if you're in this program, I know you already do, I know you already do, then let's take things to the next level. Let's do reviews automation 2.0. Here we go. So we have the time-based trigger set up. So next, here's what we're going to do. So not only are we going to automate the delivery of our reviews, but we're going to automate a recap of

those reviews that we can use as an agenda for either the upcoming day or the upcoming week while recapping the most important items. So here's what you're going to do. Those items that you're going to recap are things like MIT's for the upcoming day. So instead of navigating into your daily review spreadsheet or however you're currently doing it, you can just go to your inbox, pull up

your recap email, and then review your agenda and MIT's for the day. Also, major wins, right? So you want to celebrate those major wins every single day. So if yesterday you closed a $10,000 client, you want to see that in the morning when you're getting ready for the day. You want to feel that momentum. You want to use that to carry you to do even bigger and

better things this upcoming day, right? Lessons learned, right? So if you learned a lesson yesterday, you want to remind yourself of that so that you can hardwire that into your brain. Next, weak points to improve upon. So we're building in this automated feedback loop that's just going to turn you into a beast. I'm telling you. I'm telling you because it's helped me. It's helped Ian. It's helped

everyone who does this. Insights. So any insights that you've collected, you want to see those. Next, your total daily value, right? So if you're looking at your agenda for the day and you're seeing that you generated $25,000 in a day, you want to keep up that momentum, right? That's going to prime you to only spend time on those high-value tasks. And guys, here is the beauty of

this system. This is creating a constant automated feedback loop that will turn you into an absolute beast. I mean it. It's going to work. So now let's go into the walkthrough. All right. So here's a daily review. Did you accomplish your three MITs? If not, what prevented you from doing so? What did you achieve today? Share a major win. Share any weak points to improve upon. Share

any opportunities that were missed today. Share a lesson learned. Share one nice thing you did for someone. What was your daily value? So next, we have the operating system review. So this is going to be your Zen OS review. So did you execute your Zen OS today in its entirety? If not, share. Why not? And then on a scale of one to five, you're just ranking your

goals execution, your project and task management, your focus, your energy levels, your nutrition, social life, et cetera. And then lastly, you can share any insights. So then at the last question here, you're sharing your three MITs. And something that I have customized, and guys, feel free to customize this based on your needs, is I have my three MITs, but I've identified one of those MITs to be

what's called my momentum builder. So the reason for that is I want to look back on my day and see that I accomplished the single most important thing for that day that's going to generate momentum that I'm going to carry in to become more impactful and more successful. Okay? So let's dive into Zapier and see what this looks like on the back end. And then I'll start

sharing with you the examples of what it looks like in your inbox. All right. So here's what it looks like within Zapier. So your daily review is submitted. And then here is the recap email that gets sent. So let me show you what that looks like. And again, this is going to customize based on your needs, but it's very helpful to see this template. So I use

some, you know, aggressive words here because look, we're not here to play around. We're here to crush it. Okay? So here is how I've structured this. So basically that last question that you saw where it says, what are your three MITs for the day? I've included that first thing here. So I'd say make sure you complete your MITs for the day. So here it's going to list

out those three MITs. Next, your daily value yesterday was this. Keep up the momentum. Yesterday's major win was this. Let's improve on these. So these were weak points. Then let's learn from this. So that's share a lesson learned. And then lastly, any insights that were included, you include that there too. Okay? Now, before I get into the email, I want to also show you my weekly review

recap. As is probably as powerful if not more powerful. All right. So here's what the weekly review looks like. So here's what you got to get done next week. So again, I have the three MITs. I talk about the biggest momentum builder that I accomplished from the previous week. Okay? So I have the upcoming week agenda here, my three MITs, and then I have a weekly recap,

right? So then I share all my major wins. All the lessons that I learned, I share the weak points that I need to improve upon. I share any missed opportunities, and I share any insights from my operating system. Okay? And then I just close it out with some motivation here. All right? So now let's dive in and show you what this looks like. So here is my

daily review. So guys, every single morning, I look at this and it sets the tone for the day. Okay? So make sure you complete your MITs for the day. One, two, three. Boom. How easy is that? So my daily value yesterday was $30K. All right? So I'm primed to only spend time on high level tasks. Keep up with the momentum. Yesterday's major win. So I'm going to

get featured in entrepreneur and my client Christian is super happy. Let's improve on these. So I struggled with sticking to the schedule. Breakfast caused delays in the start of the day, which delayed everything. And then I share the lessons learned. So guys, look, this is so simple, but it's so powerful because every single day, I'm reviewing this to start my day. Okay? And I don't even have

to spend time doing it. I do it once the day before and all of this gets pushed out to me automatically. So now let me show you the weekly review. Okay? So I have up at the top my three MITs. I have my weekly recap. And again, I'm talking about the momentum I built. I'm talking about the major wins. I'm talking about the lessons learned. I'm talking

about the weak points, missed opportunities, operating systems. Guys, this stuff is next level. And you do this every day. I promise you, you're going to turn into a fucking beast. All right. So all right. It's got to wrap up. So you're draining on automation. I hope you guys are showing up. For me. I was stoked. I'm not even more stoked to share this because I know how

amazing value will crack. Translate results for your business. This practice. All right, guys. So your daily value. So this was something that for me was causing me a bit of friction because it's such a valuable practice. Like this practice alone, we could probably sell this practice alone, you know, mapped out for the price of the program because that's how powerful it is, right? But the thing was,

is I was getting tired of like just going into Google sheets and entering in this data. You know, it was a bit of a tedious task. So basically what I was doing was I was pulling up my toggle board and I was rewriting the tasks that I was doing. So I was pulling up my toggle board and I was basically rewriting all of my tasks and then

assigning values to those tasks and then calculating those tasks. And I just knew that there was a more efficient way to do this and that's what inspired me to create this automation. So here's how you do it. First, a new task is logged in toggle. So that is the trigger. Next, set up Zapier to auto-populate your daily value tracking sheet in Google sheets. So before this automation

gets set up, you want to make sure that your daily value is being tracked in a spreadsheet. So here's the following information that is going to be auto-populated. So first, the date. Next, the task, the minutes. So that's it. And then at the end of the day, all you need to do is simply pull up your daily value tracking sheet in Google sheets, format as needed, assign

value buckets, and then calculate your value for the day. Guys, this is a game changer. Alright, so let me walk you through this setup, okay? So let's go into the daily value calculator automation here. So a new task gets logged in toggle. Super simple. New time entry, very simple. So next, we go to the auto population of the spreadsheet. So I choose the spreadsheet and I have

basically all the relevant ZenOS spreadsheets and calculations within one central sheet. I choose the worksheet. So this is my daily value calculator. I populate the date, the task, and then the minutes. The value bucket, again, I'm not sure on how to automate this, but again, not a big deal because you want to get into the habit of manually understanding how you are spending your time and the

value for that time, right? So this is the setup, okay? So now let's dive in to what this actually looks like. So I haven't logged this. This was all automated, okay? So you can see that the date, it gets a little funky sometimes. I haven't found a way to correct that, but maybe you guys can actually do that, but it's a super minor thing. All you do

is select the column and then just format it. And then boom, that's it. Next, what I do is I assign a value bucket, all right? So I'm creating content for six figure agency accelerator. So 10,000 and then 10,000. So then what I'll do is I will copy the formula for this final total value column and then I'm just going to paste that formula in here. So I'm

going to paste special and then paste formula only. I'm going to drag that down so that it accounts for the next box. And then what I'm going to do is I'm going to sum my total daily value. So you can see, boom, I generated $37,000 and $833 yesterday. So guys, how amazing is that? Literally within 90 seconds, you're going to be able to calculate your entire value

for your day and feel a rush of momentum build up. And again, you're going to take that information and you're going to plug that into your daily review. And then that daily review is going to automate and push out an automated recap and agenda for the next day. Guys, you are building a fucking machine here that is going to turn you into an absolute beast. So that

is the conclusion for today's automation train. Guys, examples, right? These automations are going to grow as you grow and they're going to be a huge reason that you grow. So feel free to customize these, feel free to treat these and make them your own. And please share them with the rest of the group as well because I was looking to improve my system. So that being said,

guys, think systematically about every single thing that you do. What is step one? What is step 10? What is step zero? What is step 100? What can be automated? What can't be automated? What can be customized? What can be documented? Guys, everything, every single thing that you do from the minute that you wake up to the minute that you go to sleep, you need to think about

how to make that processing simpler. It needs to be less taxing on your brain, right? Because the key is to conserve your mental energy and focus. When you can do that, you can invest that precious energy and focus into only highly valuable activities. So guys, create more systems, create more automations and turn your machine into version 2.0, 3.0, 4.0, 9.0. Keep going. Can't wait to see how

this changes your guys' lives. Boom. Catch you in the next train.