As an automation consultant, I start every engagement by documenting a business’ existing processes. Working with business owners, it becomes clear pretty quickly when a process isn't ready for automation. The conversation usually goes like this:
The Conversation
Me: So what happens after you receive a new inquiry?
Client: Well, sometimes we set up a meeting and sometimes we send them pricing right away.
Me: OK so how do you decide?
Client: Well, for client 1 we did it like X, but for client 2 we did it like Y. It just depends on the client.
When I hear "it depends" or "sometimes" multiple times in the first few minutes, I know we need to pause on automation and focus on process consistency first.
I learned this the hard way when I tried to automate my own proposal process. I built an automation and the setup was solid: Zapier pulled meeting notes into ChatGPT, then populated a PandaDoc proposal template that I had set up.
Development time: 3 hours.
Projected time savings: 1 hour per proposal.
The reality? I spent more time fixing automated proposals than I would have spent writing them manually. Each client needed something different—compliance language for corporate clients, flexible payment terms for small businesses, variable options for packages. My automation couldn't handle these natural variations because I didn’t understand what all the variations were yet.
Meanwhile, I was manually logging meeting notes into my CRM three times every day, following the exact same steps each time. That process was consistent, repeatable, and much better suited for automation.
From this experience, I developed a simple framework:
If you perform the same task the exact same way more than twice per day, automate it. Everything else needs closer examination.
Your process isn't automation-ready if:
Each team member handles it differently
You're still discovering better approaches after 10+ attempts
You can't document it without saying "it depends"
Quality checking takes longer than manual completion
Today’s action item:
List every task you do more than twice daily. Note which ones follow the same steps each time. These are your immediate automation opportunities. Start with just one process and document its variations for a week before deciding if automation makes sense.
Next time: What if you can automate a process? I’ll show you a simple automation that any business could use and exactly how to set it up in Zapier.
Until next time,
Jamie
P.S.
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