Oh, marketing automations. Sometimes we love
them. Sometimes they leave us crying in the shower in the
morning. Today, we're talking about all of the things marketing automations and
how they actually can help us make our business better and smoother
so that we're not pulling our hair out on doing the same repeated task
over and over again. I'm excited for my guests for this roundtable
episode. Let's get into it.
You're listening to the Mindful Marketing Podcast. I'm Andrea
Jones.
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Hi. Hello. Okay. We have 3 amazing guests today. I want everyone to
introduce yourself. I'm gonna start with Collie James, who is
a, repeat here on the podcast. Colie, introduce yourself and
tell us a little bit about you. Hi, everyone. I'm Colie James. I am
a systems a client experience systems strategist. I live
right outside of Boulder, Colorado, and I'm simply obsessed with
creating systems that stop you from doing the tedious admin
work in the back end of your business and use a little automation to
get some of that time back. Beautiful. Love it. It's distinct.
Can we match this energy? I love it, Colie. Thank you.
Dama, over to you. Introduce yourself. Hi. I'm Dama Jue.
I'm from San Francisco, but I live in New York, and I'm a funnel strategist.
So I used to build funnels for people, but now I'm more a little bit
more hands off. I'm also a ThriveCart expert, and I love to help people
kind of wrap their mind around the tech. Not just the tech, but
also the options for the tech and the option the opportunities for
marketing automation. All the automation you never knew you needed because you need it,
and you you will love it once we get it set up in your business.
So I'm all about high impact, low stress training, stuff you can
implement in an afternoon. And, of course, I also have ThriveCart template
shop, which has beautiful full funnel templates and also trainings
and all that jazz. So 2 separate brands, Dama Jue, which is, like,
not Thrivecart stuff, email, marketing automation, marketing
strategy, and then Thrivecart template shop. But it's just me. It's
just me. 1 girl, 2 brands. I love it. That's how I found you, by
the way. It was through Thrivecart. I switched to Thrivecart, and I was like, oh,
I don't like these. I need to find a template. And then I found you.
And I was like, thank you.
Thank you, Dama. Bri, over to you. Tell us a little bit about you and
your business. Hey, friends. I am Brianca Kirkman.
I am the founder and CEO of Brianca Johnson and Company. I
got married, and that's why my name is different. But
I am a marketing and automation strategist. Basically, what I like
to do is help my clients implement their marketing
strategy using simple marketing automation. So that way, they can
incorporate an authentic brand personality, launch
sustainable offers, and grow their business. Yes.
Beautiful. And I actually, like, stalk you on social media.
That's how I know you. I feel like and I've been on your email list
for a while. So I feel like when I wanted to have this conversation, I
was like, I know who to ask. Yeah. Okay. So I
wanna start at the beginning, and I'd love to know
what inspired you to start down the automation path,
the marketing automation path. Because I know for me personally,
there were a few moments where when I started my business, you know, doing what
we all do, I had, like, a Google Sheet or a Google Doc
as my everything and then manually emailing out things
to clients. And I was like, there's gotta be a better way. So I wonder
if there's a there's an origin story. Colie, let's start with you.
I was trying to automate just about everything that I could in my business, and
so I just landed on marketing seems to be the only thing that I'm still
doing manually. What can I possibly put into my business
to automate that part as well? Because the client experience part I
mean, even before I was setting systems up for other people, it was a big
thing that I dedicated time to improving the back end of my own
business. And so then when I started getting into email marketing and
funnels and ads and all of this, I was like, okay. There's gotta be a
better way for me to automate this just as well as the
client experience that I was giving, like, my photography clients on the back
end. Yeah. Yeah. I love that. I love that. Dama, what
about you? What's your marketing origin story? Mine actually goes back
to before business. So before I started an online business, I
was deep into Pinterest, but, like, for baking and gardening and travel and
stuff. And so my favorite scroll thing was to scroll Pinterest. And I saw
this random blog post, and it talked about if
this, then that. I don't know if you've ever heard of it, but it's like
an automation software for normies, not for business
people, which I kinda was interested in, but it didn't really go anywhere. And then
I started my business, and I still had this in the back of my head
of, like, how can I tell it if I do this, then you do
that? I just loved that concept. And the name, if this, then
that sort of just stuck in my head. So as soon as they started my
business, I became, like, immediately obsessed. You have this
balance balance when you're brand new of, like, doing everything as cheaply as
possible. But then when you're as like, you were like, how can I what can
I do with this 100 free zaps? What can I do with the free tier
of MailerLite? Like, how can I get everything for free? But at
very quickly was like, okay. Now you're getting clients and you're booked out. You better
just automate some crap, lady, because you are dragging. You are.
Mhmm. It's not it's not a good look. So, yeah, as soon as I kind
of, like, got going with my service provider business, I was like, oof, automate
all the things. Let's go. Let's set up the teeny tiny little nerdy rules so
that I can work less. And if I'm working, let it be in revenue
generating activity instead of me doing the tedious copy and paste
yawn stuff. Yes. You unlocked a memory with If This Then That.
I forgot that that was a thing. It's like the precursor to
Zapier Zapier, however you say it. Yeah. Memory
unlocked. I remember too, back in the day with Hootsuite,
I had, multiple Hootsuite accounts because you only could have like, what
was it, 3 brands attached or 3 accounts attached.
So I was hustling freelance mode, you know, 2014, 10
years ago, Andrea. And, like, I had a free Hootsuite account
for each client. So I was, like, logging out, logging back in again. I was,
like, there's gotta be a better way. Oh, I can pay for the automation. You
go. Oh, open my wallet. Ew. Ew. Yeah.
Oh, times. That's funny. Thank you, Dama. That's great. Bri, how about you?
Like, what's your marketing automation origin story? So
yeah. So I actually started, my business while I was working
in corporate as a digital director. And so when I worked in that
role, I worked crazy hours, like, almost a 100 hours a
week, But I still had this business. And so I was like, I have
to figure out how to, like, operationalize this
business so that it runs while I still am present in my corporate
job and that they're not, you know, over like interfering with 1 another.
And so that's what I did. Like, I just started thinking about, like, this is
what the strategy is for me. How much of this can I
automate, and, like, what does it take for me to do that? And then I
would start implementing those strategies, and I would talk about it, and I would
share behind the scenes. And even in my membership, like, when
I talk to my students, I'm always telling them, like, you didn't start this business
so you could work a 100 hours a week, and I know that from experience.
So, like, automation allows you to create more flexibility
in your schedule. And so I really have been focused, especially once
I had a kid on, like, how can I use automation so that way I
can work 20 hours a week or less, but still
be able to serve my clients, still feel like I have a omnipresence
online, still you know, not feel disconnected, but also not
feel like I have to be everywhere all the time communicating all the
time? And so automation is kind of like saving my business and
my, like, mental health. Yeah. I mean, after a 100 hour
weeks, I don't even know if you have any time, energy, capacity for
anything. No. Wow. Props to
you. Built out of necessity. So I wanna talk a little bit
about automations, and you all touched on this a little bit. But
automations save us in so many different
ways. So many different ways. Even thinking
back to me building my first email list on Mailchimp,
the idea that I could email a list of people consistently,
all they all receive the same message at the same time was, like,
mind blowing to me when I started my business. I didn't know that's how
they did it. I thought it was a BCC on everything. Right?
So marketing automations save us so much time, and they streamline
things. They make us, look professional. So I'd love to hear a story
about a time where marketing automation saved your
bacon, like it saved the day. Coley, let's start with
you. I mean, it's not really a marketing
automation. It's more a client experience. But so since I was in the process of
selling, we'll just call it marketing. I have it set up to where when
someone is booking a consultation call, I get a text message, like
Zapier is taking that information and sending me a text message. And I guess
I had accidentally forgot to mark my vacation on my
calendar as busy, and it was marked as free. And I
was at Disneyland and got a little text message that someone had booked a
call for the next day. And I was like, no. Wait. Like, my calendar is
blocked off. Like, what are you talking about? So, I mean, if I didn't have
that automation and I was totally in vacay mode, I would have
completely ghosted that person because I would not have looked at my
calendar on vacation to see that someone had snuck in
because it was on my calendar for a 4 full days. But
somehow I forgot to click the busy button. So, I mean, it didn't
make me look I mean, I set up automations and systems. My
systems have to work. So that was good. I let them know I
was at Disneyland, and, of course, everybody knows that I go to Disneyland constantly. So
they were like, oh, don't worry about it. We'll just chat next week. I was
like, thank you. I appreciate that. I thought I think that's the
most unique way I've heard of using Zapier. I love it
because, now you can't miss it. You can't miss when those meetings
come in. I have so many times where, I had 1
yesterday where I got the reminder of a a meeting that wasn't
on my calendar. And I was like, woah. Wait a
second. This isn't on my calendar. So I was,
like, grateful for the reminder of it. But, yeah, it's like the
those automations help save us because if we didn't have them, we would be
out here just floating in space like la la la. Everything's great.
Mhmm. I love that. Thank you, Koli. Dama, over to you. What's a
time that a marketing automation saved your bacon? This is just a
I'm gonna answer that, but I have a bonus thing on what Koli said.
Sometimes when I go out of town, you know, airlines let you have free Wi
Fi now. So sometimes I like to book
launches for while I'm out of town so I can be, like, on vacation and
just have the, like, the start notifications rolling through. But you don't always get
them, so I like to set up a zap where it goes from Thrivecart
to WhatsApp. And I'm just, like, getting little messages while I'm chilling on the
plane, watching a movie, and, like, eating my snacks. It's just
another fun way to, like, yes, remind me of things, but, also, like, can I
just take a moment to celebrate the joy of, like, getting a sale while I'm
at 37, 000 feet? Anyway okay. Also, I have to say,
Dava, launching while on vacation is wild to me. Like,
this I need, like, a whole like, I'm not that
brave. So I my anxiety is never.
Congrats to you. I will need to take that course. I do
it often and it's a it's different from, like, I'm
creating a thing and it's gonna there's, like, a live element, but it's, like, I'm
doing a sale. I just had my 5th anniversary in my
business. So over Memorial Day weekend, I slapped together not
slapped together, but I planned and executed a sale.
And I was, like, that the emails are ready. I was, like, feeling good
about that. And then I saw a deal to go
to Dominican Republic. So I was like, it looks like I'm going to the Doctor
for the weekend, and we're, like, at the pool. And there's, like, Stripe notifications coming
business during mid cart. Like, if the
my business during mid cart. Like, if the cart opens on Wednesday and closes on
the following Tuesday, that weekend needs to have, like, distraction
because there's that mid cart lull, and I need to not be thinking about it.
So vacation or I'll plan, like, a hike or something,
just random little for me, it's actually good for my anxiety to
not be there during mid car or to be very engaged in something else during
mid car. But, anyway Okay. Just continue.
Yeah. Okay. So you asked me, like, when marketing saved my
bacon. This has happened a lot of times, basically, all the time. But
1 that immediately stood out to me is I have this system where
every single sale I make, gets pulled
into Airtable, and it categorizes them. I can see my
quarterly sales, my monthly sales, my all time sales. I can see it by
type, by offer. And what I love about
that is that, 1, I don't have to do anything about it. 2, I use
webhooks, so it does not even cost me a zap. So there's joy there.
But it lets me see a bird's eye view of, like, how are my
offers doing? How have this how has this offer done lifetime?
How has it done just in this quarter? And I can see even by
category, like, oh, okay. Q 1, like, people were buying this. And then
in q 2, they're buying templates. And now, you know, I can actually see that.
So it's really helped me to see the bird's eye view because it's sometimes kinda
hard to see all the stats and then see them in, like, a way
that is easy for your brain to interpret, like, a pie chart in an
Airtable. Not not
base, but interface. Thank you. But, like, a part chart or a bar bar chart
or something like that. So I've it's helped me make decisions, like,
when it's time to pull an offer, when it's time to adjust the price of
things, when it's time to I'm about to pull this offer. Shut up. No. I'm
not. It's still making sales. Calm slow down. You know? So it's
let me see the data at a bird's eye view and make the data
has made the decision and, like, it not me and my tender
emotions. I just have the emotions just need to get on board with what the
data is. So that has saved me from pulling offers,
or from doing things like maybe, like, an an emotional reaction.
Like, no one's buying it then. I mean, you know, or whatever. It just helped
me make the like, that system in general
takes the emotion out of the sales, and I also don't have to do anything
to create it. I created the interface and the base, and then it just
populates these cutie pie little charts for me, which are a joy to look at.
So that helps a lot. I love that. Yeah. And I love that you said
too, the emotions aren't running the show, like the data is the
data is. So I love that too. Thank you, Dama. I love it. Dama, sorry.
Love that. Brie, over to you. What is a time? Tell us a
moment when marketing automation saved your bacon. Yeah. So this
is kind of a glam scenario, but a real life 1.
Recently, I had to take an unexpected bereavement leave.
And because all of my automations were set up, I
was able to onboard clients into my membership. They were
able to come seamlessly into the, into the
membership, complete their onboarding forms, schedule their first call.
So I was, like, out completely checked out from my phone
and from my computer, but people are still going through my funnels.
They're still onboarding into products, into programs and things like
that. And I bled for bereavement on the first day of
my launch. And so it was like,
nice is not the right word, but it was like nice to know that even
though I was out, that my business did not stop because of something that happened
in my personal life. Mhmm. Yeah. I feel like this is 1
of those moments where we can, like, stop and be
grateful for the business. Because in a traditional
job setting, it could be hard to take the time you
need. I think, you know, depending on your job, there's, like, a certain number of
bereavement days you get. And it's like, this is the only time you get to,
like, take the time you need. What if you need more? You can't like, sometimes
you literally can't get it. But because we get the freedom that
comes with building our own business, we get to decide those things and then you
get to take the time you need while still having the marketing automations in
the background. So I love that.
Next question. I wanna talk about tools and tech. I
know tools and tech sometimes can be the end of the puzzle, but
sometimes as well, it's it's really, really helpful to
hear the tools that other people are using. I'm an Airtable girly
through and through. Give me the bases, the interfaces, the
forms, even now have conditional formatting, which I
love. However, I have, like, dipped my toe
into Notion and I'm like, oh, okay. I can see
how this could work as well. So I'm loving all of the marketing automation
tools, and I'd love to know what tools you
cannot live without and why. Cole, let's start
with you. I mean, I'm gonna say Airtable. I could pick
another 1, but, like, literally, I just wrote a blog post, and I
was basically identifying and kind of giving bullet points for
each hub that I have in my business and what I can do inside
of each 1 of the hubs. And I was like, wow. That's amazing. Like, I
mean, I wake up every day, and I'm like, what can Airtable do for me
today? As Dama said, I zap everything in the Airtable.
I use it to manage my podcast. I'm now using it to manage all of
the rest of my marketing content, like the e the evergreen emails
and those kinds of things. So I love Airtable. If if I have to pick
another 1 that's, like, maybe more focused on actual marketing, I would
say that I really dig Metricool, and I know that you do too. Like, as
a scheduling planner, piece of software,
I love that it not only lets me or my team members
schedule out content for, like, weeks at a time, but
also all that data that it gives you when you log in. So I no
longer have my team members write down what our starting
Instagram follower account was at the beginning and the end of the month or, like,
YouTube subscribers. None of that. Because when you log in to Metricool, it gives you
all of that data for all of the marketing channels that you have connected.
And so it's kinda like a 2 for 1. Like, you automate the posting
of your content, but also you no longer have to manually
write down all of your data related to the marketing so that you can make
those kinds of decisions of, you know, should I continue to do this
or what should I do next? Yes. I I love Metricole. I've
been using them for little less than a year now,
and their analytics have, it's like chef's kiss. This is
what I was looking for. Because I tried them all. I tried them all,
and they're not great. And I love I love them for the analytics
too. Okay. Cool. 2 for 1. Love it. Dama, over to you.
What is the marketing automation tool you cannot live without and why?
This is tough because I truly, 2 for 1, I cannot live
without Thrivecart or Airtable. But push comes to
shove a rock solid checkout and core system, like a
full funnel system built in Thrivecart is an absolute
nonnegotiable for me. I I just have to have it because I need to
be able to be binging grays and eating
popcorn and something like that. And then someone lands on my Thrivecart, on my sales
page built in Thrivecart, grabs the main offer, grabs the bump,
Thrivecart sends them to a success page, enrolls them, sends them their
login link. They get an automated email because drip and
Thrivecart are connected, and it's like a cozy little welcome and an invite to
join my affiliate program. They can join my affiliate program, grab a link,
promote, earn, and even get paid without me
getting off of the couch or being awake or being hands on or
literally doing nothing for it. Just chilling and getting the text
messages. Like, this is this is amazing. So I
love Airtable, and I use it every single day in my business. But, yeah, the
1 that I possibly I couldn't possibly live without is just a rock solid,
like, my rock solid system inside Thrivecart. And so I I love
that it's yeah. I mean, if that's not the online biz dream, then I
don't know what is. But, yes, Airtable is a very close second because I honey,
I love my webhooks. I love my little bases, my little
automations, my little systems. I love it. Yay. I love that. Okay. I
need to dive deeper into ThriveCart. I've been using it for maybe 2 years
now, and I have it set up, but the only thing I don't have set
up is the, like, 1 click, upsell. That's the,
like, next thing on my list where I'm like, there's there's a demo
course on this. I need I need to dive into this module.
Yeah. That particular course is my, like, my absolute highest
ROI course. Because when people implement it, they're like,
oh, and they finally get how upsells work inside Thrivecart. They're like,
oh. 0, you know, like, it just it all clicks.
And right now, upsells and bumps are, like, an extra
20% on every single launch. Wow. 20% of
every single launch revenue is upsells and bumps. So,
mhmm, let's talk. Yeah. I have fell victim to a
few of her upsells and downsells. I'm just saying. I get a lot
of 1 face. Irresistible. I don't I
don't play around. I came to get it done. Yes.
I love that. Thank you, Jama. Okay. Bree, over to you. What's the
number 1 marketing automation tool you cannot live without and why?
Definitely Airtable. I use it for everything,
like, especially my onboarding experience because I can send
emails and I can follow-up, Even like
discovery calls, you book a discovery call with me, you're getting those follow-up
emails. You're, you know, getting emails if you book a discovery call, service immediately. Like,
those follow-up like, that entire system that I've built in Airtable
pretty much runs my business, 247.
And I I it's just I feel like once you know how to do it,
it's like you could do anything in Airtable. So I really love
it. So are you sending emails from is it SendOwl
that's in Airtable, or is it just No. I just send them straight from
Gmail in Airtable. Wait. How did I
not know about this? Are you not doing this? Really? God.
You're you're We're in a live chat when this is done. Yeah.
Yeah. We're about to blow your mind. It is it is the most
phenomenal thing ever. I love it. Is it wait. Is this,
like, the confirmation email? Like, if so sorry, y'all. I'm on the podcast. I'm like
You can send You're seeing the reveal. Yes. Yeah. You can send
any kind of email. So, like, let's say someone booked a discovery
call and you wanted to they booked a discovery call, you have to call,
but they didn't enroll in a service. And so 2 days later, you want to
send an email that's like, hey, Andrea. I was so excited to chat with you
during our discovery call on XYZ date, and you can insert the date because you
have the information in the table because your table and Calendly are
connected. But you like and you can just, like, and it
feels so custom because all of the information is
plugged in from connections that you have with other tools
and software that you have. So you could send upsell emails, like,
using, Domas, system that's, like, hey. I know that you
purchased XYZ product, and you can pull in the product because it's in your
Airtable base, and you can say, this would be an excellent complement to that.
And you can set it up so it runs automatically. Mhmm. And it's
it's wonderful. Like, and I think because,
obviously, you can do segmentation and things like that in ConvertKit or
Klaviyo, etcetera. Like, obviously, you could do that. But
there's to me, there's something about it coming from a Gmail in
a very, like, hands off, low touch,
like, organic, we're friends kinda way
that just works, like, perfectly. And I love
it. Okay. So I have my whole week is going to
be completely redirected to this project now because I am like,
where have I been? So we have a here from 1 of our,
members of the Savvy Social School. Alan's asking, are you basically
using Airtable as a CRM? So when someone books a call with you, it
goes, okay. Yeah. I normally consider it as that
because I do have Dubsado, and I send contracts and things like that through
Dubsado. So I don't consider Airtable to be my
CRM. I consider it to be more of, like, a data manager, just
where, like, all of the data from all of the multiple places are in
this 1 place where I can see it at a glance. And
then from there, I think about what I want that customer journey to
be, and I'm able to direct my customers on that journey
using the automations in Airtable, and it's just much simpler. So
I don't really consider it to be a CRM. Like, I'm not looking at it
in that way, but it does help me to nurture
them along whatever path they're on based on a decision or an action
that they've taken in a way that I wouldn't if I was
marketing to someone who I hadn't had, like, a previous
engagement with, if that makes sense. Yeah. Yeah. It makes total sense because you've
had a conversation with them, so you can personalize experience after that.
Wild. And even if they're not on your email list, they'll get that email. So
even if, like, they were previously on your list and they unsubscribe, they'll get that
email. You can automate Slack things with
Airtable. You can automate a Google Calendar invite. You can
there's a like, you gotta poke around the actions. Yeah. Mhmm.
Gotta poke around the actions. And I will just say
because the person specifically asked about the CRM, as someone
who sets up things like Dubsado and HoneyBook, I am recommending to more
and more people now that you use your actual CRM
to book someone, which is to nurture them into signing the
proposal, signing the contract, and then paying the invoice. And
then so many people are now moving over, like, the rest of their
client experience into Airtable because of the way that you
can look at everyone at once and you can set up these kind of if
then conditional automations on the back end that none of the
CRMs allow us to do at this point.
Wild. Okay. Completely derailed, but also
delightfully so because I am going to dive all
both feet into sending emails through Airtable, which for
some reason, I didn't know was a thing before now.
I thought you had to have a tool to do this, and maybe this is
a newer thing. So there's 2 things, Andrea. There's 1 that says
send email, and then there's 1 that says send Gmail. Yeah. You have just need
to activate the send Gmail. You log in 1 time and then
It's done. Yeah. See? There you go. And here I
see. So we used, Airtable for influencer
management for 1 of our clients probably 3 years ago now.
And so we purchased, like, a separate
tool, SendFox. That's what it was. I said SendNow, but Send
SendFox, where you could set so, like, we could email our influencers
based on, like, certain parameters. Like, did they participate in this
last campaign or, you know, have they not participated yet? All of those things,
which I knew I could do. But now you're telling me I can connect it
to Gmail? My world has opened up, and I appreciate all of you for
this conversation. Okay. We're gonna take a quick break.
When we come back, I have more specific questions for each of you when we
get back. But first, a word from our
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for free. Try it out for yourself, onlinedreya.com/launch.
Alright. And we're back. So I have questions for each of you
specifically, and I wanna start with Dama. How do you
balance the world of automations while also
maintaining a personal touch with all of the things that you
do? Okay. So this might be controversial, but
everything written in my business pretty much,
every email is written by me. I think AI can do a lot of
things, but what she can't do is write for me. She she don't
she she cannot do that. Like, I just I need the my email.
Everything I like, my emails sound like the way that I
talk because I literally am just opening up drip and spitballing. So
all emails sound like me, so I think that adds
this personal talk, like, touch because I really just talk to
people. My tone is very casual, informal,
friendly, and AI just can't do that,
I feel like. So, anyway, I write it all. I don't use AI for any
of that stuff. And I I'm always looking for different ways to bring in
personalization to things. So, things like,
obviously, their merge, like, merge fields, like, for their name or this and
that. But I do really careful tracking with my
email list of, like, source. Like, what brought them into my world? So it was
that collab that I did with Megan, or was it that summit that I spoke
in? So every single new lead gets tracked with, like, a source.
And so I can remind them, like, hey. You know, we first met
via blah blah blah blah blah, like, Andrea Jones podcast. Right? And
so I can add that information there, and so I like to pull those
things in. I usually yeah. I'm always looking for ways to pull in
personalization. I'm a natural question asker, so I like to ask a lot
of questions so people can reply. And I may not reply straight away,
but I always prioritize, like, if somebody replied to 1 of my marketing
emails that I automated, especially, like, my forever
funnel or my my nurture sequence, like, I prioritize making sure I get
back to them. And so that is a detached
sort of automation world, but I'm still the, like, heart beating heart behind
it. And so, just trying to bring in my voice, my
sound, and, yeah, making sure that if
they are engaging, then I'm engaging right back with them. Yeah. I
love that that you add that human touch. I think there's gonna be a premium
on the human side of things because AI
can technically do these things. We don't really want it
because it they can't come up with the stories that we have, like our personal
experiences. And even as much as I love
AI and the tools, copywriting ain't it. Like, I
got so frustrated yesterday with some copy that it was just coming
across so stale. I was like, AI, just write this like RuPaul would
say it. And they she went too far. I was like, no. No. Okay. Never
mind. I don't want any of this, and it's all terrible. I'll just
write it myself. So, yeah, I agree with you. As as
amazing as the robots are,
not not quite for the copywriting. Not for me. Okay. Great. I love
that. Thank you, Dama. Next question goes to Koli.
What's the most innovative automation campaign you've run, and
give us some of the results. Okay. I'm gonna I wanna
make sure that I mention this 1 because it had an incredibly small
number of people. But I feel like the return, people are gonna be like, wow.
You made $7, 000 off of that. We haven't talked yet about ManyChat.
So ManyChat is an AI bot, which you can attach to your Instagram,
and they bought it now. So there's no, like, should you use it?
Shouldn't you use it? They're penalizing you if you do. I mean, it is an
Instagram product now. So when you attach it, there's no fear
of them penalizing you. But I was planning on
offering HoneyBook services. I had been, like, strictly a dubsado
girl. I said some really mean, ugly things about HoneyBook
for years. I take them all back now. Well, I take most of them back.
But I was introducing HoneyBook into my business, and I was like, I should
do a wait list for HoneyBook. I had planned on doing a course.
I was doing VIP days. So I just put it out on Instagram, and I
only did it twice. I just said, hey, guys. I mean, I know you've heard
me talk about HoneyBook, but I am gonna be doing beta offers for
HoneyBook soon. If you would like that information, please,
DM me the word HoneyBook or reply to this particular
post, and I will add you to the wait list. Now
I only had 12 people click the link or do the HoneyBook.
Right? Out of those 12 people, 10 people finished the
automation, which in this case was give me your name, give me
your email. So off of 10 people, I made 7 grand. I
think 7 of the 10 ended up being, purchasers of beta.
And, I mean, you don't want 100 of people to get your beta. You just
want some people to do it so that you can run it through, you can
make the improvements, and then you can sell it at full price or, you know,
whatever it is that you wanna do for the next step. So I love the
fact that all I did was 2 posts. 12 people started.
10 people finished. 7 people ended up buying. And I will say
that 1 of those 2 people who didn't finish the automation,
she was actually the first person to hire me to do HoneyBook full
price. Like, she didn't finish the automation, but yet, and still she
was still following me. She was still paying attention. And so when I announced it,
she paid the full price. So $7, 000 off of 2
posts. I think that's a really good return on investment.
Yeah. I agree. And I love vanity chat, but it's it's, a little
bit controversial. Have you heard any of the controversy around it where people
The current new 1 where you're they're telling you not to do the DM words
and I mean, yes. But also, it's still
working. And so, I mean, because I got such a
large return on investment on such a small number of people, I mean,
HoneyBook is penalizing me anyways. I don't know about you guys, but less than,
like, I swear half a percent of the people who follow me are actually seeing
my stuff. Oh, you mean Instagram? Yes. I mean, Instagram. So, I
mean, whether I'm using ManyChat or not, it's bad. At least it's bad for
me. So I'm working on, like, moving towards not
really focusing I mean, I'm working on more emails and blogging and the
podcast. But, I mean, I just feel like I'm already
getting penalized on Instagram. And so using ManyChat, if it's saving me
the automations, I don't care that I'm possibly getting penalized for it. It's
all good. Yeah. I'm team Manichat as well. I think that there are some people
who don't like that they have to put the keyword
personally. And so it feels like they're on some sort of
mission to, like, say, ManyChat, nobody likes it. And I'm like, the
data showing on my end that people actually take way
more action with this, like, comment, the keyword situation
versus, like, click on the profile, then click on the link in the bio, then
look through all my links that I have here, then click on that link, then
go to the page and enter your email. Like, it's like it's already too many
steps. Right? And so I like that I can say, DM me this
keyword. And then in the DM, I can say, what's your email address? And then
let me get you this thing right now, and it connects to my ConvertKit, and
I love it. Because most people don't wanna leave. I mean,
I treasure my morning scroll. There is almost nothing that
you are gonna get for me to stop watching reels with my first cup of
coffee in bed in the morning. And if you have, like,
sparked my interest, I don't wanna click on 5 different links like you
said and then go to your website and type in my stuff on your thing,
and then I wait for an email. No. I would rather just do it all
in the DMs. And then there's a record. Like, if I wanted to know,
oh, you know, Andrea had that thing, but I can't remember what her name was
or what the thing was. I could just scroll through my messages and see, you
know, what it was that I sent. The worst thing is seeing
something on Instagram, and it, like, refreshes and it's gone or
whatever it is before you take action. And then you're like, oh my god.
It's gone. And then you can't remember anything about it. That is just the most
frustrating thing for me. So if people make it easy for me to opt
in and say yes while I'm on my scroll, not having
to really leave Instagram and then come back, I mean, that's bonus points for
you. It is more likely that I am going to buy whatever it is that
you were trying to sell me. Yeah. Make it easy for me. I love it.
I love it. Okay. Bree, over to you. I'm curious
about what trends you're seeing emerging,
specifically with marketing automations. Like, what should we prepare for as business
owners? So I think that a lot of people are really
I feel like for a long time, it was so focused. Internet was so
focused on, like, build it big and, like, hire the big team
and make it super complicated. They weren't telling you to make it
super complicated, but it was becoming these, like, very elaborate,
complicated businesses. And I think now what we're seeing
is this desire for things to be simpler, for
us to go back to the basics, for us to think about, like, how we
were doing business before we were kind of bamboozled into
this idea of having big teams and scaling and things like that.
And so I think linked with that, right, is
you see a lot of people really like tuning their
or pruning their tools. They're getting rid
of all these tools that they're paying for, and they're trying to think about, like,
how do I run this business on the least amount of tech with the simplest
automations, and save myself the cost
of 3 or 2, team members?
And I honestly really like this trend because I think that a lot of
times, like, what we saw when people were trying to automate their
entire business or trying to hire people to run their entire business for
them was that they had these long, elaborate,
kind of ridiculous automations, and they had no idea where anything was if
something broke down. So if a client came through and they didn't
get, you know, the the right email or they didn't get the right link,
you had no idea where to go to find it, to fix it, or
update the automation, etcetera, because you had 15
tools connected to 1 automation, or you had
7 hands touching the same process or things like that. And
so I think with us going back to a more simpler,
process for these things, I just think it's gonna be overall more efficient,
and I think it'll will take away some of the time that
we've spent on the back end of our business and allow us to think more
innovatively about how we show up and how we connect with our,
our clients and our students and, like, focus more on, like, building
community versus building this, like, elaborate spider web
mess, chaotic mess of, like, automations and team members and things like
that. Yeah. Yeah. I agree. If someone else had set up my Zapier
for me, I wouldn't know I wouldn't even know what I was looking at. Like,
I I feel like I'm the only 1 on my team who truly knows
how everything's connected. And you're right. Like, we don't
need sometimes all of the team and all of the the
multiple, multiple steps. Like, let's make it easy. So, yeah, I
love this trend for us collectively, and I hope we continue
doing it. Okay. Next question I have is for Dama.
How do you manage your time and energy to avoid becoming
overly reliant on automation?
That's a really interesting question because I I'm not sure I could
become overly reliant on automation. But because
I have so many automated systems set up for
sales, for customer service, for nurture, for this, for that,
for, yeah, all kinds of different things that I can
kinda easily it's gotten to the point that I can kinda easily check out
or sort of submarine for periods, which is great. Like, you
should submarine on the weekend and enjoy your time with your family or whatever. It's
good for balance, but it's not so great when I submarine
too long, and then I sort of feel kind of disconnected from my audience or
from my students. So I sell templates and, like, all self study
stuff. I don't I do a group program twice a year, and I'm very,
like, intentional about enrollment and when
it opens and closes because I like to disconnect when I like, I usually have
a trip planned for right when the cohort ends, because I'm kinda
ready for it. But I start to feel a little too distant, or disconnected
from my audience. So when I feel that way, because the
automations are doing their magic, and I just kinda wanna in
interact with people, I go hang out on threads, which is where I see most
of y'all. I'm gonna need to create connect with Bree on threads. But I'll
go hang out on threads. I'll peek at the support tickets that
my assistant has already answered for me just because I'm kinda curious, like,
what's on minds. And then I like to do kind of random pop up
events. Like, I'll host a random live q and a as a
bonus for something. Or if, like, oh, I'm gonna just I'm deciding to add a
new thing to this offer, and I'll do a little discount for it. And
for that week only, I'll do a bonus q and a, or a bonus,
like, a coaching call or something like that. So I like to experiment with
this, keeping my self study boundaries, which is kinda good for my
mental health, but then adding in little, like, spurts
of heavy interaction, heavy peopling, because I
don't wanna feel disconnected, but I can't mentally,
like, emotionally sustain it all the time. So I've experimented with
some interactive things that accompany that are short term, that
accompany self study things. Like, I recently did an asynchronous ask me
anything. I used video ask for that. It went video ask
connected to an Airtable base, connected to softer. Nerd alert.
So, like, all the nerdy things. But, like, yeah, I did this
asynchronous ask me anything. I've done Voxer office hours. I've,
like, really wanna experiment with a Telegram channel, like, a
broadcast channel next, or I've just kind of ran do, like, a random
Zoom q and a call where I'm just like, let's just vibe. Let's vibe a
little bit. What are you guys working on? Where are you getting stuck? Because that
also helps me have content ideas. And, like, sometimes you just don't
know what they don't know until you're interacting with your people. And
1 other last little thing where I like to take the automation
out of my business and just be live and and very like, when
you're live, you really can't hide behind. Like, there's, like you can't put
on polish. It's just like, I'm real. I messed up this, so this slide
has a typo or whatever. You know? So I like to do like, every
6 weeks or so, I'll do an like, a live training where I'll
prepare all the, like, tutorials and templates in advance,
but the strategy portion of it, I love to do that live
because it puts me in connection with people. And it would be fine if it
were prerecorded, but I like seeing the light bulb moments
popping off on their faces or on the chat. I actually encourage
people to be camera on or let them know your face is not gonna be
in the recording, so feel free to be camera on if you want. I like
to see the light bulb moments. I like to see the follow-up questions. I just
like to see that engagement happening in the chat that I'm not like, drop a
1 if you're whatever trying to force the engagement. They're just like they're feeling
it. They're having a light bulb moment, or I'll say a thing and they'll be
like, oh my god. Yes. I've always wondered about that. So I like seeing that
strategy come to life. And, so seeing them kinda
get up and, like, get lit to implement it is just fun. So
I'll incorporate periodic life things.
And then I'm like, okay. I'm gonna separate again with, like, my people ness. That
was a lot of people in, and then I'll kind of go back to my
little self study corner. But every so often, I feel the end to be like,
oh, I wanna extrovert out and connect with my people and then, you know, I
do little submarines. Yeah. There should be a study somewhere
about, like, extrovert, introvert. Like, do you work in an office? Do you
own a business? Because, like, I am very much introverted.
Like, I by the way, submarining, I had never heard of this until now.
And as soon as you said it, I was like, I know exactly what you
mean. I don't need a definition because that's me. That's what I do. Just give
me my books. Leave me alone. That's me. I am so far underwater. Please do
not disturb. Yes.
Exactly. Do not disturb signs on. Yeah. And I think that
that automations help us be able to do that.
Right? Like, we can customize our business
experience, but I also love that you acknowledge that you do need
to connect with the your community members because
that allows you to get the feedback loop. It allows you to
customize things even more. It allows you to stay in touch with, like, what they're
thinking and feeling. So I love all that too. Thank you for random thing,
though. They might not share, like, oh, I wish it they might not fill out
my feedback form and say this would be great except it needs this. But
somehow, like, on a live call, they'd be like, oh, can we have that? Or
could you could you like, it it gives you there's almost, like, a little bit,
like, less of a filter. Not in a nasty way, but in a helpful way.
So I will often take feedback from, like, oh, yeah.
That would be really cool, or could we have that, or, oh, is it possible
to? And I don't usually get that in forms. I'm just like, now
as I'm talking about it with you right now, like, oh, they kind of share
a little bit more. They're a little bit more open and fit like, almost like
a family vibe when you're on live on the thing. So Yeah. Yeah. There's
like no it's not it's less stuffy. Right? It just feels like you're just chatting
with a friend. Yeah. I like that. Okay. Coley, over to
you. How do you make sure that your automations
kind of all align with your values, your company's values, and
you're not doing anything that gives you the eck? I mean, I
think the the biggest thing that I try to do is practice what you preach.
I mean, for those that don't know me, I homeschooled my kid for
a year. The 2 years before that, she was virtual schooled, but she was home
with me. I mean, I really try to tell people that you
build a business so that your life can come first and not the
opposite. And so when it comes to my automations, I'm also I'm always very
clear to tell people what automation it is, why I
created it, and basically how much time it saves me or what
I'm able to do that is outside of my business because that
is what I personally value. Like, I mean, I talk about being at Disney all
the time. I don't just do it so that I can sell products. Like, really,
if you're not into Disney, it's okay. What would you rather be doing than
answering 20 emails over and over again saying the same thing when you could
write an email template that would do it for you, and then you could move
on about your business. So I think the biggest thing that I
try to do is tell people automations help you build the
business that you actually want and not the business that you feel
forced into after you have, like, chosen this as your path.
No 1 should be working 247 inside their business
when most of those tasks, we can take care of with some admin.
And a lot of people are like, well, I can't hire anybody. But, yeah, I'm
talking about starting with automations. And once you start with the automations, if you
hit the max of what an automation can do for you, then I
highly encourage you to go seek out, like, some actual, you know,
human to human help. But automations can just do so much for
us, and if we can get over the stigma that they turn you
into a robot or they take out your personality or that your
clients are gonna be offended that it's not you personally answering them.
If you can get over that mindset, there is, like, a beautiful
business for you on the other side where you are not stuck to
your phone or your computer. And when your kids talk to
you, you don't have time to respond to them because you're too busy responding
to your clients on your phone. So practice what I preach is what I try
to do. Yes. I love that. And I think part of it is,
like, you're so clear about what is important to
you as a business owner and those values and that everything you
do kinda feeds into that. And I think that's such a good baseline for everybody
to, consider. Alright. Last question goes to
Bree. How do you use automations in your business to,
make sure there's a sense of community with the people in your audience?
Of course. So, I mean, naturally, I use ManyChat,
but I use it in ways that are not just, like, selling.
I like to ask questions, and then based on, like, their
answers, send follow-up. So, I might say,
like, you know, which of these is of interest to you? Like, are
you trying to, I don't know, do you like apples or oranges? And if they
reply like, I like oranges, I might say, like, oh, I love
oranges too. Like, this is where I get my oranges from as an like, as
very strange random off the top example. So I really
like to use mini chat to kind of, like, segment out where
my audience members are and what their interests are so that way I
know how to follow-up with them later on, and to even,
like, follow-up. So let's say I said,
DM me a keyword because you wanted to download my lead magnet.
I will add another part to the automation that's like a follow-up, like, 2 or
3 days later that's like, hey, Andrea. Like, I just wanted to check-in. Did you
were you able to access XYZ lead magnet? And if so, like, what
were your thoughts? Were you able to get to it, etcetera? 1 thing that I've
learned about myself is that I am not necessarily
the best at remembering to go back and pick up a conversation
where it left off. And so I like to use automation and things
like that to remember things that I know I'm gonna, like, fall short
on. So I might fall short to remember, like, oh, it's my student's birthday.
Let me send her a message.
Client, you know, who I know is having a launch or having an upcoming event.
So when it's on my brain, I will go ahead and schedule the post or
schedule the reminder or schedule the follow-up, to go ahead and check
out or to send them a gift, you know, for their launch or
things like that. So I think that, basically, my,
like, overall approach to it is that I really want to
feel omnipresent. I wanted to feel like I'm always there. I'm
always remembering things. I'm always on top of it. And so when I write it
down, like, hey. This client's birthday is coming up or this client is
launching or this you know, whatever that whatever I want
that, like, journey to be, I will set up the automation for that
in real time. And so what it's evolved into is, like, this,
like, kind of like web of follow ups or
reengagements, or circling back, things like things
like that. Even down to, like, when clients book discovery calls
or when they complete programs, we follow-up after that. So
you might complete a program, and then 90 days later, we circle back to see,
like, how's it going, or do you have any questions? And when I
ask my students, like, do you have any questions? I'm willing to answer whatever those
questions are, not necessarily for an additional fee or anything like that, but
because I wanna make sure that they have the support that they need. And
so it just it I feel like it's more of like a prompting, if that
makes sense. Yeah. And I love that you're using these
tools for follow-up. I'm the worst at remembering
birthdays, like the absolute worst. So I use,
Postable, and I put all my clients in there, and they send
handwritten birthday cards. Now I still customize them, and, actually, Jemmy on my
team helps me with this. But if I didn't have that tool
saying, hey. This person's birthday is coming up. You should send them a card. I
would never do it. I wouldn't do it. No. No. I would totally
forget. And I think that's the point of automation is
that, like, we are not going to remember everything
and we don't have to. Kind of like if you think about like, I
even use automations or things like that in my day to day life. Like, I
schedule all doctor's appointments around my birthday or around my kid's birthday because
your your birthday is gonna happen every year on the same day no matter what.
So now we can get this annual checkup on that same day every year.
And so I just I think about automations in that same way. Like, the the
purpose of an automation is to help me pick
up where I may leave off or to remember something for me that I may
forget. Yeah. I love that. Thank you. And and the running thread I
noticed in a lot of our conversations today was about using
automations to personalize experiences. So as all of you
listening, watching to this, a big takeaway from this
episode is not to use automations to turn into a robot,
but to use automations to have personalized interactions at
mass with people where you you physically could not do this
all at the same time. And so that you can really
personalize experiences through these automation tools. And I love that,
Veres. I love that. Okay. So as we close out our episode, I
would love to know from each of you what's coming up next in your business
and how we can connect with you. Let's start with you, Koli.
I'm trying to remember when this is going live. So, in
my business, I am planning on doing a birthday sale, which this episode
is actually going to come out the week of my birthday. It is July 28th.
So if you would like to know what I am doing inside of my birthday,
please go to colejames.com and sign up for my newsletter,
and you will get all the goodies, you know, delivered directly to your inbox
by my automation assistant, and her name is Ashley.
I love that that you have her name too. I love that. Okay. Coli, thank
you so much. Dama, over to you. What's going on next
in your business, and how can we connect with you? You and I are
doing a fun collaboration. So right around the time this podcast drops,
so you will have an opportunity you might have heard me mention earlier in this,
call my or did I mention it? I had another call with Kobe
today, so I'm like, I'm a little bit losing my marbles. But I have this
product called on brand fillable workbooks. It has just
under 5, 000 students. Like, this thing is, like,
has jet fuel strapped to its back. So many people have taken this
training, implemented that same afternoon, which is, like, my secret sauce. Like,
here's the thing. Here's how to do it. Here's the no fluff. And then they
go and and implement, and it has really changed their freebie
workflow, their course bonuses. It's all about using a Google Doc for your
for, like, a fillable interactive workbook. And it's a
super short short training, but Andrea is gonna have a really juicy discount
for you. So make sure you hang out with the 2 of us. But if
you heard me earlier talking about how, like, I can be on the couch binging
grays and eating kettle corn, Don't miss my free mini training. It's like
a behind the scenes thing on how I do all of that. How did I
actually set all those things up to bring that income while I'm
chilling? Completely inside Thrivecart. No zaps. No third
party platforms necessary. And you can find it on Thrivecart template shop
forward Thrivecart template shop.comforward/minidashtraining.
Yay. Awesome. Thank you, Tama. Brie, over to
you. What is next in your business, and how can we connect with you?
Of course. So you can follow me on all social media at the Brianca
Johnson. I actually just released a 5 day email
challenge called make them remember you, and it's all about developing
a memorable brand personality. And so
definitely get that. It's on my website, briancardohnson.com.
And consider enrolling into the Clarity to Coins membership, where
we help our students, package their expertise into a
profitable offer and build a sustainable business. Yay. I love that.
And I will put all of these links y'all in the show notes on laendreya.com/315.
Thanks again to my amazing guests on this episode. It was juicy. Y'all
saw moments from me in real time, which I always love.
We have more amazing episodes coming right up. But first, before you
go, make sure you give us a 5 star rating on Apple Podcasts
and Spotify. It helps keep us in the top 100 marketing podcast. We
were number 46 last week. So that's all thanks
to your listenership, which I so appreciate and love. Keep
up the good work there. Next week, I have Nikki McKnight. We're gonna
wrap up our conversation all about automations with her and
really some foundational things you should consider in your business. So I'll see you
then. That's all for today. Bye.