Show Notes
Ryan asks: "What should I automate first in my business? And what is the biggest automation mistake?"
In this episode, Scott kills the "silver bullet" myth, shares the pain point rule and his VP whiteboard story, and reveals the A-to-C framework for micro-steps instead of trying to automate everything at once. You'll learn why elimination comes before automation, the three biggest automation mistakes (not mapping process first, choosing tools before process, automating chaos), and why you're not actually getting left behind in the AI race.
The bottom line: Find the pain point. Eliminate if possible. Map the process. Micro-step (A to C). Then find the tool. You cannot automate chaos.
Got a business question? Ask Scott here: https://scotttodd.net/ask
📜 Full Transcript (Click to expand)
Scott Todd (00:00)
Welcome to Fix My Business, the show that helps you fix your business. And the way that we do that is we answer your questions, questions submitted by people just like you. And from that, we learn what to do and what not to do in our own businesses. I'm your host, Scott Todd. And today's question is going to come from Ryan. And Ryan writes, what should I automate first in my business? And what is the biggest automation mistake?
Well, Ryan, ⁓ look, there's never a silver bullet of what should be automated first. That is essentially the same question I've answered for many, many years, really about what should I outsource first in my business? That is a trap. Think of it as a silver bullet trap. You're looking for that one silver thing, that one thing that will solve all the other problems, and it just doesn't exist. It just doesn't exist.
So what is my rule? Well, I have a rule for automations. I have a rule for outsourcing. And really what it comes down to is it always comes down to finding that pain point. What's that one thing that I cannot stand doing in my business or I'm tired of seeing? What is it? And there's always something, right? Like it's always going to change because
You're going to fix something, you're going to think you fixed it, and then in reality you realize that you didn't fix it. So I want to know what that pain point is. And the easiest way that I know to begin to even attack this problem is with a list. Make a list. When I worked, when I was a VP at the big Fortune 300 company,
One of the things that I did in one of our planning sessions is I asked the team, like, hey, what are we tired of seeing? And we put it on a whiteboard. We had a conference room. We put it up on the whiteboard. And we just mapped out, like, these are our hit list for this particular year. And that list really was our chance to figure out what it was that we were tired of seeing. We put out a mission that by the end of the year, we would never deal with these issues again.
And funny enough, that whiteboard, even though it was a shared conference room, that whiteboard stayed intact the entire year. Nobody was I think people were afraid to erase it, honestly. So what we want to do is we want to make a list. And with that list, we're going to start to go through and say, where are the big ones? And not just the big processes or systems that need to be changed or automated, but where's the things that will move the needle the most? And when you do that,
There's also a red flag of caution there and I'll talk about that in just one second. But you want to make the list. You want to tag up there like what are the big heavy hitters? The other thing that you want to do is you want to figure out can you eliminate it? That is a key question that so many people just don't even ask. Can I eliminate this task? Why can't you eliminate tasks? In your business, you created half of this stuff, if not all of it.
And sometimes we create things just because we think that it's needed at the time and then we look back and it's like, why haven't you used that in months or years? So can you eliminate whatever it is that's on this list? And if so, well then eliminate it and you don't have to worry about automating at all. Then I want you to do something that's counterintuitive. Number one, I want you to pick something that is doable. That should be your rule. Is this doable? Can I go from
A to letter C and get this task done. Not A to Z, A to C. See, I want you to go slow. I want you to automate stuff in micro steps. I don't want you to try to automate an entire long process with 57 cross points or whatever it is. I want it to go from here
to hear something that is doable and something that you can get across the finish line very easily because that first thing that you do will help you build momentum. It will help you build confidence. When you get it done, your confidence will shoot through the roof. Think about this for a second. In football, really for every sport, but let's pick on football. In football, let's just say that I'm the receiving team. I get the ball around the 20 yard line of my own 20 yard line and I've got to go.
80 yards to the other end of the field to get a touchdown. Well, there's multiple ways in which I can do this. The first thing I can do is I can throw a bomb and get it to the other end of the stadium and hopefully score touchdown. One and done. That's rare. The next thing that could happen is I could, you know, have a long play where I move the ball 50 yards. Well, that's going to be a little bit harder to a little bit of luck and a little bit chance in there.
But you know what's consistent is these small little plays, 10 yards at a time, 10 yards at a time, five yards, five yards, five yards. Think about that. If you picked up processes that moved you just five more yards down the field, think about how much better your business is going to be. to automate an entire workflow can be an enormous process. But to automate three to five steps,
How can I move the needle down three to five steps? And that's what you want to do is you want to think about this in terms of a football field, a football play, and not necessarily just going for the score and automating everything. Micro steps, baby, that's the goal. Now, you asked about mistakes too, and one of the mistakes I think people make is I think that there's a couple mistakes that they make. Number one, three mistakes actually. Number one, they don't.
stop and map out what that process looks like. They don't do it. They simply go out and they start jumping right into the tool. And that's mistake number two is the tool is never first. Just because your friends are using some tool, some software does not mean that it's right for you, does not mean that you should use it. And basically you need to map out how your process is going to work. And then you go find the tool.
that will fit to that job, that will deliver the results that you want. And I think the last mistake that people make right there at the top of it is they try to automate chaos. You cannot automate chaos, it's impossible. So you have to map it out, clean it up, clean up the process, make it run efficiently, and then we apply a tool, and then we go ahead and we start to automate with the tool. Now what happens when you automate chaos?
is your business blows up faster. That's it. That's it. So here's the deal. There's a lot, a lot of FOMO going on right now. In the AI space and automation, man, AI is moving faster and it's gonna move faster and faster and faster. People are gonna talk about automating their businesses. You're gonna feel like you're getting left behind. You're not. You're gonna feel like they have a competitive advantage over you. They don't.
Okay, let them go get the shiny object syndrome on all the fancy stuff. You stay the course, you follow and you automate methodically as opposed to trying to do it all at one time and your business will grow stronger as a result of that. And that's my approach to automating your business. Now, ⁓ if you're listening to this, take note on YouTube, my YouTube channel.
You can go to scotttodd.net for, there's no four slash, just go to scotttodd.net and we'll have a link to our YouTube channel on there. But on our YouTube channel, I am starting a series of ⁓ workshops, live streams, where we talk about automating your business and building business systems. So if that's important to you, make sure that you're subscribed to us over on YouTube, because guess what?
It won't turn into a podcast because you need to be able to see what we're doing. right. So Edward, no, sorry, Ryan, Ryan, go, go map out your first process, get it going. I appreciate your question. And if you have a question, head over to scotttodd.net forward slash ask, and let's get you unstuck. I'll see you in our next episode.
Welcome to Fix My Business, the show that helps you fix your business. And the way that we do that is we answer your questions, questions submitted by people just like you. And from that, we learn what to do and what not to do in our own businesses. I'm your host, Scott Todd. And today's question is going to come from Ryan. And Ryan writes, what should I automate first in my business? And what is the biggest automation mistake?
Well, Ryan, ⁓ look, there's never a silver bullet of what should be automated first. That is essentially the same question I've answered for many, many years, really about what should I outsource first in my business? That is a trap. Think of it as a silver bullet trap. You're looking for that one silver thing, that one thing that will solve all the other problems, and it just doesn't exist. It just doesn't exist.
So what is my rule? Well, I have a rule for automations. I have a rule for outsourcing. And really what it comes down to is it always comes down to finding that pain point. What's that one thing that I cannot stand doing in my business or I'm tired of seeing? What is it? And there's always something, right? Like it's always going to change because
You're going to fix something, you're going to think you fixed it, and then in reality you realize that you didn't fix it. So I want to know what that pain point is. And the easiest way that I know to begin to even attack this problem is with a list. Make a list. When I worked, when I was a VP at the big Fortune 300 company,
One of the things that I did in one of our planning sessions is I asked the team, like, hey, what are we tired of seeing? And we put it on a whiteboard. We had a conference room. We put it up on the whiteboard. And we just mapped out, like, these are our hit list for this particular year. And that list really was our chance to figure out what it was that we were tired of seeing. We put out a mission that by the end of the year, we would never deal with these issues again.
And funny enough, that whiteboard, even though it was a shared conference room, that whiteboard stayed intact the entire year. Nobody was I think people were afraid to erase it, honestly. So what we want to do is we want to make a list. And with that list, we're going to start to go through and say, where are the big ones? And not just the big processes or systems that need to be changed or automated, but where's the things that will move the needle the most? And when you do that,
There's also a red flag of caution there and I'll talk about that in just one second. But you want to make the list. You want to tag up there like what are the big heavy hitters? The other thing that you want to do is you want to figure out can you eliminate it? That is a key question that so many people just don't even ask. Can I eliminate this task? Why can't you eliminate tasks? In your business, you created half of this stuff, if not all of it.
And sometimes we create things just because we think that it's needed at the time and then we look back and it's like, why haven't you used that in months or years? So can you eliminate whatever it is that's on this list? And if so, well then eliminate it and you don't have to worry about automating at all. Then I want you to do something that's counterintuitive. Number one, I want you to pick something that is doable. That should be your rule. Is this doable? Can I go from
A to letter C and get this task done. Not A to Z, A to C. See, I want you to go slow. I want you to automate stuff in micro steps. I don't want you to try to automate an entire long process with 57 cross points or whatever it is. I want it to go from here
to hear something that is doable and something that you can get across the finish line very easily because that first thing that you do will help you build momentum. It will help you build confidence. When you get it done, your confidence will shoot through the roof. Think about this for a second. In football, really for every sport, but let's pick on football. In football, let's just say that I'm the receiving team. I get the ball around the 20 yard line of my own 20 yard line and I've got to go.
80 yards to the other end of the field to get a touchdown. Well, there's multiple ways in which I can do this. The first thing I can do is I can throw a bomb and get it to the other end of the stadium and hopefully score touchdown. One and done. That's rare. The next thing that could happen is I could, you know, have a long play where I move the ball 50 yards. Well, that's going to be a little bit harder to a little bit of luck and a little bit chance in there.
But you know what's consistent is these small little plays, 10 yards at a time, 10 yards at a time, five yards, five yards, five yards. Think about that. If you picked up processes that moved you just five more yards down the field, think about how much better your business is going to be. to automate an entire workflow can be an enormous process. But to automate three to five steps,
How can I move the needle down three to five steps? And that's what you want to do is you want to think about this in terms of a football field, a football play, and not necessarily just going for the score and automating everything. Micro steps, baby, that's the goal. Now, you asked about mistakes too, and one of the mistakes I think people make is I think that there's a couple mistakes that they make. Number one, three mistakes actually. Number one, they don't.
stop and map out what that process looks like. They don't do it. They simply go out and they start jumping right into the tool. And that's mistake number two is the tool is never first. Just because your friends are using some tool, some software does not mean that it's right for you, does not mean that you should use it. And basically you need to map out how your process is going to work. And then you go find the tool.
that will fit to that job, that will deliver the results that you want. And I think the last mistake that people make right there at the top of it is they try to automate chaos. You cannot automate chaos, it's impossible. So you have to map it out, clean it up, clean up the process, make it run efficiently, and then we apply a tool, and then we go ahead and we start to automate with the tool. Now what happens when you automate chaos?
is your business blows up faster. That's it. That's it. So here's the deal. There's a lot, a lot of FOMO going on right now. In the AI space and automation, man, AI is moving faster and it's gonna move faster and faster and faster. People are gonna talk about automating their businesses. You're gonna feel like you're getting left behind. You're not. You're gonna feel like they have a competitive advantage over you. They don't.
Okay, let them go get the shiny object syndrome on all the fancy stuff. You stay the course, you follow and you automate methodically as opposed to trying to do it all at one time and your business will grow stronger as a result of that. And that's my approach to automating your business. Now, ⁓ if you're listening to this, take note on YouTube, my YouTube channel.
You can go to scotttodd.net for, there's no four slash, just go to scotttodd.net and we'll have a link to our YouTube channel on there. But on our YouTube channel, I am starting a series of ⁓ workshops, live streams, where we talk about automating your business and building business systems. So if that's important to you, make sure that you're subscribed to us over on YouTube, because guess what?
It won't turn into a podcast because you need to be able to see what we're doing. right. So Edward, no, sorry, Ryan, Ryan, go, go map out your first process, get it going. I appreciate your question. And if you have a question, head over to scotttodd.net forward slash ask, and let's get you unstuck. I'll see you in our next episode.