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I have been working a lot on automating different parts of my business to streamline it. We are pretty small now with 3 techs but as we grow I want to limit the amount of support/admin staff we need, so I’m working on it now. 

What have been the most impactful things you have done to automate your business??
What is one thing you would automate if you could, but haven’t been able to figure out? 

For me the most impactful has been automating lead follow up. I have workflows scheduled in my CRM to send text messages and emails at certain intervals for the first week after first contact. It has made a big difference because it’s less sporadic and people get followed up with without me having to remember to follow up. 
 

One thing I haven’t been able to figure out is how to automate the entering of receipts into quickbooks. I know there are tools that can enter the general data but I am looking for something that can look at each line item and decide if it’s chemicals, a part, gas, etc. I have spent way too much time trying to get this one to work…

looking forward to hearing what everyone else is doing! 

Try Make.com there are integrations and API’s for QuickBooks and a ton of other cloud based apps. I use Make.com to handle our email response by have ChatGPT evaluate and respond to emails sent after hours. If you can think it Make can make it happen. You don’t need to know code and it’s easy to do. 
 

Tony 

QBO allows you to create an email for your receipts. If your not already doing it, it’s a huge help. I snap a picture of any of my receipts and send them directly to that email and match them up later. Makes it a breeze.

Kyle

Try Make.com there are integrations and API’s for QuickBooks and a ton of other cloud based apps. I use Make.com to handle our email response by have ChatGPT evaluate and respond to emails sent after hours. If you can think it Make can make it happen. You don’t need to know code and it’s easy to do. 
 

Tony 

I love Make.com. I actually got one of the lifetime deals with Pabbly Connect and use that for a lot of the automations I have set up. The UI isn’t as good and it has a few limitations but the price was right… 

That is a great one having ChatGPT respond to emails after hours. Does it create quality responses? I have been worried about doing that in case the responses feel robotic or it tells the customer something incorrect. 

QBO allows you to create an email for your receipts. If your not already doing it, it’s a huge help. I snap a picture of any of my receipts and send them directly to that email and match them up later. Makes it a breeze.

Kyle

Yes I use this now and it is definitely helpful, but I want to take it a step further and have a tool that reads the receipt and automatically categorizes it for me. I would love to hear if anyone uses something like this. 

This is good information. How do you guys automate team collaborations and HR?

Try Make.com there are integrations and API’s for QuickBooks and a ton of other cloud based apps. I use Make.com to handle our email response by have ChatGPT evaluate and respond to emails sent after hours. If you can think it Make can make it happen. You don’t need to know code and it’s easy to do. 
 

Tony 

I love Make.com. I actually got one of the lifetime deals with Pabbly Connect and use that for a lot of the automations I have set up. The UI isn’t as good and it has a few limitations but the price was right… 

That is a great one having ChatGPT respond to emails after hours. Does it create quality responses? I have been worried about doing that in case the responses feel robotic or it tells the customer something incorrect. 

Do you have any examples of automations you would be willing to share. I’ve looked at Make.com and thought I’d try it out but in the end might have needed some inspiration.

Do you have any examples of automations you would be willing to share. I’ve looked at Make.com and thought I’d try it out but in the end might have needed some inspiration.

Think anything you have to do repeatedly… 

  • I have a bunch that parse details of receipts and directly enter them to quickbooks.
  • I built a scraper that pulls information from pool building permits so that I can market to them
  • I built another scraper that pulls recently sold homes with pools and adds the buyers agent to a workflow trying to get them to get us in touch with their buyer
  • I set up an instant quote sender that gives the prospect a quote based on the size of the pool, salt/not, screened/not, and distance from other customers
  • I have a bunch of automations set up in my CRM to move leads through the pipeline and do follow up

Basically, I have drilled into my head that whenever I do something I ask if it can be automated and add it to a list. 

ChatGPT is an excellent teacher on this stuff. If you tell it what you want to do and what programs you are using, then ask it to explain step by step it does a nice job of helping set up the automation. 

Do you have any examples of automations you would be willing to share. I’ve looked at Make.com and thought I’d try it out but in the end might have needed some inspiration.

Think anything you have to do repeatedly… 

  • I have a bunch that parse details of receipts and directly enter them to quickbooks.
  • I built a scraper that pulls information from pool building permits so that I can market to them
  • I built another scraper that pulls recently sold homes with pools and adds the buyers agent to a workflow trying to get them to get us in touch with their buyer
  • I set up an instant quote sender that gives the prospect a quote based on the size of the pool, salt/not, screened/not, and distance from other customers
  • I have a bunch of automations set up in my CRM to move leads through the pipeline and do follow up

Basically, I have drilled into my head that whenever I do something I ask if it can be automated and add it to a list. 

ChatGPT is an excellent teacher on this stuff. If you tell it what you want to do and what programs you are using, then ask it to explain step by step it does a nice job of helping set up the automation. 

Nice! Thanks for the tips!

Would you be willing to do a quick webinar on your automations?

Would you be willing to do a quick webinar on your automations?

I can’t give away all of the secret sauce 😉 but we could probably do a quick intro to how to use some of the tools that I use to put all of the stuff together. 

That would be great. We’re in GA so we don’t really compete, Maybe you could do for non-competing markets?

This chat was really helpful. :)

Other than using the great features of Skimmer and QB to create automated reports/invoices, along with the use of ChatGPT the best thing I’ve found if budget allows is to hire people to delegate and automate things you need done. I know that sounds very basic but it’s been the most helpful. 

The only thing I haven’t been able to automate is all the clients paying on time, however I’m working on that. lol

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