How Automation Can Help Your Business | Richard Schnitzel

Matt Edmundson

Well, hello and welcome to the eCommerce podcast with me, your host Matt Edmundson. Now whether you're just starting out, or if you're like me, you know a bit of a dinosaur have been around the world of ecommerce for a while, it doesn't matter because my goal is simple. I just want to help you grow your ecommerce and digital businesses. And every week I get to talk to the amazing people, the amazing guests that we have on the show from the world of ecommerce and I get to ask them all kinds of questions about what they know and how it's going to help us develop online. I like to say that I try and have the conversations you would have if you got to sit down with them and have a coffee or if you're in England, a cup of tea, I'm really keen to dig into their story, learn the principles that can help us start and adapt and grow our own online businesses. Okay, so if you enjoy this episode, I'd appreciate it immensely. If you would, kind of you know, like and subscribe, give us a rating on iTunes. If you are watching the live stream because we do broadcast out the recording of the podcast live. If you're watching live on YouTube or on Facebook, make sure you say hi be great to connect with you and meet you. And obviously subscribe to our YouTube channel and our Facebook channels as well as the audio podcast wherever you get your podcasts from. Okay, so that's the pitch over, but do connect with us. It's always good. Now on this week's eCommerce podcast, I get to talk with automation expert and entrepreneur Richard Schnitzel. It's very hard for me to say I don't know why Richard Schnitzel. Automation isn't just you know, big corporations swapping out humans for robots. Oh, no, it is just as relevant for us as small business owners, as small business people. And we're you know, who are using software tools every day for efficiency and productivity. And there are some hacks, there are some tips, there are some tricks that Richard is definitely going to get into and now he owns and operates a kind of automation company, helping six figure entrepreneurs build the automation that they need to scale their businesses, to seven figures and beyond. So this is the first time on the show we've had someone talking specifically about automation. And let me tell you, from my own experience and running my own ecommerce businesses, automation is a game changer when you get it right. So you're definitely gonna want to grab your notebooks as they say. Okay, now, as I said, if you are watching this in the live stream, you can obviously throw questions in the comments as we go through. And I will try to put those questions to Richard. All of the notes from today's show will be available for free, you can grab them if you're not making notes yourself for whatever reason, you know, just head on over to our website, eCommercepodcast.net/58. Again, eCommercepodcast.net/58. Okay, so that's the URL that you want to go to eCommercepodcast.net/58. Now, before I bring our guest on to the screen, and start chatting with Richard, I just want to play you a quick video from Jon Tilley, who, he will explain, he was back with us in Episode 50. This is a quick message from Jon. Great, thanks, Jon. Appreciate that. Jon was a great guest and he's got a fantastic platform. So if you do want to know and understand the whole Amazon thing, do check it out. Do check out zonguru.com. It's a great platform. I've had a little sneak peek myself, and I can't, I can't. I can't say I've seen anything better. I'm not going to lie. So do check it out. Have a look at what Jon has done and get in touch with him. Listen to episode number 50, if you've not heard about it already, and you want to get into Amazon, he really shared some amazing stuff there. So do check out Jon and connect with him. Now if you are watching the video, you will see in the corner of your screen a URL that's right, eCommercepodcast.net/conference2021 What's that all about? I hear you say? Well, head on over to the URL and you will find out because it's the eCommerce Conference 2021 and I'm one of the panelists on that conference alongside people like Chloe Thomas, who has been on the eCommerce podcast before. There is a big conference going on, I think it's 14-15 April, go and check out the website and register, and go join us at come join us at the conference, but great to meet you. You can ask your questions. They have got some amazing keynote speakers talking about all things to do with ecommerce, it's going to be great. It's going to be super exciting. So do check that out ecommercepodcast.net/conference2021 it's obviously all going to be online, given the world in which we live. And so I mean, you know, there are some good things and some bad things about the pandemic. And one of them is because all these conferences are now online. You don't have to travel anywhere. It's super easy to attend and get involved. So do check it out ecommercepodcast.net/conference2021. Okay. I think that's enough for me. Let's bring on the show tonight's guest, like I say, Richard Schnitzel, and we're gonna be talking about all things automation. And Richard, let's bring you on, Richard. Hi, how are you doing?

Richard Schnitzel

I'm doing well. Thanks for having me.

Matt Edmundson

It's great, man. It's great that you could be here. Now, when we were we were talking just before we went live on air just to sort of have a quick catch up. And you're beaming in all the way from well I'm going to say sunny Connecticut, because that's just my assumption. But actually, is it sunny?

Richard Schnitzel

It is not sunny. Today it is Oh, well. We were in a streak of sun. So if you were 25 hours earlier, you would have been spot on.

Matt Edmundson

Oh, okay. Okay, now it's just like England. What? Cold grey and wet. Right? Absolutely. Yeah. Okay, as long as I'm not on my I went for a walk earlier in the park and man alive. You know, we're in March. We're rapidly approaching April. And it was freezing. I was so cold. I was like, what's going on? Still, yeah, never mind.

Richard Schnitzel

35 degree rain, just warm enough to be ready. Not cold enough to get the snow and the enjoyment of actually seeing it.

Matt Edmundson

Yeah, I'm sorry to hear that. I'm sorry to hear that. Well, you know, we're entering spring. So hopefully things will get better. It's going out. Yeah, Richard, let's, let's get into the whole automation thing. And before we get into maybe the tips and tricks, and the examples we're gonna get into, how did you end up in automation? I mean, did you just sit there at school one day and thought, you know, I'm just gonna be an automation expert. Is that kind of how it happened? Or is there probably a bit more? Bit more thought?

Richard Schnitzel

Yeah, there's a little bit more to that. So I have a degree in mechanical engineering. So I have an incredibly logical mind, just based off of the training and the schooling that I went through to get my degree. Sure. And I have a lifelong passion with tech, you know, I'm the IT person for my entire family, because I'm the one that gets it the most. And when I started to

Matt Edmundson

I'm sorry to interrupt. I know exactly how you feel. I'm feeling your pain right there. There's a whole bunch of people that that comment who are going, yeah, we feel your pain, brother. We do. Sorry. You carry on?

Richard Schnitzel

Oh, no, no, no. So when I was starting my business, and I was trying to figure out, you know, what I was going to do with it. Actually, I didn't start automation at all. I started in messenger bots using manychat who I know you talk to very recently.

Matt Edmundson

Yeah. And last week, yeah.

Richard Schnitzel

Yeah, I started there. Because I liked the tech and I liked what it could do. But I quickly found out that I am terrible at writing copy. It is not good. Just can't do it.

Matt Edmundson

Yeah, hands up who didn't see that one coming - a mechanical engineer. Yeah, no, no, very good.

Richard Schnitzel

Yeah. It comes out like a lab report. Like, you know, very rigid, like bullet points do this, then this. People read it and go, like, that's great, Rich, but I don't know what the heck you're talking about.

Matt Edmundson

Right. So it's just not inspired. Right? That's Yes.

Richard Schnitzel

Yeah. Oh, what I was really good at was figuring out how to make messenger bots do really cool things from a tech perspective. And on top of that, when I would build them, and somebody else would see that and go, Oh, that's really cool. I'd like to do that too. I could explain to them how to get from point A to point B in a way that they could understand. And doing that and then going okay, I'm good at that piece. Why don't I do more of that. I followed that path into now I have conversations with people every day about what they're doing in their business and having a similar conversation of, okay, you're using WooCommerce and HubSpot is your CRM and you need the two of them to talk to each other. Here's a couple different options that are possible from a technology standpoint, and here's how it's going to affect your business and how you can use it to have a benefit. And because I can have that conversation in like normal human speak instead of a Strictly technical jargon level, they can begin to understand what's going on. So they can have confidence to say, Oh, yes. Okay, that's really cool. I want to do that in my business. And then because of my tech background, I can then go build it for them. So they just have to see the vision, understand that that's the direction they want to go. And then say, yes, Rich, let's move forward. And I can hand them a nice, okay, project in a package.

Matt Edmundson

So, um, well, it's interesting. The kind of journey that you went on that I mean, when you finished your degree in mechanical engineering, did you just start your business straight away? Did you always know you wanted to be an entrepreneur?

Richard Schnitzel

No, I worked in a bunch of different businesses for 10 years. I started in construction management, I did estimating, I did Field Sales, where I travelled all over the world to install gearboxes and power plants the size of a room, I did engineering sales. And I, in all of those businesses, it was always with the small company firm or smaller firm, where I always had a direct line to the president or the owner. And I kept my ears open. So my professional career before this, built a catalogue in my brain of things to do, and things not to do, and just different experiences in business that I've stored away so that I can now draw on that to build my own business. And I started because I reached a point where I had all these ideas and something would happen in my last company, I'd be like, you know, I would have done that differently. If this was my company, I would have done that differently. And I kept having that thought. And I kept having that thought, and then finally reached a point where I said, You know what, I should probably just start my own company. Because I've now reached a point where my mindset is completely different. Like, I'm not just a worker anymore. I want to build something. Yeah. And that forced me to start what is now my automation business.

Matt Edmundson

Yeah, it's really interesting how, how your journey is, again, it just resonates. I think so many people listening will go, yeah, that was me, you know, that I was working this one job, and I wanted to do something different. I wanted to do something better. And I felt like I wouldn't do it this way if this was my company. And that thought really starts to take seed in people's heads, don't they? And they start to think about the possibility of running their own company. So how old were you? If you don't mind? I know this is not what we're talking about. I'm just curious. But how old were you when you decided, you know what, enough is enough? And I'm going to take the plunge and do it myself.

Richard Schnitzel

Let's see. I'm 34. I started three years ago. So I started my business at 31. It was probably a solid year, year and a half before that, that I did not take the plunge where I had that idea in the back of my head that I kept ignoring, and pushing to the side. But yeah, to 31.

Matt Edmundson

That's really interesting. And did you when you launched it? Were you kind of one of these guys that did the side hustle, you kind of did a bit of work, a bit of company, or did you just go full in from day one?

Richard Schnitzel

I went full in.

Matt Edmundson

Oh, wow. Yeah, a leap of faith.

Richard Schnitzel

I took the plunge.

Matt Edmundson

Wow. Yeah, I was. So I wasn't, did it work for you straight away? Or did you find actually, it was a bit of a struggle for a while?

Richard Schnitzel

Yeah, it was a bit of a struggle for a while. I was fortunate that I had enough savings when I started that I had, I bet my nest egg so that we could start this so I had funds to struggle through that. And I made that decision as a personal choice because I knew if I didn't go all in, I wouldn't give it the amount of effort that it needed to become something real. So I needed that, you know, sink or swim aspect of doing this for me to really excel at what's going on. But yeah, it was a struggle, like I think it is for most people. You know, like I said, I started out doing something that I had now have no aspect of my business is about building messenger bots and writing copy was the wrong thing for me to do. And I, I had to follow a path over the first year and a half, two years of going okay, I did this project. That worked. Well, this didn't work. Well. What did I enjoy? Okay, let's pivot a little bit to the left to do this project. And that was too much of a pressure. Let's pivot a little bit back to the right and finding my path to land up where I am now. Which, interestingly enough, I think, is the story of a lot of the people that I work with, you know, you you start doing something, you hit it, right. All of a sudden people start paying you and then you look back and you go, Wow, I'm doing this, I'm getting paid for this. How did I get here? Well, it's just a series of decisions. Yeah, it's a series of decisions along that way that lead you to this point. And that journey is, is really fun. I wouldn't I wouldn't trade that for anything, even with all the sleepless nights and

Matt Edmundson

Yeah, I say, yeah, it's interesting, you say, so I was talking to a friend today, this very day we were talking about, I was talking with him and he felt a little bit kind of, I'm going to use the word, stuck in life, and it's kind of like, my counsel for whatever it was worth was, I wonder actually, if you just need to make a decision, do you know what I mean, and and just start doing something. Because it's always easier to turn a car that's moving, do you know what I mean, is my theory, it's it's very difficult to turn something that's stationary. I appreciate this is not true for everybody in their circumstances. But your story is very much like that. Let's just star. We're gonna start here with the manychat thing. And then we're gonna get the trendy word is pivot, isn't it? We're gonna pivot as we go along. I have an issue with that word, I'm not gonna lie. But anyway, that's a personal thing. But we that's when in fact, what you did, isn't it? You kind of you started going in one direction. And actually, as you were doing that you you eventually settled into this niche of automation. And that's work, well, it's working for you. I take it. Yeah, absolutely. Great. Wow. So if any, would be entrepreneurs out there listening to the show, or thinking of starting your businesses? Well, I just find it fascinating listening to other people's stories, in terms of how they got started in business. And, yeah, thank you for sharing that. So here we are, three years later, or sorry, 18 is 18 months, three years later, and your your, your kind of heading up this whole automation thing. So what does a typical day look like for you in this business?

Richard Schnitzel

Well, for me, my role in the company is building the workflows and helping people understand what's going on. So my day revolves around having those conversations about what it is you're doing, why you're doing it, how you're doing it, and laying out a whiteboard, a lot of laying out, okay, we're going to start with something that happens in your business, you know, somebody purchases a product on your website. And we need to add them to an email marketing campaign to nurture them, we need to add them to your CRM, so we can track their purchase, and maybe we need to do an offline conversion for your Facebook pixel so you can improve your ad sequence. Yeah. So my basic day is having those types of conversations with entrepreneurs so I can pull out of them what's really going on in their business, and I can offer those solutions. And then from there, I have an amazing team that can implement on that vision that we create. So the latter part of my day is working with them and making sure that they're, they're on track, they have all their answers, or questions answered, and they have the information and the tools they need to build on what I've handed them as a workflow.

Matt Edmundson

So that you, I liked what you said there, because I think actually, there's a lot of value in just in just having the conversation with entrepreneurs in terms of figuring out what it is you're actually doing. And that that kind of clarity is not and and correct me if I'm wrong here, john, I'm kind of going to take the assumption that actually people don't come to you with that kind of clarity. And so you have to tease it out of them, you have to understand what it is. And I imagine there's quite a lot of value, just in a business owner, creating that kind of clarity on a whiteboard.

Richard Schnitzel

Yeah, absolutely. You know, if I have somebody come to me, then they have an idea. They have a start-up idea, an idea that usually comes out of a pain point in their business, something that they're doing, that's taking them six hours a week, and they're like, you know what, if I can solve this, I don't care what the cost is, I just want this to be fixed. Right. And they don't have the solution. They don't have the complete scenario, but they have enough of a framework to know, okay, this is something I think we can probably automate. Let's have a conversation and see what the possibilities are. And the biggest aspect of that is having that conversation with another human. I, I tell people, you know, even if you're not having it with me have it with somebody else in your team. And the old saying that, if you can teach somebody to do something, you truly know it, translates really well to figuring out a workflow in your business. If you can teach somebody how to do something that you need done, then you truly know what's going on. And that's the first step to being able to apply automation to it. Automation is a multiplier. If the process is good, it's going to make it great. But if there's a hole, all automation is going to do is shine a spotlight on that hole and make it a glaring problem and what's going on. So you need to make sure that that logical flow of what you want to have happen is solid and truly what you want to have happen.

Matt Edmundson

That's a really interesting point automation is a multiplier like that is just going to highlight something that's good. It's also going to highlight some is bad. And so you need to be really clear on the workload. So if I'm, I'm sort of sitting here sitting here listening to you, if I'm sort of a new guy who's just starting out, is automation something that is, as a does that apply to me or is that specifically, people that have maybe been in business for a while, and they've got multiple processes going on?

Richard Schnitzel

I think it applies to every everybody, I think the difference is, if you're just starting out, the scope of what you're trying to achieve is going to be smaller. So at the very least, if you're just starting out, you know, take all your purchases and add them to a master Google Sheet so that you can track them and you can do you know, data analysis, and that next three months to figure out what's happening, you don't need to then go to your Facebook pixel and go to the next step in the next you don't need a 10 sequence automation. But if you're, if you just do one step, you can then build on that afterwards, I think one of the biggest challenges I see is people try to automate their entire business in one single thought, right, and it's too much information. So the challenge is to bring it down into a logical flow, that makes sense. And if you're starting out, and the only thing you know is that you want to track your data, then that's fine, automate that. And then at some point, you will start doing something manually after that gets added to the Google Sheet. And you go, you know what, I'm now doing this the same way every day. Maybe I should now tack that on to the automation that I built last month. Yeah. And that process will repeat again, and another month, you'll go, Okay, now that's automated. And now, because that's automated, and I have more time to do the things that matter in my business. I've now figured this next piece out, and now I'm doing this piece. And I'm doing this the same way every time. Maybe I can tack that on to the automation, and it's like building blocks to just stack them on top of each other.

Matt Edmundson

So you're, what you're talking about here is it's an iterative process, isn't it, it's like, let's start here, let's figure this bit out, then figure out what the next key thing is, we should solve and do it a step at a time and not trying, you know, take the mountain all in one go. And that applies, whether you're starting out, or that applies whether you've been in business for a long time. Now, one of the things that you said, which you kind of brushed over, but I'm going to pick up on if I may. So if you're just starting out, you said that, you know, the very least you should do is to take the data, the sales data and put it in a Google Sheet, right, and then carried on, you know, and do some data analysis. And that just kind of rolled off the tongue there, Richard, I'm not gonna lie. So why? What are the benefits of me as a new business? And why would I want to put all of my sales? It might sound like an obvious question. But let me ask the obvious question, hopefully, it'll be clear. Why would I want to put all my sales data in a Google Sheet?

Richard Schnitzel

Because whether you don't have to be looking at your data on a day to day basis, but having it in a single location informs your decisions, and like we were talking about, of just getting the car moving, if in three months, you want to make a decision to change your business, and you don't have any data with which to make that decision. Your car isn't moving yet. So you're stuck making an assumption about what's going on. And dumping it to a Google Sheet, because of the way that sheets work is you can put in all of the information, right? You don't need to pick and choose going, well, do I need to know you know, their first name? And last name? Do I need to know their email? Do I need to know you know, the price of the product that they purchase? Do I need it? Who cares, put it in, just put it in, put all in there, right. And then when you go back, at least it's there. And you can hide a bunch of columns. So you know, if you just want to look at their names, you can just look at their names, but you need the data in order to inform those decisions that you make next. And if it's not there, you know, you're starting from square one, three months into the ballgame.

Matt Edmundson

No, I like that. So actually, for automation, then one of the things that we want to do quite quickly start to gather data, and start to make informed decisions. And if you're starting out, and if even if you're new, you're not new to this whole business, again, putting your the idea of putting your sales data in a Google Sheet makes an awful lot of sense to me. I mean, an awful lot of sense. So how, how easy is that to automate? Now appreciate, I don't know everything about every ecommerce platform that's out there, but what are some maybe what's the common way that you would think about approaching something like that?

Richard Schnitzel

So that single step, we build it in Zapier, which is a no code automation solution. We use it all the time for our clients. You set up a trigger, which is the thing that happens that then needs to result in an action and if you're using WooCommerce you do a payment, new purchasing WooCommerce. You can do with stripe, you could do it with PayPal, you could do it with Shopify, all the major brands have some form of a, I received money trigger with a bunch of information attached to that of what was purchased who was purchased when they were purchased, how much it all of those line items. And then the next step is you create a Google Sheet, you create a tab on it, that label the tab purchases, and you create columns starting in a and going out as far as you want. I think Google Sheets goes out to several 1000 columns, which you will never need. So there's plenty of space.

Matt Edmundson

There's more than fill them up yet. So no.

Richard Schnitzel

And create a column for each data point that is there and you want to track and then you map it. So you'd say okay, this point, I want to go to column A, this I want to go to column B this I want to go to column C and then you turn it on, you just let it sit there. And then every time you get a purchase, it'll automatically show up in your Google Sheet account.

Matt Edmundson

And so literally you're taking something like Zapier, which is a well known established sort of system that's out there. And you're connecting that with your ecommerce platform, certainly the most common one. So we'll take Shopify, there'll be a Zapier integration with Shopify, and Zapier, in effect sits as the go between between Shopify and the Google Sheet and it sends the data over to Google Sheets when a transaction happens have I understood that right.

Richard Schnitzel

Yeah, absolutely.

Matt Edmundson

Okay. So, um, so you mentioned that you use Zapier a lot. Is that is that a deliberate choice? Is that the only thing out there that really does? What it does is, what why do you use that a lot.

Richard Schnitzel

I started my business using Zapier and I do think that they are one of the best out there from two perspectives. One, the way that they present the automations from within their programme, I find that everybody can understand. So when I build something, I can record a loom video and walk somebody through, okay, this is what we built, this is how we build it, this is what's going on. And it allows you to have a base level of understanding of what you're putting in place in your business. So that's the front end aspect. The back end aspect is they also allow me as a developer to build on top of their programme when things don't exist. So one of the things that doesn't exist for I think it's Shopify has a fulfilment aspect of it. But you can't put in the shipping ID into Shopify through Zapier, but you can through Shopify as API, which is the language that Shopify uses to talk to other programmes. So we built a custom programme that allows that connection to happen. So so using Zapier allows me to start with 80% of the puzzle already built. And then the last 20%, that's unique to the business that I'm working with, we can create something custom for them that will then complete that that journey that we're trying to take them on.

Matt Edmundson

That's a really, really useful point. So just echo back what I've just heard too, so it's really clear. For 80% of the automation tasks, Zapier is a good place to start and getting your head around Zapier and how it connects with the different pieces of software with Shopify Google sheets or whatever. That's really, really good. Now I use Zapier, I have all kinds of things that kind of go on. And I think it's quite fascinating. Now, if we if Zapier doesn't have what it needs, this is where it starts to get a little bit more involved, isn't it? So you use the phrase API. So this is where you, you know, you kind of you write a programme, in effect, you write your own mini version of Zapier to integrate with the different pros. Just explain to people listening if they don't know what an API is, what an API is, is a really crazy way to word that question, but you know what I mean!

Richard Schnitzel

API is application programming interface. So it is, it's like a language. So the way that we're talking in English right now, API is a language that programmers can use to have a conversation between each other when they may, or may not have the same first language. So my first name language is English, but maybe I need to be speaking Spanish. Because that's the common language between us when I was travelling, I spent a lot of time in France. And the common language between French people and people who spoke English, oftentimes was German. Okay, because I was in the Alsace region, which is right next to Germany. So API is like being able to speak German when somebody speaks French and when somebody speaks English, it's this common language that both people understand that then they get it go, okay, you told me that to be in German. Now. I'm going to translate it into I preferred language, which is English. And I'm going to do what you asked me to do.

Matt Edmundson

That's really, really good. So the API then allows one website to talk to one language to talk to another website that maybe talks another language and send data back and forth, exactly with the help of a little programme that you guys could could create, or anybody could create, really, if you if you know what you're doing. So, like most things on the web, these days, there's some software out there you can use to help you with most of it. But if you can't get what you need, you can genuinely programme your way around most things. And you you get him specialist help that can help you do that automation. Yeah. Great. Okay. So if I back up a little bit, you one of the things that you one of the phrases you use, which I thought was was was fascinating, was a lot of the time people start off with a pain point, there's a pain point in the business, right? So what are some of the common pain points that you see that we should be aware of, if we've got an ecommerce business, that we can kind of start to think this is an area I should now think about automation.

Richard Schnitzel

So one pain point a lot is leads when you're getting so many leads, and then there's some manual tracking process that you need to do before they you can do something with that lead. Okay. Another one we see a lot is after somebody purchases, there's a lot of manual things that need to happen. Once the purchase is done, and a lot of in that there's also a lot of like customer nurturing and customer follow up that needs to happen to complete a good customer experience. Yeah, that tends to start really manually, because you have the idea of you know, like, okay, somebody just sent bought this product, maybe I should send them a quick email to explain to them how the best way to use it and to congratulate them on purchasing good. And give them a link to a couple other things that people also usually purchase. Right? Yeah, yeah, that idea, you send it manually, and then all of a sudden, that's working, and you getting, you know, even at 20 purchases a day. Now, all of a sudden, that's 20 extra emails that you need to send, or your VA needs to spend. And now they're spending four hours a week sending manual emails to clients, that, how do I get them to stop that so that my VA can then focus on that last 10% of people who really need to talk to.

Matt Edmundson

Sure. Sure, okay. So we've got lead generation is tends to be one the sort of after purchase, or post purchase the post purchase sequences and stuff we tend to call what what are the pain points do you come across?

Richard Schnitzel

Going back to the data is a common one where there'll be a bunch of stuff going on, and you'll have a bunch of data in your Shopify store about purchases, you'll have a bunch of data in your CRM about your lead funnel to get people to do a purchase. And then you'll have a bunch of data in a Google Sheet about where you ship stuff out to but they live in different silos. And you're trying to make a decision. Instead of it all being in one spot, you're doing like a quick Alt Tab between three different windows on your computer trying to like, remember, was that $1,010 on the 13th? Or was that $1,020? On the 15th? Well, you know, like, you're just your mind's going crazy, because you're trying to make these connections. And because there are different silos, you it's making it more difficult, you're concentrating so much on finding the data, that you don't have enough brain power leftover to think about the data and do make a decision that you're getting tasks saturated by the experience. So that's definitely a pain point as well of pulling all of those information data points into one spot so that you can see it and respond to it effectively. And then I'd say one of the other big ones is notifications of when things go wrong. Because, okay, right.

Matt Edmundson

I'm listening.

Richard Schnitzel

Hopefully 90% of what's going on in your business doesn't have a problem. But then there's that last 10%, where something doesn't happen quite the way that it's supposed to. Right. And it usually starts with something really innocuous, like, the UPS website was really slow, and you didn't get to the last two shipments of that day. So it went to Monday. And then Monday rolls around and you forgot about it because you weren't in work for two days. And then all of a sudden, it's Thursday, and those haven't gone out and you've got three angry emails from people because they haven't gotten the tracking information. They expected the product on Tuesday, and they're, you know, cussing your poor assistant out on the phone trying to find out what's going on. Automation is a great tool to catch those things because you have great action points that are supposed to happen. You're supposed to have a purchase. Then you're supposed to have even if it's the purchase goes to a Google Sheet, and then somebody's supposed to type in what the tracking number is as a record of what they did, and then add it in and ship it out. If in three days, that cell with the tracking number still is blank, add it to an email that shows up in your inbox at 8am in the morning, with a big important flag on it that says, you've got three shipments that you should go track down and find out what's going on.

Matt Edmundson

Wow. Wow. Okay. And that I mean, is that complex to build? You've got a few things going on there is that relatively straightforward?

Richard Schnitzel

It's not simple, but it's not complex, I'd say that's about middle of the road. Because there are anytime that you have multiple triggers interacting with the same system starts to up the complexity. But the logic between all of those is pretty simple, right? It's a it's a purchase with a record in a Google Sheet. It's that record would have a date of purchase in it. And then it would be a daily trigger to look at that Google Sheet and find any cell who were that date is three days ago. And if in that cell, that shipping value column is blank, send an email. So logically, step that's it's simple, but it gets complex when you have to pull in the details. And that's where it's important to have that conversation with somebody whiteboard it out so that you can find the data. I heard somebody say the details are in the commas. Right, the details are in the commas, it's

Matt Edmundson

Yeah, yes, true. Yeah, it's true. The details are in the comments. I like that. So that term, that automation that you talked about there, the sort of the I like the idea, the idea of somebody sending me an email if a product has not got a tracking number after three days post purchase. Is that something that you tell Google Sheets to do? Is that something that Google Sheets can do? Or is that something that you programme in Zapier, I appreciate a bit macro here, micro, but I'm just curious to know what you're using were in this kind of thing.

Richard Schnitzel

If that's all we're doing it, it could live in Zapier. It can live in Google Sheets, if we need to do something a little bit more complex on top of that, like maybe go into Google Drive and you know, pull out a file or the record isn't just in one line, maybe we need to go check another sheet at the same point and double check the data points. Yeah, that's something that we would offload into Google Sheets and write something custom to handle that. Because based off of the way that Zapier works, at some point, what you're doing might become too inefficient from a task usage standpoint. Where it's doing that logic would take us 15 steps and Zapier where we could just write a simple code script. And it's done in two seconds. And you're saving your task usage for what's really important.

Matt Edmundson

Yeah, that's really good. Well, there's some great examples there in terms of how to use automation to help you, you know, with your ecommerce business to help you run your ecommerce business. So we've talked about leads, we've talked about post purchase, talked about data management, and we've talked about, you know, notifications when things go wrong, and they are going to go wrong, so do get notified on them. I like that. That's great. So I'm sitting here, and I'm kind of listening to the podcast, and I'm thinking this is great. I can, I've definitely got a few pain points in my business, or I'm starting out, I'm definitely going to try shoving the data into Google Sheets. I've got my Shopify site, why would I not? So I've got in my head a few pain points, what what, you know, in terms of this process, where you do the clarification, you whiteboard, you map things out? Where do I start now as the business owner in terms of, I now want to solve a problem? What's the, what's the process? How do I sort of get rolling with that in a way that's going to help me?

Richard Schnitzel

Yeah, so I, I would do three steps. One is write down where you're, where you're starting, what's the thing that happens in your business that then causes a bunch of stuff to happen? Okay. And then what's the outcome that you want after all that stuff happens? And those are your two bookends of what you're going to build your automation between. Okay. The next step is to write down your assumptions about your bookends, because a lot of us when we're talking about something in our business, because we do it every day, and because we've been doing it for so long. We forget that there are certain aspects about making that decision or about why that trigger is supposed to happen, that we're not communicating or thinking about. And if you're going to build out your automation, you need to make sure that you're aware of what those are, because they may influence the decisions you make about the stuff that happens in the middle. So I like to tell people ask yourself, why, like, pretend you're having a conversation with a small child, that's, you know, saying, we need to go to the grocery store. Well, why? Because we're out of food. Well, why? Because we ate dinner the past three nights, and we don't have any money, you know? So you don't have to go at nauseum. But at least that prompt will help you go, oh, okay, yeah, we have to go to the grocery store, because we have no food. But to me, I've been shopping for you know, not 35 years, but most of my adult life, right? I just automatically know that we're out of food, I gotta go to the grocery store. That assumption may be something that you're making with your business as well. And you need to make sure that you're aware of that. So bookends and simplify them, write down your assumptions. And then to figure out that stuff in the middle is when you have the conversation with somebody else. And you explain to them how you're going to get from point A to point B.

Matt Edmundson

Okay, and they'll work it through with them.

Richard Schnitzel

Yeah, you work through with them. And that allows them to ask you questions about what why are you doing it that way? But you've said Dave has to do this task three times, and he never does it. Why is it going to Dave? Why does he have to do it? And why do you think that he never gets to it? Oh, right, those questions will help you that will, Dave really doesn't need to do it. I just gave it to him three months ago, and I never changed it, this could actually go to a Google Sheet. And then he doesn't have to remind me, I can go to the Google Sheet. Okay, cool. That's the first step in my process. And that conversation will pull out those aspects that are what somebody is doing right now, because they started out doing it, but they don't, they no longer need to because of the true workflow that's going on, I call it fixing the highway instead of the detour. Right, we've all had to take a back road sometimes, because there's a road construction. So you start taking a detour to get to work. And then you try to fix the detour. Because there's potholes in the detour. Where really you need to go back to the highway and fix the highway. So you can actually do what you were supposed to be doing the best way possible. And ignore the detour completely.

Matt Edmundson

Yeah, that's such good advice. Especially because over the long, long term, you you, you kind of adapt and change. So many times, do you know what I mean? Right. And those, those systems, those ways of doing things become quite cumbersome, but it's just the way you've always done them, well for the last five years, you've done them this way, because it's kind of evolved. Whereas if you took a step back today, and was you know, was going to start again, or a friend came to and said, How should I do this? You wouldn't tell them to do what you do. You would tell them to do it this way, because this way makes much more sense. And so what you're saying is challenge those assumptions, and figure out the best way to do that for you.

Richard Schnitzel

Yeah, exactly.

Matt Edmundson

Wonderful. Well, it's good to know that I've got this down, right, so. So I've got here check your book ends. So understand where you're starting, understand where you want to end up, understand the assumptions that you're making in that whole process, and then get somebody input on how you plan to get from A to B so that they can challenge you to stretch your thinking and ask you maybe a few awkward questions about why it is that you're doing that. And so by that point, have I then got a roadmap that I can use for automation? Yes, that's the plan.

Richard Schnitzel

Yeah, yeah, the plan is, by that point, you then have a set of things that need to happen that you can then go to a programme like Zapier and search out those programmes and start to build out a sequence of events that'll just happen based off of that, that first bookend occurring in your business.

Matt Edmundson

Yeah. And one of the things that he said that I really liked, this whole automation thing is very digital, you know, this is computers doing what they need to do and automating these processes. But it starts out on something very analogue, or what do I mean, I find that quite fast. He said, I still I still write as many viewers will know, I still write on paper as we as we take notes here and sort of go through things. And there's something about the initial part of this process just working it out with a pen and paper or a marker and a whiteboard, right? And just hashing it out and hashing the design out before you even jump into technology. Have you found because I know for me, right? If I join, you know, Zapier, the first thing I want to do is go and play and just, you know, just just start to create some shiny object type of thing. And it's, it's this whole taking a step back and planning the process, which is so sensible and so obvious, but so many times we don't do it. And we just jump straight into, you know, the digital thing to help us with yet another digital problem. And before you know we're in this sort of rabbit maze type thing, is this something that you've experienced that you've learned over time to do it this way?

Richard Schnitzel

Yes, yeah, this has been part of that three year journey of trial by error of making this process better with other people's businesses and my own business, right? I mean, my business is going through the same process every day, every week, I'm still getting better at having this own conversation with what I'm doing. It's, it's not something that I'm immune to, it's just some something that I've noticed, because I have the conversations with other people. And it's always a personal challenge for me to practice what I teach and what I say, because I feel I still get called on, I still get called on it by my team all the time. Saying something and telling them to do something and then completely ignoring that advice when I'm doing it in my own business.

Matt Edmundson

Well, this was actually this leads me nicely on to my to my next question, how do you use automation in your own business? I mean, yeah, it's not like you're running an ecommerce, businesses search. But obviously, if I say to you, from your business point of view, what's one thing that you've automated, that you kind of thing, that has been an absolute stroke of genius, I'll do that, again.

Richard Schnitzel

I love my lead process, I put a lot of effort into making that smoother and less frictionless, or more frictionless for people who are trying to work with me. And that's based off, you know, when you come to me as a new leads, you get a link to a calendar, invite to have a call with me. If you don't book that call, we have a couple automated follow ups, I have a manual follow up from my VA, at a sure I think you get a couple automated emails and you get a personal email just to check in. Once you book the call, you go into a different sequence where you get the expectations of the call, how to make the call, really good for you what to expect, once the call ends, there's a sequence of emails off boarding you from that experience, if you get a proposal, there's a set of automations that I use to tell my team that a new proposal is required. And then again, another another set of emails, I get a notification, I think three days after a proposal goal goes out in my Asana task board to have a phone call with the person if they haven't accepted the proposal yet, just to check in make sure there aren't any other questions, once they accept. So in each sequence, there's a task that follows a lifecycle of a new lead booked called having the call. At each point, all of the information that we gather from you at that point gets pulled into the Asana task. Like when you book a call, there's a couple questions I asked you, those get pulled into the Asana tasks, so I don't have to go hunt for it. I just open up my Asana, I go, Oh, I'm talking to you know, Matt today. There's Matt's task. The This is everything I know about him to date, what he wants to do, why he wants to do it, all of that. And then if you get to the point where you start a project with us, that task then gets pasted into your project list. So we have this completed lifecycle of everything that we've learned from you, when you first came onto our radar, to the point where we're now working with you. And I love it because it allows my team to work really efficiently. Yeah, one of the problems I realised I had to solve was the information flow from me, to the rest of my team about what's going on, was really muddied. It was there. But they'd have to spend 15 minutes hunting and pecking around before they could start doing their work. So we automated that transition of all of the different steps that have to happen from a lifecycle of a lead to a purchase. So that the information is always in one spot, regardless of which programme it comes from, whether it's me making personal notes, whether it's a acuity calendar link for somebody to book a call, whether it's a new lead coming in from someplace and we need to make the initial contact, all of that is tracked and recorded on that person's tasks, and we always have this really good insight into what's going on.

Matt Edmundson

Wow. Well, I think there's gonna be many organisations listening to this going. I think I need to work on my lead generation process a little bit here. And listen, Richard, I've, you know, I say this to the guests all the time. We have amazing guests, including yourself on the show, and I feel like I've got so many questions and but time is obviously always against us. If I'm listening to the show and I want to connect with you want to reach out to you maybe got some more questions for you, what's the best way to do that?

Richard Schnitzel

Yeah, if you know, something we've talked about is resonated with you, you can go to bowtiebots.com/consult and that'll take you to a link where you can book a 20 minute call with me where we can talk one on one about the ideas you have, and how we can turn those into an automation to have a positive impact on your business.

Matt Edmundson

Fantastic. So that URL again was bowtiebots.com/consult.

Richard Schnitzel

You got it.

Matt Edmundson

Wow, I remember that. Well. Now, for those of you listening to the podcast, you're going to be on? Why? What's bow tie? What? Those of you watching the video will understand what's going on. You've every time that we've talked, you're always wearing a bow tie. Right? Is this deliberate? I mean, it's obviously a deliberate thing. Is this part of your branding? Is that what you do?

Richard Schnitzel

Yeah, it is part of my branding. I'm a nerd. So I like Doctor Who I can actor who has the famous line bow ties are cool. So that's part of it, right? And I started wearing bow ties because of that, you know, six years ago, when I started my business that just really resonated with me. And I love the history of bow ties. Okay, it's, it's a lost kind of knowledge of, you know, back in the day when wearing a suit and tie was common like, you didn't go out with jeans and a T shirt, your suit and a tie. But if you worked in a factory, you couldn't wear a long tie. Because it could get caught in the machinery and you you'd have a serious accident. So the workaround was a bow tie. And I love that part because I love mechanics, I love working on my car. Like that's always resonated with mechanical engineer part of me. And there's so many other instances of that in, you know, professions, you know, people in museums always wear because they can lean over artwork and stuff. And the tie doesn't brush the artwork, but all of those instances of the futility of it has this really nice aspect to me. And just the the nerd in me loving bow ties are cool. And ties are cool according to making that a part of my life.

Matt Edmundson

That's fantastic. That's what that meant. So now that will make sense if you're just listening to the audio version of this podcast, why it's called bow tie bots. Say Hey, listen, Richard, thanks so much for taking the time to be on the show. I've really, really appreciated it been great to get to know you. I have pages of notes, which we're going to get into with the team as we always do. Every Friday, we have a team meeting following the podcast where we chat about things that we all learned from the podcast. So listen, I appreciate you taking the time to be with us. Super, super grateful. And no doubt we'll have you on again at some point in the future. But for now, thank you so so much.

Richard Schnitzel

You're very welcome. Thank you for having me.

Matt Edmundson

No problem. Thanks a lot, Richard. Bye for now. Wow. I like that. You know what? A self proclaimed nerd, you don't get many self proclaimed nerds coming on your podcast, I'm not gonna lie. And that was just fun. The bow tie. Everything was just fun. And it's good to talk to a nerd about all things automation, because they're the kind of people you want to talk to about this kind of stuff. So Richard was brilliant, wasn't he super, super generous with his time, super generous with his knowledge? Do reach out to him and connect with him. If you've got any more questions, you want to understand how automation may help your business author's follow on questions you'd like to know the answer to. I'm sure Richard would more than love to connect with you and help you out with all of the links that Richard mentioned, Zapier his bowtiebots.com. All of those we will put in the show notes. Okay. So if you're driving, if you're unable to take notes at the moment, don't panic, just go to eCommercepodcast.net/58, for all of the transcripts and notes, they're all free, you can download them from the website, no problem at all, is going to be there for you. Okay. So do connect with him because like I said, I really enjoyed that I really got a lot out of it. There are in my head, let me tell you a number of pain points that I have that I think well, we can now solve these with automation, which is great. So it's been very, very useful. So I think that's everything for me. Thanks for listening. Make sure you come back next week as I get to interview some more amazing guests like Richard, and we get to dig into this whole digital thing an awful lot more and figure out how to grow our own online businesses. That's it for me. I'll be back again very, very soon. This is the eCommerce podcast. Bye for now.