BBP 116: Automate Your Day: Small Steps, Big Wins with Steph Blake

Shownotes:

In this episode of the Blogger Breakthrough Summit podcast, Liz Stapleton and Steph Blake delve into the significance of automation in streamlining business tasks. They emphasize the necessity of evaluating daily processes to determine which can be automated, thus saving time and effort. Steph provides practical examples and encourages bloggers to start small and gradually enhance their automation strategies. The discussion also touches on various tools like Zapier and Clickup that offer free plans to help beginners get started with automation without incurring costs. Hit play to listen now!

Synopsis

Ever feel like you’re drowning in a sea of to-dos? Trust me, we’ve all been there. But what if I told you there’s a magical solution to reclaim some of that precious time? Today, we’re diving into the wonders of automation, featuring insights from the fabulous Steph Blake. Whether you’re just starting out or looking to level up, these tips will help you streamline your blogging process and keep your sanity intact.

The Power of Asking Can This Be Automated?

One of the golden nuggets from Steph Blake’s session is the simple yet powerful question: Can this be automated? It’s a game-changer. Here is how to answer that question:

• Evaluate Tasks: As you go through your daily routine, ask yourself if a task can be automated. If not, consider if it can be delegated to a team member.
• Partial Automation: Remember, not every task needs full automation. Sometimes, just automating a part of the process can save you loads of time.

Taming the Email Beast

Liz Stapleton shared her struggle with an overflowing inbox—a scenario many of us know too well. Her solution? Updating email filters. Sometimes the simplest solutions can have the biggest impact. There are some tips:

• Set Up Filters: Direct newsletters and non-urgent emails to specific folders. This keeps your main inbox clutter-free.
• Regular Updates: Periodically review and update these filters to adapt to new subscriptions and changing priorities.

Continuous Improvement

Automation isn’t a set it and forget it deal. Steph emphasizes that it’s an ongoing process, to automate more and update old automations. Remember to:

• Iterate and Improve: Regularly review your automated processes to find areas for improvement.
• Stay Flexible: Be open to tweaking and adding new automations as your needs evolve.

Budget-Friendly Automation Tools

Worried about the costs? Steph and the team have got you covered with some budget-friendly options.

• Free Plans: Tools like Zapier, ClickUp, and Make offer free plans that are perfect for beginners.
• Bootstrap with Creativity: Use multiple tools creatively to maximize free automation options. Just make sure not to switch tools too often, as it can slow you down.

Top 5 Areas to Automate for Bloggers

Steph offers some targeted advice for bloggers on where to start with automation.

1. Data Tracking: Automate the process of pulling links from your blog posts and adding them to your database.
2. Social Media Scheduling: Use tools to automatically post your content to platforms like Pinterest, Instagram, and Facebook.
3. Email Marketing: Set up automated email sequences for new subscribers.
4. Content Creation: Automate parts of your content creation process, like generating social media posts from your blog content.
5. Client Onboarding: Automate the sending of onboarding forms and welcome emails to new clients.

Bottom Line

So there you have it—automation doesn’t have to be overwhelming. Think of it as your new best friend, helping you reclaim time and focus on what really matters. Start small, tweak as you go, and remember, you’ve got this!

https://youtu.be/4DasQEeVvNs

Tools and Resources Mentioned

• Zapier
• Clickup
• Make
• Pabbly
• Pinterest
• Instagram
• Facebook

Related Content

• Why ClickUp is the Best Blog Management Tool
• BBP 095: How to Use Tags in Email Marketing with Allea Grummert

Transcript

[00:00:00].00] – Liz Stapleton

Welcome back to the Blogger Breakthrough Summit podcast. I’m your host, Liz Stapleton. And here we share snippets from our annual virtual summit. And today we’ve got some absolute gems to share with you on the magic of automation with Steph Blake. Trust me, you’re not going to want to miss this one.

[00:00:20].22] – Steph Blake

Actually, what you said right there was really great because you said as you’re just going through your day to day process, just ask yourself, Can this be automated? Yes or no? If your answer is no, you can step back. Again, do you actually have to be the one doing it? And if a human being does have to do it, maybe it doesn’t have to be you. Maybe it can be a team member. And maybe there’s a part of that process that can be automated. So maybe it doesn’t have to be the entire process. So I want people to just think about this from a different perspective instead of thinking that robots are completely taking over the back end of their business and they don’t talk to anybody. That’s not the case. For example, as a photographer, that was just the first example that came to my mind, you want to make sure that you’re having some relationship with your clients. But you don’t have to be the one sending them the onboarding form to fill out their questions or whatever you need to know. You don’t need to be the one sending them a gift. There’s a lot of different parts that you don’t need to be doing.

[00:01:28].08] – Liz Stapleton

Yeah, yeah.

[00:01:29].17] – Liz Stapleton

I mean, the other day I was like, my inbox has gotten out of control and I’m losing track of things I need to pay attention to. And I was like, oh, I need to just go update the filter so that the new newsletters I sign up for, skip that part of my inbox and are just there ready for me when I want to look at that.

[00:01:44].16] – Steph Blake

Yeah, exactly.

[00:01:45].17] – Liz Stapleton

So it’s an ongoing thing. It’s not necessarily a set and forget, but it’s ongoing, can be improved and better and added to.

[00:01:54].14] – Steph Blake

Yeah, I mean, just using the summit as an example, the first time that you ran the summit, you didn’t have that many I would guess, because you didn’t really know what you needed, right? You were just piecing it together. Now, five years later, it’s like everything’s streamlined and- As much as possible. Exactly, exactly. So if it’s the first… Or if you’re brand new to automation, you’re brand new, I mean, even to business, you’ve been doing things on your own for a long time, just also give yourself a break. This is something new that you’re learning. You don’t have to have all of the answers right Go into Zapier, see if two things can connect. Start there. Yeah, yeah.

[00:02:37].21] – Liz Stapleton

And on the free Zapier plan, because I’m always mindful, especially if your blog isn’t earning money yet. Although if your blog can cover the 20 bucks a month, I think 20 bucks a month on the annual plan, 30 bucks a month on Zapier. I was just looking at this. Then it’s worth it. Oh, yeah. If you’re not earning any money, still use the free plan. That’s five things you can automate for free. Clickup has, I think you get 50 different automation tasks and 100 instances a month for free. I think Make even has a free plan. So if you really wanted to, you could really bootstrap with multiple tools. I don’t know if Pabbly has a free plan.

[00:03:25].12] – Steph Blake

They just have the lifetime access, I think. Okay.

[00:03:29].14] – Liz Stapleton

You You can really bootstrap and get a lot of free automations if you’re willing to be a little creative and dig in to the functionality of the tools you’re using. I wouldn’t say switch a tool, simply for a free automation, because especially things like email marketing, go with what you’re going to stick with. That’ll slow down your progress. That’s a whole nother conversation for another day. But where would you… Okay, you may or may not have a good answer for Where would you recommend people start when it comes to… What are five places they should start to look at automating?

[00:04:14].09] – Steph Blake

So first, so I’m being cognizant, there’s a lot of bloggers here, right? So your automation that you mentioned with pulling the copy from your blog and then adding in the link I’m not a big blogger, but I know you said that you have an automation specifically for that. So where after the blog post is published, it will pull the link and it will add that into your database, right? Mm-hmm. Okay, so that’s one. For bloggers, specifically, Use that because you need to track the data to make sure that your blog posts are working, right? You need to have that. Also, you need to be marketing your business. So using social media scheduling tools, we didn’t talk about that. But that’s also part of the consistency portion. So that could even be you want to be putting your blog posts on Pinterest. That is something that you can automate. You can take that blog post after it posts to your blog and automatically upload it to Pinterest. That is not something that you manually need to be doing. You can also create an Instagram post or a Facebook post or whatever, wherever your audience is at.

[00:05:25].00] – Steph Blake

You can create social media content from it.

[00:05:26].22] – Liz Stapleton

All right. So that’s it. Remember, you need to start small, tweak as you go, and you’ve got this. Automation doesn’t have to be overwhelming. Think of it as your new best friend, helping you to reclaim precious time and focus on what really matters. Thanks for tuning in to another episode of the Blogger Breakthrough Summit podcast. And if you found today’s tips helpful, don’t forget to subscribe and share with your fellow bloggers. Be sure to tune in next week to learn about keeping momentum going in your business. I’ll see you then.