In this episode, Jim and Tyson interview business automation guru Greg Jenkins, founder and CEO of Monkeypod Marketing. They will go over his career and discuss the importance of automation and systems and how it can help your business.
“If you do something 3 times a day find a way to automate it…”
“If it is automated, it doesn’t have to feel that way and you don’t have to beat people over the head with automation, and if done properly automation can be really seamless and it should be contributing to your overall customer experience…”
Greg is founder and CEO of: http://www.monkeypodmarketing.com/, and his business is automation other businesses.
“marketing and automation tools when leveraged appropriately multiply your efforts and what your team is capable of…”
Hacking’s hack: Automate social network reactions with https://zapier.com/! Connect Your Apps and Automate Workflows. Listen to Greg’s example on how to use this tool! It is Excellent!
Greg’s hack: A website: http://workhacks.com/ All about tools and things that will make your life and your business easier.
Tyson’s tip: A book: Zombie Loyalists: Using Great Service to Create Rabid Fans Hardcover – January 27, 2015
by Peter Shankman (Author)
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Transcripts: Greg Jenkins: Business Automation
Greg Jenkins
And it definitely took a mindset shift for me to appreciate that there are tools like Infusionsoft and some of the other marketing automation tools out there, that when leveraged appropriately, they’ll multiply your efforts and they’ll multiply what what your team is capable of. And it’s not a cold, robotic, automated experience. It’s a personal one that you’ve designed deliberately to create a specific outcome.
Unknown Speaker
Run your law firm the right way. This is the maximum lawyer podcast. Podcast. I’m your host, Jim hacking and Tyson nutrix. Let’s partner up and maximize your firm. Welcome to the show.
Jim Hacking
You’re back on the maximum lawyer Podcast. I’m Jim hacking.
Tyson Mutrux
And I’m tasting music. Jimmy we have a guest that you and I are both very, very excited about you. I do a quick introduction. And you go. Yeah, so
Jim Hacking
you know, I’ve floundered around in the automation business automation wilderness for quite some time. longtime listeners of our show know that Tyson and I are both proponents of Infusionsoft and we’re gonna talk some about Infusionsoft today. But we’re going to try to keep it on a bigger level on a broader level of just sort of business automation, marketing automation. And I mentioned that I was floundering around for months and months trying to figure out how to use Infusionsoft how to make a CRM work, how to segment my list, how to market to my clients, or potential clients in a better way. And you’ve all heard the story of Goldilocks and the Three Bears. I had some advisors who were too hot, some were too cold. And Greg Jenkins was just right. I came across monkeypod marketing. And I came across Greg on Twitter of all things. And I’ll tell that story in a little bit. But we’re really lucky to have on Greg Jenkins of monkeypod marketing. He is a guru when it comes to business automation. And the best thing that he’s so good at is explaining complex automation in a simple way. So Greg, welcome to the show.
Greg Jenkins
Hey, thanks for that very warm welcome. I feel like I’ve got some high expectations to live up to now.
Tyson Mutrux
Right? I actually the only question I really care about but I’m gonna ask you some other really one I really care about is how in the hell did you come up with that name?
Greg Jenkins
Yeah, so monkeypod marketing is my brand, and it was inspired by a restaurant in Wailea, which is on the island of Maui in Hawaii. To make a long story short, my girlfriend and I were there for a work trip. And we ended up going to this restaurant and monkeypod kitchen for like lunch on the second day, we were there. And we were there for a week. And I think we went back four more times, just because it was that good. It exceeded our expectations in every way. And about a year later, I left my full time employment at Infusionsoft to start my own business and kind of put my skills to the test. And I was trying to figure out what I would name my business and literally the same day that I was kind of, you know, pondering it or thinking about it. I talked to my girlfriend, we were long distance at that point, I talked her on the phone. And she went to a new restaurant. And I said, Hey, how was that restaurant? And she said it was good. But it was no monkeypod. And I realized that a year later, monkeypod had still been this benchmark for excellence for us. And so it had less just more of a lasting impact than we realized at the time. And it sort of became this. You know, I don’t I don’t think that I have that lasting impact on everyone that I impact. But it became this this goal for us for something that I wanted to strive after it was that that customer experience and that that high level of service that leaves people with an experience that has changed them. And so for me, monkeypod is just the reminder of that restaurant and and how such a small little place and a small part of the world could leave such a big impact on me. Greg,
Jim Hacking
I know that you were an entrepreneur before he went to work for Infusionsoft. And as you said, you’re now an entrepreneur after you worked at Infusionsoft. Why don’t you tell our listeners a little bit about your story, how you ended up at Infusionsoft and then how you ended up out in San Diego? Yeah, sure.
Greg Jenkins
And feel free to interrupt me because I know I have a tendency to ramble. But the CliffsNotes version is I grew up in a small business family. And my dad had started that organization and grew it and literally run it from the basement of our home. And so I his employees were kind of coming and going and they were all kind of my friends. And once in a while they’d stop and play Nintendo with me that sort of thing. But when I went to college, I knew business was something that I wanted to focus on. And I actually accepted a job in the hospitality world coming out of college and very quickly discovered that that wasn’t where I wanted to be. And a friend of mine had started a business right around the same time I was graduating. And so once I discovered that the hospitality which is what I have my degree in wasn’t a direct fit. He sort of started chirping in my ear and said, Well, hey, I’ve got this other thing going and you could join me. So I joined him pretty early on in our business. The first five years after college was installing and servicing draft B Your dispensing systems. And it was a blast. I mean, I got to work in restaurants and bars and country clubs and help them, you know, run the the beer lines from wherever their cooler was to wherever they needed that beer to be dispensed. And, you know, it’s a pretty gritty job to begin with. But what I underestimated was there’s a lot of technical and logistical considerations when it comes to keeping the beer at the right temperature, the appropriate flow rate, you know, the right carbonation levels, and all of those things that go into maintaining the integrity of the beer. So I did that for about five years. And I sort of outgrew it. And I found myself ready for that next challenge that next step and, and that was when I started dating my girlfriend, Sarah. And so I followed her to Arizona. And I found Infusionsoft, a friend of mine recommended Hey, you should check out Infusionsoft. And I told him quite promptly to go, you know, to go bug off because I, I was a beer guy wasn’t a software guy. And why would I want to work for a software company. But after three months of unemployment, I started looking more seriously at Infusionsoft. And I realized what a powerful tool it was. And and not only that, but I realized that in the five years prior while I was running capital draft service, I did a lot of things wrong. And seeing Infusionsoft and learning how the software worked, I realized that man, my life could have been a lot easier. And it just made me sick, knowing how inefficient I was, and how much opportunity there was that I left on the table. So it sort of became a mission for me to help other people avoid the potholes and pitfalls that I went through. Because now I kind of had that revelation that there is an easier way and you know, doesn’t have to be as manual and as laborious as I had made it out to be. So I spent three a little over three years at Infusionsoft teaching people how to how to integrate automation into their their general business, and it is a marketing system, you know, on the on the surface. But really, automation can go much further than that. And as you guys know, you can use it for your internal processes and to add efficiency to all sorts of elements of your business. And, and now now I have monkeypod. And I do pretty much the same thing. I help small businesses, refine and improve their systems by using technology and automation. Specifically,
Tyson Mutrux
Greg, what are some of the issues that you see most often that people need to automate, I guess, the biggest struggles that they have that you help them automate with?
Greg Jenkins
Sure, yeah. So this is one of those conversations that I think you guys have touched on this in the past, but it’s worth driving home. Again, there are stories that we tell ourselves as, as business owners, and you know, as entrepreneurs, and regardless of what role you’re in, there are certain things that you just you tell yourself needs to be done by you. And, and sometimes that is the case. But more often than not, there is a way to introduce automation, and still achieve the same result. And so I think that it’s a matter of stepping outside of your role, and looking at it objectively to really identify what are those things that take up my time? And what do I actually need to be doing? What is the best use of my time, if I go back to the draft beer systems example, when I was running capital draft service, it grew, when I started, we had, you know, 15 or 20 customers. And when I finished we had just under 100. And these are monthly recurring accounts that that we were servicing. But the fact of the matter was, at the time, I believed that the way the business did, the success of the business was directly tied to the amount of time that I devoted to it. And each time I went on a sales call, I knew that if I got that job, it meant more hours that I would have to be working in order to keep that revenue stream. And so I saw it as a direct one to one correlation, the more I put into my business, the more you know that it would produce. And it definitely took a mindset shift for me to appreciate that there are tools like Infusionsoft and some of the other marketing automation tools out there, that when leveraged appropriately, they’ll multiply your efforts and they’ll multiply what what your team is capable of. And it’s not a cold, robotic, automated experience. It’s a personal one that you’ve designed deliberately to create a specific outcome when it’s done appropriately. So I think the areas that people overlook, are sometimes the ones that they spend the most time on, because they tell themselves a story that it has to be done by them. And they refuse to, you know, to back off that position. And sometimes it just takes a little bit of balance for you to recognize that that’s not always
Jim Hacking
the case. Greg, one of the things that I’ve noticed with you and your copy the language that you use in the emails that you send to clients or potential clients is that you’re very conversational. It does seem very personalized. I know it’s automated, because they know sort of what’s going on in the backend. But I think you just do an exceptional job of sort of talking to people in plain English. Can you talk a little bit about that?
Greg Jenkins
Yeah, man. Yeah. So you hit the nail on the head, and well, this is what I’m describing, and people have this resistance. Um, this this reticence to adopt automated systems, because they feel like automation removes them from their business. And if you are in the, in the small business space, you know how important it is to have a personality and your brand oftentimes, that’s what differentiates you from your competitors. But I think that’s a misconception. I think that automation, actually, it puts more of you in the your brand. And as you said, you know, the emails, they are my voice, and it’s because I write all of them. And if you watch a video, i It’s me and my silly jokes, and my, you know, my backyard and my tank tops, and like, that’s who I am. And I think that it resonates with some people. And I’m sure that there are those who it repels, but the reality is, you’re not the right fit for everyone. And so by allowing yourself and your, your personality to bleed into your brand, you’re more than likely going to help identify sooner rather than later when there is a mistake. So for me, it’s very deliberate, like you said, you know, there it is automated, but it doesn’t have to feel that way. And you don’t have to beat people over the head with automation. And if done properly, automation can be really seamless, and it should be contributing to your overall customer experience.
Tyson Mutrux
Jimmy, you’ve hit on something that actually is my favorite part about Greg, he is so personable gradiometry For the first time at iKON. And you were just Yeah, well, so. So if when people reach out to Greg, he is amazing. He’s a great person. It really is. And I’m not just saying that I wouldn’t just say that he really is good person. But Greg, I for you. I have a question. So your business is automating other businesses in a nutshell, like, how do you automate your business though? Yeah, so
Greg Jenkins
my business is, in a lot of ways, a transparent case study, because I teach by example, and you know, if I have a subject that is uncomfortable for me, what I’ll do is I’ll dedicate myself to learning and figuring out what that topic is, and then I’ll document it. And I’ll turn that around. And I’ll teach it to my audience, because hey, this is a new skill that I just acquired, for example, you know, I figured out pretty quickly. And as many of you have, when you start a business, there’s a you know, there’s an infinite number of things you can learn, right? You can always be acquiring new skills or attending masterminds, or or taking online workshops, or what have you, there’s always more you can be learning. And so for me, it was, I knew Infusionsoft inside and out. But I didn’t know Google Analytics, I didn’t know Facebook ads, I didn’t know WordPress, and all of the other elements that needed to be there for my business. So as I have tackled each of those hurdles, I’ve done my best to turn those into learning lessons. So I can pass that value on to the audience that I serve. Right. And I think that we all do that in some small way, as we package up our knowledge and our expertise. Or as that grows, we find ways to disseminate that. And, and I think that’s, in large part what you guys are doing with this podcast, you’re you’re sharing your journey, as well as the lessons that have and the challenges that you face and acquire along the way.
Jim Hacking
We’re talking with Greg Jenkins, he’s the owner, CEO, President of monkeypod. Marketing. And, Greg, I have a question for you. If you took a sabbatical from monkeypod, marketing and went to work for a small, firm, a law firm, and you had lawyers that recognize the value of automation, but they had no idea where to start? How would you go about helping them automate the parts of their business, like you said that they’re doing all the time that they need to automate in order to free themselves up to do higher level things?
Tyson Mutrux
Yeah, so
Greg Jenkins
that’s, uh, that’s another good question. Thanks, Jim. I think that I would start, and I think this wouldn’t surprise me if it’s a topic you guys have touched on in the past. But I would start by encouraging you know, anyone and no matter of your what your industry is, but anyone to just document what it is that you do, every day, write what it is that you do every week, and do that for a full month. And it doesn’t need to be, you know, minute by minute, but But you know, in large part, what consumes your day, and then how much of your time goes into each aspect that makes your business run. And for you, what you’re going to uncover is that there are definitely patterns and there are definitely trends and, and you know, there’s a rule, if you do something three times a day, find a way to automate it. And then once you’ve gone through your week, and you found all the things that you do three times a day and figured out or looked at it through an automation lens and identified whether or not it can be automated, then you go back to that calendar, and you go through and say, what are the things you do three times a week, right? And how do I automate those and then you come back over it. And yeah, you’re not going to be able to automate everything, nor should you. But there are certainly some things that are taking up your time or someone’s time that are probably not the best use of their strengths and a big one is scheduling. I know that with lawyers I’ve worked with or encountered in the past. Oftentimes there are either face to face me meetings or phone meetings or Skype meetings to have conversations and scheduling itself can be extremely time consuming and can be manual. And there are plenty of technology driven solutions that should make that simpler, not just the scheduling. But it can enhance that experience by layering in email or text reminders for those appointments or automated follow up based on the outcome of that, right. And if those are, if those are manual pain points for you, there are systems that can refine it. And if you know that every time you get off the phone, you have do the same set of actions. I encourage people to think about those as like a like a series of dominoes, and rather than, you know, tipping over each domino independently, take the time to set them up in sequence one, so that all you need to do is knock over that first one. And the rest of the things just sort of happen. It sounds like witchcraft, but it but it really, it really isn’t as complex as most people make it out to be.
Tyson Mutrux
Great. Can you talk a little bit about your onboarding process? Whenever a person calls you to hire you?
Greg Jenkins
Yeah. And I’m glad that you circle back to this because I recognize that Glock I kind of glossed over your question earlier, when you said how do I automate my business? And I said, Well, I do it transparently, which isn’t enough of an answer. So I automate every single aspect of my business because A, I’m an I’m an expert in Infusionsoft and, and in automation. And, you know, that’s how I scale I’m a one person workshop. And so to have the impact that I want to have and serve the people that I want to serve, I wouldn’t be able to do it if I did everything manually. So that’s, that’s the truth of the matter is but specifically for for onboarding, I have three primary revenue streams for my business. So I have virtual courses, which are sold online. And then I have a membership program, which you guys know a little bit about, and where I serve a community of people in a one to many format. And then I have occasional small group events where, you know, I invite my members, and a handful of them will come out for a business retreat, where we talk about their business, identify areas for automation, like we’re discussing here, and then we go about executing on it. And so, so those are the three channels for my business. And depending on which one you are interested in, you’re going to enter my database and my funnel and my my customer journey at a different entry point. So I have various lead captures, which is, you know, it’s a simple marketing term, but it’s basically where people interact with me. And depending on which one you sign up for, I’m able to infer certain things about you, right. And if you’re if you’re a law practice, and you probably practice a specific, you know, aspect of the law, like I know, Jim is heavily focused on immigration law. But if you serve multiple audiences, or multiple niches, or if you, if you solve multiple problems for people, here’s a little secret about your customers, they don’t care who else you are a good fit for, what they care is, can you help me and and I think it’s important to identify that because I go to a lot of websites where people have a list of all of the stuff that they do. And if you have 10 things on your website, and I’m only looking for one of them, that means that the other nine are noise. And so what you want to do is figure out how people are finding out about you and have a dedicated page or entry point that just speaks to those specific pain points that you know, that particular person is experiencing. And then once they tip over that first domino, by signing up for whatever that offer is, it could be a, an ebook or a weekly, you know, subscription, or it could be a free consultation or a quote or you know, could be any of those things, right. But once they sign up, that’s the first domino that then puts into motion. For me, it’s a it’s a welcome series where they get whatever it was that they asked for. But then everyone, no matter where they come from, goes into what I call my meet Greg series. And it’s if you sign up, if you go to monkeypod marketing.com, and you sign up for anything that I have to offer, you’re going to experience an automated funnel that introduces me, it talks about the story behind monkeypod. And it talks about what I do and who I serve. And then it also talks about what I’m not and the problems that I don’t serve. And the reason I do that is because those are conversations that I’ve had. And oftentimes I get people on the phone who are saying, Greg, I want to hire you for this, this or this. And that’s not what I do. And so what I did was I devised an automated system that helps better establish those expectations, so that when I get on the phone with someone, or if I get on the phone with someone, we’re already at a point where that person knows, here’s what monkeypod is about. Here are the three main service offerings they have and here’s the one that I’m most interested in. And of course, you know, based on how they got into my database, I’m denoting or I’m annotating the preferences that I’ve either inferred about them or that they’ve explicitly expressed so that I can put promotions in None of them that are relevant to whatever it was that they raised their hand for. And I use the automated systems to take them all the way through from that discovery portion through to a purchase. And then of course, for fulfillment on my virtual courses, if you buy something, I get notified. But I certainly don’t have to do anything for it, that automation should kick in, and you should automatically receive your credentials and have access to your course content. And like I said, I wouldn’t be able to do what it is that I do if I had to spend all of my time manually bridging those gaps.
Jim Hacking
All right, Greg. Now here’s one of the things that I struggle with a lot myself. And I absolutely do encourage everyone to sign up for Greg’s email list, you’ll you’ll see through what he does what he sends to you the power of automation and the messaging. But one thing that I struggle with is, when you have a business that’s already operational, and you need to automate it, how do you find the time to Tyson is really good at this, to build out the systems, you know, to devote the time so that you’re not doing things over and over? Like, how do you find that sweet spot in keeping the business ongoing, but at the same time doing the work? To minimize the repetition and repeat tasks?
Greg Jenkins
I’ll give you my answer. But I would love to hear what you guys have to say, because I’m not convinced that I’m doing it. Right. I suffer just like a lot of you do from the I think it’s Jim Collins in Good to Great who who talks about working on your business rather than working in it? Right. And that’s an analogy most people can connect with is, is I spent a lot of time making my business run. And so how do I step away from that and design new systems to give myself back more of my day. And that’s actually where the idea for my business retreats came from. It was a little bit over a year ago, was about a year and a half ago. And I was talking with my girlfriend, and I said, Hey, I feel like I need to just like unplug and go to a cabin somewhere and and like, figure out some high level strategy for where I want my business to go. And then and then identify and map out the systems I need to put into place to take it there. And she said, Okay, well, you should do that, if that’s what you need, like you should do that. And so I rented a cabin in Flagstaff, northern Arizona. And that’s what I that’s what I did. But I made the mistake of I talked about it with a handful of people. I said, Hey, here’s what I’m going to do. And then three different people said, well, I need that too. Can I come with you. And so I the first workshop I led was intended to be a business retreat for myself. But what I ended up doing was helping these other businesses to work on and identify and automate the things in their business man, it was a 72 hour, you know, power packed weekend, which I’m terribly proud of. And we did a second one about a year later. So about six months ago, we did a second one. But yeah, I left that weekend, realizing that shoot, I still need to do this for myself. And so the answer for me has been once a quarter, I block off a full day, just to do an audit of my customer experience. So what is it that my customers go through? And how do they find out about me? What are all the different avenues that they can come to my website? And where do they opt in, and then what happens? Because here’s what I found, even if you have automated systems designed, they are a product of what your business looked like at the time you design them. And your business evolves, you know, it certainly, you know, doesn’t look the same as it did when you when you started and it doesn’t look the same as it was, you know, a year ago or six months ago. So I find that about once a quarter, it’s important to block off a full day just to go walk back through what your customer journey looks like and figure out not only is it efficient, but is it intentional, is it something that you have built in you’ve designed? Or is it just something that has kind of emerged out of necessity, because oftentimes that’s the case, we do something and we figure out how to do it, and then that becomes our system just because it worked and that we don’t stop to consider if that’s how we should be doing it. So for me, that’s been the secret is once a quarter or so I block off the time to spend some focus on it. Because otherwise, it gets swept under the rug. There are too many, too many plates spinning for me to really, really stop and give it the attention that it honestly deserves. But I’d love to hear how you guys do that. Great. Well, I
Tyson Mutrux
think you nail the nail on the head because I think what you have to do is you have to map out your process what you’re doing currently from start to finish. So from point A to point Z. And then you also need to map it out with what your company looks like or should look like from point A to point Z. And then also as you’re as you’re looking at your business, you talked about this is it identifying the redundancies. Okay, so you’ve you’ve mapped out, here’s how my company looks or here’s how my firm looks. Right now. Here’s where it should look, because this is what the customer experience should be. And so you want to fill in those gaps. And then you need to do what you said you did is you need to sit down and do it. Just do it. I mean, so a few years ago, my firm, whatever we said, we’re doing the automation thing. We gave ourselves a deadline. And we said, we will be in fully automation mode by this date. And we did it. And so we it was a lot of late night, a lot of hard work, but I think you just have to do it. And I think that Jimmy, I think you’re in that process right now. And so, Jimmy, you want to talk about the process right now. It’s how you’re trying to get your during unit automated?
Jim Hacking
Well, it’s slow going and slow going for sure. I mean, Greg, I know you haven’t listened to all of our episodes. But we often talk on here. Tyson’s really spent a lot of time with Infusionsoft working on his during unit that is sort of the provision of legal services. I’ve spent a lot more mine on segmenting my list my potential clients and sort of that. And so it’s it’s slow going, it’s something I struggle with, we’re so busy at the moment that it’s really hard to carve out that time. One of the good things is that my wife has joined the firm, and she’s really good at sort of developing the systems. And so they’ve sort of taken over a lot of that. But as far as the automation, that’s it’s a slow slog we, we have now done what Greg was talking earlier about lawyers, one thing that we can really free ourselves up is the scheduling. So I really am not the master of my own schedule at all anymore. We’re sort of outsourcing intake, call intake, and we have a company that’s setting all of our appointments for us. And we’re also using automation to let clients pick their own meeting times.
Greg Jenkins
Yeah, this is a subject that you guys talk a lot about with regards to accountability, right and setting yourself these goals. And it’s Tyson pointed out, it’s a matter of attaching not only specific requirements to that, but a date. You know, that’s the difference. A goal is a dream that has a date attached to it right is you’ve given yourself a deadline, which which you intend to stick to, and then that’s a matter of just holding yourself accountable there. That’s to me, it comes down to being intentional about how you prioritize, because there are plenty of things that I want to be better at, right. Like, for example, I mentioned Google Analytics earlier as something that that I know, my business could benefit from if I understood and leveraged Google Analytics differently. But the reality is, I haven’t prioritized that yet. I still I have Google Analytics installed. So it’s collecting data, but I never log into it. And I know that that’s a shortcoming of mine, but my business is growing anyway. So I just haven’t taken the time to really dig into it. And so it’s a matter of, I think, looking at, is this something that is going to pay an immediate return? Is it is it essential? Or is it just enhancing and that’s a good way for you to help go through your list of priorities, and establish what you need to work on first, and how you’re going to make the time for them.
Tyson Mutrux
Greg, we are getting close to time. So we you tell people how to reach you if they want
Greg Jenkins
to get ahold of you? Yeah, so as you might imagine, I am all over the interwebs. You can find me at monkeypod marketing.com. Or you can find me on Twitter at infusion. Greg, Jim, I’d love to hear the story as to what or how we first connected there. And I’m fairly active on Facebook as well. I’ve got a monkeypod marketing business page and monkeypod marketing on LinkedIn. So if you search for me on any of the primary social channels, I should pop up, and you’re more than welcome to send me an email at Greg at monkeypod marketing.com. If if you use Infusionsoft or are interested in in automation in general, I love geeking out about this stuff.
Tyson Mutrux
So before we get to our tips, hacks and Greg’s recommendation, I do want a reminder when go to iTunes or wherever you get your podcasts, he gets a five star review. Please make sure you do that. We’re trying to spread the word as much as we can. So pause it and go right now. Give the five star review. We’ll be here when you get back, do the review. We really appreciate it and then send it to a friend. We really love hearing back from people about how they’re really liking the podcast. So But Jimmy, do you want to give your hack of the week?
Jim Hacking
Yeah. And I will incorporate my story of how I found Greg in the first place. And it ties into my my hack of the week. So I found Greg on a automated tweet that he sent out. And it had to do with note templates within Infusionsoft. So this allows you to sort of pre fabricate some notes for a file that you want to do. And I had never I’ve been using Infusionsoft for years and years. And I never knew that this was a possibility. I know it’s something that’s very simple and very basic and YouTube probably giggling because it’s so basic, but I was so happy to find out about no templates, like I almost did a little no template dance because there’s so many things that we write down in a file on Infusionsoft over and over that it just boggles the mind that you could automate that and my hack goes right along with that. And Greg, I want you to talk a little bit about this before you give us your tip. My hack is that outside of outside Infusionsoft, Greg has developed a pretty slick system for automating some social media things that take time. And the one in particular that I’ve really been taking use of lately is with followers on Twitter. And so if you if our listeners are lawyers, and you’re on social media, and you want to know how to just automate that a little bit more, especially when you get a new follower, Greg has developed a system. It’s outside of Infusionsoft. I’m pretty sure, Greg, isn’t
Greg Jenkins
it? 100%? Yeah, it doesn’t use Infusionsoft at all for this one.
Jim Hacking
Yeah, so I’d like you to take over my my hack and sort of explain exactly how that works. And the other thing about Greg is, I’m gonna I’m gonna toot his horn here for a minute is Greg doesn’t charge enough for his programs. He’s very generous. He really is an evangelist. And people are always telling him I know for a fact that he should, he should charge more. His prices and his education that he’ll give you is very, very reasonable. So I can’t sing his praises enough. But Greg, if you could tell us a little bit about that automation, I think our listeners would really get jazzed by it.
Greg Jenkins
Yeah. So I use a tool called Zapier. That’s the API er, and you guys may have heard of it, but it is essentially it’s automated recipes. It’s very similar to if this than that, or workato. If you’re familiar with either of those, those those do similar things. But Zapier allows you to write automated recipes so that if something happens, it does it performs, you know, something else. So action reaction, you build these recipes. So what I did was I built these Zapier recipes for my own business. So if I publish a blog post, right, it automatically disperses that to my or disseminates that to my various social channels, it posts it to my Facebook business page or post it to my LinkedIn business page. And it tweets about it. And then a couple of days later, and tweets about it again, and a couple of weeks after that, and tweets about it a third time. So what I get is automated, valuable content being passed out to my various social networks. So I can assure that they’re being that they’re busy. And all I have to do is produce the content. And that automatically goes out a couple of different times. So I maximize the exposure, I’m getting on that. And I have the exact same thing set up for my YouTube channel. Now, the third recipe that Jim’s referencing here is just designed to foster engagement on Twitter. So I’m sure you guys have seen if you follow somebody and they have an automated welcome message set up, you know, you follow them and it says, Hey, thanks, infusion, Greg, or what have you. And those always drove me nuts, because, you know, it’s very overtly automation. And this is what I come back to is automation, when done poorly does feel cold and robotic. But if it’s done well, it feels personal, and it’s enhancing. And so what I did was when somebody follows me, and you can you can test this by following me on Twitter. But if somebody follows me, it triggers this automated recipe with Zapier. And the first thing it does is it looks up a number between one and 50. And I what I’ve done is I’ve written 50 different sample responses. So if somebody follows me, I’m going to tweet back at them in one of these ways. And it uses that number that randomly looks up to go to a spreadsheet in Google Sheets, and it pulls between one and 51 of the columns. And or one of the rows rather and and then it craps, a tweet replying to them using their handle, so it drops from that spreadsheet, and it pulls their information in and it assembles that, and it waits something like, you know, an hour and a half before it replies, so it doesn’t happen immediately. It happens after a little bit of time. And I actually introduced another layer. So it only happens on one out of every three followers. So rather than tweeting back to every single person, which I didn’t want my whole twitter feed to just be replies to people, I have it going on a ratio of one out of every three, and it picks from a list of 50 different replies. And I’m going to continue to add to that. So that long term, you know, maybe I’ll have 100 different responses and nobody will even notice. But at the very beginning, the goal was just to welcome people and to drive a little bit of engagement. And what’s happened is people are responding. This automatic tweet goes out and they like it right. And so they reply and it starts a conversation and I once they reply, I do step in personally and I reply manually, but the initial interaction is part of this automated recipe. So when I share this and when I talk about the benefit that these recipes have provided for me and for my business, oftentimes the response is, well, how do I get that I want that too. And the reality is you can set this up. Zapier is a paid tool. You can go use Zapier and you can build your own recipes. But if that’s outside of your comfort or athletic your interests, I’ve devised a way to build and manage these recipes for people. And like Jim said, it’s really reasonable I probably will raise the price I just launched this Just a couple of months ago, and so I’m still working out all the kinks and making sure that that is providing the value I think it does. But if you’re interested, just yeah, just reach out to me and I’ll be more than happy to talk to you. I’m calling it the social recipe service. But I’m definitely not married to that name. So I might need to come up with something a little catch here.
Tyson Mutrux
Man, that’s awesome. I had no idea that that existed. That is incredible.
Greg Jenkins
That yeah, it’s kind of nerdy, but it works for me.
Tyson Mutrux
Alright, so is that your tip of the week? Or do you have someone else for us? I was gonna
Greg Jenkins
recommend a website. It’s work hacks.com. And it’s a friend of mine, her name is Julia or Julia Roy, and she has a podcast where she talks about productivity hacks, and work hacks, and it’s all about tools and things that will make your life and your business easier. I just recommend Yes, check, check it out of work x.com, or go into her. She has a newsletter, I think it’s called tool candy. And it shows up in your inbox every couple of weeks with just the you know, specific tools that that are designed to optimize what you’re already doing. And that’s been a big source of inspiration for me, not every email that shows up is changing my life. But it’s good to be abreast of what’s out there. And even if you don’t plan to, you know, to consume it or or to take action on every single one, it’s nice to know that these are going to show up with different ideas that you can choose to run with or not.
Tyson Mutrux
That’s awesome. Thank you very much for that, just that section of the podcasts we get clip that, release that and be perfect. I mean, it’s just just You’re the last 10 minutes worth has been fantastic. But my tip of the week is a book that John Fisher actually recommended on his Facebook page mastermind experience, which I want to share with everyone, which some of you may have heard of it. It’s called Zombie loyalists using great service to create rabid fans by Peter Shankman. I picked up the book and I could not put it down. It is incredible, because it really just breaks down the real world of customer service. And he just really cuts through all the BS and gets right to it. I really, really recommend it. And it’s this is one of John Fisher’s top three books, I think. So I really do you really recommend it. It’s a fantastic book.
Greg Jenkins
Peter is great. He actually spoke at iKON a couple of years back when he was still not as well known as he is now and the kind of under the radar and it blew my mind. So I’ve been fortunate to watch him for a couple of years. He’s a star for sure.
Tyson Mutrux
Incredible mind really is. But Jimmy, do you have anything else to add?
Jim Hacking
Just want to thank Greg again for coming on the show.
Greg Jenkins
Oh, thank you guys, this has been great. I’ve got a bunch of respect for what you guys are doing. And I appreciate you giving me a platform to share a little bit of my life.
Tyson Mutrux
Yes, thank you so much for coming on. We really, really appreciate it. And I know we’ve exchanged some emails back and forth. So thank you for the feedback you’ve given me as well. But thank you very much, Jimmy. Great show, Greg. Very good show. Man. We’ll talk to you next week. Thanks very much. Take care. Bye.
