Automation Ideas to Get Started

[00:00:00] Calan Breckon: Today’s episode is sponsored by Make.com, the Automation and development platform that helps you harness the full power of AI. I’ve been using make because it’s hands down the easiest way to automate the boring, repetitive tasks in my business without needing to know how to code or over complicate things. Make uses a super simple drag and drop visual builder which lets me connect all the different apps that I use to create workflows and saves me so much time. Honestly, it feels like having a virtual assistant running in the background 24-7.

Whether it’s sending out client forms, updating spreadsheets, or syncing your calendar, make helps you get it all done automatically so that you can focus on the stuff that really matters. And the best part? You can get started for free while you figure out how to set up the best automations that work for you and your business. To check it out, head on over to calanbreckon.com/make or click the link in the show notes. Now, let’s get into today’s episode.

Welcome to the Business Gay podcast where we talk about all things business, marketing and entrepreneurship. I’m your host Calan Breckon and on today’s episode I have Ricardo Gattas-Moras. Ricardo is a dynamic marketing strategist, award winning corporate leader and founder of poppy marketing and consulting. With over 17 years in Fortune 500 tech under his belt, Ricardo now focuses on empowering small businesses, particularly Latino and LGBTQ+ entrepreneurs, to build bold, authentic brands through storytelling, automation and smart strategy. He’s also the author of the Rainbow Bee, a children’s book that celebrates identity and courage. I’m excited to chat with Ricardo about automation today, so let’s jump in.

[00:01:49] Calan Breckon: Hey Ricardo, thank you so much for joining me on the podcast. How are you doing today?

[00:01:54] Ricardo Gattas-Moras: I am doing well and thank you for having me.

[00:01:57] Calan Breckon: Yes, I’m really excited to jump in and chat about automation today in small businesses because that’s the name of the game on today’s episode.

Let’s start off here. What common tasks do small business owners waste time on that could really easily be automated?

[00:02:15] Ricardo Gattas-Moras: Oh gosh. I think that the first thing that I point out is that often business owners are already doing some sort of automation. It’s just not intentional things like recurring events on your calendar or like templates that you save for some, you know, for some sort of business practice.

But where I see most of the time being wasted is in emails just, you know, business owners wanting to always personalize their email and not realizing there are Ways to do that in an automated way.

There are also, you know, scheduling and management of leads like customer customer management or relationship management. I think that’s a really big one that I see people wasting time and just overall like scheduling your just your day to day business and gaining in leads with just like automated ways to be able to put it in systems that you can go back to that are easy and don’t require you to have to just write things down or find that post it. Note that you left somewhere about the customer information.

That’s where I see the majority of opportunities in automation.

[00:03:27] Calan Breckon: Yeah, email is definitely one of those things that, I mean I still do a lot of my own emailing, but for the show, for the podcast, I have that all automated. I do up the email, I set it, I forget it and then it goes out. The day it’s supposed to come out, I’m like, oh yeah, that episode’s out today. I gotta go, gotta go make sure that I do that.

What, what’s the biggest branding mistakes you see small businesses owners making over and over and over again and how can they avoid kind of falling into that trap?

[00:03:59] Ricardo Gattas-Moras: That’s a really good question. I think that probably the biggest branding that I see is one people wanting to speak to everyone at the same time.

And what I have found is like when you’re trying to connect with everyone, you often end up connecting with no one at the end because you’re not talking directly to the person that is your customer, but then also thinking that your branding are your visuals. And I get that a lot. People get very excited about their creative process on like what their logo is going to look like and what their colors will look like.

But they haven’t really spent enough time creating that foundation of like, who am I, what problem am I solving for, who am I solving it for?

And the reality is like when you’re able to answer those questions at a fundamental level, the rest, like the visuals and the branding and development, all of your resources end up becoming so much easier in the long run. And I know you talk a lot about like not quick wins but like long term strategy. It’s that fundamental piece that really helps you build that and make the right decisions moving forward. Right. Especially when things get shaky because that’s often when people start panicking, they don’t know where to go. But if you have a strong foundation, then your brand can survive those moments because you know who your customer is and what your messaging is.

[00:05:16] Calan Breckon: Yeah, I, I definitely see, you know, newer or fresher entrepreneurs just Want to, like, run ahead and, like, just do all the things and I can’t remember who I was talking to. This is definitely a previous podcast, but we were talking about how if you are trying to learn your own voice and learn who you are and to. To get to that messaging, you first have to go through the work of actually doing it. So, you know, Sometimes I use ChatGPT to help me write my emails now and everything, but it took me years to figure out what my voice was first in those emails before I automated them, because I need to know what the vibe is and I need to know how I communicate with my, you know, ideal customers or. Or clients so that that message resonates properly. And it takes time to actually invest in learning what that is and who that is for yourself.

[00:06:09] Ricardo Gattas-Moras: Yes. And let’s face it, that’s not like the fun and like glittery moments Right. Of your business. It’s not. It’s not what everybody gets to see. It’s often the things that you only get to see, but they do end up becoming a big part of how your, the rest of your plan develops.

And I think it’s also important you mentioned ChatGPT and we’re in an AI world now in understanding how to use those tools to help you narrow that down.

With tools like ChatGPT and some of the other language models, you can set up or create Personas that act and think like your customer and generally just have conversations with those Personas and say, hey, where do you do business?

What would you do in this moment? What does the journey look like for you? And start developing a Persona that you can use to create your messaging around as well.

I think those are some smart ways to use technology without taking the human side of it, because you’re still figuring out exactly who your customer is with your messaging, but you’re using tools to help you do that instead of having to go knock on doors and ask people for their opinion on things.

[00:07:19] Calan Breckon: Okay, yeah, this is actually perfect because that was my next question is how do small businesses keep automation fit feeling personal and human? So you said create a Persona on ChatGPT and treat it as if it was your client. Feed it all the information about your clients and then have a question, like, have a back and forth question and answer with it to kind of figure out, you know, answers you’re looking for.

[00:07:42] Ricardo Gattas-Moras: Yes, yes, you got that. I mean, and you know, that that’s one example of it.

Then you know what I do with my Personas? I Even like, ask ChatGPT to create like a photo of what the person will look like. And it’s just creating that more like realistic scenarios in your mind so that you know who you’re building for and who you’re talking to.

I think there’s a lot of tools that, like mailchimp for example, with email automation that have integrated AI into it as well. And you know, I think often people when they think about automation, they think robots and like taking human side away.

The way that I see it is that you’re really opening up time in your day to day so that you can spend doing more human things. The strategy calls the conversations with your customers instead of doing this daily tasks that take up your time in an administrative way.

But tools like mailchimp is one that I often ask people to maybe consider as their first step. I think email is the most powerful tool that you can use, especially in a world right now where like social media is so heavy.

There’s so many advancements with AI where people are getting confused with what tools to use and where to go and influencers. And the more that you can narrow down who your audience is and the more that you can speak directly to them, the more powerful your message is. And email allows you to do that by creating those distribution lists, people who want to hear your message so often. I’ll start there, there. There are four fundamental automations that I consider to be the bigger ones. One, it’s like email automation, you know, some sort of like welcoming email automation process, social media scheduling, you know, just really spending the time to create that content calendar and then let it work for you.

Lead generations, a good lead generation system that helps you gain those strong leads and capture your core audience.

And then the fourth one would be that onboarding process. I think once you’ve got that customer in, how are you providing that consistent experience that’s still true to your message. It still has everything that makes you and your business included into it, but it’s not something you have to manually do every time.

[00:10:03] Calan Breckon: I like that you mentioned a couple of really good things that you need to focus on.

And what I’m going to take it to next is what, what one of those automation strategies have you seen work for both Fortune 500s because you’ve worked in those but also worked for solo entrepreneurs. And if somebody was going to focus on one of the things first, which one would they focus on that works.

[00:10:25] Speaker C: Best for everything across the board?

[00:10:28] Ricardo Gattas-Moras: Yeah, I, I think the email one and that welcome email sequence, it’s, it’s a good one. I’ve seen that work. And, you know, my previous corporate job, where everybody that came into the website or was interested in doing business with the company will get a sequence of emails of interest and why it’s important and, you know, maybe sharing some sort of customer experience or testimonials that help you gain credibility, connecting with your customer. Right. But by sharing some of your story, not just your business. And, and also, you know something that you are probably very, very familiar with this, with your SEO background. It’s understanding that the language that you speak as a business is not always the language that the customer speaks. Right. Like you’re saying automation, but the customer is saying, I don’t have enough time to do things, and realizing what that language is so that you can then craft those messages and that sequence of emails in the way that your customers will be able to connect to it and understand it.

[00:11:38] Calan Breckon: That is a very important part that you can take back to that ChatGPT and asking them what they need. Because sometimes we think like automation. We know what it means, but the customer’s thinking, I just want it done for me. And if you were to say that, it would change everything done for you instead of automation. And they’re like, oh, perfect, yeah, done for me.

I really like that. Now, you work a lot with LGBTQ and Latino entrepreneurs.

What do you find tends to hold them back from automating a lot of stuff in their business? And how can they maybe move past that?

[00:12:12] Ricardo Gattas-Moras: Yeah, well, I think it’s first understanding that your differences is actually what makes you unique in the market.

It’s like your identifier, and it’s your power. And I think sometimes when you’re starting out and you feel like you’re an underrepresented community, it is easy to want to shy away from just speaking and identifying us. The LGBTQ + owner. I’m the gay business owner, or I am the business owner. Because you don’t want to, I guess, maybe take some people out of the equations or the potential of working with some people, but the reality is that that is your identifier, and that may be why people want to work with you. So I always encourage business owners, like that thing that you think it’s unique and may take some people out, lean more towards it, go heavier on that, you know, be authentic in your story.

And then once you do that, then start figuring out what are some of the ways and some of the places where we can have those conversations. And that’s when the tools come in. Right? That’s where email comes in. That’s where you start using AI to create the content to the people that you want to speak to.

That’s where you start automating. And now also SMS or like text messaging.

It’s another easy way to reach your customers. So it’s understanding where those customers live, understanding that the power of leaning towards your difference, it really is your strength and be authentic in the message that you send out.

[00:13:52] Calan Breckon: Okay, I like those. I like those.

[00:13:54] Speaker C: If.

[00:13:55] Calan Breckon: If an entrepreneur or somebody only has five hours a week to set up automation and to like do all of this, where should they focus first?

[00:14:07] Ricardo Gattas-Moras: Well, like I said, I think email, it’s an important one, refining that message. I mean, I think that first of all make sure that your message is clear. Right. I always have this question of like, I help blank do blank so they can blank to answer the question for you. Like, for example for us is we help overwhelmed business owners or underrepresented business owners be able to craft a clear message and automate the marketing so they can scale without burning out.

So then thinking of that, like, fundamental question of who you are and what you do, I think that that will help you then understand what are some of the things that you need to automate. But definitely, like I said earlier, I think email, it’s a really important one, being able to welcome your customers and help them feel like they have a personal touch, but you also have a sequence of things that are happening in the back end.

And then I think lead capture, like understand we’re in a world right now where many businesses have lead captures and just doing like a checklist or like, here are the top 10 things to know.

There’s not a whole.

There’s enough tools out there for you to be able to do that on your own. So it’s like really understanding what is a valuable piece of resource that take the time to understand what that is and then automate ways to be able to put that in front of your customers so they want to join your email list and then you can continue to reach out and gain business from them as well.

[00:15:44] Speaker C: Yeah. Nice.

[00:15:45] Calan Breckon: Now you’re the author of the Rainbow Bee, which is a children’s book that celebrates identity and courage.

Is there any automation that you implemented in your marketing strategy when you began selling the book?

[00:16:00] Ricardo Gattas-Moras: Yeah, good question. I think when I first came up with the book, it was back in 2020, I think automation was not as popular as a conversation. I wish it would have been. It probably would have helped me a lot more with marketing.

But I think some of the things that I talked about earlier. The more fundamental basic automations like your email calendars or I’m sorry, your, your calendar management, your.

[00:16:31] Calan Breckon: Oh, hi.

For those listening. For those listening, his son just walked on. Hi, how are you?

[00:16:39] Ricardo Gattas-Moras: Hi.

[00:16:39] Speaker B: Hi.

[00:16:40] Ricardo Gattas-Moras: What’s your name?

His name is Callan. And what’s your name?

I will say thank you for visiting us, baby. We’re just talking about the Rainbow Bee.

[00:16:53] Speaker B: But Poppy, I want to tell you something.

[00:16:55] Ricardo Gattas-Moras: Okay.

[00:16:55] Speaker B: When I get off Minecrafting talking to Siri, I could ask her to go back on Minecraft for me.

[00:17:03] Ricardo Gattas-Moras: Oh, wow. So he’s automating his Minecraft.

[00:17:07] Calan Breckon: Your son is automating his Minecraft. That’s amazing. That is perfect timing.

[00:17:14] Ricardo Gattas-Moras: Wow, that’s awesome. Well, thank you for sharing that with me. Hey baby, I’m gonna finish this business conversation now. Come out and talk to you. Can you go talk to daddy?

[00:17:22] Speaker B: Okay.

[00:17:23] Ricardo Gattas-Moras: All right. Thank you.

[00:17:25] Calan Breckon: That’s adorable.

[00:17:27] Ricardo Gattas-Moras: Okay. That was not planned by the way.

[00:17:30] Calan Breckon: Just wandered right in and you’re like, hello.

I love that though. That was actually perfect timing with talking about the book and everything. And the fact that he’s like, I found a way to manipulate Minecraft with Siri and he’s like, how old is he?

[00:17:45] Ricardo Gattas-Moras: Yeah, well, he’s just turned six.

[00:17:47] Calan Breckon: Okay, so six year olds out here, you know, automating everything.

[00:17:51] Ricardo Gattas-Moras: Yes, yes. Oh my goodness.

But yes. Okay, so back to the conversation on automation for the Rainbow Bee. You know, I think I used, I used a lot of tools to help me just remind myself on like the tasks that are happening, the things that I needed to do, creating automations within tools like Google Sheets, for example, and be able to track just like my interactions and what was I getting out of the interactions? What were some of the learnings that I got so that I could use those for future appearances.

I think that was probably the most basic way that I was using, using it back then. And also when we launched Rainbow V, I was still working in my corporate job, so I had to find as many ways as possible to try to save time and be able to balance both things.

It really didn’t make a difference.

[00:18:51] Calan Breckon: Nice. Yeah, I know I’ve been doing a lot of learning about N8N, which is, you know, basically bringing all these kind of AI models together and how they all work together. And this does this, and this does this and then it talks to this over here and setting all that up and it, it can be really overwhelming to, you know, begin that journey. But where I began was just kind of learning and getting curious like watched a botch, like a bunch of TikToks and just kind of getting familiar with it. And then, okay, I’m familiar with ChatGPT and I’m familiar with a couple, couple others building a, you know, building model. And how does this all work together so that you can slowly, you know, inch its way into your business and then eventually have like a personal assistant that does all these things for you. But it’s an AI and there’s a lot of, a lot of potential with automations coming out in that regard of kind of answering your emails or even just preparing your emails so that you then can come in into the drafts and then read it and going back to that. How do you personalize. You can go in, make it more personal, make it more yourself, and then send that email. There’s a lot of good stuff coming out these days.

[00:20:01] Ricardo Gattas-Moras: Oh my God, a hundred percent. And you know, I think there’s so many tools like you mentioned, I’m part of all of these newsletters and I try to stay up to date with all the different launches. And I think there’s not a day where a new startup or a new large language model like ChatGPT or others that are launching and people, I think it’s easy to get overwhelmed and understand what makes them different and why would I pick one over the other? And they each lean towards different strengths. You’ve got one that may be better at the research portion, while another one is better at writing and then another one’s better at like creating, making creative suggestions and you know, and making more customized solutions with like the GPTs or the gems and Gemini.

So it’s, you know, taking, I think, sometimes taking one task and giving it to all and seeing which one gave you the output that you think worked best for you and understanding, okay, this one does this better.

And then you try another task and then you start creating that suite of tools that you can start using on your ongoing repetitive tasks. Right, I’ll write my emails with this.

Well then get some of my creative brainstorming with this and then you start creating that system.

But you’re right, it does take time. And that’s where poppy company like us comes in and help you really kind of clean through the clutter and understand what are the right tools for you. I think that’s a question a lot of business owners ask themselves. Not like, what is the language, what does the language model do? But instead, which tools are good for me and how do I use them for my business? And then we help you narrow that down and identify that.

[00:21:42] Calan Breckon: Exactly. Well, speaking of, where can folks go to find out more and reach out to you?

[00:21:48] Ricardo Gattas-Moras: Sure. At our website poppymarketingandconsulting.com we also have an Instagram Poppy Marketing Consulting.

You can also find me on LinkedIn @Ricardo.Gattas and you’ll find all the different ways there to reach us.

[00:22:06] Calan Breckon: Fantastic.

[00:22:06] Calan Breckon: I’ll make sure to have all those links in the show notes for everybody. Well, thank you so much for coming and chatting with us about automation today, Ricardo. It’s been fantastic.

[00:22:16] Ricardo Gattas-Moras: Thank you. Thank you Calan for having me over and or, you know, on the podcast. And I’m glad you got to meet my son too.

[00:22:26] Calan Breckon: Thanks for tuning in today. Don’t forget to hit that subscribe button. And if you really enjoyed today’s episode, I would love a star rating from you. The Business Gay podcast is written, produced and edited by me, Calan Breckon. That’s it for today. Peace, love, rainbows.