When I start working with a new client, I'm never walking in with a preset, one-size-fits-all solution. I'm showing up the way a doctor does before making a diagnosis; asking questions, listening carefully, and trying to piece together the most accurate picture I can before recommending anything.

Excited to share that I'll be speaking at ZapConnect on Sept. 23, hosted by Zapier!

Every week I talk to small business owners who want to implement AI. And the first question I always ask is the same:

Why?

Not to be difficult, and not to make them feel stupid, but because "implement AI" isn't actually a goal. It's a solution in search of a problem.

Ah, the Five W's. A foundational framework that's been taught in journalism for over 100 years, and one I haven't stopped using, even though I haven't worked in journalism for years. Turns out it's just as useful for documenting business processes as it is for writing a news article.

Last week I shared my thoughts on the Airtable acquisition. This week, a natural conversation has emerged that's less about Airtable specifically and more about something bigger: what happens when a tool you've built your business around changes in ways you didn't choose?

First, what do we know definitively? Bending Spoons has agreed to acquire Airtable.

What is speculation? Literally everything else.

This week I recorded the first two videos in a new series I'm calling the Essential Guide to Zapier. It's built specifically for people who have never built an automated workflow before, people who have maybe heard the word "automation" or "Zapier" but aren't quite sure what it means or where to start.

Manual lead research is one of those tasks that sounds manageable until you actually add it up. A Google search here, a LinkedIn dig there, maybe a quick scan of the company website. Fifteen minutes can quickly turn into a half an hour or more if you go deep. And if you're fielding ten new leads a week, that's potentially hours of prep time, hours that scale directly with your pipeline and eat directly into everything else.

Closing a deal feels great. Someone said yes, the agreement is signed, and the money is coming. A lead just became a client, and that's always a win worth celebrating.

And then, if you're not careful, things get messy. Not dramatically and all at once, of course. It's more subtle than that.

The deal closed, but the handoff didn't happen.

Somewhere along the way, as email volume grew and work became increasingly online, the inbox became a to-do list. An email comes in, gets a quick scan to make sure it isn't urgent, and then gets marked unread as a little flag to come back to later. Hours pass, sometimes days, and the flag gets buried. The mental note fades. And in the background, there's this anxiety of wondering: did I actually follow up on that?

Posting consistently on LinkedIn is hard. Coming up with things to post about is harder. But here's the thing: it doesn't have to be.

Here's something that might sound counterintuitive: the sign of a truly great system is that you don't notice it.

Think about an offensive line in football. When they're doing their job well, nobody's talking about them. The offense moves. The quarterback has time. Things just flow. It's only when they're giving up sacks or committing penalties that they become the story. The best ones are practically invisible.

A great system doesn't have to be complex. It just has to be repeatable, frictionless, and actually used by the people it's built for. It has to work.

Wherever you are right now, whether you're one person or a small team, there's a move available to you. It doesn't have to be the flashiest one. In fact, it shouldn't be. It doesn't have to involve AI or custom code or anything that requires a tutorial to understand.

What would you do with an extra hour a week?

You might be thinking, "It's only an hour." True, but that's four hours a month, 12 hours a quarter, 52 hours a year (you get the point). It’s time you could spend landing new clients, building new products and services, or pursuing a new idea. Or time you could be spending with family and friends. Or reading. Or sleeping.

I’m not here to tell you what you should spend that extra time doing; I’m just here to tell you that if you’re a small business owner, that hour exists. It's just buried under busy work, and automation is your tool to help excavate it.

Since getting laid off last fall, I've been heads-down building Process Power Up, working with some incredible clients, and doing some of the most rewarding work of my career. Now I'm ready to open things up a bit more and I have a few updates to share!