Business automation recipes using Zapier!

Now we’re all back into the swing of business for another year; it’s the perfect time to look at how you’re working and to see how you could do things better.

For me, it’s all about business automation.

Yes, I know I’ve said it before, but that’s because I know how beneficial business automation is. I use it myself, and I encourage all of my clients to put processes into place to automate their business.

Honestly, who doesn’t love getting back time by allowing technology to do some of the work for us!

But when I mention automation, I’m often met with the same response – ‘Eek, I’m not great with technology, and this doesn’t sound like my thing at all’.

Well, let me assure you that automation will be the best thing you’ve done in your business for a long time when set up correctly.

Let me introduce you to Zapier

Zapier is one of my all-time favourite tools as it easily connects apps and software to automate your workflows.

When I say Zapier makes your life easier – it honestly does. Zapier takes care of all the complicated bits for you, so you don’t have to pull your hair out trying to work out extensive complicated coding. And that’s a godsend if you hate techy things (yeah!).

Commonly referred to as Zaps, Zapier allows you to connect the apps you use every day in your business. For example

• Google docs
• Gmail
• Slack
• Facebook Ads
• Quickbooks
• And over 3000 more!

Rather than manually performing routine tasks, you can set up Zaps to make this task work automatically for you.

What you do is:

1. Define a Trigger: e.g. you receive an email with an attachment
2. Define an Action: e.g. the attachment is copied from your Gmail account and saved in Dropbox (so you don’t need to move it manually, and you won’t need to search through emails to find the attachment down the track)
3. Repeat for any other things you want to automate

This is one example of the multiple ways you can get Zaps to work for you.

If you want to know how Zapier might be able to help your business use the explore feature on their site.

Here are some popular ways you can use Zapier with Thinkific

As online course builders who use and recommend Thinkific, we love how Zapier allows you to connect other apps to automate workflows.

Here are a few of the popular workflows you can use in Thinkific using Zapier:

Image Source: Zapier.com

Here’s how our clients use Zapier to automate their business

Clients work with us as they know that we build amazing online courses and show them how to do all the extra bits to make their lives easier.

Here are some of the ways we’ve helped clients use Zapier in their business:

• Creating Thinkific recipes to automate enrolments and workflows to commence in various email marketing systems from Thinkific triggers
• Creating recipes from Clickfunnels to various systems
• Integrating with Thrivecart and various systems to ensure that purchase flow occurs in a way that triggers the next process/system
• Slack notifications
• Dubsado workflows
• Asana or task management software (ClickUp, Trello) updates, task management and notifications
• Google sheet updates from triggers
• eCommerce triggers
• Calendar notifications triggering the ‘next’ step
• Databases being updated after triggers occur
• And the list could go on and on…

Why are they called recipes (yes, it’s a tad odd!)?

Each connection you create using Zapier is called a recipe. Most of us know recipes as a set of instructions we need to follow to create a wonderful dinner for our family (or at least attempt too…).

So, I guess it’s a bit like that – except it’s tech code food for our software programs!

You create zaps which are a set of instructions that are followed to create the end result (just like a recipe).

And that, in a nutshell, is why Zapier automation’s are referred to as recipes.

Disclosure: Some of the links provided in this blog are affiliate links. I only promote services that I personally use and love. I will be paid a small commission if you use this link to make a purchase.

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