Imagine a world where businesses run like well-oiled machines, with tasks and processes seamlessly automated to boost efficiency and productivity. This is the promise of marketing automation, a rapidly growing trend involving technology to streamline and optimise the various operations in your business.
While the benefits of marketing automation are clear, many are wondering if it threatens the human workforce. Will machines eventually replace humans altogether, leaving us jobless and powerless? Or is business automation simply a tool that can help us work smarter and more efficiently?
In this episode, we discuss if automation is a tool or a threat with Chris Davis. Chris is a highly sought-after marketing automation consultant and advisor who developed a systematic approach to building automated marketing systems inside businesses.
Chris shares his insights on the impact of automation on businesses and the workforce. He also sheds light on the benefits and challenges of automation, and how businesses can balance efficiency and humanity.
We delve into how automation can enhance the human workforce by allowing us to focus on higher-level tasks, and how it can also create new job opportunities in industries related to technology and automation.
Join us for this thought-provoking discussion on the role of automation in business, and whether it is a tool we can embrace or a threat we should fear.
IN THIS EPISODE, YOU’LL FIND OUT…
- Autopilot Office – what is it? (04:47)
- What are the best tools for your business? (05:45)
- How to leverage your existing process (08:30)
- Separation of automation from innovation (14:20)
- The process of hiring technology for your business (18:35)
- Must-check marketing automation tools (27:58)
- How to know if you’re ready for automation (30:58)
- Email marketing automation platforms (35:22)
- AI in business – is it a good or bad thing? (39:30)
- Is it worth hiring people who know how to use AI? (43:37)
- The considerations of automating your business (48:38)
QUOTES
- “Being forced to make changes created the space for making more changes, which has allowed me to be much more fluid with the program.” -Brent Williams
- “Speaking business is one of the most difficult ones to do because of the work that we do, there’s an ego in that.” -Brent Williams
- “When you start putting other people on stage, not only do other people start to see them differently, but they start to see themselves differently.” -Carl Taylor
- “The biggest challenge as an entrepreneur is our mindset.” -Carl Taylor
Resources
Get In Touch With Chris L. Davis
YouTube: https://youtube.com/@automationbridge
LinkedIn: https://linkedin.com/in/businesschris
Podcast: https://automationbridge.com/podcast/
ABOUT CHRIS L. DAVIS
Chris L. Davis is one of the industry’s most highly sought-after marketing automation consultants and advisors. With a unique background in electrical engineering and leadership roles at major startups like Leadpages and ActiveCampaign, Chris has helped numerous startup companies raise a collective of over $157 million in the capital.
Combining his technical and marketing expertise, he developed a systematic approach to building automated marketing systems inside businesses to maintain a lean operational footprint while experiencing enterprise-level revenue scale.
Passionate about empowering marketers, Chris created a membership community that serves as an ever-growing online resource, equipping digital marketers with the tools and techniques they need to automate any business’s marketing effectively.
TRANSCRIPTION (AI-Generated and may contain inaccuracies)
Chris Davis Snippet (00:00):
We’re still very much ahead of the game. There are so many industries that will need to catch up. So there’s a huge opportunity in taking AI, taking the technical acumen into these other industries and really helping them operate more efficiently. Everybody deserves higher efficiency in their business and operations. The only way that I know the only route is through automation.
Carl Taylor (00:38):
You are listening to another episode of Entrepreneurs Rising. And today’s episode, I’m really looking forward to this conversation. We have an amazing guest, his name is Chris. And I’ll tell you all about him in a moment. And he can say Hey, bud, if you’re watching on video, you can probably see him right now. Just give him a wave, Chris, for those who are on video.
You can hear that laugh that smile. Look, Chris. Chris L Davis is amazing, a highly sought after marketing automation consultant. But one of the key reasons that we are having this conversation today is he’s got his own podcast. And on that podcast, he recently did an episode talking about the idea of technology. And whether you’re firstly, are you the right person to be considering what technology should be in your business, which I think that is a fascinating topic to unpack. And secondly, addressing hiring of technology in the same way that you hire a team. And that’s something that I’m fully believe in. And I think a lot of business owners get wrong. And when we’re in our pursuit of trying to build a business that can work without us, you ultimately have two key things that you need, you need tech and you need team. And if you are not doing that the right way you can get yourself so caught up, you can cost yourself a lot of money, you can hold yourself back.
So that’s why we’re having this conversation with Chris. So let me let me tell you a little bit about Chris. And then he can say, hey, I will get deep into this conversation, guys. So Chris L. Davis is one of the most highly sought after marketing automation consultants and advisors in the industry. And he’s not lying. This is amazing. He has held leadership positions within numerous stops including, and these are platforms, I’m sure you’ve heard of LeadPages and Active Campaign, which has enabled them to raise a collective of over $157 million dollars in capital today. As the founder of automation bridge, Chris now teaches marketing professionals how to deploy automated marketing and sales systems to maintain a lean operational footprint while experiencing enterprise level revenue scale.
Let me just say that bit again, maintain a lean, operational footprint while experiencing enterprise level revenue scale. And that is the power that technology and automation technology. And it’s being magnified by AI now. Kim Do so Chris. Hey, good to see you, buddy.
Chris Davis (02:55):
Carl Oh, man, it is a pleasure, an honor to be on here sharing the microphone and virtual stage with you. Listeners, I know you’re big fans of Carl. And we connected back in the Ontraport days reconnected in the Active Campaign days. And I have to say it’s been such a joy to see your evolution from Blogger to solopreneur to service as a business in a scalable way. But all in the automation space. It’s like you just continue to find the value and meet the value. And I’ve been a huge cheerleader and fan from afar man and now friend and guest on the podcast.
Carl Taylor (03:45):
Well thanks, man. That’s really really really kind of you and yeah, I mean, it’s it’s been a journey in in the automation space of the tech marketing automation space in particular, you know, and ontrack we’re talking about the Ontraport days if anyone listening was around even earlier than that, you know, I’m talking about before it was even called Ontraport back when it was set for setting pepper and offers auto temper
Chris Davis (04:07):
oh my goodness since Pepper was like the little the email marketing version that’s office I started
Carl Taylor (04:11):
I started on the $29 a month and peddler account that’s what I started on. Garlic. Pepper. I did not forget Yes. save yours. Save Yeah, yeah, then upgrade and I love that all the different names. I’ve got to get landed come on the show. You were talking we were talking about? Like, I think the first one level was I don’t remember what it was called. But then the next one up was like habanero. It was all different like peppers of chilies. Known Americans. Maroon red for the bread. Oh, I remember it now. Good. And it was really it was just talking about. We’ll get into the conversation. But for those one of the best strategies and I’ve told Landon this numerous times, and Len is the CEO of Ontraport. One of the best things they ever did is they gave a free trial of Office Autopilot they said hey, try office or apart all its features for 30 days, and if you if you don’t like it, you can go back to your old plants at no extra cost, just keep paying what you’re paying, I think at the time was maybe 3040 bucks a month. And this was a plan that was like $297 a month. And I was like, Whoa, I don’t know if I’m ready for that. So anyway, I tried it out, explored it played around saw some of the cool things that could do.
Ultimately, when my 30 days was up, I was like, no, no, no. And I downgraded went back to my my chief plan, I’d say that probably lasted about three months, when all of a sudden is like, I want to do this thing, and I can’t do it. I know I can do it. If I upgrade. One of the best. I don’t know how effective it was for everyone. But it wasn’t very effective. For me, that got me on the full platform. So let’s, let’s talk about platforms. Let’s talk about tech, Chris, because you and I have been in this space for a long time. And you constantly you actively work with business owners all the time trying to help them identify the best tools. And actually, that’s, I just said it myself. But that’s one of the things that I’m sure you’ve heard this yourself. I see it on Facebook all the time. Someone comes to you and goes, what is the best landing page builder? What is the best email marketing tool? What is the best? Insert whatever? CRM right, what is the best payment platform? I know my response to that. But Chris, what is your response to that?
Chris Davis (06:23):
It’s it’s simple. And I got it from a copywriter. What it does is a masterful way to deflect the focus back on you being clear. And it’s too late to words. It depends. Every, every single time because I try to explain to people that’s like you coming up to me saying who? It who’s the best husband? Who’s the best wife for me. I don’t know what your preferences are. short guy over there.
Right. And everybody in everyone, everybody who has dated in any capacity knows sometimes the worst advice comes from your friends who are like I found somebody for you, you know, you look and you’re like what made you they would be compatible with me. And I say I would love it. Because this is literally what happens with technology. People it’s it’s, and what I say is this, that to help people know that I’m not trying to beat you down. There was a there was a time in my life where I was in college, and I went to the grocery store and I was so hungry, Carl, like I was starving. And I walk into her skirt. Now I’m a college student. So I only have $5 in this $5 has to last like a week. Everything looks good, Carl, everything, the crackers, the ice cream, the vegetables, like I wanted everything. And that’s what I see business owners doing. They’re so hungry for revenue. They’re so hungry for growth, that they go into the online space. And all of the software looks good.
Oh, I need that you see app Sumo. Oh, look at that deal. And they have no idea instead of saying okay, before I go to this grocery store, let me make a list of everything that I need. So I can be very focused, go and not waste my money because I have finite, my money is finite. And then go in and satisfy my list. I tell people do that with your tech First, understand your needs, your considerations, and take that in assess the technology specific to you. Because Carl, there’s great software out there. But if I recommend great software that you or your team doesn’t know how to leverage it then becomes poor software.
Carl Taylor (08:57):
Sorry for Sorry, the number of people and it’s still true even in you know automation NT when we’ve got clients, we not that strategic partner so we don’t necessarily get in to see it. But you see these people who have bought this tool they might even had a powerful platform being Ontraport beat Active Campaign via keep slash Infusionsoft. So like they’ve had it for years. And they’re just scratching the surface they’re using it as a glorified like MailChimp send out an email. That’s it.
So it’s this great platform that’s really being underutilized and not not delivering. And I think what you said like I love that because the number of times I’ve said to people and I think you say the same thing to people is just like your if you’re you’re looking to hire some software or you’re looking to hire a person, what do you do you typically write up a job description. If you don’t know what the hell the job description is you at least Google around and you’d look for some example. today’s day and age, you’d ask chat GPT to write you one. Like you get a job description and then you read it you add a few things that are relevant to you, and you’re clear, you’re like oh, this is what I’m looking for. You can out to the market with that.
Well, hiring a piece of technology is exactly that, like people think I buy technology, especially in today’s world of SAS, you don’t buy Jack, you hire it, you rent it. And so, it, you need to do the same thing. You go, this is a role. I have a role in my business, maybe multiple roles. Here’s what I need done. And from there, you can work out, is it something I can do completely with tech? Is it something I have to do with Team? Is it something I can do with a team member who’s empowered by tech? Or is it a bit of both? Like this part can be done by tech, this part has to be done by team member? So do you have a process that you take your clients through when it’s like, Alright, I want to buy some software? Yep. What do you do? What do you reckon
Chris Davis (10:42):
I do in the first thing is kind of the the positioning because if you think about it, buying is, is the cheapest position, because I’m looking for the value add that the software can give to your business, I don’t buy a person, I hire a person.
Right? Like we’re beyond those days. So what would happen is if I hire you, carl, this is known to everybody, if I hire you, I’m now expecting you to perform at some level. And if you don’t perform, I’m then going to fire you and go hire someone else to replace you. So that’s the first conversation we have as I start to change the existing narrative around the approach to software and technology. And really let them know we’re going to be let’s figure out who we’re going to hire for this task. So the first thing I need to do is what I call process extraction. And that is a fancy way of saying document your existing process. Because that’s everything.
What are you currently doing those steps become my specs. So I’m from the engineering space. And whenever we built a motherboard or any kind of circuitry, we had a spec diagram, and we had the voltage and all of that, before you could build anything you needed all of your specs aligned and clearly printed. So those are processes. So there’s a lot of engineering parallels. If there’s an engineer listening, you’ll hear those come out. But those steps that you take become my specs, I take those specifications, and then say, Okay, what technology can do this.
And that’s just the first step, Carl, once I have an idea of what type of the steps that you’re taking, and a rough idea of the of the technology, before I say, Oh, this would be good. Now I have to talk about your team. Hey, who’s on your team? And more specifically, Carl, there’s only two people I’m concerned about. Are you working with a digital marketer? Yes or no? And do you have a VA that’s acting as a digital marketer? Yes or no? That’s it. If you tell me that, we’re doing like a logic chart here.
My next question is, okay. Do you want me to work with that digital marketer? Or do you want me to assess their skills for you? Because I know you didn’t. And usually there’ll be like, No, they’ve, I’ve trained them. They’re working with me. So I think they’re pretty good. So essentially, I say, okay, and our sister marketer anyway, so I’ll say let’s get on a call, and I have their marketer on the call, Carl, within five to 10 minutes. I can ask questions, like, one of them could have been synth pepper. Hey, have you heard of synth pepper? What’s that? Well, I know how long you’ve been in the game. Right? Like, okay, this is a newer person. Alright, so how about Infusionsoft? What’s that? Okay, now we move up sometimes. So you only know of keep in kartra? I know what kind of marketer you are, you get what I’m saying. So now, when I know that acumen of the person responsible for the marketing, that is the ultimate piece of information that I need to then say, Okay, I think this would be the best technology for you.
Carl Taylor (13:53):
Yeah, I love that. There’s so much about that about you. And I really hope listening to you heard that that one of the first thing that really stood out was that the first spec is about your current processes. We haven’t we haven’t talked about future wants and things you want to add to the process is that comes later that comes. But the beginning is what do you currently do? You know, something I’ve often said is you need to separate automation from innovation.
You got to you start by automating what you do, then you go and innovate. And if you start mixing innovation automation together, that’s when stuff starts to go wrong. And so that’s even just we’re not even starting to automate, we’re just looking for some technology. Now obviously, you know, Chris and I come from a very marketing world so when we’re talking about this, we’re going to be talking a lot of marketing examples. But this same concept will apply if you’re looking to apply something you know, in your in your inventory space, or you know, finance space or some other technology in your business.
So, if you’re not if you feel like you got your marketing stuff sorted, which you probably don’t but if you feel like you do, and you’re looking at some other place, take everything we’re sharing and applied into that space. So he’s he’s gone and worked out what’s what is the process, then he’s also who’s going to be using this tool. That’s kind of what you’re talking about who’s who on the team is going to be using the tool and let’s get a gauge of how sophisticated Are they are they advanced how long they’ve been in this space for like, because I’m imagining this is kind of what you’re alluding to Chris, if you go and get this bells and whistles tool, and the team member who’s going to use it only knows how to use it, like sending an email campaign and that’s it, then you’ve over bought the product, you probably could have just gone with a basic product in the beginning that they know how to use absolutely,
Chris Davis (15:41):
Carl, there’s a there’s a example I’ll share that is very applicable to what we’re talking about. And it was a startup, it was the I partnered with VC firms a lot of times to help get help them get the most out of their startup portfolio. So I’ll come in to do trainings for their startups on marketing and sometimes do some one on one work with startups. And this particular startup needed a platform like Active Campaign, they needed the flexibility of automations didn’t really need the CRM, but they were what they truly needed.
Active Campaign was the perfect fit, what we ended up going with was MailChimp. And it was 100% because there was no, Carl, when I say nobody on their team, they were getting confused with creating a filter and label in Gmail.
Now, if you can’t create a filter or label or if that’s like mind blowing to you, you’re not going to be able to handle a beast like Active Campaign. It’s just it’s not it’s not simple and straightforward enough. So as painful as it was as painful as it was, I recommended it and guess what they could use it, they adopted it quickly and started getting results. I had to couple it with like type form and do some, you know, some integration, but they were happy, I was kind of cringing, you know, as an expert, I’m like, but you can have so much more, but understanding where I knew they would need to go. Also made sure that you know, we had appropriate use of air table and everything to document so when they outgrew it, there was a path into.
But that was almost a year ago, Carl, they’ve had two rounds of fundraising, and have got the money that they put up both times using MailChimp. So listen, everybody, it is painful for me to say this Don’t Don’t I get I take no joy in in recommending MailChimp. Just so the world knows, there are certain platforms that I cringe internally in my soul, it does not rest well. But again, I have to be agnostic, Carl, and the end goal is that you get a return on your dollar spent on technology. That’s, that’s, that’s my job. So if by using MailChimp, you’ve been able to raise two rounds of funding. I know you could have raised those two rounds of funding with Active Campaign and probably been a lot more leveraged. But you didn’t have the team to truly leverage that technology, you’d have been confused and not made progress.
Carl Taylor (18:15):
Yeah, that is so true. And that again goes back to what is technology there to do it just like hiring a team member there is certain outcomes you’re looking to get from it. And without the clarity of what those outcomes are you going to potentially get yourself stuck or into a mess. And I think it’s important to note that when we’re assessing a tool, you want to look at what you currently need. You do want to also think about well, what might What do you plan to go in the next 12 months, because you might go and get yourself especially in a CRM system, once you start building things into that your automations it’s a really costly in time and money exercise to migrate to another tool. So don’t get don’t don’t listen to this and go okay, well, I’m just gonna go and get MailChimp like the best thing you could do is go and talk to Chris or listen to listen to this episode over again and really get clear on what you need. So you can decide on the tools.
I want to talk about, I think I know your views on this, because you mentioned a little bit in your podcast, but let’s talk about free software. How do you feel about the free tools versus the paid tools?
Chris Davis (19:19):
Listen, I will I will never be against a free anything free trials, they all have their place. The problem is you can’t make a fortune off of free. Okay, at some point you’re going to have to pay to play. And as long as you understand that I’m okay. So let me put myself in this so that I can be on the on the operating table as well. I have no problem investing in software because I look at it as I’m hiring them. And Carl, when you do a comparison, let’s take Project Manager software, right? If I’m leveraging that accurately and I say, Okay, I’m paying $8 per seat, maybe I got four people on my team $32 a month for this platform that does X, Y, and Z. a month, Carl $32 a month? What human?
What do you mean? Could I get that level of output from for that amount? So this is why I have no problem ever paying for software. However, I still find myself when there’s a freemium model at play, trying to get the most out of it. So my example I get into that you got you, right, you’re looking at the plans, right?
Carl Taylor (20:37):
You go, here’s the free plan. Here’s the paper. Okay. I kind of want that feature. But is there a way I could just make it all fit into the lower price?
Chris Davis (20:47):
Do I really need it right? I promise you, I get caught up in it, too. So I’m an avid airtable. User, I say it every time they just sent me a t shirt. I’ll talk about them so much. But I just love the use case of it. And I was using it for like a year on the free plan, Carl, because my my record limit I hadn’t exceeded and I was really just learning it. And it wasn’t until I started using it in a capacity where revenue depended on it.
Carl, I went from paying $0 for this thing, and paid an entire year like $24 a month, which equate to like 1000. So that’s zero to 1000. But the key was, I used it to the point where it was pivotal and instrumental in me generating revenue. That’s what I see. Here’s the problem, Carl, what I see most people do is stick with free, even if they sacrifice their revenue. And it’s like, no, well, the minute that tool has proven I am valuable to your your company, in the aspect of generating revenue is now in its now the cost of doing business. I’m paying 1000 It’s that.
Carl Taylor (22:03):
And it’s like a team member, you give them a pay rise, right? You’re doing you’ve proven yourself, you’re doing well. Let me give you a pay rise and how you actually feel that pay rise. I’m hoping you’ll step up and move into positions.
Chris Davis (22:13):
Yep. So I still look for the free the free trials. But I do it with a different intention. I’m just trying to see, okay, can you be valuable to me? If I have a seven day free trials, 14 day free trial, and I use it and kind of forget about it. I don’t need to pay for it. You know, but me oftentimes, Carl, there’s not I can’t remember the last free trial I did. Because I’m very clear on what I need. I’m extreme, I will take time out, I’ll create a spreadsheet, I’ll do all kinds of stuff to say, Okay, what is it that I really need from this tool? What does it not do? And I just did this a comparison between Calendly that I’m currently using in another software scheduling tool. And I say, Man, I feel kind of tempted by this tool. Let me jot down everything Calendly does and what this tool is promising. Let me see what the overlap is and what the benefit like I do all of that before. So for this tool, I’m not even looking for a free trial. If it does everything that I need to that Calendly does anymore. I just go by it. Because I already know I need it. Yeah.
Carl Taylor (23:19):
Yeah it was just came to mind, this could be an interesting discussion, because there’s a obviously, this is not a new trend, but I see it pick up now in the world of in the marketing tech space, around 2011, or whatever there was maybe like 5000 tools, if that probably the probably less than that that existed. Now there’s probably over I don’t know what the latest martech landscape picture thing is, you can find that on, we’ll make in the show notes, we’ll make sure we got a link to the there’s a there’s this company that put out these martec pictures of all the different tools every year, we’d be in the hundreds of 1000s, if not possibly millions of tools now. And so the trend is from a business owner is I just want one tool that can do it all. I just want the simplicity.
So like what made me think of that is you you’re talking about Calendly the number of tools now that will try to do what Calendly does, plus be your funnel builder plus be your email marketing tool plus, like so one tool that comes to mind is go high level, right grow high level is, you know, try to be Hey, instead of paying for all these different tools, just pay us this fee and you’ll get everything included. And that’s not a new trend. I saw it with people who were like I want Ontraport to be everything I want Infusionsoft to be everything.
But when we think about our businesses and these tools like hiring for a role I’m trying to think in my there’s not too many times in my company in business journey that I would go hey, I’ve got this one person who does this, and this other person who does this. I’m gonna go hire this other person to replace those two people and give them more responsibility. Now I might do that with say an agency. I know people. Do that with automation. And so you know, they’ve got a graphic designer they’ve got or whatever. And they’re like, well, actually, I’ll replace all of them with his agency, that’s a different story. But an individual, I can’t see how often I would go,
I’m gonna get rid of these two employees and replace them with this one person who can do it all, it’s usually the opposite, I have this one person who’s currently doing it all. And they’re not doing it all that well. So I’m gonna bring in the specialist to do the other little pieces.
So why are we doing it differently? We have technology, why are we going I want the one tool that does it all? What are your thoughts on it? So it’s just an interesting conversation?
Chris Davis (25:33):
First off, let me say, Can you hit the nail on the head, because for me, I’m trying to compartmentalize my team as much as possible, okay, these are your tasks, just do those tasks. Because then you you get the reps to your benefit, you know, it takes 1000 hours, I think to master something, well, if you’re all over the place, I’m sacrificing 1000 hours of you doing this thing really well and become a really valuable in my business. But here’s here’s the here’s the what I believe the causes. One is the cost of software people still, because they buy it, they still don’t have the investment mindset when it comes to software. Right. So there you have. So that’s the first thing.
And the second thing is they simply don’t know what they need. In their me specifically, I work with marketing and sometimes sales, but what they need in their marketing, most people are very poor, to know marketers, they’ve never done any marketing, they started a business because they did everything that you need to do at the Secretary of State and all of this stuff. And they think posting on social media is marketing. So they literally Carl have no idea of what they truly need a platform to do. So again, back to the grocery store example, here, this platform comes as the as a buffet, go high level, look at all of this food, and you can eat it at any time, not knowing you’re lactose intolerant. So the milk is no good to you. You just told me you’re a vegan. So x off that steak, chicken in in Turkey there. So though they’re offering all of this stuff, you actually only can use two of those things. Well, if that’s the case, carl, there’s two tools that do those two things very well, individually. But again, way better and better.
But I don’t know. I don’t it was it was it Shakespeare to say Know thyself, something along those lines. They don’t know when you think of their business. They have no idea. And if we get down to it, Carl, I don’t know. I’m speaking from their perspective. I don’t know what moves the needle in my business. And I’m hoping this all in one covers everything that I need to magically move the needle. And it’s not the case, man. Never is.
Carl Taylor (27:55):
Yeah, that’s, that’s profound. Like it’s true. And so what’s talking about marketing automation platforms, and let’s talk about what does move the needle then.
Chris Davis (28:05):
So right now, it’s so interesting. It so go back down memory lane. With me, Carl, if we go back to the sin pepper Office Autopilot in Infusionsoft days, they were the only platform available if a small business wanted to get into the game with marketing automation. There was nothing else. You had a Weber that the internet marketers were using. So I think it was Jack born that did AWS tools to give you some automation, but it couldn’t touch Infusionsoft and Ontraport. Now, they came at a hefty price tag of $300 a month. Back then Carl, people are still cringing at $300 a month. That was back been like what, six, seven years ago when Tech Times like seven years ago?
Carl Taylor (28:48):
No, I think I think we’re talking 10 years ago, I think release 10 Oh, yeah. 20 actually 12. Because 2000 I think it was about two I just sold my IT business or just before I sold my IT business in 2011. I had sent pepper because I use sandpaper for my book. My first book, red means go, I needed to offer bonuses and stuff. And so sending paper was a tool I was using. So we’re talking 20
Chris Davis (29:15):
So that was the landscape curl. So all in one wasn’t just a convenience. It was the only way. There was no other way for you to get your hands on marketing, tech marketing automation, without going all in one and Active Campaign. And I believe that’s why they started to get so much traction was the first platform that kind of broke free from that and said, we’re just going to offer pure marketing automation. We’re not going to do any of that other stuff. We’re not getting just marketing automation. So it’s interesting now to see them trying to do all of that stuff. So when you right now, so just so everybody knows, Carl and I come from that space, we’ve had that experience. I’ve gone to the entrepreneur I think I was at the first entrepreneurs I’ve gone to the in the icons and in marveled at how people used in Fusion soft to build an eight figure business, you know, and and we looked at the Infusionsoft campaigns that look like spider webs and drooled. Wow, they must be really smart. You know, I can’t even trace those lines that has to work. Right? It’s just laughable. Back in the day.
Carl Taylor (30:21):
The hint the hint for your listeners, if you’re like, I’ve no idea what they’re talking about right now, the hint is, the more complicated the automation, the less likely it was working, the more chance that was going to break. But in those days, it was almost a bit like I see people looking on Facebook. Now there’s ads everywhere with like, download my chat GPT prompt guide with 20,000 props, which is absolutely going to be worthless to you to be honest, you don’t need 20,000 prompts, you just need to know a couple of cool things that you can do with it. And some examples. You don’t need all these prompts. But it was like that, like people sit there and go, Oh, my God, I need that. When really that’s actually absolutely amazing.
Chris Davis (30:58):
Then we transition into the new age where Office Autopilot at the time now Ontraport, Infusionsoft now key really had a stronghold on the small business market. Technology was not evolving, like it is now. And Active Campaign comes in and says, Hey, you see, although that automation stuff those platforms can do for $300. Hmm, I can do all of that and more, and I’ll do it for nine bucks. How does that sound? nine bucks a month, and you’ll get a free Zapier account. It’s like that’s a no brainer. Sign me up. Just make sure you can do all those things. So Active Campaign introduced the idea of take that all in one and just focus on marketing automation and do that well. And I think that they were trailblazers in that sense.
And I feel like ever since then, the two things that have happened are the cloud, the evolution of cloud technology, right? People are a lot more savvy with developing on the cloud, and then people’s willingness to exchange information in us online technology has increased. So you bring those two back yes into it. And you start to see the landscape start to change. Now. Active Campaign, I was at Active Campaign in 2000, to 616, from 2016, to about 2019. I think maybe up until 2021 is where they really and towards the beginning of 22 is where they really just dominated the market. I mean, they were listening to their audience, product development was at an all time high. I mean, it was it was it was a great joy. You know, in fact, you and I connected there when you use a Certified Partner and, and all of those things. So that was then. But this is now Carl, you see go high level, isn’t it just disrupted?
Carl Taylor (33:02):
Oh, they’re starting to dominant. They’re the ones that’s date starting to dominate. And the listener just makes you bring this back to the listeners. If you’re like, I’ve never heard of go high level, you may or may not have like, if you’re in the agency space, and you haven’t heard of a high level, you should go and check it out. Like, I don’t personally white label it, but it is hand built for agencies. So if you run a digital marketing agency, and you haven’t looked at go high level, take a look at it, I’m not telling you that you should use it or not. But it’s worth looking at and exploring. But for everyone else you might be using the tool without knowing it. Basically go high level allows you to white label, they submit white label means someone else can put their own name and branding on it and they sell it to you. And so we see a lot of coaches, a lot of other agencies who are providing their clients with these full blown automation platforms called I can’t remember some of the names of these tools.
But yeah, they’re powered by what they are is go high level just with some change in the paint and a few little customizations and so you’re probably possibly using the tool or you know someone using the tool and it is ultimately go high level under the under the covers. So it is it reminds me their development speed reminds me of active campaigns back in the day, there was a time when active campaign it was like almost every week there was a blog post with his new feature and it was It wasn’t just a little like tweak it was a brand new Whoa, cool. Like this is great. This is going to change things. And it is you know, I’m a big fan of Active Campaign have been for a long time. It is sad to see that they have lost some of that that momentum over the years. But I still think you know it for the right use case. They are a great tool, I believe you agree. And when we’re talking about all in one’s Ontraport, too, you know.
I remember being very skeptical of Landon when he told me his vision for something that he wanted to do and I told him that to his face. But what Ontraport has been able to build is in my opinion outs will actually been far better than how I level and quality.
I don’t know I could be wrong. I’m not as savvy across all the millions of tools that exists now. But I think they’re one of the best, if not the best all in one tool on the market today when it comes to all in one. But there’s so many tools out there. And I personally not Nestle a big believer in getting your
Chris Davis (35:21):
I mean, again, you’re at right now in the small business space. We’ve doubled the offerings, we went from Infusionsoft and Ontraport. We now have keep in Ontraport, office out of hide, not Ontraport Active Campaign go high level, those are going to be your main players, right ConvertKit comes in to convert kits and drips, they’re out there what are called email marketing automation platforms, because they’re still email address centric, and custom fields don’t sink in, there’s some custom field limitations. But at the end of the day, the space is evolving fairly slowly, but we’re starting to see it pick up because what go high level does is they didn’t focus on the all in one. They are an all in one, they focused on the offer to the agency. Right? They’re pricing, everything is agency friendly, instead of creating a platform, then making it accessible for agencies.
And we see it Carl, what platform Have we ever used. Infusionsoft didn’t get this right Ontraport didn’t get it right Active Campaign didn’t get it right, where you can create a clone of your account and easily deploy it. I remember the days were only Digital Marketer, I had like a license to do this with the machine that they were teaching. And it was like revolutionary that you could sign up. And then they could push all their campaigns to your Infusionsoft account. And it was like super technical man, well go high level, they have snapshots. It’s literally like a couple clicks of a button. And if you have your variables in the right place, you can literally create an entire business automations landing page and everything with a click of a button. I’m not even selling go high level because I don’t use it.
But I’m just aware of these tools. So when you look at this, Carl, we’re talking about you asked about marketing automation platforms, when you look at it now, here’s the shift. This is hot off the press. I haven’t even talked about this on my podcast yet. Here’s what’s happening. If you if you think about web development, what happened to web development many years ago, is happening in marketing automation, right now in software. So we went I learned how to code HTML and build websites using Dreamweaver, right, so I can go in there.
You can hit preview, and even have split pains if you wanted to, and kind of see live updates and everything. And what happened then then then there was blogger blogspot.com. And it gave you a website, it gave you a blog site, and you can kind of do some HTML in there to make it make it look better. But you got closer to the finish line faster. Then WordPress started to develop. And we had thesis in Genesis, as as marketers were like the frameworks don’t do don’t get a website theme, use a framework thesis, look at all these hooks and all technical stuff, right?
I used to do the hooks after the blog post, put the update everything This was revolutionary back then no car, we were like cutting edge. And then what WordPress end up doing was opening up to page builders. Now you can get a full website up and running without writing a single line of code. So the coding has been eliminated from the space. Why did I bring that up? Because if you think about automation building as writing code, we’re seeing the same thing, Carl, the people who can write code are not as valuable now than the people who can provide the platform. People are not specializing. And quite honestly, if I’m speaking frankly Nam saying is knowing I have a program that teaches people how to build automations. But quite honestly, there’s not a lot of there’s not a lot of upside in being the doer. It’s just not I’ll be honest with you. And I know you’ve seen it and you’re
Carl Taylor (39:23):
I have an agency that we are 100% doers. That’s what we do. We are the doers. And this is this is this is probably worth having guys, this is an honest conversation about evolution of business. I haven’t talked about this openly either the rise of AI and chat GPT now GPT if you’ve listened to this and you haven’t heard of chat GPT then I’m not quite sure where you’ve been. But if you haven’t gone Google it right now. There’s plenty of videos I don’t need to explain what it is. But GPT and GPT three had been around for years. But chat GPT which came out in November 2022 from memory what it did It made accessible and showcased to the marketers and the various other people, developers of the world who hadn’t played with the API’s yet of GPT realize just how easy it was to interface with this AI tool. But they might have heard it oh, there’s these API’s for AI. But most people, myself included, would have assumed it’s quite technical, you know, you’ve probably got to code up and train. And then what chat GPT is showcase that actually, all it is is simple, sending some plain text English, and then it responds and it showed just how powerful it could be.
The moment I started playing with chat GPT, instantly my brain and I played around with the can code, you know, it can write an HTML page, it can write, copy, it can write all these things. The moment I played with it, the first thought in my head was eventually, and it’s probably not too far from now. We’ll see tool. So imagine a tool like Active Campaign, where when you log in, there’s a chat interface, you can say, hey, I want an automation that does this, this, this, this and this. And it just goes and builds the automation for you.
Now, someone I was chatting to someone literally just last week, I didn’t know this apparently HubSpot are beta testing, just that right now. They have a chat bot in their tool where you can talk to it, and it will build an automation. I haven’t used it. I haven’t seen it. I don’t know how good it is yet. But that just like here we are in. We’re recording right now in April of 2023. So you know what this is like, what six months from when I first played with chat GPT and said this is coming, the speed in which what’s happening. And it’s true. Like my business, we’ve had numerous conversations inside my business going, why would a client choose to work with automation at and send us a task to build a landing page, which we might take two or three days to do when they could chat to an AI and tell it what it wants. And it might it might not give them as good as what we do. But they can get 80% of what we do. And they get it done in five minutes. Like just put we’ve had these conversations in terms of like put your shoe on your own foot? What would you do, you can use an AI tool and get it done in five minutes.
Or you can send a task to a human team. And so we leveraging AI internally, we’ve offered we’ve added AI copywriting to our clients, which is powered by GPT. So we’re short term doing that. But long term, this AI is going to be completely disruptive to business. And it’s a huge opportunity as entrepreneurs to look at how do we use AI in our businesses? Automation, NC just just an aside, we put our first bit of AI proper AI classification 2016 I think it was we built a classifier so that when people were sending emails, tasks into us, we used to have a human talking about a roll, right? We had a human who would every time a task was sent in via email not using our web platform, we would have to figure out is this a design to ask is this a website like which team do we send it to? So we had to have a human dispatcher. And the problem was, well, the human dispatcher, we had one person on Philippine timezone. We had clients all around the world. So do we hire three people in different timezone so that 24/7, we can dispatch this because the longer it sits dispatching, the less it’s being worked on. So the slower the turnaround.
I was we were ready to hire three people in different time zones wasn’t ideal. And then I found some AI technology, I hired a data scientist she came in, she trained the AI to understand all the emails we’d received over the time, classify what’s design, what’s where, what’s automation. And so since 2016, we’ve been using that, but I hadn’t touched it. I didn’t touch any more AI tools until chat GPT came along, and I was like, Oh, I got to start using this more. So
I think that this is a valuable conversation for people to know is if you are like, you know, me and a little bit of Chris, Chris is a bit more on the strategic side. If you’re an agency or you’re someone who’s focused, you’re a virtual assistant, and you’re a doer AI, while it is a threat. On the long term, potentially, in the short term. Someone said this recently, it might have been Ryan Deiss. He’s like, You think AI is coming for your jobs know someone? Yes, powered by AI algo is coming for your job.
So you knowing how to use artificial intelligence or as business owners knowing how to hire people who know how to use artificial intelligence that is going to it’d be changed the game, it’d be gone all sorts of places.
Chris Davis (44:23):
Because if you think about it, most business owners are not techie. And they definitely don’t know marketing. So but they just need tech and marketing done for them. So the opportunity is you’ve got to get on the AI train, right? Because if the if the value in doing is is cheapening or lowering I’ll say, Well, that just means I what I could do for one may need I mean have to do for five to meet that same quota. Well, to your point, if I’m powered by AI, I can probably do for 10 Instead of just five and now though The the value, the cost of it has gone down, my overall revenue has gone up because I’m powered by this very thing that if I stayed in that current state would have been cannibalistic to my business.
So what what I’m seeing now is that that approach, Carl is changing. And go high level as part of this is changing how people even interact with building a system or getting a marketing system in place for their business. Now, it’s no longer let me build it, let me code it, it’s more like give it to me, and either teach me how to run it and manage it, or you manage it for me. I just want to tell you, I want to send an email, and it gets done. Now watch this, Carl, put it all together. Imagine a world on our side, the ones implementing, right? You say sure, we’ll get that done. And all you have to do is describe it to your chatbot, you know, to your AI. And it’s done.
Here, right and yours, how it gets done, it got done. And what’s exciting about HubSpot, that you mentioned is that it also will go and create segments, it will get data for you. This is This is revolutionary because one of the my main gripes with marketing automation software, is that for all of the data that it collects, why do you make it so hard for me to visualize it? Why do you make it so hard for me to access it in a way that I can use it to grow my business, so AI is coming to disrupt that. And I’ll say this to everyone, marketers were always the first to use and abuse technology, always. I mean, you
Carl Taylor (46:40):
abuse is very true, what the market is, is it’s usually you find a good thing the market has come in. And as I say that, as a marketer, Christian, I say that as an ruiner of things,
Chris Davis (46:55):
I get it, I’m okay, I can admit how I am and how we are as a collective. So the upside is for my marketers listening to this, we’re still very much ahead of the game, there are so many industries that we’ll need to catch up. So there’s a huge opportunity in taking AI, taking the technical acumen into these other industries and really helping them operate more efficiently. That’s really what we’ve been focused more on. And automation brands because we’ve changed our model from you know, automate your marketing sales, the right way used to be kind of like the theme, to now it’s just as simple as making automation accessible.
That’s it, everybody deserves higher efficiency in their business and operations. The only way that I know the only route is through automation, but the appropriate use of it, you know, and now we have aI again, that’s a that’s a partner. So it becomes for me, Carl, last thing, my my company automation bridge, it was marketing technology, and then the overlap of that, then you add automation. So a three circle Venn diagram marketing, technology, and automation. Now, if you imagine a fourth circle, just coming right on down, and now it’s the fourth circle Venn diagram, AI, where all four of them intersect, that’s become the space. By no choosing of my own, I just can’t ignore the impacts that AI has the conversation that we just had just talking about Chet GPT puts us in the top five percentile of humans on Earth right now that know about it, you know, so we’re extremely early. So let me do do my due diligence and make sure that people understand how to leverage both AI and automation, you know, for their business success.
Carl Taylor (48:39):
And I think we’ll end on this like chat GPT you even while we were saying all this and Doomsday, there’s threats, because let’s be honest, like business, always, there is always threats, always new things, new competitors, new whatever that’s happening. Regulations can change like business. If you go call, I’ve sorted. Someone who recently said success is rented. It’s so true. Like if you’re super successful.
There’s no guarantee that tomorrow you’re going to continue to be you’re renting that success. I’m renting my success. I’m well aware that my financial success, my business success is on rent. It could be taken away from me one day. And so an AI and chat GPT in particular was a big like, oh, it hit me like I was triggered as I was like, oh, okay, I’m gonna lose it all. That was my first indirect I’m gonna lose it all. And then I calmed down. I was like, Okay, it’s a tool. And just like we’ve talked about in our space, in my space, in particular, in Chris’s, in my space, I’m surrounded by marketers, it’s easy to forget that chat. GPT is not known by every single person on the planet.
Every business is, I’m sure the savvy businesses that are exploring it. But it’s a tool and you can say to chat GPT if you’ve played with it, you can say write me a sales letter, and you’ll get something that’s okay. Or you can say, act as an expert copywriter. Write me a sales letter in the format of a new feed it the example you want and He put in all this extra stuff and you’ve asked to leave the garbage in garbage out is what some people have said like the the quality of what goes in the prompts, is what changes the output. And most business owners, most marketing teams, most companies don’t want to learn it. I personally still don’t like I’m enjoying it, but I don’t really want to learn it. I’d rather hire someone who knows chat GPT better than me.
And I just tell them what outcome I want. And they use the tool to get me the opposite. And that’s the true of my clients. That’s That’s how we’re approaching it automation. And see, it’s the same with with Chris like it’s so it’s a threat. But it’s only a threat. If you don’t pay attention, you don’t learn how to use it and you don’t adapt.
Chris is adapting and his business were adapting and our business. So Chris, you mentioned automation bridge, you’ve mentioned a few things I know you’ve got a really cool resource that people can check out. And I also know you’ve got a podcast that I think others listening might want to check it out. So tell us how do we get your cool results
Chris Davis (51:00):
made it easy for you all I’ve got one, one website, one URL to give. And it should be easy to remember given the podcast that you’re listening to now that’s automation bridge.com, forward slash rising, r i s i n g automation bridge.com. Forward slash rising. And when you go there, you’ll be able to download a five point automation checklist. I’ve taken all my years of experience building automations and said you know what, if there were the five things that I always check, what before I hit live, I put those in a nice, easily consumable downloadable for you, you can even print it off and keep it next to you. If you’re working with a marketer printed off, give it to him, say make sure you check these boxes every time you build an automation. Once you get that you’ll also be added to my database where we send a weekly, we send weekly emails and a monthly newsletter. But on that site as well, you’ll be able to subscribe to the All systems go podcast where I interview founders like Carl, and the likes that have both agencies services, or software, or digital marketers to leverage to automate their marketing for success. We have a good time, if you’ve enjoyed some of the analogies I use if you can tolerate my laugh and smiling and just having fun on a podcast. You’ll love that podcast. I do it every Thursday. So automation bridge.com, forward slash rising and get you access to it all.
Carl Taylor (52:25):
I love that. Chris, thank you so much. This has been a great conversation, we’ve gone in various different directions. And I didn’t know where we were going to end up. Let’s just quickly summarize, we talked about technology is really the great analogy of just like hiring you or you’re not buying software, you’re hiring software. And we’re talking about software. We’re also talking about hardware tech, it can be hardware, too. So you’re not buying it. You’re hiring it’s got a job to do.
We then reminisced about the good old days of marketing automation. And if you you got lost in the weeds when we’re taught telling those stories. Thank you for sticking with us. If you loved it, or you came on that journey, I’d love for you to reach out to us and let us know just so we know that you were around and we might maybe even No, you just say Hey, Chris, all right. And then we kind of wrapped it up talking about AI and really how we have to pivot and really take this seriously, it’s a part of the technology space, it’s going to make your business better. But it’s going to be a probably a bumpy road for some on the journey to get there. So let’s all buckle in our seatbelt.
Chris Davis (53:33):
Absolutely. They’re still businesses not leveraging the internet, you do not want to be that business with AI.
Carl Taylor (53:45):
It’s very true. So we’ve had we’ve had a great conversation, Chris, I love this conversation. Dear listener, thank you for tuning in. And if you’d like any notes, transcript from today’s episode, or links to some of the things we’ve talked about that so if you’ve already forgotten what Chris said, for where to find his resource, you’ll find it at rising dot show that rising dot show. That’s where you get all the show notes from today’s episode, you can find previous episodes and show notes there as well.
If you’ve liked today’s conversation, or there’s someone on your team, or someone in your network, who you think needs to hear this conversation, find the little Share button on whatever platform you’re listening to this right now and share this episode with them. Put it on social media, get it out, send it as a direct message, whatever you need to do to get this shared to those who need to hear it. And if you’ve enjoyed the podcast and you’ve listened to a few episodes, this is not your first episode. Leave us a review. Let us know what you think good bad, the ugly. It could give me a one star you can give us a five star whatever you think it’s worth would just love to get your feedback.
So thank you so much. Until the next episode, let’s keep up the journey and make sure you check out Chris’s resources over on his website. Thanks, man.
Carl Taylor Outro (54:49):
You’ve been listening to Entrepreneurs Rising. Thank you, dear listener for tuning in. I appreciate your time and look forward to connecting in future episodes. If you would like show notes or any resources from today’s episode, you can find them at rising.show rising.show. You can find a show notes for this episode and all other episodes as well as links to socials and or the ability to reach out and connect with me make your suggestions for future episodes. Until next time, keep up the journey.
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