November 2021 Summaries

At Zapier, employees use "growth workbooks" to track their career progress and celebrate milestones, but the author struggled to find examples of demonstrating job competencies after taking a parental leave, feeling like they weren't making progress. However, with the help of their manager, they were able to recognize their strengths and small wins, change their perspective on what growth means, get involved in various projects, remember that they have support, and not be too hard on themselves. By doing so, they learned valuable personal growth lessons that can be applied to others, such as recognizing the importance of acknowledging small wins, changing one's perspective on career growth, trying new projects, seeking support, and being kind to oneself.

This summary highlights how Derrick Reimer, founder of SavvyCal, co-hosts The Art of Product podcast with Ben Orenstein, sharing how they use Zapier and SavvyCal to streamline their podcast scheduling process, making it easier to schedule guests, prepare for interviews, record and edit episodes, and follow up with guests. By implementing these automation tools, Derrick saves approximately 30 minutes of work each episode, allowing him to focus on making a great impression with his podcast guests while maintaining high-quality production standards.

As a freelancer and solopreneur, the author has learned several key strategies to maximize their time and improve productivity. They start by dedicating the first hour of their working day to their "pet project", allowing them to focus on their own goals and complete tasks more efficiently. Clearing their inbox at the end of the week helps reduce distractions and increase motivation. Writing down business processes as they complete tasks enables effective delegation and scalability. Investing in good tools, such as custom-built computers and software like ClickUp and ActiveCampaign, significantly boosts productivity and profitability. Limiting email checks to before 8 pm allows for better work-life balance and reduces stress. Plugging into a wired internet connection provides a faster and more stable connection than Wi-Fi. Finally, automating tasks using tools like Zapier saves time and increases efficiency in sales funnels, task management, and social media publishing.

LinkedIn is often perceived as a complex platform for recruiting, but there are several free features that can help small businesses unlock its power. One of these features is the ability to browse profiles in semi-private mode, which allows users to see job titles, company, school, or industry without sharing personal information. Additionally, making LinkedIn posts public and using native search functionality can increase visibility and reach. The People Also Viewed feature shows profiles similar to the one being viewed, while adding pronouns to a profile promotes inclusivity and creates a welcoming work environment. These features can be used to find candidates, engage with them, and create a more inclusive workplace without incurring hefty investments.

Outgrow is a no-code tool that enables marketers to create interactive content such as quizzes, chatbots, calculators, and more, to engage audiences and generate qualified leads. Founded in 2016 by Randy Rayess and Pratham Mittal, Outgrow initially grew its user base by testing out different types of calculators and quizzes with companies before expanding into a range of interactive experiences. Today, Outgrow is used by businesses worldwide, including eCommerce and real estate developers, to convert leads into customers through customized templates and lead generation features. The tool also integrates with Zapier for workflow automation, allowing users to automate tasks and connect with other apps.

Referral marketing involves leveraging existing customers to attract new ones, often through incentives such as discounts or rewards, and can be automated using various platforms and tools like GrowSurf, Rocket Referrals, and Zapier. A great referral program typically has five core elements: referral incentives, referral emails, promotion channels, tracking and analytics, and automation. Incentive-based programs reward both parties, while referral emails share program details with prospective participants, promotional channels promote the offer, and tracking and analytics monitor performance. Automation simplifies management by reducing manual work and scaling growth. Launching a referral campaign can be daunting but offers cost-effective growth, builds brand awareness, identifies loyal customers, and pays off in the long run.

Creating a Zap system involves automating multiple processes by combining individual Zaps, which are automated workflows, to streamline tasks and reduce manual work. A Zap system typically consists of multiple Zaps that carry out specific jobs but collectively automate an entire process. Recognizing the need for a Zap system can be determined by signs such as successfully automating one or more processes, having unconnected processes, or having work split across multiple functions. To create a Zap system, it's essential to have a clear understanding of the workflow, identify areas where automation can help, and bring in stakeholders from various teams involved in the process. The process also involves figuring out who will build the Zap system, planning the workflows, and exposing the entire team to Zapier to empower them to use the tool. Once created, it's crucial to organize and maintain the Zap systems, monitor for issues, and scale automation across the business.

The author, a headhunter with 30 years of experience, emphasizes that hiring decisions are among the most expensive and high-impact managerial decisions, often made without much training or data to support them. The author advocates for a structured hiring process that involves defining clear hiring criteria, measuring each criterion separately, summarizing assessment results, and hiring the candidate with the highest score. This process includes sourcing candidates through various tools and resources, conducting short screening interviews, holding job-fit meetings, conducting decision-maker interviews, testing candidates' skills, checking references, and making a final hiring decision based on evaluation results. The author also emphasizes the importance of considering team fit and taking into account the candidate's expectations, competencies, and experience.

Zapier has recently added several new apps to its platform, including Sage Accounting, Skipio, Holded, LIME Go, Zomentum, Razorpay, Waitwhile, QuickEmailVerification, SavvyCal, Akiflow, Climate Benefits, Troop Messenger, Ideta, TRAFFIT, Agiled, Ebby, Docspo, and Clearstream. These new apps offer a range of features such as accounting software, conversational business texting, sales tools, financial solutions, virtual waitlist management, email verification, scheduling software, personal task management, climate programs, instant messaging, and AI chatbots. Additionally, Zapier has also updated several existing integrations to include new features such as notes and documents in EZLynx, subscription updates in Paystack, expense tracking in Scoro, and spam reporting in MailerSend.

When Rochi Zalani began working five-hour days due to COVID-related fatigue, she noticed that her productivity didn't decrease despite the shorter hours. In fact, she found that she was getting just as much done in five hours as she used to in eight hours when she recovered fully. Rochi's experience is not uncommon, with other studies and experiments showing that reducing working hours can lead to increased productivity. However, a more recent experiment at Tower Paddle Boards, where employees switched from an 8-hour workday to a 5-hour workday, had less-than-ideal results, with three out of nine staff members quitting within 90 days. This highlights the importance of considering individual circumstances and outlook when deciding whether to reduce working hours. While some people may find that shorter workdays lead to increased productivity and happiness, others may struggle to adapt or see a decrease in output. Ultimately, it's essential to weigh the pros and cons and consider personal factors before making any changes to one's work schedule.

When starting Render-Atlanta, a Black-owned engineering conference aiming to boost inclusion for underrepresented engineers at developer conferences, the founder aimed to rapidly scale while ensuring anyone on the team could implement new ideas without needing to learn code. The automation tool Zapier was chosen to help achieve this goal, and a process called "Funimation" was developed to create more efficiencies and contribute to the bottom line through engaging and empowering internal teams and external customers. Funimations are automated processes that incentivize customer participation in exchange for additional data, yielding better business metrics. These can be linked and layered with other technologies to integrate rich data across multiple business reporting and analytic tools. To create a funimation, one must go through five distinct steps: discovery, exploration, connection, collaboration, and building. The founder shares three examples of funimations used by Render-Atlanta to streamline customer and staff experiences and create joyful engagements, including automating promotional code discounts, capturing social media interactions in a Discord channel, and creating a world-class help desk process. By adopting funimations, companies can achieve their objectives while making work more enjoyable for everyone involved.

Publishing thought leadership content on owned properties allows for complete control, the easiest monetization, but also limited reach and high maintenance. Long-term lease sites offer excellent audience growth, short-form content opportunities, direct conversations, and organic content creation, but come with a risk of losing control over or access to content, and being in an absolute cesspool. Vacation rentals provide outreach beyond potential customers, social proof from established platforms, but involve cumbersome selection processes, editorial guidelines constraints, and platform ownership of content. Diversifying across these types of publication properties can help build a robust thought leadership portfolio.

Competition can be both stimulating and fun, but it's not everything, especially when it affects relationships, mental health, or work. The author, who played soccer in college, reflects on how their competitive mindset affected their team dynamic and personal life. They learned to curb their competitiveness by taking a step back, identifying the root of their hyper-competitiveness, talking themselves up, and shifting their focus from winning at all costs to supporting and cheering on their teammates. By doing so, they improved their relationships and work environment, recognizing that their coworkers' successes are also their own, leading to more wins for everyone involved.

B2B marketing can be slow, hard, and perceived as boring compared to B2C marketing. However, Jess Saumarez from Stephenson Law has found success by humanizing their marketing strategy through various channels such as social media platforms like LinkedIn, TikTok, Clubhouse, and Reddit. By showcasing personality, creating a personal experience for audiences, working with influencers, and prioritizing transparency, B2B marketers can make their brand more relatable and trustworthy to potential customers. For example, Stephenson Law uses Instagram to showcase their employer branding, Twitter to highlight their tech specialization, and email automation to personalize content recommendations based on audience engagement. By taking a more human-centered approach, B2B companies can differentiate themselves from larger competitors and build a loyal following among their target market.

The CAP theorem is a concept in distributed systems that describes the trade-offs between consistency, availability, and partition tolerance. In the context of engineering teams, it can inform how to make decisions about code sharing, collaboration, and autonomy. The CAP theorem states that it's impossible for a system to simultaneously provide more than two of these guarantees: consistency, availability, and partition tolerance. When applying this concept to teams, the trade-offs are similar - teams will prioritize either consistency (shared codebase), availability (autonomy to ship changes quickly), or partition tolerance (allowing teams to work independently). Engineers can use this framework to make informed decisions about how to balance these competing demands, considering factors like project requirements and company culture.

Growing up in a small Dutch town in Iowa, the author developed a love for supporting local businesses and was raised with that mindset. The author now runs a Local Business School, helping local business owners open stores and leverage digital tools to support their growth. Many people want to support local businesses but are often overwhelmed and busy, making it necessary to provide a reason to choose them. To encourage this choice, creative digital marketing strategies can be used such as creating a digital shopping guide, going live on Facebook or Instagram, adding holiday spirit to social media feeds with Reels, emailing subscribers regularly, and incentivizing last year's customers to return. These tips aim to make holiday shopping enjoyable and easy for customers, with the ultimate goal of making local businesses successful.

I deleted my Facebook and Instagram accounts and found that my brain had built in pathways to spend time on social media, but after a couple of days, the habit subsided, and I was able to regain control over my time. I've been using the extra time to read more, take care of tasks around the house, and focus on work, which has improved my productivity. The benefits of deleting these apps have outweighed the losses, including missing certain features like Facebook Marketplace and funny posts. I encourage others to consider deleting their social media accounts or taking a break from them, even if it's just for a short period, as alternatives are available to help manage notifications and distractions.

Freelance designers can be an incredible asset for projects, but also pose challenges such as communication barriers and varying levels of expertise. To improve collaboration with freelance designers and increase project success, it's essential to clarify design project goals before hiring, write a comprehensive design brief that communicates your vision and expectations, have a design resource file ready to go, agree on decision-makers, value the designer's process, and provide feedback that moves the needle. By following these steps, you can ensure a smoother collaboration with freelance designers and increase the chances of achieving project success.

Automating tedious tasks at work has become more accessible with no-code automation tools like Zapier, which integrates with thousands of apps from partners like Google, Salesforce, and Microsoft. However, many workers are hesitant to start automating their workflows due to concerns that it will change their responsibilities at work. The truth is that automation will indeed change the way you do your job, but these changes will make your work more productive and fulfilling if you target the right tasks for automation. Robotic tasks, such as copying and pasting data or creating folders based on a template, are well-suited for automation and should be the primary targets for automation. By automating robotic tasks, workers can create more time for mindful work, which requires uniquely human traits like creativity, analysis, strategy, and thoughtfulness. With the right Zaps, workers can automate tasks such as sending routine progress updates or creating documents from templates, leaving them with more time to focus on core responsibilities that require CAST skills. Adopting automation is not about replacing people, but rather about replacing tasks by codifying, replicating, and improving processes that already work well. By starting small with a few quick automations, workers can make their day easier and eventually build systems that help their entire team work better together.

Pocket is a bookmarking tool that allows users to save articles, videos, and websites for later reading or review. With its browser extension, email integration, and third-party integrations through Zapier, Pocket can be used as a powerful task manager and organizational tool. Users can organize their content by tags, favorites, and archiving, and integrate it with other apps like Gmail, Twitter, and Slack. Automation through Zapier enables users to automatically save new RSS items, create tasks from saved items, send content to third-party notes apps, track saved items in a spreadsheet or database, share Pocket items with others, and receive a digest of new Pocket items via email. By leveraging these features, users can maximize their productivity and stay on top of their reading list.

You don't need dedicated screen recording software as most operating systems already offer this feature, but some may provide additional features like cloud upload and editing capabilities that can be useful for specific use cases. Windows 10 has the Game Bar, which allows users to record their screen with a simple keyboard shortcut, while Android phones have a built-in screen recording function that can be accessed by swiping down from the top of the screen. Macs come with a built-in screenshot tool that can also be used for screen recording, and iPhones and iPads have an optional Screen Recording feature in the Control Center. For more advanced features and editing capabilities, consider using dedicated screen recording apps.

The author is reflecting on the upcoming end-of-year review and encourages readers to take a structured approach to their marketing audits, which should include identifying what worked, what didn't work, and what they want to try next year. The audit should cover six key areas: objectives, channels, campaigns, workflow, resources, and outlook. By analyzing these areas with thought-provoking questions, marketers can gain insights into their past year's work and make informed decisions for the upcoming year. The process is designed to be simple and accessible, even without fancy tools or a lot of time.

Zapier is a no-code automation tool that allows users to connect their apps into automated workflows, enabling businesses to move forward at growth speed. Common errors with Zapier can be found in the Zap editor, email notifications, and the Zapier dashboard. Errors often appear when testing each step in the Zap or when using an app that requires specific permissions. Troubleshooting common error types such as 4XX and 5XX errors can help users resolve issues. The best way to avoid many of these error messages is to troubleshoot before starting to use a Zap, by checking fields, app connections, and account permissions. Users can access help docs for Zapier or specific apps in the App Directory, and also check the Zapier status page for updates on system, app status, and incident history. By following a troubleshooting order of operations and seeking assistance from Zapier support or experts when needed, users can resolve errors and get their Zaps back on track quickly.

Building companies is hard, but it's also a journey that can be filled with growth, learning, and adventure. To succeed, founders need to care deeply about the problem they're solving, prioritize their own well-being, recognize the reality of impostor syndrome, cultivate discipline in their work, and adopt a mindset that views the entrepreneurial journey as a continuous process of improvement and self-discovery, much like a brisk walk or hike with friends. By embracing these principles, founders can overcome common challenges and build successful companies that bring value to others.

Streak, a CRM tool built into Gmail, has implemented Zapier integrations to meet the needs of its users who rely heavily on automation in their daily work. The integration results in 20% lower churn rates and 3x higher lifetime value for accounts that use Zapier. To enhance this experience, Streak utilized Zapier's App Directory Element to showcase its Zapier integration and inspire discovery among users. This was achieved through a plug-and-play solution that allowed Streak to customize their app directory with just one line of code. Additionally, Zapier's Automatic Account Creation feature enabled seamless sign-up for new users without having to leave the app. Furthermore, Streak adopted Zapier's Partner API to build a customized end-to-end user journey, allowing users to connect their Streak pipelines to thousands of apps within the app itself. The partnership between Streak and Zapier aims to provide users with the best way to be productive through co-marketing campaigns.

Google Calendar is evolving to accommodate the shift towards remote and hybrid work, adding features such as setting your work location, splitting your work hours, using the out of office feature, setting Zoom as the default video conferencing app, and creating focus time. These changes aim to improve flexibility and productivity for remote teams by allowing them to set boundaries, manage meetings, and stay focused during work hours. By adopting these features, companies can better support their hybrid workforce and help them thrive in a changing work environment.

You're considering hiring a Zapier Expert to streamline your business processes and automate tasks, but you're not sure where to start or what to look for in an expert. You'll want to decide if you need a generalist or specialist, someone with industry knowledge, and whether you prefer an embedded or external expert. To find the right fit, search for experts in Zapier's Expert Directory, filter by location, project, and budget, and reach out to candidates who match your needs. Be prepared to provide a clear plan of action, resources, and authority for the expert to deliver successful automation results. You'll also need to manage the automation process, budget for automation, and ensure success during and after implementation.

Many online businesses focus solely on acquiring new customers, neglecting their existing ones who have already chosen them. However, these loyal customers are often the cheapest and most valuable lead sources. To differentiate themselves from competitors, businesses need to create a unique brand experience that surprises and delights their customers. One effective way to achieve this is through personalized direct mail, which can be particularly effective when used in conjunction with digital marketing tools. By leveraging surprise and delight tactics, businesses like Morris 4x4 have seen significant increases in revenue and customer loyalty, often with returns of up to 18.5 times the investment. To make direct mail successful at scale, businesses should send targeted campaigns to inactive customers, provide clear offers with expiration dates, use templates for design, and integrate their direct mail app with other tools in their tech stack.

The author, a web designer at Mr. Technique, uses Zapier to automate form submission checks for their clients' websites. This automation saves time and reduces inbox clutter by sending an email to the client as soon as a form is submitted on their website. The process involves setting up a workflow in Zapier that connects with Gravity Forms, the form provider used by the author's clients, and sends an automated email to the client using Gmail. The automation includes dynamic data from the form submission, such as the visitor's name, which makes the email seem personalized. By automating this task, the author can focus on other tasks and follow up only with submissions that were not received by the client.

Automation is a valuable tool for businesses, but it faces resistance due to people's fear of change. To overcome this, it's essential to understand how employees work and craft processes that are tailored to their needs. Effective communication, securing buy-in from key influencers, avoiding overcomplication, and empathizing with the people affected by changes can help drive innovation without scaring staffers. By taking a human-centered approach and being honest, direct, and compassionate, businesses can successfully implement automation and achieve bottom-line growth.

Streak is a flexible CRM tool that lives inside Gmail inboxes, designed to manage pipelines without having to constantly switch between apps. It was founded by Aleem Mawani and Omar Ismail in 2011 as a solution to the chaos of multiple services. The founders created a CRM extension for Chrome to solve their own sales needs, but soon found it used across various industries and workflows. Today, thousands of customers worldwide use Streak across different fields, offering custom views, search, filtering, and sorting capabilities directly in Gmail inboxes. Users can also track and share interactions with each other, personalize pipeline stages, and automate workflows with Zapier to unlock more value out of their CRM.

Customer reviews are crucial for the success of any business, as they can make or break trust with potential customers. With the rise of online search, customers now look at reviews before visiting a store or website, and negative experiences can lead to a loss of business. To overcome this, businesses must automate their review collection process, from managing sales leads to sending out customer satisfaction surveys and requesting reviews from satisfied customers. By implementing automation tools like Zapier, businesses can streamline their processes, increase conversion rates, and improve the overall customer experience. With these systems in place, businesses can delight their customers and inspire positive reviews that will attract new customers and drive growth.

EmailOctopus is a popular email marketing platform that helps businesses grow their audience and send personalized newsletters. Founded in 2014 by two brothers who wanted to simplify and make email marketing cheaper, it has since helped over 70,000 organizations send more than 15 billion emails. The platform offers a range of features including a drag-and-drop editor, automated onboarding sequences, customizable forms, analytics tools, and integration with other apps like Zapier. With its focus on value for customers rather than shareholders, EmailOctopus partners with non-profits to fund coastal cleaning initiatives and offers a 20% lifetime discount to these organizations. By providing a streamlined way to design and send emails, EmailOctopus aims to help businesses build beautiful emails and grow their audience.

Keyboard Maestro is a tool for creating shortcuts and macros for automating tasks on Macs. It offers customizable keyboard shortcuts and actions that can be triggered by various triggers such as hot keys, mouse gestures, or even file movements. While there are free alternatives available, Keyboard Maestro is considered the most intuitive and expansive option at $36. Users can create their own custom shortcuts and macros using a user-friendly interface, and the tool has been replaced other apps like TextExpander and Magnet for its creator. The app offers one-key macros that can be triggered by number keys on the numpad, making it ideal for users who want to automate repetitive tasks with ease.

The Georgia Innocence Project uses automation to help staff and volunteers focus on their core mission of helping people wrongfully convicted of crimes, by streamlining processes such as collecting information from many places, sending emails, printing envelopes, creating case files, and tracking phone calls. The team uses tools like Zapier, Google Forms, Google Drive, Clio, and Webhooks to automate tasks, reducing manual work and increasing efficiency. By implementing reliable systems, clear processes, and consistent information, the Georgia Innocence Project is able to manage complex cases and appeals, while also saving time and resources. Automation has become a foundation for focused work, allowing staff to dedicate their time to supporting the team and developing policies that enable them to get work done effectively.

You can use automation with Zapier to save time when managing purchases and communicating with customers in online businesses. To start, ensure you have the right permissions in both PayPal and Mailchimp apps, and consider upgrading to a paid plan for premium features. Four ways to automate tasks include adding new customers to your mailing list after successful purchases, sending follow-up emails for refunds, organizing customers into segments for future email campaigns, and filtering by transaction type. You can create custom Zaps using these automation methods, exploring thousands of apps and workflows in Zapier's software.

This summary provides an overview of how Zapier's partner tools can enhance a user's experience by providing a seamless integration with popular productivity and workflow automation apps, such as CRM tools, online form tools, and project management platforms. The tools allow users to discover available integrations with their app, automate workflows, and manage their Zaps directly within the app, reducing friction points and increasing adoption. By using Zapier's partner tools, businesses can provide a more streamlined experience for their customers, ultimately leading to increased user engagement, retention, and revenue growth.

The "red flag" meme and other popular Twitter meme formats can be inaccessible to users with screen readers, which can lead to a poor user experience. To make your web content accessible on Twitter, consider the following tips: using single images without text in the tweet itself, adding descriptive alt text to every image you post, tweaking GIFs to include more accurate and inclusive alt text, avoiding red flag emoji spam, and being mindful of formatting when creating aligned text memes or using special Unicode characters. By implementing these adjustments, you can ensure that your tweets are accessible to users with screen readers and provide a better experience for everyone.

Halo Cars, a rideshare advertising startup, was founded in 2018 by Kenan Saleh and his co-founders. The company allowed drivers to earn extra money by installing Halo Cars hardware and displaying ads on and in their cars. After testing the concept during college, they took the company full-time and raised funding. Halo Cars grew rapidly, but its early growth was fueled by a high-touch onboarding process that involved manual interventions and hours of work per driver. The team turned to automation with Zapier, a workflow automation software, which allowed them to create custom automated workflows to handle these manual tasks. By automating the process, they reduced their hands-on time from hours to minutes and increased scalability. The team found that people were excited about the automation, as it eliminated an annoying process that everyone had to do. After introducing Zapier, the team continued to automate other processes, including sales team workflows and equipment issue reporting. Even after being acquired by Lyft, the company relies on automation with Zapier to connect apps like Airtable, DocuSign, Twilio, Google Sheets, and Google Drive. Kenan considers Zapier as "the glue" that ties their systems together, using it to send data into Airtable and trigger workflows in other apps. The team uses Zapier to save countless hours of manual time, which would have been difficult to quantify but is estimated to be tens of thousands of hours over the lifetime of the business.

The author is frustrated with the experience of having multiple Zoom meetings in a row and wants to find a solution to close unnecessary tabs. They discovered an extension called "Zoom Closer" that closes the "Launch Meeting" tab after opening a Zoom link, providing a convenient solution to this problem.

A writer and developer reflects on their experience of burnout, feeling guilty about having a good job while struggling with mental health, and how they eventually took time off to focus on self-care, recognizing the importance of prioritizing mental health and allowing themselves to feel emotions without judgment.

The Product on a Page is a concise document that communicates the core value of a product to both business and customer stakeholders, facilitating a common understanding across marketing teams. It answers questions like "Who is this product for?", "What problem does it solve?", and "What does success look like?" while distilling the essence of the product story into a single page. The document includes sections such as Business objective, Target buyer, Market problem, Solution summary, Value proposition, Supporting benefits, Customer KPIs, and Complement to core value, allowing marketers to work their magic and get their audience on board with the product's strategic overview.

A dance instructor made a significant impact on the author's life, causing him to cry due to her mean behavior. However, she failed to convince him to continue working with her, and he believes that being mean is not an effective way to get what one wants from someone who is trying to help. On the other hand, being kind and empathetic can lead to better customer service experiences and a more positive interaction. The author shares two personal anecdotes illustrating these points, including a recent experience where he remained calm and patient with a difficult customer, earning the gate agent's gratitude and respect.

As a data scientist, Kristie uses automation with Zapier to simplify her personal and professional life. She shares nine examples of her favorite Zaps that help her automate tasks such as creating a vacation to-do list, tracking movie releases, getting package delivery notifications by text, managing virtual family hangouts, knowing what activities are happening around town, and more. These automations use various triggers, filters, and actions to streamline Kristie's workflow and save time. By using Zapier's integrations and automation tools, she is able to focus on the things that matter most to her and reduce stress in her daily life.