#1 Rule: Simplify then Automate

Most leaders want automation… until they realize their own process is the biggest thing standing in the way. In this episode, Alane and Micah break down one of the most common patterns they see inside companies: trying to force new software to fit an old, overly customized process.

They talk about why leaders get attached to “the way we’ve always done it,” how human teams naturally smooth out messy workflows, and why those same messy parts become major blockers the moment you try to automate. Alane shares real examples from clients who built processes out of necessity—stringing together spreadsheets, hacks, and workarounds—and now struggle to let go of them, even when a better solution exists.

Micah walks through the shift every business needs to make: instead of hunting for the “perfect tool” that matches every nuance of your current process, rethink the process itself. Start with the desired outcome, simplify the path to get there, and use the software tools that already exist (instead of building custom systems that take months and drain budgets).

If you’ve ever found yourself saying “our process is too unique to automate”—this one’s for you. You’ll learn how to simplify workflows, choose the right tools faster, reduce complexity, and finally unlock the automation potential sitting inside your business.

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Transcript

Alane Boyd (00:02)
When you want to automate a process, obviously, Micah, as you know, need software to do it. You can't automate people. But I see leaders a lot of the times really struggle to shift their mindset from this is my process and I need to find a software to fit this custom thing that I built instead of changing their process just a little bit and having an amazing

extra powered software behind them to do it, which would give them the ability to automate even more.

Micah Johnson (00:32)
Yes. I'm so glad we're talking about this today, Alane. I don't know. This is this kind of thing has been in the back of my mind for a while because I see it often. as you said, you know, we, we get an outside view of a lot of the companies that we work with and the clients that we talk to. And so from the outside perspective, we're like, Ooh, just change that one thing. And this would be so much easier. Yeah.

Alane Boyd (00:50)
Mm-hmm.

You're making it so complicated.

Micah Johnson (01:02)
but they get stuck or feel like they can't, you know, I don't really know what it is. But yeah, I mean, it's the same, it happens so many times. It's instead of making that one change and being able to use an off the shelf software, it turns into this six, 12 month project of, well, this isn't gonna work.

This platform's not gonna work. This software's not gonna work. And it's all because they're fixated on keeping their process exactly the same instead of adapting it ever so slightly.

Alane Boyd (01:30)
Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

yeah, you might be eight weeks just trying to pick the right software. what are the best ones on the market? Pick one and go. And just make some slight changes to your process. I mean, there's so many times when I see what a potential client is doing and I'm going, my gosh, this is so, this is so difficult, so complex.

Micah Johnson (01:47)
Yes.

Alane Boyd (02:00)
And I can see why they had it that way because when you're doing things manually and you're kind of piecing things together, you're hacking things from different softwares and you're, and you're just trying to get your team moving in the same direction, then it is a bunch of random things. And you did kind of build this system to work for you because you didn't have it any other way before. That doesn't mean it needs to stay that way when you're moving to

a new software product and moving to an automated process. A lot of that shit can go away.

Micah Johnson (02:33)
Yeah. And I think it's a lot easier to say, Hey, we have a team of humans and the humans are going to be able to kind of massage the rough edges out a little bit. And it's going to work when you go to automate, even with AI agents, the rough edges create issues. creates a problem and it creates questions or decision decisions that humans are.

Alane Boyd (02:44)
Mm-hmm.

Micah Johnson (02:58)
Just go, do this every day, day in and day out. And in my head, it's a simple five step process, but when it's actually automated or mapped out, now it's a 20 step process because if this happens, we do this. And if that happens, we do this. And so as the operator of the process, it can feel really easy and simple, but when you try to automate it and that's where I think that the issues happen is like, yeah. Now this.

Alane Boyd (03:15)
Mm-hmm. ⁓ yeah.

Micah Johnson (03:26)
This software, ClickUp is not going to work for us. Monday is not going to work for us. Asana is not going to work for us because we have all of these nuances. So flipping the script and saying, well, instead of how do we find the right tool, how do we change our process to be suited for automation should probably be the question that a lot of people should be asking themselves.

Alane Boyd (03:35)
Right.

Yeah, I mean, it sounds really simple to say it that way, but it is really difficult. And, you know, Micah is just thinking through like, what is a way to overcome this mindset? Because we've been in that predicament before and it wasn't until we started forcing ourselves to prepare more before we just said, let's go build this for ourselves. And we started like, ⁓ there is a lot more to this than just going and building an automation.

⁓ But one of the things is like, what is the end result? Just look at that. Don't say if this happens, if this happens, if this happens. Like new client onboarding. The result is they are a client in blank. They, you know, in your project management system, whatever it is, what is the end result? You want to onboard this new client. what's the most important things that need to happen in new client onboarding? Well, we need to set them up in QuickBooks.

Two, the team needs to know what happens, what we need to do for this client. They should have access to the contract that they set. know, start working backwards and don't think about what your current process is. Just think about each of those steps backwards. And then I promise you there is software out there that you don't have to custom build that can then be worked into an automation and a team of software platforms to work to get to that end result.

Micah Johnson (05:14)
I like that, that concept a lot, but a term that we use, other than end result is desired outcome a lot. And if you think about what is the desired outcome that you're looking to achieve with this process, with this, whatever it is, like client onboarding, like you're saying working backwards is brilliant.

Alane Boyd (05:20)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Micah Johnson (05:35)
Another thing that really helps is get outside perspective. If you just go to the person that's in charge of the process, they're, they're going to be set in stone. This is the way we do it. We can do it no other way there. It's impossible. We can never automate this. You'll hear stuff like that all the time. But if you get an outside perspective and get other people looking at this and doing what you're saying, what's the desired outcome? What's the end result that you're shooting for? Then.

Alane Boyd (05:38)
Mm-hmm.

They don't want that process to change.

Yes.

Yes.

Micah Johnson (06:04)
Different questions get asked, like, why are we doing it this way? Why do we take these extra steps? Why are we copying and pasting between all of this? Are we even using this extra spreadsheet that we're making?

Alane Boyd (06:06)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Yes, I think about these calls that I was on a while ago and I laugh, I would laugh and smile and I'm not making fun of them, but because I just remember one of the team members always saying there's a reason why we do it this way, because they couldn't let go of what their process was. And they needed somebody to say, but why does it need to stay that way? What are some things that could help make it easier for the team? Because

What I'm looking at is hours and hours and hours of unvaluable work.

Micah Johnson (06:46)
Totally. Yeah, completely.

Alane Boyd (06:47)
The client doesn't care.

If it took you four weeks to get that and it could have been done in two and you changed your process to get to that end result faster, guarantee you they like that timeframe better.

Micah Johnson (06:58)
Yeah, 100%.

I think, you know, a lot of times, especially if you're set in your ways and you feel like you've done it this way for a while, that that's the only way. And that's the way that you are producing your killer outcome. But a lot of times the reality is if you are able to simplify it, it's not reducing the quality of the output. It's actually increasing the consistency of the output. And if, you know, if you think like going on a tangent for fast food chains.

Right. I might've used this and I use this analogy every once in a while, but if you think about McDonald's, right, they win in consistency. You know what their buns tastes like, you know what their burgers tastes like, and you know what their fries tastes like. A hundred percent of the time, if you were to go to different McDonald's and all that stuff tastes different every single time, you would stop going to McDonald's because you'd be wanting

The one version of McDonald's fries. And then you go to another location. You're like, this is not what I was looking for. so consistency is so important for any type of desired outcome. If clients get brought on in all different ways, or if you have one client working multiple projects with you and you do it completely different every single time, because one process is set in stone. Another process is set in stone for two different types of projects.

Alane Boyd (07:59)
Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Micah Johnson (08:19)
That's an issue. You want that consistency and simplicity and reducing the complexity of their process brings that, which gives you the added bonus of also making it easier to automate and finding tools that you can use.

Alane Boyd (08:33)
Yeah, so I'm gonna flip with the example that you just gave, Micah, because a lot of people that we work with, really see themselves as a high-end agency or high-end relationship with their clients. they're not thinking of themselves as... Exactly, they're thinking of themselves as a high-end restaurant, right? Where you get very custom meals. But if you went...

Micah Johnson (08:46)
You mean they don't see themselves as fast food providers? Okay, that's fair.

Alane Boyd (08:58)
to that restaurant and you paid a lot of money and you got an inconsistent experience every time you went there, then the lifetime value of that client is gonna continue to go down and that relationship gets burned. So you want these things to be in your processes to be simple, to work well so that the client sees this consistency on their end every single time and that they wanna pay that high end dollar to have that.

high valuable relationship with you on your internal side, nobody sees that bullshit that you're doing. They don't see that part. They only see the part you're showing them. So all this other stuff on your internal systems is bogging people down and you're making more work, more things harder, more things more difficult for your team where just change the process just a little bit.

Micah Johnson (09:49)
Yeah. I love what you just said, Alane. I think even saying it back in a slightly different way. clients don't care about the product. They care about the end result. They care about their desired outcome that they're paying you to provide. How you get there doesn't matter.

Could be simple, could be complex. Take the burden off of yourself. Stop building custom tools, simplify your process, be adaptable, be willing to change. Everything else is changing around us. AI is changing everything. Tools are changing around us. Features are being added. MCPs are being added. APIs are being updated. Like everything else is changing. If you're stuck, you're slowing yourself down.

Alane Boyd (10:12)
Mm-hmm.

Yes.

Micah, whenever you were talking about like the complexities of automation and I was really thinking about what we're doing when we build automation, whether I'm saying like we as us or somebody is building it themselves, we're building custom software products is what at the end of the day, it's software working together and

Micah Johnson (10:48)
Oh, 100%. Yeah.

Alane Boyd (10:50)
Thinking about that, if we've got all these little mini software products that we've got working on our team, the more complex they are, the more difficult they are to keep up with. More things can break, more changes will happen. Your process doesn't stay the same. So if you have a very complex automation you built with stuff going everywhere and sending in different places, the moment you change something, which you should, you should change your process sometimes.

you have to then go and rework that whole automation, which then adds even more time to something that you wanted to keep simple to save time. you know, thinking about like from even the starting point of building them to the finish point of maintaining them, having a more simple solution for your automation helps on both ends.

Micah Johnson (11:41)
I think maybe to wrap this episode up Alane would be some quick advice. If you're going in and you have a system that's working, but you want to start automating it, you want to look at leveraging AI agents or rag solutions. And you're getting to that point where, all right, let's start figuring out how we're going to automate this. The telltale sign is when it starts feeling complicated on the automation side, like.

we have to add all this extra if then logic, or we have all these scenarios, or you start looking at tools that you want to use, like Asana or ClickUp and you're like, Hmm, well, 99 % of this can work, but this 1 % can't. That's your indicator. Look at changing the 1%. Ask yourself, could we do this different in this 1 % or this 5 % of the process so that we can

Use the tool that's already built. Let's make a one week decision, not a six month decision. Let's do a one day automation sequence,

a four week automation sequence of work. so look for those types of things when the edges get really rough, when the road gets bumpy, right? Take a step back, get some outside perspective and ask, can we do this differently? Is there a

better, more simple way, or look at the opportunity cost on all of this. If we're going to stay stuck, is that worth the six months of time? Is that worth maintaining an ultra complex automation? Is that worth trying to keep up documentation? Is that worth all of these things? Because that is the opportunity cost you're going to be paying for this stuff.

because you did custom tools or you complex automation or you have multi-tiered agents or whatever it is, is it worth that? If it is, by all means, go for it. If it's not, take a step back, simplify your process, then automate.