What framework or thought process do you use when creating custom automations?
I rely on the Theory of Constraints. Think of your business as a pipeline: lead gen, onboarding, fulfillment, retention. Identify the single narrowest step—the constraint—as it dictates the overall speed. To improve, elevate that constraint. For example, if retention is weak, over‑deliver with quick wins like documentation, customized videos, training packages, or handoff documents that add polish with minimal effort. If fulfillment is the bottleneck, hire more people or build systems—such as AI‑templated workflows—that let a single contractor do more work without increasing headcount. After you’ve lifted the constraint, the next step (often onboarding) becomes the new focus, and you repeat the process.
theory of constraintsbottleneckretentionautomation
Lead‑generation and client‑onboarding systems make up roughly 70% of my revenue, so I focus on those bottlenecks first. The flow is: generate leads, close the sale, onboard the client, fulfill the work, then retain the client with follow‑up. AI agents are getting better, but the real money comes from solving concrete bottlenecks, not fancy chatbots. My process is simple: look at an average business’s pipeline, identify the biggest bottleneck, and ask how you can do that step faster or better. I often reference the Theory of Constraints (see "The Goal" by Eli Goldratt) to frame this. Most bottlenecks are at the top of the funnel—lead generation—so start there. For each bottleneck, map what’s currently being done and brainstorm ways to automate or accelerate it. Specific tools help, but the core is understanding the pipeline and continuously removing constraints.
That mischaracterizes what automation actually is — it's by far the most scalable of service-based businesses, because you don't repetitively make workflows at all; you make them once and profit off them over and over. Example: normally, fulfilling a new client's project takes real ongoing labor — say a $1,000 project costs you $250 (25%) in labor every time, leaving 75% margin at best. With automation, that first project still costs you the full fulfillment effort, but it also produces a reusable template. The next time you land a similar client, instead of spending 25% on fulfillment again, you just copy the template and spend maybe 2% — so you're left with 98% after cost of goods sold. Over time you build up a whole library of templates you can pull from for any new client, which is what makes automation businesses so scalable compared to businesses that redo the fulfillment work from scratch every time.
The Goal teaches that a business is a pipeline of stages (marketing, sales, onboarding, fulfillment, retention). The principle of focusing on the bottleneck applies: identify the narrowest stage—right now it's sales—and invest effort to widen it. Improving the bottleneck by, say, 20% increases overall output by 20% (e.g., $100K -> $120K). Then move to the next constraint and repeat. This continuous bottleneck-widening drives growth.
First, don’t jump straight to automation—build a solid, money‑making process first. Only automate a step if the process already works and there’s clear value in automating it. Look at each part of your workflow: outreach, nurturing, closing, onboarding, fulfillment. Closing is tough to automate without advanced AI, so focus on onboarding and fulfillment where automation is realistic. Sketch out your process (e.g., with a Whimsical mind map) before touching any automation tools. For example, a simple onboarding flow might start with a payment trigger (Stripe), then create a ClickUp folder, add a list, insert standardized tasks, send an onboarding email with a calendar link, update the client status when a call is booked, run the call, fill out an onboarding form, send a creative brief to AI to pre‑generate assets, turn those into a Google Doc and slides, and add a tracking doc. Once you have that map, see which steps can be hooked up via APIs or webhooks—like using a payment‑intent‑succeeded webhook to automatically create the ClickUp folder and list. Steps that can’t be automated via API (e.g., creating the folder or list) would instead trigger a manual action, such as a Slack notification to your project manager, which then starts the next automatable segment. In short, optimize the process first, make sure it’s profitable, then automate as much as you can.