EP 10: Busting the Myth: Automation Actually Makes Your Business More Human

Forget everything you thought you knew about automation—it's time to bust the biggest myth holding back your creative business. Most entrepreneurs resist automating their client communications because they worry it will make them seem robotic or impersonal. The truth? When done right, automation actually makes your business feel more human, not less.

Consider this startling statistic: 78% of wedding couples book with the first vendor who responds—not the one with the prettiest portfolio or the most impressive credentials. When you're wearing all the hats as a solopreneur, those critical 24-48 hours it might take you to craft a personal response could mean the difference between winning and losing clients. They've already moved on to someone else while your thoughtful reply sits unread in their inbox.

Automation isn't about replacing human connection; it's about scaling your capacity to care for clients. By handling repetitive communications and administrative tasks automatically, you free yourself to show up more authentically where personal attention truly matters. Your automated emails should sound exactly like you—complete with your unique personality, writing style, and even those emojis you love to use. The system becomes your behind-the-scenes assistant, ensuring every client receives the same exceptional experience you've thoughtfully designed, regardless of how busy your schedule gets.

Ready to transform your client experience with automation that feels warm and personal? Grab my email templates from the show notes or book a free discovery call to map out automation strategies tailored to your creative business. It's time to stop writing the same emails over and over and start focusing on what you do best—while your systems handle the rest.

Mentioned in This Episode

Done for You Dubsado Setup - Book a FREE Discovery call: www.amysgould.com/book-a-call

Canned Email Templates: https://amysgould.com/canned-email-template-pack

Stay in Touch with Us

Book a Free 15 Minute Discovery Call to Learn How I Can Help You Work Less, Make More & WOW Clients: www.amysgould.com/book-a-call

Website: www.amysgould.com

Watch me on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@SystemsforCreatives

Share your take-aways by email: amy@amysgould.com

Connect with us on Instagram: amyspearson_

Chapters

• 1:17 Welcome and Introduction
• 1:37 Debunking Automation Myths
• 2:55 The First Responder Advantage
• 5:01 How Automation Creates Better Experiences
• 7:30 Automating Reminders Without Awkwardness
• 10:19 Call to Action and Closing

Transcript

Speaker 0: 0:39

Hey friends, welcome back to the podcast. I'm Amy Pearson, system strategist, certified Dubsado specialist and HoneyBook educator Around here. I help creative entrepreneurs work less, make more and wow their clients with systems and automation. And today I want to dive into one of my favorite topics. It's all about how a lot of people feel that automation makes them feel robotic and it's impersonal. And if you use automation in your business, your clients aren't going to feel like you're taking care of them. Honestly, this is just complete garbage. I don't want to swear on here, but that is almost going to make me swear. It couldn't be further from the truth because I hear it all the time If I automate, my clients won't feel like I care about them anymore, or automation makes me sound like a robot, and I get it.

Speaker 0: 1:34

You've probably had those experiences yourself. You know the kind A stiff, generic email that doesn't feel like it came from a human. Yeah, calendly reminder emails. I'm looking at you because most people don't update those and make them sound like human emails. They're just a formula email and it's so lacking in personality. But that's a total sidebar.

Speaker 0: 1:55

But here's the reality. Clients today expect quick communication, especially if you're a wedding service provider, which I work with a lot of wedding service providers. Your clients are probably putting out five to ten proposal requests for the service that you provide, and so if you're not getting back to them very quickly, you're missing huge amounts of opportunity because they've already moved on with other people. The person with the fastest response wins, and I've seen that time and time again, and I've also seen statistics where as many as 78% of wedding couples book with the first person that responds not the one with the prettiest graphics or the most amazing offer or proposal or the best images or even the ones that they really wanted and loved on their photographer's website it's the one that got back to them the fastest. The average small business, though, especially if you're a solopreneur and I get it, I'm a solopreneur too. We're wearing all the hats, we're doing all the things, we're marketing our business, we're providing the client experience, we're doing the bookkeeping, we're doing everything, and it takes a lot of time, and so sometimes we don't get back to people for 24 to 48 hours, especially if you're out on site taking photos or doing other things with clients. You can't be sitting there looking after your email and responding to people. But here's the thing that lag. That feels impersonal. It feels like you don't care about them.

Speaker 0: 3:28

Most people, if they don't get a response right away, they think, oh, that person must be too busy for me and they move on. I've actually done that recently. I was looking at getting a landscape architect out to do our backyard. It's kind of a hot mess. It's a lot of trees and overgrown weeds and just not very well put together, and I wanted to have someone come out and take a look at it and give me a quote. I filled out several quote forms. I got zero response back for maybe a week. I honestly thought maybe these people are just too busy and they don't have time for me. And then they finally got back to me. My inquiry got buried in their inbox, not that they just didn't care about me, which I kind of thought they didn't they just didn't see the inquiry. So they didn't respond and guess what? I moved on and got a quote from someone else. So they lost that opportunity with me.

Speaker 0: 4:20

And if you're falling into this same bucket, it's sad to say it's probably going to happen to you too and that's unfortunate, but it's kind of how it is. Now. People expect you to get back to them really quickly. I know from experience of talking to a lot of my clients that they spend a lot of time crafting inquiries. In fact they're writing the same email over and over again. Maybe they're copying and pasting the email and that's saving some time, but they're still having to go in there and do that and it takes time and again. If you're not right in front of your computer or, frankly, on your phone, you are going to be behind on getting back to that person. But if you use automation, you can do it automatically without you having to touch it. If you want to do some kind of custom response, you can put a to-do in the automation to follow up and customize that response. But at least 80% of the email is already written for you.

Speaker 0: 5:16

However, I would say on this first email, do not customize it. Let them know when you're going to get back in touch with them with a real response and share something really useful that they could look into to learn more about you, how you work and that kind of thing, and that could be a blog post. It could be a video, which I love videos for this because you get to get your face in front of them. They see you and start to connect with you a little bit more with a video than they might with a blog post or a podcast or something like that, but if, in any case, you want to give them something to consume so they continue to learn about you and get more invested in possibly working with you. So what I really wanted to say here is the truth is that automation isn't about replacing the human or making your business feel less human. It's about scaling your care. When you design your workflows and automations intentionally, the automation frees you from being repetitive and doing all the repetitive stuff so you can show up more personally where it matters most. But not only that, you're giving each and every client the same exact experience. Once You're taking that one client experience that you put all the thought and care into and you're putting it into a repeatable process, so every single client gets that amazing client experience.

Speaker 0: 6:43

And the thing that I really want to bring to your attention today is that your emails need to sound like you. They need to have your personality. They need to have the emojis If that's what you put in your emails. Your emails need to sound like you. They need to have your personality. They need to have the emojis, if that's what you put in your emails. They need to have gifs or however you're supposed to say that in there. If that's what you love to do. If you talk a certain way, your email should sound like you. And the other thing is your emails need to lead your client through your process, and they should do that by including what you've done and what is coming up. So you want to take them and escort them basically through your process, and so that's what your emails do for you when they're automated. They take that beautiful client experience that you've laid out and created and they walk your client through that experience.

Speaker 0: 7:32

The other thing is that you can have appointment reminder and payment reminders automatically sent out without the awkwardness and you're having to go hey, it's the week before your session and I don't have the payment, so I'm going to have to cancel your session if you don't pay this last payment. You can automate all of those payment reminders inside of your Dubsado account and not have to touch that. Now, those you could probably leave them pretty generic. So it sounds like an automated thing and it's not you being the jerk, it's your system being the jerk. And all of those automations, the appointment reminders, the auto reminders that go out to remind someone to complete their contract when they haven't signed it or make that first payment so they can actually book in with you. Those kinds of things can be automated as well, and that just creates an amazing client experience.

Speaker 0: 8:27

And isn't that what you want for your clients in the first place is an incredible client experience. You want them to go rave to their friends how much they loved working with you, and I mean yes, if you deliver beautiful photographs or amazing wedding cakes or whatever it is that you provide to your clients, that is the most important thing. But, honestly, the thing that clients talk about the most is your client experience and what an amazing time they had working with you. So, rather than fighting automation, I want you to see it as your behind the scenes assistance. It's not making you less human. It's giving you the time and structure to show up as your best self for your clients, to put in those extra little touch points and to have the mental capacity and bandwidth to genuinely take care of your clients when it matters the most and let the system do all the other picky little things along the way and send all those little touch points to make the incredible client experience that you want for your clients. So let's bust that myth once and for all.

Speaker 0: 9:34

Automation makes your business feel more personal and not less personal when it's done right. So if you're ready to create an automated client experience that still feels like you, I'd love to help Book a free discovery call with me using the link in the show notes, and let's map out how to make automation your best client care tool. And hey, if you want a quick win, you can also grab my email templates to start personalizing your automations today. Just head on down to the show notes and grab them, or book that discovery call that I talked about, and we will help you start adding automation into your business so you can stop doing all of those admin tasks and start living your best life. Thanks so much for tuning in and I'll see you next time.