Business Automation Without the Chaos: 4 Questions to Ask First [Ep. 22]

Amiga, are you watching everyone online automate their business with AI and quietly wondering if you're falling behind? I see you, and I promise you're not missing out. Before you automate your business and accidentally create more chaos, this episode is the permission slip (and the plan) you've been needing.

Here's the truth: automation is an amplifier, not a fixer. When you automate a business process that's messy, undocumented, and untested, you don't get your time back — you just multiply the wrong thing faster, and it gets way more expensive to fix. So before we automate anything, I'm walking you through the exact questions I ask my clients to know if a process is actually ready.

In this episode, I'm answering:

• Should I automate my business right now — or am I jumping the gun?
• What's the ONE question to ask before you automate anything? (Hint: it's not "what do I want to automate.")
• Why does automating too soon backfire and cost you more?
• What order should I actually automate in? → My simple Document → Simplify → Automate framework.
• How do I know a process is ready to automate? → My 4-part readiness check: is it documented, tested & stable, owned & maintained, and does it pass the human judgment test?

If you want to take things off your plate, free up your time, and automate your business the right way — the sustainable, build-it-to-last way — this is your starting point. 💛

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Hola amigas, this podcast is for Latina entrepreneurs building businesses while navigating faith, culture, and yes, motherhood. We unpack how your story shapes your leadership and build real life systems that help you grow without burning out. This is where Kudura meets strategy. So let's go. Almost every week I get asked the same question. Hey Anya, can you help me automate something? And I know exactly why people are asking me that. They're seeing a bunch of posts out there about somebody running their business using 50 plus AIs, and you can do it too. Or how you can take your inbox from like 100 plus emails down to zero with automatic replies. Now, I know is because there's a feeling of overwhelm, not being able to keep up with all the demands, internal demands, external demands. But as small business owners trying to build the right way, automation might not be the best answer you're looking for at the moment. So my first question almost always disappoints them because they expect me to say, sure, tell me which process you want to automate. And instead, I ask them whether the thing that they want to automate actually exists on paper. And that question can actually save you from a very expensive mistake. The core truth here is that automation is an amplifier and not a fixer. So it takes whatever you give it and runs it faster, more often, and a very high scale without any judgment about whether it's good or bad. And the judgment comes really from us, knowing, hey, did this make sense? Oh, there's a mistake here. Let's catch it before you know XYZ happens. And in some cases, fixing it after the fact can cost a lot of money. There's a quote from Bill Gates that he said back in 1995, a long time ago. But these are the people who have built real systems. And he said automation applied to an inefficient operation will magnify the inefficiency. So he understands, just as many others out there, that the effect of automation has if you don't do it properly or apply it properly. So if a process is messy, undocumented, and untested right now, automating does not remove the chaos. It will not give you the time back. It will manufacture more of the wrong thing a lot faster. And it will be harder and more expensive to fix it. My goal here is not to say, please don't automate anything. Please don't think that this is an episode about don't do automations. No, not at all. I want all of us to be in efficient to reduce our costs. You know, this things like this actually is what can help us not spend on hiring somebody that we don't need at this moment, but we have to really understand it. You know, I use automations myself, but only on things I've tested, documented first. And it has taken me months to make sure something is the right fit before I automate it. You want it to be clean, clear, you want to make sure it actually works first so that the automation can then multiply it. Things like onboarding clients in a CRM or a podcast onboarding process or onboarding a new employee or a new client, all of those can be absolutely automated when you have really double check to make sure that your steps are in there, you know what you do each and every single time, and we're ready to move. The other thing I want to talk about is the right sequence. Most people think that the path is problem, then automation, but the real sequence is document, simplify, then automate. It's really as simple as getting it out of your head and onto paper step by step. So you can use screenshots too. And sometimes what I do is uh I'll pull up my Word doc andor pencil and paper, and then as I'm doing something, I start writing it down, like log in here, click here, do this, do that, and then if I can, I'll take a screenshot. And that's exactly what you want to do, so that you know, when you have to explain it to somebody down the line that you hire, you already are seen as somebody that has a system. So then after that, that's when you simplify. So that's this next step, right? You simplify documents, simplify, then automate. So we're in the simplify part. So before you automate, this is what I do with my clients is that we go through it and cut out any dead steps that are not needed. So we look for any duplicate approvals or any duplicated steps that are repeated unnecessarily. We review the data that goes in, what needs to be coming out. And here's a big one. How much time does this actually take you to do? Does it take you five minutes? Does it take you an hour? Because if it only takes you five minutes and you just don't love doing it, do you really want to spend hours building and testing and automation for it? Probably not. We don't want to have to automate everything, let's just focus the energy on the bigger things that we need to move forward. And then finally, you automate. So only once everything has been reviewed, revised, and tested and run over and over again, then that's where you bring in a tool to multiply that it's truly worth doing so. So let's give you a four-part readiness check. All right, so let's go through these steps and let's review it together so you can check yourself and see if you're actually ready. So number one is documented. Is it documented? Is the process written down step by step clearly enough that someone else could just follow? But if it lives in your head, then there's nothing to automate. Go back to the basics, write it down on paper, if that's easier, or pull up a word doc. Start there. And actually, since I'm talking about documenting and putting things into a file system, I want you to know that I created a free guide that helps you build your own electronic file cabinet. Check out the link below in the show notes so that you can get your free step-by-step manual to build your own share drive and you don't have to spend hours looking for that one document that took you a good amount of time to build. All right, let's get back. So number two, is it tested and stable? Have you run it the same way more than once and confirmed it actually works? So make sure that nothing has changed in the last few times you ran it. If you're changing it every other week, if this process you're changing every other week or every other month, some things probably quite isn't right to be the that version that needs to be automated. Okay, is it maybe there needs to be some revision, but um don't jump into automating quite yet. Number three, is it owned and maintained? So you always want somebody to be responsible for the process. How often will it be reviewed and updated? Automation is not just like a set it and forget it, it needs an owner who actually reviews it every three months, every six months, every year, depending on the type of process. So put it in your calendar, put a little tickler on your calendar on certain time and date, uh, with the link of the document where it lives, and say time to review, it'll pop up. You already have the time schedule in your calendar for those 30 minutes to just go through it and see if there's anything that needs to be updated or if it's good to go. Then you just revise that you did the revision on such and such date. So you're good. And then number four is that human judgment test. At the end of the day, this comes down to your judgment call. You have to make that decision. Is this really something I can hand off to a machine? Or is it something that has helped my business, my clients love that I'm involved in? And what do I need to do myself or to take out myself out in a certain part? And that's okay. Maybe it has to be a certain part, but maybe it's not all of it. Okay, so some things you just don't need a machine for behind them, and we have to think about it. That's the human in us, and that's what we want to keep that human part alive as much as we need to, because that's our differentiator, especially if we're working with clients face to face. That's what builds our relationships in our business. All right, well, that's everything that I have for you today. I hope this helps and it helps you start thinking differently about automation and that you don't feel like you're missing out because you're not doing it yet. A lot of people out there think they're missing out, but that doesn't mean that it's what you should be doing. And so thank you so much for listening today. If this episode resonated with you, please share it with somebody who might benefit from it. And if you enjoyed it, please leave me a review. That's truly how new listeners find the podcast. Send me a DM with any topics you'd like me to cover. And that's all for today. All right, amigas. Hasta luego, bendiciones.