Data-Driven Decisions: Using Automation for Better Strategy

Welcome to the Overgivers Anonymous podcast. My name is Angela Mondor, also known as the Geeky Girl. In this podcast, we're going to be talking about some amazing things to help you get over overgiving. Welcome to this episode of the Overgivers Anonymous podcast. Today, I want to talk to you about how automation can actually enhance your strategic planning process. So automation and project management software. are symbiotic in my world. We use a lot of automation along with our ClickUp installations. The software of choice that we use, we use ClickUp and Make.com are the 2 pieces of software that we like to use the most. Now, some of our clients like to use that other software, you know, and we totally can use that software too, but our 2 favorites are ClickUp and Make.com. Now, in terms of how your automations can enhance your strategic planning process, when you're looking at data in general, especially if you're looking at year over year or data that is a lot, like if you have a lot of data, part of what you want to do is you want to be able to analyze that data as much as possible. Now, sometimes you can do that with reports. Sometimes you can build those directly into, let's say, ClickUp or any other project management software tool that you're using, and you can sort of mine the data that you're looking for. However, sometimes you want to be able to take the data that has been mined and then manipulate it in a different way. There is always a multitude of ways to see data. One of the things that I love most about data is that it gives you the opportunity to see the information and then to be able to Then further dissect it to understand it. I am a stats person. One of the things I love most about watching hockey is the fact that there's a bunch of stats associated with it. Drives my husband nuts because when I'm doing a hockey pool and he's doing the hockey pool, I totally work just on stats and he's working based on players. So it's a totally different way to see the world. It's not right or wrong, but it's just an interesting way. So when you're looking at the stats of your own business, You can use automation to help you to sort of disseminate that information. You can use make.com to be able to pull the data to grab, say, oh, you know, we're going to filter out this information and put it over here. You totally can do that with Excel files as well. Sometimes making the transition from the software of your project management system into a spreadsheet, Make can be a really great piece. Piece in between to be able to disseminate the information for you. So it can make it much more efficient. So if you're looking at doing the same things every time, then an automation is helpful. One of my key things I say to everybody who talks to me about automations is that if there's a decision that needs to be made by a human, the automation is probably not the way to go. However, if it's the same thing that has to happen every time and there's no decision process, why waste the human brain on something like that? So instead, we can use automations to pull the data to make those choices that we are going to ask it to make every single time. Does X equal Y? Then do A, right? This can actually make your process much more efficient when you're trying to get the data pulled together. So the routine tasks that are running through your system can be disseminated through this automation, automation process. It will free up valuable time to do other things because think about the amount of time it takes you. We probably don't, if you love spreadsheets like I love spreadsheets, the time doesn't matter. It seems to just flow into the world and you can spend tons of time playing with the data. But it does take away from other things that we need to be doing inside our business. If you don't like spreadsheets, then you might be happy to know that something else can do it for you. However, if you do love spreadsheets, think about the time it takes you to say, create the, dump the data is one thing, you're just a CSV file to dump, but then it's like you've got to choose the filters and then you have to choose these things and then you're writing equations and there's all kinds of other things that go on. A lot of that can be done automagically using an implementation tool like make.com to be able to do those things for you before dumping it to the spreadsheet. Now, this will free up your time so that you can actually focus on the critical thinking, the analysis of the actual data that you want to see, and give you a much more broad, give you more energy, I think, towards the strategy piece. Because if you're spending all your time disseminating the data, my brain specifically, if I've disseminated the data already, I don't want to see it again because I've done it once. And so if you're looking at that data and then you're having to transcribe or think about other ways to put it together, maybe it gets a little confounded into how it does. So yes, there's time in setting this up, but year over year, you're going to thank yourself for the time that you save. You'll be much more efficient. The data will come to you. It's fresh eyes. And then you can actually take that and use that in your strategy development moving forward for the next quarter, the next year, the next month, whatever it is in the, you know, whatever interval that it is you're using this for. It allows you to have very clear data-driven decision-making. When you're looking at collecting the data, sometimes when you're collecting a bunch of data, if you're not really versed in Excel, or if it gets confusing for you as to where the data's come from and how it's all putting together, if you've got a great report, or if you have a system that's already put the information together for you, it becomes much easier for you to analyze that large set of data. Because now you don't have to go through each line and think, oh, how many times did I see this line? You actually be able to have these reports created for you automagically. And then of course, accuracy in your historical information increases. So this allows you to have more informed decision-making when you're building those strategy pieces. And then of course, there's always the constant adaptation. We're never going to have the exact thing, exact same thing happen over and over again. However, by having an automation already set out, and when years ago, I'm going to date myself, we used to use macros a lot in Excel where it would do a lot of these things over and over again. For us, and we would have to go and rewrite the VBA code in order for it to change what we had written in those macros. Now you can use a tool like Make.com in order to more easily or visually change these things. There are some adaptations that you will probably do over time. You want to say, oh, that report was awesome, but it would be great if it did this as well. You can go in and make adjustments so that it's not like you have to redo the whole process over and over again. One of the lessons I learned early on in my business, I remember there was a task I had to do. I can't remember what the task was, but I remember the event. I had this task and it had to be done quarterly. And I remember I sat down, I did it, and I finished, figured it out how to do it, and it was awesome. And then the next quarter came and I went, ah, darn it, I've done this before. How did I do it? The minute you ask yourself, how did I do it last time? That's when you start to think about what, this is now a process. This is now something I need to build around. Again, if it's something where that human brain needs to make decisions, it's probably not something to automate. However, now with automation, I look at that question a little differently. I used to say, oh, when I say, how did I do that last time? I need to write a process for that. However, now I say, oh, is that something that can be done automagically using AI? Or is it something that I can maybe hybrid between having part of it done By, you know, an AI or something and maybe using some human interaction as well. So, but it does allow you to have that continuous automation or adaptation because you can just change the bits and pieces of it as opposed to having to redo the whole thing from scratch every single time. So you can also have improved collaboration because now you're coming to the table with data that other people can understand too. It's not just you that's seen the data. It's data. It's not just the way it works for your brain. You can Actually have it laid out so that your whole team can see what that looks like and you can share that information. And it also fosters that cohesive relationship in the planning process. If you have other people in the planning process, it allows for a more open dialogue in terms of like the historical information coming forward and the choices we're going to make strategically moving forward. And of course, you know, when you're looking at strategic planning moving forward, it's important to identify what happened in the past. It can help you identify maybe potential risks moving forward in your business, thinking about what is it that happened here and how can we either mitigate those or how can we change things so that that doesn't happen again. Obviously, the other piece to that is what worked really well and how do I move that into my strategic planning for next year as well. So sometimes we can mitigate those unforeseen changes because of things that we have looked previously for. In our business, things that have happened that we're like, oh, I didn't expect that to come out of left field. How can I now mitigate for next time? How can I see how to make those changes so that next time when this comes up, we can do X, Y, and Z? Having the data matters. Being able to easily look at the data and understand it matters. Data is only as good as the information we can actually extract out of it. It doesn't matter what kind of data this is. It could be podcast data that you're getting from a platform that tells you how many listeners you have and where you're, where they listen to from. Maybe, I mean, podcasting is a fun place, I'll tell you, because you're hosting in multiple different places so that everybody's got all these stats for you. And how do you combine them all together? I mean, it's an entire cluster. Let me tell you. So when you're thinking about how automation can enhance your strategic plan, what I want you to think about is, can I use AI in order to enhance this this experience for me? How can I use this so that the data that's coming through makes sense? Especially if you're bringing data in from multiple data point spaces and you're having to combine that information, you don't need the human brain to do that. As long as you have those things that cross-reference each other, you can cross-reference each— those things inside a platform like make.com and rebuild the spreadsheet for you. It saves you a lot of time, but it also gives you a fantastic way to see the data without having to put in those hours to collate all that information yourself. So it's a great use of automation to be able to help you to use that information then to build an amazing strategic plan for your business. I hope you enjoyed this. If you have any questions, please don't hesitate to let me know. Leave me a comment. Send us an email at clientcare@geekygirl.ca. Be happy to hear how automation is working for you or how you wish automation would work for you in your business. Have a great day. Thank you so much for listening to the Overgivers Anonymous podcast. Your support means the world to me. You can find show notes for this episode and other goodies at overgiversanonymous.ca. 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