74 | No code Automation made Izzy: The exact Blueprint that quadrupled Isabella Bedoya's business in 1 year

0:00Hello, everyone, and welcome to a live episode of the Leveraging AI podcast, the podcast that shares practical, ethical ways to leverage AI, to improve efficiency, grow your business, and advance your career. This is Isar Mettis, your host. And this is a very interesting and fascinating episode. First of all, because I literally just made it to New York 15 minutes ago and I had to get into an office. We work and find a space and set everything up, but I'm ready and we're good to go. So I'm happy about that. But I'm a lot more excited about the topic of this episode. So most of my episodes are very practical, tactical ways on how you should leverage AI in your business.

0:40and I host amazing experts that share their skills and what they're doing with AI. Today's guest, Izzy Bedoya, is the only person that is coming on the show twice. So she's the first one ever to come in for the second time. That tells you how much I trust what she's doing. But also the other reason I'm very excited about today's show is a lot of you are asking me on LinkedIn and when you're chatting with me or people who meet me in conferences that I get to speak a lot on, like the one I'm doing in New York today and tomorrow, people ask me for actual use cases. Yes, these things that you're sharing are amazing, but give me some hard numbers, like what results are people achieving with the processes that you're sharing?

1:18And so I lucked out because we scheduled this, I don't know, a month ago, but EZ yesterday or this morning posted about her results with using this system. So here are some hardcore numbers for you on what using automation together with AI can do for your business. So in 2022, Easy had a team of 12 plus people and plus, and when I assume plus, and I'll ask you in a minute, Easy, I assume that's like subcontractors and people who are not actually core to the team. And she went down to a team of three. So that's a 75 % or even more downgrade in the size of the team and her revenue tripled. So that tells you that this whole AI automation thing actually works.

2:08And if you see the trajectory in what she's doing in 2024, you will understand that it didn't stop in 2023, it just keeps on growing. And all of it, literally 100 % of it is built on building an automation machine that runs with a lot of AI capabilities in the background. If that's not exciting to you, I don't know what will be exciting to you. So hence why I'm really excited and humbled to have Izzy on the show again. EZ, welcome to Leveraging AI. In the next few years, AI technology will change our world dramatically. Whether you are a business executive trying to catapult your business forward, or just somebody who refuses to be left behind and want to advance your career, this is the show for you.

2:53I'm your host, Isar Matis, a serial entrepreneur and an AI enthusiast. You'll hear invaluable practical tips from innovative business leaders, AI practitioners, and some of the brightest AI minds in our world today on how you can leverage AI in ethical ways to advance your career and grow your business.

3:16Thank you so much. Thank you for having me here. I'm excited for this conversation. so really i like i said i lucked out you literally just put out this post on 2022 versus 2023 and i think that would be a great starting point for people and to give people understanding what we're going to be talking about we're going to be talking about exactly what easy did between 2022 and 2023 in detail so you can do this in your business as well and so let's really start with how you got started, like what processes you had in your business and how are they working pre-AI very quickly so then we can figure out what you actually automated and then we can dive into the how, which is going to be the majority of the episode.

3:58Yeah, absolutely. In a nutshell, excuse me, I'm just getting over a cold, but in a nutshell, basically in 2022 and even since 2021, my main business has been like a GoHigh level agency, right? So I'm like reselling GoHigh level, which is like a CRM funnel builder, et cetera. And in the past, I had all these like little like one-off offers too, which created the need for more team and more subcontractors and stuff like that. So one of the biggest things that I did is I just simplified everything and just focused on that one core offer. And then we'll probably get into this like along today. But one of the biggest things that I did was I actually automated the entire client fulfillment process so we could actually sell the SaaS at a higher price point and still be able to deliver results for clients in an automated process.

4:47Cool. Really, you had a SaaS slash service business around it that is now mostly automated. So again, to put things in perspective, you're talking about having 50 plus clients a month?

5:05and served onboarded and served by a team of three. Yeah. Again, just putting things in perspective, that's not standard. Let's put it this way. I can use other adjectives, but I'll be very subtle with what I'm saying. It's incredible. So let's really go to what processes you started with. And you know what? I'll actually rephrase the question. what processes should a person start with? Like how do you pick the best processes to start with AI automation if you run a business? And again, you're doing everything in your business. You're doing marketing, you're doing prospecting, onboarding, sales, support.

5:47You have a lot of backend documentation that needs to be updated all the time because you're giving it to your clients as a way to use the systems and processes you're giving them and probably resell and upsell. So literally everything a business has, how do you pick the first thing to start with? Because if you look at the whole board, you're like, holy crap, I don't even know where to start. It's so scary. So I'm not going to do anything, which I'm sure a lot of people are in that situation right now. Yeah, that's a great question. And typically I think the go-to that most people go to is wanting to monetize or wanting to automate the sales process, which makes sense, right?

6:21You want to automate the sales process. You can generate more revenue. I think for this time around, though, what I did is something different. I actually started with client fulfillment because I realized that if I do want to grow a business, the biggest bottleneck is going to be client fulfillment. So if I start growing the sales and start bringing in a bunch of clients and we don't have the client fulfillment streamlined, it's going to be a nightmare. And that's pretty much what happened in the past year when I was actually having to manage a bunch of people and everything. We just didn't have a streamlined client fulfillment.

6:50That was one of the biggest headaches. Okay. So by the way, I agree with you a hundred percent. I think onboarding clients to disappointment is a really good recipe for failure in the longterm because you're going to get really bad reviews and bad press and you won't be able to grow your business. So client fulfillment could mean a lot of things for a lot of people, but let's stay within the realm of what we're talking about right now, which is SaaS and service versus products, which I'm sure becomes a lot more complicated. So in this world of, okay, I'm delivering a SaaS product and I am providing a service around my SaaS product, what are the things you built as automations with AI in order to do this client fulfillment?

7:36So pretty much the entire client fulfillment journey. So when a client comes in, we build out their funnels and we build out their, for example, we build out their bootcamp funnel or like a virtual event funnel. we build out all the automations for that funnel as well like the email marketing the sms reminders like all of the automations that you could think of also tracking the lead from opt-in to putting them in a pipeline and seeing the journey so it was really like that was essentially the offer so then i had to figure out how to automate that whole thing and i was able to do it inside of go high level and also using custom gpts so now whenever someone comes in we have a video that shows them how to, and it's all automated, right?

8:19So they get an email and it's, hey, welcome. You're in step one. Here's the link to, for the GPT. Here's the link for the video. And then here is a link where you can actually submit your answers in this form. And when they submit their answers in the form, which the GPT gives them exactly what they need to put in. The reason why we didn't automate the GPT transferring to the form is so that the clients could have a little bit of freedom to update their copy before it gets on the form. When it gets on the form, then it automatically gets populated on the funnels. And then now I have Juan, who's like a member on our team, Juan goes in and just makes sure that the pictures are good and the branding colors are good and everything.

9:00So we're able to build funnels really like super fast. And when they fill out the form, it also auto-populates their emails, their SMS, like it It just literally just does everything. So it allows us to help clients faster. Now, one thing that I didn't do and I should have done, but we just helped one of our clients do this, the actual videos, I actually filmed those videos, but we just had one of our clients do an entire course from end to end using AI, like an AI avatar, an AI voice and Canva for the slides. Okay, so let's break this down for people, right? So the very first step that you must do is to map your client journey, right?

9:42You need to actually know all the steps. It's not, oh, we know, like we talked to them on the phone, they do the thing, like you have to know the steps in a very detailed way and document it very clearly. Once you have that, you really can start breaking this down and how you automate each and every one of the processes. So those of you who don't know what Go High Level is, it's like a one system does it all thing, right? It's a CRM, it's an email automation, It's a landing page platform. It does everything you need in order to engage with prospects and customers. But you can do this with other platforms, right?

10:18It doesn't really matter. It's the fact that you have these functionalities. And really what you're saying is you built the entire onboarding process from including all the how-tos. So for every step you put the client, in addition to an email, there's a video, there's a process, so people cannot get lost. And like you're saying, you're feeding them with everything ready. Like you don't expect them to understand what to do. You're like, okay, copy this from here, put it in this thing there, and then you will get the results you need to get. So let's talk specifically about the combination of GPTs and how this works with, because on one hand, you have an email automation.

10:59I think everybody knows what that is and how it works. On the other hand, you have a GPT. I'm like, okay, those of you who don't know GPTs, GPTs are like mini customized versions of ChatGPT that are tailored to do something very specific. You give them instructions and they can do those instructions time and time again, very consistently with or without specific inputs from the user. So you can tell it as part of the instructions, ask the user for X, and then it will give it to you and so on. So how do you connect the two? What are the touch points and how did you develop that whole system? So it was a lot of, it took me like four iterations to get to this stage.

11:45Every time it was just figuring out one step further, one step further, how can I make this process smoother? And one of the things that I realized was that this happens pretty much in like any coaching program, especially people join, they don't take action. They don't do anything. and then you want them to take action. So then I figured, okay, maybe it's just because they don't know, you know, how to log in or whatever the case is. And so I really had to like think about how to simplify it and how to like really dummy it down to the point where it's like they know, because it's three components, right?

12:17It's a GPT, it's a form, and it's a video. How do they know at any given moment what resources to use and all of that? And then I just thought about how could I like super simplify it so there's no room for error? and then in addition as soon as someone like if someone doesn't fill out the form it also has an automated reminder like every three or four days to saying hey don't forget to fill this form so it pushes them to take the action step but really it was just a lot of experimentation and seeing where people were getting like hung up and just also testing and trying different things to see like how could we simplify it just so that we can make the whole process super streamlined So the form is in the GPTs.

12:57I'm just trying to make sure I understand. Yeah. So I programmed the, so essentially like the prompt that I use for the GPT, it's like however many steps, like four, four steps usually, which is target audience. And then figuring out the actual, let's say it's a bootcamp. So it's figure out the topic for the bootcamp, figure out the landing page copy, figure out the emails, figure out the presentation slides, like all of that. And specifically for the landing page copy, I have it formatted so it gives us the landing page copy in a certain format so that we can just copy and paste that into, or they can copy and paste that into the form that they're supposed to submit.

13:37And then that form, it's called custom values. So that form has custom values that are programmed on the funnel already. So the form talks to the funnel and it just automatically populates. So I'm still confused and I apologize. It's probably me. Where does the GPT come into all of this? The GPT is the information provider. Oh, okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. So you're basically using the GPT as a onboarding assistant to help the user figure out what to do. Yeah. It's like a coach hybrid with a copywriter. So instead of me having to sit with each person one by one telling them how to create their offer, how to do everything.

14:23It's all programmed inside of the GPT. So it's basically like I have these GPTs that are acting as like mini coaches slash copywriters or whatever it is that they're programmed to do. And every step has its own GPT. So they're custom for that very specific task. Yep, exactly. Okay. Now I understand. First of all, I think this is brilliant, right? So going back to what we said before, it's a multi-step process. Any onboarding of any client is a multi-step process. And you have to support the users through that process or they will fail, which means you will have less clients or you will need to invest more resources in getting happy clients.

15:02And what EZ did is basically create GPTs that help in the onboarding of people into the different steps and literally tell them what to do and what to copy and where to put it in and how to follow the different steps. Can you show us an example of one of those so we can, instead of imagining Yeah, sure. Let's start with step one and then we'll see how much time we have, but they will be awesome to actually go through all the steps. All right, cool. Let me go in here into the automation. I'll show you the whole workflow essentially, but it's essentially taking someone from start to finish. One of the, what we do basically, like I was saying is, as we set up like the funnels and the automations and stuff like that.

15:41So from a client, from, from an internal perspective, I should say, when a client comes in, they get hit with an automation, right? And in this case, if we just skip over to like step three is let's build the lead magnet funnel. The first step is going to actually move them into the stage so we can have a visual in the pipeline to see the lead magnet. Then we'll get an email that goes out and it's, hey, in this step, we're going to work on your lead magnet. This is the reason behind why we want to do the lead magnet. Here's the video, Here's the GPT to use. And then here is the actual form that you're going to fill out.

16:17So if I just put three. I want to pause it just for one second in order to explain to people what is it that you're selling? Because I think that will make a lot more sense. So Easy is basically selling the same system that she's using. Yep. So everything that she's telling you, okay, create your own form, create your own onboarding, create your own landing page, create your own copy. is because she's basically selling the same solution that she's using herself. And so when she's talking about this, what do you mean my funnel? That's what we mean. But if you generalize, this could be explaining to a client any onboarding process, right?

16:53It doesn't have to be what EZ is using this for. This could have been anything. This is basically step one, what you need to do to get onboarded to the system. I'll give an example from my world. I just, I'm speaking at an event in next week and it's a very large corporation. And I had to speak with five different people and go through three different systems to become a supplier to them. And so this is basically what this is trying to prevent, right? It's me self-serving through an automation combined with a GPT that will help me through the process. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. And like you said, you can do, you can program this for anything.

17:29This is just like our client journey. For anyone that doesn't know what a lead magnet is, it's basically a funnel. it's like a landing page where someone can give you their contact information in exchange for a free download. So essentially that's what we're trying to build. So the email that the client's getting whenever they hit this stage, and as you'll see, each stage essentially takes them somewhere else. In this particular stage, we're just telling them, please fill out the lead magnet funnel. So it's telling them, this is a Loom video that's showing how to access the video in the portal.

17:59Because believe it or not, that was one of the questions that we kept getting, like how do I access the course or what video in the course right and it's like little things like that create hang-ups for people so then when they go actually in the course they go to build and now here they have we're talking about the lead magnet right so step three and then in the lead magnet they're gonna see all of this information they're gonna see an example of how I use the custom gpt they're gonna see all this information why they need the lead magnet now we named our we named our gpts to have names so it has that oh you're working with people effect so in this case we gave this jimmy is a lead magnet one and jimmy is the one that's going to be responsible for creating your entire lead magnet from end to end from the actual file that they download from the actual emails that get sent out the actual copy for the for the thing and as you can see here i can just put or i should that should say jimmy but anyways as you can see here it's going to ask us a couple of questions, I'm just going to say create a mock scenario just for these purposes.

19:03So essentially, the client has to answer these four things. And once they answer these four things, now they don't have to think from scratch. The GPT is going to actually create all of this information for them. And it's going to give you all of this information. So as you can see here, the funnel landing page this is now where it's formatted specifically how we need it so if you go back to step number four that they're supposed to take here is fill out this actual form and sorry not that one that's a revision this form here and as you can see here it says who is your target audience and here it says target audience so you just copy this part and it says title excuse me so then it says title here then you just copy the title here then it says compelling headline and compelling headline so you're just copy and pasting now the reason why we didn't automate this part that it's pretty much just filling this out reason why we didn't automate that is because we want people to have that like flexibility of updating whatever was created by the gpt and then actually giving us something that is what something that they would actually do and now in terms of the actual funnel now the funnel in this case um let's see here so i want I want to pause you just for that, just one second, for the people who are listening and not watching the screen.

20:18So what we're actually looking at is there are two components. One of it is a form that the users have to fill up in order to continue down the path of developing the solution that they want to develop. But it's hard, like it's questions that they may or may not have answers to. And this is obviously a friction point that may cause them to either drop and not use it at all, or ask for a refund, or just bother your customer service. Because I need help. I don't really know how to fill this thing out. And what the GPT does is it walks them through the process. It asks them simple questions that they know how to answer.

20:55And in return, gives them exactly what they need to put in the form. And if you think about any service provider for sure has this kind of an onboarding process, myself included. So I provide consulting to companies. I send them a form to fill out to understand stuff about their company. Sometimes they know, sometimes they don't know. So developing a GPT that can help your customers answer the questions that are being asked in an easier, simpler way and generating the responses for them reduces a lot of friction, increases the chances of them doing it successfully without asking for help. And again, that's true for any client onboarding on the planet, probably.

21:35And it's just simplifying the process. And what EZ said about fully automation, in theory, EZ could have made the GPT write the data straight into the form without asking the user anything in between. But the idea here is to really give, like EZ said, instead of them staring at a blank sheet of paper, here's a starting point. Is this good enough? Is this exactly what you need? Is this exactly what you want? Is this really your target audience or whatever else may be in your world? And then you can start with what the GPT gives you and continue from there to develop the idea or to add points. And it gives you a starting point, which dramatically simplifies the process.

22:16Absolutely. And that's actually one of the biggest things. And I think the stat is like 90 % of online courses don't even get opened. And we were seeing that too, like when I didn't have this whole automated onboarding process, I started realizing a lot of people just don't know what to do, or they get too hung up on like thinking about what to do and stuff like that. So having a GPT really helps. And it can, it creates the whole copy. And then here it says, now that we've done this, the next step is actually, so it's, if I just open up this, this GPT, I can show you here that it actually has the steps.

22:48It actually has step three, for example, after you generate the copy, create the actual copy for the lead magnet, and after that, write a five-part sequence. So it's essentially everything that a course would have taught them how to do is just compressed into one GPT. So it even saves their time. Our entire course takes maybe about less than 90 minutes to go through all the videos. But the work that we're doing, we're saving six months of work for any founder that's setting up their funnels and we're able to condense it and the fastest we've done a setup for is we had a client that he literally spent an entire Saturday he said it took about eight hours spent an entire Saturday filled out all the forms did everything and we were able to get him set up like super fast within a couple of days so normally if you do this the manual route you have to hire VAs and do all these different things and it's usually about a six month workload, right?

23:43So we're able to accelerate that. And then the funnel, this is like how the funnel looks. It looks like gibberish because these are all custom values that are attached to this, the output of the form. So whenever they fill out the form, it's not, it's going to actually fill out all of this information. So again, for those of you listening and not watching, what we're looking at is a framework of a landing page, right? It's just a wireframe. That's the word I was looking for, not framework, a wireframe of a landing page that has multiple segments, like everything you need to have in the landing page.

24:15But instead of having the actual text and the actual content, it has these parameters in like squiggly brackets. But what happens behind the scenes is the automation, which I assume is built in Go High Level, right? So that's what actually fills up this form. Yeah, everything's in Go High Level. So the parameters that people... So again, I'll explain the process so people understand. There's an onboarding process. The onboarding process has a GPT that walks the user on how to fill up the form that will build everything they need in a faster way. Once they fill up the form, the automation behind the scenes actually builds landing pages, emails, and so on, on behalf of the user so they can start marketing to their clients with the minimal amount of work, which is obviously very attractive to anyone who is trying to create a marketing automation process.

25:10For sure. Yeah, that's the whole idea. And yeah, that's essentially what we were able to do. We just did this across three or four different funnel structures. So like a lead magnet, a low ticket offer, round tables, and high ticket offers. And it's the same process. They just watch a video, use the signed GPT, and then fill out whatever form they need to fill out. And then also for revisions, just to make it easier for us as well, we streamlined revisions so that they send us everything in one place and it cuts out a lot of the back and forth. So yeah, the whole thing is very streamlined. So I want to touch on two points and then I want to ask a follow-up question.

25:49The two points are, again, if we generalize this to any universe in business, what a process like this enables you to do is to allow people who have zero technical skills to set up really sophisticated things. Because what's happening here is, and those of you who don't come from the marketing world, take it to any other process you do know, whether it's a logistical process or an installation process or a setup process, whatever the case may be. But these processes require you to understand how the tools work. In this case, go high level. You need to know how to create landing pages. You need to know how to create email automations.

26:31You need to know how to define funnels. You need to know how to tie them all together. What Izzy and her team did circumvents all of that. You don't need to know anything. All you need is to answer questions in a form that you're being helped to do by a GPT. And then everything else happens automatically behind the scenes, which explains what we said in the beginning, going from three clients a month with 12 people to going to 50 clients a month with three people because everything else just happens. Now, so that's what I wanted to comment, which again, I find absolutely brilliant. I want to go back to the questions that I asked because I think now people have a much better understanding of, okay, what are we talking about here?