The Automation Advice That Misses the Mark
When small businesses consider automation, the usual advice is to start with lead follow-up or a booking tool. But according to Myles Parslow of MLP Consulting, that advice often misses the real problem. In a recent interview, Parslow shared practical lessons from his work helping owner-run businesses automate without losing the personal touch.
When Standard Advice Doesn't Fit
Parslow recalled a family-run remodeling company that everyone would have told to automate lead follow-up. "That wasn't their problem," he said. "Leads weren't going cold, they were getting lost, because every inquiry, photo and change order was sitting in one person's email and texts." The solution was to create one place for every job so the whole team could see where things stood. "The follow-up automation came later and was the easy part."
The takeaway: before automating a process, make sure you're automating the right one. A central place for information often comes first.
What Online Advice Leaves Out
Parslow pointed to two common gaps. First, many small businesses run on undocumented processes. "In a lot of small businesses the process is just whatever the owner remembers," he said. "You can't automate that until someone writes it down and articulates their issues, even badly - the volume of customer input is much more important than how refined it is, when we're using AI tools."
Second, owners are protective of customer relationships. "Owners don't want software talking to their customers, and honestly they have a point," Parslow noted. His approach is to have anything that goes out to a customer approved by the owner at first. "Once they've watched it for a few weeks they usually let it run."
This gradual approach builds trust and ensures automation doesn't erode the relationships owners have built one by one.
Deciding Too Quickly on Software
When it comes to booking or follow-up automation, Parslow sees owners rush to pick software. "Someone sees a demo of a booking tool, signs up that week, and a few months later they're paying for something that fixed a problem they didn't really have," he said.
Instead, he advises looking for where money is actually leaking. "The money is usually leaking somewhere else, like quotes nobody followed up on or invoices that sat for two months before anyone asked." His recommendation: keep a list for a week of every time something slipped and start with whatever appears most often.
Parslow also asks clients what software ads they've seen and what appeals to them. "Most of the time, it's trivial to clone the functionality of those paid tools and even improve on them, which justifies my service at the same time that it saves my customer money."
Practical Takeaways
- Document your processes before automating, even roughly.
- Centralize job information so the whole team can see it.
- Keep the owner in the loop on customer communications at first.
- Track where things slip for a week before buying software.
- Consider custom solutions over off-the-shelf tools when appropriate.
For more on MLP Consulting's approach to websites, automation, and AI, visit mlpconsults.com.
This interview has been edited for clarity and length.