127: Advanced Automation Techniques in Zapier (Webhooks & Why You Should Use Them) with Courtney McKay

Dolly DeLong: Welcome back to another Systems and Workflow Magic Podcast episode. I am your Systems and Workflow BFF and Guide, Dolly DeLong. Today, I am so excited to have the only Courtney McKay on the podcast. And if you don’t know her right now, you are really. You’re going to want to get to know her and follow her into her world after this episode because Courtney is a tech and automation specialist who helps service providers scale.

You heard that they grow their business through automation. Automation has over seven years of experience as a software developer. Her goal is to provide customized services and solutions to streamline your operations, allowing you to serve more clients and deliver exceptional service without adding more to your plate, which I know we all love.

I want to add that this isn’t coming out on March 8. It is coming out after March 8, but this is an appropriate day to have this conversation. I love featuring another woman with a fantastic brain on Women’s Day. Let’s celebrate how amazing and talented many female business owners are.

I’m so excited to have you here. I have been; we’ve known each other because of Instagram. It’s been fun getting to know you slowly over time, Courtney, and I’m so glad you’re on the podcast. So welcome.

Courtney McKay: Thank you so much. It is an honor to be here. Thank you.

Dolly DeLong: Hi. Well, I’m excited to have you. Is there anything I left out that you would like, like a more formal introduction of yourself?

Courtney McKay: Well, I’ll explain a little bit about my mission because, you know, I provide automation services for service providers. And really, my mission is to help service providers and business owners in general feel more in control of their business. A lot of the time, when we create these businesses, we get to a point where.

It just takes control over our lives and dictates everything we do. And then we don’t have the freedom and flexibility to live our lives. And so what I do is to help service providers automate and streamline so that they can be able to take a step back, take time off that they need, and also be able to grow their income without having to hireHiringg is not always the best solution because then you’re putting control in other people’s hands which as a small business owner, you might not want to do that.

Also, hiring is not as cost-effective as automation. So that’s where I come in to help people with automation that they might not see. Or I can come inAutomationfill in the gaps. Maybe they have some automation, like simplified automation, but they’re just missing pieces.

Then, I can help bridge those gaps with more advanced customized solutions.

Dolly DeLong: I love that so much. I’m laughing, not because of what you were saying, but because we will keep this accurate for those listening to the podcast. My five-year-old son is singing this weird song in the same room as me. I’m smirking right now, and Courtney delivers the Best introduction ever.

Courtney McKay: I can relate to this because I am a stay-at-home mom, and that’s why automation is so important to me. I have to do my business while watching my daughter during the day. So, Automationstems is not optional for me. I’m sure that you can relate to that, too. You must have these systems in place to live your life and do it while doing a million other things all the time.

It’s just constant.

Dolly DeLong: It is constant. I’m, this is perfect then. I’m, I’m so glad you’re here. Cause you relate to this. So Courtney, besides, I’m just so excited to have you on and meet you. I am excited that you are going to be talking about Zapier. We could discuss many different tech tools regarding automation, but Zapier is a great tool.

It seems to be a viral tool that many business owners either hear about or know about; it looks scary. It seems overwhelming because there is so much stuff that Zapier can do to help you automate. And so we’re going to be talking about, or you’re going to be talking about, not me, everyone, I want to clarify, Courtney here is, is, is the automation specialist, but, she’s going to be teaching us about.

We can explore advanced automation using Zapier. The advanced automation is through webhooks, so I asked Courtney. I was like, Courtney, you need to dumb it down. It’s like you’re teaching a bunch of Automationraders or second-graders. AnAutomationhe will. She’ll do a great job educating us.

But for those of you listening, you’re like, I don’t, I’m out, I don’t want to hear this. It’s too much for me. I want to encourage you to stay in and listen because, as Kornian mentioned earlier, you can set up automation rather than hiring someone.

This might help save your business money in the long run as you scale up. Please tune in. You might learn something new about Zapier or not know what It is. I encourage you to listen in, even if you’re in one of your businesses. You might decide to use this layer.

So tune in. Don’t be afraid. You might have to listen to this twice because I’m going to listen to this twice. Yeah, so let’s start here. Courtney, what, what is Zapier?

Courtney McKay: Yeah, Zapier is an automation tool. A lot of you have probably heard about it. If you’re not already using it, it’s a potent tool. They market themselves as no-code, even though you can do coding in Zapier, which is why I love it so much.

Because it is so versatile, it is a tool for both beginners in terms of technical experience, beginners and experts, and specialists like me. It is just a way to connect two tools or apps. It is the middleman that facilitates communication if there isn’t a direct integration available between two tools.

So, Zapier is a great peripheral tool in your tool belt. If that makes sense, you can use it anytime you want to automate something you couldn’t automate with one tool.

Dolly DeLong: Yeah, that makes sense. So, everyone thinks of Zapier as the middleman again. I’m repeating what Courtney said.

If you have two different tools that don’t talk to each other, Zapier will be like the innovative glue that holds them together so things can run smoothly. I love that so much. And I love Zapier. I use Zapier for A lot of parts of my business. I know I’m only using maybe just like the surface level of Zapier.

I know I could get more profound, so I’m excited about learning about webhooks. I’ve heard of this term before, but I’m like, I have no; I’m picturing hooks. I’m picturing pirates. I’m picturing it very visually. I’m like, I don’t understand what a web hook is. So Corny, do you mind explaining a webhook’s definition, what it is, and how it helps us as business owners?

Courtney McKay: Yes, webhooks are confusing, but it’s pretty simple. So, in Zapier, you have triggers and actions. So if this happens, or when this happens, do this, right? Webhooks are the win part. It’s a trigger. It’s specifically an event-based trigger. So, you can think of when you have an app that you’ve set up as your trigger in Zapier; if a particular event happens within that app, then that will trigger a webhook, and the webhook is just a signal from that app to Zapier, that Zapier will then catch or hook onto, to know, okay, it’s time to run, you know, so that is essentially high level what a webhook is.

Dolly DeLong: Gotcha. Okay. Thank you so much. It was really for me, you all. She was helping me understand it by dumbing it down. So that’s helpful. While you were talking about that, Courtney, I thought I could create a web. Okay. So, I’m just going to chat with you about webhooks.

For now, I think, and maybe I’m correct. So, for example, when somebody looks like you when booking an appointment to be on the podcast, could I create a webhook from Dub Sado into Riverside to create a, what’s this called? Like a recording studio? Is that right? Am I on the same train of thought?

Courtney McKay: It’s possible to create webhooks if the tools allow you. The way that webhooks work has to be set up on both sides. You have to establish that communication. Okay? So, in Zapier, usually, well, Zapier makes it very easy for you to set up webhooks from their side. So, Zapier is the listener.

Once you set up a Zapier Zap and choose webhooks as the trigger, Zapier creates a listener that will always listen to that signal. Then, on the other side of the communication with the app, you have to set up, like the other side of the communication, you have to say, okay, when this event happens, send this signal to Zapier, and Zapier gives you a URL, which is an endpoint.

If you’ve ever set up a webhook before, it gives you a URL, and you’re probably like, what the heck do I do this with this? You take that URL. You’re going to copy and paste it into that app when you’re setting up the webhook, and some apps will let you set up webhooks, but not all of them do.

You have to look and probably research to see this app. Let me set up a webhook for Zapier. Some examples of webhooks I always use are in ActiveCampaign, where you can have a part or a step in your automation that sends a webhook to Zapier.

They make it super easy to do that. You know that you need to start if you’re doing a deadline funnel and have a countdown timer. So, you create that in ActiveCampaign. The webhook calls the webhook to the deadline funnel. And then, so that’s the two-way communication.

Zapier is not involved in something like that. It’s between the active automation and the deadline funnel. But often, you can use webhooks in Zapier because you want to run a Zap automation. So, the communication there would be from the app to Zapier. Does that make sense?

Dolly DeLong: It does. It’s like I’m because I’ve been pretty familiar with Zapier. I’m like, okay, this is making sense. And I like how in Zapier since I’m very visual. I like that they have a little chart you can build. Yeah. And test it along the way. And I want it. It makes, it helps, it helps make sense to my brain.

Okay. So, I guess let’s explore webhooks more. Can you give us some tangible examples for the listeners? Like, ever. Easy examples of how they could use it in their own business. I know you work with a variety of companies. As I’ve seen, I follow you on Instagram.

Cause I’m like, wow, look at all these fantastic automations you’re putting together. But I love how you’re able to help a photographer. You’ve helped a photographer out. You’ve helped; correct me if I’m wrong; you work with many financial-based business owners. You work with a wide variety of businesses.

I love that Zapier can still help all these different businesses, which is fantastic. Can you give us some tangible ways to utilize webhooks, like a one-person show that can save money from spending in a VA?

Courtney McKay: Yes. So, I’ll say that the cases where you will need to use and set up a webhook are when a trigger is unavailable.

If there is a trigger available in Zapier, use that trigger. You don’t need to set up; you get into the headache of setting up a webhook. But if you need to. Create an automation to save yourself time, or you’re just doing a task over and over and over, and you’re just finding ways to automate and streamline. You’re setting it up in Zapier, and suddenly, you’re looking at the list of triggers for a specific app, and you’re like, dang, my Triggers are not there. You might be able to set up a webhook for it.

So, I’ll give an example. I had a client who, or I guess, did this automation for myself and my clients. This is my favorite automation in Airtable. If you know Airtable, it’s like a spreadsheet app. It’s more like a database app.

You can create a table, and let’s say you have many records. I will create a column and use the field-type button. So that’s like you click a button, and you know, you can make something happen. Well, I’ll use it for a webhook. So, I’ll have a record where I can trigger an automation and zap automation if I click a button.

So that’s like an example of a webhook that I use. Automation saves me a ton of time because I like creating all my content on the air table. I manage everything in an air table, and sometimes, as I’m working on stuff, I want to automate a process, and it’s super easy to click a button. It just r, uns ait has all the information that the record needs to run for. Then I’ve had clients who, like we wanted wan to want, it’s in ClickUp triggers that weren’t available in Zapier, and we were able to set that up using a webhook in the Clickautomationons.

Yeah, sorry. These are just random examples, but there are webhook triggers.

Dolly, in so many ways. DeLong: Okay. So you said your favorite webhook for yourself relates to content creation. Can you, I’m just curious, explain more of this?

Courtney McKay: I have an air table where I plan and write my content. Everything is stored in that air table. And when I want to publish it, like if I want to schedule it, I click a button, and it schedules it for me automatically. I don’t need to copy and paste the content into a fancy scheduling tool.

I don’t use that. I use Zapier; I ought to schedule that. Okay. I also have an automation setup where I like to post to my stories, but I hate creating the stories, like the graphics and everything, like moving the text around. It’s just so annoying. So I have automation to type out the text in Airtable, and then when I’m ready for the images to be generated, I click a button, and then I have an automation that generates those images for me, and it just takes the text.

It just pops them in there, so I don’t have to do that manually. Yeah, those are some examples.

Dolly DeLong: Okay, so let’s say you are, yeah, because you were sharing earlier. You also have a young one, and you’re a stay-at-home mom. Yes. A  forget you, the last thing you want to do is be on your phone, glued to your phone, typinoutcryry after story while your little one runs around. You probably want to be present with her.

So, how do you have the pictures? Are they like the photos already? They are downloaded in Airtable and then pat. How does this work?

Courtney McKay: Yeah, that one’s more advanced automation, and for that one, I think I used a combination of Zapier and PipeDream, another automation tool. However, I use PipeDream more for the coding-heavy automation because it’s more developer-friendly,

But yeah, the way it works is in my air table. I do have a table of images, but with my stories, I like to highlight or color the pictures with my brand colors. So it’s not just the image. So, I have an automation to choose the color, highlighting the color for me.

Then, it’ll fit the test automation in the automation. I also sometimes have little branding elements, like headers and footers, that it’ll put on there, too. When it’s done generating all those images in Placid, another tool I use that allows you to generate images and content, like graphics, with templates, I created a bunch of layouts and templates in Placid and then the automation.

Type Dream will take my text from the air table, put it in the templates and the images, and then generate all of them. I do pay for automation for all of those images, but then I have another automation set up on my phone that I will like. It sends me an email with a list of URLs of all those images, and then I have an iOS shortcut automation that will like this: I click a button, and it takes all those images, downloads them, and puts them on my phone.

So, all I have to do on Instagram is upload each of the imaAutomations and do them individually to ensure they’re in the correct order, but that’s the only manual work I need to do. Other than putting stickers and polls,

Dolly DeLong: I do

Courtney McKay: those manually. I have to,

Dolly DeLong: I was wondering, that’s what I was going to ask you.

I was like, it does like the polls and the questions. How does it know how to do that? Okay. That’s precisely what you are saving money for. Like having a social media, like a person, like designing everything you and then posting it and like, all you have to do is manually put it in order, but you already have that or made, you’re not like making it on the go.

That’s the time saver right there.

Courtney McKay: I love to batch content and repurpose content. So, having everything stored in an air table in one database makes it so easy to repurpose content. You can easily search, filter, and sort by topic. And, you know, you can keep your data and your content.

I am highly organized, so it streamlines everything, the whole process. And then I’m also a control freak, I’ll say that. I just really like to do things my way. Yes, I hesitate to hire someone to do my stories because I do it in a particular way, and I want to have that control and ensure that the output is very consistent.

So that’s another reason I love automation: you set it up once, and it’s consistent every time.

Dolly DeLong: Yeah. And it’s your personality. I don’t think that’s too much of a control thing for you. I think it’s like you want your audience to know it’s you. You want them to read it like they’re talking or talking with you, Courtney.

I, okay. That’s a great example. I know we’re going off on a tangent, yeah. But everyone is like, maybe this is an excellent reminder to everyone that before you start hiring out these people to do your social media or email marketing orAutomation make sure that they know your voice really because your voice might be very different from their heirs, not talking about how you’re hearing them. I’m talking about how you type out and inflection and everything. Because people can know a difference between when they read something you’ve quote unquote typed and when they hear you online, there’s a disconnect. And so I love that Courtney has that skill set.

Set up, and I’m sure she could train someone to do this over time, but that, again, takes money and time, and you, like, that’s so smart. I love that so much. That is so smart. Okay. Can you share another example? I Jove your content creation process. And do you offer a template? There’s going to be people wondering, and I’m just going to ask.

Are you planning on offering a template for this in your shop? I think this is amazing.

Courtney McKay: I mean, I could try to templatize it. It’s just hard because what I do is highly customary. And a lot of the automation I do for my service providers is tailored to their business and needs.

I think automation, especially coding and advanced automation, is hard to generalize. And that’s why I love what I do so much. I love working with business owners to learn processes and create perfect automation. It’s like a glove, you know, like it’s. I get so much satisfaction from that.

I might think about creating a template, at least for my air table content database. The stories one would be a little harder to template, but yeah, it’s cool 

Dolly DeLong: I’m just calling it, and somebody will reach out to you after this and do that for me. Automation: I think that is so, so yeah. I guAutomationat I’m talking about this outlet, I think it would be better if you just worked one-on-one with a person and a business center. That way, you can make a customized air table template for them, their brand, and their voice. So I love that.

That’s okay, everybody. You’ll find Courtney after this. Can you give us another example of how you use webhooks or how you’ve helped other business owners use webhooks to essentially save money from hiring out?

Courtney McKay: Yeah, and I want to explain another webhook concept. So, in Zapier, there’s the webhooks trigger and a webhooks action. Okay, it isn’t apparent because the webhooks action is not even related to webhooks.

You can make API requests with the webhooks action. Since requests are different from webhooks, you should think of webhooks as the trigger. Still, requests are the action, and every action in Zapier, like every action that connects to an app, uses requests.

An API request is also a web; the triggers in Zapier use webhooks under the hood. A lot of them, not all of them, but many do. So you might think that webhooks are this bizarre, complicated concept, but it’s like Zapier uses webhooks. You don’t know; like you don’t, it’s not exposed to the end user.

So, regarding the webhooks action, it’s putting these API requests under the hood for apps. I do that all the time with my clients. If there’s no action available in Zapier, I will make a custom API request for the app instead because these apps will often have a whole library of actions they support in their API.

You can think of an API as just that library. It’s the library of actions and stuff you can automate. Zapier has a list of standard actions that they support and that you can easily connect to. It’s the actions that you are probably familiar with.

But if you don’t have an action there, if you want to find a folder and click upright, it can create a folder, but you can’t. You can use the look-up and click-up API. You have the doc as if they have their publicly available documentation, and you can use that webhooks action in Zapier to make that request a custom request instead.

I use that all the time.

Dolly DeLong: Wow. My mind is being blown. I’m trying to think about how I can utilize this. Have you? So when you say make a folder, let’s go with that. Let’s say somebody uses Trello because I use it as my project management tool.

So, are you saying that when an action happens in one application, let’s say? I use Dubsado all the time. It’s like one of my rides died. If a client is created, a lead is created in Dubsado. Could something be a Trello? I don’t want to say a board or a file be made for a specific client workflow.

Does that make sense?

Courtney McKay: Uh, so you’re connecting Dubsado to Trello, like a file or a folder in Trello. If something happens in Dubsado, you want to be able to do something in Trello. Does that action already exist in Zapier, or is it missing?

Dolly DeLong: I don’t know. I need to look this up.

Yeah,

Courtney McKay: a lot of the times, like, the cases where you would want to make a custom API request is when you’re trying to set up an automation, and you, like, look for an action for an app, and it’s just not there. It’s not listed in Zapier. I

Dolly DeLong: I bet it’s there. What? I bet somebody’s yelling at me right now on their phone.

They’re like, it’s there, Dolly. You should know this. I don’t know everything, guys. But it would be so handy. If something I like makes my customer experience more seamless, and I don’t like it, even though I love using Dubsado, I don’t open it up all the time, but I do open up Trello, like my project management tool, all the time.

If I could have a customer service workflow board in addition, not like my Dubsado workflows, but just Things to keep in mind for this specific client, I need to work this out, out loud, or draw this out, but you are giving me a lot of things to think through.

What can you give us? I know we’re talking for almost 30 minutes, but I’m just asking you another question. Can you provide another example of a webhook that would help save time? No, I don’t, obviously, yes. We’re talking about saving time. I should say that differently.

That would help save a person money from paying a VA.

Courtney McKay: So we talked about content creation, which I think is an excellent example if you need to. I mean, everyone’s always doing content, and it just takes up so much time, but there are other things that you’re probably doing all the time, like onboarding clients.

If you’re a service provider, most of the automation I do for service providers revolves around automating the client experience, like onboarding and whatnot. Depending on the CRM that you use, the CRM is like the central hub of everything you do as a service provider—and so, depending on your CRM.

If it has a great integration with Zapier, you can do so much with that. However, I work with many clients who use a CRM with some actions in Zapier but not all they need. One of the missing actions they do a lot is updating a contact because we will have an automation set up a lot of the time, so maybe they schedule a call through Calendly.

We create a contact in Wealthbox for that. We might contact them later on to become clients. Then, they like to fill Automation with a bunch of client information. We want to be able to update that contact, which has already been created, with the information they just filled out in their client information form.

So. They don’t have an action update for the client, and Zapier doesn’t. So, I will do a webhook action, just an API request. I do that for clients to save time because they’re just onboarding like crazy. And so instead of hiring an admin like, or like, a VA to do all that manual copying and pasting for them, automation also increases your accuracy.

Data because copying and pasting or manually typing data in, you know, you can mistype and make errors. Many clients work in the financial profession, so errors are a big deal. They want to do everything they can to mitigate those errors. So that’s where my automation, especially the custom automation I do, really comes in handy.

Dolly DeLong: Man, Courtney, you’re blowing everybody’s mind. Okay. So after this, everyone, I want you all to find Courtney, follow her, get to know her, and probably now get on her waitlist to work with her because she knows her stuff, and she’s Or I’m just like, wow. Web and, and you all like in full transparency, Courtney sent me a complete list of things to talk about, and I automated it, and I’m like, the only thing I knew was webhooks.

And I was like, let’s talk about webhooks because there is a wealth of knowledge regarding automating—your business, especially as a solo business owner. So, I’m not trying to embarrass you, Courtney. I’m letting you know that you are so gifted at your work. Automation, you feel better, so thank you.

 We’re already over 30 minutes, so I don’t want to take up too much of your time. But as we wrap up, how can people find you, and how can people work with you? I share, share, and spill all the tea with us.

Courtney McKay: Well, I’m pretty active on Instagram. I love to share behind-the-scenes stuff with clients and myself.

So, following me on Instagram will teach you much about what I do and the automation I set up. But in terms of working with me, I love working with service providers who need some of those, like really custom and advanced Automation. I do like one-off projects all the time where, like, maybe if you already have like a bunch of CRM Automation or workflow setup, but you still just like you’re noticing gaps in your client experience or you’re still doing like tons of manual work That’s where I can come and audit your systems and your processes and recommend some more advanced automation that we can do to help free up your time.

You can reach out to me, and we can do a project like that together. I also offer automation help sessions. If you are into DIY and automation and just want someone to look over your shoulder to ensure you’re doing automation, you can ask me questions, or we can troubleshoot a problem together.

I also do one-hour calls, which you can book with me.

Dolly DeLoAutomatione. And you all, I will have all this information in the show notes of this podcast and the corresponding blog. But Courtney, I’m just so thrilled you were on the podcast again. Thank you so much for coming on.

I am now convinced I’m right. Courtney needs to create or at least customize these templates for people. Also, having your own, like a more profound automation podcast would be best. Anyway, this is what I was thinking, too. I meant to ask you how you got interested in tech.

Because you don’t meet a lot of females in Automationield who are so well-versed, you are so well-versed in what you do and passionate about what you do. How did you, like, when did this? I guess this should have been at the beginning of the episode, but I’m messing around with you all today.

How did you get interested in tech, in the tech field?

Courtney McKay: This will probably explain a lot. I used to be a software engineer. I transitioned into finance because I was obsessed with finance for a bit, and then I moved into the treasury team at my tech company. I was automating everything because, like it, I couldn’t help it.

It was the software engineer in me. I just had to automate everything I was doing. And that’s where I’ve just become obsessed with automation. I’m, and I’ve always been, obsessed with efficiency. It impacts my personal life daily. That’s how obsessed with efficiency I am.

So that’s how I came to this point. I do love tech. It’s always been ingrained in me. I had a computer engineering degree in college. So, it’s pretty much my whole world.

Dolly DeLong: I love it. What made you want to be a software engineer?

Courtney McKay: My dad was an engineer and naturally encouraged me to go in that direction. In school, I didn’t think I would do it until I went to college. I took some coding classes and figured I could do this. I also just wanted to feel like I could do it.

I felt like a woman; I felt like I wasn’t, I wasn’t, I didn’t belong. I was the only female cAutomationgineering student or the only female in my computer engineering class the year I graduated. There were a lot of female electrical engineers with whom I was friends.

Yeah. I was the only computer engineering one. So that was hard, yeah, it’s a complicated degree. It was very rigorous, but, you know, I’m grateful for my experiences, and it shaped me to be the person that I am today. Yeah,

Dolly DeLong: Courtney and I are interviewing on Women’s Day.

I feel so empowered for you. I am so proud of you, and I hope you continue to thrive in your business. After this episode, you all should go and find Courtney, work with her, and get to know her. She is a sweet and intelligent woman. She is a savvy woman. Look at this. All right.

Well, I hope you all have a wonderful week. I know this was a little different from the rhythm of the episode because I was asking questions at the very end, so please pardon me. But thank you all for tuning in to the end. I hope you all have a unique and magical week. You magical muggle, and I will talk to you all next week with a new Syand workflow-related episode.

So bye, guys.