Pivoting from Distraction: Simplifying Outbound Flows

The Trap of the “Shiny Object”

I feel like I let myself get completely distracted recently. Does this happen to you? It happens in business, and it happens in life.

Somehow, I went off the rails. I had this core commitment to doing the live show—the idea around the *Morning Scrum*—and just getting on here and building in public.

But then I got pulled into this other idea. I thought, “Okay, let’s do what I want to do. Maybe I’ll use webinars.”

And honestly? None of it really worked out that well. I spent a bunch of money. I got the enterprise Zoom package. I was trying to figure out the perfect registration flow. I could create some nice webinar pages, but nobody was coming.

It made me wonder if things have fundamentally changed in the landscape of digital connection. Like, does anyone actually want to go to a webinar anymore? Unless you have the time to really produce it with high-end effort, the friction is just too high. People don’t have the time.

The value I create is happening because I record, and I create interesting content in the moment. I realized – Wow! I completely got off track. I still have Restream. It is so much easier to use this to produce a basic show that looks pretty good and doesn’t require a whole bunch of post-production effort. It’s straightforward. So, I cleaned up a few things, fixed the background, and decided to get back on the show.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YeM2T_90988

I’ve spent a lot of time in the Zoom world, and it’s truly a big product. It offers amazing features, like hosting webinars with large audiences. But I realized I’m still far from that level, and there’s a big difference between that and having an intimate conversation or chatting with a few people, building smaller groups and connections—that is producing a ton of value. I really don’t need a massive webinar infrastructure for that. I just need a way to get people into this conversation.

The Technical Pivot: From Content to Conversion

Once I cleared the mental clutter of the webinar failure, I was left with the real challenge for today: I need to start messaging. I haven’t had a proper funnel. I’ve been experimenting, but I need a sustained engine.

This is where we get into the weeds of the tech stack. I have a vision of what I want to build, but the challenge is always the technical integration. Specifically, I’m looking at connecting HubSpot, Apollo, and LinkedIn into a coherent flow. I’ve named the execution layer of this “Signal,” but honestly, getting the bot logic right is one thing; getting it to actually talk via API is another.

For better or for worse, this connection is technically painful. Creating a bot script is straightforward logic. But getting it to talk, navigating different APIs, figuring out the handshake between the data provider and the messaging platform—there are so many different approaches to this. I found myself hung up on this because I need a message, and I need to figure this out to scale up.

The “Walk Before You Run” Philosophy

This brings up a massive question for any builder or solopreneur: Do I build the automation first, or do I just start the process manually?

I’ve built so many applications in my career. I remember back in the day with Quickbase I was constantly building things for my team—solving problems that didn’t even exist yet. I wanted to learn, and it was fun, and they would go along with my experiments. But often, I’d build a solution, and later realize we didn’t really need it, or the problem was slightly different than I anticipated.

I think the right approach is to walk frequently. How do I do this manually? Once I’m doing the task regularly and feeling the pain of the repetition, then I can automate the pieces that are a pain in the butt.

So, the immediate workflow looks like this:

1. HubSpot acts as the backdrop (the database of truth).

2. Apollo acts as the intelligence layer (the brain).

3. LinkedIn is the execution channel.

   
   

Is it just loading people into HubSpot and manually sending LinkedIn messages?

Or do I put Apollo in the middle? I think Apollo is the key here. It can automate a lot of the task generation.

The Architecture: Mapping the Flow

I spent some time this afternoon staring at the whiteboard, mapping this out. I realized that if I try to build the perfect “all-in-one” automated bot immediately, I’m going to stall. But if I look at the data flow, it actually simplifies.

Here is the logic I settled on:

* The User (Me) initiates the process.

* Load Prospects: We identify the target audience and load them into the system.

* Apollo (The Brain): This is the central hub. Apollo holds the intelligence. It connects to the Agent concept I’m working on.

* Message/Task Queue: Apollo generates the tasks. This is the “human in the middle” flow I really like. It gives me a task queue: “Hey, message this person.”

* LinkedIn Integration: The agent or the manual task pushes to LinkedIn.

* Signal: This is the automated bot layer that engages people who take an interest.

* HubSpot: The data syncs back here so we have a permanent record.

The main question I had was:

*Can I extract the LinkedIn messages and get that data back into the system to monitor it?*

I’m not giving up on HubSpot as the data hub. But Apollo tasks are quite a bit more fluid for the actual prospecting work. I can send the LinkedIn map, and then it’s only a question of how do I extract the return data.

The Simplification Breakthrough

I realized I was overcomplicating the integration. LinkedIn messaging is difficult to integrate directly via private APIs if you want to do it “white hat” and safe. But if I boil it down to sending the message, the map actually became a lot simpler.

The Revised Flow: User loads prospects -> Works on the message task in Apollo -> Sends via Signal/LinkedIn -> Syncs to HubSpot.

I feel pretty confident about this. It allows for a “Human in the Loop.” I don’t want a generic spam bot. I want a tool that queues up the conversation, lets me verify or personalize it, and then fires it off. Apollo is great at giving those tasks. If I can just extract the LinkedIn messages and get that data, I’m golden.

Scaling the Engine

Today, I’m going to focus on launching a poll and going deep into this integration. I was feeling like I was going to be pissed trying to force HubSpot to do things it wasn’t built for. But I think I answered my own question: Use the tools for what they are best at.

HubSpot is for storage and long-term nurturing. Apollo is for the aggressive outbound intelligence. LinkedIn/Signal is for the delivery.

This is exciting stuff. Whether you are a solopreneur, a small business, or running a corporate department, you need an authentic outbound engine. You can’t just rely on inbound or “webinars” that nobody shows up to. You need to go out and get the connections.

I’m going to be diving more into this topic—SDR workflows, full-cycle sales, and where automation fits into the “Warm Up IP.” I work with companies like Sorint (another anchor sponsor of the show) on exactly these kinds of problems.

It’s time to stop getting distracted by the shiny video conferencing tools and start building the pipes that actually drive revenue.

I’m looking forward to building this next piece out. Let’s get to work.