Most automation doesn't fail because the wrong tools were picked. It fails because the pieces are in the wrong order.
Every business has a domino chain. Most owners only see the tile that fell. We find the tile that started it.
When I was a kid, I was obsessed with a game called Pushover — set up the dominoes, hit one, and if you arranged them right, every single one falls in a single chain. If you didn't, it breaks halfway through and you start over. Twenty-some years later, I realized I'd been playing the same game ever since. I just get paid to do it now.
Play it. It's the fastest way to understand what I actually do.
Three levels. Each one is a real business workflow. Drag the right pieces into the chain, leave the decoys behind, put them in the right order, push once. If you got it right, the chain falls and the job's done. If not, it breaks at the wrong piece and tells you why.
Pick the right pieces. Put them in the right order.
Not every tile belongs. Drag the ones that fit into the empty slots — leave the decoys behind. Push when the chain is complete.
Inspired by Pushover (1992). The childhood obsession that became the business model.
What you just felt is the whole job.
Most business owners I meet aren't missing software. They have plenty of software. They have the CRM, the email tool, the booking system, the accounting platform, the project tracker. What they don't have is the right pieces lined up in the right order so that one action sets off the rest. So everything ends up needing a human in the middle. Every job. Every time.
The pieces are sitting there. The chain just isn't built.
The four parts of the method
Find the human touchpoint
The single action a person actually needs to take. Usually it's one. Sometimes two. Never the whole list.
Define the outcome
What does done look like? Not a status, an actual result — money in the bank, a booking confirmed, a deal decided.
Pick the right pieces
Most of the work is knowing what not to use. Wrong tool in the chain breaks it just like a wrong order does.
Arrange the order
Each piece needs what came before it. Get that wrong and the whole chain stops. Get it right and one push runs it all.
Why this works
Software vendors sell you tools. Consultants sell you frameworks. Neither of those is what makes a workflow actually run. What makes it run is somebody who can look at the messy reality of how your business operates today and see which pieces fit, in what order, with what connecting them. That's the whole job. It's not glamorous. It's just hard, and most people don't have the patience or the pattern recognition for it.
I do. I have for thirty years, since I was the kid arranging dominoes on the floor.
What this looks like in real businesses
Acquisitions. Buyer uploads the documents. The chain reads them, flags the gaps, tallies what's leaking, and hands the buyer a decision-ready report. They touched one step — upload.
Service operations. An inquiry comes in. The chain creates the lead, reserves the slot, sends the confirmation, and the client is booked. The owner touched zero steps — the form did it.
Billing. Work gets approved. The chain builds the invoice, routes it, updates the books, emails the client, and reconciles the payment. The owner touched one step — approval.
That's not science fiction. That's just dominoes in the right order.
Want your business to run like this?
Tell me the outcome you want. I'll figure out which pieces — in what order — get you there. You touch one step. The chain does the rest.
Set up my chain