How to teach Zapier

Here's how I'd teach Zapier. Show don't tell.

You are one of the few people who gets it.

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You know what a trigger and an action are. You’ve heard of an API and automation is familiar. But for your clients, students, teammates, and grandmothers, automation is scary, strange, and possibly mathematical (the worst).

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If you find yourself needing to teach Zapier, don’t you dare start talking about triggers and actions. In fact, don’t tell them anything.

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To teach Zapier, you must show not tell.

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Today, I’m going to provide you with one possible way you could teach someone Zapier by showing not telling. I’ve built a quick teaching app in Zapier Intefaces to show you.

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Let’s learn.

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Showing lead capture in Zapier

If someone was brand new to automation and was curious about how it could help them with leads, I’d point them to this Learn Zapier interface and tell them to try it out. Go ahead, you can go through it in one minute.

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Zapier in a sentence: it moves things from one app to another app.

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The training interface I built demonstrates movement. It doesn’t matter that you have to click buttons to move things. If people understand movement happens, things will click.

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To complete someone’s understanding, show them that Zapier “clicks the buttons” for them. You and I both know Zapier doesn’t need buttons to run but for everyone else the entire internet is made up of buttons and buttons are how things happen. Speak in buttons.

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Zapier Canvas helps show the completely automated process and is the finishing touch in the learning experience.

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You, too, can build something quickly to teach Zapier. There are a few other hidden tips with the learning app I built above that you’ll notice:

Show systems like lead capture to illustrate a complete process
Leverage Zapier Interfaces to keep the experience simple (the fewer the tools, the better)
Add clicking, navigating, and personalization

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There’s a whole lot more to Zapier that you could show via an experience like this. If you build something, let me know!

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To recap: