The lead filled out her form.
Zapier was supposed to send the calendar link.
It didn’t.
Game over.
Here’s what happened:
Casey runs a $180K/year consulting business. Solo operator. Two part-time VAs. She helps service businesses scale without burning out.
She’s good at what she does.
But her tech stack? That’s a different story.
She’s running 11 different tools:
– ClickFunnels for landing pages
– Mailchimp for email
– Calendly for bookings
– Typeform for lead capture
– Zapier to hold it all together
Total cost: $700/month.
But that’s not the real cost.
Here’s what happened last Tuesday:
A dream prospect found Casey’s website. Perfect fit. $15K potential project.
They filled out her Typeform.
The Typeform was supposed to:
– Add them to Mailchimp
– Send them a Calendly link
– Ping Casey on Slack
But Casey’s Zapier account hit its monthly task limit.
(Her VA’s social media automations eat through Zaps like candy.)
So the Zap… just didn’t fire.
The prospect never got the calendar link.
They assumed Casey ghosted them.
Four days later, they hired someone else.
Casey didn’t even know the lead existed until she manually checked Typeform a week later.
This isn’t a Zapier problem.
This is a failure point problem.
Every tool you add to your stack creates 3 new ways to lose a deal:
The tool itself can fail
The integration can fail
You can forget to check it
Casey had 11 tools.
That’s 33 potential failure points.
And one of them just cost her $12,000 in lost revenue.
But here’s the part that keeps her up at night:
– How many OTHER leads fell through the cracks?
– How many forms got filled out, but the follow-up never happened?
– How many people thought she was ignoring them when she never even saw the notification?
She’ll never know.
The sticky note on Casey’s monitor says “SIMPLIFY.”
It’s been there for 11 months.
She knows she needs to consolidate. She’s started the project 4 times.
But every time she looks at the migration process, her brain just… shuts down.
“I’ll do it after this project wraps.”
“I’ll do it after Q1.”
“I’ll do it when things slow down.”
Meanwhile, her VAs are Slacking her every Monday:
“Zapier didn’t fire again. Should I manually add them to Mailchimp?”
And Casey replies:
“Yes, please 
“
This is the hidden cost of the Frankenstein tech stack.
It’s not the $700/month in subscriptions.
It’s the 10 hours/week Casey spends troubleshooting, manually fixing what “should” be automated, and resetting passwords she’s forgotten.
At her $300/hour consulting rate, that’s $3,000/week in lost billable time.
$12,000/month in opportunity cost.
So yeah, she lost a $12K deal last week.
But she’s been losing $12K every single month for the last two years.
She just didn’t have a Typeform screenshot to prove it.
Tomorrow, I’m going to show you what Casey did about it.
(Spoiler: She didn’t add another tool. She subtracted 10.)
But for now, here’s the question:
How many failure points are in YOUR tech stack right now?
Count them up.
Then ask yourself:
“How many deals have I lost without even knowing?”
Comment STACK if you want me to break down the consolidation strategy in the next post.
(And if you’ve ever lost a lead because an automation didn’t fire, comment ZAPIER so I know I’m not alone in this chaos.)
P.S. My solution is GHL for $97/month. Check the comments and get a special 30-day FREE trial + access to my growing GHL Training library!
P.P.S. Check out the comments for some amazing AI Prompts to help you along this path!
