I have just learnt that n8n is going to run a huge update on 8th Dec - lots of good changes are coming - like auto save and better UI/UX. However, there's a little catch - some "breaking changes" may disrupt your existing workflows if you're not prepared and have not configured your workflows. I am looking into the n8n announcement now - https://docs.n8n.io/2-0-breaking-changes/ Just wanted to give the community a heads up ( if you haven't yet) that it's important to read the documentation and understand what you need to do to secure your workflows.

20 discovery calls my first 3 months. 8 became clients. 12 wasted hours. Then I learned one question that predicts who buys. Ask it in first 5 minutes. THE QUESTION: "What happens if you DON'T fix this in the next 3 months?" Not "what's your pain" or "what's your budget." What happens if nothing changes? THE RESPONSES THAT PREDICT BUYERS: BUYER: "We'll miss growth targets. Hiring another admin just for data entry, $40K annually. Can't scale like this." Specific consequence. Financial impact. Timeline urgency. NON-BUYER: "I mean, it's annoying. Would be nice to fix eventually." Vague. No urgency. No real pain. THE PATTERN: Buyers have CONSEQUENCES for inaction. Non-buyers have INCONVENIENCES. Consequences = money, time, growth limits, team frustration Inconveniences = "would be nice," "annoying," "eventually" MY CLOSE RATES: Consequence answers: 11/13 closed (85%) Inconvenience answers: 1/7 closed (14%) WHY THIS MATTERS: Stop wasting time on inconvenience leads. Qualify hard early. If they don't have real consequence, they won't buy. THE FULL DISCOVERY FRAMEWORK: MINUTE 1-2: "Walk me through your current process." Listen. Take notes. Let them vent. MINUTE 3-4: "How long does this take monthly?" Get specific numbers. 10 hours? 20 hours? MINUTE 5: "What happens if you DON'T fix this in the next 3 months?" THE MONEY QUESTION. If strong consequence → continue call If weak consequence → "Sounds like this isn't urgent. Check back in a few months?" MINUTE 6-10: Demo solution (if strong consequence) Show working example. Their problem solved visually. MINUTE 11-12: Next steps "Want me to send proposal? We could start next week." OTHER QUALIFYING QUESTIONS: "Who else needs to approve this?" (reveals decision-making) "What's your timeline?" (reveals urgency) "What budget allocated?" (reveals seriousness) But consequence question is #1. REAL EXAMPLES: CLOSED: "If we don't fix this by Q2, hiring two more people. That's $80K annually. Our margins can't handle that."

Sent 50 LinkedIn messages. Booked 8 calls. Closed 2 clients. Here's the EXACT approach. THE PROBLEM: "How do I find clients on LinkedIn?" Most advice: "Add value, engage with posts, build relationships..." Cool. But I needed clients now, not in 6 months. THE COLD MESSAGE THAT WORKS: Sent 50 messages using this template. Got 8 responses (16% response rate). THE MESSAGE: "Hi [Name], Saw your post about [specific pain they mentioned]. I actually helped [similar company] automate exactly this process - saved them 8 hours weekly. Not sure if you're still dealing with this, but happy to share what worked if you're interested. [Your name]" That's it. 3 sentences. THE BREAKDOWN: Sentence 1: Prove you're not spam (reference specific post) Sentence 2: Provide relevant social proof (similar company, specific result) Sentence 3: Low-pressure offer (no hard pitch) WHO TO TARGET: SEARCH FOR POSTS ABOUT: - "Spending too much time on..." - "Tedious process..." - "Manual data entry..." - "Overwhelmed by paperwork..." Filter: Posted last 7 days Target: Small business owners (not employees) Sweet spot: 50-500 employees MY TARGETING CRITERIA: Posted about operational pain in last week Title includes: Owner, CEO, COO, Operations Manager Company size: 50-500 employees Industry: Service businesses (agencies, firms, consultants) THE OUTREACH SCHEDULE: Day 1: Find 10 relevant posts, save profiles Day 2: Send 10 messages (use template, personalize sentence 1) Day 3: Find 10 more posts Day 4: Send 10 more messages Repeat: 50 messages total over 10 days THE FOLLOW-UP: If they respond: "Would a quick 15-minute call help? I can show you exactly what we built for [similar company]." Book call immediately. Send calendar link. Done. THE NUMBERS: 50 messages sent 8 responses (16%) 8 discovery calls booked 4 showed up 2 closed ($2,900 total) ROI: 10 hours outreach time = $2,900 revenue = $290/hour THE MISTAKES I MADE: First 20 messages: Generic ("I help businesses with automation")

Am I the only one who gets "Request failed with status code 500" when trying to open or work in n8n? UPD something big is happening with Cloudflare and a lot of sites, LLM and services are down…Claude came back to life (not sure for how long)

How do you structure n8n projects to avoid a 'big ball of mud'? After getting burned by a few overly complex and intertwined workflows, I wanted to ask others what patterns have they settled on? I'm not looking for theory, but for some practical, in-the-trenches methods for keeping workflows extensible and easy to update 6 months after you built them. What's your single most important rule?