"We need this by end of next week. Two weeks should be enough time, right?"
Regional accounting firm. 12 locations. 3,000 invoices monthly. Complete chaos.
My standard quote: $8,500 for 2-week delivery.
Their timeline: Desperate but understanding.
My secret: Already built 90% of it.
THE DISCOVERY CALL (20 minutes)
Their process:
- Invoices arrive via email (15 different vendors)
- Manual entry into QuickBooks (4 hours daily)
- Error rate: "Too high to measure"
- Staff frustration: "People quit over this"
My mental checklist:
✓ Email trigger (have it)
✓ PDF extraction (have it)
✓ QuickBooks integration (have it)
✓ Multi-vendor handling (have it)
✓ Error validation (have it)
This was template #23.
THE 4-HOUR "BUILD"
Actually took 4 hours because of customization:
Hour 1: Cloned existing invoice workflow
Hour 2: Updated vendor detection logic (added 3 new patterns)
Hour 3: QuickBooks API mapping (their custom fields)
Hour 4: Testing with their sample invoices
Nodes modified: 3 out of 12
New code written: 47 lines
Templates reused: 97% of the workflow
**THE DEMO THAT AFTERNOON**
"I have something to show you."
Live demo with their actual invoices:
- Uploaded 15 real vendor invoices
- Processed in real-time while they watched
- Data appeared in their QuickBooks test environment
- Perfect accuracy on all 15
Their response: "Wait... it's already done?"
**THE AWKWARD CONVERSATION**
"So... you built this in one day?"
"Four hours."
"Should we pay less?"
"Why? Does it solve your problem?"
"Perfectly."
"Then it took me 7 months to build. Today was just the final assembly."
WHAT THEY DIDN'T SEE
The 7 months of preparation:
- 22 failed invoice workflows
- 187 client conversations about document processing
- 340 hours debugging similar systems
- $4,200 in failed project refunds
CURRENT TEMPLATE LIBRARY
47 proven workflows ready for 4-hour deployment:
- Invoice processing (23 variations)
- Contract analysis (8 variations)
- Medical forms (12 variations)
- Receipt reconciliation (4 variations)
THE BUSINESS MODEL SHIFT
Before: Build from scratch (2 weeks, high stress)
After: Deploy proven templates (4 hours, high confidence)
Revenue comparison:
- Custom builds: $8,500 over 2 weeks = $212/hour
- Template deployment: $8,500 over 4 hours = $2,125/hour
THE UNEXPECTED BONUS
Client so impressed with speed, they referred 4 other firms.
Template #23 revenue: $34,000 in 6 months.
ROI on template development:
- Investment: 340 hours of painful learning
- Return: $2,125/hour deployment rate
- Templates built: 47
- Reuse potential: Infinite
What workflow have you built so many times you could deploy it blindfolded?