Before touching a single app, Tanner's entire system starts with how you think about repetitive problems in your business.

"There's got to be a better way. That's the mindset you need to have as a business owner - because that's what creates automation. It stems from a repetitive problem."
​ — Tanner Mullen, Founder of DripJobs & Premium Painting

🔁 Identify Repetitive Tasks

Every time you do the same thing twice — texting a crew an address, asking for colors, sending work orders — write it down. That's your automation backlog.

🎯 Automate = Delegate Automatically

Automation isn't about tech. It's about getting information to the right people at the right time without you being in the middle of it.

⚙️ Build Once, Serve Forever

Tanner hasn't updated his color submission form in 2 years. Set it up once, and it serves your business indefinitely. The ROI compounds over time.

Key Principle

Your business is worthless if you're still required to run it.

Tanner's most important automation principle: if you wake up and need to call a customer, coordinate a crew, or answer the same question again — that's a system problem, not a people problem.

Premium Painting runs $1.5M+ annually on just three core apps. Everything else plugs into this foundation.

🔧 DripJobs: Your CRM and central source of truth. Stages, pipelines, drip messages, work orders, and Zapier triggers all originate here.

💬 Slack: Team communication hub. Free plan is all you need. Automation outputs flow here so your crew gets information instantly, organized by channel.

⚡ Zapier: The glue between DripJobs and everything else. When something happens in DripJobs, Zapier routes that data to Slack, SMS, email, or any other app.

📋 JotForm: Used for structured data collection — color submissions, painter applications, punch-out surveys. Results flow directly to Slack channels via Zapier.

📸 CompanyCam: Photo documentation for every job. Integrates with DripJobs so photos auto-attach to line items. Creates projects from estimate scheduling triggers.

📞 Quo (formerly OpenPhone): Cloud-based business phone system. Allows delegation of call answering, recorded calls, automated text on missed call, and Zapier integrations.

💡 Why a Cloud Phone System Matters

If your business phone is your personal cell, you're the only one who can answer it. A cloud-based system lets you delegate answering to anyone in the world — and enables automations DripJobs can tap into. Tanner recommends Quo (formerly OpenPhone). If your number is already everywhere on marketing, keep your cell but create a new business number going forward.

Slack isn't just for chatting. Tanner uses it as the delivery system for every automation — a real-time dashboard for his team that runs itself.

"No one calls me anymore. If I want to talk to anyone, I have to call them. And sometimes I do, I'm like — is everything okay? That's a good place to be in business. Everyone has a central source of truth."

— Tanner Mullen

Premium Painting's Actual Slack Channels

#painter-applications — JotForm → Zapier → Slack. New applicants delivered automatically.

#team-andres — Crew-specific work orders sent when job moves to In Progress.

#team-dan — Dan's crew communication. Automated job assignments + daily updates.

#proposal-views — Fires when a customer views a proposal. GM monitors for high-intent follow-up.

#color-submissions — JotForm color charts submitted by customers drop here for admin review.

#payroll-reminders — Automated reminders and payroll-related updates for GM visibility.

#phone-interviews — Auto-transcribed interview summaries for quick hiring audits.

#company-vehicles-inspections — Team posts photos of vehicles for condition tracking and accountability.

#estimate-questions — Customer estimate questions routed to estimating team automatically.

#receipts — Expense receipts dropped here by field team for audit and bookkeeping.

#sales — Job sold notifications — team sees wins in real time.

#teamchat — All-hands communication. Culture, coaching, and morale for all crews.

🏗️ Channel Design Principle

A label represents a subcategory of a main stage — and channels mirror that logic. Don't create a channel per job (too many). Instead, create channels per team and per function. Premium Painting does ~300 jobs/year across 3 channels. Clean, focused, actionable.

Each stage in DripJobs can carry automated drip messages. The key is mapping your real-world business problems to stages — then automating the communication.

Pipeline Stages

🌡️ Cold Leads

🔥 Warm Leads

📋 Estimate Requested

🔍 Scope Review

📅 Estimate Scheduled

✏️ In Draft

👁️ Needs Review

📨 Proposal(s) Sent

⏸️ On Hold

Key Stage Strategies

🔍 Scope Review Stage: When a lead wants a job that's below your minimum, move them here. An automated drip message explains your business model and asks if they'd like a full quote. Eliminates the awkward "sorry, too small" conversation entirely.

🏊 Pool Deck Estimating: Use Scope Review for any job type you handle virtually. Tanner's pool deck drip asks customers to text 2-3 photos. He sells 30-50 pool decks a year — all virtually estimated, never leaving the office.

📅 Estimate Scheduled Drips: Send a personal intro from the founder 24 hours after scheduling. Follow that with "5 Questions to Ask Any Painter." Customers respond: I can't wait to meet you. It increases perceived value before you even arrive.

⏸️ On Hold Stage: The highest-value follow-up stage. Customers here said yes to interest, no to timing. Run a 180-day, 4-touch sequence. When you're slow, blast the entire On Hold list. They already like you — they just need the right moment.

👁️ Proposal View Alerts: When a customer views a proposal multiple times, your GM gets a Slack notification. Tanner shared an example: a customer viewed a $6K proposal 6 times for 845 seconds. That's the call your GM needs to make today.

✏️ Needs Review Stage: Tanner's VA in the Philippines builds proposals from estimator notes. When done, she moves the card to "Needs Review." GM or Tanner approves and sends. Zero communication overhead — it's all in the stage change.

"Outbound labels track call attempts. Every lead gets called five times. Calling is going to be just as effective as drips — but your system needs to support both, and you need a place to see it."

— Tanner Mullen

This is where production automation lives. Every stage transition triggers a communication to your team or your customer — eliminating manual hand-offs entirely.

Pipeline Stages

✅ Project Accepted

📆 Project Scheduled

🎨 Colors Confirmed

🚀 Project In Progress

🏆 Project Complete

Stage-by-Stage Automations

1. Project Accepted → Thank You + Next Steps Drip: The moment a proposal is accepted, a thank you email fires automatically. It confirms what happens next and invites the customer to book a free color consultation. Sets expectations immediately — customers feel cared for from day one.

2. Project Scheduled → Color Reminder at Day 5: Five days after scheduling, a drip sends the customer a JotForm link to submit their interior or exterior colors. The form collects colors by room, includes address and phone, and dumps results directly into the #color-submissions Slack channel.

3. Colors Confirmed → Confirmation Drip: When the admin moves the card to Colors Confirmed, the customer immediately gets: "Great news — we received your colors. The next stop is the painters arriving. You'll be notified one day before your project starts." This eliminates "did you get my colors?" follow-up calls entirely.

4. Project In Progress → Crew Work Order via Zapier: The flagship automation. When a job is moved to In Progress, Zapier sends the customer name, address, and Work Order URL to the assigned crew's Slack channel. No texts. No calls. No crew asking "where are we today?" — it's just there.

5. Project Complete → Review Request or Punch-Out Survey: Completion triggers a review request or an internal punch-out form to keep the crew accountable. Tanner also used to trigger a care package from Dope Marketing here. The stage change = the trigger for whatever next-step matters most in your business.

🧠 The Mid-Day Start Trick

Sometimes jobs start between 11AM–1PM because you're wrapping up from the day before. Tanner built a separate In Progress drip for mid-day starts: "Great news — we're starting your job between 11AM and 1PM." The customer feels informed. The crew feels pressure-free. One extra drip, massive experience upgrade.

Labels are subcategories within a stage — and every label change can trigger a Zapier automation. This is one of the most underutilized features in DripJobs.

"A label represents a subcategory of the main category. This person is scheduled — but what's going on within that stage? That's what a label tells you. It's like the qualifier inside the bucket."
​ — Tanner Mullen

Premium Painting's Label System

• Outbound 1

• Outbound 2

• Outbound 3

• Outbound 4

• Outbound 5

• Hot Opportunity

• Wash Needed

• Design Donna

• Ready

• TBD Colors

Label-Triggered Automations

📊 Outbound 1–5 Tracking: Every time admin calls a lead, she changes the label from Outbound 1 → 2 → 3… up to 5. This creates a visible call history on every lead card without a single note. At Outbound 5, the lead is retired — fully worked.

🔥 Hot Opportunity Alert: When a salesperson marks a deal "Hot Opportunity," a Zapier automation notifies the Slack channel. You can also build a filter: proposals over $10K viewed more than 3 times → auto-alert the sales rep.

🚿 Wash Needed → Subcontractor SMS: When the label is changed to "Wash Needed," Zapier fires a text to the pressure washing subcontractor with the work order and the project start date. He schedules it. Nobody coordinates. Nothing falls through.

🎨 Design Donna → Color Consult SMS: Changing the label to "Design Donna" sends Donna (the color consultant) an automated text with the work order and scheduled start date. She books herself. Zero phone calls required from anyone on the team.

✅ Ready Label = Go Status: Once colors are confirmed and submitted, admin marks the job "Ready" (green). The scheduler knows: green = schedule-able. No colors = don't schedule. The label becomes a visual dashboard for the ops team.

🌟 Build Your Own Label Triggers: Think about your accessory services: carpenters, drywall, specialty coatings. Create a label per subcontractor. When their label is applied, they get an automated work order. You never have to call anyone.

Zapier connects DripJobs to everything else. Here's exactly how to build the core work-order-to-Slack automation Tanner demonstrated live.

Available DripJobs Triggers

Each of these events in DripJobs can trigger a Zapier automation:

• 📋 Booking Form Submitted

• 🏷️ Card Label Changed

• 📅 Custom Event Scheduled

• 🔄 Deal Stage Changed

• 👤 New Lead Created

• 🏠 On-Site Estimate Scheduled

• ✅ Project Completed

• 🔄 Project Stage Changed

• 📄 Proposal Accepted

• 👁️ Proposal Viewed

• 📝 Task Created

Automation #1: Crew Work Order Notification

Zap Structure — Project In Progress → Team Slack

• TRIGGER: DripJobs → Project Stage Changed

• FILTER 1: New Stage contains "In Progress"

• FILTER 2: Project Crew Name contains "[Your Crew Name]"

• ACTION: Slack → Send Channel Message → #team-[crew-name]

Sample Message Text:

🚀 You have a new job assigned!

👤 Customer: [Project Customer Name]

📍 Address: [Project Address]

📋 Work Order: [Work Order URL]

📅 Date: [Job Start Date]

Automation #2: Label-Based Subcontractor Alert

Zap Structure — Label Change → Subcontractor SMS

• TRIGGER: DripJobs → Card Label Changed

• FILTER: Label Name contains "Wash Needed" (or "Donna" or "Carpentry")

• FORMAT: Zapier Formatter → Format date/time fields

• ACTION: Twilio → Send SMS to subcontractor

🤖 Use Zapier's AI Copilot

You no longer have to build Zaps manually. In the Zapier editor, type your workflow in plain English — "In DripJobs, when the project stage changes, I want to send a Slack message to the crew channel with filters for stage = In Progress and crew name" — and Copilot builds the entire Zap structure for you. Just fill in the channel name and message text.

How to Connect DripJobs to Zapier

1. Get Your API Key: In DripJobs, go to Company Settings → Integrations and copy your Zapier API key.

2. Connect in Zapier: When prompted for authentication in Zapier's DripJobs app, paste your API key. Your account is now linked.

3. Run a Test: Always test the trigger first. If your test data doesn't match the action you're building (e.g., wrong stage), create a sample record in DripJobs first, then re-test.

4. Publish and Verify: Hit Publish. Move a real card in DripJobs to the target stage. Watch the automation fire in Slack. That's it — you just automated something forever.

Tanner shared his entire color acquisition workflow live. It eliminates three separate problems: disorganized intake, poor customer experience, and missed color confirmations.

😤 Problem 1: Customers Calling In Colors: When customers call with colors, there's no record. Wrong colors get written down. Scope creep happens. The painter shows up and does a room that wasn't sold.

📋 Problem 2: No Clear Instructions: If customers don't know how to give you colors, they do it however is easiest for them — text, email, verbally. You get a mess of data in 5 different places.

🎯 Problem 3: No Organized Confirmation: Without a system, customers ask "Did you get my colors?" And the answer is often "...looking." The Colors Confirmed stage solves all three problems in one workflow.

The Full Color Workflow

1. Day 5 After Scheduling: Color Reminder Drip — An automated drip sends the customer a JotForm link (interior or exterior version). The form captures colors by room, address, and contact info. Tanner has a share link you can import directly into JotForm — it's included in the DJ Academy.

2. JotForm → Zapier → #color-submissions Slack Channel — When the customer submits the form, Zapier routes it to the #color-submissions Slack channel. The admin reviews the submission and cross-checks it against the scope of work (color consultant notes vs. what was sold).

3. Admin Enters Colors into Work Order — After verifying the scope matches, the admin enters colors into the DripJobs work order. This is the one manual step — and it has built-in checks and balances.

4. Move to Colors Confirmed + Mark Ready — The admin moves the job stage to Colors Confirmed — triggering the customer confirmation drip. She then applies the "Ready" label. Schedulers now know: green = go. No green = don't schedule. Done.

Everything Tanner covered, organized into the order you should build it. Start with Slack and DripJobs connectivity — everything else stacks on top.

• Sign up for Slack (free) and create your workspace. Add yourself and your GM as the first members.

• Create core Slack channels: #teamchat, #team-[crew1], #team-[crew2], #sales, #receipts, #color-submissions, #proposal-views, #painter-applications.

• Grab your DripJobs Zapier API key from Company Settings → Integrations and connect it to a free Zapier account.

• Get a cloud-based phone system (Quo recommended). Create a new business number — don't kill your old one yet.

• Audit your existing stages. Are any of your "stages" really labels? Clean up the pipeline — fewer stages, more labels.

• Create a Scope Review stage with a drip explaining your minimum job size and asking if they'd like a full quote.

• Build the Estimate Scheduled drip sequence: Day 0 = confirmation. Day 1 = founder intro. Day 2 = "5 questions to ask any painter."

• Create an On Hold stage with a 4-message follow-up sequence spaced over 180 days. Use AI to write the messages and paste them in.

• Set up Outbound 1–5 labels for call tracking and brief your admin on the SOP: 5 calls per lead, change the label each time.

• Set up the Color Submission JotForm (Tanner's share link is in DJ Academy). Create interior and exterior versions. Test the customer experience yourself.

• Create a "Colors Confirmed" stage with a confirmation drip and set your admin's workflow: JotForm → review → work order → move stage → apply Ready label.

• Build the Day 5 Color Reminder drip triggered on Project Scheduled. Link to your JotForm.

• Set up the mid-day start drip as an alternative In Progress sequence. Saves you from having to explain late starts.

• Build Zap #1: Project In Progress + crew filter → Slack message to crew channel with customer name, address, and work order URL.

• Build Zap #2: Card Label = "Wash Needed" → SMS to pressure washing sub with work order + start date.

• Build Zap #3: Proposal Viewed → Slack #proposal-views notification so your GM can follow up on high-intent customers.

• Build Zap #4: Booking form submitted / new painter application → Slack #painter-applications channel.

• Identify one more repetitive task you do manually right now — a call you make, a text you send, a form you fill out — and build a Zap for it.