The Biggest Goal Podcast

Alane Boyd & Micah Johnson

The Biggest Goal Podcast, with Alane Boyd and Micah Johnson.  Learn how to reach your biggest goal as we reimagine the workflows you run into scalable systems that use today's latest technology. Every week, we take one real workflow and cover what you're likely doing now and how to improve it with today's latest technology. We'll look at where AI could be applied, what should be automated, and where you still need a person.  Alane and Micah are the co-founders of Biggest Goal. They grew an agency to 600+ active clients before their exit and have since helped 300+ teams put technology to work building scalable systems across every department. (Formerly this podcast was called: Automate Your Agency)

  1. 5d ago

    AI bank reconciliation in 10 minutes | EP 113

    Bank reconciliation is the task everyone wants to automate, and before today's AI tech, nobody could. Alane Boyd and Micah Johnson explain why it stayed manual for so long, then walk through the exact prompt that turns eight to ten hours of line-item matching into a short 10 min review. When you export your statements from your bank and QuickBooks (or another accounting platform), there are no matching IDs, no shared descriptions, and nothing a traditional automation could key off; somebody had to sit down and compare them line by line, and that somebody was expensive. In this episode, you’ll learn: Why rules-based automation could never reconcile your books and what changed when AI could read AWS, Amazon Web Services, and Amazon Web SVCS as one vendorThe three-rule starting prompt that matches on description, amount, and a three-day date windowHow to read the exceptions when AI explains that a check has not cleared or a bank fee has not hit QuickBooks yetHow to turn the first run into a reusable skill so you never re-explain your setup againWhere the human stays in the loop, because the matching is low-value work and the exceptions are notHow the same approach applies to investment property statements, media buys, and anything else with two lists that should agreeReconciliation might be a boring task, but that's exactly why it is a great place to point AI first. Press play and start automating your reconciliation workflow this week. This episode is brought to you by Biggest Goal, the company Alane Boyd and Micah Johnson co-founded. Fifteen years of scaling their own companies taught them that adoption is a people problem long before it's a technology problem, so we train executives and their teams through workshops, cohorts, mastermind groups, and hands-on implementation support. For more info about our programs, join our free community at your.biggestgoal.ai. Thank you for supporting the podcast!

  2. Aug 10

    AI Meat Proxies and Workslop | EP 112

    Someone on your team ran a task through AI and forwarded the output without reviewing it. That person was a Meat Proxy and just generated Workslop. Yuck! Alane Boyd and Micah Johnson break down these two terms, which sound like they should be in food manufacturing, and describe exactly what can go wrong inside AI-forward companies. In this episode, you’ll learn: How to tell a meat proxy from someone using AI well and why knowing the desired outcome is the whole differenceWhat your colleagues actually think when they spot unread AI output, backed by the numbers on trust and credibilityThe tells that give workslop away, from verbose answers to ignored brand guidelinesWhy “train your team” isn’t enough unless you define what the right way to use AI looks like at your companyHow making AI use visible turns a shameful shortcut into a useful handoffThe one requirement that forces people to read the output before it leaves their deskIf your team is moving fast with AI and you’ve started to notice the quality slipping, this conversation names the problem and gives you several things to change today. This episode is brought to you by Biggest Goal, the company Alane Boyd and Micah Johnson co-founded. Fifteen years of scaling their own companies taught them that adoption is a people problem long before it's a technology problem, so we train executives and their teams through workshops, cohorts, mastermind groups, and hands-on implementation support. For more info about our programs, join our free community at your.biggestgoal.ai. Thank you for supporting the podcast!

  3. Aug 3

    Claude + Google Ads | EP 111

    Free Resources & Next Steps Free Claude Cowork Webinar | 8/19:  https://bit.ly/ClaudeCoworkWebinar_819 Free Claude Cowork Masterclass: https://www.biggestgoal.ai/l/cowork-masterclass Claude Cowork Starter Kit: https://www.biggestgoal.ai/l/cowork-starter-kit Claude Cowork Workshop: https://www.biggestgoal.ai/l/cowork-workshopGet our free daily AI News Brief: https://bit.ly/BiggestGoalCommunityAbout the episode: Micah Johnson built a fully functional Google Ads lead system using Claude, and it's generating real leads without a specialist or an agency involved. In this episode, him and Alane Boyd walk through every layer of the build: campaign research, ad copy, conversion tracking, the CSV export workflow, and the daily AI-powered review that keeps it running. If you've ever tried to run paid ads and gotten stuck in the weeds of conversion tracking, keyword strategy, or Google Analytics event setup, you know how painful it is. Most businesses either give up or hand it off to an expensive agency. Alane and Micah found a third way, and the results are already coming in. In this episode, you'll learn: How to use Claude to research and build a full Google Ads campaign from scratch, no specialist requiredThe MCP-plus-CSV workflow that lets Claude do the heavy lifting on Google Ads without touching the account directlyWhy heat map data mattered so much, and how Microsoft Clarity revealed visitors were copying their answers and leaving instead of convertingHow they qualified leads at scale with Claude, and what 300+ leads taught them about a blind spot in their own targetingThe daily routine that pulls Google Ads, Analytics, heat map, and lead data into one place for a single recommendationHow the leadership team stays in the loop with zero manual reporting, through a Slack channel and a shared Cowork dashboard🛠️ Tools & Platforms Mentioned Claude: AI used for campaign research, ad copy, tracking setup, and daily analysisClaude Code: Used for writing JavaScript event tracking code and taggingClaude Cowork: Used for shared leadership dashboards and presenting campaign resultsGoogle Ads: The paid advertising platform used for the campaignsGoogle Ads Desktop App: Used to upload Claude-generated CSV files and push liveGoogle Analytics: Used for tracking events and conversion dataMicrosoft Clarity: Heat mapping tool used to analyze landing page behavior (rage clicks, copy-paste behavior)Slack: Used for daily lead and campaign analysis digest for the leadership teamMCP (Model Context Protocol): Used to give Claude read-only access to Google Ads dataLearn More about our AI Leadership Workshop Winning businesses aren’t just working harder, they understand how to use AI strategically. Sign up for the AI Leadership Workshop, a 3-hour expert-led mastermind designed to give leadership teams clarity, alignment, and a practical path to stay competitive. Book a call to customize your workshop today! This episode is brought to you by Biggest Goal, the company Alane Boyd and Micah Johnson co-founded. Fifteen years of scaling their own companies taught them that adoption is a people problem long before it's a technology problem, so we train executives and their teams through workshops, cohorts, mastermind groups, and hands-on implementation support. For more info about our programs, join our free community at your.biggestgoal.ai. Thank you for supporting the podcast!

  4. Jul 27

    Why 5-Minute Skills Beat Big Automations | EP 110

    Free Resources & Next Steps Free Claude Cowork Webinar | 8/19:  https://bit.ly/ClaudeCoworkWebinar_819 Free Claude Cowork Masterclass: https://www.biggestgoal.ai/l/cowork-masterclass Claude Cowork Starter Kit: https://www.biggestgoal.ai/l/cowork-starter-kit Claude Cowork Workshop: https://www.biggestgoal.ai/l/cowork-workshopGet our free daily AI News Brief: https://bit.ly/BiggestGoalCommunityAbout the Episode Chasing after that big automation win might be the very thing holding your business back. Alane and Micah have seen this over and over, teams planning one massive workflow while a dozen small, repetitive tasks quietly eat their time every day. In this episode, they make the case for starting smaller than feels comfortable and why it adds up faster than you think. 3 things you'll learn in this episode: The two questions that tell you what to automate first, repetition and inconsistencyHow Skills stack into a full cross department workflow, one small piece at a timeThe math behind small automations, five Skills that each save five minutes a day add up to two full weeks back every yearTools & Platforms Mentioned Claude CoworkCowork Starter KitClickUpAsanaLearn More about our AI Leadership Workshop Winning businesses aren’t just working harder, they understand how to use AI strategically. Sign up for the AI Leadership Workshop, a 3-hour expert-led mastermind designed to give leadership teams clarity, alignment, and a practical path to stay competitive. Book a call to customize your workshop today! This episode is brought to you by Biggest Goal, the company Alane Boyd and Micah Johnson co-founded. Fifteen years of scaling their own companies taught them that adoption is a people problem long before it's a technology problem, so we train executives and their teams through workshops, cohorts, mastermind groups, and hands-on implementation support. For more info about our programs, join our free community at your.biggestgoal.ai. Thank you for supporting the podcast!

  5. Jul 20 ·  Video

    AI Context Windows 101 | EP 109

    Free Resources & Next Steps Free Claude Cowork Webinar | 8/19:  https://bit.ly/ClaudeCoworkWebinar_819 Free Claude Cowork Masterclass: https://www.biggestgoal.ai/l/cowork-masterclass Claude Cowork Starter Kit: https://www.biggestgoal.ai/l/cowork-starter-kit Claude Cowork Workshop: https://www.biggestgoal.ai/l/cowork-workshopGet our free daily AI News Brief: https://bit.ly/BiggestGoalCommunityAbout the Episode: AI context windows just hit two million tokens, and if you're stuffing yours full of information and hoping for the best, you're doing it wrong. Alane Boyd and Micah Johnson break down what a context window actually is, why bigger doesn't always mean better, and what it means for how you use Claude, ChatGPT, and Gemini. If you've ever gotten frustrated that AI "lost the plot" mid-conversation, or started giving you answers that made no sense, the context window is almost certainly the culprit. Most business owners don't realize that when AI's working memory runs out, it starts guessing, and it doesn't even know it's happening. In this episode, you'll learn: What a context window actually is: AI's short-term memory, and why it forgets without warningThe desk analogy that finally makes context windows click, and why leaving space matters more than filling itWhy hallucinations happen when the context window overflows, and how to prevent themHow Claude Cowork's subagents spin up their own context windows to handle complex tasksWhy your CLAUDE.md file and folder system are the most underrated tools for context efficiencyWhere context windows are headed for Claude, ChatGPT, and Gemini, and the mobile phone plan evolution that tells the whole storyIf you're ready to stop blaming AI for bad outputs and start understanding how it actually works, press play now. Learn More about our AI Leadership Workshop Winning businesses aren’t just working harder, they understand how to use AI strategically. Sign up for the AI Leadership Workshop, a 3-hour expert-led mastermind designed to give leadership teams clarity, alignment, and a practical path to stay competitive. Book a call to customize your workshop today! This episode is brought to you by Biggest Goal, the company Alane Boyd and Micah Johnson co-founded. Fifteen years of scaling their own companies taught them that adoption is a people problem long before it's a technology problem, so we train executives and their teams through workshops, cohorts, mastermind groups, and hands-on implementation support. For more info about our programs, join our free community at your.biggestgoal.ai. Thank you for supporting the podcast!

  6. Jul 13

    Claude Cowork Is on Web and Mobile | EP 108

    Free Resources & Next Steps Free Claude Cowork Webinar | 8/19:  https://bit.ly/ClaudeCoworkWebinar_819 Free Claude Cowork Masterclass: https://www.biggestgoal.ai/l/cowork-masterclass Claude Cowork Starter Kit: https://www.biggestgoal.ai/l/cowork-starter-kit Claude Cowork Workshop: https://www.biggestgoal.ai/l/cowork-workshopGet our free daily AI News Brief: https://bit.ly/BiggestGoalCommunityAbout the Episode: Cowork technically had a way to reach it from your phone before, it just barely worked. What Anthropic shipped this time is different: real syncing across desktop, web, and mobile. Alane Boyd and Micah Johnson dig into what actually changed, why it's more nuanced than the headlines suggest, and what it means for how you get work done with Claude. If you've ever wondered why Cowork felt chained to your laptop, this episode answers that question, then immediately complicates it. The file system access that makes Cowork genuinely useful is still desktop only, and understanding that boundary changes how you'll approach every task. In this episode, you'll learn: What actually changed between Dispatch, Chat, and the new mobile and web CoworkWhy starting on desktop still matters, and when mobile Cowork actually helpsThe folder system advantage that most Cowork users are completely skippingA real beta bug Micah caught during testing and the workaround that fixed it 100% of the timeA field work scenario Micah floated for teams who aren't always at a desk (untested, but worth thinking about)When Connectors and Skills can carry a task even without the file systemIf you're using Claude for real work and want to know exactly how to use the new mobile features without losing what makes Cowork powerful, press play now. If you want more on setting this up, the free Cowork Masterclass (26 lessons) at your.biggestgoal.ai covers how Cowork actually works, and the Cowork Starter Kit ($49) has the templates, starting prompts, and Skills for building out your folder system and CLAUDE.md file. Related episodes:  🎧 The Claude Cowork Experiment: our first real week living inside Cowork, before any of this mobile stuff existed. 🎧 Build a Shared AI Brain for Your Company (No Code Required): the folder system and CLAUDE.md conversation this episode keeps circling back to. 🎧 Claude Cowork Is the AI Managing Our Sales Pipeline: what full featured Cowork looks like when the file system is actually set up right. Tools & Platforms Mentioned Claude / Cowork (Anthropic): Claude's agentic work environment, newly available on web and mobileClaude Desktop App: the fully featured version of Cowork with file system accessClaude Mobile App: newly updated with Cowork support (previously chat only)Dispatch: a mobile beta feature for reaching Cowork before this update, rarely used and now supersededConnectors (Claude feature): integrations that let Cowork connect to external platformsSkills (Claude feature): saved task workflows within CoworkCLAUDE.md: a context file that automatically loads into Cowork tasksPipedrive: mentioned as an example Connector integration (CRM)Grain: mentioned as an example Connector integration (meeting recording)Learn More about our AI Leadership Workshop Winning businesses aren’t just working harder, they understand how to use AI strategically. Sign up for the AI Leadership Workshop, a 3-hour expert-led mastermind designed to give leadership teams clarity, alignment, and a practical path to stay competitive. Book a call to customize your workshop today! This episode is brought to you by Biggest Goal, the company Alane Boyd and Micah Johnson co-founded. Fifteen years of scaling their own companies taught them that adoption is a people problem long before it's a technology problem, so we train executives and their teams through workshops, cohorts, mastermind groups, and hands-on implementation support. For more info about our programs, join our free community at your.biggestgoal.ai. Thank you for supporting the podcast!

  7. Jul 6

    The 6 Organizational Milestones of AI Fluency | EP 107

    Free Resources & Next Steps Free Claude Cowork Webinar | 8/19:  https://bit.ly/ClaudeCoworkWebinar_819 Free Claude Cowork Masterclass: https://www.biggestgoal.ai/l/cowork-masterclass Claude Cowork Starter Kit: https://www.biggestgoal.ai/l/cowork-starter-kit Claude Cowork Workshop: https://www.biggestgoal.ai/l/cowork-workshopGet our free daily AI News Brief: https://bit.ly/BiggestGoalCommunityAbout the Episode: Most companies say they're using AI, but only 30% have even created an acceptable use policy. Alane Boyd and Micah Johnson are back with part 2 of their AI fluency series, and this time they're going deep on the organizational level: the six milestones that separate companies dabbling with AI from those actually building with it. If your team is experimenting with AI tools but you have no committee, no shared systems, and no way to measure who knows what, you're building on sand. This episode gives you the framework to change that, no matter where your organization is starting from. In this episode, you'll learn: How to build an acceptable use AI policy that evolves as your tools and workflows evolveWhy AI champions matter, and how to identify and use the right people on your teamHow to measure your team's AI fluency using milestone tracking across rolesThe system for sharing wins and roadblocks so AI knowledge doesn't stay siloedWhy clean data is non-negotiable, and why AI can't fix your messy folder system for youHow to document your workflows so anyone can understand them, no technical background requiredIf you're serious about building an organization that doesn't just use AI but grows with it, this episode gives you the exact roadmap. Press play, your team will thank you. If you haven't listened to part 1 yet, start there first: The 5 Individual Milestones of AI Fluency. Education & Resources Claude Cowork Masterclass 🛠️ Tools & Platforms Mentioned Claude Coworkn8n SlackClickUpAsanaBasecampSkypeDropbox / Shared DriveLearn More about our AI Leadership Workshop Winning businesses aren’t just working harder, they understand how to use AI strategically. Sign up for the AI Leadership Workshop, a 3-hour expert-led mastermind designed to give leadership teams clarity, alignment, and a practical path to stay competitive. Book a call to customize your workshop today! This episode is brought to you by Biggest Goal, the company Alane Boyd and Micah Johnson co-founded. Fifteen years of scaling their own companies taught them that adoption is a people problem long before it's a technology problem, so we train executives and their teams through workshops, cohorts, mastermind groups, and hands-on implementation support. For more info about our programs, join our free community at your.biggestgoal.ai. Thank you for supporting the podcast!

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About

The Biggest Goal Podcast, with Alane Boyd and Micah Johnson.  Learn how to reach your biggest goal as we reimagine the workflows you run into scalable systems that use today's latest technology. Every week, we take one real workflow and cover what you're likely doing now and how to improve it with today's latest technology. We'll look at where AI could be applied, what should be automated, and where you still need a person.  Alane and Micah are the co-founders of Biggest Goal. They grew an agency to 600+ active clients before their exit and have since helped 300+ teams put technology to work building scalable systems across every department. (Formerly this podcast was called: Automate Your Agency)

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