hey squad
shall we settle in?

01 · AUT · 02/03

Workflows.

Not a leaky Zapier. Not a sleeping script. Wiring that holds under load.

You set up **n8n** between your CRM, your ads, your helpdesk and your data lake. Leads enrich themselves, statuses sync, business events flow back without human intervention. We rarely start there.

By Jérôme · Automation & data

Get my workflows quotedSee the Ecostal mission

02 · OPERATION NOTE · OPS WORKFLOWS

Workflows, decoded

The field report

You redo the same action by hand every week: copying a form contact to the CRMthe tool centralising contacts and sales, tagging a contact in Mailchimpthe emailing and newsletter tool, exporting an ads CSV to BigQuerythe Google dedicated data warehouse. You start losing prospects because no one relayed in time. That is often the moment.

The cost of waiting

Without workflows (automations that pass the info between your tools), you pay humans to copy-paste and you miss prospects on weekends. The opportunity cost climbs fast: a hot prospect relayed at D+3 is worth less than one routed in the minute. Data consistency suffers, business reports get blurry.

In black and white

Human time given back to tasks that really matter. Consistent data across your tools, without double entry. Prospects routed to the right salesperson in the minute. A mechanic running 24/7, weekends included.

The manoeuvre

We start by listing everything that gets done by hand at your place today, before placing a single wire. We then pick the workflows orchestrator: n8nopen-source orchestrator, self-hosted or Makecloud orchestrator, faster to start depending on your stack and infra budget. We wire connectors on HubSpotthe marketing and sales CRM, Mailchimpthe emailing and newsletter tool, GA4the Google audience measurement tool and BigQuerythe Google dedicated data warehouse. We set up run logging and failure alerts, then hand a Notion doc over to your team.

The lock that breaks

An orchestration layer you can then plug equipped AI onto, to score or summarise. Full ownership if you change providers.

03 · WHAT WE WON'T WRITE IN AN RFP

A workflow is an operational productivity tool. Not a total digitalisation project.

We do not wire everything. The rule we hold: automate what is repetitive, standardised and time-critical. Leave human what requires judgement, nuance, or a client call. Most audits we run identify 4 to 8 workflows that are really worth it, not 40. The rest stays manual because coding a case that happens once a month costs more than it brings. See make-or-buy pillar for the frame.

  • 01

    Human time given back

    Recurring copy-paste tasks leave your team calendar. A workflow running 24/7 does the job of 2 to 5 human hours per week over time.

  • 02

    Data consistency

    No more double entry between CRM, email platform and data warehouse. Statuses, tags and events propagate in the right directions automatically. Business reports stop lying.

  • 03

    Instant sales routing

    A hot prospect lands on Saturday night and goes to the right salesperson in the minute. No relay broken by weekends or holidays. Conversion benefits directly.

  • 04

    Bedrock to plug in AI

    Once the workflow layer is clean, you can add AI to score contacts, summarise conversations or classify tickets. Without that base, AI runs on chaos.

04 · THE MISSION THAT PROVED IT

We deployed it for these clients.

Ecostal Group team handling a solar panel in their warehouse

Ecostal Group

B2B photovoltaic e-commerce

12-month n8n + Mailchimp workflows mission.

Read the Ecostal mission
Amecam workshop, fitting work vehicles in Wallonia

Amecam Van Conversion

B2B work-vehicle conversions

3-year form-to-Odoo wiring.

Read the Amecam mission
Brasero estate, corporate retreats and weddings in Liège province

Brasero Group

Hospitality & events

24-month routing of requests across 2 venues.

Read the Brasero mission

05 · THE PLAY-BY-PLAY

Four steps. Six weeks on average. No break in the current tools.

  1. STEP 01

    We list what gets done by hand.

    Audit of repetitive tasks over a 4-week rolling window: who copies what, where to, at what frequency. We note human time and business value. Tools: Notion and Google Sheets for mapping, plus direct observation with your ops team.

  2. STEP 02

    We decide what gets coded, what stays human.

    Target list of 4 to 8 workflows by ROI order. Scope frozen in writing, client sign-off. If a task is too irregular or too nuanced, we say no, we do not code it. No silent additions outside the quote.

  3. STEP 03

    We wire the mechanic.

    Deployment of n8n (opens in a new window) (open-source) self-hosted, or Make (cloud) depending on volume. Connectors HubSpot (opens in a new window), Mailchimp (opens in a new window), GA4 (opens in a new window), BigQuery and webhooks (signals that pass the info in real time). Run logging and Slack alerts on failures. Unit tests on every workflow before production.

  4. STEP 04

    We document and hand over.

    Gain measurement: human hours saved, run success rate, prospects routed on time. Detailed Notion doc per workflow. 2-hour training for your ops team to take over maintenance. Full ownership.

06 · THE FLOW AT A GLANCE

The path each business event takes between your source tools and your target tools.

CRM HUBSPOTleads · deals · contactsMAILCHIMP / BREVOsegments · audiencesSUPPORT DESKtickets · routingDATA LAKEBigQuery · GA4 exportORCHESTRATORn8n / MAKEself-hosted · logs · alertswebhooks · 4 to 8 workflowscontinuous syncwithout human intervention

The central orchestrator propagates business events between your tools in both directions. No double entry, no broken relay, no human intervention on standardised tasks.

07 · NOT YET FOR YOU IF

Three cases where workflows are not the top priority.

  • Your source tools are badly wired.

    If your CRM already contains duplicates, inconsistent statuses and orphan contacts, automating propagates the chaos faster. The rule: lay down data cleanliness before the engine. Otherwise the workflow runs, but on wrong data.

  • Your annual revenue is under 1 M€ ex VAT.

    Below this threshold, the entry cost of a workflow layer does not pay back. At these volumes, manual tasks still hold and the cost-benefit ratio becomes debatable. We would rather say it than walk you into the dark.

  • No one on your side will read the reports.

    A workflow running unsupervised eventually fails in silence. If no one on your team will check runs once a week, the mechanic degrades and you go back to manual, but on corrupted data. Supervision matters as much as wiring.

08 · THE QUESTIONS WE ACTUALLY HEAR

Questions whispered after the second meeting. Honest answers.

On the Belgian SME market in 2026, ranges: 2 to 5 human hours per week on repetitive tasks (CRM copy-paste, contact tagging, CSV export) and 5 to 12 % of hot prospects lost because relayed too late. Over 12 months, that easily equals a half-time role. Opportunity cost climbs with your volume. The broader agency vs freelance vs in-house debate sits here.

Not simpler, different. Zapier (opens in a new window) (the consumer-grade orchestrator) remains unbeatable for 5 to 10 simple workflows without conditional logic. Beyond that, monthly cost climbs fast (300 to 800 € on SME volume), you control neither hosting nor reports. n8n (open-source, self-hosted) requires a slightly longer ramp-up but caps at 50 to 100 € per month of infra, accepts custom logic, and leaves you owning the layer. Make (cloud) sits in between. We pick based on your volume and ops appetite. To wire a downstream email platform cleanly, see also Mailchimp / Brevo newsletter scenarios.

Not to our knowledge as of late 2026 on the wiring itself. Documented sanctions hit unframed data transfers outside the EU (US CRM or email platform without standard contractual clauses) and the lack of legal basis per purpose. A clean mechanic with EU hosting and an up-to-date processing register remains compliant.

Belgian SME 2026 market range on a 4 to 8-workflow setup: 5 to 15 human hours per week recovered over time. The delta depends on prospect volume, source tool complexity and initial cleanliness level. For your specific case, we quote after a scoping call. The proof on a multi-store retail setup: Ecostal mission, n8n + Mailchimp + custom MCP.

Self-hosted n8n infra side: 30 to 80 € HTVA per month depending on run volume. Maintenance side: 1 dev day per quarter to follow HubSpot, Mailchimp and Meta API changes. If we leave, you keep the Notion doc, the n8n admin access, the encrypted credentials and the agency relay procedure. To track the mechanic holds over time, we wire a Looker Studio dashboard on your KPIs on the output side.

Yes. We do this on half our automation missions. The rule: who steers the initial mapping and the post-go-live validation. If your in-house dev stays pilot, we frame scope and logging. If we hold the mechanic, we document for the next owner. We never step on the other team without saying. Upstream, clean server-side tracking guarantees the workflows start from reliable events.

Field note

Workflows are an operational productivity layer. Not a total digitalisation project. Across 30 missions, we surface on average 4 to 8 tasks worth coding. Not 40. Coding a case that happens once a month costs more than doing it by hand. We rarely start by wiring everything.

Jérôme · Strategy & data
JérômeStrategy & data · HeySquad

Other sub-services MARKETING AUTOMATION

We look at your tools. We tell you what deserves a workflow, and what should stay human work.

Get my workflows quotedBack to the Marketing automation service