A few years ago, I worked at a leading, technology-forward real estate brokerage. We were growing at a blazing speed across the US and needed to standardize real estate agent onboarding.

Given my previous experience, I built the entire onboarding process with no code.

The leadership team took notice and saw the massive opportunity to use no-code to solve operations problems. It landed me a promotion and saved the company massive efforts.

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These are the steps I followed, and so can you:

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1. Identify The Business Challenges

The right business challenge, first and foremost, is an opportunity to better serve your customer, whether internal or external. This opportunity should also be reflected in your department's goals. By creating an efficient, seamless onboarding application, we could clearly make headway towards achieving that goal.

Developers are busy people, and all too often, they don't have time to help us non-technical folk and our internal needs. Therefore, the challenge should be solvable within the scope of no-code.

Finally, the challenge should be something you're genuinely interested in solving. Passion drives curiosity, which is a considerable element of no-code success.

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2. Find the Right Tools

When you've identified the business challenge, it's time to find no-code solutions. This is where curiosity comes into play - you'll want to try out different solutions and see what the right tool, or combination of tools, is for your needs.

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3. Make a Value-focused Proposal

It's time to get corporate buy-in - you need to convince the decision-makers. I'm a huge advocate of building something tangible, whether a minor feature, an MVP, or even just a mock-up. When your manager can see the solution (and the value it will bring), they'll be a lot more likely to support it.

Ultimately, you want to show that you could figure out solutions independently and without developer support. This means you'll want to talk to potential end-users (internal and/or external) to understand their problems and make internal alliances to gain support within the company.

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4. Get a Budget‍

Next, get the budget approval you need. Fortunately, with no-code, the budget is likely to be significantly smaller than it would with traditional code-based applications, but it's still a key component of success.

Demonstrating ROI based on time saved and what not fixing this process will cost the business are helpful strategies to strengthen your case.

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5. Go All-in

By creating a solution that solves real problems, it'll inevitably take up more of your time, to the extent that you'll practically become a Product Manager for that solution. Getting the very first no-code solution in place is the hardest. When you've crossed that first obstacle, everyone can see that no code is helpful.

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Now that you have experience in no-code solutions, you can look for similar ways to add value - always keeping the business case in mind. From here, the opportunities are limitless.

Perhaps you'll be promoted to a full-time role in no-code operations, but you also have a valuable skillset in implementing new solutions, which would prove invaluable in the search for a higher-level job.

By Philip Lakin

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