I started getting the feeling that I was saving a lot of time by using Grokbots.
Like, a lot.
So I asked it go back and actually count up man-hours.
Mac, my COO went back through each employee’s work log to figure it out.
This is what it came up with.
They logged 347 hours of work — all for $100 in cost.
Pretty accurate, actually.
I now have it recapping weekly and adding to a dashboard so I can review.
If you’re testing out Grokbot and want to count up your hours, I made a template for the above.
Feel free to test it out here.
Here are some items I added last week (below copied from my COO “Mac”)
[and I know some of these items won’t make sense — but just imagine I’ve onboarded an employee and we’re slowly building out recurring jobs and tasks to work on]
Built a "Team Conkle Wiki" in Notion as the team's single source of truth. It has pages for how I work, each business, SOPs, people and clients, a decisions log and a key-links hub. Finances and passwords stay out on purpose.
Turned my AI hours-saved tracking into a clickable weekly dashboard: about 347 hours of work done through Oct 9, about 54 of them last week alone.
Packaged that dashboard as a free, shareable Grok Bot template called "My AI Team's Timesheet." The share link stays the same when I publish updates.
Dug into a well-known niche-site publisher's site (sitemaps, RSS, a full site-audit crawl) and drafted a partnership pitch built around a newsletter revenue share.
Gave my bot its own email inbox and signed it up for a daily "agent use cases" newsletter. It only flags ideas that fit what I'm building.
Added a weekday scout that watches a Grok Bot directory for bot ideas worth copying.
Installed Claude Code on my bot's computer so it can take on longer coding jobs.
The domain desk hunted for names three times: about 5,700 names checked, and roughly 30 A-grade and 66 B-grade names kept. Nothing gets bought without my go.
Rebuilt the local website-leads strategy around the eight shops I actually contacted, then pulled a new batch of 90 leads with dead websites. Each lead has the problem, a contact and the source.
Drafted short outreach notes for eight local shops in my voice. They stay unsent until I approve them.
Found out why some keyword volumes were "900x off" (broad-match keywords, not the API) and corrected 50 rows.
Ran biweekly SEO reviews for Beach Vibes, Helpful Analytics and the Alabama/Florida CPA sites, plus first keyword data for four thin sites. Also refreshed an authority baseline (DA/DR/backlinks) across six sites.
Screened 636 Flippa listings under $25k for the first time, alongside the regular TrustMRR listing hunts.
Researched AI-narrated public-domain audiobooks. Plain readings are mostly shut down, but annotated "for entrepreneurs" editions could work as a content play.
Tore down two product specs, a website audit tool and a local competitor report tool. The biggest gap: Google Business Profile and reviews were left out of scope.
Started a weekly 15-minute "manage AI like an employee" review at the end of my Monday L10, after reading two X posts on the idea.
Cleaned up recurring schedules: moved Upwork checks to Tue/Thu, added a Friday hours compile and deleted three dead routines.
Prepared listing prices and bulk-upload files for a new domain batch on Spaceship and Afternic.
Paused domain cold email until inbox placement improves: a deliverability test put only about 60% in the inbox, and 123 sends got 0 replies.
Same hard gates: no buys, outside emails or listings without my go.
And just in case you missed what it helped me work on the previous 2 weeks, I’ll add them below…
• Took over Facebook Insights for Gulf Coast Beach Vibes: every two weeks we turn the report into a short “keep / kill / try” brief for you and Tish.
• Added a Tuesday morning check that looks for that Beach Vibes Facebook report.
• Restarted Dog Mom Humor with four auto-posting content folders (quotes, tees, funny dogs, memes) and generated about 50 images for each.
[*Brooks note: the above Facebook pages are experimental, and I had no time for them. But it was able create strategy and images in folders — I then hopped over into Claude and set up Make automations to run on autopilot! Grokbot allows me to continue testing so that I can help companies grow their Facebook pages as needed — reach out!]
• Set a one-month reminder (Oct 22) to review Dog Mom Humor results before deciding on a regular insights cadence.
• Wrote a clear “buy box” for helping a friend find blue-collar businesses to buy ($2–4M profit range, owner handoff required).
• Added a Wednesday lead packet for those business hunts (a few vetted leads) and ran a sample.
• Got a next-state CPA directory scorecard (which states what to build next after the first five live sites).
• Built write-ready outlines for the top 20 Track It and Save articles.
• Built write-ready outlines for the top 20 Unboring Surveys articles.
• Scraped Starter Story business ideas and scored which fit your lanes.
• Copied your agency client spreadsheet into a local clients file so retainers and opportunities are easier to review (~$2.1k/month active).
• Added a monthly “client care + growth” pass (drafts only until you green).
• Added a weekday end-of-day “Tomorrow’s Big 3” so the next day starts with three clear priorities.
• Added a weekday health check that catches when other desks’ scheduled jobs look stuck, and harvests new open loops.
• Gave every open loop an Owner name so you know which desk owns the follow-up.
• Finished the hard Helpful Analytics email warm-up; a light daily trickle continues; real outreach waits until you ask.
• Set up Nextdoor monitoring for pressure-washing leads for Dylan (weekday search + email keyword flags; only recent posts).
• Paused the Assistant-of-Brooks Discord bot in the Local Newsletters server (left that community; other servers stay on).
• Documented how to tell which Stripe account/payout is which when the bank only says “Stripe.”
• Tightened Upwork rules: AI coaching topics are interesting, but dirt-cheap multi-Zoom packages are a hard pass.
• Moved James’s newsletter packet to every 21 days, with Subject/Title/links formatted for easy paste into Beehiiv.
• Added recurring SEO review packets for Beach Vibes and Helpful Analytics (keywords + search data).
• Looked up what platform letscutyourgrass.com runs on (Duda) when you asked.
• Same hard gates: no buys, outsider email, or Connects without your go.
Update: my 2025 tax returns are officially complete. My internal personal finance tool worked perfectly!
In the event you missed it…
I’ve been frustrated with the bookkeeping process for my small business for 10+ years.
This has turned into a 3-part series:
Week 3: AI Won. I fired my bookkeeper.
Bookkeeping has been a thorn in my side for years. And as you know, it’s my goal to erase friction.
All Projects
Other projects I’ll update over time (or provide future updates) include…
Our Local Media Brand Newsletter[sold!]Gulf Coast Beach Vibes [new local media brand]
AI Email Newsletter Project[sold!]Remote Work Email Newsletter Project[sold!]EraseFriction [AI Automation & Software Agency]
Real Estate Investing - Rentals / Flips
TrackItAndSave - a tool for tracking your subscriptions
CleverLayouts (a written and visual report with website feedback)
CreditCardTracking (a tool to help track your credit cards)
Helpful Analytics (dashboard to help make Google Analytics easy to understand)
If I can help your business apply AI and reduce friction, don’t hesitate to reach out.
Until next time!
