n8n basics for B2B workflows: the 4 patterns that solve 80% of problems
After building dozens of n8n workflows for clients, the same four patterns keep showing up. Here they are, with examples.
If you’ve used Zapier or Make, n8n will feel familiar. If you haven’t, here’s the short version: it’s a workflow automation tool you can self-host, where you connect nodes (apps, logic, HTTP requests) into flows that run automatically.
After building workflows for clients ranging from a logistics company to a marketing agency, the same patterns keep coming up. Here are the four that cover most real-world B2B needs.
Pattern 1: Trigger → Transform → Deliver
This is the simplest and most common. Something happens (a webhook, a form submission, a new row in a sheet), you reshape the data, then send it somewhere else.
Example: New Typeform submission → extract the fields you care about → create a row in Airtable + send a Slack notification to the sales channel.
The key skill here is learning n8n’s expression syntax for mapping fields. Once you’ve got that, this pattern takes 15 minutes to build.
Pattern 2: Scheduled Aggregation
Run a workflow on a schedule, pull data from multiple sources, combine it, and report.
Example: Every Monday at 8am → pull last week’s closed deals from CRM → pull invoices from accounting → generate a summary → email it to the founder.
This pattern is what replaces the “weekly manual export” that someone on the team is doing every Monday. The setup time is usually 2–3 hours, but the time saved compounds fast.
Pattern 3: Conditional Routing
Use IF nodes and switch nodes to route records differently based on their content.
Example: New support ticket comes in → check the priority field → if “urgent”, page the on-call engineer via PagerDuty → otherwise, create a task in Linear and move on.
This is where n8n starts to feel like real programming. The logic can get complex, so I always draw the flow on paper first before touching n8n.
Pattern 4: Human-in-the-Loop
Automation reaches out to a human for a decision, waits for their response, then continues.
Example: A large order comes in → send a Slack message with approve/reject buttons → wait for a manager’s click → if approved, kick off the fulfillment workflow.
n8n handles this with the Wait node + webhooks. It’s a bit more involved to set up, but it’s the pattern that unlocks automation for the parts of a business where humans legitimately need to stay in the loop.
These four patterns aren’t exhaustive, but if you’re new to workflow automation they’ll cover the first six months of real client work. Start simple, then layer in complexity as you understand the failure modes.