In this episode, I'm excited to share how Airtable saved my business as a neurodivergent business owner and how it can help you, whether you identify as neurodivergent or not. As an Airtable expert, I'm passionate about this tool because it truly saved my life and my business. Let's dive into how Airtable can transform your business too.

Key Points:

My Neurodivergent Journey:

• I have ADHD and depression. Diagnosed with depression at 16 and ADHD in mid-2020, a few months after starting my business.
• Understanding my ADHD made me realize that systems and automations were essential for my success, even as a solo entrepreneur.

Challenges of Neurodivergent Business Ownership:

• Forgetting to send follow-up emails after sales calls, leading to lost leads and guilt.
• Struggling with consistency in managing money and recurring tasks like "Money Mondays."
• Fear of growing my business due to concerns about maintaining high standards of client experience.

Airtable as a Lifesaver:

• Airtable helped me create centralized and automated systems tailored to my neurodivergent brain.
• Created a call hub in Airtable for automatic call population, call notes, and follow-up emails, without needing to use Gmail.
• Automated sales tracking and created a group program hub for student and client data, onboarding, offboarding, and engagement.

Benefits of Airtable Systems:

• These systems allowed me to scale my business without sacrificing client experience or burning out.
• Airtable systems ensured no tasks slipped through the cracks, even as my business and client roster grew.

Practical Steps to Get Started with Airtable:

• Create an Airtable Account: Start by exploring Airtable and setting up your account.
• Create a Business Hub: Make a base called "Business Hub" and start with a "Quick Links" table for all important links (Canva, Acuity, Google Drive, etc.).
• Manage Clients: Set up a separate base for clients with fields for first name, last name, email, start date, and end date.
• Move Spreadsheets to Airtable: Transfer your existing spreadsheets or Google Forms to Airtable to centralize and streamline your processes.

1. Homework and Invitation:

• Create a Quick Links table, a Client table, and move one spreadsheet to Airtable.
• DM me at @systemsoverstress with your Airtable setup, and let's celebrate your progress together.
• If you're at a breaking point with your systems and think Airtable might be the right fit, let's work together. Book a sales call to discuss your current systems, stress points, and how Airtable can help automate and streamline your business. Learn more about working with me here: https://systemsoverstress.co/work-with-us

Conclusion:

I hope this episode was helpful, especially if you identify as someone with ADHD, depression, or any other neurodivergence. Airtable is a powerful tool for creating structure and flexibility in your business. Can't wait to see how you implement it and transform your business. See you in the next episode!

MacBook Pro Microphone-17: Hello,

and welcome back to the podcast.

2

I'm excited for this episode, I'm

going to share about how Airtable

3

saved my business as a neurodivergent

business owner and how it can help you

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specifically, whether you identify as

someone that is neurodivergent or not.

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So I know my team is silly to say or bias

to say, because I am an Airtable expert,

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but the reason I am an Airtable expert and

why I'm so passionate about sharing this.

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Tool with other business owners

is because it truly saved my life

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and it for sure saved my business.

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I probably would have shut my

business down a long time ago if

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I didn't discover Airtable and I

am not exaggerating, it really has

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saved me and kept me in business.

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And I wanted to share specifically

how it's done that and how it

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could possibly help you as well.

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So to cover the neurodivergence

is that I have, I have ADHD.

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And I have depression.

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I was diagnosed with depression when

I was like 16 and I was diagnosed with

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ADHD in the pandemic, , mid 20, 20.

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And understanding that I had ADHD.

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I got diagnosed with ADHD a few

months after I started my business

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and it made a lot of sense.

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Sense, because really when I first

started to build my business systems

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and automations were not optional for

me, and they were 100% required for

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my success, even as I was just getting

started, I was just a team of one.

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I didn't have a ton of clients, but

as a neuro divergent business owner.

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And specifically when I say

that I'm referring to my ADHD.

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Even the most normal

business tasks were daunting.

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And to be honest, still are sometimes.

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I would forget to send follow up emails

after sales calls, because once I'm off

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the call, like the, the next tasks, like

to complete it, like slip out of my brain.

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And not sending follow-up

emails after sales calls cost

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me like thousands of dollars.

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It lost me leads and it made me feel

like guilty as hell and made me feel

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like a really bad business owner.

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I can never sit down and be consistent

with like money Monday spreadsheets or

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keep those manual spreadsheets up to date.

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CEO days, money days, just

like any recurring tasks are

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very, very challenging for me.

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And I was afraid to grow my group

program and my business because I

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didn't feel like I can maintain my

highest standards of client experiences.

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I grew because just like my brain

things slipped through the cracks.

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They do.

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It happens if you feel like this too.

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It's okay.

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You're not a bad business owner.

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You're not a bad person.

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You're a human with a human brain

and a lot of other things going on.

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But truly every day I would wake

up feeling like a bad business

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owner because things just kept

falling through the cracks.

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And specifically, when I was

diagnosed with ADHD, one of the.

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The things it gave me was

permission to stop shaming

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myself and figure out solutions.

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So it wasn't because I was lazy.

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It wasn't because I was irresponsible.

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Like I had something with my brain

and like the normal way of operating

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wasn't going to work for me.

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So when I got diagnosed ADHD, I just

was like, okay, I need to stop shaming

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myself and create centralized and

automated systems that work with my brain.

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That's when I really, really

started to lean on Airtable.

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And when I started using the Airtable

in my entire life changed, because

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what Airtable does is it helps you

create a centralized source of truth.

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So things are not floating in your head.

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Head or in your notes app?

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Or in your inbox and it's

just all in one central spot.

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So like I said, I would forget to send

follow-up emails after sales calls.

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I knew that was a problem for me.

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And it was a stressor for me.

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So again, my company is

called systems over stress.

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Anytime there is a stress point.

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I now create systems

to support me in that.

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So I created a call hub and Airtable

where all of my calls automatically

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populate, and I can just go right into

Airtable and take my call notes and then

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send follow up emails, right from an

Airtable without ever going into Gmail.

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So setting that up.

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Has helped me actually send follow

up emails and send sales emails Inc.

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And close, close sales calls

because I'm actually following up.

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I made an automated sales, have

an Airtable where all of my

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sales automatically populate.

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So I don't have to fill out

a spreadsheet every week.

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It's just all there for me to look at.

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So that's all automatically populated.

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And then I also set up inside the

Airtable, a group program hub where all

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of my students and client data live.

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So all of my students.

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When they join the program, when they're

supposed to graduate, how many calls

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they have last, all of their onboarding,

offboarding and student engagement

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is all in one centralized place.

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And so I can automate a lot of engagement,

touch points with them and just trust

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that everything is being taken care of.

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So those were systems that I needed,

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even when I think maybe other

people could have totally done

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work more manually for longer.

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A lot of people I see when they're doing

manual work in their business or they know

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they could automate, but they haven't yet.

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It's just because they have more capacity.

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Like their brain can handle admin tasks.

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They can sit down and work on their.

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Their admin tasks for 30 minutes a day.

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And I simply could not do that.

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But it served me well, because I didn't

realize it at the time, but the systems

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that I was creating to just help me get

by were actually the systems I truly

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needed to help me scale my business

because it narrowed divergent or not.

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There's just no way I could manually

keep track of all of my clients

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in my head as my business and my

client roster started to grow.

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Right.

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And I have truly just seen

so many business friends

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or new clients come to me.

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Totally like exasperated and at a

breaking point with their systems or

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lack thereof when their group program

or their business starts to get bigger.

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Because they couldn't keep up with the

workload that came with more students,

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they were swamped with manual admin tasks

and felt more stressed out than ever.

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Those spreadsheets that they had, that

they were manually keeping up to date.

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Those worked okay for a while,

but when their client load really

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started to like double or increase.

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Everything broke.

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They didn't focus on their systems

because they had the capacity, they had

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the brain power, they have the time.

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And because it only takes a couple of

minutes to send a client contract or send

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a follow-up email or update a spreadsheet.

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And that type of thinking of it

only takes a couple of minutes

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can really catch up with you.

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If you're growing.

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And not even if you're growing, if you're

growing, if you get sick, if you have

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something like that takes you out of

business for awhile, like those little

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tasks that really help your business hum.

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Along.

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The ones that could be automated if you're

just doing them manually because you have

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the capacity, it does catch up with you.

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So I truly believe friends.

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Don't let friends by their

business and that Airtable.

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This is why I talk about it so

much, because truly it just, it

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keeps you in business longer.

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It makes you more money.

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It makes your team happier.

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It is just like the system.

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It is the tool.

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It is the solution for folks who are

growing their business or just need.,

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all of that stuff that you're thinking

about when it comes to running a business,

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all of that in one central place,

and that place should be an Airtable.

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System's really are the only reason

I've been able to scale my group

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program and my business on part-time

hours without sacrificing my client

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experience or burning out because I

already had all these systems because.

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I needed them.

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When I first got started, I wasn't afraid

of like going big during my group program

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launches because I knew that my clients.

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We're going to be taken care of, and it

didn't mean that more students spent more

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admin and manual work added to my plate.

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That is how Airtable has saved me

as a neurodivergent business owner.

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If you identify as somebody who is

neuro divergent, Or just feeling

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that that feeling that everything

is stuck in your head and things

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are slipping through the cracks.

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I wanted to give you a couple of

tangible ways that Airtable can help

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you and how you can get started.

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So if you're not using

Airtable out all yet.

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The biggest thing that you can

do is create an Airtable account.

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MacBook Pro Microphone-20: So

create an Airtable account and

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just start clicking around in it.

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There's specific things that can

help you, like kind of make it start

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to be your central source of truth.

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And I want to walk you through that.

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Of course we're not

screen-sharing right now.

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This is a podcast episode.

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So you can't totally see, um, I would

love for you to join systems over stress,

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which would really walk you through

it, but I want you to just like click

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around and get familiar with it and see.

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What it's like.

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So the first thing I recommend

getting started with is just

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creating the Airtable account.

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And creating a base and call

it like your business hub.

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And in your business hub, there's a lot

of different things you could have in it,

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but for now just the practice of getting

everything in one central source of truth.

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Just make a quick links table.

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So what that is is literally just a table.

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And a table looks very much like

a spreadsheet and just have like, A

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title and a URL and a category field.

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This helped me so much.

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So it helped me not have to keep

everything in my business organized, and I

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could just keep like one place organized.

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So for example, my business,

having my quick links table.

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In my quick links table, I have.

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Important canvas links

that I go to all the time.

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I do not have my candle organized.

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Okay.

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It is a mess in there, but I don't need it

to be organized because whenever there's

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like something I need to go back to.

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So let's say.

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, my reels template or something.

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I just have that inside of Airtable.

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And so I can just click and go into

Airtable and click that canvas link

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and it takes me right to Canva.

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So I have like probably like

10 or 15 canvas links, right.

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And the group, you can group an Airtables

that have them grouped by Campbell, Inc.

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Another one I have is my acuity callings.

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So I can go to one place inside.

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I don't have to log into acuity.

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You don't have to log into camera and

I don't have to log into Google drive.

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I just go into one spot in Airtable

and I can see all of the, my

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important links night business.

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So if someone's like, Hey, I want

to book a 30 minute call with you.

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I can go into my quick links and

grab it straight from Airtable.

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Instead of having to go

to all the different.

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Software.

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So that is literally so easy to do.

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It is just grabbing a URL is typing

in what the title of the link is.

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So 30 minute calling.

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Drop the acuity link and have

it be a dropdown category of.

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Calls.

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Right.

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So that's one thing you can do.

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So make a quick links table.

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If you do it.

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DME and send me a picture of it.

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I would love to see it.

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That's one thing you can do.

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Another thing you can do, which

this is kind of the beginnings of

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starting to manage your clients

inside of Airtable, but create another

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base and have it be called clients

for your specific group program.

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So your group program hub,

or your one-on-one clients,

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whatever it is for every offer,

you have your own Airtable base.

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And just make a client's table and

have that have their first name,

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their last name, their email.

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And their start date and

end date in your offer.

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Just seeing everybody in one

spot is going to help you be

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like, okay, here's everybody.

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Here's when they're offboarding

here's when then they got started.

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Just seeing that in one

spot will be really helpful.

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There's so much you can do after that.

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You can, um, put your onboarding forums

and you can take client notes on them,

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but literally just get started with.

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Putting your clients in one spot, and

then you can group them by status.

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These people are active.

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These people have been graduated.

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Anything like that.

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So create a quick link table.

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Create a client's table.

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And then something I want you to do.

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Is think of a spreadsheet that you are

a spreadsheet or a Google form that you

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are currently using in your business.

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And just go ahead and try

to move it into Airtable.

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There's so many things that

people use spreadsheets for the

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Airtable would be a better fit for.

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, and there's so many ways that

people use Google forms when you can

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actually use Airtable forms instead.

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So that one is like a little bit

more choose your own adventure.

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But what I want you to do is start

getting those things out of your

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brain and out of your Google drive

and out of your spreadsheets and

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putting them in the right tool.

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So Google sheets is not the right

tool, the data floating around in

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your brain of who's up for resign

and who isn't is not the right tool.

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The tool is Airtable.

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So we want to start to centralize

all your moving pieces into Airtable.

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Those are that's some homework.

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So work on those three things.

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Make a quick links table,

make a client's table.

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And playing around with moving

a spreadsheet into Airtable.

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And if you do that, do you do any

of those things, please DM me.

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I'm at systems over

stress and let me know.

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I would love to see it and celebrate you.

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And if you're at a breaking point or

your systems need to scale and you know,

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Airtable could be the right fit or

you think it might be the right fit?

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I would love to work with you.

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So we have a done for you

service, where we help you set up

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Airtable to manage your business.

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So we have a sales call process.

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You will just show me exactly

what's going on in your business.

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Tell me the things that feel

stressful, the things that aren't

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working and on the sales call, we'll

come up with simple solutions that

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we can help you build an Airtable

to immediate alleviate your stress.

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So we'll take a look at

your current systems.

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Current offboarding, onboarding, launching

client results systems, kind of everything

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you've got going on your spreadsheets.

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And I'll tell you exactly how we can

help you use Airtable to automate the

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majority of your team's admin hours.

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Making more money skyrocket your

client results and all of those things.

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So I hope this was helpful.

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Again, if you identify as someone with

ADHD, depression, anything like that.

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, my client with autism really

like Airtable as well, because it

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helps them just create structure.

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And, but also flexibility.

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So you can visualize and see

how different things work.

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It's really great for so many

different types of people at so many

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different types of business owners.

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So I can't wait for you to play

around and set it up in your business.

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And I will see you in the next episode.