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Begin As You Mean to Go On is about working hard once at the right things that will actually move your business toward long-term success without burning yourself out. Hosted by Kronda Adair, founder of Karvel Digital.

Learn more about Karvel Digital at karveldigital.com

Welcome to begin as you mean to go on where we help black women with

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mission driven service based businesses

grow your income and impact while

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creating a more peaceful, profitable

business by strategically automating

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your critical business systems.

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My name is Karanda Adair, and I

went from making 500 to becoming a

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certified automation service provider,

doing multiple six figures per year

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while working part time, wrangling

two high energy dogs and having some

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of my highest revenue months while

taking completely off grid vacations.

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Thanks to strategic automation and a

small team inside my million dollar system

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service and my automation club membership.

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We help you create a cohesive software

stack and automate one new thing per month

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in your business, resulting in a compound

interest of time, energy, and peace.

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So you can build your business

without the patriarchal white

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supremacist hustle and grind.

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If you're ready to work hard once and

hire and employ technology to execute

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proven marketing strategies so you can

get back to the rest of your business and

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your life, you are in the right place.

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Let's get it going.

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Hey y'all, welcome back to

begin as you mean to go on.

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I can't tell you how delighted I am

to be in your ear holes once again.

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This is my 50th episode of Begin As You

Mean to go on, and it's been a hot minute

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since I was last speaking to you all.

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The last episode of the podcast

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It's been two and a half years, y'all.

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It's time.

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And it's November 11th,

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And there's so much that I could say,

but I decided to rip the bandaid off

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and have a little catch up, have a

little old fashioned catch up, tell you

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what we're up to now in terms of the

business and how things have changed.

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So let's get into it.

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As I mentioned, it's November 11th, 2024.

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So it is six days past the election

in which, as far as I'm concerned,

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our democracy probably died.

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And it's clearer than ever to

black women, at least, that

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y'all don't really care about us.

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And this is not a huge

surprise, but it does really.

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provide a catalyst for something

that I've been thinking about and

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wanting to do for a long time, which

is really just focus my marketing, my

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business, my energy towards black women.

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And that's been challenging to do from

Portland, Oregon, where We're one of

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the whitest large cities in the U.

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S., and even though we work with people

everywhere in the world, it's just

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been hard to break out of that bubble.

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Partly because our clients are

so amazing and refer us and shout

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us out, and when your clients are

white women, the people that they

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know tend to be more of the same.

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So, as grateful as I am for those clients,

like, We have some amazing clients.

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I'm really just refocusing and

trying to help more black women.

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And I'm delighted to say

that we have a new client.

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Who's a black woman who I met at a retreat

that was not about business at all.

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And I'm really excited about the

potential for some of the stuff that

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we're going to be doing together.

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So if you're listening to this and

you're not a black woman, and especially

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if you're a client, you might be

thinking to yourself, Karanda, does

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this mean you're not going to work

with people other than black women?

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Are you firing all your white clients?

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No.

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If you are here and you are for black

women and you are for black women's

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liberation and empowerment, and if you are

excited about paying black women, welcome.

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Go check out the website, go check

out our offers, listen to the rest

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of this episode, and if you're not,

If what you hear resonates with you

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and you need our help, let me know.

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But like I said, my focus, my energy, and

my time are going towards black women.

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In the rest of this episode, I want to

talk to you about a few different things.

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One, some big changes that are

happening with my marketing.

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And Then the two main ways

that you can work with us.

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Now we have two offers that are different

than the offers we had when the last

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episode of this podcast was published.

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So I want to talk about that.

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I want to talk about how they are

similar or different from our last

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offer, which was CRM to sales.

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And I want to talk about my membership,

which I'm having so much fun with.

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And I want to talk about what's

going on with my email marketing,

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cause there's a big change there.

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So let me start with.

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Because email marketing has been a

love of mine for many, many years.

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I have evangelized for it.

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I still evangelize for it.

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I still believe in email marketing, but

the big change that I am making to my

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email marketing is that I am no longer

growing an email list of free subscribers.

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If you're listening to this episode

and you follow one of my old links to

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join my email list, you're probably

going to be redirected to My homepage

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or a sales page, basically I'm building

my client list, not my email list.

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Now, this wouldn't have made sense for

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to work with us was either a 9, 000 group

program or a 5, 000 a month retainer.

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It didn't make sense.

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But there are lots of ways for you to

get help that's not anywhere near that

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price range and we're going to talk about

those But folks sitting on my email list,

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we've already seen that people will go

out of their way to not pay black women

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So that is part of the impetus for this

change But it's also because sitting

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on my email list does not help you.

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It might be It might be entertaining,

it might be educational,

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it might be edutainment.

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It's not helping you get

where you want to go.

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Maybe 1 percent of 1 percent of

someone is going to take a course,

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read an email, or hear something on

this podcast and actually run with

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it and get where you need to go.

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But for most folks, you're here because

you have some problem that we can

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solve for you and in order for us to

help you, you got to pay us money.

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So there are a lot of

ways to get that help.

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I'm going to talk about

those in just a minute.

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And so that's why I'm really

focused on growing my client

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list and marketing to my clients.

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Because one thing I've learned

is that just because someone buys

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something from you doesn't mean you

don't still have to market to them.

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I have to remind my clients all the time,

Hey, did you know you get this benefit?

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Did you know you're paying for this?

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Did you know we can do this for you?

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So I want to focus.

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On marketing to my clients because I know

we can help them They've already paid us

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to help them and I want to make sure that

we're doing that as much as we possibly

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can So let's talk about the offers.

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I'm going to talk about our two main

offers right now If you listen to this

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podcast previously, you probably heard

about something called crm to sales

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Which was really focused on marketing

automation And we've expanded that and

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our current retainer is called million

dollar systems and it's a six month

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retainer It's And we still help people

with marketing automation, but I realized

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that we were doing so much more than that.

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And I wanted an offer that really

encompassed all that we're doing, because

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the truth is automation comes in lots

of areas, comes in marketing automation,

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business automation, and we were doing.

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A lot on the business automation side

that really I couldn't talk about under

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the umbrella of marketing automations.

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So in million dollar systems, it's a

nice umbrella where you can come as you

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are with whatever you want to focus on.

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And we do that in your first

90 minute strategy calls.

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If you're coming in and you don't

have a welcome sequence and you've

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been running Facebook ads, say to

get people on your email list, but

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you don't have any automation or

customer journey behind that, then

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we will absolutely focus on that.

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But if you have.

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If you don't have all the leads that

you need and your problem is that

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you're spending too much time manually

onboarding your folks and you feel

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like you can't take more people on,

then we'll absolutely focus on that.

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And it's been great because it just

gives us so much flexibility to

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just really meet our clients where

they're at and solve the problem

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that they most urgently need solved.

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So you can go to the sales page,

which has been recently updated,

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and you can learn more about that.

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And of course, I'll have

that link in the show notes.

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But before I move on, I want to tell you

about a couple of my favorite projects.

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So you can get an idea of the

kinds of things that we do.

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So we had one of our favorite clients come

back to work with us for a fourth time.

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We've worked with this client

in our content bootcamp,

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insourced our previous retainer.

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We've done email marketing

automation for them.

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And this time they came back and the

problem really was It's spending too much

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manual labor doing things in the business.

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And so one of the big projects

we took on right away was

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automating their onboarding.

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Prior to us automating their onboarding,

their operations manager was spending

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so much time taking in client requests,

assigning those to the right contractor

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based on their seniority and their skills

and their certifications, figuring out who

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actually wanted to work with the client.

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Following up with that contractor to

make sure that they actually got in touch

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with the client and scheduled a meeting.

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All these things that were

taking up so much time.

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And so we used Airtable and we

automated 80 percent of this process.

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So now when a new client request

comes in, instead of a bunch of manual

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labor, there's one place where the

operations manager can go to review

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all of those requests, send those out

to the appropriate contractor list.

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The contractors are able to review

in one place, all of the client

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information, and then click to

register that they're interested.

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And then the system automatically

chooses the contractor that wins

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the job based on their seniority

and based on their certifications.

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All of that happens just with the

click of a button or automatically.

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And it's removed so much time

spent on these manual tasks.

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One of my other favorite projects

that we've done this year

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involved upgrading a Google Sheet.

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Basically, we had a client who was

trying to manage a huge international

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project for one of their clients

involving many different locations, many

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different volunteers, site coordinators.

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They were trying to manage this all in

a Google Spreadsheet year over year.

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And, you It was not working and I

saw this spreadsheet and I basically

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begged them to let me fix it.

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And so we moved all of their information

into Airtable, which is a true

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relational database that allows you

to organize information, categorize

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information, automate information.

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And by doing that, we were able to

give them a system where now they don't

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have to spend time manually calculating

who's registered for their event versus.

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They're able to send out a link

to their volunteers to fill out a

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form and update that information.

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And then it goes into the database and

it updates their reports in real time.

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So they've saved so much time

and frustration trying to

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wrangle this spread, spreadsheet.

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They've eliminated so much time.

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so much human error, and they were

inspired to use Airtable for more

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things like tracking inventory.

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And I was very excited when I hear that.

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If you want to know more about this

particular project, I actually did

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a YouTube video case study about it.

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So I'll put that link in the show notes.

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One of the big changes for us

in working with our clients this

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year had to do with documentation.

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Now we've always been big on documenting

our work, documenting it both in Airtable,

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in database format, and visually using

tools like Lucidchart, Miro, Whimsical.

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And earlier this year we

discovered a tool called Puzzle.

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And Puzzle is a tool that was made

for both mapping business processes.

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I talk a lot about the distinction

between things that a tool is

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made to do versus what it can do.

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And I think we've all been mapping

business processes in these tools,

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like Lucidchart and Miro and

Whimsical, because they can do it,

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but they weren't made to do it.

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And let me tell you, when I encountered

this tool puzzle that was made for this,

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that gives you the visual layout of what

your processes are doing, what but also

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acts as a database and connects your

systems and your processes together.

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Let me tell you, I did not look back.

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I immediately adopted this tool and

have been the number two user of Puzzle,

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only behind the CEO for almost the

entire six months we've been using it.

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There was a brief period where my

team member scooped me and got the

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number two spot, but I got it back.

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The documentation has just leveled up what

we've been able to do for clients in terms

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of really showing them what is happening.

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And again, I have a couple of

YouTube videos that I'm going to

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link to in the show notes if you

want to learn more about this.

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Even if you're not excited about

processes and documentation, the result

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of what it does for you is exciting.

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So, go check that out.

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So Million Dollar Systems is a six

month retainer that's 1, 500 a month.

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If you're listening to this and you're

thinking about working with us and

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you're wondering, that's the price.

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I know that some of you might be

new and you might be thinking six

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months, that's a big commitment.

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What if I just want to try it out?

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So let's talk about that.

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I do have a month to month option.

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You pay a little more, but

it's a two month minimum.

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So if you just have a project that

you think I don't really need six

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months for this, Come chat with me

because we can scope out your project

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and we can do a shorter retainer.

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And I'll just let you know how many,

how much time that we think it will

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take and we'll base it on that.

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So we do have some flexibility for that.

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And I totally get that, especially if

you're brand new to us, you might not

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want to do a six month commitment.

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That's totally fine.

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You've got options.

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So another big thing that I did in January

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and automation club is my membership.

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And the goal of automation club is

to help you reclaim your time by

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helping you automate at least one

thing per month in your business.

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So this is the DIY or the done work.

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With you side of the business.

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And I never, I've actually never had a

membership in my business before this.

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It's not one of the models that

I'd ever tried in my business.

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And the reason that I wanted to create

this was because previously I had

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content bootcamp from 2019 until 2022.

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I ran content bootcamp.

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We helped business owners really learn to

use content marketing in their business.

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And I always say we help

them be real people online.

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And it was great and I retired it to

focus on the done for you side of our

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business and what happened when we

did that is that Some clients who came

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to us who didn't have that history

of working with us on the coaching

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side didn't really have full buy in.

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They hired us, but they didn't really have

the trust required to let us do our jobs.

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And it resulted in some pretty

toxic client experiences.

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And what I realized is that I really

missed having that community of people.

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And I really missed having

somewhere where people can come and

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build that relationship with us.

260

Where you can come and you can say,

Hey, I just want to see if this chick

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actually knows what she's talking about.

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I want to see if she can really help me.

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And so that's why I

started Automation Club.

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At the time of this recording,

Automation Club is 1.

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11 a month, and you can come and

try it out for free for 30 days.

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So no excuses.

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If you want help, come get help.

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What happens inside of Automation

Club is I have two co working sessions

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per month that are two hours each.

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So for four hours a month, I'm showing

up on zoom Folks in the club are showing

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up on zoom and we are getting work done.

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We work in four 25 minute sprints

And then I check in between sprints

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to make sure that folks are getting

stuff done, that they're not getting

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stuck, that they don't have questions.

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And if they are stuck or they do have

questions, then we pop over into a

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breakout room and I get them unstuck.

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Usually takes 10 or 15 minutes to figure

out whatever roadblock was hindering

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them and then get them back moving again.

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And, uh, This has been one of the

most popular things that we've done

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inside of the club and it's been

great for me because one of the

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things I loved about Content Bootcamp

was our weekly calls where I just

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got to show up and help people.

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If you want to try it out, um, again,

I'll have the link in the show notes.

284

You can go to carveldigital.

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com slash automation dash club, and

you can check it out and you can get

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your 30 day free trial and yes, you

can come to coworking during your trial

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and you can actually get help with the

thing that you're working on right now.

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Another thing that we do inside

Automation Club is monthly workshops.

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So I had a workshop on Puzzle to

help folks get started with mapping

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their systems and processes.

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That was very successful.

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I have a workshop coming up on Black

Friday Tech Shopping and helping people

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plan, strategically plan their Black

Friday Cyber Monday Tech Shopping so that

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you're not just out here buying, just

buying stuff because it's in your inbox.

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Because it's been advertised to you.

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I always say stop buying technology

and start hiring technology.

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And so I want you all to

be strategic about that.

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And so the Black Friday Tech

Planning Workshop is all

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about, it's all about that.

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It's all about creating a database of

your software so that you know exactly

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where your money's going, getting rid

of the stuff that you no longer need,

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and being strategic about planning

What, if anything, you actually need

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to buy this holiday shopping season.

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So those are the two big ways

to work with us, Automation

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Club or Million Dollar Systems.

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However, if you feel like you don't fall

into one of those two buckets, you can

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head over to our resource vault, members.

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carveldigital.

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com, and there's a few different project

based things that you can check out there.

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One is about wrangling your data.

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A lot of folks are rethinking their

email platform, their CRM, prices have

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been going up all over the board, and

one thing I know is when you're trying

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to move platforms, you're gonna find out

really quick whether you can actually

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export your data easily from a tool.

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So one of the things that we can do for

you, depending on what platform you're

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on, is we can suck all of your data.

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out of your CRM or your email platform

and we can put it into Airtable

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so that You actually can see it.

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You can know what's there.

320

You can easily decide what you

wanna move to another system.

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You can clean it up if you need to.

322

We recently did that for the folks at

Hello Audio, and we had really great

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testimonial from them about how much time

and stress it saved them to be able to

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have that information as they moved from

active campaign over to a new system.

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There's also something called

the Automation Sampler, and

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so that's just a free for all.

327

That's where you can go

in and you can tell me.

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Hey, here's what I'm trying to do

and I just need a little bit of

329

help and I'll take that and evaluate

that and get in touch with you and

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we can have a conversation about

what that project would look like

331

and what the investment would be.

332

So there's literally

all the options y'all.

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From getting my help for free for 30

days at Trying Out Automation Club to

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jumping in with a six month commitment

and really diving into your business

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systems and processes and getting those

wrangled and getting them organized.

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I'm going to wrap up with that,

but I just want to say for all of

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you loyal listeners to our first 49

episodes, I am so glad to be back.

338

I hope you are glad to have me back.

339

I would love for this

to be a conversation.

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So So if you're listening to this

and you're excited about it, you

341

have questions, you just want to

share your takeaways from these

342

episodes, hit me up on LinkedIn

or Instagram and let me know your

343

thoughts and let's have a conversation.

344

I also would love for you to hit up

that review link and give us a five star

345

review on your platform of choice to get

people back in the know that we are back

346

and we're coming out with new episodes.

347

That's all for now.

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I'll see you next time.

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And don't forget to begin

as you need to go on.